Happy New Year TAMily!!

Hi everyone! I've been a little distracted by life for a bit but I'm still around. I'm in a very transitional time in my life and want to make so many changes in order to take my life in a different direction. I'll definitely be using the many lessons I've learned from TAM to help with these other areas of my life. However, I'll probably be continuing my break from blogging for a little while (couple months) but will definitely be back.

Best wishes to all of you! And have a wonderful new year in 2012!!

Day "81"

Not entirely sure why, but hadn't worked out in a week and a couple days. I had four more days of level 8 to go, but I jumped ahead and did day one of level 9 instead. I think level 8 is not my favorite, so I was itching to move onto something else. But also, since I had lost a little momentum, I wanted to propel myself forward so I did day one of level 9. As challenging as it was, it still feels great to be moving again, flexible, fluid, connecting to my body. I really forgot what it's like to have accesory muscles working for me. We forget so quickly, but trust me being in shape feels sooooooo much better than not. My legs felt so shakey when I got up from my mat. I will still complete the last 4 days of level 8, and cardio that I've missed before I claim the victory of having acomplished this crazy ride called Metamorphosis... but it ain't gonna happen by January 1. Oh well :)

Practicing Recipes

Today's Workout:

• Meta Cardio 30 minutes
• Rebounder freestyling 30 minutes

I had gone grocery shopping last day before recently and decided to pick up a few items so that I could practice making recipes in Tracy's dynamic eating plan. Here are my thoughts so far:

• blueberry applesauce-This was quite good! The tricky part was coring and peeling hot apples. They took a surprisingly long time to steam (at least 30 minutes if I recall). However, in the end it was tasty. I never realized steaming apples was all you had to do to make applesauce.
• sweet potato corn pudding-I liked this a lot. The first bite tasted like regular mashed potatoes actually. Later when I tried it cold, it was not as exhilarating, so I would recommend having this one warm.
• carrot parnip puree-My least favorite so far. I don't think this is the fault of the recipe though. I often have a problem with carrots that taste like dirt. I will try scrubbing carrots better next time around before I peel them. I really liked to smoothe consistency of this one and the pretty color. Again, this one is better served warm.
• blueberry smoothie-This recipe is from the bootcamp book. I enjoyed this a lot too.

The thing that strikes me most about these recipes is how just 2 ingredients can come together to be so tasty. I am used to natural foods, but still heavy and processed rather than fresh and homemade. One trick I did in order to make the most of my cooking time was I steamed the sweet potato and apples at the same time. Simultaneously, I had the carrots and parsnips boiling in the water below the steaming produce. Kind of clever if you ask me ;) Looking forward to trying more recipes. Stay tuned.

Also did an hour of cardio today in order to help make up for cardio's that I've missed during Meta. I want to make sure I get my extra cardio's in to make up for the one's I've missed before I go onto Continuity 1 on January 1st 2012.

You know, I've never been able to stick to a diet. I'm not someone who's lost all the weight and gained it all back again. So, I'm not sure how I'll be able to stick to this one. I'm really not. I want to try, but it's very hard to imagine going from eating one way to a whole other way over night. I transitioned into eating vegan, cutting out one animal at a time, and dairy later on. We'll see what happens. At the very least, I know I will stick with the exercise. Diet seems a lot more complicated though...

Day 76: Still Moving Forward

Today's Workout:

• 30 minutes Meta Cardio (mostly jumping, some step-touching)
• Level 8 Day 6 Muscular Structure
• Level 1 Arms and Abs Segment

Today's Thoughts:

Switched up the order of my workout today doing cardio before toning. Everybody (including myself) wonders at some point which to do first. There is a video on youtube where she answers that question and since I'm not too blogger savvy, I'm not sure how to link that for you. But, my personal experience has shown me that the more important thing is to make sure I do both. The way I do that is by seeing what my body and mind are in the mood for. In the beginning, that tended to be cardio first. By disc two, I liked doing toning first. Today, I really liked doing cardio first and I might try sticking with that for a while.

At one point today, I had a burst on anger where I thought to myself, "I hate you Tracy Anderson" because I was really feeling the burn. Then I came to my senses and thought whoa...where did that come from? I don't normally have anger directed at Tracy. I don't think I've thought I hated her a single time in the last 75 days, so I'm not sure what happened today. I figured maybe it was an emotional cleansing of some sort. We'll see if it happens again.

Today's workout really wore me out. I was yawning on the mat, and it was the afternoon. I think once I begin doing the diet, it will really give me better energy to do these workouts. So looking forward to it! I'm glad I'm delaying it until January because I feel like I'm building up more and more positive energy in anticipation of it and I feel like when the time comes that postive energy reserve will come in handy.

A gal named Shannon on the TAM forum posted a great short anecdote today about her balanced approach to eating that I really wanted to share. It is exactly what Tracy wants us to do. Eating mostly healthy, yet enjoying guilt-free pleasurable foods as well, especially when it comes to sharing meals with others. It is a great story of a balanced approach to eating in a real-life scenario:

"I’m on day 15 of the 30 day method. Went out to dinner with friends and basically ate a glorious meal — but it definitely wasn’t on the diet. Gained a pound. I was trying to reconcile in my head gaining a pound and how much I enjoyed the meal… and realizing this isn’t really any kind of defeat at all. It’s fine. I’ll work out today and keep going. After all, life will be about having a varied diet."

I just feel like I breathe a sigh of relief when I read that story. I hope it resonates with you too. Happy TAM-ing everyone :)

Diet Dress Rehearsal

So I've started noting my weight in the "labels" section at the bottom of each post because I got a scale. Anyway, I wake up this morning and suddently I've lost 1.2 pounds since yesterday. Don't know where that came from. I didn't do any extra cardio yesterday, or eat particularly less. Yesterday it seemed like my weight was creeping back up. Oh well, just goes to show our weight exists in a range it seems rather than a fixed number.

So, today was a rest day for me, but I went to the grocery store and got a few items to practice some of Tracy's recipes in preparation for the diet starting January 1st. I bought a parsnip for the first time in my life. I didn't even know which vegetable was a parsnip and had to look up at the sign to figure it out. Also bought some coconut (dairy-free) kefir, olive oil spray, sprouted tofu (never tried the sprouted kind but it's supposedly more digestible), frozen organic corn, sweet potato, blueberries, kale, and apples. Lots of fresh foods! It was nice. I tend to eat all natural foods but yet very little fresh and unprocessed foods. I'm looking forward to my tastebuds reprogramming to enjoy more simple flavors. I'm looking forward to cooking for myself (rather than getting take-aways) and generally just feeling healthier with these clean foods.

I'll let you know how the recipes turn out.

Day 75: Where "We Should Be" vs. Where "We Are"

This program is teaching me that we can absolutely use our brains to our own detriment, standing in our own way OR to empower and change our lives. I often find myself falling victim to the voices in my head, voices that didn't start in my head but that I picked by my environment. The tricky part is that these voices have come to sound like my own, and I've come to believe these voices as truth. The good news is, I believe we can slowly break free of these voices and patterns by creating new patterns that are actually based in OUR OWN truth, and can actually help us rather than hurt us.

I first began to experience this somewhere around disc two. In disc one, it was about actually learning for the first time how to break through barriers like I'd never done before. Disc one was not only about learning the Method. It was about learning what to tell myself when I didn't want to exercise. It was about learning how to establish a consistent habit. It was about learning how to think long term rather than short term. In disc one my brain was learning how to process information differently. Instead of "I don't want to workout because I'm depressed" and the outcome being that I didnt' work out and instead went and sat on the couch binging and watching TV, I learned to tell myself and really believe that exercise would help with depression whereas sitting on the couch would not. Faced with such a powerful truth, I would exercise.

By disc two, My brain was learning how to call on my new habits. I no longer had to figure out what to say to myself or how to rationalize with a powerful truth. I was now learning to let my new truth guide me with greater strength than my old habit (binging on the couch). The part that amazed me was that I didn't have to think about it as much. My new healthier thought patterns started to take on a life of their own. They developed strength because I knew they was true, and I encouraged them and reiterated them.

I'm now on disc three. As I'm exactly half way through disc three, I can't yet put into words what its big lesson has been. But today, I faced something interesting. Since I have found level 8 to be quite challenging, I wanted to give myself a morale boost by playing around in level 1 so I could see how far I've come. But then I did half of level 1 and to my dismay still found it to be a challenge! (It's important for me to note though that my cardio has increased tremendously). This sent my mind into a spiral and I started to question everything. I seriously considered being done with the method.

However, I came to realize that my disappointment came from me battling between the reality of what is (level 1 being a challenge), and the fantasy of how I thought things should be (I should be able to do level 1 without breaking a sweat). And the thing is, we reside in reality. When I made peace with where I was in the current moment, I felt completely better. I realized that I still had my whole future ahead of me, and while my present moment cannot affect my past, my present moment can affect my future. I had my power back. And the most important thing about that for me was that instead of being stuck in a past-oriented fantasy which would hold me in the past, prevent me from moving forward because I was ready to give up on the method...instead I was free to move forward. Instead of choosing to cage myself in the past, I freed myself so that my future would bring better things. And it will! I guarantee you, even if this process has been slower than I anticipated, it is still going to happen by being consistent. Mark my words, that day will come :)

I really feel like with every workout I check off my calendar, I have accomplished something. And every level I complete, I feel like I've CONQUERED it. It helps me feel like I'm constantly growing and moving forward. The simple act of doing the workouts builds my self-confidence. I see that I'm stronger than I thought simply because I completed something I couldn't see myself being able to do. After so many years of making broken promises to myself, and then punishing myself by caging myself in the past...this method has provided me with a way to learn to trust my word again. And that happens every single level, every single disc, and every single day.

Because it is so important for me to keep feeling like I'm moving forward to help undo years of going back on my word, I shall go ahead and moving right into Continuity (with Meta Dynamic Eating Plan) come January 1st, 2012! Cheers to freeing ourselves!

Day 74: Turned My Frown Upside Down

:( <-- That's how my face looks right now. I AM NOT A FAN OF PLANKS.

Was feeling period pains this morning so I thought I'd wait a little for the pain to subside rather than working out first thing in the morning. That was actually a good idea. I was amazed that once the pain went away I felt compelled to exercise like, "okay it's go time and I don't want to miss out"...then I did the workout, and now I'm cranky. I don't like planks. I would like planks if I were strong enough to do them. When I have some muscle, I like challenging myself. But on moves like that side leg lift in level one that just felt impossible, or pretty much any plank move, it feels like it's above my abilities and I don't like doing it. Most days it doesn't bother me, and I'm proud for just doing my personal best. I actually haven't felt cranky in regards to the mat work in quite a long while, but today's plank moves just made me mad. It was one of those days where I thought I should have taken more time with the lower levels to really prepare me. The truth is, I do fine on all the others moves, it's just the planks that feel ridiculously hard. I still have at least 40 pounds to lose, and I have a DDD chest...so I guess it's understandable that planks are so difficult....you know when I wrote that just now, I felt a lot better. My face now looks like this :)

It really is understandable that planks are so tough when you're carrying around (non-implant) DDD's. I changed my mind. I'm not cranky any more. I'm really proud of myself for trying. I realized it's just a matter of time before things get easier, and it's understandable that planks are so challenging. I can almost guarantee that once I'm not so heavy planks will be a heck of a lot easier. Imagine holding your body up if you had 40 less pounds on you??? Heck yeah that's more doable.

Alright...another day under my belt. Another day closer to the level 9 grand finale.

Really looking forward to starting the diet in January! I read a post on the forum today that two different people mentioned they had great success with Tracy's diet (both tried the Paleo diet and found Tracy's more effective). I'm probably going practice some recipes this month in preparation for January. I am fortunate to have all the tools I need already, juicer, mini-prep food proccessor, good knife, cutting board. So excited!

Day 73: Bought a Scale

My computer shut down and I lost my day 73 post, so...take 2!

Did my toning today and sooooo didn't want to do it all on the left side. Did it anyway :) It is after all only ten minutes to do the left leg which is challenging, but doable. Also, these last couple days I've done my cardio as freestyling on the trampoline combined with parts of Tracy's rebounder workout on youtube.

Also, I purchased a cute bamboo scale that cost less that $20 bucks. At this time, my mind is in a healthy place where my self-worth is not tied to the number on the scale. Additionally, regardless of what the number says it won't deter me from my exercise. I got the scale more than anything to document my progress with a tangible number. I really believe that once I begin combining Tracy's Bootcamp Diet and Dynamic Eating Plan w/the exercise (starting January 1)the weight will really shift and I want to be able measure the progress.

I will list my daily weight (no clothes on, first thing in the morning, after using the restroom) in the "label" section at the end of each post.

Day 72: Soreness & Fullness

Apparently level 8 really kicks your booty into shape because I haven't been sore like this since level 1! I think it was the first time I've had soreness in my inner thighs. My behind, my hips, my abs, my back all sore. Makes me happy :)The workout felt so much more natural than yesterday too. I think I like it. I also did abs again twice just for good measure. It's only 5 extra minutes and I figured if I'm in the mood to do that, I'll take advantage of that feeling while it lasts.

Last night, I was eating dinner and found I wanted to go back for seconds. I waited for a little while, and the feeling persisted so I went back for a second serving. Amazingly, about 3-4 bites into my second serving I realized I was full!! It wasn't that feeling I have where I realize I'm full and I'm disapointd my tasty meal is ending. It wasn't that feeling of knowing I'm full but since the last few bites are there I might as well eat them. It felt like, wow I'm full and I really don't want to have any more food. Ah! It was the type of natural fullness that comes to you when you're a child before you are socialized by external cues that for whatever reason distract you from your body's natural cues that let you know you've had enough and you're satisfied. There was no internal struggle to stop eating. No feelings of disappointment or deprivation. It was simple and balanced and wonderful. I hope that feeling become more and more frequent.

Day 71 (L8): First Day of Level 8

Today was day one of level 8. Some unique features to this level are that standing arms are not exactly standing. Instead you are actually down on your knees. Of course there are new ab and new leg moves. My inital impression of this level was eh....level 8, not so great! The leg positions felt really awkward and I couldn't follow the abs secition as it seemed too fast. Well, I was very disappointed thinking this was gonna be dreaded level 3 all over again. Levels 4-7 I enjoyed from day 1. So....after I did the level, I took a little break and went back to just understand what went wrong. One thing I did was practice the legs motions again. I got in front of a mirror and slowly looked at the positions Tracy was doing and compared it to my movement, and I came to find the movements weren't bad after all once I got the hang of it.

Abs on the other hand were really off. On one move she did 5 reps on one side and 7 on the other! That might be okay for legs, but when you lift your head with each crunch only to find her already onto the other side then try to catch up and suddenly find her onto a new move, well that's just ineffective. If she did 4 and 4, or 8 and 8 counts like she normally does, it would have been fine. So, I counted out all the reps of each exercise and wrote it on a paper, and taped it to my laptop (which I do my toning on) and voila problem solved. I was able to follow along abs much better knowing the counts in advance and ended up doing abs twice as a results today.

This level was actually quite good in that my legs felt quite shakey afterwards, and because I did abs twice I felt leaner in my abs section all day.

Another random thing about my food today. I notice I often tend to wake up starving and ravenously hungry. Because there wasn't really anything in my cupboards and I didn't feel like cooking this morning I ended up having two protein shakes (Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer in Chocolate & Vega Protein Shake in Vanilla). These surprisingly tied me over til past 2 o'clock, and I just kind of felt better all day. Not bloated in the belly, or weighed down in my stomach (these conditions happen quite a bit for me).

I finished my day with cardio. I had been easing myself back into cardio these last few days (after my 2 week cardio hiatus) and today was the first day I did jumping again. I was so surprised to find how natural it felt and how good it felt. I just can't get over how exhausted and awful cardio felt on day one. So often a question on the forum comes up about new gals thinking the cardio is too hard and wondering if anyone else experienced that. It's almost a joke because the cardio being crazy hard the first day seems pretty universal amongst most TAM newbies including myself. I think it would really behoove Tracy to let people know that at the beginning so people wouldn't' feel so discouraged. I know I felt incredibly deafeated the very first time I tried the cardio. And yet, turns out there was no need to. Wherever we are starting from in our fitness journeys really is just fine, because we will build from there and get better as time goes on.

I've been trying to familiarize myself with Tracy's bootcamp diet and Meta diet so that come January when I begin dieting I'll feel prepared. I looked up basic egg stats online to see if (non-gmo) tofu would be a comparable vegan substitution. While probably not the same in terms of vitamins and minerals, I was more interested in the macronutrients. I was very pleased to find in that at least in terms on calories, fat, and protein it's right on par:

1 egg 1/4 block firm tofu

63 calories 57 calories

4 gram fat 3 gram fat

6 gram pro 7 gram protein

Well that is all for now. Continued success to our growing TAMily! Please remember that all you have to do is your personal best and nothing more. Your personal best is good enough.

Day 70: New Year, New Plan, New Me

Level 7 is all done. I didn't even realize this was my last day until I thought to myself...."I'm getting tired of this level," and then it occured to me, this is my final day!! I previewed level 8. It looks interesting. I have come to realize that somewhere along the line, I stopped being intimidated by new levels. I used to preview levels and think they looked too hard...now I simply look forward to new moves that I'll get to learn.

I am increasingly more excited about my idea to start Bootcamp in Jan w/diet, followed by Continuity w/meta diet. I know at least one person on the forum who has had tremendous success doing both, and I just feel ready for it. I am modifying it slightly in that I'll continue drinking a protein shake as I am now, but at only 120 calories, all natural ingrediets, no added sugar, I feel like it'll be a good addition to the routine. I'll also be veganizing the menu to customize it to my needs (tofu for eggs e.g), but other than that I will commit to the diet 100% for the 4-5 months. Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm at the point where it actually feels doable.

Initially I know if I had attempted to do diet and exercise simultaneously, I would have thrown in the towel on both. It would have been too much for me personally. What changed my mind was 2 things. #1, in showing myself what I'm able to accomplish by doing the Meta exercise, I have slowly chiseled away at some mental barriers and see that I'm capable of focus, consistency, and accomplishing things I set my mind to. #2, I've seen someone like Michelle on the forum, and Shan who have shown what is possible when diet is coupled with exercise. I couldn't even picture it before, but seeing others do it helped open up a space in my brain to the possibility of it! For that ladies, I thank you :)

I am excited to be able to compare my results with Meta excluding diet AND be able to compare that and see what is possible when diet and exercise are coupled together. I'm not someone who has ever had substantial success with diet. I'm not someone who lost all the weight and gained it back. I've always been overweight (since jr high). This will be a first in my life, but I can truly see at the end of those 5 months that I will lose all the excess weight. I couldn't even fathom it before and now I can. I can't wait!

L7/Day 68-69: Back to my Normal Routine

So after my two week exercise hiatus, I feel comfortable to say I'm officially back to my normal routine. I initially did only mat work to help ease myself back into working out. These last 2 days I added cardio back as well, in the form of 20 minutes bootcamp (no jumping) + 10 minutes freestyle on the rebounder=30 minutes of cardio.

I was nervous yesterday as I had not done cardio in 3 weeks. I can attest that cardio really helps keep the weight in check. My belly grew when I wasn't doing cardio. But, the exciting part was that it actually FELT GOOD to do the dance aerobics. It felt good to have the blood plumping, and to feel the fluidity of the movements. Even the heavier breathing felt good. All of this came as a surprise to me as I'm mentally still used to the idea of not liking/dreading exercise because when you're out of shape exercise typically doesn't feel good. I guess it takes more than 2-3 weeks for all my hard work to be undone. I'm so happy to be checking off those workouts on my calendar, AND I'm excited to already be moving onto level 8 soon!

I did want to mention also that when I wasn't doing my MS work, my knees started to have pain! I noticed the last couple years that when I walk down stairs my knees actually hurt. That disappeared with TAM, and reappeared after just a couple weeks of not doing it. But already, my knee pain has gone away again, and that is amazing.

Also, I'm tinkering with the idea of starting bootcamp on January 1st, including the diet....and then moving onto Continuity 1.1 with the Meta diet. I haven't done any dieting so far, and regardless of having slower results I'm very happy with that decision. I feel like when I'm done with metamorphosis I will have accomplished something so big in my life, that doing the diet (for just 4-ish months) feels really doable. At this time, it feels doable. I reserve the right the change my mind, and adjust based on how things come along, but if there was ever a time for me to do the diet, New Year's is it.

Good luck everyone. I hope you are all continuing to enjoy your TAM journeys as I am with both its ups and downs. Both are part of the package, you just gotta keep riding the wave.

L7/Day 65-67: Contributing Joy

So, I will forewarn you that I'm scatterbrained. I have gotten back into my toning, but no cardio for a little over two weeks now. Of the two, I would rather be feeling like I can check off the MS levels off my calendar rather than cardio. Plus I feel like cardio endurance will come back more quickly than if I lost all the work I put into my accessory muslces. Anyway, I mentioned a few weeks back how a few family members found my workouts in the living room to be a disturbance to them (noise of trampoline for example). So, I figured out that I have enough room in my bedroom to do my MS using the computer (can't do cardio in my room which is why I've had difficulty getting back into that). Well, in using the computer I discovered I could bookmark the workout wherever I wanted, so I bookmarked it at the legs sections. Which means, with the press of a button I can easily do my right legs, then click on the same bookmark again to do my left leg because that way I will hear her cueing both times. Woo, hoo!

Also, I made a slight change to the order of my workout. Because bookmarking is so easy on my computer, I actually do the legs portions first (the hardest, least enjoyable portion for me) then I do arms then finish with abs. Love it! In Tracy's bootcamp, she actually does the leg portion first so I figure what I'm doing is Tracy approved in one capacity or another.

Tomorrow is December 1st, and if I stay on schedule doing my workouts 7 days a week (including extra cardio workouts to make up for the ones I've missed), my full 90-day program of Metamorphosis will officially be completed December 31, which means come January 1st, 2012 I will officially begin Continuity!! Ahhh, it's exciting for me because I love beginning things on Mondays or Sundays (both have a decisive, beginning of the week feel) I love starting things on the first of the month, and of course we all love starting our goal's with the new year. I am such a lucky duck, that January 1st starts on a Sunday, so it is like the perfect storm (new week, new month, new year, new program all falling on the same day.) The most exciting thing perhaps is that my New Years resolution will not be to find an exercise routine/regime that works. My New Year's resolution will also not be to do Metamorphosis. My resolution will be to begin Continuity, and what that means for me more than anything is that I AM MOVING FORWARD. For the first time in my life, I am moving forward when it comes to getting in shape. Hallelujah!

I also wanted to briefly touch on an epiphany I had today. I was feeling depressed about life in general and I just kind of thought this is how I will always be. I will always fight depression and never be a truly happy person because life on this planet is just too crazy to ever be happy. I was feeling badly because I was going to visit my bf on his lunch break and I didn't want the 30 minutes that I'd get to see him today to be about me feeling depressed. As I was driving I thought to myself, if this life is so depressing why do I want to live? (don't worry, I wasn't suicidal, it was really just a question to contemplate, to create a conversation within myself). I thought to myself...well there are many lovely things in life to live for, amazing things like love, humanity, experiencing the senses, goodness, kindness. But, it's hard to be happy when this world feels like it's gone mad (war, greed, etc). I thought to myself, I don't want to be part of crazy-ness and the misery in this world. But then I realized that by allowing myself to be miserable rather than joyful, I MYSELF WAS CONTRIBUTING to the miserable parts of this world rather than doing anything to help it.

I don't believe misery will ever end misery. In otherwords, me being unhappy doesn't do anything to help anybody else be less unhappy...quite the contrary. Seeking out joy on the other hand, at least has the potential to help shift misery into something better. Unhappiness will not negate unhappiness, it will only double the sorrow. If I want to help the world, but I'm miserable I will be depleted of energy, cynical....if I have joy, and hope, then maybe I can do something to help others. Also, if there is truth to the law of attraction, then my having joy will help me seek out joyful things, and bring more joy into my life and those around me. I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to fix war and greed and suffering. But I can tell you that if I can help it, I don't want to add one more drop of misery to the world. I want to help tip things in the other I want to combat misery by contributing my joy, by making joy that much stronger a presence in the world.

L7/Day 61-64: Failure is an Illusion

So....it has been a little while since I posted a blog, and that's because it had been a little while since I worked out. Basically, I had more changes to my basic daily routine that threw me off of the comfortable groove I'd settled into. And yet, here I am still continuing on with level 7. My perfectionist mind did not get the better of me. Somewhere in my head a voice said, "you've lost too much muscle, I guess you should start over at level 1" in other words, "jump off the wall as fast as you can, and start allover climbing up from the very bottom; don't build on all the work you've already done"...hmmm....maybe if I had missed a month then yes Tracy recommends starting over at level 1, but that wasn't the case with me. Instead, another voice in my head said yet again..."just do your personal best, and keep moving forward." Oh? When did it become that easy to get back on track?

In my experience I've managed to pick up a lot of unhelpful information from society, parents, media, etc that says you have to be perfect, and maybe even more specifically failure is not an option. Yes, in life and death scenarios or situations that threaten your survival then yes failure is not an option. In my personal circumstances and specifically applied to the situation of me getting in shape, there really is no such thing as failure in my humble opinion. Failure isn't real in this case. It's something I made up in my head that said you can't lose weight because all you've ever known is being over weight. You can't stick with something, because you've never been able to do stick with anything consistently before. If you do try something and run into new challenges then you have failed, and if you've failed x-number of times then you're hopeless, you'll always be a failure. You are incapable because you've never proven yourself to be capable before. You have to be critical of yourself before other people can tear you down with their criticisms (beat them to the punch). Wow, sounds very vicious when it's all written together like that and yet these are the things I've told myself time and time agian. They were things my brain tricked me into believing were true, and as I had no other evidence to prove otherwise I believed them.

I can only share what I have learned from my personal experience, but what I want to share with myself for future reference and with anyone else who can relate to starting stopping and starting all the way over again in cycles that never end...failure isn't real. Give yourself credit for trying first of all! We are not in a competition with anyone else. We are not even in a competition with ourselves. So that means that any effort however small it may seem will amount to something if we allow ourselves to be proud of ourselves for what we have done. It is very easy to criticize ourselves for not doing as good as we think we should be. I think some people are motivated by that, it creates drive in them. But I am not that type of person. I am coming to learn that my motivation comes from being proud of myself for every small thing I do that is good. If I do toning without cardio, I am proud of myself. If I try to hold my body up in a plank move that is so hard I can hardly do any reps I am proud of myself. And today when I exercised for 3 days in a row again after taking a small hiatus I was utterly proud of myself!

We can be motivated by being proud of ourselves rather than critical. I find it frees up energy for me, and it free me up mentally to keep moving in a forward direction. When we criticize the past we keep ourselves stuck in the past. Ask youself, is that what you want? If not, then have enough compassion for yourself to move forward. The one important thing for you to know is that it will not be an overnight process. It does take time to begin to unlearn habits that don't serve us and replace them with ones that do. But suddenly you wake up one day and find how many days you've crossed off your Meta calendar, and maybe it's because you decided to be kind to yourself instead of critical.

Btw, level 7 is awesome. I certainly did have a drop in strength the first 3 days of this level since I had taken a break. But after just 3 days, I feel strong again. If you've never been fit before like me, you will come to discover that when you do have muscles, it actually feels really good to use them. Whereas moving my body used to feel utterly exhausting, it now kinda feels like I'm training to be in Cirque du Soleil with the grace and agility of a dancer/acrobat. It feels good.

As Dory from Finding Nemo said, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"...

L6/Day 60: Level 7 Here I Come

Done with level 6 baby!! Wooooo! Not only that, I am done with disc 2 of Meta. I previewed level 7 and I'm excited to see yet again how much variety this level will bring. The legs in particular look awesome. Rather than being on all fours most of the time, you are balancing as a partial plank move or even doing a couple moves on your back! It looks fantastic, like a true omni workout using all of your body for each move to bring everything together.

As I was doing my first leg moves for level 6 today, I was feeling nostalgic in that this was the last time I'd be doing level 6. But by the second leg I was very happy to be done. Time marches on my friends. In fact, tomorrow is my birthday!! I will be celebrating by going to Disneyland and enjoying a complimentary birthday meal at one of my fav restaurants The Veggie Grill.

I will also be celebrating by doing my workout! It will also be the first birthday of my teen/adult years where my goal for the upcoming year of my life is not to start exercising regularly, but to actually keep exercising. It's also the first time in my life I'm not continuosly overeating and binging my way through life. I'm starting to find a balance with food. My relationship with food is changing into not feeling guilty about any food, and not using food to utterly numb and sedate myself. An additional book I've started reading is called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch. For me it builds upon earlier works I've read by Geneen Roth (Women, Food, and God).

I feel like this path we're on is so amazing because it just kind of unfolds...Don't misunderstand, it's not like you just sit there and enjoy the ride free of charge. But as you go along you really can't see the road ahead. You don't know what it's going to reveal. But yet, if you do your part it really does feel like something helps you along and you discover things about yourself. All I can say is, you don't have to be able to imagine it to get there. I've reached level 7 and I still haven't wrapped it....I still don't believe it. But if you take the steps, if you can just have enough courage and persistence to do the steps along the way, well...it feels like something lovely was waiting for you to arrive this whole time.

Day 59: I'm Still Climbing the Wall

Almost to level 7 people, which is the very last disc of Meta! Gosh, who knew this was actually possible not just for all those people you see in the before and afters, not just for all those people who can set a goal and seemingly achieve it so easily...who knew change was possible for me? I always hoped it would be, but when you've tried and not risen to the challenge of accomplishing your goal time and time again over the course of over 15+ years, how can you really believe that you are capable? How can you learn to trust yourself, learn to break through previous barriers when you never have before? Well, I made a whole list of things a while back entitled, "What has made this time different" and you can read about it on the right side of this blog (I still read it from time to time to remind me of those important tools I've learned along the way). But more than anything, it's about accomplishing one small step at a time, one leg lift, one workout...they stack up on top of each other until enough time passes that they add up to something big. It's the whole climbing the wall metaphor that I frequently spoke of when I first began my journey.

This week was a little discombobulating. I got another cold, my work hours increased and shifted from evening to morning shifts, I got my monthly...the point is not that I'm trying to bargain with my excuse monkey (wink wink Michelle) but that new situations arose this week which threw off my groove of working out in the morning, going to work in the evening, etc. I also had 2 family members that I live with tell me that my workouts created discomfort for them in some way, noise of the trampoline as an example. It's just not easy! Life is ever-changing and once you conquer one challenge, you have to deal with something else it seems. The trick I think is to believe in yourself enough to know that whatever comes up, you are capable enough to figure out how to handle it. But, in spite of all these minor obstacles, Tracy and I are still on good terms. I'm still "failing forward" into better things.

Day 57 & 58: Normal is Not Being Perfect

So this week my personal best, balanced efforts will amount to 5 days a week of exercise vs the 6 I've done the past couple weeks. I say this because I want to put it out there that not being perfect is normal. I am proud of 5 days a week. 5-6 days a week is a good range to stick to. I often remind myself that 4 months ago and for the rest of my life before that, I never exercised consistently. So how can I be so hard on myselfs for missing one workout? Truly the real danger comes from getting caught up mentally, and blowing things out of proportion. Fixating is the real issues. Allowing myself to be imperfect and accepting my abilities in a range allows me to stay sane! It allows me to not make such a big deal out of things (which my bf will attest that making a bigger deal out of things is my default). You know what, it's just not a big deal to miss one workout! It just isn't.

These last couple days I counted the reps on my left leg instead of rewinding to the right leg again so that I can hear Tracy's cueing for my left leg. Michelle from the TAM community suggested this, and you know what...that lady knows what she's talking about! It made the workout go by faster, and it gave me something to focus on (counting) besides the pain. It also helped me to feel like I wasn't doing endless legs lifts because I could count down getting closer and closer to the end.

Let's all be easier on ourselves, kinder to ourselves. Prouder for what we HAVE accomplished, giving credit where credit is do. Continued success to you all!

Day 56: Now...Do it all on the Left Side

"Now do it all on the left side"...those can be somewhat dreaded words, eh? For some reason, it is mentally harder to think of doing all the same moves on the left side than doing the left side but with different moves, you know? It can take so much mental energy to push through that first side, and now you want me to repeat it...so often I think to myself, "I just can't do it again, there's not enough left in me"...And yet somehow, somehow I have done it, 56 times.

I do wish that Tracy would cue us on the left side when we are to change moves (as half the time we're not looking at the screen), but my strategy is just to rewind to the beginning of the right side and do that again on the left so I can hear the cues. Tracy is truly a genius in what she has created, so how did she overlook something so seemingly apparent?

But I will say, I would rather take her lack of chit chat over a trainer who is constantly yelling at me as a source of motivation to push myself. That style just doesn't motivate me personally. In fact, I remember than when I first started Meta but wasn't able to get through level 1 (on earlier attempts at the program), I remember imagining trainer Jillian Michaels yelling at me that I'm not pushing hard enough. I would imagine Tracy too, but she wouldn't be yelling. She was just disappointed in me that I wasn't giving it my all, and was slacking off (because I couldn't do forty reps from the get-go). What is that?!? Well, I imagine it was my own inner critic disguised as these trainers.

So how did I turn it around? I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. I started telling myself that my personal best was good enough, and that I would grow from wherever I was starting. That is the TRUTH after all. I had deceived myself into believing that if I couldn't do all the reps, I wouldn't progress. I had to do it perfectly or it wasn't going to work. Well, for the first time in my life it is working and it's not because I'm being perfect. Quite the opposite. It's because I'm allowing myself and accepting myself as imperfect, as normal. I came to learn that trying to be perfect (doing it like Tracy) exhausted me, while doing my personal best (being myself if you will) empowered me.

Tracy was right about level six btw. She starts of this level by encouraging us that the best is yet to come. For me this level has brought the most noticeable changes to my body. At this point, I do notice a difference in the way my pants fit around my waist. It is ever so slight, but it's changed for certain. I even weighed myself because I knew I had made progress and I'm officially out of the 160's and down to 159.75 lbs. My thighs have slimness and more firmness, my arms have more definition. I can hold my body up through a whole plank series, and I can do 1 full push-up (haha, it's small but it's progress). And I can do an hour of cardio! Wow. Literally 1 minute of cardio on day #1 was scary. How the heck can I do an hour now? That's pretty insane! Keep it coming Tracy, and may I be blessed enough to meet you one day so I can give you a hug and thank you for changing my life :)

Learning the Goodness of Slowing Down

I wanted to binge today. It's really not easy to distinguish hungry from full, but I can tell when I want to binge. It feels like I want food NOW, and I want a big bowl of it and then I'm thinking of what I'm gonna eat right after that. And when I want to slow down and take a few deep breaths and ask myself, "am I hungry, anxious, sleepy, thirsty?", my binge-craving mind wants to ignore those questions, tell them "go away, I'm busy with more important things like feeling at one with this food."

I did try to slow down though. I tried to breathe, I tried to chew more slowly, I tried to figure out what I was really feeling. Then thankfully as I went to get a second bowl of food, and came to sit back down on the couch, as I was sitting my fork accidentally fell out of my hand....I seized that opportunity as a sign that my sub-conscious or someone looking out for me in the universe was trying to help me out. It was enough to wake me up and out of my typical binge/overeating pattern for me to realize with a sigh, I am not hungry.

I'm not entirely sure what triggered me to want to overeat today. I think it's just the general feeling of all the things I'd like to get done but at the same time I'm avoiding (things as simple as doing the dishes. I can tell you that more than anything, my mind feels like it's running a hundred miles an hour, so fast that I can't even comprehend what it's trying to tell me. I feel like time is flying by, the day turns so quickly to night and back to day again. (I have no idea how it's already time for the holidays) I want to keep accomplishing more goals, but I feel like I just can't calm down and slow down mentally. I'm not a terribly busy person, and yet for some reason I feel like I don't have enough time to myself to stop and breath and think and focus so that I can start to work on my life list.

Sometimes, if I do slow down enough, I feel guilty for being "unproductive". Like this one time I was doing a jigsaw puzzle by myself...a good relaxing activity that I was really enjoying...but I felt guilty that there are people suffering around the world at this very moment and here I am selfishly doing this jig-saw puzzle intstead of going out and helping the world. I want to help the world, I very much want to help the world. Even when I was very little, I wished I'd had a magic wand to solve all the world's problems.

At this point in my life, I simply want learn how to take REALLY good care of myself, and in so doing, I'll then be able fill myself up enough to be able help others as well. I just realized now that I feel really guilty when I slow down. If I slow down too much, it feels like too much and I feel guilty. I need to give myself permission to slow down, to not feel guilty for taking time to take care of myself, or having fun just for the sake of having fun. Taking care of myself and having fun are part of a healthy life I think... yes, I'm pretty sure it is part of a balanced healthy life. And if I want to help others to have better life circumstances, I suppose I have to allow myself to be an example of a full and balanced life first, don't I? From this realization I feel peace, and I feel full.

..............................................................................................................................................................

I overate yesterday. I didn't binge but I overate. I felt underlying anxiousness through most of the day. You know when I finally calmed down? Just before bed. I was lying in bed reading a book, and my belly was very full, and I wan under warm blankets and wearing soft fuzzy socks. But more than anything my brain slowed down, my body slowed down. Something I've known about myself for a long time is that at night as I'm winding down in that last half hour of being awake, I'm calmer and my brain is more focussed. But because I'm so sleepy I can't harness that focus and that calm energy for productive things.

The contrast though of the calmness I physically felt in my body and brain, versus the hectic-ness of my brain and body during the day, it really makes me feel like I have some sort of chemical imbalance that makes it so difficult to not feel anxious and like my brain is spinning all day. Although I'm not sure what to do about it in this moment, it helps to be able to take note of these patterns. And it helps to be able to see that anxiousness is not a normal state of being, and that my body is capable of feeling not anxious. Anxiousness is probably the biggest thing in my life that not only causes me to overeat, but to be afraid of living. It inhibits me from taking care of things that I want and need to take care of. I think finding a solution to my anxiousness in gonna be an amazing starting point, and catalyst for so many other areas of my life. Wow, that feels pretty big.

Day 55: Not Wanting to Workout but Doing It Anyway

Today was my 5th day on level 6. I began my workout out first thing in the morning before my brain had a chance to interject. I got through arms and then my brain said I don't want to do this anymore, like at all. I was feeling frustrated because I was remembering a couple occassions where I've worked out in the past for shorter periods of time and had quicker results than I'm getting this time around. When I attempted Tracy's Bootcamp earlier this year, I was able to stick to it for 3 weeks and I physically saw my butt lifted and could feels my abs were stronger. When I practiced her Mat video arms, I noticed an immediate change in my arms in just a week. The difference I suppose was the amount of time dedicated to muscular structure. Mat arms is 20 minute segment for example. I don't want to spend an hour a day on muscular structure...so I suppose it's just a matter of time before all my workouts add up the the tangible results I'm looking for...patience patience patience...plus this is the first time I'm actually sticking to a workout. So what's better? Quick results that are short lived or slower results that last a lifetime? Exactly.

So, when I didn't want to workout, I asked myself why? The response, I don't feel like it. Well, why don't you feel like it? Because, I don't want my job anymore, and I don't have the results I want from my workouts. Is stopping working out going to help you have a different job?...no. Is not working out going to help you get better results?...no. And so, I finished my workout. And while I didn't feel so accomplished today, I was glad it was over (and completed), and today that's good enough for me. Well, I did kick butt in cardio this week :)

Day 54: Starting to Prefer New Eating Habits, Say What?!?

I mentioned how my hour of cardio the other day came as a lovely surprise...well, I was also worried it might have been a fluke. As usual, there was no need to worry! I did another hour of cardio consisting of 20 minutes bootcamp, 20 minutes meta, and rounding it off with 20 minutes on the rebounder! Gooooooo Me! You know they say, "variety is the spice of life"...well that's no joke. If Tracy ever wanted to throw out her "perfection is possible" motto in lieu of something else, "variety..." would be it! I mean, she even changes up her outfits on each new level for goodness sake. I just cannot imagine how anyone could keep up with a program that did not have this much variety with some new challenge to overcome, and something new to look forward to in the near future. It's like that feeling that comes at the beginning of a new exercise program is relived to some small degree every time you start a new level.

Also, my continuity arrived in the mail today! When I got it I thought, wow...this is real, I'm actually doing this. Incidentally I know many people have mentioned how their discs arrived late or were damaged. Thankfully, mine arrived 2 weeks after I placed the order, and in working condition...whew. It was so exciting to get a new cardio. The moves look fun and more dancey. Looking forward to it for sure, but I'm gonna save that puppy for when I officially begin Continuity. Some of the moves I previewed in muscular structure were crazy looking though. In one of the moves you are balancing on your hands, one leg, and your head! I feel like I'll be ready to join Cirque Du Soleil by the time I'm done with Continuity. The great thing was...I had no fear of failure. I was looking forward to trying new things, and getting better at them :)

As for eating, I am noticing that my body doesn't like being stuffed! For breakfast, I had half a sandwich and a cup of soup (just for reference, I would normally have 2 sandwiches and bowl of soup.) These days I usually start with a smaller amount of food, and then try to assess if I'm still hungry afterward and can then prepare more food if necessary. Well, after I ate I thought I might still be hungry (again this is a re-learning process so it really is hard to tell if I'm hungry or not). I got up from the table, got all the ingredients out of the fridge and realized to my surprise, I'm not hungry. I put everything back in the fridge and went to work knowing that when I was hungry again, I would have something tasty to eat.

Later in the day, I went to an all-vegan grocery store for the first time called Viva La Vegan Grocery. It was exciting! I picked up a handful of things that I had never tried before as they weren't in my regular healthfood store. Mostly fun junk food type things. Anyway, I got home and had small portions, but found they weren't filling. So I ate more and more and still didn't really feel full. I kind of came to realize over the course of the night, I didn't necessarily want these things in my fridge. New foods that are considered junk food are fun to try with a couple bites, but in the end I found they were not filling or satisfying in the way an actual meal would be. It was a nice realization that perhaps, and just maybe my desires for junkfood are no longer uncontrollable, ravenous cravings. It felt like that desire for balance that I'd wanted about being able to eat mostly healthfully, but still occassionally enjoy what I call "balance" food (others call "bad" food) for special occassions/social events, that maybe that could actually be a reality some day. The other night for example, my bf's dad offered to make us some delicious burritos for dinner. As I knew I was full, I simply enjoyed a bite of my bf's burrito, and I felt satisfied enough by that. I also smelled it a couple times, but the point is I got the experience out of it that I wanted. I got to taste it and smell it, and that was all I needed.

Don't get me wrong, I by no means have this eating thing figured out. But I'm learning new things without being hard on myself for not knowing them in the first place. As my TAM friend Michelle would say, I'm "failing forward". And the thing about failing forward, is that it no longer feels like failure...at that point, it's just called learning.

Day 53: Overcoming Fear of Failure

(Sarcastically) Golly, great way to start the 1st of November, World Vegan Day....I had work early today so I decided I'd do my workout when I got off. Well, then I ended up working late, visiting my bf on his lunch break, getting dinner. By the time all this was done I was pooped, and didn't want to workout. Well, I did my toning work, but no cardio today. However, I learned yesterday that an hour of cardio is really not too bad. So I can easily make up for my missing cardio tomorrow.

I will say that doing an hour of cardio made a difference as I woke up this morning and though I don't have a scale could definitely tell I had lost weight!! I probably won't do an hour a day of cardio 6 times a week, but I'll shoot for every other day and work my way up! It was really encouraging to tangibly see my hard work pay off though, and to have a real solution come to fruition! So if you haven't given an hour of cardio a try and you want to experiement with it, I say go for it. If you're body is ready, you'll enjoy it. If it's too much, no worries! Kudos to you for having the courage to experiment.

We're so trained to fear looking the fool aren't we? I know I am. I remember in elementary school I went to a roller skating rink. The announcer then told everyone to skate backwards. Many if not most people got out and watched from the sidelines. I had not developed any reservations or self-consciousness at that tender age, so I tried to skate backwards. Some girl from the side lined yelled "You can't skate backwards!" That was the first time I can recall someone saying something like that to me. This random girl (who I'm sure didn't know any better) said something to make me feel bad just because I was trying. I didn't do ANYTHING wrong, yet here I was being criticized for no reason at all other than being fearless and being myself. Honestly, my throat is getting choked up just thinking about it. At that time, I think I was so confused by her statement because I'd never experienced someone being mean like that before. I rememeber looking up at her, but I can't remember if I got out of the rink or not.

I can tell you that all these years later, it still affects me. Not on an everyday basis like I think about this one incident all the time, but certainly little incidents like that have added up in my life that fear of embarassment and fear of failure are very predominant themes in my life. I'm not sure what it takes for wounds like these to heal. But I can say from experience that taking it one day at a time, baby steps of accomplishment add up to a positive momentum in the right direction. I rememeber at the beginning of Meta for example I really had a fear that I couldn't get through the workouts. I had a fear of failure and embarassment even though no one else was around to judge me except myself.

Even before I started level 5, I rememeber previewing it and being scared (fearful) that I wouldn't be able to do it (failure). However, I learned a big lesson from that level. I learned that when I perceive something is difficult, it's best to at least give it a try because sometimes it's not as hard as I thought. Certainly there was no reason to have FEAR over it. Nothing bad was actually going to happen! Now I'm able to approach levels and new challenges in TAM by reminding myself that I do not need to be perfect to succeed. Once again, I just need to try, and learn, have kindness for myself, patience, faith, and keep moving forward.

From Avoiding Cardio to an Hour of Cardio

I had been really not feeling like doing cardio after my toning earlier this morning. I put off doing it all day. Then once I finally began, I got one minute into it and my bf called on his lunchbreak interrupting my momentum (though I was happy to hear from him). But once I finally got into it, it felt really good! I imagine it's something like a runner's high, but I'm sure I had feel good hormones running through me. I loved the leaping and bouncing and arms movements.

I normally do 20 minutes of boot camp plus 15 minutes on the trampoline. Today, I did 20 minutes of meta cardio then was only gonna do 10 minutes of bootcamp but decided that since I had some momentum I'd try to keep going and I did! I did 20 minutes of meta, 20 minutes of cardio, and 20 minutes on the trampoline. The great thing was I wasn't forcing myself. It just felt good! Plus in doing the extra 30 minutes today I was able to make up for the one cardio session I've missed since beginning meta.

Today's cardio just felt like a lovely surprise. You know a couple weeks ago, the time was right to start doing meta 6 days a week instead of 5. Now, it feels like the time is right to up the cardio. It's not easy to imagine how things will unfold, but the natural flow of this process unfolding and improving on its own has been lovely, and I'm just thankful. Stress just seems to be less and less useful. I see it in myself, and I relate to it in others on the forums. In my experience with TAM, utilizing faith in and kindness to myself have proven to be greater forces than stress and criticism.

Day 52: Level 6 is Good

Well, I'm sittin here having only done my muscular structure work. I enjoyed it, but I just didn't feel like doing cardio immediately after. Don't get me wrong, my cardio will get done, but it's taking me all day to get around to it. Level six is gonna be good though, I can tell. It really uses your whole body.

Some definite changes I've noticed so far since starting the program include: greater space between thigh area above knee, tone in arms, restructuring of lower side abs, greater strength and cardio endurance, a few pounds of weight loss (somewhere around 9 lbs), and my pants are just a smidgen less tight around my tum tum. I'm still waiting for an overall increase of energy, significant weight loss, and for my pants to not be tight. Ugh, I'm getting sick of hearing myself complain, I'm sorry if it's annoying to anyone else too. I would like to keep my attitude going in a positive direction. I know I've started down that road, but there is a ways to go. Let's be more gentle on ourselves shall we?

As for eating, I noticed that I was starting to calculate calories inadventantly (as I switched from writing down in my journal not only what I ate but how much). I was around 15-1600 a day and was growing anxious about how little food adds up to that many calories! I feel like writing my food quantities serves more to criticize myself, and stress out than just writing what the food itself was that I was eating without quantity. It is up to my body and brain to re-learn how to eat, and what full really looks like for my body. When my body doesn't feel full but my calories have added up for the day, that's not a good feeling. Logically, I will get full on less as time goes on because my stomach will shrink after my binges and overeating end. For goodness sakes, it's just like TAM-a journey and a process. So, instead I'd like to go back to just writing what I'm eating without a quantity so that overtime after I'll have learned what full means to me. I can then learn to better the quality of my food (more fresh fruits and veg for example).

Okay, I'm off to do my cardio. Yay, me, but before I do that, I leave you with a great recipe full of omega 3's and healthy fats that brought such great disgestive improvements I feel compelled to share.

Creamy Choco Omega Shake

Blend everything in a blender until smoothe, luscious and creamy! (Feel free to use more cocoa powder if you don't have carob or use Teecino instead of cocoa powder if you are avoiding caffeine, & coconut oil if you don't have Artisana Coconut Butter available to you):

1 Cup Almond Milk
1 Tbsp Chia Seeds
1 Tbsp Artisana Coconut Butter
1/2 Tbsp Carob Powder
1/2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
3-4 Ice Cubes
Stevia to Taste

Day 51: Loving Level 6!

Seriously, level 6 has even more new moves that I've never seen before. The arms section had some really new moves. The abs section is awesome because since your head remains lifted so much of the time, it's very easy to follow along. Also the legs portions is not just the same position on all fours with leg variations. It actually has quite different body positions. The theme of this level is "lots of variation" and variation means it goes by fast! Level 6 is great! So far it seems that the even levels tend to be my favorites. Just don't bring back awful level 3 and I'll be good to go!

As for food, I am slowly learning how to identify when I'm full. In fact, I ate a little too much at one meal yesterday and felt "stuffed" even though it was no where near the quantity of food I'd eat during binges, or even just overeating like I normally do at most every meal. What struck me is that being "stuffed" used to feel like a good thing. It brought a level of comfort and it was how I could tell I was "full". But now that I'm getting a little used to eating smaller portions, being "stuffed" to any degree feel incredibly uncomfortable! I almost felt like I was sick. What a strange experience that was, since my eating habit has been to feel "stuffed" for so many years, and in just a couple days it now feels uncomfortable! This is truly RE-LEARNING how to eat, as it is sooooo different from what I've done most all life. Even my protein shakes I used to down in one glass. Now, I can only drink 1/2 the glass, take a break, and then continue to sip the rest.

It's important to note there is a difference between using portion control by listening to your bodies cues (as I'm trying to do) and portion control that comes from pre-portioned sizes that set the limits for you (as I've done in the past with other diets). In listening to my body, there is a lot less stress and feelings of deprivation involved. I don't have as strong an urge to rebel, and like I say it actually feels uncomfortable to even be a little too full. On the other hand, when I'd diet using pre-portioned sizes, I wanted to binge, at the first opportunity. All I can say is this feels revolutionary.

The type of thing I'm doing I partially learned from a couple different books by Geneen Roth, and I am so thankful to have advice from that. But, it is a totally different ballgame to actually experience it for myself, than to just read about others' experiences. This process is really teaching me how to help myself, how to listen to myself, how to experiment to discover things for myself. It's easy for me to feel like I need someone else to tell me what to do, to figure things out, to rescue me. This process is showing me how to take whatever tools are available (including other people's experiences), but at the same time, to discover and explore what I have to offer as well.