January 28

Life is pretty full lately, with lots of changes and transitions coming. I've had many years of emotional eating under my belt and the last 10+ have been changing the pattern a bit. In some ways, I've come full circle: when I used to raid the fridge if I was experiencing sadness or anger or frustration, etc, now I find that I can't eat if I'm feeling a big emotion. That's both good and very foreign at the same time. It's good because I think this is how "normal" people react: they hear awful news and they can't eat until their insides are settled down. It's also very foreign: there is a loss of what to do when something big happens. I have many tools in my toolbelt and I'm still learning how to take inventory of mind/body/spirit when change happens or stress happens or excitement happens, etc. There's always much to learn and I don't think I'm totally out of the water yet for emotional eating. Since we got the big Vitamix order, I was super excited and stressed (good stress) to make sure we had all our ducks in a row. Coincidentally, I had had a physical/blood test that showed some hormones that were extremely low - almost not existant. Could be my age, and doc suggested I try DHEA to help bring some hormones back. I did a little bit of research on DHEA and found a full spectrum of information ranging from no bad side effects to terrible side effects. I did some experimenting with it and on the one hand, I felt more "myself" in my body and there were other things that happened too, namely: having difficulty sleeping, getting BIG pimples on my face and gaining weight. In retrospect, I can't say for sure if it was solely the DHEA that made me gain weight, or the stress of the big order, or the problems experienced in relationship. I recall that I felt pretty darn hungry when I was taking DHEA - I typically don't wake up very hungry, for example, and when I was taking DHEA, I was waking up pretty darn ravenous. Whatever it was (and probably a combination of the three), I put on weight - about 20 lbs, which is a lot. This has been the norm for me, though. It's been rather easy for me to put on and take off the same damn 20 lbs for the last 10 years. What a habit. I'm longing to break this. It's a mental and emotional habit, I'm sure of it. (My 20 lbs is like average size people's 10 lbs. I'm six feet tall, which is why I don't refer to myself as average size. So I mean to say where it is easy for some folks to gain/lose the same 10 lbs, for me it has been 20.) Anyway, I went off the DHEA after 3 months or so of being on it. The major difference is that I'm sleeping better and the mad pimples are gone. The weight, however, is still there. Holding on. The good news is that I'm doing strengthening exercises and using weights to try to up my testosterone naturally. I'm able to hold the plank pose (yoga pose) for well over a minute now! I do feel stronger and so my overall health and well-being is good. I don't, however, feel good when it's time to wear my clothes and I no longer want to have a "fat" wardrobe" and a "thin" one. So, it is time yet again to step into this eating pattern and weight-holding-habit and see what I can do to get down to a healthy weight AND STAY THERE LONG TERM! I'm going to be working with Lauren Walker with this, she does energy medicine and so much of this for me is like a habit in the mind/spirit. I eat very well and I exercise. There is the mind of a fat chick in there, though. And the mind of a non-deserving person. These are the things to work on. I've been contemplating this for a while now and it occurred to me that the last couple of weeks I've been pretty stumped about what I want to eat, how I want it to look like. In the past, when I felt the best, I did a green juice in the morning, a green smoothie in the afternoon and a BIG salad at night with some added cooked stuff like brown rice and some Rhapsody tempeh. It's time to reboot the system here - the salads at night have turned into more cooked than raw and ending with desserts. I've also been snacking on raw chocolate during the day and that's also not a good habit for me to get into. Recalling the 10 days or so of eating lots of fruit this past summer, I remember how attractive fruit is. I remember how nice it felt to eat fruit (I had so many guilty feelings associated with fruit from books and raw foodies in the past that I associated fruit as being BAD!) I tend to have to gear myself up to green juicing (don't ask me why) and so I thought I would start the day with a fruit smoothie today and see how that feels. In the Vitamix pitcher (64 oz), I threw in: 4 ripe bananas 3 mangoes 4-5 honey dates (FRESH! What a treat in January) 1 blood orange Whirled it around in the blender and then poured into 3 glasses: 2 16 oz glasses and 1 32 oz glass. I had the 32 oz glass. It was yummy and a light yellow color. Very pretty. Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have similar experiences and what things work for you to get out of your own way to living your best healthy life. (I'm referring to energy and mind/spirit aspects of food here please!!!) Love, Linda