Ruhu's Journal, 03 January 2014

Wishing you all a belated Happy New Year, and all the best in 2014 (which is certainly what you have all given me throughout 2013)! Today was my day of reckoning as I finally had the courage to step on that scale -- up 3 lbs. -- as expected. But I'm not going let any number get me down or discourage my new resolve! I'm feeling particularly hopeful for 2014 knowing I have all of you along for the ride with me! And, at just the right time, a wise, wonderful friend reminded me that I'd not had time to continue working through the EWYL-BE retreat materials. Wow, was the next chapter, eye opening to me, and really spoke to me about what went wrong for me over the holidays. So, my recap follows… but be warned, its a long one, so enter at your own risk!

First though, I'll begin my day in prayer --

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

And on this one day, and each one meal, moment, bite, thought & emotion, I'll pray, breathe, pause, post, log & express my way through. I'm so very grateful for each of amazing you, my family & IRL friends, having my boys home for a few more days (youngest flies back to college on Sun), having survived the holidays albeit a few lbs up but also a bit wiser and more prepared for the next opportunity to eat & live more mindfully, and starting a new year with a new resolve to eat mindfully while staying my course gluten, lactose & sugar aware, which I'm more convinced than ever allows me to have the health & wealth to live this life I love! xoxox Ruth


EWYL-BE Chapter 4 – When Do I Want To Eat? - Change Your Mind

Your mind never stops thinking – because that’s its job! However, thinking something doesn’t make it true or important. And just because you think of something, doesn’t mean you need to act on it.

Some thoughts are triggered by cues in the environment, some by other thoughts, while other thoughts are completely random. Many people react mindlessly to their thoughts, i.e., they re-act – repeating past actions again & again – and feel powerless to change. For many, eating is a mindless response to unrecognized or unexamined thoughts.

It is essential to recognize that your thoughts can lead to a chain reaction: Your thoughts lead to your feelings, which lead to your actions, which lead to your results… which reinforce your initial thought (TFAR). This is how your thoughts become beliefs. Beliefs then become automatic thoughts that you may not be even aware of. Ultimately, these automatic thoughts drive your behaviors – in other words, habits.

The TFAR cycle can be a powerful tool for making connections between thoughts & results. When you don’t like your results, ask yourself what you were thinking first!

This set off a light bulb for me, given my recent struggles through the holidays, so I re-worked TFAR as follows –
My Thoughts & beliefs – HOLIDAYS – I’m going to have to socialize too much, entertain (including cooking & cleaning up, both of which I do not like!), have extra stress with limited “me”/down time. Plus, I really struggled & binged last year through the holidays.
My Feelings – excitement, anticipation, anxiety, stress, fatigue, rebellion, joy
My Actions – I went back & forth between restricting, overeating & binging mostly done mindlessly
My Results – I felt sick, guilty, disappointed with myself at times. I began to think that the mindful eating approach just wasn’t working for me.

But, I could have thought & done things differently to change my feelings, actions & results. While I tried to go into the holidays with a positive attitude, I could have focused more on the fact that I am in charge of how much I socialize & entertain, of course in negotiation with my DH. I could have asked for more help, and delegated more. And maybe most importantly, I could have gone into the holidays with the mindset that I now eat mindfully & have the tools to do so even during the holidays or other stressful times, and that binging was no longer an option.

Mindfulness is awareness of what is happening in the present moment without any attachment to it. Mindfulness teaches you to “watch” your thoughts without attaching to them, judging them, or taking any action on them. Unlike the strategy of redirecting your attention – which means distracting yourself from your triggers, thoughts & feelings – mindfulness is watching your thoughts with the understanding that they don’t have power over you. Mindfulness is helpful because it creates space between thoughts & actions. In that pause, you can observe your thoughts & choose how to respond instead of mindlessly re-acting.

Head hunger is when your thoughts turn to food or eating when you’re not physically hungry. These thoughts often arise automatically & habitually in response to triggers such as people, places, activities & events that you associate with eating.

In Chapter 2, we learned about the Body-Mind-Heart Scan. Initially, we focused on physical awareness – our body. Now, we need to expand our awareness to include awareness of our thoughts – our mind. Mindful breathing is again a good place to start because awareness of our breath grounds us in the present moment. So, after slowly scanning our bodies as we learned in Chap 2, we can begin to notice our thoughts as well. This can be very challenging at first, but also becomes more natural with practice. Some techniques that may help are –
Observing – It is helpful to observe your thoughts as if they exist outside of your body.
Describing Thoughts – It is sometimes helpful to sort thoughts into categories & label them without judgment using descriptive phrases such as that’s the past, that’s the future, that’s an old thought, that’s a judgment, that’s not true. By gently identifying a thought in this way without trying to analyze it, you’re able to let the thought simply “be” without doing anything with it.
Story Time – You may find your mind wandering then realize that you’re following a storyline. It’s normal for your mind to wander. In fact, mindfulness includes awareness that you’re not aware! When this happens, refocus on your breathing & reenter the process.
Beginner’s Mind – Beginner’s mind is a way of looking at a situation, person (including yourself), place, thing, or thought, as if it were the first time you ever experienced, met, saw or thought it.

The good news is that you can reprogram your mind so that it no longer reacts habitually to triggers. The mindfulness approach suggests 3 ways – reduce them, rethink them & recreate them.
Reduce Them – Reduce your exposure to certain triggers, such as a person, place, event, or other trigger to prevent the thoughts from coming up in the first place.
Rethink Them – When you recognize one of your triggers & watch the automatic thoughts that follow, you can replace them with new, more effective thoughts to disrupt the old pattern.
Recreate Them – When you turn a trigger for overeating or binging into a trigger for self-care, you create a completely new pattern for yourself. Hence, “When I’m hungry, I’ll eat what I love. When I’m bored, I’ll do something I love. When I’m lonely, I connect with someone I love. When I feel sad, I remember that I am loved.”
125.5 lb Lost so far: 2.5 lb.    Still to go: 0.5 lb.    Diet followed poorly.

Diet Calendar Entries for 03 January 2014:
1293 kcal Fat: 50.73g | Prot: 88.86g | Carb: 133.56g.   Breakfast: Isagenix Want More Energy Orange, Isagenix Ionix Supreme, Isagenix IsaLean Shake Natural Berry Harvest, Spectrum Naturals Organic Coconut Oil. Lunch: Isagenix IsaLean Shake - Chocolate. Dinner: Honeycrisp Apples, Zoe's Kitchen Roasted Vegetables, Trader Joe's Just Grilled Chicken Strips, Stew Leonard's Healthy Vegetable Soup. Snacks/Other: Wholly Guacamole 100 Calorie Snack Pack, Trader Joe's Fresh Vegetable Tray, Ralphs Whole Raw Almonds, Isagenix Chocolate Snacks!, Evolve Greek Kefir. more...
1686 kcal Activities & Exercise: Circuit Training - 1 hour, Sleeping - 8 hours, Resting - 15 hours. more...
gaining 1.2 lb a week

3 Supporters    Support   

Comments 
Happy New Year to you Ru!! It's going to be a good year for us! 
03 Jan 14 by member: triaby
Only 3 pounds? - Some kine of minor miracle! 
03 Jan 14 by member: BuffyBear
The most unexplored or maybe I should say the lest known about organ of the body. The brain and yet, we can control it. If that weren't the case,I have no idea where I'd be. Happy New Year Ru... 
03 Jan 14 by member: ClassicRocker
Happy New Year..girl..Lets get started on us...:O) 
03 Jan 14 by member: BHA
Thank you again Angel for taking the time to share this with us... especially me. I naturally gravitate toward your journal faster than I will the book - wonder why? Perhaps because I know we share so many similar disordered eating habits despite being on opposite ends of the scale? I am not sure, I'm just grateful you share it. I especially like reading the list of steps to work through again - I have had to do this repeatedly the past hour, week, month, year. Why do I want to eat? What do I hope to get out of it? Am I in charge or in control. All of these things sometimes sound, to the outsider or non EWYL convert, probably programmed or superficial. I don't know. But when you use the phrases on a repeated basis they help, at least me, get a grip on some of the mindless eating I'd programmed for years. Right now, when I feel so empty inside, lost, broken, etc., I find myself walking to the kitchen to find something to fill my stomach as if it will fill 'me'... the EWYL helps me remember the long term effect of that, the regret, and the path away from that cycle. Thank you again.  
03 Jan 14 by member: FullaBella
3 lbs? God bless. You're amazing. 
04 Jan 14 by member: Helewis

     
 

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