Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The NEW Zone Diet (or NON-Diet, if I'm lucky...)

I wish I could take this feeling - this feeling of being in the Zone - and bottle it, and sell it. I would be a friggin' millionaire, I tell ya.

After my daughter had her surgery (yes, the same daughter who has hospitalized with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever), I found myself slipping and sliding around with my eating...again. I talked to SaraBeth and Tony and they helped me to see that my negative thinking was leading me to fail again and again.

They encouraged me to create a photo - my dreambody - with my head on top and to print it out and put it everywhere. Seemed silly, but silly was definitely better than self-destructive, which was the best word I could think of to describe what I had been doing on and off for the past six months or so. So, I printed out my dreambody pictures and put them everywhere, I wrote down my goals and have started re-reading (and re-writing them) daily, at least once a day. I've also started beginning my day with positive intentions.

In addition, I've added a new support to my life, an OA sponsor, with whom I chat for about 15 minutes every morning. She has helped me to see that a lot more food falls in the category of refined sugar than I realized, which has helped me to keep from taking that first bite of crap off my kids' plates.

This may seem like a lot of work to some of you. Why should I have to be so vigilant? Why should I have to do so much each day to achieve my goals? Well, I don't have to. But I know that doing these things will get me to my goals, so why wouldn't I do them? Lord knows, I spend more time than that in my stinkin' thinkin' when I'm not doing these things and eating whatever nasty junk food pops into my head. So, yeah, if doing these things takes some time (and it's really not much time - maybe an extra half an hour or so during the course of the day), I'm willing to put the time in to increase my chances of reaching my dreams.

How about you? What are you willing to do? Are you willing to spend a few extra minutes a day? Are you willing to do a couple things that may seem silly, if there's a chance they may work? I can tell you that when my sister-in-law came to town last weekend and saw the "silly" photos posted up all around, she thought they were just photos of me! How powerful to have her thinking that this amazing body I had taped under my head actually is my body!

And are your thoughts serving you? Are you telling yourself that you're willing to do this, but not that? That you can't possibly give up this food? That yeah, you're a compulsive overeater, but isn't everyone? No, everyone isn't. And if the way we eat is something like 80% of what determines our success in achieving our dreambody, what can it hurt to get a handle on learning how to eat without eating compulsively. My new favorite thought is this:

"There is no such thing as a slip or a cheat, only a decision to self-destruct."

I'm not living on grilled chicken breast and lettuce leaves. I made a decision at the beginning of this whole process that I would only swallow food that tastes delicious. If it tastes nasty, I just do not eat it. I spit it out and start over, preparing something else until I've made something that I like to eat. Don't worry, I don't end up wasting a lot of food. I know what I like, so mostly I just stick with that. I will have weekends where I loosen up the reins a bit - maybe eat carbs with dinner or opt to go out to a restaurant and have a dinner roll with butter or something decadent like that. But I'm learning what foods wake up my inner monster and make it really hard for me to get back in the Zone. So, just for today, I'm steering as far clear of them as I possibly can, and I'm going to continue to do as many things as I can to ensure my success. Hell, if I could do things all day long that would support my achieving all my dreams, I would.

Oh, wait a second. That's exactly what I do try to do! Hope you do, too.

4 comments:

GClef1970 said...

Next time, remember to use self-tanner on your face, too. ;-). Just kidding! I love your motivation pic! I know that you have this in you. You are a fighter. We both just need to remember that WE are worth fighting for! xoxo

Tearose said...

ooh Liimu! Love the awesome bod! Thats the one I would have chosen I LOVE Valerie :D I need to do that too.

Amy said...

Wow - this is a great post, it reflects exactly how I feel about the struggle to eat right without being totally obsessed. I tend to vacillate from crazy and rigidly obsessed to completely out of control and find it so hard to find that healthy middle road. Good luck to you in meeting your goals!

Dawn said...

Good post. It's like we are in the same place right now. I do have a lot of "stinkin' thinkin'" but i'm trying to work it out.

I'm glad I found your blog. Your "real" picture will be someones inspiration sooner than you might think.