When I feel good and occupied with my life, I don’t overeat. Therefore, the more good feelings I can bring into my life, the easier it will be for me to eat intuitively.

Here’s a list I just made of things I like and do not like. My intent is to recognize the Do Not side, and replace those activities with Do Like side activities as often as possible.

P.S. Yes, I do like ironing and hand-washing dishes.

In my last post, I said I would open boxes, yadda yadda. I’m happy to report that I was highly successful at being a non-couch potato person all day.
First, I did spend my time in the half-finished attic, cleaning and organizing, just like I planned. I opened boxes, moved boxes around, designed a new layout that will give my daughter a place for her photo studio, and vacuumed up hundreds of dead flies. Yes, hundreds. And hundreds. It was disgusting.
Mostly, DH is the guy who does stuff in the attic, but I’m continually doing more on my own. This taking responsibility for my own wants and needs is big progress for me. It isn’t always about food.
I also took a break and did some good self-care, spending time in my new hobby room, drinking water and relaxing. I never even got hungry for the snack I’d brought with me.
After lunch and time with DH, I enjoyed a DVD, then prepared coffee and cake for DH, which we enjoyed together in our sunny backyard.
The evening progressed just as well, capped by a good half hour of harp playing. I really connected to the emotion in my playing.
Huge huge huge.

May is a wonderful month in Germany. We had a holiday last week, another one on Monday and yet another in the week thereafter. So I’m going to enjoy today by getting up off the sofa and cleaning out the old belief that I cannot make my house the way I want it.
My intent for today is to open boxes, see what’s inside, and get everything useful out of the boxes. Anything that I want to keep in boxes, like mementos, will be clearly labeled and put in a real storage place.
I expect to find resistance inside my brain as well as stuff inside my boxes. I’ll take the resistance as it comes. I’ve got my motivating podcasts and music on my iPod, a big cup of coffee, and a plan to take a break mid-morning on my balcony. I want this whole morning to feel good.

Man-o-man, this is a dangerous day for me. I woke up normally after a 4 day long weekend. I”m fully refreshed, ready to work.
As we hop into the car to drive Dear Daughter to school, I start to make little critical comments. First, Dear Hubby, who used to criticize DD for not fastening her seat belt timely, did not fasten his timely. And he forgot to carry something to the car.
So I’m speaking up about all of these admittedly trivial things, when I recognize it for what it is - my critical voice. When we drove past the local greengrocer, and I commented out loud that he needed to wash his windows, I knew I was over the top.
The next half hour I spent trying to change my words, and my thoughts as well. I’m not quite there yet, but I do at least remember to think twice before speaking today.
What was the root cause of this? Two things, I believe.
One, I watched a dozen Youtube/Dailymotion videos before leaving home. Most of them were about teenagers doing stupid things, occasionally resulting in broken bones. I did not yell back at the TV, telling them how idiotic that was (I love yelling at the TV, very therapeutic, and no one yells back). Therefore, I had a bit of criticism built up in my system.
Second, work is going to be rather high-stress today, but still pretty good. I have to teach a class, which means a performance, and I’m not quite ready for that. At least it’s a friendly audience.
Thanks to those reasons, I can give myself a break (oops, someone in the office just dropped and broke a coffee cup. Wonder if I’m sending “clumsy” out into the universe today If you’ve experienced extra clumsiness today, I apologize. I’ll work on sending graceful out in the universe tomorrow, so you can look forward to that.
In conclusion, I’m going to be extra forgiving of myself and others today, and KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT. And not hold anything breakable.

In the height of my eating disorder, decisions were a vicious circle. First I would encounter a problem which had no clear answers, worry about it until I absolutely had to make a decision, then decide relatively quickly. The decision was followed by more worry about whether it was the right decision or not, and mostly resulted in eating to numb my feelings of shame for (probably) not having made the “right” choice.

To make matters worse, these were not momentous decisions. Today I encountered a typical decision: after a morning of shopping for driveway paving stones and groceries, DH wanted to know if I also wanted to go to the mall as he went to pick out a new pair of sandals.

I hemmed and hawed around this decision for over an hour, never facing the truth of what I wanted. Because my goals this month include finishing my thoughts, I worked my way through this, struggling first to decide what I wanted, then to actually use the words to tell DH the answer.

No I did not want to go along. I wanted to stay home, watch a DVD, take a bath, and generally do piddly stuff around the house. It took an hour to say that. But said it I did. And no rebound eating. No numbing. No shame. I did, however, have to tell DH not to die in a horrible car accident while he was out, because I wouldn’t be able to handle the shame of not having gone with him.

It’s almost inconceivable to imagine feeling shame about what I wanted to do or not do. But there it is - my emotion, irrational or not. Now I’m off to write a hundred times: “I will honor my own wishes. What I want is as valid as anybody else’s wants.”

My plans are in place, and I’ve been working them for about a week. A little before I started this plan, I was absorbing information from Oprah/Eckhart Tolle and Inside Out Weight Loss’ Renee Stephens. Those are the main guides I am currently using to increase my presence and build my current plan.

How am I doing? I like what I’m practicing with respect to changing my beliefs and changing my eating habits. I like that I’m eating less, eating more veggies and fruit, and more at peace with my food choices and life choices. One odd thing, I found myself with a low-level compulsion to eat yesterday, but it was weak enough that reminding myself of my goals took care of it. My suspicion is, the cause was my intent to step on the scale this morning. I still feel slightly nervous sailing for a whole week (or the whole next month) without stepping on the scale.

Here’s the chart of my weight. Click on it to get an in-focus picture. I don’t know what’s up with WordPress at the moment. While I’ve only been doing this plan for a week, my intuitive eating weight loss has gone on for several years. You’ll see that I have lost almost 15% of my considerable body weight.

Has this plan been successful? Judging by the scale, it’s too soon to tell for sure, but probably yes. I’ll measure again on June 1, and will compare the weight with the changes in habits to see if this is actually useful.

For the month of May, I’m also going to write down my successes each day. This helps a lot towards keeping a positive attitude.

To make permanent change in your life, you need two types of motivation. One is motivation to make you want to leave your current state, and two is motivation of the new state you want to have.
In order to strengthen the second motivation, I choose to frequently think about (and write about) how I will be in my future state.
Since I have a long journey to my “final” future state, I also visualize interim states. My current interim state is 10 kilo less than I am now. Since I have been relatively steady in weight for a while now, 10 kilo represents quite a large change in both mental and physical states. I’ll focus on the work state, since that’s on my mind this morning.
Me At Minus 10K: I think I’ll call her MAM10K.
MAM10K gets to work, and climbs both sets of stairs with strength. She does not take a break from stair climbing but rather keeps going steadily. At the top, she is a little winded, but has made it without jello-legs.
MAM10K strolls into the office, calling out a cheery “Und einen schoenen guten Morgen!” which is returned in kind, as is the German workplace tradition. (translated: “and a beautiful good morning!”)
She unpacks her bag and reads her email. No emergencies today, but several surprises await her. She takes them in stride, making a list of things to do and rationally choosing the most important. She compares these new tasks to her up-to-date list of planned activities, choosing and prioritizing rationally. There’s no second-guessing herself, no guilt over imagined mistakes or lack of perfection, just simple awareness of the situation, and calm confidence that she can handle it.
MAM10K uses a little small-talk as she gets her coffee. This is a skill she is slowly developing, but always remembers that people in her office are respectful and polite. A wink and a nod to some of her buddies as they pass in the hall give her a feeling of connection.
Work gets more stressful, since there are tasks that other people must accomplish, but they are entirely unmotivated to do so. She works through her scheduled meetings with these people, remembering always to listen to their needs and help where possible.
The chaos of the company swirls around her, barely touching her. The main topic in her workday that is chaotic is training. Everyone in the company needs to be trained on quality, but she has barely time to get her process work done, much less create and present training as well. When other departments talk about the training they are providing, MAM10K does not get panicky thinking that she has failed, but rather is grateful that the other teams’ work coordinates so nicely with her own. As a company team, she recognizes that we are all stronger.
Every hour she is not in a meeting, MAM10K takes a 5 minute break to stretch and go somewhere quiet. A moment alone is highly rejuvenating for her. She uses this time to breathe deeply and accept what has already passed, giving herself closure.
Lunch is passed with DH, giving a complete break from work and a chance to process the morning.
The afternoon passes much like the morning. She makes a point to connect with a human being at least once in the morning and once in the afternoon. MAM10K ends her day on time, with a list of the day’s successes and potential tasks for tomorrow.

My current plan is based on what I’ve learned from the Eckhart Tolle and IOWL podcasts. So far, the plan has increased my feelings of peace, helped me to stay in the present moment, and helped me strengthen my eating habit of 3 fruits and 5 veggies a day.

Every week or so I find myself adjusting the specifics of the plan, but here’s my current one.

1. Do guided journeys to visualize my future state
2. Keep completing my thoughts and want so I can fully accept my choices
3. Reduce amount of food eaten
4. Improve type of food eaten
5. Stay present in food choices and life choices
6. Adjust until goal reached
7. Reward myself frequently and fully
8. Take a current photo and make me skinny
9. Meditate daily on my desired future state
10. Write about the future me

Odd, I’m not so sure I’m actively doing some of these things. It’s more a pretty plan laid out on a blog post. When I’m really honest with myself, I’m pretty much only trying to eat the fruits/veggies, cut down a little on food, and stay present.

Guess I’ll have to take some more action and see what happens. 

After thinking about my doctor’s suggestion to ignore the scale for a while, I decided to do it. Now I’m going to try weighing in only monthly, even though I’m noticing frequent urges to hop on the scale right now.

So far, I’ve rationalized that not only should I step on at the beginning of the month, but I should do it several days in a row, so I can get an “average.” While that is statistically true, I suspect this is really a secret urge to get on the scale more often, so I can continue to obsess.

What are the right affirmations in this situation? Something like:

• I measure my progress by observing my eating habits
• I judge success by my peace of mind w.r.t. food choices
• The plan I’m working on has many actions, but none require stepping on the scale

Hmmm. The urge has lessened.