State of the Union – Lessons I have learnt

So, I have been working at changing my lifestyle for a little over a month now, and while I don’t think I lost any weight I have learnt a few lessons along the way:

New Math

So apparently I am not as good at math as I thought, or at least fractions. If you will recall, I said about a month ago that I was going to follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to sugary treats. Well, I think my math might be just an itsy bitsy off. When I look back honestly, it seems that I have probably been a bit closer to 60/40 or 50/50. I am chalking it up to that “new math” I have heard people talk about 😉 Guess I am going to have to learn it. In all serious, I have learnt that I am not ready to try “controlled” sugar consumption, I need to just cut it out completely. However, the idea of never having another Cadbury’s Dairy Milk or Ed’s Ice Cream ever again is a little (read A LOT) overwhelming. So, instead I have decided for the month of June, one day at a time, I am going to cut sugar out completely. I think I need a little detox from daily consumption before I can test allowing myself little treats here and there. It’s not going to be easy, but I will just have to find a way to get it done.

Wheat REALLY isn’t my friend

Last Wednesday morning I found myself complaining to my Dad that I seemed to have gained weight, because the new pants I bought a month ago no longer fit. Of course being me, I wore them to work anyway. Half way through the day, I was so bloated that I had to undo the button and work like that the rest of the day. I was just really grateful that they didn’t fall down! That night, I was continuing to complain to DBF, and he asked me what I had been eating. I was honest, I hadn’t been eating really unhealthy foods, but I had been eating a few things that I wasn’t “suppose” to, mainly bagels. I had a bagel each morning Monday-Wednesdaty for breakfast, because I found myself really missing and craving bread. Seriously, giving up bread has been the hardest thing I have had to do. It was him that pointed out that I probably hadn’t gained weight, but more likely I was seriously bloated from all the wheat I had been eating. You know what, he was right! After a few days of not eating wheat again, the pants fit exactly the way they should have. As much as I like to try and pretend that I am giving up wheat “just for the hell of it”, it really is more then that. I may not have Celiac’s, but it is obvious that I do have a gluten intolerance as seen this week by the extreme bloating that came out of eating too much bread. So, back to gluten-free bread for me 😦

Befriending the enemy

One thing I have been adamant about this whole journey is not becoming a slave to the numbers on the scale. For that reason, I have been refusing to weigh myself. However, the whole wheat-gate this week has shown me that sometimes the scale might be helpful. While I still don’t want to make this journey all about how much weight I am losing, I do admit having a point of reference might be a good thing. Just knowing whether the things I am doing are helping the scale move in the right direction (ie down) would be beneficial. As someone pointed out, what if what I was doing was causing me to gain weight? That would be useful information. So, I am going to befriend the evil scale but there are going to be rules:

• I am not allowed to weight myself more then 1x /week, but am going to try and aim for only once every 2 weeks.
• I will not have a scale in my home, I will use the scale at the office as my point of reference
• I will not use the numbers that I see to define how “good” or “bad” I am.

Sometimes being a little selfish is OK

For many years, I spent my life locked in a little world of self-pity, self-flagulation and selfishness. It has not been a pretty sight. One of the things I have been struggling with is letting go of the idea that all selfishness is a bad thing. It’s not. Sometimes, being a little selfish can be good. For example, realizing that it’s ok to say no to people’s requests of your time, if what you want to do instead is genuinely something beneficial for you…even if that is just spending time by yourself. One of my friends talks about the guilt that can often come with wanting to do things just for you. She says that this guilt is the ego’s way of not allowing you to take care of yourself, and I believe it’s true. If I honestly analyze the times in my life I have been “selfish”, and whether I have felt guilty or not, it is usually those times that I am wanting to do something just for me, to benefit me that I feel the most guilty about. So, that is going to be the measuring stick to help decide when I am being “healthy” vs “unhealthy” selfish. If I feel guilty about doing it, then it probably is something I am suppose to be doing to improve me.

So, there we have it, the lessons I have learnt on this journey so far. I am sure there are a few more, but those are definitely the biggies. Where do we go from here? Well, I am forging ahead a step at a time, and am going to try and incorporate these lessons as I move forward. That is the best thing about this journey, while there is a goal there is no timetable. As long as I am trying my best, and learning from my mistake and my accomplishments then I am considering it a win!