It’s Friday!!!! Yea!  Got up with renewed “commitment” and faith! It may only be 2:30 or so but so far so gooood!!! Had cheerios (honey nut) and almond milk for breakfast. Lots of water. Walked Dutchess (maybe a mile, uphill). More water. Then my ATL daughter and I went to Piedmont park and walked…some more. The sun was so hot I was sweating like a hog! (Do hogs sweat??) All the water I drank was pouring out of me by the bucketfuls! Even in the shade there was little relief. The best thing about it…no hills!!! Had we gone to Stone Mountain I’d still be there..sprawled out on the sidewalk waiting to be resusitated!! Whose idea was this anyway????
Mine. Penance for this past week. I know – my guilt meter is off the hook! Five miles or so – one for each day I didn’t walk and all the snickers I ate!! In the burning, boiling sun!! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!! (A little catholic school training coming out!)
Wonder how I can tell if it worked? Did I lose anything besides water and my confidence…oh, I meant committment?

I’ve got the rest of the day to go so we’ll see how successful I am!!! I am being very “mindful” of my actions today!

No matter how I look at it…it boils down to remaining “mindful” of what you are doing/eating and caring!  I start off good every morning – walk the dog, drink my slim rite breakfast and head off to work. Snack was yogurt ’cause by 10 a.m. I had a case of the hungries. Then somewhere along the way a demon reared it’s ugly head and I strolled to the kitchen and put a snickers in my pocket. Why? Probably ’cause they were there and I know they are there! Calling to me. Commmme into the kitchen, Phyllis…we’re waiting for youuuu. And nothing else mattered at that moment! Hands out in front of me I “thriller” walked to the kitchen and back. I lost that battle…

 There are periods of time when I won’t touch them (snickers in any of it’s forms) and then BAM! I’m seeking them out  – like literally driving to places just to get one…or two (there’s no eating just one)! Snickers are my nemesis but it could just as well be cookies – Pepperidge Farm preferably but I’ll settle for oreos or cheese cake with strawberries or bread pudding or sweet potato pie and I could go on and on and on…I wonder sometimes what it is that I am feeding?

Bible study tonight was on committment. Committment to living God’s Word. Sometimes we do things over and over and believe we are commited. Well Commitment and Ritual are not the same. Repeatedly doing the same thing is ritual…or idiotic. And we may need to be commited.
I continue along the same path maybe diviating a little here and there but no matter how I “justify” it I am still dishonoring the body God gave me to house my soul. Definitely desecrating the temple of God.
Tonight’s class is a definite test of my commitment…not to my wanting to lose weight but my commitment to treating my body as the temple of the God who gave me and continues to give me life.

That said…what the heck is a calorie? I’ve never counted one. I eat too few of them and I gain weight. I eat too many of them and I gain weight. So what’s the deal? How do you get those little buggers to balance out?
I’ve had a wonderful day…eating wise! Had my breakfast drink along with two fat cutting capsules about 7 this morning. Drank water (I try to get 64 ozs down but am doing good to drink 32 in a day), ate a yogurt around 11 a.m. and wasn’t hungry again until 2 pm. Ate a Healthy Choice meal (delicious!) for lunch and  had a salad to eat for dinner which I didn’t get to eat ’cause bible study started at 7 pm and I wasn’t going to be chomping on lettuce while everybody was talking about commitment! So I took the salad home.

Now it is 11 pm and I’m up ’cause I was “committed” to eating that salad! It looked good, smelled good and I wasn’t going to let it go to “waste”! Romaine lettuce, grilled chicken with carrots, tomatoes, yellow peppers, shredded cheese (Yum!) but I threw out the cucumbers and croutons! (1st time I ever had a Zaxby’s salad)
So I settled myself in front of the TV to watch murder and mayhem do their thing while I indulged my senses with my salad. Somewhere between the first forkful and the last I stop listening to my body cry out -“STOP, you’re over feeding me!” Nope didn’t hear my tummy groan, didn’t feel my throat close up. Nada. Ignored that sick feeling.

I was so committed to finishing that salad that I ignored all the signals. I sacrificed my own body to the god of gluttony.

Today’s a new day! I feel renewed, creative and ready to do what is mine to do. I get another chance to get it right! I get to choose to make conscious choices about my health, my habits and my attitude!
I had a whole day since last blog to beat myself up, feel ashamed, guilty, embarrassed and every other emotion that emotional eaters go through when they “fall off the wagon”. And I fell hard. Instead of devouring another snickers bar (yes they are still in the kitchen refrigerator!) I ate banana pudding instead…and I don’t even like banana pudding! I “justified” eating the pudding by convincing myself “at least it isn’t a snickers!” You’re darn skippy it wasn’t a snickers!!! YUCK!!!

So here we are – today. A Fresh Start. I’m not even going to look back to see what triggered that “episode”! Gonna attempt to stay in the present moment!
Sooo today is starting out good…had my breakfast drink, water and am not hungry! Yet.

I’ve racked up on Healthy Choice meals – they were on sale at WalMart!!! My baby girl ate one last night and she put it on a plate – it looked so pretty! You’d thought she cooked the meal herself (which she could do now!) and never know it was a microwave meal!
Well, I thought about that – putting the meals on a plate and making them appealing….Nahhhh, then I’d have a plate to wash! LOL! Hahahahah!!
I’m only interested in the color appeal anyway…as long as I see a variety in color I’m fine. Like my salads…they are usually always green, red, orange and yellow. Then some off color depending on what protein I want! Gotta get more fruit in my life though. I’ve been slacking in that category big time!!

Haven’t done too much walking since Saturday. Gotta get that going again. Toodles!!

Only nine days into my “health challenge” and I’m done already. After the “snickers incident” my internal critic kicked in and I was “loser” all day and figured that was license to go all the way and just EAT! Not food but more snickers!!! LOSER, LOSER my brain kept repeating as I kept chomping! One thing for certain..snickers do satisfy – I haven’t been hungry – the sugar rush killed what ever appetite I may have had for any reasonably healthy food. Not to mention that the “down” side was feeling quite sick – had to drink enough water to float a big boat and hopefully flush my system. Can give up any other sweet sugar vice but it’s all over – the jig is up. Yup, my name is Phyllis and I’m a Snickers Addict.

Arrrgghhh!!! Why is it you feel remorse (or guilt) AFTER you’ve eaten the “forbidden goodie”? What’s missing in the brain that triggers the alarms or consciousness that just says “NO”?
Well mine wasn’t on this morning ’cause I just finished scarfing down a snickers bar. I wasn’t myself.
Was putting my yogurt in the refrigerator and saw two boxes of snacks on the shelf – unopened mind you! And the only thing that my eyeballs saw was the word “snickers”! I remember nothing else except drinking water and typing this – well I do remember smacking my lips and sucking my teeth to get the nuts out. Ummm, maybe four laps around the church parking lot will be enough mea culpas to burn off those calories!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my grand daughter Selene who is 4 yrs old today!!!
Ok, so this morning I drank a meal replacement drink for breakfast and went off to church. Awesome experience during worship service!! Drank lots of water through out the day, too. Ate an apple in the car on the way home. Now it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and I’m not hungry – why? Should I eat anyway? Or wait until the hungries hit hard? Drink more water? Interesting delimma! Good thing I have nothing in the house I actually want to eat ’cause this is one of those moments I would definitely not be strong of character and just eat the goodies! Boy Satan is ALWAYS on the prowl!!! I’m glad Sunday is a day of “rest” because I am not about to go walking in this heat! Had enough of that on Friday with my silly self! I’ll walk Dutchess later this evening instead.

Well I did eat a spinach salad for lunch – I guess that was around 2:30 pm. Then, like clockwork at 6:30 I was sooo hungry I couldn’t think!!! So I had portabellos, spinach and noodles for dinner! And don’t think for a minute I cooked!!! Nope, Healthy Choice is “da bomb”!!! Hmmmm so good. Then I had a glass of Arizona iced tea..Colored some Mandalas while watching TV and before I knew it the munchies kicked it – around 11 pm!! I ate honey nut cheerios instead of cheese cake! Yea! But I killed those cheerios. Dang.

August 7, 2010
My daughter, Ayana, and I agreed to encourage each other in eating healthy, exercising and losing weight during August…and beyond! I’m starting at 182 lbs-August 1st.
Anyway it’s been 7 days and I dropped 2 lbs. The first five days I didn’t walk enough to counter act all that I ate!! What a way to begin. But Friday I attempted to walk around Stn Mtn – didn’t quite make it – got too hot – it was 100 degrees and I didn’t decide to walk until 12:30 in the afternoon. Needless to say if it wasn’t for a post in the road I wouldn’t have been standing. A good Samaratan gave me a ride back to the gate where I’d parked. Drank water too! Lesson learned – walk earlier in the day!!!! Stn Mtn is 5 miles around  (hilly too!) and I did about two (coming and going!)miles. All that for two freaking pounds! but I’m thankful they’re gone!!

Even though last night I got the munchies – real bad!! I was up past midnight and am finding out if I am up that late I eat more!!! I ate a chicken thigh, a slice of cheese with a slice of turkey breast, and three 4 oz cups of yougurt!! All within an hour! I went to bed at 1 a.m. SAD, sad. Gotta work on my self control!!! Or go to bed earlier. Today I’m doing good! walked Dutchess a mile – uphill at 9 a.m! Drank a Slim-Rite shake for breakfast and am going now to fix a spinach salad for lunch. And ONE 4 oz yogurt!
I’ll let you know how the day ends! LOL!!!