Swinging

(Uh, no dirty dirty minds - not that kind of swinging!) I can't remember how I ever stumbled onto Gr33n M0untains' site, but there have been a number of posts out there that have either given me something to think about or respond with "yep, that's EXACTLY it"...um, not outloud, but in my head. Anyway, you get the point. This post on appetite swings definitely hit home with me today.

Some days I'm super hungry and other days I'm not. Over time I made a conscious decision that it is OK. For me, it goes back to my former dieting mentality - the "shouldn'ts" and "can'ts" and all that crap. But for some time now I've changed that. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry and I eat. Some days I may have 2 meals while other days I may have 6 meals, but ya know what, it works for me and my weight has stabilized. I should also say that it was very scary to switch to this way of thinking and there are times that I still struggle with it!

The only caveat is when I see myself veering toward crap. I try to do a gut check (HA) to see if it's hunger, emotional, or just a desire to want something not so healthy. For me crap generally means it's emotional or just that I want it.

If it's "emotional", that's when I put the brakes on--at least I try to! Cause the crap food just isn't going to make me feel better and might even make me feel worse. By worse, not necessarily guilty as I'm trying to work on that as well, but it's this feeling after eating the crap that is a realization that wasn't what I wanted or honestly even what I needed. I try to figure out what is really going on. This has been hard, but I can thankfully say that it's gotten easier with focus and diligence.

Part of my shrink/counselor work over the years was it being pointed out to me that I can't identify or misidentify my feelings. As weird as that sounds, I really struggle with it. I was told it was from years of denying my true feelings in my childhood and learning to bury them because nobody really cared. I don't focus on that part - that's an "is what it is" thing for me. I focus on OK here's the problem, so how do I address it. It was a huge thing for me to learn. Today I have a cheat sheet. It's a paper that has a whole ton of feelings listed on it. So when I can't figure out what it is that I'm feeling, I look at the sheet and it helps me identify it.

If it's the "I want it and gotta have it", then I'll have it and move on. For example, I wanted coconut M and M's last week. It was lunch time and that's what I wanted period. Sure, I could have had something healthy, but the reality is that I still would have wanted those damn things! So, I had them for lunch and moved on.

Baby steps, but progress nonetheless. Breaking the cycle and learned behaviors is really hard, but worth it. While my outside looks a heck of a lot better, in a way I feel prouder of these other changes. Hmmm, maybe it's that I'm happier? Hell, where's my sheet!