Goal #6, losing weight, is the hardest of my 101 goals.  Obviously I choose to eat as I do for a reason, and bucking that takes a lot of energy.  In my last post I said that I have not been using the Hunger Scale very much, and that is still true.  I also said that I had picked up a new idea of exercise from writer Brooke Castillo, this idea that exercise can be a gift of movement to my body instead of minor torture.  And that is still true, too!  I have been choosing to spend a chunk of time outside in the mornings, and depending on what I actually do, count it as exercise.  Hauling bark in buckets, digging holes, weeding, and planting brings up the old heart rate, so I feel absolutely no guilt in logging it as exercise!  I’s fun and I get things done that I want done.  Plus, (and this is a major plus) the scale gave feedback that paying some attention to hunger/fullness added to exercise is a way for me to lose weight!  Slowly, but in the right direction!

This is not a smooth path, even though the above paragraph makes it sound like it is.  I faithfully work outside for a week or so, then feel sore and tired, and quit.  For a while.  Then I get inspired and pick it up again.  I’m currently on the ‘pick it up again’ section.  I’m planting all the leftover flower seeds I have collected over the years.  Scattering them, really.  I’m happy to be doing this, and I am looking forward to seeing how many seeds are still good, and how many plants actually appear.  And the process of  weeding, preparing the ground, and planting is exercise.  It makes me mad that I quit.  But I desperately need to get away from the all-or-nothing, win-or-fail feelings.  I need to see that my progress is halting, but in the right direction.

Another rough path is weighing.  I react to the scale’s feedback.  If I have put on some weight I unvaryingly think, “What’s the use?  I might as well eat however much I want.”  And I do.  For a while.  If I have lost some weight – I go into this weird panic type thing, and eat as much as I think I want. For a while.   It’s so frustrating.  Eventually I even out and remember why I want to choose to stop eating when I’m not hungry.  It takes a few days, though.  And results in small weight gains.  This is part of the reason I am checking in with the scale every few weeks.  The broader picture is the most helpful.  Again, my progress is not a straight line, but it is in the right direction.

Here’s an aside.  An unexpected result of eating less is less heartburn.  And when I start eating when I’m not hungry, ususally eating too much at one sitting, I get more heartburn.  And not just after the meal.  At night, and the next morning.  My body giving me feedback.

In the last post I intimated that I was having a bit of a hard time choosing to pay attention to what I ate the week before Easter.  That’s true.  This last week I was all for getting back on track and paying attention to the hunger scale and journaling my meals.  Which I did faithfully. Each morning.  And that’s it.  I was wondering how this “I’m paying a bit more attention, but not following anything” plan was effecting my weight, so I weighed.  Yikes!  Going in the wrong direction! 

So what’s the plan now?  Wanting to follow the hunger scale and determining I was going to do it last week didn’t work.  The will power method seldom does for me.  At least not for very long.  Breakfast.  So what are my other options?  I thought about starting all over, and trying to gain back my lost enthusiasm.  Might have worked.  Sounded tedious, though.  What else?  My husband, ever supportive of me by listening to me and offering his opinions (thank you, thank you!) said basically the same thing.  Take a few steps back.  Make my goals simpler again.

Simple goals.  That will work!  And instead of just plodding through material I have already worked on, the goal became:  choose a simple goal and go with it.  So that’s what I did.  And for today, it has worked very well.  First I considered tackling the hunger scale again, since that was the first step in If I’m So Smart.  But I wasn’t working very well with that.  The second step, though.  That is in my reach, and it incorporates the hunger scale.  I found something I can do, and succeed!  This is the Fuel Eating – Joy Eating idea.  Eat for fuel 90% of the time.  Joy eat 10% of the time.

Clarification!  That’s what this does for me.  If I am fuel eating, it is relatively easy to stop at +2; the beginnings of satisfaction.  If I want to eat past +2, that becomes joy eating, and I begin to evaluate “Is this really giving me the joy I am wanting?”  It’s just a different perspective that clicks for me.  Ice cream?  How much joy?  How near 10% am I?  Is it really giving me happiness?  Some amount does give joy, you know.  Food is fun.  And nurturing.  But too much food is seldom fun.  Even too much ice cream!  So, Fuel and Joy worked today, same goal tomorrow.  When I feel on top again, I’ll add the food journaling back in, and continue in the books.  This is do-able!