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!