Our fourth class was great, although I barely made it there. Classes start at 5:00 and if we're not there by 5:15, we are considered absent and have to make up the missed class with another group or we have to start all over again with our six months of classes. I got tied up at work, trying desperately to finish writing our counseling newsletter and sending it out to over 7,000 people before I could leave for the night. The clock was ticking and I knew I had to leave. I hardly had time to proofread, so I'm hoping there was no glaring mistake. Trust me, if there is, I'll hear about it from parents. I finally got it sent, grabbed my stuff, shut down my office and hauled ass out of there so I could hurry up and sit in rush hour traffic. There was the constant stop and go, as well as following people who were afraid to follow too closely so they were driving 40 miles per hour with several carlengths in front of them (could you tell I was a tish irritated?) I made it ... with seven minutes to spare. Added stress I didn't need!
Weigh in time ... bom bom booom. I lost another two pounds. Yay! I'm so amazed that I'm willingly accepting two pounds here and two pounds there. In my Optifast days, I would have considered that week a failure but now I'm counting them as successes because I'm working my way towards a goal of healing and being healthy.
The topic for tonight's class was about emotional eating. One of the things I absolutely love about the classes I'm going through is how much they focus on the emotional component of being overweight. Our facilitator pointed out that if we don't get to the crux of why we eat, we won't be successful with the surgery. Sure, we may lose the weight, we might even keep it off for a while, but it will invariably creep back on and with a vengeance if we don't get at what's eating us. So she posed the question, "What is the difference between physical hunger and psychological hunger?"
That's a darn good question to ponder. Truly, what is the difference and can we even spot it? So, being a good student who always wants to understand and learn, I raised my hand and told her I honestly don't know the difference. Of course, intellectually, I know there is a big difference between being physically hungry and thinking I'm physically hungry. So I gave a little scenario of what happened to me today. For breakfast I had oatmeal and Egg Beaters. I had a mid-morning snack of baby carrots with spreadable Laughing Cow Cheese. Then my friend and I went for a walk at work during lunch. I felt pretty darn proud of myself asking her and saying what my physical limits were as we went walking. So we did that, came back to work and ate our lunches in my office. I had a homemade delish salad with spring salad mix, mushrooms, artichokes, skim mozarella cheese and a few chunks of chicken. I also had a Fuji apple with that. Sounds like a pretty hearty lunch, and it definitely was. Then, not a half an hour later, I experienced what felt like true hunger to me. My tummy wasn't grumbling but my stomach felt so empty and it felt like real hunger. I decided to just have more water instead because it felt like it was impossible for me to be so hungry so soon.
One of the things our leader told us to do when we're in situations like that was to ask ourselves what is really going on. Not sometime later, but right in that very moment. It may be feeling strange and a little curious that those hunger feelings are going on at the time, but sitting in it is very important. So I thought back to everything and I could see that I was feeling a little down on myself because my back was hurting during our walk and I was sweaty. I mean I could feel it drip down my neck. I looked over at my friend and she didn't look hot in the slightest. That made me mentally beat up on myself a little bit. I was completely comparing my larger size to her barely-there size. Geez, even in that comment, I'm building myself to be this sort of ogre compared to her petite littleness. That's such a horrible way to treat myself and I know she'd be the first one to point that out.
I shared with the group, when we were posed a question by our leader, that I had gone to food as a coping mechanism when I was a kid, growing up in a rough household. It was my go-to response when my parents were arguing or I was being hit or when I felt poor. As an adult, I don't have any of those troublesome things going on but food is my body's go-to response. If I'm feeling anxious, bored, lonely, scared, worried - whatever the emotion - I go to food to help me through the moment. Maybe those things I was feeling after lunch were things I didn't even recognize at the time. I was reminded in our group tonight that if I am eating something about every 3 hours or so with some sort of protein included and that I'm getting in enough fiber and water, that feeling I'm having is head hunger more than anything. Time and making new, healthy changes habits are what will help me overcome those uncomfortable feelings. At least I felt better sharing this with the others because most everyone else was nodding their heads in agreement.
There are many reasons we overeat and it was the question our leader had us think about for the week - why do we think we overeat? What are your answers to that question?
Water Challenge Day 27: Drank 175 of 185 ounces
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