Joyful Exercise? Yeah, Right.

Over at Honoring Health, Christie had a nice post about not doing exercise unless it gives you joy. But what happens if there is no exercise that you find joyful?

Let's get this straight right upfront. I'm lazy. No, seriously. I am. I don't see it as a character flaw; it's just the way I am and I'm perfectly fine with that. I was when I was a scrawny little 4-year-old and I still am now that I'm 43 and not so scrawny. There are few things I love more than sleeping late, then after a little breakfast, spending all day with my butt planted firmly on the sofa while I watch tv (or read a book or surf the net). If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I may even change out of my pajamas! To me, that's a beautiful day and it always has been.

Further complicating things, I have absolutely zero interest in or ability to participate in sports. I come from a family of serious athletes and yet, that gene seems to have completely passed me by. I'm the stereotypical last kid picked for every team growing up. After years of swimming and tennis lessons, the best thing I can say is that I wouldn't drown if you tossed me in the pool and I know which end of the racket is supposed to connect with the ball, even if mine rarely does. Basketball, volleyball, softball, soccer. Yep, I tried all those things and spent my time warming the bench because that whole eye-foot-hand coordination thing is just beyond me. Jogging or walking? Boring! Aerobics DVDs? Ugh! I don't like salt water or chlorine burning my eyes or getting up my nose. I don't like being hot and sweaty and out of breath. I don't like being dirty. I don't like nature. If I had access to any top secret information and some foreign agent wanted to force it out of me, the quickest way to do so would be to make me go on a hike. That's pure torture.

I think you get the drift.

I'm willing to believe that there's some activity out there that I might love and be good at, if only I could discover what it is. Who knows, maybe hang gliding is my thing! But after 43 years, that activity has not been revealed to me and it's sure not for lack of trying.

That said, after years of plodding along, I know what makes exercise tolerable for me. TV, gadgets, and a good playlist on my iPod are a start. But those things only distract me from how much I really want to be done. There are activities that I don't despise - yoga, spinning, boxing, weight training - but saying they bring me joy would be a big stretch. Also, after almost two and a half years of working out, consistently, once or twice a week with a personal trainer, I have a great appreciation for how I feel after exercising or how good it feels to finally have developed some small measure of strength. But even though I have great affection for my trainer and she makes working out probably as painless as it's possible to be and still be effective, there has never, not once, been a time when I didn't secretly hope as I was in my car driving to my appointment, that it would get cancelled at the last minute. There has never been a workout where I didn't have my eye on the clock, counting down the minutes until it was over. Never.

For me, exercise is kind of like flossing. I don't think I'll ever enjoy it, but I kind of like having teeth and not spending hours in the dentist's chair having the hygienist rooting around in my gyms with sharp metal implements like she's mining for gold while I screech in pain and drool blood. So I'll do it. Grudgingly, but I'll do it, recognizing that the benefits far outweigh the cost. Maybe through this intuitive eating business, I'll also discover some amazing activity that brings me this childlike joy that Christie talks about. I have to admit, it sounds kind of nice. But I won't hold my breath.

On Believing

It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

- Muhammad Ali

One of the things the therapist said at the IE workshop I attended Saturday was that you will have a hard time turning down "forbidden" foods until you really truly believe that you can eat whatever you want.

It made me realize that I'm still not truly convinced that I can have what I want. I *want* to believe it. I really really really do. And I've done a lot to legalize foods. But I'm not quite there yet. Every time I sit down with a big juicy burger or a burrito from my favorite Mexican spot, part of me still thinks that I shouldn't be having this. That once I'm really eating only when I'm hungry, I won't be able to eat enough to really enjoy myself. And so I think the inability to stop when satisfied is still part of that "last supper" eating because in the back of my mind I think that somewhere along the line I'm going to have to give it all up and just eat like a handful of broccoli or something. Logically, I know this isn't true. But I never let a silly thing like logic stand between me and self-destructive behavior.

But again, I'm rushing things. I expect everything to just click and to click quickly. Patience has never been one of my virtues. But I know I need to have patience here. I just want to be sure that I'm not using patience as an excuse.

The therapist was a believer in affirmations. She said that only recently had she come to believe that they could be useful. Before she always thought they were kind of hokey. I'm with her on that. But I need to do things differently this time around. I've been doing the same thing - i.e., dieting - for thirty-odd years, and it has gotten me nowhere. If I can seriously fall for diets that said eating foods in magical combinations or precise percentages was the long lost secret to weight control (and I *did* fall for those, among so many others!), then I can give affirmations a try. This is the year. I have to give it my all. And if that means saying some affirmations a couple times a day over the next few months, I'm willing to give that a try. I really have nothing to lose.

A Day at an Intuitive Eating Workshop

Today I attended an intuitive eating workshop put on by a local therapist who specializes in disordered eating. She actually has two practices, one where she works with patients with clinical eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and another where she works with people like me who are just kind of screwed up with food, but who don’t have a full blown disorder. For both, though, she teaches intuitive eating.

All in all, it was an interesting experience. It was just myself and two other women in a five and a half hour workshop that included lunch. So there was plenty of time to have personal one-on-one attention and ask questions. I won’t say there was a lot of information that I haven’t already picked up in books like Intuitive Eating or Women, Food, and God, but I definitely got some good tips. And there were a few things that I’m definitely processing and will probably talk about in a later post, after I’ve had the chance to mull them over a bit more. Plus, she will be doing some follow-up via e-mail, which I think will be helpful, as I’ve already thought of some questions I wish I had asked but that didn’t occur to me at the time.

One really good takeaway I got was that the whole stopping when satisfied thing is one of the hardest steps to master and that it definitely takes a lot of time. I’ve been beating myself up because I still can’t stop cleaning my plate (the leave one bite challenge has been much more challenging than I anticipated!). It’s so like me to feel like I’m screwing up when things don’t come to me instantaneously. But for being only seven weeks into this journey, I’m doing okay. That’s really good to know. I’m still going to keep doing the leave one bite challenge, but I’m going to leave the judgment behind. It’ll come to me when it’s meant to. And that’s just fine.

The Leave One Bite Challenge

I'm eating less, almost never snacking, and very rarely eating to the point of feeling overly full. I think these are pretty good accomplishments for having been at IE for less than two months! The one thing I am struggling with, though, is stopping at satisfied. I still want to clean my plate.

For the most part, I've been dealing with this by just taking small portions so that I can clean my plate and not yet be full. It helps me realize how little it sometimes takes to reach that satisfied level. This works great when I'm at home and have control over what I'm served. It doesn't work so well when I eat out and get big portions. And I eat out a lot.

On the bright side, I'm definitely ordering less food than I used to, so I'm still not eating excessive amounts. But I do know that I can almost always stop and be satisfied before I finish, but I never do. I did it today. Had a hectic day of back to back meetings at work. As a result, I couldn't get away to get lunch until almost 3:00. By then, I was pretty hungry. I went to a favorite little sandwich shop and got a BBQ chicken sandwich, a bag of Sun Chips, and a soda. About three quarters through the sandwich, I knew that I should stop. But, man, was it tasty!! So I finished it. And the chips and the soda. And I was definitely full. Not stuffed. But quite full. I haven't eaten since, which I suppose is one good thing because in the past, I still would have had some candy afterwards and come home and had a snack or dinner. So, I'll take progress where I can find it. But I still want to work on stopping at satisfied.

So here's the challenge for the next week. I will leave at least one bite on my plate at every meal. I can do that. I know I can. And we'll move on from there.

Here’s a Novel Idea; Go To Bed!

I’m a night owl. Always have been. Given the option, I prefer to stay up until midnight and sleep soundly until 9:30 or 10:00 (when I was a teen, it would have been more like stay up until 3:00 and sleep until noon!). Add to that the fact that I routinely get home from work at 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. and that a girl likes to wind down, have something to eat, surf the net a bit, and perhaps catch up on a little tv, and it means that my usual bedtime is about 11:15, after The Daily Show monologue.

Unfortunately, I have to rise and shine by 6:00 a.m. to get to work on time. And occasionally, if I’m being really “good,” I get up at 4:30 in order to get to the gym for a 5:00 a.m. workout. And you know what that adds up to? Yeah, you guessed it. I’m chronically sleep deprived. And we’ve all heard about the studies that say one of the reasons people overeat is because they’re tired. I don’t think I make that a habit, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do it. Though for me it usually takes the form of needing a coffee to wake up and then, as long as I’m at the coffee shop anyway, getting the tasty looking mega muffin or pastry to go along with it!

So, the other night, I was sitting around, and it was about 9:30. I’d finished surfing the net and there just didn’t seem to be much on tv that I was interested in watching. As I was scrolling through the channels for the third or fourth time and thinking about whether I should watch one of the shows in my TiVo backlog, all of a sudden it occurred to me. Hey! Go to bed!! I was tired. I don’t always feel tired, or at least I don’t always realize how tired I am. But this night, I actually did feel tired. And I was actually struggling to find something interesting to do, but going to bed just wasn’t something that naturally occurred to me. Crazy!

Well, I’m glad to report that I did, in fact, go to bed. But I know that in order to routinely feel better in many different ways, one of the things I need to do is get more sleep every night, not just once in a while. But it’s hard. I’ve tried it before and sometimes it literally feels like I have to get home from work and just put on my pajamas and climb into bed in order to get it done. And that’s kind of weird. Of course, working more reasonable hours would help. But that’s hard, too, for many reasons, some of which are within my control and some of which are not. This is another thing I need to work on over the course of the year because I know that eating intuitively is just one aspect of getting healthier and feeling better, overall. Getting more balance in my life, which includes working less and sleeping more, will be key. I’m trying. It’s just another baby step to add to the list.

Check Out the Eat. Move. Love. Project!

An awesome idea to spread the word about intuitive eating. Stop by and check it out and become a Facebook friend!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eat-Move-Love/129256113778297

Thanks, Latoya, You rock!

Recognizing When Bingeing is an Excuse and How it Affects Me

A week ago, I started reading Women, Food, and God (WFG). For reasons that are not at all clear to me, the first third of the book – The Principles – was rather unsettling and I kept finding myself in the kitchen, unconsciously snacking on whatever was handy. But as I moved through the book, it actually stopped being unsettling and started to be a real revelation. I could not have related more to just about every word on every page. And yet, the overeating did not stop. Over the course of the week, I over-indulged in every little thing my heart desired, whenever I wanted it. Bowl after bowl of cereal, handfuls of salted cashews, burgers and fries, ice cream, chocolate, sodas with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you name it. It wasn’t a binge in the sense of eating excessive amounts of food until I felt sick (which I have done, btw), but it was, in the sense that every meal was an opportunity to eat more than I knew I needed, even if it wasn’t to the point of discomfort. It was also a binge in the sense that I had complete disregard for nutrition. By Tuesday, I knew that being unsettled by WFG was nothing more than an excuse. I wasn’t actually even unsettled anymore! I could have stopped, but I just didn’t want to, and so I didn’t.

But I did pay the price. By Thursday, every time I sat down for more than a few minutes, my knees would get achy and creaky and it would be painful to get going again. All that sugar and HFC (and who knows what else!) was almost certainly causing inflammation in my joints. And with that, I was finally through with my excuses and tired of walking around like I was 90. And so, I got back to eating the way I know my body wants me to. Back to honoring my hunger and my nutritional needs. Starting with a trip to the farmers market on Saturday morning to get some nice fresh organic fruits and veggies.

It may not look like much, but I'm finding that when I am truly eating for hunger, I don't eat that much and I hate to waste things. Especially expensive organic stuff (my local farmers market is all organic. I love California!). I think it will take me a while to figure out how much I really need to buy at the grocery store each week.

In any event, some of that great produce found its way into a wonderfully tasty and good for me blueberry smoothie.

You can make one, too! Here’s the recipe

• 1 c. of apple cider (preferably the freshly pressed, cloudy stuff)
• 1 c. of frozen blueberries
• ¼ c. honey flavored Greek yogurt
• 2 wheatgrass juice ice cubes (or a heaping tsp of green powder – get it at your local health food store)
• 1 heaping T. of psyllium fiber

The amounts are approximations; I tend to just toss stuff in the blender. And you can substitute any kind of juice (or milk or soymilk), fruit, or yogurt. Wheatgrass juice ice cubes and psyllium are optional! LOL. What is key, though, is that the fruit be frozen. It makes the smoothie delicious and slushy without watering it down the way that ice cubes do. This makes one tall glass of smoothie.

After a weekend of good, healthy eating, and honoring my hunger (I even ate most of meals without distractions!), I’m feeling really good and my knees are no longer achy. (I’m pretty sure that fish oil capsules also helped.) I still need to figure out what was driving me to binge. And now that I’ve finished WFG, I plan to go back through it again more slowly and attentively. But for now, I’m happy that I just got over myself and got on with things. It’s a baby step, but a very good one.

So, Who the Heck Am I, Anyway?

Just your average 43-year-old. I don’t have a tragic or traumatic past that I am numbing with food. In fact, I think that my life has been pretty normal. Was it perfect? Of course not. Growing up, we had struggles, shortage of money was a big one and that fuels some of my neuroses these days. But in reality, I don’t think my challenges are that much different than those faced by millions of other people every single day. I’ve almost always struggled with low self-esteem and I’m not sure where that came from, and I don’t even know that it matters. I’m all about moving forward now, not dwelling on the past.

With regard to dieting and weight, I’ve pretty much always felt fat. My first conscious memory of feeling fat was in the second grade. My first conscious memory of trying to restrict food to lose weight was in about sixth grade. There were various attempts here and there throughout high school, though always in secret because I was ashamed of needing to diet. The sad thing is, looking back at old photos, I realize I wasn’t really that fat, at all. A little chubby, sure, probably 10 – 20 pounds depending on the year. But my guess is that it was the kind of chubby that I might have grown out of if I’d learned good self-nurturing habits and self-esteem instead of trying to diet. But, oh well, that’s water under the bridge.

Like most kids that go away to college, I gained weight my freshman year. My freshman 15 was a freshman 20, which I lost in my junior year, but regained in my senior year while stressing out studying for my comprehensive exams. After graduation, the true cycle of dieting, losing and regaining began, with my weight gradually creeping upward for the last 20 years. As of this writing, I’m not sure exactly how much I weigh since I haven’t done so for several weeks. But the last time I stepped on the scale I weighed 233 pounds (I am 5’9”), which is at least not my all time high of 253.

These days, my life is not all that bad, as things go. I am single, relatively financially secure (which I’m incredibly grateful for, given the current economy), and I recognize that I have many blessings. But things could definitely be better. My job is incredibly high stress and my workaholic tendencies don’t help matters much. On an average workday, I leave home at about 6:45 a.m. and don’t get back until about 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. The excessive schedule leaves me exhausted and frustrated, but if I’m honest, I know it also serves as a convenient excuse to not address things I’d rather not.

Finally, I struggle with developing a supportive community around me. I’ve moved across country twice in my life, both times alone and to a place where I didn’t know anyone. I have acquaintances, sure. They’re people that I can chat with at work or have the odd dinner or see a movie with on occasion; but I have not developed any deep friendships. It seems that at this age, people are entrenched in their own lives. They’ve got long established friendships and kids and spouses that they already don’t get to spend enough time with. They’re not looking to create significant new bonds and don’t have the time to do it even if they are. On the one hand, I am fairly introverted (in the Myers-Briggs sense, not in the sense of being shy), so I actually really cherish and need my time alone. As a result, most of the time, I get along fine. On the other hand, as I age, I see what I’m missing. I worry about things like having someone to call if I get sick or need help. I wonder how long it would take for someone to notice I was gone if I ever went missing.

Okay, now we’re venturing into depressing territory and that’s definitely not my intention. I’m actually in a very cheerful mood today! But I think that was necessary because you can’t appreciate progress unless you know where you started. And that’s where I’m starting. While I’m sure there will be introspective times over the next year, this blog is not meant to be all doom and gloom and misery. I’m determined that this is going to be a good year, a phoenix rising from the ashes kind of year. So, onward and upward.

Scale Free Challenge - Phase I

One of my goals for changing my attitudes toward my body is to stop weighing. Prior to starting IE (and actually for the first couple weeks after starting), I was weighing at least once a day and more often two to three times per day. I started gradually cutting back when I started IE, but I want to do even better where that’s concerned. Still, it’s a very hard habit to break, so I’m going to take it in stages. Stage one, one month without weighing. I've actually not stepped on a scale since July 1. How's it been? Not as bad as I thought, but I won't lie, there've been a couple of days when the urge to drag that contraption out from it's hiding place under the bed and see where I stand has been really strong. But so far, I've been able to resist. Can I make it until August 1 without weighing? Well, let’s see….

Here We Go!

July 1, 2010. That was the day I decided to commit fully to this whole intuitive eating (IE) business for one full year. One year to see if this really works, if it will finally help me stop fighting with and hating my body and start living in ways that involve more than what I weigh and what I put in my mouth. I’ve been hating my body, battling low self-esteem, and putting my life on hold for probably 35 years now, give or take. So, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think giving one year to IE is unreasonable. If nothing else, it hardly seems like it can be worse than a very long history of failed diets that are too numerous to mention. So this is the year that I commit to see if I can turn that around, once and for all.

So what will this blog be about? First and foremost, it will be about my journey with intuitive eating. And so in that sense, it will be about food and health. What I eat, when I eat, how I eat, what makes me want to eat when I’m not hungry, which exercises and activities I enjoy and which I dread. I anticipate many challenges along the way, but I hope the good days will outnumber the bad. But I also see it as being about the gaps in my life. The gaps that I’ve been filling with food. So, I will talk about my adventures in the world my broadly. I will express opinions that don’t always have an outlet. I will step outside my comfort zone. I will discover and explore interests that have long been smothered and neglected. I will treat myself with respect. And I will report the results.

In short, for the next year, my goal is that this blog will be about my efforts to come out of my shell and live authentically in every way possible, once and for all. I hope it will be a successful year. I guess we’ll see.