First, please let me encourage you to visit Win, Lose, or Blog and view the stats for week four's weigh-in! Please, please take the time to go and cheer these ladies on in their pursuit of good health! Second, please let me share that Two Belles, Four Biceps and the Pursuit of Fitness was kind enough to ask me, me, to do a guest post! That's kinda humbling, and that's a lot of pleases! LOL!
So I am reading two books now and have ordered another. I am still enjoying AFTER (the before & after), and I think the Karen and I seem to be alike in personality and feelings, and she's experienced some of the alternative therapies I've been interested in for some time. I am looking forward to practicing changing some of my thoughts to more positive ideas with my usual Christian quirkiness, i.e. adding some scripture-based affirmations regularly. This book is like experiencing and taking the Living Lighter class, but at home for only the price of the book! :)
Dr. J of Calorie Lab's Dr. J will see you now suggested I read The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler. (He has a fabu blog, btw!) I found a copy at the library and am already greatly enjoying the little bit I've read! The subject matter has to do with that constant desire for the party in your mouth, and our awesome librarian says it's a popular title. :)
Then today I read Charlotte's recommendation for eating intuitively by Geneen Roth, When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair: 50 Ways to Feel Thin, Gorgeous, and Happy (When You Feel Anything But). I can take a hint, LORD, and do not find it just a coincidence that all of these are coming at me at once! It's such a great price at $3.98 that yeah, I ordered a copy. I see my library has a few other books by her that I will be checking out in the future!
I'm sure by now you can guess what direction I'm traveling in, and yeah, I'm very scared to give up calorie-counting. I know counting calories works! But for some reason I'm not doing it. I don't want to do it. I'm dreading each day's thoughts being centered around food, because that becomes my all-day focus. I just want to live and take the spotlight off of edibles for a time, though always working towards making healthier choices. I have been enjoying becoming more active and know I can get the exercise part of it all! But I want to enjoy faith and prayer and family and the more important things of life. I don't want to feel so self-centered all the time~does that make sense?
Anyway, I can tell you that I did weigh-in on my home scale. Now I know you're missing photos of that bright and shiny mall scale, so I hope to bring that back! But for now I found I am up about 3 pounds. That's really not too bad considering how long I stayed away from weighing. Here's to becoming a loser again! :)
Pushin' through the pain!
~Pauline~
So I came back to make mention of Anne at Carb Tripper, as she left me an intuitive eating comment a while back. I'm pretty sure I told her it would never happen. NEVER HAPPEN! :) You can tell me you told me so if ya wanna, Anne...
Congrats :)
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out some of those books you mentioned.
(I can't see the light blue words well enough to read them, but I think I got the gist of this post, anyway.)
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean by not wanting your life to be focused on all things weight loss. If you've read any of my posts in the last month, you know that. :)
I have to say that I tried the whole intuitive eating thing...several times...and it made me MORE focused on food! I was a neuritic mess. instead of counting cals and ending it, intuitive eating went on forever with "Am I hungry? Am I hungry enough to eat? Why isn't my stomach growling if I'm hungry? Maybe I'm not really hungry." Then when I'd finally eat, it was: "Am I almost full? Just to full? Just past full?"
I had no idea the answers to those questions. It was nuts. I hope it works better for you! Some people love it.
I've counted calories for so long that I'm now able to know what and how much to eat w/out calorie agony. It's the rest of the agony that I have to still get past. chuckle. groan.
Good luck.
Deb
You are reading some great books! I think everyone has to find what works for them. I am like Deb - i know basically what I am taking in, I use portion control, I know the stats of my food... this works for me... I think some of it my be intuitive but I always keep the nutritional stats of food & the portion size close at hand - especially as I have aged & had to change things a lot. I still weigh every day & my clothes definitely tell me if something is off!
ReplyDeleteI am so right there with you Pauline! I am sick to death of thinking about food. I do not want to have to think about every bite, count calories or any of that stuff. I just want to learn correct portion sizes, and make better choices. I didn't know it had a name though when I made that decision.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I understand what you mean about making your focus on prayer and your family. That's part of why I cut back on blogging. There was too much focus on myself.
Thanks for sharing the book with us.Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the book recommendations, I love to read and I can always use books to help me figure out this food stuff! I understand about not wanting to think about food all the time. You have to when you're trying to lose weight, but it's hard. Much easier to just live your life and not think about it!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the mention, Pauline! Use portion control, low fat eating, and exercise if you get frustrated with counting calories. Then adjust the portions as you get better at it by the results you have. That's the way I do it, and everyone who does apply this gets a good result. Over time, as you make better food choices it becomes a very good lifestyle.
ReplyDeletePS I do not think Intuitive eating is a good plan to start with. 1) It really works better after you have established a good normal baseline eating behavior, and 2) I love Oprah, and have you seen her since she went Intuitive?? In my opinion, he hasn't learned anything about food addiction.
ReplyDelete