My friends, changes are rarely made in a day. I am very hard on myself and am learning self-kindness. It's hard being a woman in a society that throws a mix of advertisements that include beautiful, tall, thin women with symmetrical faces along with images of overly processed junk foods. Really? What are we supposed to do with those messages?
The first step is awareness. I ditched T.V. and feel better for it. And still, advertisements are EVERYWHERE. They come in the mail, on the Internet, signs as I drive along minding my own business. I think that it doesn't affect me but yet, sometimes, I wish I were a few inches taller and a few pounds lighter. When I take a closer look at these ads I see clever marketing in which a lot of time, research, and money has been spent.
I may be a bit pessimistic but I look at it like this: The ads are there to sell us things to adorn our bodies and images, telling us that we should look a certain way if we want to be popular within a specific type of group we think is cool, so then we get depressed and the junk food is there to make us feel so good that it washes our troubles away, then we get so sick that the pharmaceutical companies keep us alive by making us dependent on their drugs, and since life isn't perfect let's all just sit on our bums watch football and post stuff on Facebook. When all in stride, enjoying clothing, junk food, football, Facebook, etc. is great and everyone is entitled to their joys. Medications are meant to help very sick people and for that matter I respect it. What I am saying is be aware of allowing yourself to get caught in the psychological trap of finding happiness through things that don't really serve your true self.
Second, I work hard at finding what inspires me. I love God, my family, friends, people in general, art, food, and fitness. Yes, I love food! I've chosen to enjoy it rather than allowing it to control my life. I've learned that I can't control life by controlling my image, food, exercise, and even others. Every time I've tried to do something like that it backfires. Such as my teenage years and early 20's when I thought it was clever to eat very little food. I spent almost a decade being hungry and thinking only of food. My mind would get fuzzy from lack of sugars and my blood pressure went up. Then I spent the latter half of my 20's deciding I would never starve myself again so all I did was binge, developing high cholesterol while losing a lot of physical strength.
Then I had kids and that straightened me up. I asked myself, am I as healthy as I need to be for them? What am I teaching them? Do I know better? The answers hit me in the face and there is no turning back.
Do I regress? Yes! What have I been eating this holiday season? Tons of crap!!! And I feel like crap. I am an average, American woman. I feel no shame in that but what I do feel is led to getting back on my path to health.
My current plan is to clean up my diet. Am I "going" on a diet? NO. A short term diet is a very bad idea. Here is the definition of diet, "the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"". What I am talking about is changing my eating habits. The new year is as good of time as any to get started. Tomorrow is the last day of cookies, cream, sugars, white breads, crackers, chips, alcohol, and a ton of other overly processed foods. I am going to look for a good, healthy fast and see it through. It'll be a part of my daily journal.
Today's Menu
Coffee with cream and honey
Toast with mayo, avocado, and egg
Lunch
Three cookies
Dinner
One homemade, organic beef meatball in red sauce. Tons of cookies and chips with cream cheese dips.
Snacks and Drinks
Lemon water
Tea
Cookies
Grapes
Workout
Centurgy class
Cleaning the house and running around after three small children = Never sitting down during the day.
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