Program Day 46

• Holly, Thanks for your comment. You're so dead on in everything you say. I think (ha - there I go, thinking again...) that my work is to really be able to trust my body and ground my energy and my focus in my body and less so in my mind. I am starting to learn that. If the ultimate goal is listening to my body, then the half-way goal is to be able to identify who is calling the shots - mind or body. It really is amazing that our bodies know what they want. It's also amazing that our bodies don't need the "perfect" intake in order to be able to be okay - they can handle variety, fluctuation, etc. And, if we mess up listening to them and give them "too much " or "too little" or whatever one day, the body won't freak out instantly. The body is pretty patient with us if you think about it. That said, the body will only hold out for so long and we need to take care of it - by doing our best to listen to it and give it what we know to be at least enough. But, Holly, I like what you said about just going for it. I have these little sayings in my head that help. One of them is "Just Begin" (referring to just pick up the fork and take the first bite). Another one is "Just eat it and discuss later" (meaning, eat it and then, later, I can talk with RD a/b if it was ok to eat it). I think you have given me another saying "Just go for it."

• Today at my little milestone ceremony (from going from PHP to IOP), so many people told me they appreciated my insight and that my thinking is interesting and helpful... but I need to learn when to turn off my freaking mind when it comes to this. One girl said, "If you could think your way out of this, you'd have been golden long ago." So true. People said other nice things too, but I don't feel like writing them.

• I started reading the book Jane suggested - lotsa good stuff in there that I will write about later.

• 
  

• I don't feel like writing about the day. Instead, I'll just copy and past my daily check in email to Tracy.

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for your e'mail. You asked how the day went. I'm not sure. I followed my meal plan, but I don't think that I listened to my body. I did eat my meal plan - 100%, but I really don't know if that was the right thing to do or not b/c I'm not so sure my body wanted all the food today.

Recently, I've decided that instead of breaking the plan, I will follow through on the plan and just take note of the urge to break the plan and discuss it with you later. So that's what I did today. Every time I wanted to skip something b/c I thought I had a good reason (I was sooo far from hungry), I just said to myself, "Just eat it and talk with Tracy about it later to see if it would have been okay to skip it." I wasn't anxious about eating. I was able to keep myself in the present and stop myself from getting caught up in what I will eat or what I did eat. I did actually calorie guesstimate and get to above X calories, but, for some reason, I didn't even care. Sometimes I had this thought that eating would make me get fat, but I pretty easily combated that with "hasn't happened yet. nothing has gotten out of control weight-wise yet. don't jump to conclusions about what will happen." It's really helpful that, at this stage in this process for me, I really do have an accurate view of what an adult female body "is allowed" (bad word choice) to weigh. I no longer feel confined to low weights, and I am accepting of much wider range of weights. I shouldn't even be talking about this, I really am learning it's not about the weight as much as I had previously thought.

Honestly, I didn't even want my snacks or my lunch or dinner; I just ate them b/c I really wanted to commit to eating 100% of everything - I've had the best food this week by far - more so than any other week at the program. I've really been eating my MP, with variety, by using the index cards. I'm not always super noticeably hungry before my snacks, but I am beginning to notice mild hunger before snacks - like, not empty stomach hunger, but like the feeling that I just want a little something. But, today, it's not just that I wasn't hungry, it's that I was quite full all day, and also pretty bloated (I always feel bloated on day 2 of my period, which is today).

My body was full - like REALLY full - noticeably more than normal - all day - but I ate my meals and snacks anyway. Was that the right thing to do? Maybe I really should have eaten less than my meal plan b/c I wasn't as hungry?

Also, my legs really wanted some movement - but I didn't exercise or really do anything active. Was that okay? Should I have broken my exercise plan? Should I have chosen to do some more active activity?

Also, I did something that would make you really happy today. At a.m. snack at program today, I told the staff that I was going to increase my snack and add on to make it bigger so that it was closer to "breakfast sized" since I hadn't yet eaten my breakfast. (And I knew a.m. snack is less than you would say is appropriate for a breakfast). So, even though every other client was having snack sized things, I had extra with my snack so that it was closer to a breakfast.

Thanks so much!

Laura