A New Low - in a Good Way!!

Hello Readers

I've hit a new low! I'm now the lowest weight I've been in 28 years and I'm finally - finally! - under my next major number! I'm so pleased and a little bit proud of myself.  By the way, the reason I don't  publish the numbers is because, strangely, I don't want this blog to be just about that ( I will post them at the end of my journey, probably). We are all so much more than the numbers on the scale, and yet we all inevitably define ourselves by that.  Wouldn't it be marvellous if weight, size, shape, gender, colour, race, religion, sexuality all became irrelevant, and it all became about who you are at your core?  Utopian and naive, I know, but can you imagine how liberating it would be?  How freeing?  Part of my original reason of wanting to start a blog was because I wanted to reach out to others, to connect.  And because I wanted to have a reason to write regularly, as I find it incredibly cathartic.  Writing something down makes it easier to 'see' what's going on and to put it in the wider perspective.  To give my thoughts context, I suppose. The act of writing gives me clarity. 

Even though it is the early hours of the morning here in England, it is technically the first of June, so today, I am recommencing Eating Clean - this means.....planning.  I'm not great at sitting down and planning meals.  Mainly because I'm genuinely not that interested in food.  Now, I know this may seem a little bit ironic for someone who had reached such a massive weight, but, over the last few years, I have been on a drug called exenatide (for diabetes) and because of the way it works, it slows down how your body processes food and drinks.  The upshot of this is that I rarely feel hunger.  Combine this with living in my own, and not seeing the point in cooking....can you see where I'm going with this?

However, I know that Eating Clean improves my health, gives me more energy, makes my skin look better and, best of all, balances my blood sugars.  You'd think this would be a no brainer, right?  Wrong; I just find it incredibly difficult to sit down and plan a menu.  I've tried all sorts of ways to do it - a few days at a time, a full week, a rough plan for a month, one day at a time - and I just struggle.  I think that it's the commitment.  I know that people who write down their goals are more than 80% more likely to achieve them.  I've come to think that I have an inherent lack of faith in my ability to carry out the planned menu, a lack of belief in myself.  I always leave it too late to start cooking, I find meal prep boring and I usually end up throwing away what I've bought, which, in this day and age of more and more people relying on food banks and soup kitchens is disgraceful, if not obscene.

So, I've come to a decision.  I have to quit stalling, quit moaning and quit delaying and just get on with it.  The other irony is that I really believe in Eating Clean; I am currently doing a home study course in nutrition, and I've always been a proponent of food being what our bodies are built with; we literally are what we eat.

I remember being about 17 and getting magazines imported from the USA (Muscle and Fitness Hers and that sort of thing), because you just couldn't buy them here, and those magazines were so advanced on nutrition and exercise.  I can't begin to tell you how educated I am on these subjects, but I have not so far put them consistently into practice.  That's why the Eat Clean movement is so important to me and for me - the availability of information now is mind-blowing, and it has simplified all of that early information and made it accessible.  The diagnosis of IBS kicked my butt to an extent, but I don't want to go completely grain-free. I don't think I could go Paleo, for example.  However, I do believe that over 80 per cent of all illness can be attributed to lifestyle, specifically what we choose to feed ourselves.

June 1st - I first started Eating Clean in June last year, so it seems a good time to fully commit, on my one year anniversary, to a lifestyle of supporting and caring for myself by nourishing myself properly.  And that means...planning.  And food prep - I'm intending to do it once or twice a week.  Surely that will make it more achievable??

How do you plan?  What do you do?  I'd love to hear.

Much love to you and yours,

Carol B
xxx

A Bit of Meandering...

Hello Reader

It has been a Bank Holiday weekend this weekend in the UK. That means we get Monday off, making it a long weekend.   My one goal this weekend was to make a start on the garden....

For those with partners, spouses, children etc, Bank Holidays are great. For those of us who are single, but all our friends are married with kids etc, this is not so good.  In fact, it can get pretty lonely and dull.

However, I have made sure that I've done something productive each day, and something each day for me to enjoy. Of course there have been many, many cups of tea drunk!  And, I've enjoyed having the time to just....be. To lay with my beloved cat and watch the clouds go by, listening to him purr, as I scratch his ears.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever meet someone that I really want to be with, that wants to be with me.  Who knows?  Although I always felt that I wouldn't get married, I didn't think I would grow old single.  Luckily, I have good friends (even the married ones!) and a loving family, a roof over my head and food in the fridge.  All in all; Pretty Damn Blessed.

I forgot to get weighed this weekend, so I don't know where I'm at on the scale. However, my clothes are feeling looser.  I have been faffing around and not eating well and I seriously cannot remember the last time I exercised.

One of my goals this year was to lose seven stones.  I'm nowehere on track with that, but if I make changes now I can be closer to my target than if I don't start.

I suffer quite badly with perfectionismitis.  This means that if I am not 100 % perfect in achieving something, I give up.  You will know if you have read my blog before that I am a keen follower of The Flylady (www.flylady.net), and she has taught me that there is no such thing as perfectionism, and that housework done incorrectly still blesses your home.  I need to start expanding this concept to other things; at the moment I expect myself to Eat Clean 100 % and start exercising daily for an hour.  This approach is clearly not working for me AT ALL.  So, for the remainder of this week, I'm going to try to eat something healthy at each meal and exercise for 15 minutes each day.  Just gentle movement. Nothing mental.  I've noticed since Christmas that I am getting more and more stiff each day - I actually feel like I'm seizing up!  Well, of course I am because I'm not moving!!

So, that's the plan.  Eating a bit better and moving a bit more.  I'll let you know how I got on.  the 'good' thing is that people have started noticing I'm losing weight.  I actually find this a little disturbing, because I don't know how to handle the praise or the recognition.  So, I'm just saying thank you and moving the conversation on.  

I hope you have a good week and move a little closer to your goals.

Much love to you and yours,

Carol B
xx
ps I didn't do the garden!

Who's 'Making' You Angry?

Dear Reader

It amuses me writing that, because I know I have no readers!!

Anyhoo, today's post may be a little controversial and not like the subjects I normally blog about.

I had a conversation with one of my sisters the other day, in the car, on the way to lunch in a lovely little village near where we live.  My sister (whom I'm really close to) was really angry over something my other sister (whom I'm not close to) had done, and she started to have a rant in the car about it. Again. From that one word, you will appreciate that this is not the first time my eldest sister's actions had caused distress to my middle sister, and not the first time I'd listened to her.

This was my response; 'And?'

Naturally, this was not the response my sister wanted.  She wanted me to be as outraged as she was. I said to her something that I think we all need to bear in mind sometimes;

We cannot control the actions, thoughts or feelings of others.  We can only control those things in ourselves, by the choices we make.

So, I said, quite calmly 'If you choose to continue to get mad about something that will never change, then that is your choice.  No-one is making you feel this but you.  You will never change the way our sister is; she is what she is.  Maybe she gets some perverse pleasure out of annoying you, maybe she doesn't, but that is irrelevant.  The only person who this has any negative impact on is you.  So you can either continue to moan and get mad, or you can choose to let it annoy you for five to ten minutes then let it go, and get on with your life. Choose to control your feelings, choose to control your responses.  The only person who has control over your feelings is you.'

This, of course, does not just apply to siblings, or negative situations.  How many times do we decline to take advantage of situations, or say yes to opportunities because of how others 'make' us feel about ourselves?  I am especially guilty of this.  But surely, the best of life comes from just that?  Being open, being spontaneous, seeing life as what it is; an incredible gift?

I believe that if we choose to have a more positive outlook (bear with me - I'm not going all Pollyanna), we will see more positive things in our lives.  You know that experiment of 'don't look at blue cars', and then all you can see is blue cars?  Similarly, I think if we look for the beautiful moments in our daily lives, and everyone has them, then we will see more of them.  One of mine today was seeing a particularly fat, fluffy bee feeding in my garden.  It was like a cartoon bee, it was so cute.

I know that this may all seem a bit flaky, but surely, it can't hurt to try?  Choose your feelings and choose what you focus on.

Much love to you and yours

Carol