I'm still breathing

I want to check in since it's been awhile.  All is well - this morning I was down another 2 lbs from last week and am delighted about that.  I was a nice round (no pun intended but a good one, yes?) 208 this morning.  My week wasn't perfect but it was much better.  I've been doing a sort of modified WW, keeping a lower carb emphasis when snacking or eating out.  I was home alone this weekend and thus it was easy to just have simple meals.  I've been getting a lot of good exercise, between walking, a Pilates DVD, and occasional riding an exercise bike in the Physical Therapy room at work.

Last time I posted I talked about tracking my thoughts and particularly FEELINGS when a food thought found it's way into my gray matter - which on some days is hourly!  I haven't been writing the feelings, but I have been stopping and thinking about my inner landscape and what's brewing therein.  Just pausing and telling myself that I can revisit the thought of food (and the kitchen) in 10 minutes has been helping a lot.

Seems a craving does have a beginning, a middle and an end.  If I immediately grab food and shove it in at the first instant a craving or desire to eat hits, I miss the rest of the show...don't get to experience the middle of the craving, whatever it may be, and certainly don't get to the end (as in the craving passes) because by shoving in food, the craving and it's driving force (feeling?) are blighted and gone to my conscious mind.  I've actually had a few times of doing the pause and promising my inner binge-er that in 10 minutes we can revisit the food thought if necessary, where revisiting the food thought doesn't happen because I allow myself to discover the feeling, and either talk about it with a friend or just contemplate it for awhile.

I have no delusion that this period of grace will last, but I'm eternally grateful for it right now.  Each day I try something new and find it works - even if it only works 1/2 the time, there is interior change and deepening awareness.  I've been at some despairing places in the last 6 months thinking I didn't really have the desire to get some weight off...I think that despair was generated by a deeper fear that "nothing will work for me" and "this is hopeless".  Intellectually I know that isn't true, but settling into despair enabled me to just wallow and eat.  That phase seems to have passed, and I'm again optimistic about the possibility of real change.

That's it for now.  We leave Friday for our trip to California and I'm SOOOOO excited!!  Hubby is on a business trip until Thursday evening, but tonight our youngest son who was visiting his sister in the Dominican Republic will be arriving back in Philly.  I can't wait to see him.  Things are good - peaceful and pleasant.  I'll take that anyday.