You can see that my posts have been less frequent these last few days. And I can say that today, day 27, was not a very good food day. I like the shakes a LOT more when they are cold, icy, and blended is even better. This makes the taking with harder when I'm not going to be in a place that has ice, a blender etc. So, today I had a meeting and the foods were croissant sandwiches, cookies, potato chips and pasta salad. boo! Usually I'm in places where there is at least something that is salvageable. My compromise was to have a half of the sandwich and bypass the rest of the food...there were veggies and protein at least. I left the rest!!! Then tonight I took a prospective elder to dinner. That was both easier and more difficult. Had a protein and left half. The salad had a few beets but mostly arugula (love it!) and water. Okay, so maybe today wasn't really so bad.
Tomorrow is definitely not my last day. I am going to strive to be in control of food, and not let it control me. I will deal with my emotions (happy, sad, depressed, bored, busy, celebratory) BEFORE I eat!!!! I'll also say a prayer before I eat anything.
On a side bar, I had a marvelous experience on Tuesday morning. A friend invited me to his advanced Buddhist meditation time up at Buddha Gate Monastery in Lafayette. WOW! I have to say the ritual and mantra chant were weird to me, but the space to be in communal silence, total silence, for 30 minutes was completely amazing. My friend told me I could sit on the side, but I decided I would challenge myself to sit on the floor, cross legged and even do the prostration. I simple prayed my own prayers. Funny thing, though, the end of the chant is "Gate gate, para gate, parasamgate, Boddhi Svaha" The funny thing is that when I was in Chamber Choir at LOPC, we sang a song with this Buddhist chant. It made me giggle inside and I found it helpful to use those words that mean nothing to me to keep myself from doing the wandering mind, make a grocery list instead of being still. I was so peaceful and calm and really felt in a zone....however, my big mistake was to get in my car and glance at my cell phone. I now know that anytime I do anything like this, I should wait 30 more minutes before jumping back into the techno world....it was an emergency call about an auto accident and 4 young people related to my church community. I know my blood pressure soared at that moment and the Zen (both literal and figurative) leaped out of me in an instant. Sigh. It is soooooo difficult to stay centered. Nonetheless, I was refreshed, renewed and reenergized, if only for a few fleeting moments!
2 comments:
Gail, I really admire you for sticking with this diet, and I'm impressed with your determination to continue to stay with it! It seems like that might be difficult to do with the holidays coming on. That is always a hard time of the year to try to diet. Please continue on with your posts, and let us know how it is going for you, especially regarding all the holiday food temptations!
Are there any particular foods that you eat only at the holidays that you will be giving up this year? Or will you indulge in a little nibble... I'm curious as to the best way to handle that predicament.
I have been trying to cut back on my sugar intake (not eliminate) and I have found that I can handle the reduction. I do know that I don't deal with no-sugar well at all. Are you past the sugar cravings, or are they still there?
I'm pass sugar cravings per se. It's more about what is in sight that seems like it would be really good. Holidays are actually not my hardest time. I don't absolutely love all the holiday foods. Drinks, now that may be an issue! I do have some great subs though....caramel rice crackers oh, and Blue Diamond has these AWESOME rice crackers in different flavors. They are 130 calories for 16 small (ritz size) round crackers. I don't even need that many to cut the carb/salt craving.
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