Happy Fall, Y'all!

Late October in Texas means the most amazing weather in the entire world. The quintessential perfect days. Light breeze, blue skies, jacketed mornings and warm afternoons. I'm in HEAVEN! Today we collected eggs from the chickens:

Made breakfast with those eggs and fed the leftovers back to the chickens (wrong, I know) 

And we harvested some of our sweet potato crop:

It's so blissful I'm actually forgetting about the weird ass health stuff that I'll ruminate on at a later date. 

Happy Fall!

What Success Really Looks Like

 

Today, this is coming to mind. I've had a really, really, REALLY hard year that looks a lot like this, except in reality I've looped back to before the starting point on multiple occasions.  Right now I'm somewhere in the bottom of the scribble in the "oh, look, I feel like hell again" intertwinement.  

My biggest discovery of this year: Health is JUST AS MUCH mental as it is physical.  I have done everything right and my weight hasn't budged because my brain isn't in the right place.  I have done everything wrong and I just plummet deeper into the Abyss of Craptastic. I seem to be able to only work on one thing at a time.  When I spend my days obsessing over what I'm going to make for meals, what is going in my mouth, etc, I stop enjoying my day, which raises cortisol and makes me grumpy and then it doesn't matter WHAT I'm eating.  My body thinks that something bad is happening and it stores my delicious salad nicoise as fat.  Oh, evolution, you rat bastard.  

This fall I enrolled in Marc David's Institute for the Psychology of Eating certification program.  He suggests that you say to hell with obsessing over the food and work on your mental state first.  I've really been trying.  I started some meditation, getting regular massages, deep breathing, etc., and I really DO feel a lot less stressed!  Right now I'm reading The Slow Down Diet, which promotes deep breathing while eating, enjoying the food that you put in your mouth and not rushing through it.  He says that if you rush through a meal, your mind does not process that you've eaten and you're prone to overeat.  Not necessarily because you're stressed or nervous or eating to fill a void, but just because your brain never processed that meal.  You didn't relish in it.  Here's something I also do: if I eat something I'm not supposed to, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I rush it down and then spend hours obsessing over it.  He suggests eating it slowly, enjoying it, and then letting go of it.  Acknowledge that you ate it, enjoyed it, and move on.  And guess what? I did just that!  And it was SO liberating!  And I only wanted HALF of it!  I put it on a plate and sat down at the table and had it with whole milk, like I was 2 years old again, and I loved it.  And then I moved on.  And that's HUGE for me.  

I'd like to keep working on the mental aspect only, because I honestly know what to put in my face.  I can make nourishing meals like a mofo.  It's my brain that has to heal and the relationship I have with that food that needs to be fixed.  And maybe it's as easy as not pretending that getting your dinner down is an Olympic sport?  Maybe the SLOWEST eater wins?  That's my new game.  Whoever finishes dinner last is the winner.