The one thing I AM happy to report, even in my blogging absence, is that I've still been practicing what I preached in my last few posts and have spent BARELY ANY time obsessing, focusing or lamenting on weight loss or any lack thereof. It was most noticeable last week, where we spent most of our time on the beach during Scott's (BLESSED AND TIMELY!) vacation. Normally I would have spent the whole week with a lot of running commentary through my head of "ugh, I feel so gross, I hate the way I look, NEXT YEAR I'm gonna look SO much better"...etc, etc. You know the drill, I'm sure. Instead, I only had two fleeting moments of realizing how I had hardly ZERO of those moment the whole week and how liberating that felt. That instead of spending SOVERYMUCH of my time berating myself and beating myself up over 'that one last bite' or 'why did I eat that?? Look what I've done to myself!' Instead, I just...GASP....lived life and didn't worry about it. How novel. I just kinda looked around and said "who are these imaginary people that I'm trying to impress with the size of my swimsuit? And if those people ARE judging me...do I really care??" So far the answer has come back with a resounding "HELL NO." I JUST DO. NOT. care. And it feels awesome.
I've weighed myself exactly 2 times in as many months: the beginning of July & again at the beginning of August, solely just as a gauge and this has nearly STOPPED all of my food/weight obsession 10 fold. Ironically, not only did I not obsess about weight loss at the beach, but we barely even thought about food much last week. Sure, we had a couple ice cream splurges and our lunches were bigger than the usual salad, but for the most part...we honestly didn't think much about food at all. And believe me, I WANTED those chorizo nachos from the boardwalk, but the IDEA of it sounded like more fun than actually HAVING them, ya know what I mean?
That being said, there are definitely weeks I notice that I'm more indulgent, and ya know what I do the very next week? Just get back into it, paying more attention to how I FEEL when I eat well vs. berating myself for 'eating bad.' I know I still have a long way to go with breaking down all of the mental scaffolding I've put up over the last years, but it's definitely progress. It's definitely more 'fun' to eat well to feel good vs. panicking about every bite that might show up on the scale.
The other 'irony' has been that as soon as I wrote about all of the exercises I love, I actually started doing a lot more routines working on muscle/squats/lunges/etc. I mostly keep it to those quick, 20-ish minute workouts from Tone it Up MOST days of the week and am completely OBSESSED with this one. I probably attack that one about 3-4 times a week and I've FELT the difference in my tone VERY quickly. And who doesn't like quick results?? I just play the video on my phone and do the exercises while I'm catching up on TV. Gosh...I sorta hate myself for sounding so millenial there, but whatever works and gets ya up & movin is A-OK in my book.
So, I just thought I'd pop in for a quick check-in and let you know my silence has NOT been based on having a tough time (for once!) but rather not focusing on the 'struggle' lately. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts to share with you soon. The photo above stirred a lot of thoughts regarding HOW MUCH TIME we spend basing life on CALORIES. Now that I've stepped back a bit, a lot is hitting me at once regarding how we get to that place. I'm sure I'll be sharing more with you soon.
I'll also be sharing another post for my Collingswood Farmer's Market recipe project! I'm bringin back an oldie but goodie to use up our late summer veggies.
And how bout even I am just SONOTREADY to give up Summer 2016 just yet?? I'm sure about 97% of this has to do with the fact that Katie is starting preschool next week (I. CAN. NOT!), or that I've just REALLY embraced ALLTHETHINGS this year...EVEN with our OUT OF CONTROL temperatures. It DID make me giddy to have a few days/nights with the windows open last week from the cooler temperatures, but I want to really embrace this 'last week' as much as I can....although I surely be breakin out all those great orange-colored items VERY soon.
OK...that's enough rambling sentences for one day! Have a good one.
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As always...thanks for reading!
