Being Kind to Myself
Today I did 21 minutes on the elliptical at a good clip, made a nice dinner and did about a half hour of yoga this evening.
I think I've also discovered a weakness in my previous weight loss attempts. I am hard on myself. I have been punishing myself with being fat and unhappy. I was mad at myself for having gained weight in the first place and my unrelenting self criticism just helped me pack on more weight. This has got to stop. Being fat makes me eat junk and eating junk makes me feel sad...which makes me eat more. Not a productive cycle.
So I am also trying to be kinder to myself. Occasionally I still beat myself up or catch my reflection and make a disapproving face at myself but I'm trying just to be NICER. So today after my workout I took a bath in our new jacuzzi tub and used a fancy and amazing smelling bath bomb Ryan got me from Lush while listening to NPR. (That's right, a bath with Epsom salt and listening to Diane Rehm show. Too bad I have a husband or I'd be everyone's weird 60 year old aunt.)
Next on my list is to try and stop viewing food through such an emotional lense. A few months ago I got really terrible food poisoning. The sickest I'd be in forever. I knew I needed to eat but didn't feel good and knew the chances were I'd throw up most food so what was the point? My habit became looking the in the fridge to figure out what I could eat the least of to stay alive. I just needed to fuel myself up so I could try and get better. After a few days I remember thinking: "Huh. I wonder if this is how skinny people feel about food?"
Like, what is the minimum amount of food I need to ingest in order to feel healthy and full and do my daily activities? That seems crazy to me. My thought process is usually more like "How many brownies do I have to wrap my sadness in to cause it to sink to the bottom of my stomach where I can't feel it?" Not ideal.