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Normally, days and days of gray winter make me feel cooped up, restless, cabin-feverish, as I've blogged about before. But Thursday, I looked at the driving snowstorm outside my window, and I felt happily secretive. It seemed very appropriate to be cooped up inside while God and I accomplish a transformation - like a caterpillar hard at work inside a cocoon. Nobody else knows what's going on inside my house, but I do!
I grinned to myself, and I felt my eyes crinkle up. Thursday marked a week since I logged in to SparkPeople and began being purposeful about what I eat, drink and how I exercise. (Truthfully, the exercising isn't happening as often as it should, but regulating my appetite on a consistent basis is such a big step forward for me, that I'm not even concerned about the exercise. That will come in time.) One whole week of discipline. One whole week of not being ruled by the desire for food.
Do you know that even the thought of a random food popping into my mind used to force me to go eat? I'm being serious about the word force because even when I told myself, "No, you're not really hungry. You don't need it," I wouldn't listen to me. But now, I have a chart that I can look at to know if I need to eat or not. I know when my snacks are. I know what my calorie limits are. I know what nutrients my body needs. I even know which foods provide those nutrients and which foods do not. So when my body says, "I'm hungry! Feed me!" I can verify with an outside source that my body is communicating truthfully to me.
This may sound ridiculous to just about all of you, but to me, who has never disciplined myself to eat correctly, to me who has never really taken a stand against my appetite and said, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS." To me, this is freedom.
And this battle going on inside my cocoon? It's not a bad thing. It's a necessary thing. It's a life-giving thing. It's a death-to-self thing. It's even a joyful thing!
So Thursday, when I looked out the window at the world outside, I thought, "When the snow melts, when I join creation again in the sunshine, I'll have won!"
But first, I attend to business inside my cocoon.
I grinned to myself, and I felt my eyes crinkle up. Thursday marked a week since I logged in to SparkPeople and began being purposeful about what I eat, drink and how I exercise. (Truthfully, the exercising isn't happening as often as it should, but regulating my appetite on a consistent basis is such a big step forward for me, that I'm not even concerned about the exercise. That will come in time.) One whole week of discipline. One whole week of not being ruled by the desire for food.
Do you know that even the thought of a random food popping into my mind used to force me to go eat? I'm being serious about the word force because even when I told myself, "No, you're not really hungry. You don't need it," I wouldn't listen to me. But now, I have a chart that I can look at to know if I need to eat or not. I know when my snacks are. I know what my calorie limits are. I know what nutrients my body needs. I even know which foods provide those nutrients and which foods do not. So when my body says, "I'm hungry! Feed me!" I can verify with an outside source that my body is communicating truthfully to me.
This may sound ridiculous to just about all of you, but to me, who has never disciplined myself to eat correctly, to me who has never really taken a stand against my appetite and said, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS." To me, this is freedom.
And this battle going on inside my cocoon? It's not a bad thing. It's a necessary thing. It's a life-giving thing. It's a death-to-self thing. It's even a joyful thing!
So Thursday, when I looked out the window at the world outside, I thought, "When the snow melts, when I join creation again in the sunshine, I'll have won!"
But first, I attend to business inside my cocoon.
I'm glad that it is working for you. I'm excited for you that you have found something to help you do what you want to do successfully.
Putting a halt to snacking is hard business! Keep it up, girl! :)
Sounds like a whole lotta good is going on in the cocoon. It's funny how a caterpillar only gets to do it once in a lifetime. But humans can do this everyday if we choose to.