I think I have made some great progress. My energy levels seem to be improving. I woke up on my own just before 7, checked in and realized that I was rested enough to not be able to go back to sleep. One week ago, I could (and probably did) go back to sleep for another couple of hours. I was even on the Nordic Track before 8 am on a Sunday, and upped my workout from 25 to 30 minutes because I felt ok. No tiredness, no cobwebs and a balanced attitude to the work I need to do today.
Even though my weight remains the same, I have noticed some changes in the way I look and feel. I am not suffering as much from Dunlop’s Disease, (Where my belly “dun lop” over my belt!) and my trousers don’t fit quite so snugly. This could be attributed to the fact that I am holding myself a little differently rather than a huge loss of fat. I am actively using my abdominals during the day to keep my back in better alignment, so my stomach isn’t protruding as much, so it all looks (to me at any rate) and feels like I am making great strides forward. What is the most amazing thing for me is that it has only been a week!
Warning! Tread very carefully because here be dragons!
So, I think I have come to the point in this experiment when I can be tempted to start drifting away from it. Earlier in the week, the temptation was in the form of frustration, to just give it all up as a bad idea because nothing was really happening and I couldn’t see an immediate payoff. Now, I’m feeling much better and this has opened the door to temptation of a different sort. Now, the temptation is a bit more insidious.
One of the things I have noticed is the constant battle I am fighting between my intellect, my mind (as separate from knowledge and intellectual understanding) and my body. It’s like this strange 3 way tug of war. Intellectually I know that taking care of my body is important and I can read about all these different ways in which I can accomplish that. My mind is telling me that I’ve improved quite a bit, maybe even enough to allow some slack. My body is telling me that it knows what it needs and if I just listen to it, I will find the balance I require. The problem is, when I was feeling awful, my body was screaming loud enough to overcome my mind, and my intellect said “I know what you need!”. Luckily, the intellect and the body were pulling in the same general direction, so they could, in fact, pull me out of the mire.
So, it was Saturday evening. All week I had no desire or craving for any wine or beer with dinner. (I don’t have a sweet tooth, but a wine and beer tooth!) The tug from the body didn’t feel nearly as strong, and my mind decided to throw me a curve ball: I wanted a glass of wine. My intellect knows that it has only been a week and that my body really hasn’t had the opportunity to get it’s full strength back and I am in the middle of an experiment. My body is also telling me the same thing. Unfortunately, my mind is telling me that I am probably stronger than I think if I could bounce back so quickly, so why not have a glass of wine tonight as it’s not a work night? You can go back to abstaining the rest of the week. Not really an issue if it’s 2 against 1 and the intellect and body are on the same side, however, the intellect started to pull more in the direction of the mind and told me that there are studies supporting me having a glass for health reasons. Even Live Right For Your Type said that if you must, you can have red wine, although avoiding alcohol was advocated.
Now, many would argue that this is when you use your will power and force yourself to abstain. I don’t think the way out is through force. I really don’t think it’s a question of mind over matter, because quite honestly, I would rather not expend that amount of energy fighting myself, not to mention that force is limited and burns itself out. I would rather spend that energy finding out about myself by dialoging myself about what my various motivations are, acknowledging how I feel about them and coming to a better understanding about myself. Basically, show some compassion.
Luckily I didn’t have to dialogue with just myself. Steve and I discussed it, and when he saw me really torn between doing what I wanted for my health and doing what I wanted in having some wine, he asked me how I would feel about myself if I had some wine. When I said I would feel disappointed, the discussion was over.
No wine. And I didn’t have to pretend (lie) that I still didn’t want some and I didn’t have to ignore (negate) myself by forcing myself to not want some. I could say “yes, I want some wine, but what I want more is to feel better, keep my promises to myself and others and not abandon the worthy task I set for myself.”
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