Day After Regrets

Yesterday was a lovely day. I went out to the lake with some of the PineCone crew and we had lunch at Jeff's parents' house. Gary Carter is Jeff Carter's dad, and he is a pretty famous artist. If you have seen any 'western' themed paintings of cowboys and chuck wagons and stuff such as that, chances are you have seen a Gary Carter painting. Though I've known the Carters most of my life I had never been out to their house. Gary's studio is amazing, and the whole house is beautiful.

The afternoon was quite lovely, however, I caved and ate all of the yummy, but nutritionally void, food they had around. I had some corn (which was good, and rather healthy) but I also had pasta salad, home made root beer and sampled a few kinds of dessert! I also ate some of Anne's chewy Sprees because she was eating them and they looked good. Well, I used way too much insulin, ended up with a stomach ache, and today I am hesitant to stray too far from the toilet. (I won't get more graphic than that, I promise).

This makes it even more clear that I can't eat crappy food anymore. Well, I can, but my body is going to rebel when I do. Over the past few years I have really learned what foods fuel my body. As David Kessler says in The End of Overeating (which I HIGHLY recommend to EVERYONE whether you have ever struggled with food or not), some foods satisfy us, but most foods that we encounter on a daily basis simply stimulate us. We live in a culture of instant gratification and constant stimulation. I learned this spring when I ate raw for 30 days how great I can feel physically, mentally and spiritually when I stay away from those stimulating foods.

I have all the tools. I have the knowledge, but sometimes they can be so hard to implement! I've found that even more than my eating disorder it is social pressure that makes it so difficult to stay on a healthful eating path. It is easier to have the junk food than explain why you aren't eating it. I feel self conscious enough explaining that I don't eat meat, never mind trying to explain that I don't eat cooked food.

But, in the spirit of this blog, I'm going to stop making excuses. Social pressures and my not wanting to feel uncomfortable are simply not reason enough to not eat the way that my body is telling me that I should! So, over the next couple weeks I'm going to implement as much raw food as I can into my diet and start phasing out the dairy and the eggs and the tofu, and most of all the sugar and the wheat and anything remotely refined.

As of September 1st I am going to go back to living a raw foods lifestyle. I may not be as strict as I was before, I may let myself have a drink from time to time, but try to keep it organic and without refined sugars. I may eat something that isn't raw every once in a while, but I'm going to stay above 90% raw and watch as radiant health and energy returns to me. Now, I just typed that previous sentence twice, because originally I typed: I am going to try to stay above 90% raw... Well, the days of trying to do anything are gone. Really, when you think about it, you simply cannot try to do anything. You either do it, or you don't. It is that simple.

So for the rest of the summer, I'll be like Nike, JUST DO IT! The applies to eating right, exercising (which I have, thankfully been doing very regularly lately), and getting the rest of my work finished for NOMT. The monologues will be written, the dances choreographed. Carpe Diem! I'll use every cheesy, overused cliche it takes, but I'm going to get there.

If anyone actually reads this, I hope you get to wherever you need to go for your health, happiness, and well being. Whether that means meditating, going to yoga, going for a walk, taking a day off, or starting something that you've been avoiding, make today the day that you decide to get there, or at least take the first step on the path. So, with that, another lovely cliche to end this post with, this one taken from the Tao te Ching:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Out of Control

Some days are better than others. This is really important for me to remember. Particularly on days like today. Today has not been one of the better ones. I binged for the first time in a long while and I feel awful. I really don't even understand why. There wasn't even a particular trigger. Which just proves that the eating disorder mind set can spring up at any time. I think it was because I was feeling fat today. Isn't it odd that feeling fat can trigger me to eat more? You think it would be the other way around, but no, that isn't the way my brain works. I think I need to stop focusing on losing weight and start focusing on training. Eating things that make me feel good physically and exercising and stretching.

I keep worrying about NOMT this fall. I had all these goals to lose all this weight this summer so that I'd be thin for NOMT and I think that it is too soon after finishing treatment for me to be so focused on weight loss. So my goal for the rest of the summer is to focus on health. I want to be healthy and happy and I can do that at whatever weight I am at, including this one. When I put the focus outside myself it is so easy to be happy, so I am going to be self centered about my health, but try and let the rest of my focus be outside myself. And I'm going to cling to our wonderful blog A Daily Offering of Gratitude.

Namaste.

Feeling in Control

Tonight I had some chocolate, and I only had a little bit. It felt amazing! I am really starting to feel like I have my eating disorder under control and that is truly a freeing and incredible feeling. One of my amazing friends from NYU who I'm not really in touch with anymore writes a great blog and she posted today about doing a 30 day challenge in which she is giving up sugar. I've done this before and I feel like it might be a good idea for me to do again. Or at least to cut it down to one treat a week or something. I mean, it is summer, who needs sugar when there is all this amazing fruit everywhere?

I can't believe summer is going to be over so soon, but I feel like I've made so much progress with truly putting my eating disorder mindset behind me and focusing on the positive. I'm getting excited and a little apprehensive about starting my last year of undergrad! So much to do this year and SOO much travel, but I always love travelling. So here is to a great school year. Starting now, since I am getting my butt into gear working on NOMT this week!

Juice Feasting

I've been planning on starting a Juice Feast today for a week or so. I went to Bozeman and bought pounds and pounds of organic produce and greens, but I've been wondering if I should really start today. There seemed to be so many reasons not to. A trip to Virginia City tomorrow, wanting to eat certain foods "one last time," starting biking with my dad, the show and how many trip I'm going to have to make to the bathroom when drinking a gallon of juice a day...and many more.

However, this morning when I woke up I realized that all these "reasons" to not start today are simply excuses. So today I started my juice feast! I'm planning on feasting for at least 14 days, but who knows, maybe I will decide to go longer. Summer seems like such a good time to do a juice feast, thought it would be nice if the summer temperatures would return!

So here I go! Two weeks of self discovery and letting go of excuses. Two weeks of detoxing, clear skin, shiny hair, freedom from food, and time to let myself discover what I really want from life.

Namaste!