Making progress

Well, I actually have to say I’m feeling noticeably good today. I feel like I have energy and am feeling much less emotional. I’m positive this is directly related to eating better, getting activity in, and drinking lots of water. It sounds awfully simple, doesn’t it?

A while ago, I was reading a book where the author discussed how being hungry isn’t the end of the world and you should let yourself experience hunger. I think that to an extent, this is true, but often I don’t realize I’m just hungry until I’m starving. And getting to that point often leads me into a binge. And since I want to avoid binging, I want to avoid getting hungry. But, I’m realizing that maybe I should learn how to manage my hunger (regardless of the severity) without binging.

Monday I was definitely feeling a binge coming on. When I got home from the gym, I was famished. I had some cantaloupe and a Kashi bar for an afternoon snack around 2:00, but by the time I got home around 5:30, I really wanted to raid the cupboards and eat everything I could before my husband got home. I’m a very creative binger. Even if left with fairly healthy things in the house, I will MacGyver them into fodder for a binge. I have made impromptu cookie dough in a cereal bowl with butter, sugar, flour, and vanilla. Sometimes, I’ll take my reduced-fat Skippy and add melted butter and powdered sugar to it to make a frosting type thing that I eat by the spoonful. But, on Monday, definitely still fueled by Sunday’s incident, I had the willpower to not go there. Instead, I drank a big glass of water with lemon juice in it, and I had one slice of bread with 1 T of peanut butter on it, and then I stepped away from the kitchen.

Logging my food into SparkPeople has been really good. I’m pretty impressed with the wealth of food items they have stored, and I’m a lot more conscious of my protein, carbs, and sodium than I ever was on WW. Yesterday, I had a high-protein snack in the afternoon and I noticed it definitely helped keep me satisfied until dinner.

Yesterday, I stepped out of my comfort zone and attended a yoga class during the lunch hour. I’m happy to report that it went pretty well. I think I did most of the poses correctly, and I definitely felt like I got a workout, so that’s really good. Tonight, I’m going to a strength training class after work…also nervous about this, but every day, it’s going to be easier, right?