Intuitve Eating Update

In my six remaining minutes of my lunch break -- I set a timer -- I wanted to report that I am feeling really good with intuitive eating. I've been reading and listening to works by Geneen Roth and feel inspired. And peaceful.

Because of her books and also an SMC online friend who agreed to be buddies and GR groupies together, I am really forcing myself to not multitask while eating.

I set my timer for my lunch break so that I don't force myself to start working again as soon as I am full. Otherwise that's a real punishment for stopping eating! As a result, I ate my lunch slowly and peacefully... except for my mind that was going a million miles a minute. Lots of little arguments in my head with imaginary enemies. Not sure what that's about. Seems like a little anxiety is brewing.

I love the GR approach because it's more about inner work than eating. I think that maybe, just maybe, I have reached the acceptance phase of the journey, where I accept my body with all my failings. Even if I wish it was different, a little, I accept that this what it is and I wholeheartedly declare that I won't battle my body anymore. Not even to address the prediabetes (which has resolved, at least for now). My sanity is more important.

So now I am very intentionally sitting down to dessert every single night. Last night I had a Kashi oatmeal cookie and milk. I try to eat as slowly and consciously as I can to really savor the taste but it's so hard not to let my mind wander. GR talks about a reader who says "for all that I obsess about food all day long, when I am actually eating I barely taste the food." No wonder we aren't satisfied when we eat like this!

But I feel like eating consciously and slowly also feeds my soul. Which is hungry. For something. Not entirely sure for what but this conscious self care feels good.

Struggling to Get Back to Conscious, Intuitive Eating

I’ve finally restarted having my every other Friday night babysitter (who picks up C from school so I don’t have to go home first – two separate separations from the kids would never work for them).

What a difference it makes to have some time away from children! I feel positively jubilant, just walking around the city alone as darkness falls. Very much awake and alive in a way I didn’t realize I was missing. Both times, I’ve gone to see an early movie in our local independent movie house, then met a friend for dinner afterwards.

I’d like to do more things to get that alive feeling back. I’ve just started taking Vitamin D again because I feel SO tired after work. It’s like I go go go all day long and the adrenaline keeps me strong but then I get home and collapse.

I’ve been reading and listening to book by Geneen Roth. I find that I eat when I’m tired. I love the feeling of lying on the couch and reading and snacking. But then I feel bad about myself the next morning. Just a couple of days of NOT doing this and I feel a noticeable different in my body. But now I’m back to it for the last two nights and I feel a very noticeable difference in the other direction.

Geneen Roth says that compulsive eating is a result of trauma in our childhood. When we didn’t have enough love, we learned to turn to food for love. But now that we are adults, we have other tools in our toolkits. I don’t binge to the extent of getting sick, but still, I think I’m eating when what I really need is emotional nurturing and rest. I’m trying to find ways to get that rest and refilling.

My best idea so far is to just get into bed as soon as I finish cleaning the kitchen once the kids are in bed. I think I feel more tired than I feel I am “supposed” to and so it feels crazy to get into bed before 8 pm. But reading makes me feel refilled, emotionally, and if I was in bed reading then the kitchen would be that much further away and I could just go to sleep if I felt sleepy. Right now, being sleepy makes me feel hungry.

I want to have a rule that I only eat at the kitchen table and only without reading (or watching) but that feels so hard sometimes and I don’t want to feel like I am punishing myself. I think healing has to come from a kind and gentle, non-punitive place. But on the other hand, those couple of days when I didn’t snack, I felt so good about myself. But last night was a bad night for it. I snacked too much and felt bad about myself and then stayed up even later in a self destructive way as a result.

Anyone else struggle with this?

Struggling to Find Equilibrium

We're about a month into the school year and I am still struggling to find my balance.

On the one hand, I'm enjoying my job more than I had remembered. That's a welcome surprise. I think the summer off really helped in that regard.

But the pace is really intense. Mostly because of the excessive amount of documentation that is healthcare today. If I don't do all my documentation as I see each patient, it takes me twice as long later on because I have to work a lot harder later to remember what I did. But I feel guilty keeping my young patients waiting while I do all the documenting... so I race through the documentation as fast as I can. Which makes me much more efficient but is exhausting, day in and day out. racing as fast as I can. I feel like I have adrenaline pumping all day long, except for a very welcome half hour lunch break.

The problem is when I get home... I'm suddenly exhausted. I feel bad not having more energy for my own children. Just getting the dishes done when they are finally in bed (those last fifteen minutes with them are endless) is so daunting. The prospect of doing any more than that is impossible.

Luckily I am a bit more energetic in the mornings and am managing to limp through my workouts, half assed though they may be.

I no longer have the drive, suddenly, to severely limit my sweets and eliminate gluten/processed starches. It just feels like life is too short to think about food so much. Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because of the Mirena I got 9 months ago (only to lighten or eliminate periods, nothing more), I've put on a few pounds. Which does not feel all that good. But I just don't have the energy to battle food so much anymore.

Last night I had a sitter and went out after work. My first night off from the kids since mid-August, I think. It was amazing. Walking around Cobble Hill and Park Slope by myself made me feel suddenly alive again. I went to a movie all by myself -- heavenly -- and then met a friend for dinner. I was worried I'd be too boring to make it through the meal but we had a lovely time and it was so nice to eat a restaurant meal again.

This morning I woke up annoyed to have constant company in the form of my toddler. Who had gotten into nail polish last night while I was out and painted the couch, the living room, and the hardwood floor in my bedroom. I just ordered a new rug for the living room to the tune of several hundred dollars. And then she jumped on me and her tooth somehow sliced down behind my thumb nail. The blood that collected under my nail led to awful throbbing pain. I was experimenting with heating a paper clip over the stove to "melt" a hole in my nail to drain the blood but that was shockingly hot -- a definite no-go. Luckily I was able to trim the nail enough, to my surprise, to drain the blood and it feels enormously better now. Improving my mood slightly.

So that's my life right now in a nutshell. Struggling to find equilibrium. But glad to be in Brooklyn,