Broken Promises

I'm not keeping commitments, especially to myself. I continue to gain weight, and I'm not exercising enough. I'm not doing other things I want to be doing - cleaning out my basement to renovate it, planning a family vacation, being more involved with my community, getting my finances in better order, upping my mindfulness practice, more time with my girl. Work continues to be me my excuse for not following through, but I don't think that cuts it. Yes, it's many hours, and exhausting. But it's not soul-crushingly awful, and I should be able to design my way through this to a better balance.

I know self-care is a priority that helps everything else, but the self-care I've been doing is coming home, flopping on the couch, eating junk food, not walking the dog "because it's dark and cold and I deserve to relax". This feels good at the time and erodes my self-respect. Every morning I wake up and vow to do better, and make specific time-bound measurable goals to achieve, not just vaguely vowing to do "better".  I have been having good breakfasts, bringing my lunch and eating the way I want to. But by late afternoon I'm pooped. Physically tired, though odds are I haven't moved much. Mentally tired dealing with many people, and looking at at least a couple of hours of documents and emails to handle before going home. Even if I fight off junk food at that moment, it's still the couch flop when I get home, unless it's a gym night. I'm still seeing the trainer, usually twice a week, where we focus on heavy lifting because I don't have the aerobic energy to do much else. 

 So I want to focus here on diet and exercise, not all the other stuff. I'm gaining weight, and I want to stop that. I want to get back outside and exercise. I don't think this is the right time in my life to be relying on mindful eating to reach my goals. The mindful strategy to avoid the binge involves both embracing the craving and observing it. But when I'm having the cravings is late in the day and I'm out of resources. I have plenty of evidence to support this. I can continue to strengthen other aspects of my mindfulness practice while going back to more tried-and-true diet tactics that have been so successful for me. I think the mindful tactics will eventually lead to a good place for me and food, but I'm not willing to live with the weight consequences of not having rules about what to eat. That's where my head is now. 

Today's Whole Foods breakfast: Spinach frittata and sausages

Before 4 pm every day, my diet is one most nutritionists would think is ok. I make my 7 servings of colorful whole fruits and vegetables every day. A usual day is sweet potato hash (with brussels sprouts, onions, and apples) with a couple of either eggs or chicken sausages for breakfast. Lunch is meat from home, usually chicken, with lettuce and spinach from the salad bar from work, and bottled salad dressing I've brought from home, low sugar versions. I am bringing fresh fruit and nuts for the afternoon snack, and many days that is what I have, not being tempted by the ever-present candy dish. Supper is either left-overs from the weekend - something like chicken thighs with cauliflower in curry sauce - or a frozen dinner, or sometimes the food bar at Whole Foods after the gym. Always vegetables. Quite often, brown rice or lately, naan. Then, on a good day, there will be tiny bedtime snack of a couple of dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's.  On a bad day, there will be three or more servings of chocolate in the evening, whether or not there was any (lower-quality) chocolate at work in the afternoon.

This is cumulatively way more carbohydrates than I have been striving for over several years. I would never eat even sweet potatoes, much less rice or bread. So am I gaining weight because I'm eating more carbs or because I binge on chocolate half the nights? Or, am I binging on chocolate because I eat carbs during the day?  I feel my body, mindfully sensing what is actually going on, observing, and my body is jonesing for carbs. I thought giving it healthful carbs in moderate portions during the day would satisfy it, and reduce the bingeing. Not sure that is the case.

I sometimes test my blood sugar myself (because why wouldn't I have the gadget for that?) and certainly my morning fasting numbers indicate pre-diabetes for me. It does reflect sugar binges the night before, for sure. A couple of days eating moderate-carb low sugar, and the numbers are back in the below-100 range that is good and out of pre-diabetes. So that tells me it is not necessary to eat very low carb or go into ketosis for my health. But it might be necessary for my weight and my sanity.

The strategies that have worked for me to lose weight and maintain the loss have been cooking, planning, and tracking. I moved away from the second two because I got tired of them. I wanted (still want) mindfulness to keep me eating only good things in the right quantities without the work of planning way ahead and writing it down and looking at the numbers, using that for more planning and decisions in the moment about what to eat next.

So I'm going to do tracking, I think. I'm more sure about that now than I was when I started this post. I'm going to cut the morning and afternoon snack carbs down and go more protein and leafy vegetables. I'm not sure I'm going to try to get the carbs all the way down to Atkins level, but I might. Start with the basics - track and plan, plan and track. See where that puts my energy and drive to binge. Tracking and planning doesn't prevent an evening binge by itself - so the key is really to check on whether the physical drive for the evening binge weakens when the good carbs go down.

I think I'll go walk the dog now. Maybe the cold (if not the dark) is done for the season.