I weighed in this morning and found that I am down 7.3 pounds. At first, I was kind of upset. I had really wanted to see Biggest Loser type numbers but as my brother so sagely pointed out this morning, this is a lifestyle and not a diet because diets are bad and don't work. And also, like he said, something must have changed internally for the better over the past 30 days. I can't know what it is because I (sadly) don't have x-ray vision, but I do know that I am sleeping (and waking up) better, am way more even-keeled when it comes to my kids and am generally in a much better mood than I have been for a long time - and those are all totally worth it.
I began a second round of Whole30 this morning, but this time I am including exercise.
Why all over again?
A bunch of reasons, but mostly because I have not yet slain my sugar dragons. I still want what I want when I want it and what I want is mostly chocolate and brownies and just plain handfuls of chocolate chips. And while logically I know that those things are not good for me, I still know that they taste amazing and make me feel better. And therein lies the problem. I don't want those foods - or any food - to make me feel better. I want food to be just that: food. No strings attached.
More than losing weight, I am looking to sever the emotional ties that I have to eating. And those ties are very deep-seated and very rooted into who I am. This is something that I have been struggling with my entire life, something I will most likely struggle with forever (although hopefully to a lesser extent) and something that I worry about a lot when I look at my daughters, and my sons too. They're still so little and they have so much living to do, and I don't want food to follow them around like an emotional noose. Food is just food. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not a reward, it is not a hug, it's just fuel to make a body run.
I explained to my seven year old who sometimes has trouble knowing when he is full and should be done eating that G-d put us here with all these yummy foods so we can eat to live and not live to eat. He didn't seem to fully understand it the first couple of times (many adults don't), but the other day he uttered those words back to me after dinner, after not finishing all his food and what can I say? It made my heart smile. And he smiled back and walked away from the table when because he was full - and that's more than I ever could have said for myself thirty days ago.
Maybe, if I can conquer my issues, my kids can avoid these issues all together. That, I think, is my dream.