I'm feeling a bit down

I've just been made reduntant. That means I am losing my job and my home and they want us to move out asap. My head is spinning. I never slept a wink last night and I am just shaking. Could y'all share prayer for me. Thanks. I've been told I will have an excellent reference as I am an excellent cook, but they will no longer require the services of a cook, and in fact they are planning on either selling our cottage or renting it out. I think devastated is the word that covers how I am feeling right now.

What a week!!

I have just had the craziest week ever. It's been really wierd. Some really crazy stuff has gone down at work and I find myself in a really scary place. My employers have separated, right out of the blue and I am now very uncertain as to my future. The husband walked out last Thursday without telling anyone and when his wife got home from her latest trip, a note was waiting for her on the bed. When I went to go into work that night, she told me to go home, I was not needed and not to come in again until I was told. I have gone back once this week, to do something for her as she is leaving for America tomorrow, but I had to go in when she wasn't there. I guess this is one of the down sides of working as a chef for a family and living where you work . . . I am now wondering if at the end of this month I will still have a job or a place to live. Very uncertain.

Happy to say though that I am sticking with my good eating habits. Only eating when hungry and only until satisfied. I haven't been as good as I should about writing everything down. I really need to get with it . . . and I need to be drinking more water. Down 2 more pounds.

I keep waiting for it to stop working. I wonder if this is normal. I suppose that having been on so many diets in the past 20 years and having failed at dieting for 20 years, it is normal to be a little afraid in that way.

We have gone walking a few times over the past week. I wish I had a wii fit. My boss tried to tell me that I should get our dog to give me one for Christmas. She said you should always let the dog buy you a pressie for Christmas. Somehow I don't think that one would wash with my husband!! I think I will have to earn it.

We have booked our tickets to go home to Canada in July and so now the pressure is on to really look good for then!

I guess that's all that is new. Will keep you all posted as to what happens next!! ☺

No Such Thing as Failure

One thing I have learnt through reading and (occasionally) contributing to this blog is that it's much easier to achieve SOMETHING - maybe not a lot - but some small success if I don't set any expectations or goals for myself.

Being in a wheelchair I can't rely on walking and work-outs to help me along, though I'm sure they would.  What I eat and, more importantly, when I eat it really matters to me. 

I have learnt not to mind too much if the scales stay the same for ages.  If I don't lose any weight for weeks I know there could be 3 reasons.  The first would be if I forgot the golden rule about eating only when I'm hungry.  The second would be eating beyond being pleasantly satisfied.  The third would be that I am where I am meant to be for now.  The only time I really do a double-take is if the scales go UP. 

I stressed about my weight for years and yo-yo dieted all my life and all because I was always trying to fit into a pattern dictated by other people.  Now I do it only for me and I'm not in competition with anyone.   Now, though I know I ought to weigh less, I am OK with me.  Now I understand that we only fail in the eyes of others.

Therefore there is no such thing as failure.

February

Well, here it is the beginning of February. I am pleased that I am "three stone-and-some" lighter than I was last year at this time, but had still hoped that it would be a greater loss, not that I am complaining, because a loss, is a loss, is a loss.

This past week has been somewhat of a struggle. I have been listening to my cd's every morning and also the one on my ipod every day, but I have not been feeling well. I have had a terrible rotten cold and also I am very tired as I have not been sleeping well because of that, plus I have had a lot of extra hours to put in at work.

The big house that I work in has been filled with Germans as well as their guest house and so that means there is a lot of really good chocolate around, Swiss chocolate no less. I am only human and I have imbibed . . . not like I would have done at one time, because after all, there is no bad food is there . . . only bad habits, and so I am a bit annoyed at myself that I have wasted some of my hunger on empty calories instead of good food which would have done me a lot better. To be perfectly honest it doesn't even taste all that good to me anymore . . . and I had it more out of habit than anything else. That little part of my brain that told me . . . "Oh boy, this is Swiss chocolate, right from Switzerland no less. You better eat some now as you never know when you will have it again."

Result . . . no real loss this week again. But I have only myself to blame. I have been so busy and so ill that I haven't been writing things down and I have been picking. I haven't really felt like eating a meal, and to be honest some days with the hours I have been working, there hasn't been time to have a meal. Picking is what got me where I was when I started all of this. You know . . . unconscious eating . . . eating without purpose or thought.

I had a good long think about it last night when I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep while my nose ran and my eyes streamed with this lousy cold. I thought about how important it is for me to look my very best when I go to visit my family in Canada in July. I thought about how my dad has diabetes and my mother has a heart condition and how I am not getting any younger and how I need to be more careful.

Today the sun shone for a short time, and as mucky as it was I took the dog over across the orchards for a good long walk. It was a hard slog as the ground is really wet, but it felt good and cleared a few of the cobwebs from my head.

Right now I have a tasty bean and pasta soup simmering on the hob. It smells good and to be perfectly honest . . . it will probably taste ten times better than that Swiss Chocolate ever did.

I am really proud of myself for having done so well, and I am so grateful to Margaret and the program. I am a much different person this February than I was last February. I have way more confidence in myself and I think well of myself. I am a much smaller person size wise and I have faith in myself that I can continue to do this.

Remember . . . it doesn't matter that much what you eat in a day. You may slip up one day and have something that's not really all that good for you, but . . . it's not the end of the world . . . what really matters is what you eat in a week. It's ok to have a treat once in a while, as long as it's only once in a while. A steady diet of treats and indulgences is what makes people fat. Period. The raw truth, but the truth.

That's one thing I like most about this program. It helps to decriminalize food. Somehow when something is not forbidden any more, it no longer has the enticement power that it used to have. Hey that means I have the power now, not the food.

That's a very good thing!