Let It Go

My beautiful granddaughter Marlee just turned 2 and her favorite movie ever is Frozen. She loves anything related to frozen and that includes the songs, but in all actuality -- that's the part she loves the most. So believe you me when I say that if you are a member of her family -- you have heard the song Let It Go more than you could possible imagine! So -- lets talk about that a little bit -- about letting go.

I have carried a lot of baggage from the past around with me - and I am fairly certain that if it was measurable in a weighty sense that it would weigh at least as much as my body does -- coincidence? Probably not....let me explain.

We all have things in our lives that have shaped us into the eaters that we are today. I am no different. I have some things in my life that have been huge blessings - the mother that I have, my sisters, my husband, my children, my grandchildren and my dog. I have also lived through nightmares that most people can't conceive of in their normal everyday lives. It has shaped me (literally lol) into the person I have become.

When something happens in our lives we have ways to process it, and sometimes those ways are not the best for us emotionally or physically. A lot of us with weight issues tend to eat our emotions (I do!!), we tend to stuff those feelings down to deal with another day and use food to make us all better. The problem is -- tomorrow is always a day away. We don't deal with those issues - we gain weight and years later struggle to lose that weight because we no longer remember what it was that we were stuffing down originally anyway.

Look, I know everyone in the diet industry preaches keeping a food log - and it makes sense - it can let you know where your demons lie. For me I hate logging my food -- because it lets me know where my demons lie! Seriously, it can be scary to face those inner demons - and let me explain by example

Food Diary Example -

Breakfast - Avocado and Egg with salsa and bacon (started pretty good here)
Lunch - Chicken Salad - (still pretty good)
Got asked to do something at work that angered me because I was already busy and had plans -- and and and ---
Snack - candy bar (or 2), chips, popcorn, bowl of cereal
Ok - so this may sound crazy -- and it wasn't all at once but the one bad thing snowballed into really bad eating - I wasn't hungry - I didn't really need to fuel my body but it wasn't about hunger it was about stuffing the feelings of anger and frustration (or boredom, or tiredness etc etc -- insert your feelings here) - and trying to patch those over with food.
Dinner - fast food - because hey I have already ruined today might as well just have something easy that I want (although I was already way over fed and didn't need to eat at all)

Quote - Lao Tzu -  If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Pretty profound quote there -- I am heading by eating that way to stay over weight, to diabetes, to health problems for life. That has to (and has started to already) change. 

So, food diary, lets go back to that -- Don't just phone it in -- (this my friends is directed at me..but if the shoe fits put that baby on and wear it around!) - Put your food that you eat certainly -- if you want to really track it you can put how much but you all know when you go down that road how much you are capable of eating - I am worried less about the how much if I am eating healthy..but more importantly put when your tired, your angry, your happy -- it really helps you find those trends that started back in your past of using food as a drug of choice to self medicate away your feelings. If you can track these things for 2 weeks and then go back -- look at your trends and then make changes slowly based on what you find - you also can find a way to get rid of the old baggage and just let it go.