Friday, January 05, 2007

Much Better

First off, thank you to everyone who left "feel better" comments - it's much appreciated!

I am finally feeling a lot better, both physically & mentally. I guess the holidays are a rough time for me, so I was feeling kind of down, and combining that with feeling very sick *and* sore, and my usual depression & self-loathing ... well, I was in a bad place.

But last night I had an appointment with that crazy therapist (Nutty McAppletree), and I went in prepared to explain my personal frustrations and goals in a clearer way. And I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure she got it. That it's not just about emotional eating, that I'm at no loss for things to do to fill my time, and that all of this goes way back to my childhood.

And amazingly enough, she said two things that struck a chord with me.

1. That I should view taking care of myself (in terms of diet, exercise, beauty routines, having fun, doing things I want to do to reach my goals in life) as a way of making up for the fact that I wasn't taken care of in the best way when I was a child. That because my parents were so absorbed in their own problems, I missed out on a lot, so it's only right for me to make up for lost time now by nurturing myself and pampering myself.

2. She used the metaphor of tending a garden to taking care of yourself. That just a little attention and care each day over the course of weeks or months or year can keep my personal garden improving and becoming better and better, but that letting myself sink into these months-long depressions where I neglect my body, appearance, finances, apartment, relationships causes the garden to start to wilt and die, which makes it harder for me to get things blooming again. I guess I just really like the idea of having this garden with so much potential to be beautiful.

At any rate, I am feeling optimistic. I woke up this morning and had a healthy and nutritious breakfast, took the time to put on some makeup so I look all pretty, and am generally feeling just dandy.

My friend lent me her copy of the South Beach Diet book to read through this weekend. Her & her husband have had some serious success with the program in the past, and have recommitted to it in the New Year. I am fairly familiar with how the program works, and once you get into the Phase 2 part it is actually very similar to Weight Watchers' Core program. But at the same time...I dunno. I can see the benefit in starting fresh with something new, but I don't know if doing something new would make a lick of difference. My problem has never been finding a diet program that works. As far as I'm concerned (and as far as studies have shown), it doesn't matter which diet you follow - if you are consistent you will lose weight. The excuses I use to veer from Weight Watchers would be just as able to derail me from South Beach, or the Sonoma Diet, or any other diet plan on earth.

And yet, I can't help but feel a little tempted to try it. I like the idea of Phase 1, 2 weeks of a more stringent plan to break your body of the sugar & simple carbohydrate addiction. I've even made a list of things I could eat during Phase 1. I guess I will read the book and contemplate things.

3 Comments:

Blogger Fatinah said...

give it a try. you have nothing to loose but weight! if you think it is something you can get excited about and stick with.....do it.

11:21 AM  
Blogger Teena in Toronto said...

Good luck with South Beach. I read the book and it wasn't for me. I like Weight Watchers much better and have had success with it.

10:35 PM  
Blogger Kaitlin said...

Hi from BCB! I hadn't seen you around and was thinking about you and wanted to check in. Glad to hear you are feeling better!

10:41 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home