I have decided to move my cooking/food blog over to www.spiceaholic.com.   I hope you will join me over there.

Not sure what I’m going to do with this blog, considering I stopped posting in the spring.  I do want to continue to explore IE, but may or may not post here.  So until further notice, I would just visit my other blog.

I don’t know what to do.

All week I’ve felt like I’m doing all this wrong and that I’m out of control and just eating to eat and that now I’m going to gain more weight.  I know I had PMS and all that this week, but it’s very scary how much and how easily I eat.

I’ve also been battling thoughts about wanting to go back to Weight Watchers or go back to a diet.  I know I can’t, that I shouldn’t.  I know that the minute I start Weight Watchers, I will feel deprived or that something will come up to throw me off and that I’ll fail again.  Same thing with counting calories.   But it’s very unsettling to not be dieting in some fashion. I’ve been likening it to having training wheels on a bike.  I’ve been dieting on and off for about 14-15 years so it’s always been there in the backgroung – if I wandered away for a bit, I knew I could go back to something.  Throwing it all away and purposefully NOT dieting is feeling like trying to learn to ride a bike without the training wheels, I’m faltering and all over the place and don’t have something to catch me when I fall.

Then the other part of me keeps thinking that I always have an excuse for not following through with something.  Something is always going to come up that I didn’t plan for.  I can’t plan a perfect weight watcher week and expect nothing to come up.  That’ s not realistic.  That’s living in a diet bubble.  I have this all or nothing mentality with dieting and I feel like it’s seeping into the intuitive eating.  I feel like I’m not doing it perfectly and so since I’m not dieting anyway, I might as well just eat what I want so I don’t feel deprived.

But now I’m gaining weight and it’s scaring me. I don’t like losing control, not having some kind of control.   I can’t do abstract, I’m very linear.

I feel like I’ve been indulging myself long enough and that now I need to focus on eating healthier foods.  I threw away 2 bags of potato chips the other night because I’d been mindlessly chowing down on them and I didn’t want them triggering me the next day.  But isn’t that running against what intuitive eating says? I’m supposed to be legalizing foods so that eventually they aren’t a trigger and that I won’t mindlessly plough through a bag.  I’ve been buying fruits because they look so colorful and healthy, but they sit uneaten while I head for the cookies, chocolate, and chips.

I’ve been ignoring my body and eating away until my stomach is hurting — I hate the feeling and yet I continue to do it anyway.

Part of me wonders if it was smart of me to try to take this on during tax season, knowing it’s a a stressful time for me and that in times of stress I eat.  Should I have waited until afterwards?  Do I need some kind of structure (i.e. a diet) during this time just so I maintain some modicum of control?  But don’t I need to deal with the fact that I handle stress by eating?  So then maybe it does make sense that I’m doing this now?  Because I can tell you even if I was dieting, those Cadbury Mini-Eggs would still be calling my name, I’d still be participating in our Wednesday socials at work and I’d be hating myself for going off my diet and saying to hell with it and eating a ton anyway.

I just feel like I can’t win right now.

I did not skip day 6 of yoga.  Nope, I was good and did it.  And I did day 7 this morning!  Yay me!  I’m going to reward myself by getting another yoga dvd.

Yesterday I did the same workout as day 5.  I really felt it and got really sweaty by the end of it.  If I can couple that with another dvd — I’m thinking Jillian Michael’s 30-day shred — then that would make a great workout.

Today I did the Beyond Basic Yoga for Dummies dvd, which was almost an hour!  This one had some more slightly advanced poses, so this will be in my rotation for sure.  Probably on the weekends though, as I think I’ll have a hard time getting up early enough for an hour-long workout.

On the eating front, I don’t like to say I’ve back-slid since IE is not a path, but I really do feel like it.  I’m just eating and eating.  I know part of it is that it’s PMS week, but I should not use that as a license to just eat whatever amounts I want, especially if I’m not hungry.

I’ve been trying to go back and read bits of my books to get myself back on track.  But then “getting back on track” is diet mentality, isn’t it?  I guess lately I’ve been treating this as an undiet diet, since I apparently still have the diet mentality — feeling guilty after I eat, promising tomorrow I’ll do better, etc.  I know it’s a long process and not everything will “click” at once. I just need to keep remembering that I’m “IP,” which is “In Process” rather than the “OP,” or “On Plan” train of thought of my Weight Watchers days.

It’s all a process, nobody’s perfect, quit thinking in all or nothing terms.  I need to remember these concepts.

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Remember about the BSI contest on my food blog.  The deadline for submissions is tomorrow night at midnight!

I almost talked myself out of waking up by saying I’d do it tonight but then I remembered my husband is having a friend over to do one of their computer geek podcasts.  Don’t think I want an audience!  Plus I keep reminding myself that once the time changes on Sunday I really can’t make excuses for getting up since we lose an hour.  Boo for losing an hour of sleep in the middle of tax season!  Whose stupid idea was that anyway?

That’s it for now, gotta get ready for work.

Reminder — I’m hosting this week’s BSI challenge over on my food blog. Sunday night is the deadline to submit your entries, so get cooking! 

I’m so proud of myself, as soon as I came home I changed and went right into my workout.  I felt great afterwards and am actually considering doing these in the evenings to unwind after a long day in tax hell.

After I finished this workout, I previewed one of my dvds I haven’t done before — it’s another one by Sara Ivanhoe and is part of her 20 minute Yoga Makeover series.  This one was “Weight Loss” and looks good! I’ll try it tomorrow and let you all know what I thought.

This morning I fought against waking up to do yoga.  I hadn’t slept well and I was tired. Plus I needed to leave early to get to the post office when it opened so I could pick up my little sister’s tax stuff (I’m such a good big sister!).

Laziness won and I didn’t get up for yoga.  I promised myself I wouldn’t be a yoga challenge drop-out at only Day 4.  I promised I would do it tonight before LOST.

Fine, I get a little more half-sleep, make it to the post office, make it to work.

At lunch I decide to run errands and go to Target to return some shoes.  Thought I’d pick up a copy of Rodney Yee’s AM/PM Yoga so I could do the evening one tonight.   They didn’t have a copy.  That’s fine, I have a billion dvds at home.

I decide I’m hungry for lunch.  I haven’t had Chickfila in forever, so I decided to get that.  I place my order — a #1 with Coke Zero (the original fried sandwich, fries, drink).  I receive my order and proceed back to work.

Now I’m very weird and have a certain way I eat Chickfila.  I eat the fries first and then take the sandwich and break in half to make it last longer.  I told you I was weird.

I’m back at the office and snarf down the fries while getting back to work.  At last I’m ready for the much anticipated sandwich.  And then I pull out a chicken salad sandwich.

Now I think I may be PMS-ing because I stared at it and wanted to cry.  They mixed up my order.  I check my receipt and notice that Miss Chatty Cathy at the drive-through rang up my order wrong.  I should have checked after I got it, but I felt so cheated and disappointed.   You don’t understand how much at that moment I just wanted the damn fried chicken sandwich.  So I took a bite of thei chicken salad since it was there but didn’t like it.  I chucked the sandwich and found something else to eat.

After I got over the initial anger and disappointment, I told myself if I really wanted it that freakin’  bad at dinner time then I would get it for dinner.  And the inner brat in me went away.

But I still think I’d better do my yoga workout when I get home.

I did the intermediate workout again and really felt engergized afterwards.  Beadie, I took your advice about pushing back more on my legs during downward dog and felt a difference!  Thanks!

After I did my yoga, I sat and read a few pages from “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating,” by Geneen Roth.  I’ve read it once before but like to go back and re-read parts now and then.  It was a good way to start off the day.

And now for a little attention-hooring –  Sweetie Pie picked me to host this week’s BSI, so head on over to my food blog to see what ingredient I picked!  I hope you guys decide to participate!

Have a great day!

This morning I decided to be daring and do the intermediate workout on the Basic Yoga for Dummies dvd.  The intermediate workout is basically learning how to do a sun salutation.  It was short, about 20 minutes, but I really really felt it.  This is more my style, going through the poses quickly.  I think. 

I also downloaded some of the free podcasts from YogaDownload.com — they’re only 20 minutes, so perfect for this challenge.  Not sure if I want them on my iPod or if I should just listen to them through my laptop.

As I was doing today’s workout, I noticed that my wrists were hurting whenever we were in downward-facing dog.  Now, you have to know that I have TINY wrists and hands — like child-sized wrists and hands.  So I don’t know if that has anything to do with it — I mean, I’m putting a lot of my body weight (which is quite a bit) onto these tiny wrists and hands.  Or does it get better as I keep practicing?

Okay, I think that’s it for now — gotta get ready for work!

I’ve done yoga on and off the past few years — as with anything I do, I’m very inconsistent.  I love how calm I feel afterwards and I love being in tune with my body, so I’m not sure why I stop doing it.

For today’s inaugural session, I went back to the basics and did an oldie but goodie — Basic Yoga Workout for Dummies, by Sara Ivanhoe.  It’s a good one to introduce the poses and it gets you into the mindset of tying the breaths to the movements.  Plus the instructor is so calm and encouraging, so it’s a good one to use to ease into the practice.

I’ll probably do this one or two more times and then go onto the other workout on that dvd which introduces sun salutations. I do admit to liking more power-yoga type workouts, but I need to ease into them.

I feel so good right now.  I might crawl back into bed to rest a bit more (the hubby is still sleeping away) or read.   Later I’ll do some groceries if the rain lets up and cook something good to eat.

How did you first start doing yoga?

Don’t have much else planned for this weekend.  The hubby and I are supposed to go an ice hockey game tonight, so that should be fun.  Tomorrow I was supposed to see my torturer trainer but I decided to reschedule since I haven’t been feeling that great lately.  So I might just take a much needed day of rest.

I made and submitted my entry for this week’s BSI contest, so be sure to check it out on my food blog!  Yes, that was a pathetic instance of self promotion.

I gave in and weighed myself this morning and was up 2.5 lb from the last time I weighed myself.  So basically back to where I started in January, although my measurements were still down.  So maybe those torture sessions are doing some good.  Trying not to be bothered by the number on the scale.

So remember when I said that one of the things I wanted to try again was yoga? And how I just haven’t gotten around to doing any?  Well, as I was browsing along through blogland this week, I saw that Tina at Carrots’n'Cake is hosting a 31 day yoga challenge.  The bare minimum is 20 minutes a day, which I think I can manage to squeeze in, so maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need.  Now I just need to see if I have dvds for 20 minute workouts . . . a little shopping might be in order!  I know I will need the calming/stress relief of yoga in March, things are going to be hectic at work with 3/15 and then 4/15 deadlines looming.

And I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a review of Mindful Eating.  I plan to re-read it, take some notes, and post my thoughts eventually.  I also need to go back and reread parts of Overcoming Overeating to brush up on some stuff.

Hope you all have a great weekend!