Day 28

It has been suggested that I offer more here than just about the food.  And I couldn't agree more, however, are you really gonna get in my shit because I'm a freak for the soft serve?  For the love of God, throw me a bone!!!  :) :) :) :)  Anyway, yes, I will be happy to focus on things other than the food, I think it's a great suggestion.  For the moment, I am really obsessing on the food aspects of this because I have dramatically altered my eating habits for more than a couple of days.  I've done THIS for almost a whole month!  I'm not sure I've done ANYTHING consistently for a whole month in the last 16 years; other than eat badly.  That said, all kinds of things are coming to the surface.  I say, 'what can I say, I just LOVE food, I LOVE to eat, it tastes good (the bad stuff of course) etc.'.  I am still saying I'm overweight because I just love food.  HOWEVER, I AM finding that slowly but surely that isn't the reason I've become overweight, just loving food, it was because I was using it for lots of reasons.  The ones that have readily come to light are: I was drugging myself with food (my health coach mentioned this and wow, it's SO true!); and eating due to stress and/or anger.  Since I've started this and therefore not eaten out (New Year's eve and New Year's day morning as the exceptions) and have been following MF and thus keeping the sodium intake way down....I've noticed I'm not bloated and swollen like I was.  I knew my feet and my arms were swollen to some degree and my legs for that matter, but I wasn't aware of just HOW MUCH until about a week or so ago.  I looked at my feet, my arms, my hands and was like, wow.....huh, how 'bout that.

Some epiphanies since my last post:  the shakes are a WAY better choice as they seem to stave off the hunger more than anything else (with the exception of the oatmeal and soup).  Smell is a trigger.  Maybe it's true that most or all humans are triggered by the sense of smell to eat, I don't know if that's a scientific fact or not.  What I do know is that I am REALLY triggered by smell to want to eat.  So I've figured out this weird way of looking at this that is actually helping me.  When I smell something good/yummy whatever, I have an immediate and visceral response and think I must have that 'thing' right now.  Period.  No waiting.  An example...the other day one of my daughters made some buttered toast, and it smelled SO delicious and amazing, I thought, oh GOD, I'd love some buttered toast.  BUT, I also thought how I could eat a whole LOAF of buttered toast (how f'ed up is THAT thinking?).  I chose instead (this is the weird part) to focus on just enjoying the smell.  I am trying to just revel in, drink in, absorb the smell of the yummy food and let that experience be enough.  And, it works.  Go figure.  It doesn't take away my urge to have the item, but it helps get me out of that "I-must-have-said-yummy-smelling-food-now" place.  I still get some enjoyment from the moment just not into my tummy and eventually on my ass, hips, and thighs.

Last couple of days w/food have been okay.  I'm coming to the end of my first batch of food and now I have to be creative and just suck it up.  I have a lot of pancackes left, no soups, only shakes I don't like.  So, I should be in good shape to drop another lb. or 2 by the end of the week.  Don't worry, don't assume I'll substitute other food, I won't.  It'll just be what it is.  Doing better on my water intake so that always helps.  Also, getting better at dealing with the feelings of hunger.  I'm getting slightly less hungry and able to focus more on just managing to make it at least 2.5 hours instead of feeling super hungry every 90 min.

So far today...
oatmeal
shake
(gonna have pancakes for lunch)

Water: 4 glasses thus far

Rating for the last 3-4 days...7/10.

Oh and I still have some soft-serve left(so there G)! Yippee a light in the tunnel!  Pictures to come....don't wanna put up a pic of myself yet until I drop at least 20.  Then I'll post a 'before' pic plus a current pic.  I'm glad to show off my fat self but not so glad until I can show a pic that shows some progress.