Hello August!

July was a tough month. I was dealing with more grief and depression. I also experienced a real setback in the form of my grief, which caused me to lose focus on my eating and exercise. I did end up gaining some weight and going up a size in clothing. It was challenging to not beat myself up, but to simply return to the healthy habits that I have been building on my journey. I learned that you cannot just fix things by going to extreme exercise or extreme diet. I also learned that I should not panic when I see changes in my body. I learned how to accept when I am not on the same level of fitness as before. I had to learn how to accept my struggles with food as I slowly built back up to my better eating habits.

This month’s experiences have taught me to appreciate dressing my best at any size. I always withheld clothes waiting for the day when I would be smaller. Now I know that wearing attractive clothes that fit at every size is essential to me feeling positive about myself and that good feeling will motivate me to continue to take the best care of myself.

I also learned that even when my eating is off track I can always draw strength from my consistent walking routine. When all else fails I can walk! Walking helped me feel better about myself when I was feeling negative about my body and my food struggles. It is hard to dump on yourself after you have just completed a physical challenge.

I was able t o implement some new things to help me get back on track on my health journey. I started a dinner calendar, where I created dinner homework assignments for the month to help motivate me to cook healthy meals. I also increased my food intake during the day. I had always been really strict during the day, only eating breakfast and lunch with no snacks in between. I believed that because I binge eat at night that I was cutting calories by not snacking during the day. What I realized was that not snacking during the day was not helping to cut down on binge eating at night. I was making myself so hungry and destroying my blood sugar by fasting and then binge eating. I gave myself to eat snacks during the day and I have begun to feel so much better and I have noticed that I do eat less during the evening as a result. I snack on things like larabars , fruit cups, yogurt and rice cakes with cheese.

One of the most powerful things I got out of this month of July was that 1,000 attempts is better than quitting. No matter how difficult my health journey may be at times it is always worth it to keep going. I know that if I keep trying, eventually I will do something right.

As I head in to this August Month I am excited to continue on my journey. I am holding on to habits that are helping me such as journaling, reading inspirational weight-loss stories, eating a healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, and keeping up with my walking. Last month I began to snack well during the day, this month I will give hearty snacks a chance during the evening. I will listen to my body and feed myself when I get hungry, trying out a yogurt or larabar in the evening, since it works so well during the day. I am still seeking to make my journey more organic and more seamless. I am mostly looking forward to continuing my healthy habits, making them stronger and seeing my body slowly return to a smaller size.

CLM