Reconsidering

The popcorn diet was a stupid idea. Here is what happened: I bought 4 bags of popcorn and 4 double milky ways. I ate two bags of popcorn and all the Milky Ways one after the other on Sunday. I ate the other two bags on Monday. I ate no popcorn or Milky Ways or other snacks today. I'm declaring the popcorn diet experiment over.

The reason I'm declaring it over is because I realise I have broken the physical habit of bingeing, if not necessarily the psychological habits and I do not want to undo any of the good work that I have struggled so hard with until now. On Sunday, I was not hungry and I was not craving any of the food that I had slogged through the snow to buy. Admittedly once I started eating it was pretty easy to fall back into it and scoff the lot in a very short amount of time. I didn't feel good afterwards; I felt bloated and my stomach ached. I haven't had these feelings for a very long time and I didn't welcome them back. On Monday I genuinely intended to just eat half a bag, but how often is that ever possible? I didn't enjoy my dinner and Zumba was harder than it had been last week. Those could be for any number of reasons but I'm choosing to blame the popcorn! It's just stupid to eat for the sake of eating, making myself feel full and bloated when I have worked so hard to recognise my body's hunger cues and to train it to eat healthy food and not to crave things that are bad for me. I have been enjoying over the last few weeks waking up hungry for breakfast, then being fine, then starting to get hungry about half an hour before lunch, then being fine, then starting to get hungry for dinner. Admittedly I get hungry for dinner way before my usual dinner time hence the previous bingeing but I assume that is a problem with my timetable - my body requires food it just isn't possible at that time! This is good and normal, right? It isn't normal to be permanently full and eating anyway, or to be hungry all the time despite eating all the time. I have had the occasional fleeting thought that I would like to eat this or that,but that happens to everyone doesn't it?! I haven't had the crushing cravings to binge that I couldn't make go away or ignore until I ate everything in sight. This. Is. Progress. And I shouldn't have been trying to mess with it. I don't want to go back there.

So, I am trying to be accepting that the way I am eating is healthy if I am 'only' maintaining and not putting weight back on and maybe I will just have to be patient and lose weight slowly but healthily. It is hard to swallow this though, when I am desperate to lose 6 pounds in the next three weeks!!! I am also intrigued to know whether, just maybe, the popcorn did help and will be responsible for any loss this week. That would be a bitter pill to swallow.

I have just been running, so this is week 2 day 1 of Life as a Runner. I hope to go running another 3 times this week, and once I've been paid I'm going to try and go swimming twice. I will also throw in some walking and some of my other little exercises as well as continuing with my healthy eating and hope that does the trick. I guess time will tell until Sunday weigh-in. As I am going swimming, I will also be shaving my legs - the last time I lost 2 lbs I had also shaved more closely than usual. As I have PCOS it is entirely possible that this was the cause of the lost 2 lbs ;-). Hmm.