Fantastic week this week. I dropped 2.6 pounds and 1.75 inches. Whoa! I've lost an overall total of 11.2 pounds, and 8.25 inches in 7 weeks. I'm almost half way to my goal, and I've been working hard.
Now 2.6 pounds seems like a big drop and I think there are a couple of factors contributing to that, 1. I've cut down on my flour and sugar intake, which I noticed I was eating way too much of, and 2. It was period week at the beginning of the week, and at the end I think I just unloaded a bunch of water weight, and 3. I believe I've been unloading some emotional psychic weight as well, which I'll explain more in the emotions section below.
Overall, I haven't tried any clothes a size down yet, but I'm sure they will fit me now, as my current clothes are somewhat baggy. I've gone in one comfortable notch on my belt. Most of the inches have come off my gut, waist, and hips, so I'm very excited about that. More after the jump.
At the beginning of the week, I was constipated, and bloaty, and having my period. When I get constipated it means that I am not drinking enough water, and not eating enough fibery food like veggies and fruit. When I thought back to what I had been eating, it was mostly bread, cereals, and starches. So, I started eating more green veggies, and some fruits, plus I started taking some digestive enzymes from Whole Foods to help digest my food better.
When you don't eat enough live enzymes which mainly come from veggies and fruit, your body has a hard time breaking down food especially meats, so at the colon end, your poops can start coming out hard and dense. Combine that with not enough water, and it's strain city. As you know, that is not too much sitting on the pot feeling like you're giving birth to a pile of crap (literal crap).
I also started drinking this Peach Detox tea and an Organic Green Tea, and eating half a pink grapefruit a day. I noticed that the teas and the grapefruit really made me pee a lot. Peeing is good. I haven't had a Diet Coke in 3 weeks, and I have to say that I don't really miss it all. I have been drinking sodas from Whole Foods which does have lots of sugar, but it's mostly cane sugar, and nothing artificial like aspartame or Splenda. I've been conscious of limiting the sodas to one every two days.
I've been working really hard on cardio this week, and have upped my running. I've been pacing myself, but it's amazing to me how quickly your body can get back to a fitness level it once knew. I'm no where near where I was fitness wise 2 years ago, but the ramp up is faster than when I originally got to that level of fitness. The body has a good memory.
The runner's high after a good hard run has been reminding me of why I loved running in the first place. There is nothing like that endorphin high after a good run where your heart was pumping hard, your lungs were taking in lots of oxygen, and you feel the fat burning off. I can literally feel the fat burn off because that is what I visualize when I run at the higher speeds.
Still haven't gotten into any kind off weights, or resistance type exercise. My resistance to it is still high. People have been giving me some good suggestions, and I think I'll try them as I get within 10 pounds of my goal which is only 4 pounds from now. At this moment, I'm just focused on burning fat. And for the critics, I know what you're going to say, and feel free to say it, but for right now, this is working for me, and I'm happy when working out.
So, I mentioned dropping some emotional psychic weight. I believe that some of the extra weight that people carry around with them is simply emotional weight. For example, have you ever been in a situation where you finally confronted a fear, had a conversation with someone you've been avoiding, or confronted some big emotional thing in your life that scared you to death, but came out of the experience better than you imagined, and you ended up feeling like you unloaded a huge emotional burden or weight, then low and behold a week later you noticed that you lost 2-5 pounds without doing anything food wise or exercise wise?
I call that emotional psychic weight. Everything is energy, and even emotional energy can have a dense and physical weight to it. When you let go of the emotional pain, that energy can leave your body and make you feel lighter emotionally and physically. This week, I've been doing a lot of screaming, crying, and punching of pillows to release some old hurts and anger from the past.
See. I'm a "Bottler". A bottler is one who bottles up anger and hurt and doesn't let it out, so that over time it all adds up, and then comes out in bursts of rage with yelling, self loathing, and self hurting. Many people with eating issues are bottlers. We overeat or binge and purge to try and mask the anger and hurt. Bottling results is explained in basic physics. If you build up pressure in a container but never release any of it, eventually the container will explode.
When I was younger, I had a serious bottler problem. When I started my healing 6 years ago, I literally spent almost 2 years in various healing and therapy sessions just letting out anger, hurt, and pain layer by layer. Emotionally, it was the most painful time in my life, and I hated it. I hated going through that but it has to come out in order for you to heal, and because I did not deal with that pain and anger when it was fresh, I got to deal with it years later. I highly recommend to anyone that even if you hate confrontations or dealing with emotional pain, get it over with NOW because you will be better off in the long run. There is no "free pass" from dealing with your emotions especially the painful, dark ones.
For women, I think it is harder for us to deal with our uglier emotions because it's not "pretty." Many of us are taught to always keep it together, never express your anger, or voice back your displeasure. 6 years ago I said screw that because it got me no where but sick, and because I did allow myself to start expressing my dark emotions it has made me emotionally healthier ever since. Not perfect. But emotionally healthier because I don't bottle anywhere close to how I used to. I'm not bottler free, but I know better to let the pressure out so I don't end up exploding.
This week, I have been battling with pain from my past corporate life. There is still lots of baggage there that I didn't realize. I am realizing that my inability to get my own business off the ground and/or my inability/resistance to getting a job to pay the bills is related to an intense fear of going back to corporate life and working with corporate type people because of having experienced all kinds of brutality you can imagine in corporate life. In some instances, it feels like post traumatic stress syndrome. Much of my time in corporate America was that bad. It's a very long story which I think I will start writing about more in the next few weeks. For now, letting those old hurts out is helping me stay on track and drop pounds and inches from my physical body.
