It's All in Your Head

Wellness Wednesday

For those of you that are following this blog, you know that I have pledged to spend 10 minutes a day in meditation. These last few days I have had what Oprah Winfrey calls my 'lightbulb moment'. I realized that the condition of my health (my being overweight) was all a result of my overeating. Okay, not rocket science. But I realized that my overeating wasn't because I liked food (which I do). It's from feeling out of control, from feeling less-than, from feeling as if every situation around me is helpless. To quote a cliche', I have been eating my feelings for about 5 years. That's a long, long time.

Transfer that to my feeling trapped by the chaos and the clutter in my home and it's a recipe for a very angry woman. The problem being that my feelings of anger and helplessness created the chaos that I live in. It's a vicious circle that has continued on until today.

This epiphany that I wasn't my feelings and that I can be as healthy as I want to be was a smack in the face. I know that it sounds dumb for a woman in her 30's to "discover" these truths. But it wasn't that my brain didn't understand. It was that my heart and soul didn't understand. In order to be healthy, the mind, body and soul must all be in alignment. When one of them is missing then things do not run smoothly. My health is a result of the choices I make. Whether past, present, or future these are all my decisions. If my body is not calm then neither will my mind and spirit, the converse is true also.

Take a moment today and reflect on why your life/health is the way that it is. Are you overweight? Maybe you're thin but you stay tired all of the time. Are your emotions out of sinc? Do you fly off the handle and snap at people often? How healthy do you want to be and what steps do you need to accomplish it?

Wellness Wednesday-starting from scratch

For the next week I will follow a few guidelines and see how the weight just falls off. :) Ok sure, that might work. First you should know that up until now my exercise is hit and miss. As in hit 1 day and miss the next 20. So my exercise vow this week is to move more. I will do squats, sit ups, crunches, push ups or light weight training exercises at least 10 minutes per day. If I can do more then I will. But the goal is 10 minutes EVERY DAY.

Now for the eating changes. I am an official junk food junkie. I love cakes, candy bars, anything sweet. I also love carbs. I mean Loooooove carbs. I would much rather have a stack of pancakes for breakfast than eggs or bacon.

So this week I am eliminating fast food (which is pretty simple because we've already blown our restaurant budget through the 15th). I plan on drinking a minimum of 32oz. of water per day. It doesn't sound like a lot, but for me it's progress. I will limit it to no more than 20oz of Coke/sodas per day. I drank an entire 2 liter just a few days ago so this is serious progress for me. As for how much I eat, I plan on keeping busy with work and household chores so that I don't end up snacking in front of the tv. I will also aim to eat no later than 6PM every night.

I've lost 2lbs. in two weeks but I'm hoping the changes I'm making this week will give me a boost. What are you doing for your health?