Aisle of Doom

Last night I went to the store and it took me 5 minutes to figure out what kind of bread to buy. 5 minutes!

I stood there looking at every option and tried to find which was the best choice. Did I want the nuts & seeds, the highest fiber, lowest carbs, etc. It's been a really really long time since I've just bought the bread I wanted to eat and not paid to attention to the nutritional information.

I was really frustrated with myself for not being able to make such a simple choice. It felt like I was trying to decide my life's career -- no wait, that was a little easier.

I ended up getting mad at myself for my inability to just choose a stupid loaf of bread and so I just grabbed the cheapy bread, which makes great grilled cheese sandwiches, and left the aisle. I'm happy with my choice though because I like that kind of bread and it makes all sandwiches good.

Whereas ezekiel, which is something else I enjoy, is only good for certain types of sandwiches so it feels limited to me and why should I buy bread that only works for certain things? It seems strange ...

Bread aisle conquered .. for now.

Regarding the quality famine, I definitely agree it's way easier to think it's the amount of food being taken in rather than the type of food.

I understand that quality plays an important role but there is still a very large part of my head that doesn't believe that food is as big an issue as mindset. Meaning, if I can just trust that my body knows what it is doing and feed it when it asks, that the quality of food shouldn't matter because at some point my body will kick in and tell me what it needs.

Geneen Roth gives the example of how she ate chocolate chip cookies and cookie dough for 14 days straight because that's what she wanted and then on the 15th day she wanted broccoli or some such food.

I suppose I'm still trying to have the best of both worlds. I'm still clinging to the fact that one can "have it all", meaning eating what they want as long as they eat in accordance to their body.

That said, I'm shifting back into my real food phase w here the junk food doesn't appeal as much. I think I just go to extremes too much which is why I bounce around. Like right now, if I could just maintain this balance of eating some junk but wanting good food instead of feeling I must dive into eating all good food I think I'd be better off. But it seems as though I must go to extremes.

Today was a good day though. I feel mentally more relaxed and let me just say that I looked really hot today. *G* I'm wearing my favorite jeans and honestly, I look damn good and I love those days. I have them a lot actually but it never fails to make me happy when I see myself in the mirror ( room sized mirror no less ) and think about how good I look.

I think that's the one downside of reading these self-help books. On one side they give you perspective on how it is for others but the downside/flip side is that they can make you start to over analyze yourself and compare yourself and even be more harsh.

I've come a LONG way in the past two years in figuring out who I am and what I want. I realize that I'll never look like everyone else but that's OK because there are a lot of women out there that even though they are thin, look like death. My cousin is one of them, she had the gastric bypass and she always looks like she's one step away from dying and yeah, she's thin but at what price?

So today was a good day .. I tried to slow down when I ate so that I could pay more attention to how I was feeling and just mindlessly eat whatever portion I'd served myself. It seemed to work out well. I tend to eat and read and when I do that, one of two things happens .. I either eat really slowly and still eat it all or I eat really fast/mindless and eat it all. I think I need to combine the slowing down part and the paying attention part and see what I get.

Anyway, it's a process, an evolution if you will and I think it's a good thing.

I think though one of the more discouraging things is to re-read this journal and see the highs and lows I've had in the past 9 months. I don't have all the answers, I've never had all the answers, but now I think I've got the faith to take it one step at a time instead of trying to traverse the entire journey in one giant step.