My Still Small Place

I am so ashamed to tell what I ate for breakfast. I will say it eventually, but I cant now. Anyway, the good news is that I have found out why I was craving sweets and food so much. My period is imminent. But on another note I need to go into that still, small place soon, to resolve some lingering emotional issues. I am noticing that I am negotiating with some personal issues that I should have let go.

As a matter of fact, this post will be about how I came to begin this journey of healthy eating, and why. It's a journey I must retrace because I have to plot the route ahead.

This was the last post I wrote before my computer crashed. But I just realised that even though my resolve to lose weight does seem to be waning, I can almost certainly say it's because my period was approaching with alarming, hormonal alacrity. LOL. Well, deo veolente, I will start afresh tomorrow. I feel better now, and I really would love to reduce my dress size.

So where was I?

Yea. I was going over the reasons I decided to embark on a diet, apart from the obvious. I was watching- or was I reading?- an episode of Oprah, when she spoke about the fact that she had gained weight again. Now, I'm not one of those who bow down in worship when Oprah is on the air, but I do have a healthy respect for her achievements and the depth of some of her topics, so I take advice that I like from her show, on board, from time to time. So, anyway, she had lost quite a lot of weight a while back, I think about two years ago, and she was looking quite svelte. She actually celebrated this because it seemed ahe was finally free of the struggle. But ccome this yearr, and all the weight just came back, in full force. To get back on track, she decided to work through the issues that were making her eat, with the help of her friend, and nutritionist, Bob Green. She made this walk paticipatory by turning the sessions into a series of interactive webcasts. Now, I always heard that over eating and weight are external signs of an internal problem, but I never really took that seriously. I mean, if the thing you overeat is delicious what other problem could you possibly have? However, Oprah's resolve caught me at a time when I was aching for a physical, emotional and psychological make-over. So I signed up for the webcast and attended. And oh!, what an epiphany.

I can't quite recall everything I learnt there right now, but I remember the 'circle of life'. Bob asked everyone to draw a circle and then section it into at least 6 segments, kind of like a pie chart. Then, we were to label each segment, according to the areas of our life, eg, health, finance, romance, career, etc. if you are doing good in any area and you were satisfied with how it was going you were to put a '+' sign in it. If you were doing bad, you were to put a '_' sign. At the end of the exercise, check those areas that you have the '-' sign aand write at least one thing that you can do to make it better, everyday. I tell you, that exercise opened my eyes to what I was really battling with, and in dealing witn them I have begun to eveolve into a person I actually like.

Other than that, I felt very unhealthy and unattractive. I was addicted to chocolates and sodas, I was just not living out of the centre of myself. I knew I had more to offer, to myself and the world but I felt I was being hindered by my weight. (I now realise that my weight was just a reflection of how messed up I was, inside.)

It's not over yet, but now I am more conscious of why and what I eat, it's the when I am still fighting to contain. i also deliberately,and happily make healthy choices not for cosmetic reassons but because I like myself enough to do that. And I can forgive myself, when I have slipped up.

If you think I'm speaking gibberish, maybe you should read the transcript of the webcasts, to get a better perspective. I hope you get as much illumination as I did, or even more.



Chili!