Thanksgiving: Learning To Trust Myself

Happy Thanksgiving from Florida!

Greetings all from Florida! Hubby and I winged our way down here two days ago and I'm enjoying this weather in the 70s (versus the 20 degree weather in Ohio!). Read over my last post and I must say I was very, very disgruntled and that has passed. I go through those moments when I get frustrated with my "slight" weight gain, and I guess there's a bigger, more general frustration with my repetitive eating routine -- which I feel I should continue if I want to keep my 10-12 lb. gain capped. Folks, this whole maintenance thing is just so hard for me sometimes. And every so often, it's time for a good vent.

So...on to today.

I awoke early this morning, Thanksgiving, and watched the sun rise over the palm trees. It was beautiful, and I started contemplating how the day would proceed for me. I had planned a day of very strict eating, followed by an extremely lean Thanksgiving dinner consisting of fish and vegetables -- no carbs and no desserts. And as I was sitting there in the early morning hour, I thought to myself, "This is nuts! You need to enjoy yourself, just in a controlled way." I remembered too, that one year ago I was here, Optifasting, and I had the fish and vegetable dinner. Must I really repeat that -- is that all I'm limited to? No, I think we can evolve from this just a bit.

Now, some might think there is a danger in "loosening the reins." And I think there's validity to that in some cases. But perhaps in my case some easing up today might not be a bad thing? Perhaps having a day of freedom  from my repetitive eating schedule is allowed -- and maybe deserved? Sure, I'm scared and nervous and worried about the scale. You know I'm always worried about the scale. Of course I know that most pack on about 10 lbs. from the period between Thanksgiving and New Years Day. But I have decided I'm going to try something new: trusting myself.

What's absolutely fascinating to me is since I arrived here, a desire to mindlessly graze has been escalating to an almost painful point. But once I made my decision this morning to give myself some leeway on my eating today, the thoughts of grazing evaporated! Gone. I had my oatmeal early, then a brunch around 11:00 a.m. and dinner is at 6:30 p.m. I'm not hungry at all this afternoon -- quite content to watch football and go to Facebook and perhaps walk with my husband  (we had planned a beach walk but we've been lounging around and haven't gone yet). I'm relaxed. And quite happy about that.

It appears that as I enter this year's holiday season, I'm going to need to strive for some sort of "balance" in my eating. Some controlled menus (I use the words "controlled" or "restrictive" for lack of better words -- working on finding some more positive term!) offset by some leeway on things where I trust myself to eat more caloric things wisely. Using avoidance strategies with treats i.e. "I can't eat this" or "I won't eat that" doesn't really work for me. I just end up in an out-of-control feeding frenzy. I can make good decisions. I've completed 9 months of maintenance and I'm doing okay.

Again, it's baby steps with all of this. We'll see how tonight goes. I've seen the menu and I think I'm going to have pumpkin soup, a salad and lamb. And dessert? Who knows. I know I'll make the right choice. I feel good. Empowered. Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving!