The Wellness Journal – Part Two

So let’s face it, a Wellness Journal with me in charge was never going to be a straightfoward matter now was it? I do wish I was the kind of blogger who could inspire you with massive change and reliable output, but heckity-pie I’m just not. For heaven’s sake, do as I say and not as I do won’t you?

Anyways. As you know I began with good intentions, I joined WeightWatchers, gathered all the resources I needed to start my Wellness Journey and threw myself heart and soul into creating a more acceptable bottom and bosom. You know the kind that mean that I don’t have to cross the threshold of a room while my bum lingers in the last one and my boobs get the party started in the next?

It went rather spectacularly well. In the first week I lost an astonishing nine inches from around my person and in the weeks following another couple here and there. For I am nothing if not utterly excellent, at losing weight, once I put my mind to it. I once managed to lose NINE STONE. And yep, you read that right: NINE STONE.

The problem is keeping my mind on it. Because this is a mind that likes to go a-wandering and rather despises having to think about food all the time, mostly because I’m really not wild about food at all, and could happily live on an evening meal of cheese and crackers with the odd violet creme thrown in for puttery joy. (Preferably for breakfast). You see, I am not a foodie person. Mark BrocanteHome through the years and you will see that recipes are few and far between, not because I can’t cook, but mostly because food almost isn’t on my radar beyond providing sustenance for my family a few times a day. Ask me what food I like and I will tell you cheese. And kale roasted in fistfuls of garlic and olive oil.

I chose to do Weightwatchers because it forced me not only to consider what I am putting in my mouth, but also how often I remember to eat, while allowing me free reign with the diet choices I make and the “framework” for wellness I set myself.

So I created a printable to set my own “rules” (and shared it in the Salon Life Less Ordinary Planner so you too can create your own rules) based on the advice I read in The AutoImmune Wellness Handbook, with a bit of feta thrown in for good measure (because cheese), listing all the supplements I was taking and the self-care rituals I am using to support my journey, and hey ho I was good to go.

And go I did. At first with the kind of enthusiasm it would have been impossible to maintain because I am a person with a life and even losing a few inches of my substantial hips isn’t enough to have me obsessing, and then with a gentler, kinder approach that allowed for off days and sad days, while still operating as often as possible within the framework I had created for myself.

I don’t talk about the diet. Don’t make a fuss about how “good” I am being (for I never would have made a similar fuss about how “bad” I was being before, and I have long thought those women who waffle on about how much ironing they have got to do and mutter “I’m being good” while salivating over a slice of cake, need stringing up for over-serving martyrdom). I don’t lecture others about my dieting discoveries or bash myself about the head with a set of scales when I eat something I shouldn’t.

I simply do, as I do in all area’s of my life, what I set out to do. I do what I can. When I can. And when I fall off the bandwagon, I quietly climb back on and carry on. Observing where the temptation lay, or what emotion had me eating my weight in cheddar, and trying to find the lesson there, with no ludicrous expectation that it will never happen again, for as sure as eggs are scrambled: I will no doubt find myself standing Nigella Lawson style, by the light of the fridge,snaffling something cheesy in the middle of the night, because I can’t sleep, or the world feels upside down, or you know, because I am pre-menstrual and if you challenge me I will slap you around your cheeky chops. And then cry.

What has made the difference then is having a framework for my own Wellness Journey. A contract with myself. Each day I spend fifteen minutes plotting out my day in my journal, planning meals and factoring in my yoga and (hilarious) exercise sessions, my aromatherapy showers and meditations and then I get on with it. Sometimes everything gets done and sometimes it doesn’t but I keep on coming back to my framework: checking in with myself. Measuring myself weekly, doing diddy naked happy dances in my bedroom (not something for public consumption), and generally reminding myself daily that this isn’t a flash in the pan diet I can set aside but a lifestyle for always, I need to remain committed to if I want to stay alive for as long as possible.

For isn’t that ultimately what it is about: not vanity, but survival?

Things That Have Worked For Me Recently.

1. Upping my Vitamin D again. It has banished the debilitating aches and pains and given me more energy.
2. Wearing my Fitbit Versa daily (with this strap) as it bleeps every hour to remind me to stand up and move about when I’m engrossed in my work.
3. Reading “Intuitive Eating” because so very much of my relationship with food needs to be addressed and this book as recommended by a number of my readers is really helping me to do so.

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