Survival Guide

I'm excited for tomorrow. I will be setting up my resource book. I have a binder that I keep my meal plans in that I subscribe to. It needs updating badly. Tomorrow I'll be printing out all of the materials I am behind in and make sure they get into a book. I notice that I eat much better and my portions are in better control when I use a meal plan. Also, I have a small books worth of healthy eating/living information that I want to have all in one accessible place. I'll be printing that out also and putting it all together in a binder. Very soon, I also want to put together my visual goal poster. I've never *really* grasped the concept of these things. So the approach I am taking is to put things up there that remind me of my journey and why I am on it. Sometimes, I need those things to stare me in the face.

I also find, that when it comes to reading materials, I read better and more attentively when it isn't on a screen. This is one of the reasons that I want it all printed out for me. I should clarify, not on a computer screen. I have no issues at all reading on my Nook. I guess what it boils down to, is I am starting my own survival guide. I already record my food online on WW, otherwise I would add food recording sheets to the survival guide also.

It's by no means complete. I am sure I will be adding to it as I go along. This is my November and I intend to explore the ways I can best take care of myself. It sounds selfish to say it that way. How I am supposed to take care of the people around me whom I love, if I am not taking care of me though.

I'm hoping also that moving my body more will become easier again. I think most people slack off on their exercise in winter time when they can't go outside anymore. For me it's the opposite. I do pretty well during the cold months. (Cold is a relative term btw) Once the ungodly hot, humid, buggy, awful months show up, I don't go outside anymore. It's too hot. It's too buggy. I've literally been chased back to my house by CLOUDS of mosquitoes. It's disgusting. So with colder temps, I am looking forward to getting back outside, very much.

So tell me, what's in your weight-loss/healthy-living survival guide?

Clearing the cobwebs and a November challenge

Swish....
...swish...
......swish...

Don't mind me, just clearing the cobwebs out. It's been a while hasn't it? I've been hiding. I've been hiding from a great many things. When you hide though, you can't really make any kind of progress. You put yourself in a fantastic position to slip backwards though. That is what I did.

Apparently, I was hiding in a hole... with a rock on top. There was plenty of room to go backward (AND BOY DID I EVER) but not much room to go forward. So I have climbed out of the hole. It took a long time to move that rock off. There was a house sitting on it. Literally.

I've been dealing with a lot of stress. (Who hasn't? I know...) My husband and I lost our house to foreclosure. Well it's been getting closer to the end of the process and the closer the end got, the more freaked out I got. We have a public sale date now. I finally feel as though I am not stuck under that house anymore.

So I have decreed the best way to kick off this November it to have a challenge. November is about me. It has begun well so far. True, I haven't eaten very well, and I haven't begun working out again yet, but I have started doing things for me. I have begun to do much neglected research into eating better for my body to help with my specific health issues. I've have been doing laundry and cleaning my room, trying to make the space I inhabit feel like home. I've been trying to sort through the pain and the STUFF generated by moving out of the old house. I've been working on me.

Some questions elude me. fatgirlvsworld gave me some great advice at one point. We were talking about emotional eating and she suggested I try and get to the root of it. Question myself until I found whatever the fear and hurt was that drove the emotional eating. This answer eludes me. I haven't found it yet. I'm still looking. I don't know why my brain shuts off and I go into a sleepwalking state of emotional eating. The scary part is, it's not just emotional eating. It's completely un-mindful eating. Sometimes, I have no idea what I've eaten that day.

See, that is the start of the zombification process. I know it's happening. There was a zombie in that hole with me. I didn't manage to hide at all. They are slow and relentless those zombies. You can't get lazy around them. Fortunately, this isn't the movies. The process isn't permanent. You can still change your fate as long as you haven't let them kill you.

So November is about me. I don't expect to FIX everything this month. I expect to reverse the zombification process so I am aware. You need to be aware of what you are doing and what is going into your body. If you don't know what is going into it, you'll never know what you can get out of it.