So, how is it going so far?

It's going well!

I am by absolutely no means eating what one would consider dietician approved, well rounded, nutritious, healthy meals.  At the moment.  I needed to start slowly.  Every single other attempt, I have lived up to my usual 'all or nothing' attitude, and attempted to change everything 'perfectly' from Day 1.

This time I plan on doing it in stages.  Other than having a definitive start date of a few days ago, there's no dates or pre-prepared timelines for these stages.  The first, initial stage is simply focusing on cutting out the majority of the crap I was eating.  Note, I said 'majority'.  I have, in the last 3.5 days, eaten chocolate, chips and pizza.  That sounds terrible and laughable; I know.

But my intake since Monday morning has been miles ahead of what I was shoving down my mouth every day for the last 6.5 years (bar a few attempts 3+ years ago).

And each of those foods were eaten intentionally and with reason, in itself a marked improvement of past behaviour.  For example, last night, I had a visitor surprise me by bringing over Dominos pizza for myself and the girls.  They were doing it to be kind, and it was a situation where it would have, in a way, hurt them, had I declined to eat any myself.  (They don't follow Coco Girl 😉 (so don't yet know of my changes)), and I made the very intentional decision to eat some.  I decided to have one piece, and have my planned dinner later.

But of course one piece made me want a second.  I would usually have eaten about 4 pieces.  But I just had the 2, and felt satisfied.  And later on I asked myself if I really wanted the planned dinner and decided that I didn't.  So instead of eating my usual 4 pieces, or having extra food later, or declining altogether and feeling deprived, I just enjoyed the spontaneous, crazy, loud, pizza dinner that was bought with kind intentions.

So it was obviously not the ideal dinner, but I have zero regrets.  My choices were an improvement, I enjoyed the food and atmosphere, and I was intentional and therefore in control.

And the most important part is, I don't feel like I stuffed up the last 3 days and may as well visit Binge City and start again next Monday.

Other than that, I've cut out the rest of the main crap that I was inhaling.  My food choices have been yummy to me; not (yet) portion controlled, not calorie counted, but better.

I'm not ready to exercise yet, but that will come.  (I'll explain this more on a future post).

Also, these things don't sound like they're related, but a few other things I've changed this week are:

• I started wearing makeup again for the first time since about March
• I put on some of my jewellery for the first time in about 2 years
• I've made realistic to do lists for each day and have actually been actioning most things on the lists

The makeup thing still surprises me.  In that I didn't wear it for 4 months.  I have not been seen without makeup for 20 years.  Going makeup free recently may sound positive, like it was because I was being comfortable in my own skin, blah blah blah.

But it was the opposite.  It was because I just didn't care anymore.  COVID / lockdown didn't help.  I was seeing very few people of course, and it just went from there.  But even once we were allowed out more, I didn't pick up on my self care.  Once you drop one thing, it's easy to drop more, and self care becomes a snowball that gathers speed and tumbles quickly away from you.

So, wearing makeup (and jewellery) again is a positive thing for me.

Anyway, I have a whole lot more to share, but I'm trying to just get things done and not over analyse as much (or overwrite!) so I'll just wrap up this brain dump now, and chat to you more soon.

😘

P.S. Following the theme of self care, I also got my hair done the other day.  One day I might be brave enough to show you the 'before' photo.  Tip: self care wise, you can let everything go, but never let your hair go.  It was b.a.d. 😳