Long live the Easter Bunny! Mostly because he will not be appearing anywhere near our house! Hop on by, you chocolaty devil, you. Every Sunday when we go on our little mall date, Ray buys me one chocolate from Purdy’s. I always get the dark chocolate Himalayan sea salt caramel. Sometimes I think I would like something different but I feel like if what I get isn’t as good then I’m going to be disappointed and thinking about the stupid thing to distraction until the next Sunday! I read somewhere today that going through a realistic imagining of eating a tempting item is enough for your brain to believe that you actually ate it and therefore you can stop jonesing for it. Unfortunately in a different study, I read that if your imagination is vivid enough your body can have the same physiological reaction as if you actually consumed the item….right down to actually gaining weight. So…..think about the item just vividly enough not to eat it but don’t think about it so vividly that you trick your body into reacting to it. 😉
I’ve been thinking about thinking quite a bit lately. Mostly about how powerful the brain is and how, once you get a thought in there, it can be nearly impossible to rid yourself of it. Self-fulfilling prophesy, anyone? I’ve been trying to tell myself I’m happy here…where I’m expending as much time and effort as I have to expend while still balancing the rest of everything. I think back on when I was the most successful and I came to that “most successful” place when I was single…when I lived alone during the week and I had nothing but time on my hands. I continued along that path after I moved in with Ray because I was already on it. I continued doing “things” whether it was walking, running, spinning or lifting. I had enough foundation built that I could get away with not spending as much time on it as I did previously. And….as time goes on and things happen, a little less time is spent on it. And then…more time passes and more things happen and a little more time is chipped away. And so it goes. And as those bits of time are chipped away, my foundation was also being slowly chipped away. And now I’m here…..and I think I’ll never get back there…..not because I’m negative or I don’t want to be there…but because I am not willing nor do I have the kind of time to expend on that goal. Maybe if I wanted it badly enough I could do it again….it would certainly look different though. It was 7 years ago. And that was 7 years of life….ups, downs, coasting and working at it. I don’t want to relive those 7 years. I don’t want to try and force myself back into the life that got me to 165 pounds. I’m sorry…I just don’t. I want to live forward and new and fresh and if that means that all I can do is what I can do……then that brings me to wherever it brings me. I welcome myself to that place….that place of balance and health and acceptance.
I’ve been having great enjoyment in logging walking kilometers this month. The weather has been great for it and I love seeing my routes and totals start to line up. I’m so fortunate that I have an endless variety of walkable routes and destinations right outside my door. I can make innumerable combinations of hills, stairs, forests, urban trails or lovely manicured residential areas and quiet side streets. I can’t say I’ve noticed any particular change in my body but I have noticed a huge improvement in my physical ability since April 1st. The walk I did yesterday after work with Gracie was one I’d always wanted to try but was scared of/intimidated by (what I thought was) the huge hill right in the middle of the route. Turned out to be nothing but a blip on the radar, all the kilometers I’ve put in walking home uphill from work conditioned me for that hill, I guess!
When Gracie and I got home from our walk, I sat in the driveway in the setting sun, chatting with my hubby until it was time to go and make dinner. I made the Tod Mun Chicken Cakes from Well Fed 2 (processed the “batter” on the weekend so I just had to cook them) with the cucumber relish, a side salad and a lovely quartered tomato. It was very refreshing and flavourful, definitely a winner! The cucumber relish makes the cakes, don’t skip it!
Today is a drive home day….I got quite the blister on my foot during our trek last night and thought I would give it a bit of a rest….and I’ve logged over 23 kilometers in the last 4 days so a rest seems like a nice thing to do. I’ll still take my dog for a walk when I get home, just nothing epically long or hard. That’s all for me…..to summarize: no chocolate, find happiness in where I am, loving walking, eating chicken cakes. When I put it like that it seems really dull!
If you’re on MapMyRun and want to connect, my username is “ladyshanny”
Fitty vs Fatty 