The Un-Diet

I have been a bit under the weather this week so I have not been all about blogging. Today is a new day...it's beautiful and I am beginning to feel some better.
Body By God by Dr. Ben Lerner is the book I am currently reading to help me on my quest to get healthy. There is no one way to do this nor is there one book or one expert. I have been on this journey for a long time and have learned a lot from a lot of different sources. The issues that Dr. Lerner brings up in his book make sense and they resonate with my experiences.
He writes about the un-diet.
I like that.
The word diet to me has always signaled restriction and starvation. In fact, that is his first point.
"Diet = Deprevation"
Myth #1!
I have learned the hard way that cutting out "tasty good" from my diet simply means failure. It's important to eat a variety of foods that are tasty and flavorful. It may mean learning to make adjustments in your cooking, but it can be done.
He also says "if you crave, you cave (once you cheat or go off your diet, it's over)"
That's another myth that he dispells.
I have actually learned recently the fallacy of that statement. For two weeks I cut out all refined sugar and white flour from my diet. It was hard. But I did it with the idea that it was temporary and it was for a specific purpose. I had not lost an ounce in over 9 weeks. I was trying to move my body to let go of some of the stored fat. It worked. I lost 3 pounds. This week, I slowly added a bit back into my diet. I haven't crashed or caved. I made cookies today and did not eat any of the dough and just tasted a very small part of a cooled cookie.
One of the biggest breakthroughs for me this year has been to conquer my battle with emotional eating. That has been huge. I am talking HUGE!
Another thing that Dr. Lerner says is that this journey is not a game of perfect. I really like that.
When you think about it, who can follow something perfectly for a day, much less a week or even a life time? The important part is to get started. I have learned when I make mistakes, I just get back in the game!
My goal for next week is to BE in the game with my exercise, planning my meals, cooking and packing my meals to work.
It's going to be a good week!