Okay paraphrase from a quote on an early episode of Southpark – but all the same. In this society we have ruined the word Diet. It has all of these hang ups and things for me – but I feel that this is kinda normal and likely the same for most folks.

Diet should mean just the food we consume, or rather the choices we make to fuel our bodies. Thats not the meaning or images my head has surrounding that word. I’ve been pleasantly plump most of my life – aka overweight. This also has alot of baggage that goes with it. Circa De 2/3 years ago when I decided I no longer cared what I looked like, I gave this up in a hopes of enjoying/having a longer life, I built some new paths for my mind/brain to travel with regards to food/diet.

The problem with paths in your mind/brain – is that they typically never really go away. It is very possible to shift, change, mutate, them – but the old paths stay. My old patterns of emotional eating are still there. The “need” to go on a “diet” to eliminate or compensate for “trying to feed emotions” which is what I tend to fall back on in a pinch. C word or no C word – emotional eating is just bad. Emotions can not enjoy food. Feelings can not be satisfied with food. Also for me, trying to do this – while it feels slightly better in the moment – bad things do spark hormones that cause good feelings – it generally makes me feel much much worse in the end because it doesn’t really gel with long range goals.

In the fall, when I had family around, and plans for family, and many good things surrounding me, I opted to relent on my diet (the true meaning – the food you chose to provide health and sustenance to your body) – I opted to relent a little, and allow myself to enjoy some of the foods I had made “taboo” for my life – because they are also some of my FAVORITE foods.

There IS a difference between eating for emotional reasons, and having foods spark emotions. There are some foods for me that just spark positive emotions. Unfortunately, many of them are somewhat less healthy carbs. Banana bread is one of these foods – that is to say “MY homemade banana bread” – its not horrible bad, but it does have APF (all purpose flour) – While I’ve tried subbing this out, and reducing it significantly, there is a limit/threshold to what I find pleasing to the palate. Pumpkin is another thing that just makes me happy. There is something in the food itself, but mostly its all the amazing and wonderful things it makes – I should also say, while I enjoy savoury pumpkin in the form of soups, its generally the sweeter side that my body finds its greatest pleasure in consuming. Pancakes is another.

These foods, while I DO eat them for emotional eating, or have times in the past, they also just trigger positive happy memory emotions for me, that are not a bad thing. Many carbs in general, like Bagels for example.

The struggle I have been having since November, is that when I loosened the reins, my body decided to explain to me that we are a carb based person. That these carbs are necessary for me. Having the particularly hard health struggle in January – well the data analyst in me almost wonders – with the fact that I was pretty hard core keto, and very rigid and strict until this point – well it wonders, if somehow going back to carbs isn’t part of what triggered the massive thing. Following this rabbit hole just a tiny bit, Keto is used to keep seizures from occuring in many folks – maybe they were keeping them out of my situation – completely unknown – and when I fell off that diet – well you get the idea. Its one of those like how many licks to get to the center of the tootsie roll – the world may never know….

Its very easy to follow the logic of the doctors and agree with them that “Oh its most likely the drugs that have caused this rapid sudden weight gain” …. 🙂 – but its still lying to yourself when you KNOW unequivocally that the weight gain is not from the drugs – although they do have side effects that may have made it harder to maintain or lose weight for me – its the foods I’ve been chosing that have caused the upspike.

I don’t want to think of diet anymore as “restriction” which is what comes to mind when I think of that word. Diet is not restricted at all, there is no one in the world that can stop me from putting in my mouth precisely what I want to put there, other than me. If I want to eat crap, I’ll eat crap. This doesn’t however, seem to fit in with my goals of living a long life, and helping my body heal faster.

My heart, and soul are on board with making healthier choices. My body is needing more carb right now then on the hyper restrictive plans I was doing before – I did notice an improvement in many levels with the introduction of “some carb” – so this is a time of finding a new “food plan” aka diet – that works with healthy carbs, and still leaves me feeling satisfied.

Developing a diet is somewhat exhausting. I would say its easier to just not eat, but thats just simple not true – without parameters, I will eat, and it will not necessarily be the best choices or selections.

I like having a goal. I need to reduce my weight down 10 lbs over the next few weeks, and then down another 15 over the next few months. This isn’t an over ambitious plan, it just requires some strategy. While I know keto would do this, I don’t think that is the direction my body needs to fuel its current – very working – elimination of this mutation of cells from my body.

There are many times that I miss my trip to India. I feel like it’s very hard to get healthy Indian food that is authentic here in the US. The indian food I had in India – even the “street food” had a vibrance to it, and a level of spice and something – maybe it was just the love and joy – that made it alot healthier than the food here. Maybe its something I can look more into and try learning to cook for myself, my few dalliances in this direction have proved extremely rewarding and satisfying culinarily – my tummy thanked me. This will be a call to the universe for all those helpful recipe books of authentic Indian dishes – particularly carb ones, come shower me with your ephanies of goodness.

The session last night on RR was good – they are always good, but it was so much information. I spent an hour after the series trying to scan thru the links that they tossed out like crackers to the birds. So much data, my mind hurt after the session and apparently I missed out on a joy moment at the end from one of the people I’ve connected with…. I was worried about this session, and while the information was helpful, the presenters were good, it was definitely not my favorite section.

The host for the overall session has started doing this incredible breathing exercise at the beginning and it is just so so empowering. She has us breath in good things, and exhale bad things. Its one I’ve seen/heard of before – but alot of what makes this RR series the best for me, is that its good information, that I know to be true and valid, with a gentle reminder/reintroduction to it.

I have connected with so many wonderful people in this session, it brings me joy and happiness to add to my blessings. I did start to wonder last night though – in the guided meditation the Omega symbol was my first symbol – and someone recently as a part of this series – I think it was during a break out session – mentioned “the Omega Instuitute” – which I hadn’t heard of before, but I went looking last night, like the good little data analyst I am. After reading their page, I am still not exactly certain what they are… who they are… they have an interesting message that somewhat speaks to me. Maybe its a path to check into another day.

Super excited to get to take Starbuck to the groomers today. I don’t know if this is the smartest or best idea, but I do know my dog is – well he likes being clean. I have contemplated washing him myself over the past two months – he was getting regularly grooming – but I just don’t have enough strength for this struggle, he gets so nervous and so anxious, and these somehow just feed into my own nervousness and anxiety – we would both be a basket case before we were done. He has his own personal groomer at the place we go, she just had a baby – thats part of why its been a bit since he was groomer – plus the whole lock down the world conditions we have been experiencing. Sufficed to say, they are back for business, she is back at work, and my dog is happily looking forward to his visit today. They put the cutest little scarves on the pooches when they are finished, and P starts nicknaming Starbuck “poncho” because it does quite make him look like one of those cowboys – I guess it just means that my groomer had the dogs ready for masks years before there time.

So many blessings right now in this decade of gratitude. Thank you 2020 for showing me how easy it is to be grateful for the most simple and happy things. Coffee, toilet paper, and the pursuit of happiness.