Evening Post

I was watching television tonight, and I ended up watching something called the U.S. Today Weight Loss Challenge. It is funny how something like this can push my buttons. First, I am not a big fan of programs which involve prepared meals for several reasons. Foremost among those reasons, they are expensive, and more importantly you do not learn how to manage your own food and calories. It probably is my own personal prejudice, but seriously how can you live on package food for your whole life? I cannot imagine doing that myself, so promotion of such programs tends to personally irk me for some reason. Perhaps it is because I have managed this whole process by myself, and so I see such things as a crutch that you will eventually have to learn to live without or being successful in the long run will be difficult. In a tangent, I should say that the chicken curry I made tonight was pretty rocking, if I do say so myself. The recipe is adapted from Nancy McDermott’s cookbook, Quick and Easy Vietnamese:75 Everyday Recipes which is published by Chronicle books. I am not reproducing it here because I don’t want to reproduce the work of someone else. I will say that it suffered from a problem I have run across in other curry recipes, it ended up with too much oil floating around in the mixture. So, I would probably reduce the amount of oil I used by at least half. However, it was good other than that, and I made it very spicy which helped limit portion size. Okay, so that kind of makes me sound like a freak, but I figure whatever works. I had more than enough so I don’t feel deprived, but not so much that I exceeded my daily calorie allotment. Weight loss for me has always involved some trickery and negotiation between my brain and my desires. Still, I forgot what a high it was to eat food that I had personally prepared. I was invited to dinner tonight, but I begged off because I was tired and wanted to come home and do some yoga and then go to bed. I know, I sound like an old fuddy duddy, but right now I am just really working on staying on plan. Once again I am ending a day only having eaten food that is good for me and with a really clear mind and two good workouts under my belt. Frankly, that is huge success in my book and it makes me very happy. I have not been this centered and focused in at least three to six months and as always it is a revelation to me how at peace I feel about the process. If I can manage this working under my current office conditions I imagine that this can only become better once I move on from here into a happier less stressful environment. One last thing, everyday at the end of the day I am asking myself two questions, and these are the questions: What have I done today that is good for my physical body? What have I done today that has improved my emotional well being? I know it sounds very new agey and overly holistic and that is not really who I am at heart. However, I think that these questions are really important for me right now. Most days the answers are very simple, I ate well, I wrote in my blog, I read a good book, I practiced yoga, I drank all my water, I talked to my family. Whatever it is that I did, I force myself to slow down and evaluate my day and see where my head it at right now. So, today, slow down and see where your head is at today, and let yourself be grateful for where ever that place happens to be right now.