Non-Scale Victories

Today was a great day for "non-scale victories", as Paula puts it...Sometimes when the scale is not co-operating it is nice to know that there are other victories to keep you motivated.

I had two people make comments to me today about how I was looking. One girl came up to me and said I looked "Super Skinny". So nice to hear...and another girl I hadn't seen for a month or so told me when I hugged her that I looked "Amazing"! So nice to have others notice my transformation.

I have not only transformed on the outside but on the inside too. I have so much more confidence and I am much calmer. I have kicked my food "habit" and am much less anxious around food.

I notice now that I am much slower in the process of preparing and eating my food. I will slowly make my salad and heat my lunches, get all I need to sit comfortably and enjoy my variety of food I have prepared for myself. I eat slowly and savour the experience. Before I ate mindlessly and quickly. I was anxious about getting the food ready and eating it up as fast as possible. Often I would swallow the food before it was fully chewed and barely taste what I was eating.

Today I had a wonderful LARGE, DIVERSE, and very tasty salad for lunch because that is what I wanted. I didn't eat it because that is what I should eat to lose weight or because it is good for me (although it is). I ate it because that is what I wanted to eat. It was 3/4 lettuce (three different kinds) and raw spinach. There was also, cucumber, cabbage, red cabbage, shredded carrots, egg, avocado, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese, bean sprouts, corn, penne pasta, tuna, croutons, sesame seeds and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was really, really good. I also had a yummy cheese scone with red and green peppers in it and a few onion rings from A&W. Such an enjoyable lunch.

I listened as my co-workers talked about the previous day's event where a nutritionist came into the office for a "Lunch & Learn". From what I could tell, he talked a lot about what NOT to eat. Don't eat carbs or sugar, don't drink milk (apparently it washes away calcium, huh?). Don't eat milk chocolate or red meat or drink alcohol. Eat plenty of small meals throughout the day.

We all know that there is no research that says 6 small meals a day is any different than three big ones or one big one...and I will never be successful if I have to eliminate all the foods I love to eat. He also said to eat an egg every morning...weren't we told not to eat eggs a while back because they were bad? And now we should eat one every day? All I know is you need to do what works for you and what makes you feel good. If you feel good doing all that stuff and avoiding all that yummy food then great. But I feel good practicing intermittent fasting and I don't have to give up anything, so I will stick with that and ignore all the changing trends in nutrition.

During all this talk, I just smiled, ate my onion rings and thought about my non-scale victories of the day...