25 MILES!

I got off track for a few weeks, but I am back at it. 

I reached my next goal, 25 miles, yesterday.  I'm going to put $5 in my hot air balloon fund.

I started a new goal, another 25 miles. I made a cute little chart to put stickers on to keep track of my miles. On the bottom of the chart I put the word:

COMMITMENT 

spelled out in block white letters with a black outline.  I put two lines over the letters, so each is divided into three sections.  Each day that I walk, no matter how long, I will fill in one section of the letter with a bright color..

The little chart on the right, with the doggie, will show how many letters I have filled in. I don't know why stickers and charts work so well for me, but they do.  So here I go.

By the way, I did today's walk before writing this post. 

Emotional Eating

I always think of emotional eating as what you do when you are stressed, but for me it's more likely to be either boredom or happy times.

Once or twice in my childhood, my dad took me to the movies and bought Jordan Almonds.  They are those pastel candy coated almonds that are sometimes served at weddings.

I liked them pretty well, but I hardly ever buy them.  When I do, I think of my dad.  I eat one or two and then save the rest for another day, and stretch out the memory of Dad holding out the box of candy and offering me some. That's a happy memory.  Minor, but happy.

Gaining Lost Ground

I'm gaining back a little bit of my sudden loss--and a good deal of my energy! A couple of days ago I read a verse of scripture that just hit me the right way and my anxiety was completely gone.  I was able to get on with my evening, and eat! And do several things that needed doing, including a couple of job applications.  The anxiety still comes back in bits and pieces but I give myself a reminder of whom I trust, and it is gone again.

Psalm 86:13*  For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

Oh yeah, you've done it before, you can do it again now.  Lord I do trust thee with all this.  Please let me stop feeling this hell.  I sure can't do it myself.

And just like that, it was gone.  I still feel sadness, but not the overwhelming anxiety that was keeping me from even functioning.

Then there are two more verses that come a little later.
 15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

 16 O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thine handmaid.

Since it is a son I am stressing over, among other things like having to find a new job, those last verses were very comforting and a prayer I'll keep sending up.  

*Holy Bible, King James Version

Emotional Non-Eating

We all hear the perils of emotional eating.  I tend to go the other way.  I had two rather big shocks happen to me this weekend, one Friday and one Sunday, and I've been a bag of nerves ever since.  Plus, something I ate disagreed with me, and I just don't want food.

I know it's not the right way to lose weight, I just can't eat.  I have no interest in food and it doesn't stay in me long anyway.  I made myself eat a couple of the BRAT diet ingredients (can't have bananas, sadly) and drank some protein drink because it doesn't help the anxiety to go around hungry.  Low blood sugar does not calm me. I have a headache from it all too, and I'm pretty sure Excedrin is out of the question.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the ability to eat again.  And forgive me for whining that I can't eat what's in front of me when half the world wishes for more food.

Does anyone else react this way?  I'm trying NOT to run to the doctor for Xanax; I am taking calcium and the right amino acids, but I guess the stress shows because a bunch of my teenage church girls hugged me tonight.  What sweethearts!