MindBody Progress: Halfway Mark

I can't believe I am halfway through my MindBody program. It's both depressing and encouraging.

It's depressing cuz I, in my overly optimistic hope, wanted to be a brand new person by now. And it's encouraging because in some ways I am.

When I started, 6 weeks ago, I was doing about zero exercise. I might have gone for the occassional walk, but it was more to get Dexter to take a nap, rather than for the physical benefits. Now, it is my goal to do some exercise daily. I don't make it every day but my average is about 6/7 days a week. Most of those days I do much more than the minimum, and I make it a personal goal to challenge myself within the exercise (like going for harder levels, etc).  This week I rented "the Biggest Loser" for my Wii and have been doing some of the activities on there. Last night I did a custom routine I made for myself and was disappointed cuz I didn't think I had sweat enough...well today I am sore in many places so I must have worked hard in a non-sweating way!

I have listened to a mediation or hypnosis CD almost everyday (sometimes twice a day), working on my mindset. These last few days I have had very little appetite and I am wondering if I can attribute that to the hypnonsis CD which I just added recently. That being said, my issue hasn't necessarily been eating for hunger, it's been eating sweets for the heck of it. I've begun working on the awareness of my eating (keeping a food journal of when & what I eat, but not how much), and by simply being conscious of my eating I believe I have cut down on some overeating. In the past, it would not be unusual for me to have sweet treats like 4-6 times a day. Now I would say I'm down to about twice a day, or not at all. But mostly the once or twice a day.

Just in the last two weeks I've been working on getting more veggies into my daily meals. My goal is 2 servings per day as a minimum, and if I get more, awesome!  I do enjoy eating veggies, but keeping things fresh and exciting is challenging. For a long time, I have bought my lettuce in the organic plastic boxes because I don't like to wash it and it seems the freshest of the pre-packaged. Yesterday I got the "herb mix" box rather than my typical romaine lettuce and I have to say, it's pretty wonderful. I was scared off by the variety in it, but after getting a pita from the Extreme Pita that contained mixed greens and enjoying it, I thought I'd give it a try. So glad I did! 

Pre-packaged lettuce is expensive and may seem very wasteful, but in my mind, I would much rather pay the extra dollars to have something I will use rather than lettuce that goes to die in my crisper unused. Or I end up throwing half of it out cuz I am REALLY picky about the quality of my leaves.

So, as my coach Jen keeps telling me, I am doing great so far. My instinct is to be critical and go straight for what I am not yet doing, or what I am doing poorly, but the goal of the program is long-term success and building habits for life. I can't approach this program in the same way I have done in the past and likewise I won't have the short term instant results.

At my weigh in last week, the scale finally showed some movement and happily it was downward. I was very excited to see some results but again my negativity had me thinking "oh one wrong step and I'll gain that back" and "that 4lbs is pretty measly compared to what i need to lose" and "4lbs in 5 weeks - pretty pathetic". It's really easy to step back into that negative mindset. Likely, my coach is there with a safety net to show me how proud I should be of my achievements and to continue moving forward.

I'm sad that I have "only" 6 weeks left. Within the program, I have to email Jen daily with a report of my success or failure regarding my goals that day and my goals for the next day. That accountability is so vital to my success so far. I have a reminder set on my blackberry to email her and many, many nights it has been me at 11pm doing my 5, 10, 20 minutes of exercise so that I can email her my success rather than my failure. I'm worried I will slip if I don't have that anymore.

On my agenda for the upcoming weeks:

-continue exercising and challenging myself to work out longer (up to a point), harder, and smarter,

-continue to choose water over non-hydrating beverages more often,

-continue choosing fresh, healthful foods rather than sweets and junk more often,

-continue reflecting inward to meet my soul's needs appropriately rather than stuffing it down with food.