Early last week I saw and felt significant, long term changes in my health and body.
My muffin top is slimmer.
I haven't gained weight since December.
My cardiovascular system is in excellent shape. I found that out because a friend is doing a research project on heart disease and wanted the resting heart rate of all her friends. Mine is 42, the lowest of everybody on her list by 20. I asked her to take me to the hospital to see if I'm dying, because when I've taken it in the past, it was closer to 60. Thankfully, she already knew that 40 BPM's is a typical resting heart rate for a "well trained athlete".
I'm not coordinated enough to be any kind of athlete. It's good enough for me that my heart rate is better than ever. I've been doing aerobic exercise since my teens (anybody else remember Billy Blanks blue unitard in the 90's?!) but now that I think about it, I didn't start running until last year. That's a major feat, considering my feet!
I still have a messy eating pattern though. When my mind catches up with my body's accomplishments, the usual doubts and strangeness of weight loss success creep up and I lose my motivation to eat well. It doesn't matter how much exercise I'm getting if I'm eating too much, and the careless sabotage makes it really hard to get my calories back down to my goal in less than a week. Yay for eventually getting my motivation back and trusting that I will. Boo for it taking so many days of rediculous, crappy eating, which happens after I get home at night or when work is stressful, you all know that old record.
Since I get overwhelmed too easy exploring the emotions behind my sabotage, I made my July goals to practice behavior modification with a reward system, which has worked really well for me before, along with guilty pleasure time wasting, like playing games on the message boards or reading magazines or just sitting and watching the birds. Anything to NOT guilty pleasure eat!
Thanks for listening while I hash all this out!