wow, awesome, thank you for sharing back!
I'm wearing a different pair of jeans I couldn't before today, at some point I'm going to have to really explore my wardrobe with these new eyes.
18 hours isn't that bad when you love what you're doing, the passion feeds back to your energy, some days work can even replace my need to eat or sleep. I'm not advocating it though
and I did take some extra time off on Friday to make up for it, giving me a slightly longer weekend.
The rest of this post is record of an unusual experience I had this weekend regarding a craving; I just wanted it on record, no need for you to read unless you gain insight for yourself from it
on Friday I had a very specific craving for chocolate combined with shortbread, so I tried waiting it out, I assessed my emotional state, whether it might be a trigger.Mentally auditioned other foods to replace it with, it wouldn't budge, every time an opportunity came that would tempt me into buying a bar I just thought "it's waited so long it wait a bit longer" and then telling myself I would shake it before then, it'd pass. Saturday was my pre-elected free day (pre-elected because I had more social stuff going on due to Free Comic Book Day) so by the time evening came around I just decided it could wait until tomorrow- if it dared.
Saturday came around and saw me camping outside the comic-book store pre-dawn with my fellow geeks sipping on takeaway cappucino's. One of those memorably awesome days unfolded, it included a lot of laughing, kissing in the rain, shopping for hats. So emotionally, I was on a high, despite this, and having eaten fast food for lunch, that blasted craving was back in full force by afternoon. How?
I didn't care that it was my free day, I needed to understand where this was coming from, and felt that giving in without knowing how it happened would somehow leave me worse off, so I didn't. Boy, I can be really stubborn when I want to be, I'm learning this.
So I told my boyfriend what I was going through, how nuts it was that I couldn't shake it. In the past he used to be one my main suppliers, a chocolate bar used to be a normal and good way of saying "I love you" between us. I told him how long I'd already been fighting the craving, and he agreed with the weirdness of it. By this point I'd settled on a Tempo bar as the perfect solution. He suggested that maybe this was some sort of mental residue from my former, larger, self that was used to getting what it wanted, that it was clearly in my mind and not physical, not emotional but more of a persistent habitual thing. We decided I should sleep on it.
I slept well, and woke very refreshed, the emotional high from yesterday persisting. And the Tempo craving hit before the thought about needing to pee. I was angry at it, it had ruined my first moments the day, something quite precious to me. I still fought it back till about 10am at which point I conceded that it was probably not going to let go, so after my midmorning meal I had an extra glass of water, giving my stomach the clear indicator that I was already full and got a tempo from down the street. I chewed through the first half very quickly and the second half I made point of tasting every morsel, dissolving it on my tongue and lingering on every tiny bite. My thinking being that if this thing is gonna make me break diet I'd better make damn sure it does it's job properly in getting rid of the craving. It did. I was on the second last bite and knew I'd got what I needed, so I gave the last bite to my boyfriend, he was a bit confused, I needed to explain that one. Which made me realize I was being properly honest with myself, no one would have been the wiser on that last bite, but I knew that I didn't need it. If he hadn't taken it I'm not sure that I wouldn't have eaten it, because the alternative would have been throwing it out (something else to re-assess, I know.)
about 20 minutes later I had heartburn, so I made a point of pointing it out to myself how unhealthy that craving is, focusing on the sicky feeling while remembering the chocolate. Call it self brainwashing, but through the whole endeavour I now have a new light for that chocolate craving; anger and sickiness. Which I'm adding to my quiver if it dares to rear its ugly head again.
I feel that despite eventually "caving" I was honest with myself every step of the way and came off better than before. right now, if I think about chocolate my tummy turns sour. Which is a long way away from the original me of even just a month ago who wouldn't think twice about buying a slab to munch on, or sometimes 2.
