Self-Esteem Challenge: Day 8

This blog challenge was developed by betterthandarkchocolate.tumblr.com. If you missed the introduction or want to see a summary of all the questions, go here.

Day 8:
The last time you smiled when someone complimented you. What was the compliment and why did you smile?
What is a food you enjoy that makes you feel good?

Compliments make me uncomfortable. I usually just laugh them off. I tend to forget about them, so in order for me to remember I have to get the same compliment repeatedly or it has to be a really big one. The last one I remember was a big one. Last May, I got a government grant for my research. My supervisor sent me a bouquet of flowers with a note that said “No one has ever worked harder for this. You deserve it. Don’t forget to celebrate!” She had already congratulated me over the phone, so she didn’t have to send flowers and a note. It was really nice of her. The flowers were beautiful, which made me smile, but I was also glad to know she thought I was working hard. I have put a lot in to my Ph.D., but I always worry about whether I am working hard enough. I feel guilty if I’m not working day and night, work is always on my mind.

My flowers

I have a bad relationship with food. I’m an emotional eater and I have a really big sweet tooth. Would a smoothie count? It’s hard to think of something that I enjoy AND makes me feel good. I enjoy cake, but I feel guilty for eating it, so I can’t say that. I feel good for eating raw veggies, but I don’t enjoy it. Sometimes it’s a bit like torture to get the whole bowl of them down. I found a smoothie recipe I really like. A smoothie sort of counts as food right? It’s really yummy (it tastes like candy!!) and mostly healthy, so I enjoy it and feel pretty good about it. Plus it comes out hot pink in the end which makes me smile, lol.

My smoothie

 

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:

1/2 banana

1 cup frozen raspberries

1 cup orange juice (I use something low in calories and high in vitamins)

4 tbsp plain yogurt (I use vanilla)

4 ice cubes

Sometimes I add a squirt of lime juice if I want it extra tart or, if I know I can brush my teeth afterwards, I put kale in it. You can’t taste the kale, so it’s a great way to get a vegetable in, but I usually get it stuck in my teeth, lol.

What’s your feel-good food?

Motivation Progress Report III

Week three of me trying to boost my motivation.

Exercise. I am still running at 5 am during the week. I’ve been going later in the day on the weekends though. Who wants to get up at 5am when they don’t have to?! I ran my whole route without stopping this week. I suppose that’s a milestone. I used to be able to do it no problem without stopping, so I’m not really that proud of myself. I suppose I should celebrate a little if I want to stay motivated. I’m also tempted to weigh myself. It’ll probably be upsetting, but it would be easy to monitor changes. My clothes still feel the same. I think it’s going to a while before I can feel a difference.

Food. I haven’t been doing so well with counting my calories. It’s annoying. I have been eating the same things, so I know I am within my limit. When I get bored of eating the same things everyday I’ll have to pay more attention to counting. I mentioned in a post the other day that I was thinking about cake a lot. Do you think having a cheat meal once a week is ok? It might give me something to look forward to and make it easier to turn down cake during the week. Not a whole cheat day, just a meal…

Work. It was a decent week. I found a few participants for the studies I m working on. The problem is they are mostly French and I can’t speak French. This means I have to chase the research assistant and get him to book appointments. I really don’t like chasing people. It makes me feel like a nag. I wish he would just do it on his own.

Overall, I feel like I should be getting somewhere, but I’m not. I feel healthier, but then I look in the mirror and the image doesn’t match how I feel. It’s disappointing. I’m also annoyed with myself for letting the way I look matter more than work. Work should matter more.

Medusa

Cake Binge

I like food too much. I rely on sweets, cake in particular, wayyy too much. Cake is what I want when I feel down or have had a stressful day. Cake is what I want to celebrate reaching the end of something or accomplishing something difficult. Is it weird that the answer to everything, good or bad is cake? I want it even when I’m bored. Especially now that I’m watching my calories, I think about food constantly and the urge to binge on sweets of all kinds is really strong. If I hold out and don’t binge, the urge gets stronger, but if I give in and have a piece of cake, I’m afraid I wont be able to stop myself from eating the whole thing. Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who get sick from having too much sugar or dessert that’s too rich. I’m not though. My stomach can handle endless amounts of it.

I wish there were more dessert restaurants around here. I think that would help me with portion control. I could go out, pay to have one piece of cake and be done with it. No leftovers to worry about. All the dessert restaurants have slowly closed since I’ve move here though, even the grocery store has stopped making my favourite little treat. It seems like the only way to get my fix is to buy a whole cake these days.

I know eating is addictive. Sugar especially, activates the same dopamine reward pathway in the brain as many addictive drugs. Low levels of serotonin and dopamine, as is the case in depression, can lead to compulsive behaviour, like a binge. The medications I am on are meant to increase dopamine and serotonin. When I don’t take my meds, I end up eating even more. Also, studies have shown that people with stress or anxiety are more prone to reward-seeking behaviour. They end up losing perspective, prioritizing the reward over the regret they’ll feel later. This is definitely me!

Why can’t I stop? I know binge eating is bad for my health and my appearance. Just knowing that should be enough to deter me, but it’s not. What would my fat say if it could talk? How is binge eating helping me? If I were eating for good reasons, what would they be? I know, it’s stupid. There are no good reasons for eating like this. Life would be better without fat and binges. The parts of life that would improve if I dropped to 120lbs are not the parts that keep eating cake. But, if I keep doing something, then there must be a benefit to it, otherwise there would be no reason to do it, right?

I don’t think I’ll be able to stop until I find out what my reason for eating is. What am I trying to fix by eating? Maybe I am trying to get more joy out of life. Eating is something I have to make time for anyway, so I eat junk hoping to fit more joy into my schedule. My time is precious and I feel like I have so much to do that I need to use my time wisely, be productive. Doing something simply for the joy of it is not an option. That’s selfish and inefficient. So I turn eating, something I have to do to survive, into something that gives me joy. This links back to sugar activating the dopamine pathway in the brain which creates the feeling of joy. It also creates the addiction, which just perpetuates the cycle.

Does this make sense at all? It would mean in order to stop eating so much I would have to find a different source of joy. What do you do to to bring yourself joy or make yourself feel rewarded?

Motivation Progress Report II

It has been two weeks since I started working on getting motivated. I am being good and going through the motions, but the motivated feeling isn’t what’s driving me, it’s the “should”s. It’s not ideal, but I am getting things done. Is that what matters most?

Exercise. I’m still doing a 5am run every other day. It is becoming a routine and getting easier to do. My cardiovascular health has already improved significantly. I wish my legs would improve as fast. My shins and hips are complaining a bit. I think I may need new shoes. I’ve been trying to make the running a pleasure. I run for 30 min and then walk for 30 min. The walking is the part I can look forward to. I can enjoy being outside and enjoy being done with my exercise for another 48 hours. It is nice to have this time to wind down instead of running and then heading straight to the shower and then off to work. Overall, the running does make me feel better and hate my body less. I don’t think I have lost any weight yet, but I am not weighing myself. I am using the fit of my clothes to measure any loss. Hubby says I would see more results with the numbers, but I can’t make myself get on the scale.

Food. Counting calories is hard. Some things are easy, like baby carrots. I can scan the bar code on the bag with my phone and enter the number of carrots I ate and it calculates the calories for me…easy. What’s hard is when you have a meal without a bar code and there are a bunch of ingredients. You either have to put in the whole recipe (tedious) or estimate based on meals that are already in the Fitness Pal database. I try to over estimate the calories when I do this…it’s better than under estimating. I’ve been doing alright, not great. A friend came over the other day and brought tim bits (doughnut holes). She left them on my coffee table when she left. I should have thrown them out, but I ate them.

Work. I’m totally frustrated and uninspired. I have had a few small successes this week though, so I’m trying to focus on those. I got a program I needed fixed, so I can continue writing a paper I was working on. Yesterday I spent the whole day at the hospital trying to recruit people for the studies I am working on. No one was qualifying, so it was quite boring, but then at the end of the day three people qualified and they all said they were interested. This is excellent as most people say no. Hopefully this will give me the boost I need to get more into it.

Trying to focus on the positive

Motivation Progress Report

It has been almost a week since I looked in to new motivation strategies. I have tried a few of the strategies that I mentioned and so far, I’m doing alright, a week is not a long time, but I thought I’d give you a progress report anyway.

Exercise. I’ve changed my after work exercise time to 5am. Yes, that’s really early, but you know what? It’s easier. When I leave it for later in the day I spend the whole day dreading it and making excuses not to do it. I think that just makes my anxiety over it worse making it really difficult to actually be successful. If it’s the first thing I do when I get up, there is no thinking about it, I just get started. I’ve also been holding myself back a bit. Instead of going full throttle, I’m running every other day. I’m hoping this will give my mind and body time to adjust and I’ll be less likely to get tired and give up. I’m also trying to enjoy it. No, I don’t want to be up that early and I don’t want to run, but I do like being out in the fresh air. I do like being out when there are no people and no cars and everything is quiet. I like seeing how calm the lake is in the morning and smelling the blossoms on the trees. I try to walk for a bit after my run so I can comfortably enjoy my surroundings. It makes the hard parts worth it. This is working well so far, I wonder what it’ll be like when the snow comes back though.

Food. I want to eat healthier, but I never see any changes so I end up figuring what the hell, I might as well have that second piece of cake. With eating and exercising, I feel like I’ve worked hard and therefore should get results. This is why I fall off the wagon all the time. I have to be more patient. I’m going to try using the Fitness Pal app to track my calories again. This is what my husband did to lose weight and he has kept it all off. He says calorie counting has become natural for him now. So I’m giving it a try. I get a certain number of calories per day and I can eat whatever I want as long as I stay at the limit. Fitness Pal also tracks micro/macronutrients, fats, protein, carbs, vitamins, etc. if you want to be really healthy. Having someone to do this with makes it easier, but maybe I’ve picked the wrong buddy….I only get to eat a third of the calories he gets! So I end up getting to my limit and he is looking through the fridge saying he needs to eat more…argh!! We’ll see how this goes.

Work. This one hasn’t been working so well. I’ve been trying to break up my tasks into smaller more manageable pieces, but I’m still not motivated to do the little things. Maybe I need to try a different strategy. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂