Recommitted . . .

Since I started reading Women, Food and God after the Oprah episode, I've been very conscious about my feelings around meal times or when I perceive myself as "hungry".  I've been making an effort this past week to be aware of why I am consuming food, even during preplanned meal times.  Am I hungry? bored? lonely? scared? anxious? angry? I want to be aware of my actions instead of mindlessly eating.  If I finish dinner and I am still "hungry", I ask myself if I am actually hungry for food or for something else.  The answer is always "something else".  The biggest element of hunger for me is loneliness.  A hubby that is super busy and travels or has meetings away from home in the evening times causes the most distress; while I do not snack or eat past 7:00 p.m., I do gorge at dinner or do a pre-dinner gorge when I feel anxiety about the evening; especially when I know he will be gone.  I am working toward doing other things during those vulnerable times.  I have since started reading books again.  I was an avid reader before graduate school and definitely before children.  I went to the library to pick up a couple of works of fiction.  So instead of surfing the net for hours in the evening, I am reading a book.  

I am now fully recovered from my bad cold that brought on bad asthma symptoms, which also had me sounding like present day Kathleen Turner.  My boy is recovered from his surgery.  And tomorrow, I have a mandatory day off from work to which I will be exercising and practicing my golf swing at the driving range.  This week, I've been walking with my co-worker.  We are still doing our pedometer program and are encouraging each other to go farther and challenge ourselves; we both did almost 20K steps yesterday after cleaning and organizing our office, walking outdoors, and then cleaning again.  Today, we walked before lunch and changed our route to include more stairs and hills.  Our campus is very hilly.  

I have been planning and packing my meals again.  Today, I made my green monster drink for breakfast: spinach, almond milk, banana, frozen cherries, chocolate powder, honey and peanut butter--YUM!  Mid morning snack was a whole wheat english muffin with almond butter and strawberry preserves, and a handful of cherries.  Lunch was steak (leftovers, which I never leave over) with onions over a nice big salad, and a healthy sized red grapefruit for desert (I love grapefruit).  I've been chopping up my veggies and putting them back in the crisper.  Sort of like a mini salad bar.  I will take a pic of that soon.  My afternoon snack will be a soy yogurt (I'm dairy free) with 1/2 a Luna bar. 

I bought a speedometer for my bike.  I plan to bike ride alone three times a week even if I'd exercised for the day.  I will be going back to my 5 a.m. workouts on Monday.  I miss them.  My body misses them.  It is 5K season and everyone is doing C25K.  I will be doing my customized version for the treadmill and hope to find time to go outdoors.  I will be signing up for a race in June, July, August, September, and October while the weather is desirable.  I still have to get a spinning DVD for my spin bike.  I want to get stronger to master hills on my outdoor bike. 

I finally found the remote control for my camera.  I can finally take action shots of me in my workout glory.  I am feeling great and I can't wait to share more of that with all of you.