Changes
Remember way back when I went to the Healthy Living Summit? Our swag bag (which was awesome) contained the September issue of Body & Soul Magazine. Just before bed last night, I finally decided to flip through it. This is a great magazine!
Something I struggle with is eating healthy all day long only to sabotage my diet at night. Recently, I was thinking about regrets in life. I really can’t say that I have any major regrets. But then I started to think about my day to day life in relationship to the term “regrets.” That’s when I realized that most days I feel like I regret eating something or eating too much.
I’m not saying that it ruins my day, its just that its something I should change to become a better, healthier version of myself. It seems I give myself every excuse there is to have that extra 1/2 glass of vino or additional bite of 80% cocoa dark chocolate.
An article titled Conscious Eating: Night Eating from Body & Soul really nailed this subject on the head. These two sentences really stood out to me.
“We ‘sometimes try to fill a void in another part of our life with food.’ says Bagnulo.”
“Sometimes we develop a conditioned response to food and relaxing.”
I’m not sure what I think wine or chocolate is going to do for my life, but I totally think that somehow, I’m going to feel better if I have that piece of chocolate. I’ve also conditioned myself to having that extra something as part of what I do at night. The problem with that is that food is not a feeling or a drug. Life is great, but its also stressful. Emotions should not be fed with food, they should be welcomed with acceptance.
Its time for a little behavior modification. I’m going to make a few changes and stop all most of the late night indulgences. These changes include restructuring my nights by reading instead of mindlessly surfing the web or watching tv and realizing that having that piece of chocolate or glass of wine isn’t going to alter my current feelings (whether good or bad).
What changes have you made to recently to make yourself a better, healthier version of yourself?
I love that magazine, too. I have been doing a lot of evening eating lately, too. I need to make sure I eat enough during the day so I’m not stuffing my face so much at night.
I’ve really been trying to eat less at night. My biggest problem is that I live with someone who LOVES to eat at night, even though it wouldn’t really be a problem for me if he wasn’t around! IT’s hard, but we are both really trying to work on it. So, to answer your question, I am trying to eat less at night, and trying to help Nick eat less too. We don’t go over our calories or anything, so it’s not causing weight gain, bu eating late at night is not good for sleep patterns! Not good at all.
Hi, I just found your blog. I love the moderate approach as far as enjoying those little indulgences like chocolate and wine
Those things are definite favorites of mine.
A change I’ve been making lately (over time I guess) is adding mileage to my weekly runs. I have a goal to run the NYC marathon next year (already did my 9+1) and although I’m not starting training proper, I have started working on my base with hope of greatly improving my marathon time from the first time I ran it.
I am adding your site to my blog roll on the blog I’m just starting. We are a women’s gym in Brooklyn and I’m trying to keep my members up to date on the latest in health, fitness and nutrition news. Your blog looks like a great resource!
Check us out at:
http://www.silhouettenyc.com/
and the blog:
http://silhouettegymchick.blogspot.com
haha, OOPS! REgarding my post, I meant to write “WOVEN wheat biscuits!!” Not WOMEN!! lol, hilarious, my bad!
I have been struggling with this lately. I tend to undo all my hard work on the weekends and as of recently, in the evenings too. I hate when I lay in bed and think “why did I do that?”
what perfect timing- i just wrote a post about stress eating and eating for nurturing the body vs the soul- im facinated by it right now- i noticed that today as im busy and stressed and im eating SO MUCH MORE THAN NORMAL –
i would love to hear your thoughts on this! hop on over to my blog and chime in if you have time/thoughts!
Hey…great thought provoking post. This really rang true for me…I need to do some behavior modification too! It seemed very easy for me to make exercise a habit…but a year later even though I clearly have the workouts under control, the diet is all over the place and it is impeding the results of the workouts.
Thanks for the food for thought!!
Courtney
Adventures in Tri-ing
Yea, I’m currently working on self control at night! Great insight on this subject. I notice when I don’t eat 2 snacks during the day…. I end up eating dinner and then mindless snacking afterwards.
i love body and soul – that was a good issue, actually.
I’ve been there – I finally had to ask myself “what am I REALLY hungry for” and after some inner work I got some answers. It’s not easy, we’re all on our own journey. Kudos to you for being able to recognize when something is a little off.
Temporarily going back to calorie counting has helped me recognize where I was going wrong in my quest to lose my last 10 “vanity pounds”. I feel a lot better about myself now having figured out where extra calories were sneaking in and I feel like I have some answers! It’s all good.
Alison, I think I’m going to have to do the same thing. It just helps get me back on track. I know where my extra calories are coming from I just need more accountability.