The last time I had chocolate, or any sweets for that matter.
The last time I ate fast food.
The last time I had a soda.
The last time I had salad dressing.
The last time I had condiments, such as ketchup or mayonnaise.
What it was like to live life without drinking tons of water.
There was a time when these were all staples in my diet. I take that back, there was a time when I would use ketchup on occasion, but I have never been a big fan of condiments, so that wasn't much of a change. :)
I do remember a time when I was absolutely dependent on Diet Coke. I would play games with myself, like only allowing myself a diet coke after forcing myself to drink 2 (small) glasses of water. I didn't get people who didn't drink soda and I definitely didn't get people who only drank water. It seemed such a weird thing to me. Then I got pregnant, and anything with artificial sweeteners in it made me sick. That made it easy to give up diet soda. But I picked up drinking tons of sweet tea. But, by that time, drinking water was a normalized behavior for me, and I was aware of the signs of even subtle dehydration, so I was drinking lots of water, too. But up until the end of December of last year, I drank sweet tea a lot. I can remember my regular sweet tea - New Year's Day. I think I have only had one or two since that time. My last soda was probably last August or before. That is nothing short of miraculous. But my story is that change came over time. That was 3 years in the making. As was everything else I listed above.
Last night we went for coffee with a couple we're friends with and one of them had a piece of tuxedo cake. One of my faves because it has all of the kinds of chocolate layered one on another. A little slice of heaven. Only, save for when she ordered it, I didn't think anything of it. I didn't drool. I didn't wish or want. It was like my experience with alcohol after being sober for a while, I was in a position of neutrality. It was an amazing experience. I can't remember a time - ever - when I haven't lusted after a piece of anything with every type of chocolate in it. Even when we went Paleo, I would gorge myself on cocao or dark chocolate, especially if it had almonds and sea salt in it, too. ;)
Like so many other things in life - the unintended benefits usually reap the biggest rewards. I started all of this - way back in 2009 with my first go around, I mean - with the intention of meeting a goal. A seemingly lofty goal, but a goal nonetheless. In the process, I have made and met many small goals, but my focus has largely been on the external changes. I ponder the internal ones here a lot, but what takes up a lot of my time, energy and planning in the process are the external changes. Yet here they are...the unplanned fringe benefits...the small changes that were made to meet a different goal, but became part of the deal, in and of themselves. In this case, the progression of limiting the big junk, then slowing weeding that out, then learning to live without some of the smaller junk, then slowly weeding that out, and being left with a healthier understanding of the healthier lifestyle I inadvertly picked up on my journey to compete in a physique competition. Intertesting how that happens. Kind of like when I got sober....fear of drinking again drove me to take suggestions, suggestions I took out fear, that led not only to a relief from the obsession to drink (my intended goal), but brought me peace of mind and comfort with life as I never knew could exist (the unplanned benefit/outcome). So I abandon myself to something radically different than what I can conceive of with my own limited scope of experience, and in return I get something vastly beyond my imagination?!? Yup...that's it. Funny how that works.
So it is with change. It happens. And sometimes I am forced into a position where I ride along with it, rather than resisting it, and I get to experience it all rather than react to it all. What a blessing. What a blessing, for sure!
Like so many other things in life - the unintended benefits usually reap the biggest rewards. I started all of this - way back in 2009 with my first go around, I mean - with the intention of meeting a goal. A seemingly lofty goal, but a goal nonetheless. In the process, I have made and met many small goals, but my focus has largely been on the external changes. I ponder the internal ones here a lot, but what takes up a lot of my time, energy and planning in the process are the external changes. Yet here they are...the unplanned fringe benefits...the small changes that were made to meet a different goal, but became part of the deal, in and of themselves. In this case, the progression of limiting the big junk, then slowing weeding that out, then learning to live without some of the smaller junk, then slowly weeding that out, and being left with a healthier understanding of the healthier lifestyle I inadvertly picked up on my journey to compete in a physique competition. Intertesting how that happens. Kind of like when I got sober....fear of drinking again drove me to take suggestions, suggestions I took out fear, that led not only to a relief from the obsession to drink (my intended goal), but brought me peace of mind and comfort with life as I never knew could exist (the unplanned benefit/outcome). So I abandon myself to something radically different than what I can conceive of with my own limited scope of experience, and in return I get something vastly beyond my imagination?!? Yup...that's it. Funny how that works.
So it is with change. It happens. And sometimes I am forced into a position where I ride along with it, rather than resisting it, and I get to experience it all rather than react to it all. What a blessing. What a blessing, for sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment