HEALTHY LIVING

My Food Map

/ joseph elon lillie / 10 Comments

One of my goals this year is to work on my personal health by losing some weight. I have lost about twenty pounds since Christmas and gained back five. Net loss is 15 pounds.

This last month I have struggled to continue the habits I started in January. Of course January kicked off with a vegetarianfast which by nature was time bound. I was never going to keep the pace that I started with. That means I didn’t really start the behavior modification of dieting until February.

I am learning that real ground is only going to be gained if I do the slow work of changing my habits: shifting coffee drinking to water drinking. exercising daily, learning to limit my sweet consumption (not eliminate), learning to fill up on low density foods rather than high density foods, and practicing real meal prep not just microwaving.

Above all I have to change my mindset about food. That means discovering what, when and why I eat. Hence the food map above. I am noticing that many of my calories are taken in when I am tired. I am a late night snacker especially when I watch the tube at the end of the day.

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I don’t know if I can eliminate this behavior, but maybe I can begin to limit it.

WHAT HELPS YOU TO MANAGE YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH?

NOT SLEEPING IN WINCHENDON

/ joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

On Tuesday the power went out. It was out for thirteen hours. We had to use candles for light. It got cold in the house. Mom got nervous and very talkative. Amanda and I got zero sleep. When the lights came back on at 3:30 A.M. mom thought it was early evening not early morning.

By the time she went to sleep. The sun was well up and I was well into my day. Wednesday night after prayer meeting I went to bed and found myself awake until probably 1 or 2 and then I was up for a full day on Thursday.

Last night I slept from about midnight to about 3 A.M.and was awake off and on from that point forward. I have noticed that not sleeping is affecting how I eat and how I process information emotionally. The lenten fast has been thrown pretty much out the window since the snowstorm, interestingly I am finding that the prayer structures I was trying to achieve are coming a bit more easily. Being awake at 3 A.M makes Matins and Lauds a lot easier, but my eating schedule is all over the map.

I am going to give myself another day or so to normalize and then I will make some other considerations. I definitely need to have one good night’s sleep before Sunday morning.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO GET TO SLEEP?

MINDFUL EATING AMERICAN

/ joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

One of my goals this year is to lose eighty pounds. I joined NOOM and so far I am down about 22 pounds depending on the day.

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I am also trying to get rid of joint pain in my knees and hips. I think a large part of the pain is due, not just to my weight, but to what I am eating.

Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Pexels.com

I am a big sweet eater and like most Americans I love my processed sugars.

As I said the other day I am on a lenten fast called the Daniel Fast, which is basically a vegetarian fast. I fasted like this in January and it went very well. This time I am having a hard time staying away from the processed sugar.

My latest NOOM lessons have been on the subject of mindful eating. It involves paying attention to what I am putting in my mouth. One of the suggestions is to increase mindfulness is to actually sit down to table to eat rather than eating on the go.

I have to admit this is a great challenge for me. I have years of ingrained on the go eating. I seldom sit at table to eat almost always choosing the grab and go method, the watch TV and eat method or the multitasking eating method.

But I do realize that the idea of slowing down to be intentional about eating is not only healthy but it is one of my three mandates of living from God, “SLOW, CONSTANT AND INTENTIONAL”.

I am going to try shifting this eating habit. I’ll let you know how it goes.

DO YOU EAT MINDFULLY? WHAT HELPS YOU TO DO IT?