I’ve been feeling a bit lost today. And I’ve been eating. I thought at first that the two were connected, that it was emotional eating that I was doing. I thought I was eating simply because I was longing for some human contact. I was playing on the internet, hanging out at my favorite social network. No one was there, in real time. I’d check my email, and there were no new messages. My mother was supposed to call, but I hadn’t heard from her yet. My husband has been out of town on a business trip all week and won’t be home until much later this evening. I just felt lonely, so I assumed that’s why I was eating every hour, on the hour. I had BBQ chicken, boiled shrimp, cereal. Then finally, I had a fruit cup. The combination of the sweetness and the cold just hit the spot and I haven’t had anything else to eat. Could it just be that I wasn’t hearing what I was hungry for? I was asking myself what I wanted to eat, but could it be as simple as the fact that I wasn’t tuned in and listening? That’s very frustrating.

That’s frustrating, because I’m not new at this and this whole system is about being tuned in. It’s not, thank God, about counting calories or carbs, or weighing food or measuring portions. It’s not a diet, and won’t work if I approach it with a diet mentality. The only thing that works is really tuning in and developing a relationship with my body and listening to it. That’s why Paul recommends that you ditch the scales (or at least, weigh yourself every two weeks instead of daily or weekly). That’s external validation, and this is an internal process. The joy comes in getting to know my body and listening to its signals, its needs, its voice. My internal voice; developing a relationship with myself.

I have to wonder if the fact that I’ve fallen off the CDs has anything to do with this setback. For some reason I just keep forgetting to turn on my iPod at night, or when I lay down for a nap. It’s a mental block. It’s the same way I get with my meds some times; I can pick them up to clean the counter underneath them and not remember to take them! I’ve never understood it, but it happens from time-to-time. And now the iPod thing. Is it some perverse form of self-sabotage?