Don't SHOULD Yourself

I'm just going to dive right in and confess that it's not going well. It started pretty well, and I lost five pounds. But for the last two and a half months, I've been losing and re-gaining the same additional three or four pounds... I just can't break past the ten pound mark.

I'm not consistent and I know that's why I'm struggling to lose weight. Also know that the stress level is the key factor in my inconsistency. I'll have a few good days - low stress at work, eating homemade healthy foods, exercising, sleeping well, and feel pretty good about it. But then I have a hard day at work and I'll eat crap so that my physical body feels as bad as my mental state. I know I shouldn't eat the crap but this is an old, old bad habit. So right now, instead of shaming myself for doing it, I'm working on recognizing when I'm doing it and being gentle with myself. (Hello #emotionalbraintraining skills!)

I also caught myself over-eating the other night when we were out to eat. We were at a little local Thai restaurant we recently discovered. I had ordered a light, fresh chicken dish. I was listening to my hunger cues... and telling myself that I "should" take half of it home for lunch the next day. At the end of the meal, I had left enough to be a satisfying meal for my lunch the next day. Then my husband reached over and stabbed a big piece of chicken and I thought "well, that's not enough for a filling lunch and not enough for leftovers, so I might as well eat the rest." Seriously, that was my thought process. 

And I got so mad at my husband! I snarled at him the way her snarls at me when I eat a piece of his pancake (that he'd told me I could have before we started eating). It was ugly. I know I shouldn't have reacted like that. We had been sharing and it was fine.... until it wasn't. I'm still a little mad at him for eating that piece of chicken, but I'm more disappointed in myself for not using my "oh well statement" I created with Noom several weeks ago. I should have just let it go and said "oh well," and left the rest on the plate anyway. But I didn't, I ate it and then I beat myself up because I "should have" known better and "should have" done better. 

The other thing I'm "shoulding" on myself about is that when I first started this blog 10 years ago, all I had to do was start walking, logging my food, and the weight just melted off. I'm fighting the harsh inner critic that keeps telling me "you should be doing better. You should have lost more weight by now." I end up feeling defeated and ashamed. 

So what's the cure....? I believe it's mindfulness. And I'm really, really trying hard to be more mindful. However, when I'm extremely stressed and tired it's really hard to be mindful. My job is creating too much stress in my life and it's affecting many other areas of my health. Something has to change.

And until it does change, being mindful is going to be hard, but I'm going to give it my best shot. So friends, be mindful... and when being mindful is hard, don't should yourself. 

Grace to you,

Becky

UHG2.0

Hello! Welcome back to my blog. A few things have changed around here, so let's get (re)acquainted! 

I am....

💍 married to my best friend,  Mike O'Hara. We eloped on 10/31/21 in flannels and blue jeans at the place we had our first date on mothers day of 2021.

👩🏼‍🏫 I am an elementary school teacher with over 20 years in the classroom. Most of my experience is in K/1 Lutheran school classrooms. Currently,  I feel like a rookie all over again because I'm in my first year of teaching 4th grade at a new school. 

🍞 I am a bread maker! I grew my own sourdough starter about a year ago and having baking bread at home ever since. We call our starter Bubbles. 

👵 I'm a grandma! Mike and I don't have children of our own,  but I became step mom to his 3 adult children and grandma to Violet when we got married. 

🧚‍♀️ I'm am aunt to two of the coolest (and tallest) kids I know. And godmother to two terrific kids! 

Those are some fun things about me. There's also been some hard. 

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 I'm a daughter of divorced parents. My father remarried and I have 2 step-sisters. 

👵 I have lost three of my four grandparents. My remaining grandma is turning 95 this year! 

🫂 A month and a half after Mike and I eloped,  his oldest passed away unexpectedly. God had started working faith in her heart and she was baptized in the hospital before she was taken off life support. Her parents chose to donate her organs and give the gift of life to others. 

📈 I'm at the delightful age of 40-something, where eye-sight is changing, so I recently started wearing readers. It also means hormones are changing,  which means I have trouble sleeping, my hair is thinning, my body aches, and I'm gaining weight and can't seem to get it off. 

So.... what do at have in common?! Let's get get to know each other!