I ran like the wind last night, well, like a gentle breeze – not a hurricane! Just twenty minutes on the treadmill, that normally doubles as a clothes-horse. In fact, I think the treadmill is so used to being a clothes-horse that it would be quite calm if I just draped myself over one of its handles and hung out there for a while…

But I digress, this is not about the treadmill. It is amazing how when you connect with your energy and push yourself, you do feel amazingly alive and how that translates to benefits hours later. I had to get up at 5:30am this morning to attend a breakfast launch in the city. I know that if I had not run last night, I would not have managed to get up half as cheerily as I did. As I was sitting on the train coming home tonight, I was musing about how when you put a different lens on a problem, you do see things differently and the solution does become quite different. It is about finding the right lens and then trusting your instincts, to try the solution that looks different to what previously made you successful. Let me explain, whenever I diet, I do lose weight, but there is an anxiety around any event that has food in it or actually just anxiety about whether I will get through the day sticking to the diet plan. And which event does not have food in it and what day does not have temptations? In diet-mode, I am always passing judgement about whether a day was “good” or “bad” based on what I did or did not eat! I don’t end up saying it was a good day if something fantastic happened at work, this would be paled into insignificance by the muffin I might have eaten in a meeting, rather than the major breakthrough that occurred in that meeting! Not a good way to live your life! So the new lens needs to focus differently…

So what was different today? Normally, prior to an event, my internal Gourmand and my food Nazi would have an enormous argument about what I will or will not eat. Today was different, subtle, but different. I went to breakfast with the view that I would eat only that which was healthy and I would be aware of my hunger and stop when I was satisfied. This subtle shift away from feeling deprived, was awesome. Suddenly I was free to eat and free to not eat. And the removal of the anxiety about sticking to “the plan” meant I did actually defuse the obsession with what I might eat and I actually ate sensibly, focussed on the event and not feeling like a failure because what has passed my lips did not perfectly fit into “the plan”.

Verdict for Tuesday – Food suddenly doesn’t feel as emotionally charged and the relief is palpable! I am actually not as hungry as I normally would be if I was on a diet as I am not focussing on food and therefore am eating less…go figure!

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Tanya No Dieting, Uncategorized