Balance

Funny when I think of balance I think first of things being properly aligned or in the right order or simply the right mixture of something. But I visually think of the old time scales. Yes, that darn scale!

I can tell I'm not fully in balance. The last few days my stomach has been hurting ( my actual stomach organ in my body not my whole tummy) and I've been experiencing acid indigestion. If I get in to the habits of using certain foods it sometimes leads me down the road of either gastritis or kidney stones, so I have to back off. Coffee, tea, citrus, chocolate..or any acidic food and I get gastritis -near ulcer conditions. It's stress related too.

It was once so bad and I was having such severe pain that I had to take massive doses of prescription and over the counter drugs to fight the acid and the pain . I had to have an endoscopy procedure because there were concerns of ulcers and other things. cancerous things. Basically , I had to change my diet or lifestyle or I would have a full blown hole in my gut or worse.

So for a while I ate "white foods" . I know for some dieters " white foods" are a bad word. But my white foods were this: chicken, rice, plain toast, bananas, pudding , ice milk, yogurt, plain mashed potatoes...none of the things I love : pepper, coffee, chocolate, fruit, even veggies, and NO mexican / italian/ chinese anything. tomatoes--no. But I only wanted the white foods because they didn't hurt me or make me sick and I told myself I will heal with this.

I also had to look at my life. I'd gotten in to these habits of certain foods I ate. Surely , these were favorite foods too, but once I'd sort of ritualized the cup of coffee and muffin on the way to work on Fridays. Then darn it. Friday wasn't right without it. At that time I was extremely stressed in the job I had. I supervised a large number of people and had to fire someone and was being put under a lot of pressure by management. Firing people is not something I took lightly and something I had to do more often than I would like. (I don't want to do management anymore as a result. ) I was probably at or around 300lbs at 5'3.

It would be nice to say that was the turning point and I suddenly changed my diet and lost weight ..etc ..etc..But actually, my body healed. I continued the meds. Then I didn't need the meds. I think I went on Weight watchers and lost 40 lbs. Then had a major promotion and then all hell broke loose and then our company had problems. Then , thankfully and by the Grace of God I worked somewhere else less stressful. But other things happened, people got sick and died in my life. Suddenly I was depressed and 345 lbs.

I just was never in balance for long.

Today, I recognize the beginning warning signs that my diet and habits are again out of balance and will make me physically ill if I don't change. Maybe that's why I've been plateaued in my weight for so long despite a major increase in exercise. Maybe that has nothing to do with it. I recognize that my body is changing , that muscle weighs more , that I'm losing inches , that I'm changing a mindset , that I've had progress in other ways. So YEAH!

But bottom line. Today the foods and liquids I drink are heading me towards imbalance. Either imbalance in the form of illness or maybe imbalance that I'm putting out an extreme amount of effort and intent in some but not all areas that I need to for weight loss. So I have to look at this again. Look at my habits. refine. adapt. change. accept.