Oct 10
First pass day of this Challenge. I feel pretty proud that I got to double digits before taking a pass day - doing way better than last month. But it was a full pass day - I have a friend visiting for the first time since COVID, and we got fancy takeout to celebrate and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I think today's nugget is very interesting to reflect on. I think there's two parts to it:
1) Being motivated by fear. I definitely am - I have a chronic progressive autoimmune disease and doctors have told me that losing weight will make it less likely to impact my life severely. That's a big part of my motivation for weight loss. I try to flip it in my mind and think about it as "losing weight to be healthier" - the things I want, rather than what I don't want, but it's really the same thing. I think a bigger problem is that it's a rather nebulous goal, especially as the disease symptoms fluctuate quite a bit on their own and are progressive, so it's not necessarily that I can see a difference from my weight loss other than to think that if I had not lost any weight I would probably be feeling worse. But still that is part of my motivation and I think it is leading me in the right direction.
2) Whether fear leads you to eat. It doesn't, for me. I do tend to comfort eat for sadness, but fear makes me not hungry. Comfort eating doesn't tend to be my problem either way, though. I can feel very comforted by a nice low calorie bowl of soup or a small treat that I have budgeted the calories for. Celebration eating is my problem (see pass day above, see all 10 of my pass days for September). This is something I am learning from this Challenge.

I really like @WhatMeRunning 's idea of being motivated by joy along your weight loss journey - all the new joys you find in new recipes, new foods, new physical abilities, new exercises. I do really try to do that but should try to do that more. If I could find ways to celebrate that fit in my calorie budget that would be great.