Ty for a great post today @makattack220! I don't have much time to elaborate tonight but I am and have been working on mindset, habits, different coping mechanisms, changing thought patterns, changing behaviours, etc. for over a year now. I still have a lot of work to do but feel I have made huge strides from where I was a year ago.

Yes x 3 today.

March 6 report: 🦁🦁🦁

Monthly report: (Documenting consistency (if there is a P instead of 🦁 its a Pass Day; if there is a ✈ I am overseas and [currently assuming] unable to report)
🦁-🦁-🦁-P-🦁-🦁-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈-✈

✅ Exercise: 55 minutes swimming
✅ Calories
✅ Tracked

0 pass days used ( )

Recently I have done so much reading on real whole food that it has become amazingly like a mindset for me. I realized how far this has gone when I looked at the picture of cake winnerforlife posted and felt that what I would most like to eat in that picture was the slice of kiwi! The cake doesn´t even look like something I want to eat anymore. I fear that I will not stay in this counterculture healthy mindset though once my reading and listening interests return to another topic and the constant messages of advertisers and past memories of occasions with cake might errode it away.

Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? Sure did! Great day of movement today. Beautiful 64 minute walk, 31 minutes on the Peloton, and a 5 minute post-ride stretch.
Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day? Yes
Did I keep track of everything I ate and drank? Yes

Pass days used - 1/3

I'm not sure I can articulate my thoughts on this excellent topic in a succinct way, but I definitely think that thought work was and continues to be a huge key to turning around my previously very unhealthy life and habits.

A huge part of my overeating was based on negative thoughts with no outlet. I knew I was hurting myself with food, but the difficulty with processing those thoughts led me to soothe in the way that felt best.

Of course, many of those thoughts are still there. And I no longer allow myself to eat with reckless abandon. So what has changed?

-Learning to sit with my negative emotions. I may feel things, but I no longer get to try to fix that with food. I have also come far enough now to know if I tried it would only make the problem worse (of course... this was the case when I was morbidly obese but the thought of doing things differently seemed impossible then).
-Questioning my negative thoughts and learning to reframe them.
-Reducing how much I ruminate. Fixation on the issue would drive my anxiety up and then again I would feel I was in a state I needed to soothe. The quicker I can get my mind moving on to other things, the less likely that anxiety rises in me, and the less I have to try to address it.
-Not letting perfect be the enemy of the good. I am your stereotypical perfectionist people pleaser and this one is VERY hard for me. But it's perhaps where I needed to change the most. I am far from reformed from these characteristics, but I'm self-aware of where they've hurt me in the past. I no longer shy away from setting boundaries, and I do something because it's good for me and I want to and don't feel the need to keep up appearances anymore.