Its Not Weird, Its Just Uncommon

Nadine and I were going to go to the movies recently and then wanted to go run some errands afterwards, but we realized we needed to plan what we were going to do for lunch. We have been on a low carb diet, and it had been going really well; neither of us wanted to break to weight loss streak by eating out at a high carb place. I looked around at the carb content of some of our favorite restaurant foods, and we came to the conclusion we should just bring a little cooler with us filled with the foods we have been eating at lunch during this diet.

I packed us a lunch and off we went to watch the movie. We saw Terminator: Genysis. (It was really good, BTY, especially if you have seen all the other Terminator movies, which we had.) After the movie, we had planned to go to the mall right near the movie theater so we got in the car and drove to the parking structure to get some shade for our lunch. We started to eat our lunch in our car, in a parking structure, and I turned to Nadine and stated that what we were doing was weird. She said something that I have been thinking about every since; she said, "It's not weird; it's just uncommon." Right, it wasn't weird, but it was uncommon to us. We had never eaten a cooler packed lunch in a parking structure. But was there anything weird about it? No, it was just something I had not done before.

As I said, this statement has had me thinking about me in general. I sometimes don't want to do something yet can't really explain to myself as to why. It seems foreign to me thus I don't really want to do it. Yet in my mind, I feel like I am being rational and offer up what seem like solid reasons why I do not want to do something new, which is essentially weird to me.

This is where I think I need practice in using my new brain (if this phrase doesn't make sense, you can go to this post and read what I am talking about) to place some logic into my life situations. After writing the paragraph above, I can really see that stressful emotions very often interfere with my decision making process.

Doing something new does not make it weird, per se; it just is uncommon. I find a lot of comfort in thinking things are just uncommon, instead of thinking they are weird. Why? I do not know. I just know that an emotional response comes up when I think of something I am doing is weird, but no emotions come up when I think I am doing something uncommon . It seems to me that if I use my new brain to roll around ideas that I have a better chance at succeeding, In other words, if I can be objective and consider things like something is uncommon, instead of weird I might be able to succeed at it trying it, doing it, doing well at it, etc.

Being subjective in my daily life often leads me to be closed off and a wall flower, two things I do not like being and are really against me being the best person I can be. Letting my middle brain control my decision making process, i.e. being subjective (by that I mean this dictionary definition- based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions) only causes me strife. This does not mean that I shouldn't feel emotions or never use my emotions to assist in making decisions, It means I should not let ONLY my emotions make decisions for me. 

Okay that was a long post, huh?! I have written about emotions before and will continue to do so as I struggle with the fight I have set up in my brain between the new and the middle brain (and sometimes the old, primal brain). I figure if I struggle with this others must, too. 

Consider the source of your decisions. It might lead you to some uncommon, better ways of thinking!!  :) 

HUGS!!!! 

My Food Baby AKA My Tummy

 OR  

I am not sure how much I have written about food and my relationship with food. I think I briefly touched on it here and there. Basically, I use food as a comforting tool. If I feel sad or stressed out, I turn to food, have since I was young. And its usually foods that are not healthy, like cheese burgers, fries, chips, bread, sweets. I also love a good meal with tons of carbs, like fettuccine alfredo, pizza and bread sticks, fried calamari, deli sandwiches; you get the picture.

Well, having indulged in this for many years and going back and forth in weight for as many years, I have a fat tummy, which I like to affectionately call my food baby. Well, I am getting sick of my food baby, and it constantly getting smaller and bigger. So I started back on the diet I know works for me (Atkins) and am beginning the process of losing weight again.

One major thing that has prompted me to start again is that we are going on a trip back East to visit family and bury my husband's father. We leave in a little over a week, and I do not fit into many of my clothes. That's a problem.

Also, I would like to have some foods that are not on my diet while I am there and know that if I do not do anything about my weight now, I will only gain more weight while on vacation. And that will only make my food baby bigger, and it will be harder to fit in my clothes.

So my challenge is to face the feelings I have inside about feeling a "need' to eat crap to soothe myself. Yesterday was the first day of the diet, and I did well. Today, I needed to go to town to go food shopping. That was a little difficult because my local Target and supermarket make and sell food so they both smell like food, yummy foods like pizza and fried chicken, and bread and cookies and . . . well you get the point.  All throughout both stores, I had to continually remind myself that I wanted to lose my food baby more than I wanted to eat the foods I was smelling, or more than I wanted to buy something that was full of carbs.

It seems to me that change requires a constant reminder to one's self that you want the change and why you want the change, and I do mean constantly. The reason for the constant-ness of this reminder is that human are creatures of habit, and those habits hold on hard unless they are fought against with inner reasons why change is wanted.

I am no master of this process; in fact, I would say I am quite a failure at this for any long periods of time. Yet I am trying it again. This time, I am working hard to not let any of the usual excuses leak through and get me to do something against my goal.


How do you deal with change? Do you avoid it (like I often do) or face it head on?

I am so appreciative of all of you who come here and read my thoughts. :)

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts, too!