Up and coming in 2010

Happy New Year! So... I have made it through the holidays, all the vacation, rich foods, drinking, parties, etc. I'm glad to be on the other side, frankly, It was enough to come home from training and try to get back in the swing of things... but then to have the holidays was amazing and fun, but I'm happy to get back to ROUTINE.

I have changed the name of the blog because I DID go to training and in a sense it was way easier than I thought it would be (the old name of the blog.) It's not appropriate for what I'm going to do in the future, however. I will continue to write about yoga on this blog, but will also include some thoughts on eating and cooking. DH (dear husband) has decided he wants to shape up a bit. I couldn't be more excited to continue my journey and include him more in the healthy eating. Possibly even exercising and coming to Bikram with me!

So as I begin to delve into the world of writing and talking about food and eating, I want to write with full disclosure that I am currently in recovery from Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and Compulsive Overeating (COE). In my recovery journey, it's been very important for me to NOT diet. Starting in the fall of 2007, I legalized all foods and swore that I would never diet again. In late 2008-2009 I worked with my therapist to learn how to start tracking my food intake without playing mental games with myself. I learned and am still learning how to be objective, use information, and make informed, adult decisions on how to live.

I am happy to report that I am on hiatus, maybe permanently, from therapy! I also consider myself in strong recovery. There are times when I use food to soothe my emotions, but it is no longer like it used to be, where every single day I would starve myself and tell myself I had to get thin then get home and binge myself into oblivion. No longer do I come up with crazy extreme weight loss plans and binge as soon as I eat one extra almond. That is very unhealthy mentally, physically, and especially spiritually. It's mean on the spirit and I will never again treat myself that way.

That said, I have had the goal of actively losing weight, to get my body mass index down, so as to be leaner, stronger, and to look more healthy. Thankfully, these days, I feel extremely healthy on the inside, and I am moving closer and closer to having my outsides match the great way that I feel on the inside. Through using the fitday.com food tracker and measuring tape, and doing regular bikram (not to mention the teacher training for 9 weeks) I have definitely shaped up this year. I have not done much weighing yet so I can't say how much.

So... posting about cooking, food, and eating on this blog along with the yoga will be a very personal experience for me. I may even talk about weight. I hope that I can do it in an honorable way - and if I can't, I'll just go back to writing about yoga. But I think it's a more honest reflection of my life in the blog to talk about all of it together. Especially since DH (dear hubby) is along for the ride now and wants to do a healthy eating challenge. I am committed to enjoying myself and not depriving myself. And hopefully having fun and making the blog more interesting!

We're going to use South Beach as a game plan. True, South Beach has a restrictive phase, but I will treat those as guidelines, not rules. Continually I will assert - no food is off limits to me and if I'm hungry for something or just want it anyway, I can always have it.

That said, along with writing about our journey through this, I also want to blog about the idea of meal planning and cooking in advance and freezing. I have always thought that those were things I'd love to do in an ideal world. However... it has never really happened.

This week is the first go at planning for and shopping for the week's dinners in advance. I used a menu planner from the Rachel Ray magazine. It's not south beach style cooking yet, but that's fine. I actually think portion control is more challenging than not eating white rice or bread. We hardly do that anyway. So hopefully by the end of 2010 I'll be a whiz at putting together menus and shopping lists and doing some bulk cooking and freezing. Hey who knows... this time next year I might even be pregnant!