A VISIT TO MOMS!

Hi there,

I'm spending a few days at my moms!

She's doing pretty good. She takes enzymes religiously on my suggestion, with every meal, since she doesn't want to follow any kind of a holistic diet, and they do seem to really be doing her good. You should see how thick and shiny her hair got!

I took an early morning swim this morning and the pool was almost empty, enabling me to do laps, which i love, but i did end up getting into a conversation with one of the residents at the community here. She has cancer and is interested in holistic treatments. We talked a good long while, we exchanged info and i'll email her info on Arnold, Anna Inez, Susan Aman, all of the people i know, and the programs i know like OHI and Hippocrates that help people strengthen their immune systems so that the body heals itself of cancer.

Even though my swim was shortened by the conversation, whew am i tired!

I took an early afternoon swim yesterday at the clubhouse pool, too. Yesterday was not as succuessful as today in terms of laps. I had to swim in between the old biddies blocking my way. Could you believe that? They were like a family of ducks, migrating to every part of the pool that i wanted to go!

Everytime i think of retirement villages, i think of Del Boca Vista from Seinfeld. It is just like that here. So much crazy clicky catty stuff with the old biddies. But every now and again you meet such a nice one like Blossom, an artist, who does not want to get chemo or radiation. I'm looking forward to hearing from her.

My laps here in the outdoor pool are SO reminiscent of my blissed out swims in San Diego! God, i miss that huge olympic size lap pool at the Y outside of Lemon Grove, CA, but this one, in the sun, is not bad. At least it's in the sun. God, in San Diego, I swam and swam and swam and swam, lap after lap. I was so filled with joy, and my favorite part was becoming literaly mezmerized while swimming by watching the kaleidoscopic sun rays sparkling through the water, casting amazing geometric shadows and bright twinkles on the pool surfaces under water. Magical! It was like that again this morning because it was so sunny with those same magical twinkling pool walls, magical underwater shapes, moving, shimmying, sparkle, sparkle. My favorite part.

Can't wait to swim again tomorrow morning! Staying at Mommy's is FUN! I used to just watch TV here. I'm better!

I had watermelon for breakfast today and yesterday.

Yesterday, i was starving by 2pm.

Getting starving is kind of fun these days. You earn your food!

Yesterday, I took myself out for a treat lunch which turned out to be dissappointing.

The Earth Harvest Health Food Store was out of Awesome Foods entrees. Blooey!

I ended up with raw dehydrated snacks: Kale chips, Awesome Foods Nori Chips, some other pizza flavored chips, an Awesome Foods fudge. I grazed and tasted some of each item i bought.

Still unsatisfied with a dry dehydrated lunch, i got a small container of cucumber salad from a natural-like deli next door, which was all raw except for the vinegar.

My tummy never feels good after eating regular vinegar. And i think it kills enzymes and negates all of the nutrition in whatever you eat. At least that's what i've heard.

Still kinda hankerin' for something, i headed to the supermarket. I bought some prepackaged guacamole. Why didn't i just get the ripe avo and make my OWN? It was my first time trying the prepackaged vacume sealed stuff. And my last time. Foul.

There were no preservatives, even no lemon or lime juice, just onion and garlic and cilantro and avo and salt. What could be bad, i thought?

Actually, it was horrible.

But i ate the small container anyway. I was kinda nausiated doing it. I hated the texture, but i thought, "how can i waste this?"

Why do i treat myself like a trash disposal sometimes?

Binges are out of control things that don't stop until i'm intensely overstuffed. This was just plain overeating. That's actually humongous improvement. The worst part was not even enjoying it. One or two spoonfulls to determine i hated it...and the rest down the gullet because i didn't want to throw it out. Why treat myself so bad?

HEAR YE, HEAR YE, I AM NOT A TRASH DISPOSAL.

Time to learn to throw out food in the trash that doesn't appeal to me. Better in the trash than on my hips, or on my MIND, the worst place for a binge eater...to have food on the mind.

I'm SO GRATEFUL my mind is settled these days.

I am actually in RECOVERY, people!

The cool part WAS I forgot about it soon enough and went on with my day.

How cool is THAT?

My mom and i had a lot of work to do coordinating outfits for her upcoming Alaskan cruise. We were at it until 10pm. There were tiny rememberances of guilt and remorse about the guacamole, but really I let them go and on purpose did not allow myself to ruminate on it.

At about 10pm, i hadn't eaten since 2:30pm, and I was feeling kinda sick and tired and hungry. Some wateremelon perked me up. And that was it for the day.

I wanted to weigh myself, but knew it was part of my eating disorder and would have been self defeating. I was smart and thought ahead - I figured i'd probably be dissappointed with the number, so why do that to myself? Today i think ahead of the consequences at least with some things. Or if i'd be excited about the number, then i'd be weighing every day and restricting my food and then binge eating soon enough, again.

I'm really glad i'm sticking to this, not weighing. Actually, i wanted to do it BEFORE i went swimming. And i realized if i didn't like the number i wouldn't want to go swimming, so i said "f" to the weighing in, and lusciously enjoyed the pool and my magical water shapes.

Smart girl! I'm learning!

God, we're nuts. Not allowing ourselves to enjoy the things we love because we feel we're too "fat" for it. Moral of the story: you don't know how fat you are if you never weigh yourself. So enjoy life, eat raw, exercise, stop weighing yourself, eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, and let the rest take care of itself. And let the trash can be your best friend. Throw food away that you don't want or need. The starving children in China will have to fend for themselves.

What i practice today is called FAITH. And it feels GREAT!

What a revelation. Do the work and let the results take care of themselves.

I froze the rest of the guacamole and okay, will use it here for my salads, so that will be useful, but that pre-packaged vacuumed stuff will most definitely not become a staple. It tastes nasty. If i hide it in a salad, it will be fine.

The nice part was that eating a dissatisfying lunch just left me feeling kind of dissappointed momentarily. THIS was success, having a shitty grazing lunch and then overeating, but still not BINGE EATING!

This is good improvement!

I also don't binge here every night like i used to, devouring all of my brother's cookies, canned raviolis, cheese, cottage cheese.

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP, PEOPLE!

And if i can do it?

SO CAN YOU!

xoxo michelle joy