FOCUSING ON OUTPUT INSTEAD OF INPUT

I took an hour's walk after work tonight.

Usually, i just go home dog tired after work and plotz on the sofa.

But I seem to have arrived in a new wonderful cycle of movement and energy. The hour walk Cliff and I took on the Atlantic City boardwalk yesterday did me so good. First of all, it felt so good, and secondly, it seemed to have positive effects on my body, such as decreased reflux, increased digestion, increased mobility and increased energy. At work today, even though i ate a fair share of nutty things, i had so much energy!

I want to keep up in this direction. I know how exercise is, if you let it go a day, suddenly you don't "feel" like it, so i want to keep on this new positive train...and not allow myself to get derailed.

It occurred to me that focusing on exercising can only do me good:
-It will burn calories.
-It will rev my metabolism.
-It will help me lose inches and tone up and look better, even if i don't lose pounds.
-It will allow me to eat the raw foods I like, like the raw burger from All The Way Live, guiltfree. -It will help me to be more in tune with my hunger levels, since it will probably make me hungrier, my signals will be louder.
-I'll get more restful sleep.
-I'll have more energy.
-I'll be less stressed.
-I'll sing better as I'll be in better shape.
-I'll probably lose weight.
-I'll gain strength.
Etc...Etc...Etc...!

My tendency is to overeat at times and to eat sometimes when i'm not hungry, so, why keep feeling bad about failing there, constantly. Why not focus elsewhere?

If i stopped obsessing about INPUT (what goes in the mouth), and just did the BEST i could daily to eat when i am HUNGRY and stop when i am FULL, and switch my focus to OUTPUT (the energy i'm putting out), I'd feel less guilty all of the time and i'd feel more easy going about raw. Every little thing i ate wouldn't be such a disasterous big deal. I'd be burning it up! It sounds like a good direction to me!

METABOLISM
When i came home from OHI and began working at Arnold's, I had been working out DAILY for 8 months, walking and swimming for hours a day!!! My metabolism was SUPERCHARGED! No matter what i ate raw, pie all day, raw bread all day, i didn't gain ONE POUND for an entire year! I was in a blissful state with raw where I could eat "whatever i wanted," and never gained a pound, due to increased overall fitness.

DIETING/BINGE EATING
There was a time on this blog when i lost a lot of weight quickly by cutting out the fat and salt on 811. The only problem was, i couldn't and didn't WANT to maintain the strict 811 way of life - I binged OUT...on gourmet raw chronically. I couldn't get enough of it when i ate it, because i knew i "couldn't" have it again soon.

What's more, I would routinely gain 20-30 lbs on these binges. I suppose my fitness level and metabollism must have been DOWN during this time for FOOD to have such a disasterous effect on my WEIGHT.

This feeling that every little thing i ate was going to HARM me DISASTEROUSLY and cause me to GAIN WEIGHT IMMEDIATELY was terrible for me psychologically.

I've since come to believe that raw "dieting" doesn't work for my particular psychology, in the longrun, since it creates that backlash effect (binge eating) and I only gain the pounds i lost quickly....right back quickly, anyway.

A NEW WAY
During these 10 weeks back on raw, i decided i wanted to discover a better balance for myself, a lifestyle instead of a diet, that considered my obvious need for food pleasure. Why DENY that?

This new raw lifestyle, about 50% gourmet raw, 50% fruit, focusing on HUNGER/FULLNESS, and now opening the door to that crucial component of SERIOUS exercise, seems a saner option for me. Not so black and white. I don't have to be so....ANAL and OBSESSED about food, nor so FEARFUL about IT or my WEIGHT.

Binge eating has also SO severely decreased over these 10 weeks. This is just so much better for me in the long run for me.

FOCUS ON FITNESS INSTEAD OF WEIGHT
Weight loss hasn't been super fast, 40 lbs in 10 weeks. And seeing that trend...sends me looking in another direction. I could always do BETTER with food, but seem to be doing as well with food as I can, so let's look elsewhere, i told myself.

Stop beating a dead horse (diet focus) and just EXERCISE!

Yesterday, an hour, today, an hour, hopefully tomorrow an hour. I'm certain that with the increased exercise, I am going to be seeing better results. How could i not?

POSITIVE EXERCISE ATTITUDE
How silly of me to neglect exercise, negatively thinking, "it won't help."

Just look at Megan's body and you see how much she's changed in a year, from twiggy to shapely and you'll see how much exercise helps.

Just look what it did for me at OHI when i lost 140 lbs in 8 months walking my butt off, still eating gourmet raw several times a week.

INPUT/OUTPUT
How much energy we expend is a very important part of the whole equation. Energy in. Energy out. Naturally, we have to hit BOTH targets optimally to really kick losing into overdrive.

But with my eating disorder to consider (I don't want to flare it up with strict "dieting,"), until i can fundamentally REDUCE my food intake or adjust my raw food choices sufficiently to produce better weight loss, I'm going to focus on OUTPUT. I seem to have more control in that area, anyway, so why shouldn't i focus there?

I have a feeling that placing my focus on exercise more and allowing the focus on the food to go, I'll end up being being happier, more relaxed, and, paradoxically, more "in control" of my food than ever! Sometimes you have to "lose control" to gain it. Getting more and more into fitness and moving, and relaxing about food is going to be....wonderfully FREEING! I'm excited to see where this new idea leads!

xoxo michelle joy