TV, couch, eating - bad combo

I have not posted anything since the end of June, which coincidentally is when school gets out. Ah… coincidence? I think not. What does that say about my priorities, and how well I am taking care of myself? Clearly, when the kids are home with me, on their summer vacation, it is difficult to blog – or is it be a blogger? do blogging? Spell-check doesn’t like those words, by the way.

And of course in September there are all the transitions to new classrooms, teachers, and routines, buying school supplies, indoor shoes and outdoor shoes, registering for gymnastics or drum lessons, putting away summer clothes (and “outgrown” clothes), searching for the bin of “next size” clothes and winter clothes, volunteering with the school, and, last-but-not-least, my work – training, researching, writing, and prepping for the course I teach at the college: two sections, 62 students.

So, despite all of the above, it is the middle of October and the bingeing has stopped. I just don’t do it any more. Don’t reach for a bag of cookies, chips and dip, or a bowl of ice cream. What happened between June and October?

Well, there are a few things.

Even though we no longer have hot summer weather (we had a hint of snow today!), I still often have an ice cream cone for desert. It’s nice to cleanse the palate and savour the flavour.

I have gotten back to writing in my gratitude journal.

My son is finally happy to go to school and the stress-levels around our house have plummeted.

But probably the most significant thing I have done in the last 3 months is to stop watching TV. There are just not any shows running in the summer that I want to watch. So I got out of the habit. The habit I had was to plop myself down on the couch every evening, in front of the TV, thinking to myself “The kids are finally in bed, bedtime can be so stressful, I am so tired, I need to relax… what will I eat?” So I would eat without any conscious awareness of what I was eating or how much. But, and that is a big but (not butt), while we were on vacation for three weeks in Nova Scotia we did not watch TV. There was a television at my in-laws cottage, but there were no channels, no cable. The kids watched DVD’s, not TV programs. So, once the kids were in bed, we would sit around. And we would talk. My husband, myself, my in-laws, and when we were lucky, the aunts and uncles or other visitors. We would visit, connect, converse, laugh – what a concept! Or on more quiet nights we would just sit around and read. And it felt good. And natural.

Eating, without bingeing, without restrictions, and with joy – that is “normal” eating. With normal eating I hope to get to my “natural” weight. And make the time to blog about it!