Challenge Two

As mentioned yesterday I have set myself a new challenge. I was so pleased with the success of Challenge One that I started Challenge Two the very next day!

Now I’m a bit of a believer that you shouldn’t fix what’s not broken and at the end of the day, Challenge One met my goals so when I started thinking about Challenge Two I was quite reluctant to make too many changes. On the other hand, changes of course can be good and can reinspire me to move further forward.

My naturopath suggested further tweaks to the eating plan of Challenge One but this would mean further elimination of foods and whilst this is something I am definitely open to, with my long history of binge eating I want to be cautious not to feel so deprived that binges creep in again. I know that this has happened in the past. Challenge One helped me eliminate processed foods without too many feelings of deprivation but my concern is whether further tweaks right now will push this too far.

Bearing all this in mind, I decided on a gentle approach. My new challenge is to simply continue with the plan from Challenge One with extra thought given to the following areas:

1.    Adding in more ‘good stuff’ with an emphasis on more herbal teas, more vegetables and more digestive aids including fermented veg, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

2.    Rather than ‘ban’ certain foods, I want to just be more mindful of my intake of alcohol, coffee, dairy, bread and sugar to increase my awareness of how I feel before and after I eat/drink them. If my consumption of these do not reduce over the next 6 weeks, then I am ok with that, it is more about the mindfulness for now.

3.    Adding in more other ‘good stuff’ such as exercise, relaxation, sleep and play. In regards to the ‘play’, although have only really discussed my food habits on this blog, my binge eating started at the same time as I developed (sometimes debilitating) social anxiety. I plan to blog about this more soon but over the next 6 weeks I am going to focus a little more on this side of things and perhaps even set myself a few challenges too! I think all of this will help me to start tackling the emotional side of things as well as just the food.

I’m hoping that by focusing on adding in rather than taking away will help move me forward in a very gentle and supportive way. So without further ado...

Day Two of Challenge #2

I went to bed on Day One of Challenge #2 with a bad headache. Unfortunately it got worse and I was awake through most of the night. It was also still there when I woke up as was a touch of nausea. When I eventually felt like some food at about 10.30am, I had a slice of buttered spelt sourdough toast. I felt LOADS better for this but it just made me want more. So at 12pm I had 2 more slices of toast with poached eggs.

Despite not being hungry, I continued to crave bread and sugar for the rest of the day. I kept visualising chocolate brownies! I had an afternoon of grazing which was not really to plan.

Afternoon snacks – a few spoonfuls of cream, a homemade grain free blueberry muffin, raw chocolate, coffee

Dinner – Lamb and vegetable ‘lasagne’ with zucchini instead of pasta and some grated organic Swiss cheese instead of a cheese sauce, a few chunks of raw chocolate