Let my conscience be my guide…

After a three day free-for-all of Mexican food, drinks, and desserts I really felt the difference. Crash and burn on the 2nd attempt to clean up my diet. With only 9 weeks left until Regionals I better get it together. I have decided to test a new theory for two weeks. Through years of dieting and un-dieting I think deep down I already know what to eat. There is a little inner voice that tells me when I am good or bad. All the diets, planning, measuring, and tracking are just different ways to prevent myself from ignoring the voice so I can have cookies and donuts for breakfast. I aspire to be a health nut but in reality I am nowhere near the point where it makes sense for me to decide whether carbs or dairy are good or bad. I usually follow up those decisions with white chocolate Kit Kat bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.

I want to forget the details for two weeks and see if I can train myself to stop “dieting” and just listen to my inner voice. It tells me to gravitate towards foods higher in protein and eat lots of vegetables, some fruit, and a little nuts. But I am not banning carbs, dairy, fat, or even treats. No weighing or measuring. No specific weight goal for me either. I think I have weighed myself just about every day since college as a habit. For the next two weeks – NO SCALE. As of Wednesday morning I weighed 142. At the end we will find out whether I lost, gained, or stayed the same.

The only rules for this experiment are to eat real food real slowly whenever I am hungry, to stop eating when I know I should, and to prevent myself from flipping that subconscious switch that suddenly tells me to go ahead and eat half a pepperoni pizza. To keep myself aware of what I am eating, I am writing it down and posting it here for everyone to see. This time it is only a list of foods with no measurements. Instead of using my measuring cups and scales I will see what happens when I use my conscience as my guide.