Day Nine - Where did she go?

Sunday September 27, 2009 --well, it's been a while! 

When I started this blog my goal was to post daily on the value of vegetables as medicine.  Clearly my lack of daily posting represents a failure of sorts.  Or does it?  Is a smug rationalization for my performance (or lack of) about to follow?  Yes and no.

First of all, let me recap what's been happening for me this past week.  In earlier posts I talked about defending my doctoral dissertation on Sept 21st.  While I passed, I was asked to make revisions (not uncommon).  My timeframe is very short --I should have these in to my advisor some time tomorrow, and finalize by the end of the week.  I have also been working full time except for Monday.  My job is in another city from my home, plus I had urgent meetings Thursday in yet a third town and... you can imagine the time crunches and the chaos.

In this context, my failure to post has been, in some ways, emblematic of my failure to take proper care of myself as the stress levels mount.  On the negative side, this type of failure definitely gets the excuse machinery running in high gear (weird metaphor, I know, but my father was a mechanic and I grew up with a lot of those expressions).  Over the past month I've been listening to a CD of Dr. Wayne Dyer's Excuses Be Gone, and it's sensitized me to the counter-productive nature of excuses.  So this failure has been informative in that it's got me thinking in a more immediate way about my abuse of excuses.

On the positive side, through all this stress I do have some successes to report.  While I definitely went over my Weight Watchers' points target on 3/7 days this week, I did get in a minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables every day, often having as many as eight (beyond my Day #1 triumph of ten).  It's the wrong time in my cycle for the scale to show progress, but I think I may have lost a half a pound.  And I went to the gym two more times (Thursday and yesterday).

The whole experience this week has also helped me think more about the connection between vegetables and junk food, and junk food and stress in my life.  On extremely high stress days with no free time, my junk food consumption was higher and my vegetable consumption lower  Vegetables have been filling me up, but in high stress moments even where I could get veggies easily (e.g. pre-washed and cut single serving carrots at a grocery store), I would sometimes still opt for the junk food just for the sugar rush to keep myself going.  That is not a good pattern.

So what am I going to do to move forward?  Well, I have to get through today and those pesky (yes I'd like to use another word here but I won't) revisions.  Monday will still be a bit of a scamble, and I will try to be kind to myself, Tuesday I'm out of town again for work purposes, but I will focus on healthy rather than unhealthy foods.  Wednesday and Thursday I'm in my usual work city, and I will go to the gym on at least one of those days and aim for seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day, with no chocolate on either day (because chocolate seems to be a trigger food for me in stressful times) and staying on target for points.  Friday I'm back home, and will also shoot for those same goals.  I will also give myself a break --this week-- with the blog postings.  I won't post again until Wednesday, but will make sure I succeed because accounting for my choices in this way seems to be helpful.  Again --if ayone else is going through similar challenges and wants to share, I'd love to hear from you!

ps.  Not sure of its accuracy, but the following link is a article touting the benefits of various vegetables --check it out if you're looking for more reasons to eat healthily!  http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art51113.asp