Weight of sleep

I've become more conscious of my sleep patterns and how they affect everything else. How many hours I get, how many I should and at what point my body is getting just the right amount. Not too much, not too little.

Do you consciously make decisions on your sleep patterns? What are the things you give up so that you can get your beauty rest?

Day 1 of making conscious decisons at 30 years old

Day 1 of conscious decision making:

It was very eye opening to spend the entire day making conscious decisions. For so long, I’ve thought that every decision I was making was conscious, turns out that just isn’t so. More often I find myself making decisions based on habits I’ve formed, especially around food and exercise.
While I have a notebook I’m using to document my decisions, I won’t bore you with all the details … maybe just a few with a few points on each. I’ll focus on decisions I made and how they made me feel.

Exercise:
I was able to squeeze in 30 minutes of my yoga dvd before work. Before the workout my self talk was ‘I don’t have time’, ‘I’ll start tomorrow’. Ultimately, I knew I would feel better for making an effort in moving my body for a bit.

Food:
Did really well the first part of the day, made solid decisions and felt good. We were working on a late night project at work and my company bought us pizza. This was a moment for me. I enjoy living life. I enjoy social camaraderie around food and drinks. It felt good to choose to have 1 piece of pizza (they were big slices folks, large Chicago style pieces) and be done (where I normally would have had 2 or 3 without thinking). Now, here is where the learning comes into play. 2 ½ hours later, when the project was done I was still hungry and we found ourselves, once again, gathered around the cold pizza. Instead of one of the healthy snacks I had in the fridge (yogurt) I had another piece and wasn’t satisfied at all. Gross.
Satisfaction. In the moment I’ll be asking myself what will make me feel satisfied and what are my options. While I did choose the 2nd piece, It wasn’t what would make me satisfied, and I knew it.

Then … ohh yes … more indulgence … we went out for a cocktail. Could I have had water? Yes. But, I had a vodka soda instead. I’m a beer girl … but for the sake of calories and overall drink vs. diet I went with the vodka soda. Once in a while I’ll have water, ice tea, etc. and some days I’ll be having a drink. That’s the way it’s gonna be.

21 days to a new habit ...

The reason we do everything we do now is due to habit. A learned way to do things. We've become accustomed to doing them. We learned them consciously and they took practice to become a habit. Now, we realize we've learned habits that have negative effects. The habits I've learned and adapted into my daily life, some positive, some negative need a bit of revamping. It will be too overwhelming to change too much too soon.

Over the course of the next 21 days I will focus on 1 change. My purpose is to make conscious decisions in every area of my life. April 27th - May 17th (3 weeks, 21 days) I commit to being conscious about my decisions. From getting out of bed, to planning my day, to what to eat, where to go ... they all effect the life I want to be living.

You may hear me reference the Psychology of Achievement by Brian Tracy in the next 21 days. It's a bit of a guide for achievement of my goals. One of the key points to the process is the law of cause and effect. 'Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects'. In order to change the effects (excess weight) I must change my causes (unhealthy diet, lack of exercise). In order to change the causes I must change my thoughts. Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects.

I will be making a conscious decision, in all areas of my life. I will be documenting it ... all of it ... the good bad and ugly.

Integrity Daily

I eat for comfort

One of the biggest challenges I've had, my entire life, is eating for comfort. Not just eating ... doing anything for comfort, really. I find myself easily overwhelmed when life gets backed up.

My biggest struggle is just about everyday after 3pm. I start to get very, very hungry. Too close to lunch, too far from dinner. Many times I've found myself so hungry I begin to eat a snack and before I know it, I've eaten a days worth of calories by 4pm.

Not only will I find, by 3pm, that I'm very hungry. I will find that the stress of the entire day is now upon my shoulders. Hungry and stressed, what could possibly make me feel better?

My solution (or should I say test run option)is to comfort myself with a cup of warm tea. Not only is it soothing, it has just a kick of mid-day caffeine to curb my appetite. I have tested this solution for 2 days and it's worked marvelously thus far. They say after 21 days of doing or not doing something it becomes a habit. Today is day 3 ...