Lindell's Journal 22nd-31st December 2022
Just typing the dates 22nd to 28th December gives me uneasiness ha ha.
So, I'll remind myself and remind all of you reading that I am human.
That is not my permissions to myself to go crazy and stop practicing.
It's just my acknowledgement that I am likely to not be perfect this week.
What I want to remember though is that I want to plan every exception on my plan.
I want to show up to my plan which means having a realistic plan.
So my goal this week is to set a plan for how I want to live every Christmas from now on. For the rest of my life. What do I want them to look like?
Thursday 22nd December we have friends coming at 4pm for a BBQ.
We are serving drinks, cheese and crackers, spanakopita, chips/crisps
Meat, salad and bread rolls.
watermelon, Ice cream for the kids / affogato for the adults if they want.
Chocolates.
Lunch before they come I'll have salad and some protein. Or maybe even just salad.
When friends are here I'll have 2 drinks, cheese without crackers, meat and salad, no bread roll, spanikopita for sure, no chips, affogato and 3 chocolates. That feels like such a luxurious plan and if I hadn't have set it I would totally have had all the things.
I'm going to stop eating when I'm no longer hungry.
I don't want to get to the full stage.
I'm feeling calm now I've got the plan.
I feel uncertain about the week ahead so maybe it's a good idea for me to set a rough plan now and then a more detailed plan each day.
Friday plan:
We're at the beach so I'll eat before I go (eggs and zucchini)
Dinner, meat and salad.
Yoghurt, fruit and coconut if I want.
2 coffees, 2 teas, 2 chocolates.
1 alcoholic drink.
Saturday plan:
ok, let's just assume every day has 2 teas and 2 coffees.
Lunch - Sushi party pancake.
Yoghurt and fruit + coconut
My brother-in-law and family arrive around 4pm and my in-laws have us scheduled in for 7pm Mass then dinner after so it will be a later evening. I'll make sure I have the yoghurt this day.
Dinner, I'll have whatever I want making sure to stop at a +4 on the hunger scale.
Fill up on Salad if it's available.
2 alcoholic drinks.
Sunday plan:
Morning will be panettone
Lunch will be lot's of indian snacks, prawns, chicken, chips, cheese and crackers (I'll aim to just eat the protein snacks)
Then Indian Biryani and chicken and salad. I think that's it. Surely there's some other food.
My aim is to eat to a +4 on the hunger scale. I do want to have the Biryani because it's being made by a cousin who is a chef and I've never had his Biryani before. I hope it's prawn but usually goat or beef. Whatever it is it'll be yummo.
I'll eat whatever desserts I want too remembering to stop at a +5 on the hunger scale.
Imagining a Christmas afternoon where I'm full of energy and not laying on the lounge overfed and tired is so motivating for me. That's my goal.
I would like to do an afternoon Bay walk too. That'll feel nourishing for my body.
MY main focus is to be present and soak up the moment with the family together. Let all tension roll off my back. Remind myself everyone is there and acting in love, comments are just comments.
There's no right and wrong there's just different ways of doing things.
Monday plan - Boxing day
My family are coming to my house for a full Christmas lunch.
Turkey, Ham, Roast Pork, baked vegetables, pudding, custard.
And it's meant to be 32 degrees!
We'll have all the usual snacks of cheese, crackers, chocolates, nuts, chips...
I'll enjoy whatever I want but not eat past a +5 on the hunger scale.
I'll allow myself 4 alcoholic drinks throughout the whole day (everyone's staying at mine so it'll be a long day/night.
Tuesday - I want to commit to weighing myself and not making it mean anything about me and my ability to maintain but just data after a big weekend of eating and drinking.
The weekend planned is SO MUCH better than my old average.
My lead up to Christmas has been SO MUCH better than my old average.
I'm already so proud of myself.
Ok, I'm feeling much calmer.
I'm off to complete my DO list for today.
Part of that DO list is to write a DO list for the week ahead. ha ha.
Power thoughts for today:
It's all amazing already, anything I get done from here is a bonus.
Company and connection is the point of the day, not filling bellies and numbing feelings.
I'm ready for an amazing day. Bring it on!
Ok, day went well.
I did over 16,000 steps for the day. That's a lot for me.
I had a sushi party pancake for lunch and my 2 coffees.
For the BBQ I had a cheese and a couple of crackers but only about 3.
I did have some spanikopita and 2 chips too.
I had a few pieces of potato salad (that's the salad our guests brought) the rest was sausages, other salad, an affogato and I had 1 alcoholic drink + 2 chocolates. I ate to a +4 on the hunger scale and my weight is +400g today.
It's Friday 23rd December.
I've got a lot on my DO list again plus a trip to the beach.
Plan for today is set (from yesterday, THANK YOU past Lindell. Making my life SO much easier).
We're at the beach so I'll eat before I go (eggs and zucchini)
Dinner, meat and salad.
Yoghurt, fruit and coconut if I want.
2 coffees, 2 teas, 2 chocolates.
1 alcoholic drink.
I'll keep the 1 drink on there but I don't think I'll have it.
I did ask my husband after our guests had arrived if he wanted a G&T with me.
It was on my plan and I was thinking I want to sit and relax and have a G&T and chat to my husband.
But when I thought about it all and how I felt I realised I didn't need the G&T and actually didn't want it. If I'd had it I would have had sugar and alcohol just before bed and wouldn't have felt great today.
So we skipped the G&T, sat and relaxed for 10 minutes before I decided what my body really needed was sleep. So I was in bed by about 9pm (which had me wake up at 5am but I LOVE the early mornings).
I'm off to have a play with a new community feature I've been given Beta access to for the Tribe. I'm hoping so much it's amazing so we can offer an amazing community to all Tribie no matter if they are on Facebook or not. Fingers cross.
What a day. I was so exhausted I had to cancel going to the beach (and it looked like an amazing day to go to the beach. With everything I've had on and what's coming up I really needed to prioritise myself and rest. I had a 1 hour nap which helped me A LOT. Then got a lot of the final things done.
I had a G&T with lunch and 2 beers with dinner.
Food - I had breakfast (told myself I'll have breakfast and lunch) so had a zucchini party pancake). Lunch was sausages and salad. Dinner we had cheese and crackers. I also had 1 cookie and 4 chocolates.
My brain was in toddler indoor play centre mode - crazy ha ha ha.
I felt a bit blurgh last night going to bed but I'd like to highlight what did work and what really helped me:
I was aware of where I was on the hunger scale. I only ate to a +3
There were about 4 times when I picked up a chocolate and asked myself if I really needed it and then put it back.
I did over 10k steps.
I reminded myself it's Christmas and the most important part is being together and connecting.
I had a service situation in a store and my son and I chose kindness and calmness. It wasn't easy to wait for 30 minutes but it felt so good to model the behaviour and see my son embrace it too. Also the person serving us really worked hard for us and we were so appreciative.
Kindness always wins.
Reminding myself I can have whatever I want any time I want as long as it's on my plan was really helpful too. I did catch a little thought of "quick, while she's relaxed we should enjoy everything we want" and "it' too hard to plan and record, I'll just relax, eat what I want and get back on it next week".
Reminding myself that this Christmas focus is 'intentional' and 'better than my past' has been really helpful. Actually, they are going to be my power thoughts through today and tomorrow.
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It's Christmas Eve! 24th December 2022.
Today is the day my brother-in-law arrives. Then my whole family will be in the one country at the one time for the first time ever. We will all (my family and my husbands family) be together on the 27th for my Family Games Day, so fun.
Today's plan... let me scroll back up and see what it is.
Saturday plan:
2 teas and 2 coffees.
Lunch - Sushi party pancake.
Yoghurt and fruit + coconut
My brother-in-law and family arrive around 4pm and my in-laws have us scheduled in for 7pm Mass then dinner after so it will be a later evening. I'll make sure I have the yoghurt this day.
Dinner, I'll have whatever I want making sure to stop at a +4 on the hunger scale.
Fill up on Salad if it's available.
2 alcoholic drinks.
Ok, that looks like a great plan.
I want to set a main guideline I follow over the coming week:
- Breath, acknowledge what you're feeling.
- Be present
- Have whatever you want to eat and remain under +6 on the hunger scale.
- Ask yourself "do I really want to eat that" before you eat anything.
- Focus on feeling well.
- No one is right or wrong, everyone is just different with different beliefs and thoughts.
- Everyone will be acting though their own lenses, as products of their filters.
- Love and kindness wins.
Oh I LOVE those guidelines.
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Ok, I've skipped a few days.
It's December 26th.
Whoa!
We had a big Christmas Eve then Christmas Day with my husbands side of the family.
I was so SO tired last night. I went to bed at 9.30pm.
Up today getting ready for all of my family to arrive for another Christmas lunch and a few days sleepovers.
I did so well Christmas and Christmas eve. I stopped at a +5 on the hunger scale.
Everyone kept going serving more food and sweets at 5pm but I decided I'd had enough.
I acknowledged after the starters yesterday that I had already had enough food for the day but would keep on eating. I was at about a +2.
Then After lunch I knew I'd only have a small bit of dessert then would be done for the day.
I heard my husband declare "my kitchens closed" when his mum offered him biscuits ha ha. LOVE LOVE LOVE that. He HAS been listening to me ha ha ha.
This morning I didn't get a chance to weigh (I really wanted to but the bathroom with the scales was occupied). So I'll weigh tomorrow morning.
Today I'll do the same as yesterday.
Anything I want as long as I stop at a +6.
I actually felt Great this morning when I woke up. Well rested and my body had processed the food already and felt great.
Off to get some things done.
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31st December - The past week feels like 4 weeks.
It was CRAZY. Crazy busy, Crazy fun, Crazy full of love.
Today is 31st, I'm going to do a post on the whole year evaluation.
I wanted to close off this years journal here though with this final 'check in'.
I'm feeling tired. Very tired.
I'm feeling full of love.
We had 21 people here on BOxing day.
30 people here the following day for family games day.
then it dropped down to 14 for the final 2 days.
We've still got a very full calendar until 10th January while both my brother and brother-in-law are in town.
I did really well following my plan until my plan ran out.
So I want to set a plan today for today and tomrrow.
It's new years eve.
We're going to my Dad's house. I'm planning prawns and salad for lunch. No carbs. No chips and cheese.
I'll have 2 drinks maximum.
Dinner, I'll have some more salad.
I'll have yoghurt and fruit plus nuts if I want.
And 1 Chocolate.
I will go for a walk today (really want to move my body) and breath as much as I can.
I feel better already.
