Garbage day tells me my stress level

Wow it has been a while.  So as strange as it sounds, I can see and gauge how stressed I have been every garbage day.

I live in Guelph, Ontario and here we have to sort all our garbages into multiple bags and such.  To save on space however I normally toss my garbage in my office into 1 bag and sort it out the night before garbage day.  So that’s some of the background.

You should also know that I always have a constant supply of small halloween size chocolate bars in my house.  ALWAYS!  It’s just something that I do.  It’s probably more torture than I need but it feel better having chocolate in the house.

Throughout the week I go about my days and nights working, blogging, chatting with friends and such.  My computer is a very large part of my life in that I work and play at my computer.  I don’t have a different computer for personal use and business.

The night before garbage day I sort my waste as Guelph requires and I started to notice a trend.  The weeks in which my life was a little over the top in terms of stress the number of chocolate bar wrappers increased significantly.  When there was a week that I didn’t find particularly tough, they would decrease.

While this doesn’t seem like a great revelation as this is obviously past the point where I have consumed the offending chocolate bars mindlessly at my desk.  It did give me food for thought in that while sorting my garbage I would try to reflect and figure out what caused me the greatest amount of stress that week.  In some cases I could pinpoint the situations and other times it was just an overall doom and gloom that was lingering over me.

With that reflection I could find things to tap on, watch for the same patterns coming up because I was aware now of what I was doing.  I’m not saying that I assess every situation now before I take a bite of a chocolate bar but I am more careful as to why I’m using sugar to cope.

So if you don’t think you can learn something about yourself by rifling through your garbage I’m here to say that you’re sadly mistaken   Funny but true!

Sprouts, spinach and wheatgrass – Oh my!

I have officially graduated from the Body Confidence program, part 3.  So what that means is that I have completed 3 parts of 6 weeks in length each in personal improvement and self realization.

It has now been officially 1 year since I started working with Cheryl Laird and I believe I’m at about 3/4 of a year with Scott.

The past 2 sessions with the group and 2 individual sessions have really given me some new inner strength and awareness of my surroundings.

I’m not sure what flipped the switch but I’m very glad that I have reached a new level in my phase of life as I know it.

The past few days have been very interesting in my world. I have taken to eating healthy because I want to…not because I have to.  I know what eating healthy does to my body as I have done it in the past but at this point it is happening relatively effortlessly and that’s a nice change.

Sure I have to spend more time in the fruit and veggies aisle at the grocery store but that’s about all it takes for me to get what I need and naturally crave good things for meals. 

About 2 -3 weeks ago Scott introduced the group to wheatgrass.  It looks like it sounds….it’s grass folks.  Green and skinny and you grab a pinch of blades and munch on it for a snack like a bovine of sorts (saying cow didn’t seem appropriate! LOL).  It’s a neat taste and there aren’t words really to describe it but I can tell you that the next few days after that first munch of wheatgrass I wanted another hit!  My body was thankful for the nutrition and I craved grass.

The wheatgrass supplier that Scott uses called Spouting Life is at the Guelph Farmer’s Market every Saturday but sadly my schedule has not allowed me to go and get some.  So today I finally picked up my first order of wheatgrass from their home.

It’s inexpensive and the benefits are just incredible for your body.

In the past 2-3 weeks I have noticed a definite change in my body.  I’m not as sugar starved.  I don’t need to eat as much as my body isn’t looking for extra nutrients it didn’t get.  My complexion has improved significantly too. 

I’m not saying that I don’t have sugar any more.  That is so not the case.  I still eat sugar in many forms.  I still drink coffee, have bagels and dessert.  I hardly doubt that I will give those up because I like them.  I’m also not saying that I’m cured for life and this is a miraculous change that is happening.  What I am saying is that through working past other obstacles/block in my life, outside of the food realm, I was compelled and excited to make changes in what I chose to eat. 

Achieving body confidence, feeling healthy and enjoying the body you have and wanting to improve upon it comes from knocking down deep seated issues that have nothing to do with food!  

I know that the other participants of this program enjoyed their time in sessions and have gotten great insight and value from these courses.  We all are in different phases in our lives with different goals we want to achieve but over all we found ourselves more confident, happier and less reliant on comfort foods which has had a great affect on our lives individually.

Thanks to Cheryl and Scott for all your efforts and your persistence and passion in our journeys.  We greatly appreciate it.