Our lives were recently blessed with a stray kitten. She was crying outside of my brother and sister in-law’s home and when they were ready to embark on a run, she followed them, and lied in the street meowing away. Being animal lovers, they couldn’t leave the little thing, in fear of what a car might do to her. I got a call from my wife as I was driving that morning about this kitten. Ironically, we had talked about having a cat to accompany our dog Ben. That’s why my sister-in-law called us. We decided to take her in and what a wonderful decision that was.
Gabbie is full of play and loves to talk, thus her name. I love watching her and the fascination she has with what I would consider, relatively ordinary things (shoelaces, paper bags, birds chirping, toes’ under a blanket.) Can you say AWESOME! Being a personal trainer as well as someone that tries to be conscious of nutrition, she is also incredibly interesting to watch and an excellent teacher as far as her eating habits. There are days when she is literally at the cat food bag and throwing herself at the food we put in her bowl. However, there are days when it would appear she could care less that we put a gourmet meal of cat kibble with a little chicken on top. Gabbie has provided me a great lesson about listening to my body at what it may need as opposed to listening to an unhealthy part of my mind that can be very misleading.
My eating habits were conditioned in the environment I grew up in as well as traumatic events. For me, it was the emphasis on finishing what’s on my plate along with being made fun of for being overweight. Even today, it’s such a challenge to leave food on my plate, even if I’m stuffed. But also, when I look in the mirror and perceive my body not being up to snuff, it can be so tempting to do some drastic diet. For too long, this was the vicious circle I lived and weight fluctuation was a norm. There was a huge disconnect for me as far as really being in tune with this body and really listening to how much food it needed. It was the unhealthy part of my mind that would all too often dictate my food choices and how much I would eat.
Fortunately, now, I enjoy healthy eating. (It wasn’t always that way, but that’s a blog for another day) I love fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats. But, my issue today is still… quantity. Ugghh. I love to eat but I still have trouble discerning how much my body actually needs, because of my very loud “mind”.
Thank goodness I’ve had some tools in my life to use as re’body’ers as opposed as re’mind’ers. I learned how many calories my body needs each day based on my size and activity level. Reading labels, measuring my food, and writing things down have been so helpful and eye-opening as well. I also used program such as Weight Watchers that use point systems to make it easy to see how much I need to eat each day.
I’m proud of myself that I use these tools or what I like to call re’body’ers. I hope that someday, I can be like Gabbie and be intuitively in touch with my body and listen to how much food it really needs. Until then, I’m taking it one day at a time and one bite at a time. I’ve got 22 more points to eat today and I can’t wait to savior each and every one of them.
To get in touch with your healthiest self, please call or e-mail for a free fitness assessment and one-hour personal training session. It would be an honor to accompany you on your journey.
