Today is the 8th night of the omer. It has been one week and one day. Pesach is officially over. Now there is no matzah or foil covered counters to remind us to count. Now we are beyond simply counting days, we include weeks and days.
I've been thinking about not counting. Not stopping the omer counting, but about when its better not to count at all. Nearly 20 years ago Passover was when I became free from diets. I stopped counting calories, stopped judging what was on my plate. After years of unhealthy thoughts about food and my body I started learning how to separate eating from emotions. Counting was not about tracking progress it was about restricting. And ignoring counting led to feelings of failure, giving up on myself. I let go of being enslaved to these harsh judgements and instead followed simple directions about how to eat in a more healthy way. Just like my ancestors couldn't immediately start behaving like free people, it took time and trial and error and growing faith and trust to re-learn how to eat like a free person.
And I'm back at a time in my life when I am once again focusing on paying attention to my eating habits. Working on being less a slave to habits that served me for a while but to which I no longer want to serve. Twenty-nine months after my womb became home to three babies, twenty-two months after childbirth when creating energy storage for those babies was no longer needed, thirteen months after major milk production ceased, this body needs help adjusting to being a solo organism. Oddly it doesn't feel like freedom to place this much effort on practices that re-set my metabolism, it requires planning, conscious decision making and holding fast to my decisions. Still, it is not that critical counting I gave up decades ago.
Within the last year I met with a nutritionist who insisted that calorie counting is the only, really the only way to lose weight. She believes it is a simple mathematical equation and told me that it does not matter what foods one eats or when, only the calorie count. Thank God I knew better and told her that her method is a very unhealthy way for me. I couldn't articulate myself well while feeling kind of shell shocked, but I declined working with her. Even so it took a bit of help and de-programming to get my sanity back after that session.
I called my friend Amy Marzluff, who happens to be a holistic health counselor, so I could hear her tell me that the nutritionist was dead wrong. Amy reminded me of the truths I knew – including the one that food choices do matter – and supported me in finding the best way to honor myself, my life and my truths.
Soon enough I asked Amy to work with me and share her wisdom to help me reach my goals and months later I have lost twenty pounds with health affirming guidelines such as adding more greens, drinking more water, adding more protein, and not eating after 7 pm. I started planning a week's worth of family meals and sitting down to eat with my children. I am doing the best I can, with my dad sick and lots of hours in the hospital I have had to be forgiving when I can't plan, cook, or eat early enough. Even so, my body is responding well. I am so excited with my success and the way my body is shaping up.
I get how becoming free isn't necessarily easy. It would be cool if we could realize we want a life change and then just poof be changed, but that's not my experience of how it works. Change requires desire, willingness, effort, perseverance, feeling uncomfortable, stepping backwards, recommitting to the goal, desire, willingness and affirmation.
Having a Seder and remembering the exodus, sacks on our backs, does not take the Egypt out of the Israelite. That one night, or two nights and the seven or eight night Passover holiday is just a start. That's the great thing about the omer. We see the days and weeks ahead and day after day week after week devote attention to transforming from where we are to who we want to be, who we know we are, when the light of revelation arrives. Until then, I am not counting critically, yet counting consciously. Today is the eighth night of the omer. One week and one day. On the way.
For your journaling or conversation: What kinds of counting in your life are more critical than constructive? What patterns are challenging for you to change? What triggers your steps backwards? What or who supports your steps forward? What helps you be more conscious in your steps?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
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i was signed up for bariatric surgery a year or two ago, but every time i got psyched up for the concept of someone slicing my abdomen open, even laproscopically, a miracle would happen... the powers that be would add another hurdle for me to jump in order to "qualify."
ReplyDeletefinally, i said screw it. my doctor, who'd enthusiastically signed my paperwork to get me into the "system" suggested a book, "I Can Make You Thin."
my wife picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble and in a few months, i'd lost 15, then 20 pounds. today i'm about 25-30 pounds below the peak i reached last year, and probably don't have a BMI high enough to qualify for bariatric surgery anyway!
EATING consciously is even better than counting calories consciously. try the book, and by the way, i don't get any money for telling you this... :)))))