Happy Medium :)

As you know by now, I'm not so good with moderation. Being an all or nothing gal can be my greatest strength and weakness in life. I know this, and I'm working on it. I've made progress in some ways, but I need to keep working at it.

When going all natural, if that is the only boundary I'm setting for myself, I can easily follow it. Everything has to be all natural. Period. I had a terrible headache all week, and I avoided taking pain killers because there were chemicals in them. Finally, on Wednesday night, I broke down and took 2 tylenol, at Darcy's insistence. She was sick of hearing me whine and watching me pout.

How very unsupportive of her. ;-)

Anyway, miss all or nothing was thrown for a loop by the tylenol. Suddenly my chemical free week was tarnished. It's those times that I get confused. Should I throw the baby out with the chemical free bath water? No! ...but it is tricky for me...

Yesterday, I was 90% chemical free, and I think that's how I'm going to live my life. It didn't take me the full week to figure out how I had to proceed, stepping out of my all or nothing mentality. Chemicals are bad to ingest. I think we all know this. In the past, I never hesitated to pop any pill that would cure my symptom, and if double worked better, I'd do double.

That's not a good thing. I'm not going to say I'll never take advil again, but I'm going to be more careful with it. There are other homeopathic remedies to ailments, and I'm going to try them out. Someone I work with said electrolytes can often make a headache go away, so next time I have one, I'll reach for an all natural, electrolyte infused beverage first. If that doesn't work, I'll move onto my gel filled tab goodness.

As far as food goes, I can afford to buy organic foods, chemical free fruits and veggies, grass fed beef, etc..., so I'm going to. It's a no brainer that these foods are better for me. Also, they taste WAY better. Darcy bought these all natural, organic ice cream sandwiches, and I thought I'd died and gone to dessert heaven...from a silly ice cream sandwich. Hood has never prompted such a reaction, let me tell you.

I didn't count calories this week - I ate whatever I wanted, in moderation, and just made sure it was chemical free. That's fine if I'm maintaining, but it's not going to work for dieting, so I'm going back to counting calories, AND eating chemical free, 90%. The exceptions will be eating out, going over friend's houses for dinner, and the occasional treat that I just have to have. That's okay. I'm pretty sure a sustainable 90% will be better than an impossible 100%.

So now I have to work twice as hard. Not only am I counting calories, but I'm limiting myself to all natural foods. It's a lot to take on, but if you think about it, it's a much more holistic approach. Eating chemical ridden foods that help me lose weight, is almost as unhealthy as taking diet pills or getting hooked on Jenny Craig. It's not sustainable long term, and it's not good for my body.

Maybe it will take a little longer to lose the weight since I can't take short cuts with 15 calorie bread or 1 calorie butter spray, but I will be make decisions that are better for my body and better for the earth. Next summer, I think I may even have a GARDEN in my future. Imagine? :)

Overall, I'm down 4 lbs this week, which is not bad since I wasn't counting calories. Technically, it's 4 lbs in 3 days, I think. It will be even better now that I'm back to fitday.com!

I haven't been feeling well, due to a likely reaction to my measles vaccination last week, and I've been sleeping a ton, but I think I am on the mend. I have a LOT I want to accomplish this weekend, and I know I need to make time to rest as well, because I need to get past this ... whatever it is.

Maybe if I'm feeling up to it, I can make time to go apple picking...I just need to find a pesticide free orchard. That is the challenge. :)

Be well!