Something seems to have clicked

 Not sure what it is or how it happened. But it feels like a switch has been flipped inside my brain and self care is easy. It's not perfect, but it is definitely becoming the default response. I have discovered that the gym is really empty at 7-8am. So I'm up and at em to get to the gym during that time period. I'm becoming far more comfortable in the gym. I just go in and do my thing. I do have a tendency to people watch, but the comparisons are minimal and I usually catch them pretty quickly. I'm living my life for me and not anyone else. 

Food is becoming fairly easy too. I've stopped counting calories. I realized the other day that never worked for me. Counting calories, counting points. None of that ever worked well for me. So I stopped counting but I do track what I eat each day so that I can see if I'm eating junk or not. Mostly it's not. I had one day last week where I had a beer and a little, tiny ice cream sandwich. Otherwise I did not eat junk at all. I also remembered times when I've lost weight before. It's not really how much I eat, but definitely what I eat. Also, once I kick the metabolism into high gear, which usually happens through working out, the food seems to take care of itself. I will crave good things and not junk. So yeah, my self care is going really well. 

And I'm feeling amazing. I don't feel bloated. I don't ever feel stuffed after a meal. It's awesome. I've been doing some intermittent fasting. I generally eat dinner around 6pm and then I don't eat again until noon or 1pm the next day. So I'm at about 17 hours of non-eating and 7 hours of eating. It's not exact and it fluctuates depending on the day and what we are doing, but generally it's around there. I actually think that's having the biggest impact. I don't feel stuffed and I read somewhere that your body doesn't go into fat burning mode until you've been without an input of food for about 12 hours. So if I don't eat for 17 hours, theoretically my body is living on fat stores for 5 hours every day. That is probably not exact but you get the idea. The idea is that I'm burning fat every day by not eating all the time. And I'm feeling the effects of what I'm doing. My stomach is not so solid anymore. I can actually suck it in a little. My clothes are fitting differently and I'm wearing some things that I wasn't able to wear a year ago. My energy is improving, though I still get sleepy in the afternoons, and I'm just feeling really good. So whatever it was that has switched on. I hope it remains on forever. I know that I will work to keep it on.