DAY 100!!!!!!!!

I made it!!!! Day 100 is here!

Yesterday I was having lunch with my wisest friend (yes, KC, of course you are my wisest friend) and I remarked how I've become someone I'd never thought I'd become. Let me explain:

For years and years I have been reading self-help books, books about food addiction and emotional eating, books about healing, wellness, yoga....I have a book case which rivals the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. And I was starting to feel really angry, because it seemed like the more that I read about promises to break free from food addiction and emotional eating, the more I struggled. I felt like I was being lied to and that freedom was not possible.

But now I'm one of those people who believes that it is. I somehow paved my own path, dug myself through, and got to the other side of this battle.

And it's not that I've landed somewhere. Instead, it is a constant process of trust, self-love, and open awareness. Now when I eat more than I'd like or when I forget to breathe and forget that I am loved, I see it for what it is: forgetting. I don't have to freak out because I know I can always come back to center. The past 100 days have taught me that I am ok. That I don't have to use food to deal with life.

The 100 Days may be over, but I'm going to continue blogging about my relationship with food (which is really just a mirror for my relationship with life itself). I feel a bit underwhelmed, and it's a good thing. If this had been a 100-day diet with a goal weight in mind, there would be the high of getting "there," or the let-down of not reaching it by today. But that isn't what this is about, and it does a feel a little anti-climactic. It's calming to be free from the drama of it all though, and I am so grateful.

Thank you, readers, for all of the support over the past few months. This blog would not exist without you, and my journey wouldn't be the same if I couldn't share it with my friends.

Now, on to the rest of my life....

Day 97: On Trusting My Body

It's Day 97 and I feel fantastic!

Major shifts have been happening, and I feel like I've settled into a new place with my eating. It's amazing what will happen when you let go of the reins, soften the hold, and let yourself go with the flow. Eating has felt much lighter these days, I haven't been thinking about food as much, and it feels as though I've come into a new and easy rhythm in my life.

I lost track of days this week; I knew I was somewhere in the nineties but didn't know I was this close to Day 100 until I counted this morning.

Since I'm coming close to the end (of the counting, not the new way of eating), here's what I really want to say: doing this has changed my life. Not just a little, but in enormous, earth-shaking, tide-shifting, mountain-moving kinds of ways.

I NEVER (EVER, EVER) thought I would allow myself to go with the flow with eating. Remember that post I wrote earlier, about how intuitive eating is bullshit, and I need to be on top of my calories, etc? Somehow I've bridged the gap between being on a restrictive diet and having total freedom, and listening to my body is a lot less daunting these days. I am learning to trust my body's signals, and I cannot describe what it feels like to actually honor the messages that I get about being hungry and full. I have spent YEARS ignoring those signals, and to finally hear them and know that I can trust them is something I never thought I'd be doing. Incredible.

This also makes me realize how little I trusted my body in the first place. What amazes me is now that I'm allowing myself to eat when I'm hungry, exploring why I might be interested in eating when I'm not, I find that I don't have an especially large appetite. I used to think that I fell under the category of people who were insatiable, nothing was ever enough, I could eat and never be satisfied, but that has changed. Maybe it's partly due to the fact that I've stopped putting processed and addictive chemicals (read: SUGAR) into my system, but I believe the real reason for this is that I'm finally relaxed about food. Once I let go of the guilt, and instead began to look at this as a process of self-inquiry, everything changed. Oh yeah, and that whole part about self-love helped a lot too.

A lot of you are reading this blog because you care about me and want to support me, which is amazing. But there are others of you reading who I know are in a place quite similar to the one I began in almost 100 days ago. To you, I say this: you can heal your relationship with food. Your journey will be different than mine, but I truly believe that the healing and peace that I've found is available if you set out to find it.

Om shanti....on to Day 100!

Day 88: Effort and Ease

Sometimes, I like to kick it old school. With Pantanjali and The Yoga Sutras.

Yesterday while I was in the shower (I always come up with my themes for class either in the shower, in my car, or in my sleep), I heard a strong voice saying, "Sthira sukham asanam."

Translation: My connection to the earth (or my body) is joyful.

Another translation: The posture should be steady, comfortable, and grounded in joy.

This balance is something I'm constantly reaching for, on my yoga mat, and everywhere else. I saw it show up for me in my eating this week, so no wonder I felt compelled to share these words in my teaching.

Now that I'm trying to go with the flow a little bit more in my eating, I see the need to balance my grounding commitment to health (steadiness/sthira) and the lightness and ease (sukkha) I want to feel in body, mind, and spirit. I want to be strong and remain focused in my effort to eat a clean diet, but I also want to enjoy my life and allow flexibility to be present.

This might sound easy and light-hearted....but it's not, at least not for me. I tend to go in one direction, toward sthira. I'm pretty much all earth element over here, so I can get really heavy sometimes. Sometimes I find that I'm over-grounded, which can show up in my tendency to pull back, restrict, and think that I have to be 100% perfect and deliberate in my food choices all the time. Not very much room for ease.

It's been fun watching it all unfold this week. I see moments where I really do need to be strong and stick to my guns, and other moments when I need to chill the fuck out and relax.

What about you? Where could you be a little more steady, and where could you invite more flow in?

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! :)

Day 87: Inviting in Flow

This week has been significantly better than last. Partly because of my blog prayer, but mostly because of my awesome and insightful therapist.

On Monday, when I came in to see her freaking out about what had been going on with food the past 10 days, she said this to me: "You are in the flow in every other area of your life, so why don't you let yourself be in the flow with food? You obviously are capable, since you do it everywhere else."

Um, yeah. She is right. I often times allow myself to be flexible and easy-going in every other facet of my life, but when it comes to eating, I am a control freak. I am afraid of not being in charge, for fear that if I'm not super strict and restrictive with myself, all hell will break loose and I will go off the deep end and eat and eat and eat.

So this week was an experiment in riding the waves. If I was hungry, I ate something. If I wasn't, I tried not to. But I've been emotionally eating pretty much since birth, so it's going to take a while to stop that behavior. And I'm starting to feel ok with knowing that it will take time, which is a big step forward in itself. Not here for a quick fix. I already did the easy part, which is abstaining from foods that don't feel right for me. Now is the hard part, which I think brought on my frustrations last week: actually changing the patterns and behaviors that are so ingrained in me, yet don't really serve me anymore.

I should've known this was coming, because things had gotten way too easy and boring. Yet I was still blindsided by this internal upheaval. So now the task is to let go, allow myself to flow with the natural rhythms of my hunger, and trust my body. YIKES.

Day 83: Blog Prayer for Myself

I gained three pounds this week.

I was hoping that this weird funk I'm in would pass and I could avoid writing about it on here, so as to seem like this path of healing I'm carving out is an almost perfect solution to eating issues, but that's just not the case. And if there's one thing about this blog that I hold sacred in my heart, it's my promise to be completely honest about what I'm going through.

In the past week I've felt like a failure, a sham, to my blog and this community, because controlling the amount of food I eat suddenly got really hard. I usually cap myself off at a certain number of calories each day, but that didn't happen this week, and I don't know why. Every day felt like groundhog day, where I was trapped in the same cycle.

Here's how it went:

Wake up: feel like crap about what I ate the night before (I should clarify: I'm not bingeing. I'm just eating more than I need to, more than feels good for my body).

Mid-morning: Start to feel a little better, tell myself that it's all going to be ok, and that today is a new day and a fresh start.

Mid-afternoon: Feel pretty good about how the day is going and like I'm getting back in my groove.

Evening: Still feeling good and hopeful that I won't overeat before I go to bed.

Late-evening: Eat a couple extra snacks/meals, and go bed feeling full and guilty.

And this happened for seven days in a row, literally.

I'm writing this blog entry more for me than anyone else, in the hopes that today is different. In the hopes that I can somehow transcend this pattern that's been showing up for me the past seven days. This blog is my prayer that things will turn around today and feel easier and lighter. I do not have an answer for why this happened, and maybe an explanation isn't even relevant. What matters is this: this blog and journey is not about a straight line to success. It's about trying to be really strong when it would be easier to go back into old patterns of conditioning and behavior.

On Saturday I walked by a mirror and was genuinely surprised not to see a fat person looking back at me. Say what? Yes, for all my wisdom and work I am doing to love myself and heal my relationship with food, I still have those kinds of moments.

This week has been really positive for other reasons: I had some extra time off and was able to practice yoga more, I also meditated quite a bit, I got to spend time with people I love, and I did some soul-work which is helping me to feel more open to the possibility of love in my life. I don't know why the food piece wasn't there, but it just wasn't.

Something else worth mentioning: when I am struggling, it helps me to reach out. This is why I am so public on facebook and so transparent in this blog. I need to know that there are other people out there who are struggling too, because we are all in this together. When I'm in a moment where I feel like the universe is not on my side or like I'm a total fuck-up, I need to talk about it. Because otherwise, I just turn it round and round in my mind, and that's where it can get overwhelming and feel out of control.

So, here's to today. I really hope this cloud of heaviness lifts and I can get back to feeling light and alive. Maybe if all my readers commit to their own lightness and ease, I'll feel the collective sigh and somehow find my way back...thank you everyone for your continued love and support!

Shake the dust from Anis Mojgani on Vimeo.

Days 79-82: The Home Stretch!

I am daydreaming about eating frozen yogurt.

I haven't acted yet, but it's getting me thinking about what my food habits will be like post 100 Days. I've got 18 to go, so I'm really in the home stretch!

Here's what's not going to change: minimal sugar. I say minimal because eating zero sugar is nearly impossible. I've already decided that Clif Bars are allowed to be my one sugar (they have organic cane sugar) of the day, because they help me out when I'm running all over to my classes and don't always have time (or the desire) to prepare food.

I'm on the fence about dairy. My body feels really good being vegan, and I don't like the idea of consuming the milk of another animal, but frozen yogurt calls to me. Maybe by the time I get to Day 101 I'll be more clear on this. Something to look into: does the plain tart froyo at Yogi Berri have sugar?

Something else I want to keep doing: Eating a VARIETY of foods. It can be very easy when you're on any kind of diet or food plan to wind up eating the same things everyday. In fact, I found myself in that kind of rut this week. So I'm starting to pay attention to the foods I eat and why I eat them: habit, or hunger?

Something I want to change: Less coffee. I do enjoy coffee...actually I really enjoy coffee. It's a sweet moment in my day when I get to just drink a warm cup of creamy coffee and not be doing anything else. But lately I've noticed my tendency to use coffee in the same way that I used to use sugar: for comfort. When I see that happening, it is a moment to ask myself what I'm really in need of, what uncomfortable feeling am I trying to avoid feeling, and can I just sit with it until it passes, as it always does. More confirmation that the food itself is not the problem, but it's my behavior of using food to numb/comfort/avoid that is the real issue.

On Day 2 of this journey, a friend said to me, "I can't wait to be there on Day 101!!!" But I don't think it's going to be the all out binge fest (although that is certainly tempting) that she was joking about. I think it's going to be just another day of me working on my relationships with food and myself, not eating what doesn't work for me and eating what does, but more importantly, being open to any changes that come my way and to life itself. Cause that's what this is all about anyway...

Days 77 & 78: On Why Maintenance is Harder than First Steps

I am finally beginning to move out of this rut I've been in for the last week. Hallelujah!

You know when you think you're over something, past it, healed, and then BOOM all your old shit is suddenly in your face again? That is what the past 7 days have been like for me. Big UGH.

Here's what I think happened: I got lazy. I got through the initial changes of this new way of eating, lost weight, felt better, and then I stopped doing a lot of the things that brought me to this better feeling state in the first place. I lost my momentum. For example: eating in solitude, without distraction, and chewing slowly. I haven't done it since the first few weeks of this blog. Oops.

Why is the upkeep so challenging? I think it's part of human nature. It's hard to constantly be in the fire, always strong and always committed. Willpower is finite, and exhaustion happens. The task then becomes to allow these little hiccups to be seen as just that: hiccups. I am not a failure just because I overate one night this week. (My inner critic wants me to think I am, and that I'm a disgrace to my blog, but she's wrong). Now that I feel like I'm moving in the right direction again, I remember why I made the choice to do this project in the first place: because when I eat foods that I know won't trigger me, I can stop thinking about food and my body all the time. I have more space to just be. And what a breath of fresh air that is.

Thank you to everyone this week who reminded me that most of the stories I have going on in my head are nonsense. I can be so serious sometimes, and your love and lightness reminded me that I'm allowed to go easy on myself.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! :)

Days 70-76: Mantra for Imperfection

My inner perfectionist was ROARING this week. She is always there, and I've been doing a pretty good job lately at keeping her at bay, but she managed to come out kicking and screaming and knock me over. I spent the duration of a 90 minute yoga class yesterday angry at how imperfect I am. I don't think I breathed one full ujayii breath during that practice. UGH.

But at least I know that most of what she says is just a story. Nonsense.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how making positive changes, and in my case, losing weight and feeling better about myself, comes with it's own set of challenges. First of all, every feeling or emotion that I have in addition to the energy that I sense from different people or experiences, I now feel on a much stronger level. I'm not using food to create numbness in myself anymore, which is amazing, but the flip side is that it sometimes feels like my emotions or moods are swallowing me. For example, last Wednesday it was a rainy day and I didn't have much going on, so I stayed home. I wasn't productive and didn't do the work I needed to do, or practice yoga, or read, and I started to feel the rainy blues pretty strongly. It was hard. Enter this voice: "you're lazy, you're not accomplishing anything, you suck, people won't like you if you aren't always doing or producing something..."

I'm choosing to see this experience and the emergence of my inner critic as growth. I've stuck with my new eating plan for 76 days, and we all know that most of the time, love and happiness and ease are born from a really shitty experience, a struggle. Maybe my inner perfectionist is here to take me to the next level of self-love. Part of my own personal practice, in food and in life, is being ok with the cyclical nature of things. Most paths are not linear, and it's natural to go in and out, up and down.

So I want to start this week off reminding myself (and my readers) that I am never going to get "there." Every time I get closer to what I think the perfect me looks like, she moves farther away. Because she's a fucking illusion and there will always be imperfection, mistakes, fuck-ups, hiccups, dumb moments, and life is not a straight shot to any destination. It's a weird and sometimes ugly winding road where we sometimes get lost or repeat the same part of the circle over and over until we figure out that it doesn't matter where we're going in the first place (because truthfully, there's no way we can know that information anyway).

New mantra: I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. Repeat, repeat, repeat...