The test...

Most days I work from my home office. Today I had to venture out into the wild for some meetings. This would be the first time since I started my diet 10 days ago that I would not be near the creature comforts of home.

The big unknowns to me were..."Am I going to be distracted? Am I going to somehow lose my motivation? Am I able to venture out of my controlled bubble safely?"

The reality of today was that I forgot to eat all day. Which could be just as bad as over eating. It's an imbalance.

I left the house at 9 am and had multiple meetings right up until 3 pm and didn't have time to stop for lunch. So at 3 pm I walk in the door and was now getting hungry. It was the moment of truth.

Moments like this where you haven't eaten and you are now hungry create the perfect situation to overeat. I had to be so careful and I knew it. Especially when you are eating lunch at 3 pm and dinner is not far behind.

In many ways I felt like a bull rider and I had to hang on. I needed to stay calm, stay in control and really not over eat. Not to mention my mind was racing from all the meetings I was in and I was in go, go, go mode which can mean "I don't know what I'm putting in my mouth mode" and you just mindlessly chew on anything near you.

I knew I needed to deal with this situation delicately. I needed to get food into me gently. It was a defining moment.

What I mean by that is getting out of the hunger mode without going into the overeating mode and get things back to a routine mode. There is no doubt in my mind that eating regularly throughout the day is the best way to go. Not eating regularly messes up your blood sugar, causing cravings and that is when it becomes so easy to over eat.

I managed to succeed.

How? I chewed slowly. I was rushing to get something made, I could feel myself going to my old habit of getting as much food on the plate and putting it in the microwave and then eating it fast. In this case I worked as hard as I could to slow everything down and by the time the food was on my plate and on the table I was in the mind set to eat slow. It was a good start.

It didn't end there. Now I had eaten, next was dinner and any snacks. I dodged a bullet but the day wasn't over I still had to get through the day.

I did it and the key was chewing my food slowly and then savouring it.

I'm finding the hypnosis has been super valuable. I can't say for certain if I've been hypnotized and it's working. It could all be in my mind, which is really what hypnotism is I guess, so I guess it's working.

What I find is that the hypnotism has caused me to not act out food emotionally. It has kept me balanced in my approach of dealing with issues or situations that would have otherwise caused me to grab something to eat as a coping method.

I think the best way to describe hypnosis is that it keeps the planes wings balanced. They are not moving up and down and so does the slow chewing, which is one of the suggestions made through the hypnotism.

Another interesting element of the hypnotism is that I have cravings to eat healthy foods. If I want to snack I don't even want popcorn, I want yogurt and frozen blueberries. I start thinking of foods in a sense of whether they are "alive" or "dead" foods.

I've been tracking my food on weight watchers and notice that as every day goes by I'm eating more "power foods" naturally. Power foods are fruits, vegetables, etc.

I'm finding that I'm eating according to what my body needs. This morning my body was wanting Quaker Oats and fruit. Most mornings it's eggs and toast.

The only thing I did not do today was train. I had meetings up until 6 pm. I had been away all day and there was other stuff I had to focus on. My mind needed settling. The exercise may have helped but it just didn't feel right.

I know I don't need it as I'm shuffling around the house right now with sore legs from previous workouts. So I called an audible and took a "rest day".

If I have one take away from today it's that I didn't realize how much emotional stress plays on one's eating habits. I knew if from a text book perspective but now I'm seeing it from an internal perspective. It's like seeing it from the inside out, not the outside in.

Of course now I'm deathly afraid to stop listening daily to the hypnosis.

Oh and before I forget. Today was a BIG day, it was the finish of day 10 of my diet. I made it into the double digits. That's a big deal considering up until this 10 day stretch I don't think I made it more than 3 days before.