Initial Strategies And Promises to Myself

It's always good to start with simple things. About a year ago I kept a promise to myself and began taking piano lessons. I kept taking them, too, to the surprise of some people who, I'm certain, thought it was a phase I was going through. Today I'm working on some fairly advanced pieces of music. So I know when I set my mind on a goal, I will achieve it. At one time I dropped a significant amount of weight. The amount I want to drop now is a small fraction of what I dropped before. I will do this.

Weight reduction is seldom, if ever, about weight. There are emotional and spiritual factors behind it. In my case, I learned grief and depression often trigger the food comfort response. I've noticed my mind dwelling on loss a great deal over the past couple of years, and I've had a number of friends and pets pass away, so I feel for me this has absolutely been a trigger for seeking comfort in food.

I've learned my wife seems to have little idea how to comfort me when I'm grieving. When my best friend died, she said nothing to me about it. When one of my pets died and I was mourning, she seemed awkward and almost embarrassed. She didn't comfort me at all. However, she bought me a pint of ice cream. When I told my son about this, he asked me if she thought I was a woman. On the other hand, if she observed me soothting myself with food, perhaps it was the only way she knew how to comfort me.

So one of my strategies is to clear my heart and mind of grief by finding a better way to cope with it. A second strategy is to reinstate my Anapa.anasati meditation practice, a third is to exercise four days a week, and a fifth is to keep a food journal.

I've been going to the Allergist every day for my allergy shots. if this seems excessive, it's only until I build up to my maintenance dose, then I'll be going once a week. Since I have to wait in the office twenty minutes to make sure I don't have an allergic reaction to the shot, I've been reading in one of my Buddhism books; a collection of suttas from the Pali Canon, in fact, with commentary by Bhikkhu Bhodhi. This has helped ease my mind as reading the suttas has always calmed me.

At one time I used to go to the fitness center five times a week and work out for one hour, thirty minutes on the treadmill and thirty minutes weight lifting. As my breathing became gradually more compromised, I felt gradually more tired, and I kept catching respiratory infections, so I fell out of the habit of going. Now I'll reestablish the habit of working out again, which I found helps elevate my mood more than anything else. There's something about lifting weights which works better than any antidepressant.