Monday, September 8, 2008

Food Rehab Boot Camp

Food Rehab Boot Camp establishes the philosophy of food attitude much like Sharon Astyk's post establishes the philosophy of neighborly love.

GOALS

1. Admit you need help controlling your eating habits
2. Admit that help is available
3. Seek out that help
4. Surrender your current eating habits
5. Follow a designated plan (use the buddy system if necessary)
6. Practice the plan until "no" is as loud as "yes"
7. Graduate to independent eating choices

Last spring David and I jumped into the idea of converting to sustainable living in place, right here at our place, while we're working. Thought we'd just add vegetable gardening, water conservation, composting, starting plants from seed, rain water collection and storage, energy conservation, healthy eating, sharing our experience, etc., to what we already do. I started recording our progress in this blog. OK, all went well - for a couple months until the trouble began.

Our new and former life styles began to crash into each other as the opposties fought for dominance. New/old, unfamiliar/comfortable, chaos/order, empty/satisfied. We had jumped into all these new activities without enough education and experience to insure a successful change in life style. Further, as additional personal events added stress, our effort to change faded.

Since appetite is basic to all areas of change and we eat several times a day, we decided to focus on food. By getting down to basics - David found a diet with simple menus all set up for us - we could learn to discipline ourselves, to say "no" and carry it out, thus strengthening our ability to change our habits of eating and eventually our habit of living.

Right now we are still on the buddy system, helping each other say "no" to any food outside the diet plan. David has lost several pounds and both of us feel better. Soon we will be practiced enough to make significant progress on Chile Chews Discretionary Eating Challenge. (see button on sidebar)

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