Kilo 11 - What do I do with the rest of my life
Well, this is certainly not the end. In fact, it's the beginning of a new pathway. A new life, a life not taken over by food and cravings of food, but one which allows itself to be disciplined, active and clever.
It is easy to enter into a plateau, to become the person who gets tired of routine and discipline and reverts to the simplicities of satisfying craving after craving. But you see, we've been there, and to go back would be like a dog returning to it's own vomit. This is the last thing we want, as a matter of fact, we don't want this at all.
So how do we continue in this new life we've donned. Just remind ourselves why we want it! We like the fact that we now like ourselves and are proud of what we've achieved. Not only have we changed the way we look, but we've overhauled the way we think in private about food. This was the highest achievement of all.
Now we set our sights to the future and know that food will no longer take over our lives. We understand that in our minds we'll always be susceptible to the temptations of food. Rather than doing it naturally, we will always have to make the effort to think like a hittie, and not a fatty, but armed with this knowledge, we are strengthened to beat it.
Food had become a sort of drug, quite like alcohol is to alcoholics. Once an alcoholic stops drinking he/she continues, not so much to struggle, but to understand why they previously needed to fill a hole in their lives with a substance. Once this acceptance is reached, it becomes easier to identify the signs of this need returning. If one can recognise the signs, one can prevent the dependency starting all over again.
We have gone through a total re-conditioning of what we thought our bodies needed in the way of food. We now understand that we never actually needed half as much as we thought we did. If we haven't decided why this was so, then we need to stop and do so now.
As a writer, sitting at home for hours banging away on my computer keys, it is easy to go to the fridge and get food, but as we discussed before, if you don't buy it you can't eat it. After a good breakfast followed by a banana for energy, I have an apple for my morning snack. I make sure that I'm drinking enough water throughout the morning. There are several ways of reminding oneself to do so. One can fill up a bottle and finish it lunch time, or drink after each natural expulsion of water. If we drink only at meal times, we may not be getting enough water.
At lunch I take a break and do noodles or rice with stir fry, cooked in olive oil. I do a different flavour of stir-fry every day, using various vegetables mixed with tuna, sardines, or a little meat. It's a small meal but it's totally balanced and tastes fabulous.
This is all my body needs, but I always have a mug of fruit smoothie with my lunch, this makes it extra special and totally enjoyable. I look forward to it, and once I'm done, I'm totally satisfied. Partly because it's a good tasty balanced meal, because my mind is made up that I am, and because my stomach now only requires a small amount of food. Notice I don't have a dessert, the fruit smoothie is more than enough for a sweet taste.
This takes me all the way to dinner time when I have a serving of fruit, or a handful of dried fruit, and a glass of fruit juice or water. This is part of my dinner so the food on my plate is not a large amount. At no time am I starving or craving. If I feel hungry, which is a perfectly genuine request for the body to make, I have a glass of water, and if I still am hungry, then I have nuts or fruit.
In the ten previous chapters, we covered a step-by-step guide of how to get to one's healthy, ideal weight (h.i.t). We concluded that being thin is not necessarily healthy, and that the most important thing about getting fit is working out what weight is perfect for me and me alone. It's now time to go over these points to make sure that 1. We've done what we're supposed to do to stay new, and 2. We understand how to make this lighter, healthier person stay that way for the rest of our lives.
