Day 257

I honoured the Moon Day yesterday because I was taking a gentle two-day fast over the weekend. I do this periodically to reset my dietary equilibrium. During the past month, I've established some negative eating patterns (I'm prone to emotional eating and boredom eating) and gained some unwanted weight. I wanted to bring myself back on-track before it got any worse.

When I fast, I follow the all-you-can-eat-leek-plan (from one of my favourite books, 'French Women Don't Get Fat '), along with lots of water, herbal tea and the occasional V8 juice. The first day went fine (it always does) and the second day was difficult (it always is). I broke the fast on Sunday evening with a light supper of low-fat protein, veggies and fruit. Today, I've been following pre-set plan of six small meals.

In the coming month, my goals are to avoid sugar and processed foods entirely and become more mindful in my eating. This is a big challenge for me for myriad reasons. For one, it's a busy month for my teaching. The evening hours when I'm not in class (and get bored) or get home late from class (triggering exhaustion binge eating) are particular danger zones. Also, being in a new relationship has brought added emotional complexity into my life. I'm not used to this and I've been eating in response; to make myself feel better.

I set a small goal for this week - mindful eating. My goal is to only eat at the table like a civilized person, to put the fork down and savour each bite (no shoveling!) and alternate between all the items in front of me, including water/tea. Ideally, consuming my meal will take a half-hour or more (it takes 20 minutes for your brain to realise that your belly is full).

Eating slowly is a big challenge for the solitary eater like myself. To be honest, I think that eating by myself is just lonely and I eat fast to avoid that feeling. Sad, eh?

Anyways...

Practice was good this morning - it felt good to get back on the mat and I actually enjoyed myself. The tightness in my erector spinae seems to have dissipated over my two-day break, but I still modified Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana and skipped backbends just to be on the safe side.

I'm *this* close to binding to wrist in Marichyasana D.