I can't remember the first time I heard someone say "listen to your body" in regards to health, but it amazes me that even now, at 36 years old, I'm still needing to remind myself that the body is sending the brain signals all the time. I just have to actually, you know, take the time to consciously tune in and acknowledge them.
Without a doubt, it was much harder to decipher signals when I was doped up on sugar all the time. I've watched/listened to enough lectures given by Dr. Robert Lustig to understand how sugar messes with our brain functions so everything going on upstairs is straight up Opposite Land. On high doses of sugar, I couldn't tell when I had eaten enough. Now when I have a binge it is literally painful and I have immediate regrets. Which, is actually quite helpful in choosing to abstain in the future. I'm learning that lesson slower than I would like, but hey, progress is progress!
High doses of sugar also affected other mental health aspects, like, I couldn't tell what was a real conflict or something I had made up in my imagination. I regularly had these mental arguments with people in my head and then was stewing about it all day. What a waste of a day! I won't say that the minute I cut out sugar that this problem was resolved, because it wasn't. But it wasn't even possible to think clearly about it until I cut sugars out. I forget a lot of things, but I still remember how it felt when that sugar-induced cloud of misery drifted away. Addictions suck. When they no longer grasp at me, I feel so... free. That is motivation enough for me to keep going down my life's path of self betterment.
Body signals are never-ending, and there are TONS of them. Turns out, in case anyone also missed the memo, there are billions of living things inside every one of us that makes our meat vessel operate. They all have something to say, and they don't hesitate to say it in the only way they know how: sending signals. When something isn't right in your gut, those guys are quick to react and let you know that you made a choice they have a hard time dealing with. I mean, I ignored that a lot in my younger years, but I've come to the conclusion that having a stomachache is a bad way to spend a day, so I avoid it. Even if it tastes good, it's really not worth it anymore. Life is finite and we only get so many days to be alive... I'd rather not spend any more of what I have left on feeling like crap as a result of my own poor choices.
So many signals are a reaction to the food we eat. One of my (many) goals has been to give myself more good days than bad days, so I take my body signals very seriously. If it makes me sick, it's ousted from my diet. Things I've had to give up are odd, too. Like, I can drink/eat anything with whole milk, but if it's been skimmed AT ALL, I will become very sick with symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Another signal I pay attention to is physical addictions. Sugar was, by far, the hardest thing I've had to cut from my life. And to be clear, it is not 100% cut from my diet. I have sugar on occasion, but I refuse to let it return to my daily intake and restart the addiction. I can have it and then leave it at this point, but last year when I went on a vacation and ate it every day for a week straight I had to go home and spend the next few months cutting the addiction and going through withdrawal again. Funny (in a sad way) story, my husband and I were craving sweets over the weekend and so I made cookies. We ate so many of them over the course of two days that by the time Monday hit we were both feeling like hot garbage. Like on vacation, we so rarely eat that much sugar in a day, so when we did, our body's signals were like, "hey, hope that was fun - enjoy the hangover!" and we spent most of this week recovering from it. Mentally irritable and self-conscious, physically exhausted, unable to get restful sleep and lack of motivation to do our normal routines. On the positive side, it was such a miserable experience that it completely turned us off to wanting more sweets. So, no additional willpower is needed!
I am, however, currently addicted to caffeine. I drink at least 2 cups of strong french pressed coffee every day and if I don't have it by noonish, I will have a serious headache with no cure. I can't drink coffee once the headache has arrived. That's too late for my body to compensate, I guess, and painkillers provide no relief. Pretty sure that's what addiction to caffeine looks like for me. My body's signal is clear: drink the coffee or prepare for a day ruined.
I love the taste and ritual of a hot cup of black coffee in the morning! I have weaned off of a caffeine addiction in the past, so I know it is possible in a relatively short amount of time, however, I have yet to be in a position where I cannot access a cup of coffee. Gas station coffee tends to give me serious bloats, so it's a toss up if I want to deal with that over a headache, but at least I have the option.
There are other body signals that I am still learning to interpret. Traditionally, I am terrible about drinking enough water. I used to dehydrate myself before a performance because my bladder is the size of a frickin' pea and I rarely would have an opportunity to take a bathroom break in the middle of a performance. Having to pee urgently but knowing I have to wait for over an hour... it's not ideal. So, I opted out of water and instead would use breath strips, mints or lozenges to bring hydration to my mouth when needed. There is no reason for me to continue to abstain from water since most of my current gigs are either short or super flexible to allow breaks whenever I need them. But the habit has been formed and so I have learned to tune out the signal that my body requires water. It's kind of easy to confuse with the feeling of hunger so I sometimes interpret that and go eat something. Which, I mean, food has water in it... but that's not what my body was asking for. Just water, plz! I can usually tell the difference in signals now, but I've also been implementing new habits around hydration, such as drinking water with every meal, keeping a bottle of water in my studio, drinking water when I see someone else doing it and even going to get a drink of water after bathroom breaks. It has helped and I am slowly making improvements there.
Mental signals are complicated, too, and kind of their own separate part of the beast. Getting off of regular sugar consumption helped me feel less paranoid, self-conscious, self-loathing and negative. But I still had a lot of work to do in minimizing stress levels, since stress can be a SERIOUS factor in overall physical well-being. In high school, I was so stressed out that I would get debilitating stomachaches that frequently sent me to the nurse or home. There was a lot of stuff going on in my head and it took many years of therapies and deep self-reflection to understand what was causing my suffering and then to figure out how to weed out those things from my life. Some of it was literally cutting people or activities from my life, and some of it was a need to come to terms with reality and thus learn acceptance. Everyone is different in this regard, so it was difficult and personal work. It still is. But I have absolutely no regrets about the time I've put into it, so I know that no matter how hard my road ahead looks I can handle it and it will be worth the effort.
I've also discovered that aging is kind of a bitch. Since entering my 30's (again, I'm recovering from childhood obesity, so there's been some irreparable damages done) I can't go more than a couple of days without stretching or doing yoga because otherwise my body feels like trash. Everything hurts. My joints, my back, my neck, it's all sore. Do 30+ minutes of restorative yoga and I'm back to feeling functional. My body is clearly telling me that if I don't exercise today, I will pay for it tomorrow. When I turned 35 I had set a goal to be "fit by 40". It hurt to realize that I'm only 3.5 years from that now. So... I've begun ramping up regular exercise efforts so that by the time I'm 40 I can not only feel good about my weight loss, but my sweet muscle gains too!
I guess the moral to all of this is that I've just been listening to what my body tells me to do and then forming habits to support it. Drink more water or your kidneys are going to ache. Check. Control your sugar intake or prepare for pain. Got it. Take your mental health seriously, because she's the only one at the helm of this machine. Right! When I'm feeling stress, I look at my recent diet first and adjust accordingly, or I plan out time to meditate, as I may be overloading myself with social media/outside noise. Listening to myself has given me a level of self satisfaction that I would not have previously thought possible. When I heard people say "anyone can do it!", I didn't realize that included me. It does. And it includes you, too.
The great news that I hope you all take away from this is that despite all of this taking brain power and effort, most days my body doesn't feel like anything. I wake up and I have a cup of coffee and I feel totally fine. Since I got to my goal weight, nothing usually hurts at all, which is a phenomenal experience that I never thought would happen. My goal of living mostly good days is already a success. Sometimes I have a bad day, but I can read myself enough to know how to handle that now, too. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed and need a day off. Sometimes I'm stressed and tense and I need a 2-hour neck massage. Sometimes I need a break from technology and I'll abstain from electronics for a few days and take longer walks outside until I feel level again. Listening is step one. Acting on it is step two.
Take care of yourself, whatever that means for you, and really listen to what your body is telling you. If you suffer in any way, question it and seek out solutions. Try things. Change bad habits and make your health a priority. Eating something just because "it tastes good" is not a good enough reason if it's hurting you otherwise. Don't let yourself settle for a life you're not happy with. If you're alive and reading this, you've still got time to walk down another path. Change is inevitable, so you can either have a say in what direction you're heading or let potentially bad habits or routines dictate the outcome of your life.
You've probably head the saying that nothing worthwhile is easy, but YOU CAN HANDLE IT and I believe in you!! <3
Without a doubt, it was much harder to decipher signals when I was doped up on sugar all the time. I've watched/listened to enough lectures given by Dr. Robert Lustig to understand how sugar messes with our brain functions so everything going on upstairs is straight up Opposite Land. On high doses of sugar, I couldn't tell when I had eaten enough. Now when I have a binge it is literally painful and I have immediate regrets. Which, is actually quite helpful in choosing to abstain in the future. I'm learning that lesson slower than I would like, but hey, progress is progress!
High doses of sugar also affected other mental health aspects, like, I couldn't tell what was a real conflict or something I had made up in my imagination. I regularly had these mental arguments with people in my head and then was stewing about it all day. What a waste of a day! I won't say that the minute I cut out sugar that this problem was resolved, because it wasn't. But it wasn't even possible to think clearly about it until I cut sugars out. I forget a lot of things, but I still remember how it felt when that sugar-induced cloud of misery drifted away. Addictions suck. When they no longer grasp at me, I feel so... free. That is motivation enough for me to keep going down my life's path of self betterment.
Body signals are never-ending, and there are TONS of them. Turns out, in case anyone also missed the memo, there are billions of living things inside every one of us that makes our meat vessel operate. They all have something to say, and they don't hesitate to say it in the only way they know how: sending signals. When something isn't right in your gut, those guys are quick to react and let you know that you made a choice they have a hard time dealing with. I mean, I ignored that a lot in my younger years, but I've come to the conclusion that having a stomachache is a bad way to spend a day, so I avoid it. Even if it tastes good, it's really not worth it anymore. Life is finite and we only get so many days to be alive... I'd rather not spend any more of what I have left on feeling like crap as a result of my own poor choices.
So many signals are a reaction to the food we eat. One of my (many) goals has been to give myself more good days than bad days, so I take my body signals very seriously. If it makes me sick, it's ousted from my diet. Things I've had to give up are odd, too. Like, I can drink/eat anything with whole milk, but if it's been skimmed AT ALL, I will become very sick with symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Another signal I pay attention to is physical addictions. Sugar was, by far, the hardest thing I've had to cut from my life. And to be clear, it is not 100% cut from my diet. I have sugar on occasion, but I refuse to let it return to my daily intake and restart the addiction. I can have it and then leave it at this point, but last year when I went on a vacation and ate it every day for a week straight I had to go home and spend the next few months cutting the addiction and going through withdrawal again. Funny (in a sad way) story, my husband and I were craving sweets over the weekend and so I made cookies. We ate so many of them over the course of two days that by the time Monday hit we were both feeling like hot garbage. Like on vacation, we so rarely eat that much sugar in a day, so when we did, our body's signals were like, "hey, hope that was fun - enjoy the hangover!" and we spent most of this week recovering from it. Mentally irritable and self-conscious, physically exhausted, unable to get restful sleep and lack of motivation to do our normal routines. On the positive side, it was such a miserable experience that it completely turned us off to wanting more sweets. So, no additional willpower is needed!
I am, however, currently addicted to caffeine. I drink at least 2 cups of strong french pressed coffee every day and if I don't have it by noonish, I will have a serious headache with no cure. I can't drink coffee once the headache has arrived. That's too late for my body to compensate, I guess, and painkillers provide no relief. Pretty sure that's what addiction to caffeine looks like for me. My body's signal is clear: drink the coffee or prepare for a day ruined.
I love the taste and ritual of a hot cup of black coffee in the morning! I have weaned off of a caffeine addiction in the past, so I know it is possible in a relatively short amount of time, however, I have yet to be in a position where I cannot access a cup of coffee. Gas station coffee tends to give me serious bloats, so it's a toss up if I want to deal with that over a headache, but at least I have the option.
There are other body signals that I am still learning to interpret. Traditionally, I am terrible about drinking enough water. I used to dehydrate myself before a performance because my bladder is the size of a frickin' pea and I rarely would have an opportunity to take a bathroom break in the middle of a performance. Having to pee urgently but knowing I have to wait for over an hour... it's not ideal. So, I opted out of water and instead would use breath strips, mints or lozenges to bring hydration to my mouth when needed. There is no reason for me to continue to abstain from water since most of my current gigs are either short or super flexible to allow breaks whenever I need them. But the habit has been formed and so I have learned to tune out the signal that my body requires water. It's kind of easy to confuse with the feeling of hunger so I sometimes interpret that and go eat something. Which, I mean, food has water in it... but that's not what my body was asking for. Just water, plz! I can usually tell the difference in signals now, but I've also been implementing new habits around hydration, such as drinking water with every meal, keeping a bottle of water in my studio, drinking water when I see someone else doing it and even going to get a drink of water after bathroom breaks. It has helped and I am slowly making improvements there.
Mental signals are complicated, too, and kind of their own separate part of the beast. Getting off of regular sugar consumption helped me feel less paranoid, self-conscious, self-loathing and negative. But I still had a lot of work to do in minimizing stress levels, since stress can be a SERIOUS factor in overall physical well-being. In high school, I was so stressed out that I would get debilitating stomachaches that frequently sent me to the nurse or home. There was a lot of stuff going on in my head and it took many years of therapies and deep self-reflection to understand what was causing my suffering and then to figure out how to weed out those things from my life. Some of it was literally cutting people or activities from my life, and some of it was a need to come to terms with reality and thus learn acceptance. Everyone is different in this regard, so it was difficult and personal work. It still is. But I have absolutely no regrets about the time I've put into it, so I know that no matter how hard my road ahead looks I can handle it and it will be worth the effort.
I've also discovered that aging is kind of a bitch. Since entering my 30's (again, I'm recovering from childhood obesity, so there's been some irreparable damages done) I can't go more than a couple of days without stretching or doing yoga because otherwise my body feels like trash. Everything hurts. My joints, my back, my neck, it's all sore. Do 30+ minutes of restorative yoga and I'm back to feeling functional. My body is clearly telling me that if I don't exercise today, I will pay for it tomorrow. When I turned 35 I had set a goal to be "fit by 40". It hurt to realize that I'm only 3.5 years from that now. So... I've begun ramping up regular exercise efforts so that by the time I'm 40 I can not only feel good about my weight loss, but my sweet muscle gains too!
I guess the moral to all of this is that I've just been listening to what my body tells me to do and then forming habits to support it. Drink more water or your kidneys are going to ache. Check. Control your sugar intake or prepare for pain. Got it. Take your mental health seriously, because she's the only one at the helm of this machine. Right! When I'm feeling stress, I look at my recent diet first and adjust accordingly, or I plan out time to meditate, as I may be overloading myself with social media/outside noise. Listening to myself has given me a level of self satisfaction that I would not have previously thought possible. When I heard people say "anyone can do it!", I didn't realize that included me. It does. And it includes you, too.
The great news that I hope you all take away from this is that despite all of this taking brain power and effort, most days my body doesn't feel like anything. I wake up and I have a cup of coffee and I feel totally fine. Since I got to my goal weight, nothing usually hurts at all, which is a phenomenal experience that I never thought would happen. My goal of living mostly good days is already a success. Sometimes I have a bad day, but I can read myself enough to know how to handle that now, too. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed and need a day off. Sometimes I'm stressed and tense and I need a 2-hour neck massage. Sometimes I need a break from technology and I'll abstain from electronics for a few days and take longer walks outside until I feel level again. Listening is step one. Acting on it is step two.
Take care of yourself, whatever that means for you, and really listen to what your body is telling you. If you suffer in any way, question it and seek out solutions. Try things. Change bad habits and make your health a priority. Eating something just because "it tastes good" is not a good enough reason if it's hurting you otherwise. Don't let yourself settle for a life you're not happy with. If you're alive and reading this, you've still got time to walk down another path. Change is inevitable, so you can either have a say in what direction you're heading or let potentially bad habits or routines dictate the outcome of your life.
You've probably head the saying that nothing worthwhile is easy, but YOU CAN HANDLE IT and I believe in you!! <3