Week 6 Day 49

Only a short post today, because it has come to my attention that I don't take enough time for myself. Me-time is crucial on this diet - you need time to work through your green book, put into practice the stuff you're learning, and treat yourself with long languid baths and hair treatments etc.

I bought loads of bath stuff and hair stuff, but I've been just nipping in and out of the shower and the rest of the time it's been work, work, work. My job, freelance work (which I volunteered for!), friendships, household chores, everything - I've been running myself ragged over it all, and I've had no time for me. I've just taken on too much. So from now on, everything else is going to get the bare minimum and Bea Time is going to be the order of the day.

Which isn't self-sabotage, I don't think. I think it's just prioritising everything over my own wellbeing - purely through habit. And I wonder why I keep getting stress headaches and feel run-down. Posting on here, writing down my thoughts and discoveries, is part of this. I meant to post every day and now I will, even when there's nothing newsworthy to say. Beware!

So anyway.

Today's weigh-in said I lost 2.5lbs this week (making it a total loss of 20lbs), despite my having drunk 6 50cl bottles of water a day. I didn't feel that discouraged, though, because my scales say different - I've been weighing myself every morning, and according to my scales I've lost over 22lbs in total.

But even taking into account LL's version, I've lost 20lbs in 7 weeks - if I lose another 20lbs I'll be close enough to my goal weight to quit. And it's an average of 2.4lbs per week. I am hoping that drinking more water will make more of a difference. And I am due my period, so perhaps that's skewed things.

Today we looked at challenging core beliefs, and where they come from. I was very happy to learn that most of my core beliefs are already being challenged - they were before I started LL. I've always been very black-and-white about my own crapness, so it was a shock to realise - ACTUALLY REALISE - that those thoughts are just opinions! They're not based in fact. In fact everything that I held to be true now feels very shaky. I don't think I would have been able to get this far on LL if I *really* thought I was crap anymore.

I have been very hungry this week, though. I was fine until now - could handle being around food, no problem, but now I want to EAT. I want to eat cheese and toast and potatoes and all sorts. This may be the week-7 itch: I'm much closer to the end than I was at the beginning (obviously!) so that's challenging me. I've also been unwell and it's FRICKING COLD, which may have a bearing on things.

However last night I cooked for the first time - a friend came over and I cooked her and my boyfriend a bolognese (proper Italian family recipe Bolognese, this is) and I LOVED IT. It was a bit weird to make it, serve it up, then sit down with a hot chocolate for myself, but I didn't mind at all. I just loved the whole process - adding the ingredients, smelling the lovely smells, adding spices and so on.

I can't wait to cook more. When I've finished LL I'm going to be cooking all the time, and I'm really looking forward to it.

All right, in the interests of looking after my own wellbeing, I'm going to retire to the sofa to put my feet up and work on my green book.