Keeping Track of Change

So with the Whole30, you are not allowed to weigh yourself, or take bodily measurements. For that reason, I've started journaling.

I started my food journal just to track feelings around food. Okay, this happened today, then I ate this, or WANTED to eat this... it was mostly like that. Tracking how I felt about weight. About food.

As I've started with the Whole30 again, I've been trying to use my journal to kind of be in touch with what's going on with my body. As someone who has gone up and down with weight a billion and a half times, I don't think getting in touch with my body is something I've historically been super great at.

When I was really yo-yoing with my weight, I didn't always feel so connected to my body. Is that weird? It's like, even when I was bigger, I didn't FEEL bigger. I would see pictures of myself, but I didn't feel like that person was me. I didn't feel that big. So maybe I was just out of touch with myself. But then even now, at a healthy weight, sometimes I STILL feel like the "big" girl. And now, I think that has a lot to do with the scale and what I'm consuming.

I find what I've been eating, as well as weight, really affects how I see myself, even now. When I've been indulging, eating a bunch of junk, I look at myself and think - oh, today I'm not looking so great. Same as when I might be fluctuating up a few pounds in the morning. I feel bigger, or I feel icky, I look at myself in the mirror at the gym and I'm like, meh. But then when I've been eating clean, and on a kick of eating good stuff, or fluctuating DOWN a few pounds, it's like "I LOOK HAWT! CHECK ME OUT!" (Okay, maybe not THAT enthusiastic, but I always feel better about myself when I am eating better things, and when the scale reflects it). Is one day of really bad eating, or the body's natural weight fluctuation really going to change how I actually look? Is anyone besides me going to notice? No way. But the brain is a weird little thing, and sometimes perception is what it is!

So I know a lot of my self-perception, and I imagine it's not just me, is through what I eat and through weight. I mean, sometimes certain outfits affect how I feel like I look too. Sometimes it's just one day I feel better than another day. But food and weight can have a lot to do with it!

One of the reasons that I have really loved doing a Whole30 is that it kind of takes food out of the equation, and it fully takes weight out of the equation. I'm eating what I'm eating, and that's that. I can't weigh myself. I mean, it's all food that makes me feel good inside and out, which is great. With that, I feel like it's helping me get in better touch with what my actual body is feeling.

So what have I been keeping track of, if not weight? Or even measurements?

It's been really helpful for me to keep track of how I'm feeling in my body. I know the first couple days of Whole30, I was feeling a bit tired and foggy. One day, I was feeling kind of bloated and weird. I've also been keeping track of allergy symptoms, what my skin is up to, and how I feel after meals. I've also been tracking how my workouts feel - which is still so far, so good (knock on wood...) - and if I'm sore or achy after certain workouts. TMI ALERT: I'm also tracking other female-related issues, and bodily functions. Hey, it's all part of figuring out the body, right?! Finally, I'm tracking sleep. I need more of the sleep. Daylight savings messesd me up! Goal for next week: GET MORE SLEEP! (SMART goal version: By March 20th, 2015, Sarah will be in bed with the lights turned off by 10:30pm on 4 of 5 weeknights, as measured by data collection. BAM.)

I guess the point is to see if and how food is affecting my body, especially as I reintroduce certain groups, like grass-fed dairy and legumes, after the official Whole30 ends. I don't want weight to be the measure of that, because there is so much else going on with bodies than just the weight of it.

I have really enjoyed like, NOT focusing on weight for once, and NOT letting weight and food affect how I'm feeling about myself. I'm definitely planning to weigh myself after I'm done with this Whole30 (or Whole45, or whatever it's going to be) but I'm hoping to see that result as something objective - just a number. Data collection. One part of a much bigger picture.