SCS Coaching Call

I had my first one-on-one 20 minute call yesterday and it was surprisingly helpful.

I oscillated between 2 questions -- longterm goal and snacking at night.  I decided on the snacking (buffering) question  -- why was I having so much trouble allowing that urge.  I'm either distracting myself from it or giving into it -- never allowing it with no action (no snacking).

The coach asked a series of questions that that lead to the reason I'm having this struggle again.  With pandemic life changing, I'm spending a lot of mental energy during the day to hold boundaries, etc.  By late afternoon/evening, I'm tired of the mental "work" and I don't have the energy to deal with snacking urges.  The urges never went away completely, but I had become good at allowing them without reacting. Lately, not good at all.

A couple of practical solutions -- give myself some mental downtime ahead the evening (which I hadn't been doing) and sit with a timer during the urges and write down what I'm thinking and how I physically feel the urge in my body.  Also, PLAN for snacking ahead of time.  The plan comes from the prefrontal cortex and not from the primitive brain that runs on automatic.  Worked well last night.

Next call is on Wednesday with another coach.

I'm heading to Asheville this morning and I'm looking at this weekend as a big experiment.  How can I have a fun time and not come home feeling like crap?  I'll be there for 6 days so that should give me some time to practice different options.  If we are going to entertain this often, I have to figure out a better balance.  

Taking my power back.  I have more choices then I'm admitting and a lot of the solution comes from making choices outside of the moment.  Immediate pleasure is a bitch (!!) -- always likes to talk me out of longterm pleasure (feeling good).  This might be my topic for the next coaching call -- lol.  Curiosity helped me during the pandemic and it can help me with this too.  Ask better questions, notice the details.

I'll be MIA for the long weekend.  Maybe a quick hello (and picture) here or there as I figure out a morning routine.  Have a great weekend.  Later gators.