Be kind to your body

I assessed a few things both when I fell asleep last night and as I woke up today. I will get into them, but firstly, I want to write that I am starting to get better, which is awesome. My throat is healing, and the portion of time during the day where I feel no pain is expanding as time goes on. All good stuff. It's nice to know that every day I'll wake up feeling a little bit better than the day before. Seems like you suffer the full 2 weeks and then start getting better, which is not what the doctors made out - they implied I'd be truly back on my feet when I hit the day 14 mark (today) and I'm not, not just yet. But I will be by Friday, which is excellent, as it means I can hit Amsterdam in better health. Totally great and stuff. So yeah, I'm happy.

Now onto my considerations and assessments of my life and how I want things to start panning out. I've had an epiphany about myself, which is that I am one of those people who will never be successful or content or happy by lying around all the time and waiting for things to come to them. Some people can settle on that but I think honestly, in order for me to really succeed next year, I have to start getting serious about improving my health, getting myself out of the house, and being proactive by running around and doing things to help myself long-term. Not just bumming around waiting for something to spring up, or waiting to lose weight so I can start living my life. I'm an all or nothing kind of person. So I need to push myself pretty hard and in order to do that, I need to treat myself and my body a bit better in the months to come.

I'm going to make a conscious effort to channel my obsessions with calories and weight into being super healthy. I mean, I think it's better to be a complete health freak than to be a nut about numbers... if I'm going to devote a part of my brain to losing weight, and deliberate over it for a long time, then I might as well spend that portion of time being good to my body, and making it into something productive. The numerically inclined part of my brain looks at it in terms of probability. Say there's a 1/2 chance I'll lose a significant amount of weight by Christmas. Now let's look at that 50% chance I don't lose weight, and stay the same as I am now. If I've been unhealthy for an entire term - drinking, smoking, and eating shitty meaningless empty foods - then I will wind up with a lose-lose result by Christmas. I won't have treated my body well, I'll probably feel like crap physically and psychologically, and guess what, there's a 50% chance I'll still be in the 140s. But if I've been a health freak for three months, exercised, eaten clean, maybe indulged a vice once a week or something, but in moderation, then I either end up with a win-lose result, or a win-win result. It's not possible for me to lose-lose if I've been healthy, because being healthy is a big WIN in my opinion, especially if I've successfully made myself happier and stronger in the process. Sorry... that's extremely rambly, I know, but I hope it makes a little sense. Basically, treating my body like shit won't be worth it, probably not even if I end up 8 stone by Christmas (highly unlikely anyway). So I'm going to start channelling my obsessive side into finding ways to make myself as strong and healthy as possible. I want to be fighting fit this winter, not withering or convalescing like I have been as of late.

I've been googling ways to boost your immune system naturally, and what super/power-foods to eat if you want to make yourself super indestructible. Exercise will definitely be featuring as soon as I'm back from Amsterdam in September. I'm going to start running; I live right next to a huge common, so I'll use that to do laps and slowly build up my stamina over time. Plus I kind of like the idea of runner's high. I might also invest in some Spirulina and Echinacea tablets since they're meant to be great for your immune system and energy levels.

My breakfast today was yogurt, apple and peach puree, muesli, chopped apple and dried apricots. And a little coffee. I had to use regular milk instead of soy milk which I don't like doing :( but we don't have any soy milk at the moment. I'm gonna trek to the natural foods shop in the centre to pick up some supplements, and also I am having a massive craving for kale chips so I might get some of those :)

Basically I'm going to try to embrace the healthy lifestyle over the next few days, and I'll be letting you guys know how it goes for me. Weight this morning = 143.2 lbs.