Falling In Love

This morning I read bigassbelle's post, and she had this link to find out what Tarot card you are.
I've always been fascinated by Tarot cards; I did a speech on the history of them in college. I own a couple different decks, each one with its own unique style and artistic interpretation of the symbols on the cards. Years ago I used to actually "do" the Tarot. I had a friend I read the cards for, and we were always amazed at how well it applied to what was going on in her life. Of course, that could be contributed to our gullible natures and interpreting what we wanted out of the cards. But still, it was fun.

Anyway, I completed the little test, and the results were:
You are The Lovers
Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.
The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.
Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

Did you notice the word intuition up there? I sure did. In fact, there were several phrases -- "growth and maturity," "radical change in perspective" and the big one: "You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path." -- that really hit home.

Does that mean I'm in love with Intuitive Eating? I know I am inspired by it and have surrendered control (given up dieting) because of it. I know it's helping me to find my true self and reveal my true needs. It's definitely changing my perspective and goals as far as weight loss is concerned. And while I know there will be challenges ahead as my old habits rear their head, I know that I will never be complete unless I do this.

It's funny how quickly my attitudes are changing. Last night Hubby was talking about how much protein, carbs and fat the experts say you should eat, and instantly my brain threw up a red flag -- caution, diet mentality! I'm absolutely sick and tired of every expert telling me how much of this, that and the other thing I should eat. I'm not going to sit at the dinner table with a calculator figuring out what percentage of my daily calories came from protein! It's been so wonderful the last two weeks not wasting precious energy adding and re-adding my calorie totals in my head throughout the day.

Exercise has also been affected by this new perspective. When I wake up in the morning I check in on my body: am I tired, am I achy, what kind of exercise do I feel like doing? This morning I decided I wanted to sleep in a little and do Pilates this afternoon when I'm more flexible. So that's what I'll do. There's no more rules that I have to exercise at 5 a.m. every Monday through Friday, or that I have to have so many days of cardio and so many hours of toning every week. I want exercise to be something I want to do because I like the way it makes me feel, not something I have to do if I want to lose weight.

I know this sounds like I've had this miraculous turnaround and I'm magically "cured." Believe me, I'm not. I still have moments of worry at meal times; I'm mentally waving away the pesty thoughts of how many calories I'm eating and the fear of gaining weight. At least once a day the thought of binge eating crosses my mind -- "I can have anything I want, so let's eat it all right now!" But then I remind myself there's no rush, that I can have whatever I want to eat today, tomorrow or the next day. There's no more need for Last Supper eating. I also still have my anxieties about weekend eating. But those fears can only be alleviated by forging ahead and doing the best I can. And if I do overeat? Use the experience to learn and apply it to next time.

And of course I've got my scale issues. This morning after I weighed in I silently announced that this was it, after today I'm not getting on for a week. It sounds very similar to the Chronic Dieter who on Sunday night tells herself that once again she's starting another diet on Monday morning, only to blow it again Monday night. So I'm not going to scold myself for breaking the rules if it doesn't go a whole week. Even if I can skip one whole day, that will be progress.