Sitting down

So, when faced with the choice of launching into the next task on the to-do list or sitting down, which one do you take?

Sadly, despite my ongoing resolution to sit down more, I would probably go for the task – but not this weekend!  I’ve been much more mindful of it being a holiday weekend and have tried to make sure that I take some time out myself.  Today, when the sun shone and the temperature rose to a very comfortable 21 degrees, I took my brew and a bowl of crunchy veg sticks, cheese and ham outside and sat on the bench, listening to the birds and faint hum of the traffic and felt the sun my face and felt grateful.

I’ve not been feeling as fabulous as I wanted to just recently … age, hormones, diet … all those things that creep up on you despite you ignoring them for as long as you can, and I decided a few weeks ago that it was time to do something about it.  I spoke to a few friends who have all been experiencing the same not-so-fabulous feelings and after weighing up the options, I decided that I would go to see a herbalist who is also a nutritionist.  I’m not against conventional medical help, I just felt that I would try this first, especially as I know that my diet often isn’t quite as good as it should be.

After a long chat with the herbalist, I now have a bottle of liquid herbs to drink that doesn’t taste nearly as bad as I thought it might do, and I have made some radical changes to my diet.  I think the best thing about the herbalist is that even though she is an expert in nutrition, she didn’t once tell me what I should be doing (as that is usually the fastest way for me to do the opposite), but instead handed me a leaflet on some foods that she thought might help and said I might want to read it and see what I thought.  I read the leaflet and thought that it was time that I did something different, so along with discovering that I like hummus very much when I had never thought that I did, I decided to do a no-added-sugar detox.  Yes, really!  The one who would live on shortbread and chocolate not eating either of them … you’d think my family would need to take cover!

Actually, it’s been easier than I expected.  No real cravings to speak of and although I forgot once when not so small daughter and I went out for lunch over the holidays and ordered a glass of cloudy lemonade, I’ve managed to stick to it.  Giving up biscuits and chocolate was only part of the story, though, as I wanted to try to avoid as much sugar in my diet as I could and it is definitely more difficult when you look at food labels as there’s sugar in everything.  I think that makes it very unfair for those who really have to avoid sugar for their health, and I’m glad that my avoidance is by choice and not from necessity.

So, today is Day 16 of no-added-sugar and it’s Easter Sunday.  I think I probably will have a bit of chocolate later on today, but I’m hoping that having spent two weeks without it, I won’t feel the need to eat as much and I can continue with less of it in my diet.  I do feel better for it.

And I felt better for sitting down for half and hour or so too.  Nothing was spoilt because I didn’t rush into the next job and I thoroughly enjoyed feeling the warmth on my face.  Here’s a photo of my Seascape socks whilst I ate my carrot sticks.  Just because the sun was shining and I could 🙂