where do we feel empty?

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Time for me and Aero to come clean. We have issues with portion control and nibbling. You can see she’s a big girl in this shot.

The vet just verified she’s my 2nd biggest pootie ever at 14 pounds ( I once had a 16 pound female-very large frame but still too heavy) As for me, the waistline isn’t budging, though the rest of me seems to be maintaining a toned look better than last winter.

As noted in previous diaries, I have a healthy diet and good exercise habits. And I still think stress promoting the fat storage is a factor. However, the clue that I really still eat more than I need came in an unexpected way.

(crossposted at the GOS)

Since I don’t do anything like eat a whole pint of ice cream or bag of chips, it was much easier for me to not notice the extra food. It’s more like a handful of chips here or there an extra spoonful of casserole, mindlessly cleaning my plate without stopping to notice if I really still want it. Or  when I make some thing really good like this …



…just having to have one more piece while it’s still warm 🙂

I’ve known for some time I’d be better off if I didn’t have something else going while I was eating, whether the TV or blogging, but it’s already so hard to keep up with everything that efforts to to unplug have been short lived.

The ability to notice when I’m full seems to have clicked on now because I finally figured out I was hungry for something else.



Yeah, that’s Matt Bellamy of Muse, and though I would say I’m in love with his music, it’s not really about wanting his body ( but he could surely eat crackers in my bed!)  It’s about needing the music. When I started listening to Muse more and more over these past few weeks, I’ve started to notice I just wasn’t as hungry for food. I’d stop at one portion at supper, the evening snack would be smaller or non-existent. This effect even held through Thanksgiving dinner; no seconds and did not finish my first slightly large portion of poultry. Is it because I was filling my ears instead? Maybe even more than my ears; I’ve done yoga with their 3rd cd, Absolution, on the stereo and had more of a total body experience. I was able to align the poses better, hold them longer, almost felt like I was  dancing ballet during it, and then felt really awesome afterward, almost like what i think I remember good sex was like!

At my ripe middle age and with some knowledge gained in my health coaching classes, I’m also able to figure out this isn’t about only Muse’s music. I think it’s just such exceptionally good music it was able to break through some kind of barrier and help me see my shadow better; shadow as in unacknowledged and un-nurtured parts of myself. I’ve known for some time I tend to be attracted to musicians as partners, usually with disastrous results. There have also been previous crushes on famous musicians, i.e.  Robert Plant, which seemed  normal to me because my mother did the same thing with Pavarotti and others. Likewise, it seemed natural to want to be with musical men since I like it so much but don’t perform myself.

However, deep inside is a part of me that wants to perform but has heard too many times  “you’re not good enough”  or “too risky” I think I stuffed it down even farther after the last musician boyfriend disaster . I replaced the missing guitar 6 months after getting rid of him, but couldn’t seem to make myself pick it up very often. Last weekend I got new strings  for it and actually played a few holiday songs. Now I am not going to set out on a path to become a rock star, but I need to make more space for singing and playing, just to do it, just to have it.

As always, pootie & woozle pics welcome. I don’t know what Aero is hungry for, she gets lots of cuddles from me. Perhaps it’s about my other cat refusing to accept her, even after 3 years.