Week of Joy weigh in results

So how did making a conscious effort to find joy impact my weight ? I did nothing different as far as food or exercise. I did not drop carbs, increase protein, drop salt, drop proccesed foods, eat only organic or any such thing. I did not increase cardio, take up running, begin weight lifting or any such thing. I ate after 7 pm at times, I had a couple of sleepless nights AND I am PMSing. The only thing I did was to consciously include things each day that brought me joy, and therefor relived stress.

Me- DOWN 2.6
Son - DOWN 2.2
Hubby DOWN 3.2

Still think stress is not a factor ? And I think it may be even more of a factor for those whom are 40 and beyond than it is when you are in your 20's or 30's. After 40 you suddenly have your own retirement to think of, bigger bills, teens, aging parents and the reality that you are not waiting to become someone but you are all that you are going to be. You get a lot less free time and personal space to do and be who you want to be some days because y0ou are now officially mature and should act your age. You look in the mirror and you find new rays, new wrinkles and wonder about strange spots and freckles a lot. You are heading rapidly to a place in life where you are in danger of being considered outmoted, things like the music you used to love and relax to has changed, new forms of technology come along that not only don't make sense to you but you find yourself surrounded by wide eyed children who seem to have been given the owners manual through osmosis. Things that you were taught as being absolutely must have skills ( like penmanship , spelling and grammar) are obsolete -knwtImn ? ( text speak for know what I mean ) You now live in a world where pens and vowels are an endangered species.

You do not stress eat, but the food that you do eat meets with strange hormones, and food being what it is takes pity on these hormones and decides to hang around longer to see it there is anything more it can do for you, and if you are really alright. Your grandma may have fed you soup when you were young but now grandma is dead and the soup seems to think that it has to do even more for you. You try to convince it that it is not nessisary and you will be fine through exercise and portion control, but like grandma, that food will not take no for an answer. So the scale creeps up and you find you have a new thing to fear. Aging , sadly, ,is about learning to fear many things. This is why most older people do not like horror films. Life is horror enough. As was said in an episode of the Simpsons by Grandpa , if you are not afraid, your not paying attention !

My son is young and optomistic, and simply watching his caloric intake and activity will get him to lose weight. Hubby and I are older, and things are complicated. I am 51 and he will be 55 in about 6 weeks. Because we are in a loving, caring relationship we share the joys, and we manage to share the fears. At night in bed it can either be the stuff that would make most romance novels jealous or fodder for a new Stephen King novel because we spoke of our concerns. If one is happy, usually we both are happy. If one is stressed, we both get stressed.

Enough silly ramble for the day. Seriously I am going to try once again to encorporate joy in my life this week agina and see if it brings the same results . I am not totally convinced of the affectivness of any plan until it brings me positive reasults for 3 weeks in a row. So till then it's just keep on keeping on !