Breaking the Television Addiction

We are back in action. I apologize for the lack of postings, with holidays and family gatherings it was a little crazy around here. During the hiatus I did make a few improvements as well as a few backslides. My proudest/saddest moments were one and the same. It was Christmas Day and I was standing next to the dessert table talking to a cousin when all of the sudden I looked down and realized that I had not one but two pieces of Grandpa’s Famous Peanut Butter Fudge in my hands. I had been mindlessly eating sweets and only stopped when I tasted the fudge and commented that it tasted like childhood. I realized that I had eaten a little of this and a bit of that which added up to a bunch of junk and several hundred if not thousand calories. I ate one piece of the fudge, slowly to savor every bit and gave the other to my cousin who enjoyed it as well. This moment was so sad to me because I realized how easy it is to slip into bad habits when you are not paying attention and how important it is to be vigilant. I wish I could tell you what all I ate, unfortunately all I remember is tasting sweet. My sense of self control was gone which has been the story of my life. Not anymore!

This was also a proud moment because me two months ago would have had the internal dialogue that would have gone something like this:

Angel: You should stop eating all of these decadent sweets. It’s not good for you.

Fat Mama: Oh, shut up. You’ve already eaten a little of everything. You might as well continue.

Angel: But if you stop now the damage is limited.

Fat Mama: There’s no point. I’m already fat, might as well make more of me to love.

Angel: You don’t have to do this.

Fat Mama: Here have a cookie (as she stuffs a cookie into the face of the Angel)

I would have then proceeded to eat until I was sick. Fortunately, this time around I stopped once I realized what I was doing. I call this SWEET VICTORY! I grabbed a big glass of water, drank it down and enjoyed the company of my beautiful family rather than stuffing a little more into my face. 

Stats for this week:

Current Weight-274 (Loss of one pound…woot woot)

Average Caloric Intake-2,000-2,500 (There were a few days in there that were higher…Thank you very much Christmas Dinner)

Lunches Eaten Out-One

Healthy Lunches Brought from Home-Six

Desserts Eaten-At least 8…Still working on this

Times I felt deprived-Once

Breakfast-Most days-The days I missed were definitely the days that I struggled

Workouts-EIGHT-Boy howdy does it feel good!!!

This transformation isn't just about my physical health. It's about the health and welfare of my relationships, my spiritual health as well as the overall health of my family.

My other triumph/tragedy for the last few weeks involved my daughter, Claudia. She is my angel and I love her with my heart and soul. Claudia is willful, headstrong and extremely independent…sometimes. She has also had increasing explosive reactions to many every day situations. Claudia was throwing fits once or twice a week and over the past two months they have increased to daily explosions, sometimes we had two or three a day. I have to confess that I was not handling them well at all. I felt myself getting pulled in and ended up either yelling or crying because I was not sure how to communicate with her. This left me feeling inadequate and questioning myself as a mother. I was sure that I should have had all of the answers, after all I am a therapist and work with parents on improving parenting skills all of the time. My husband sat me down and reminded me of several things.

1.      I do not have all of the answers.

2.      I am directly involved and was unable to be objective.

3.      Her behaviors were not occurring to frustrate or irritate me. This was not about me. This was about her inability to communicate her needs.   

We decided that as a family we were going on a tv diet. Claudia has had a lot of changes occur in the last year. Each of those changes has decreased the amount of time that we were able to spend with her. This meant that she was spending more and more time in front of the television and less time with her parents. We set some new house rules. The following is our list of new family rules:

1.      Start and end each day in prayer and hugs.

a.       This has been incredibly bonding. I love the extra time I get to spend with Christ and my family.

2.      Television is limited to two hours per day.

a.       This includes any show that Claudia could be exposed to so if Daddy wants to watch football it either counts as Claudia’s tv time or he takes it in the bedroom. I know that this is still too much. However, it is an improvement over her previous habits.

3.      Family will eat dinner together three nights per week.

a.       We have ladies night with my mom, sister, aunt and grandma once per week so this means that we actually eat together four nights per week.

4.      Claudia will help cook dinner and do the dishes three times per week.

a.       Cooking at home has increased the nutrition of our meals.

5.      Claudia gets two stories per night right before bed. Other story times are encouraged!

6.      Quiet time is encouraged.

7.      Quick clean-up happens every evening.

a.       We set a timer and clean-up what we can before the timer goes off. Time set varies upon the cleanliness of the house and ranges from five to twenty minutes. We may start drawing times to make it a little more fun.

The result of our new house rules…Calm. We are all more sensitive to the noise level in the house. My husband told me he had not realized how loud our house really was until it was quiet. We are all reveling in the replacement of random noise with conversation and giggles. Not having television has made me a more active person. My house is cleaner and more organized as I have to find other things to do with my time. I feel closer to my daughter and son. I have also been able to check some things off of my home improvement list as my husband is spending less time in front of the boob tube and more on painting and hammering.

I will say that yesterday was the worst day for all of us so far. I was off work and spent several hours watching television rather than doing the tasks I had originally planned. This was followed by the one episode of Claudia having difficulty managing her emotions since we placed the rules. I told Claudia, “You can have some extra tv time while Mommy makes dinner.” This extra time turned into a couple of hours as I caught up on all of the things I neglected while I was killing brain cells earlier in the day. Claudia and I began arguing over simple things that did not warrant that level of interaction. I finally turned it off and once everything calmed down her behavior was much improved and my attitude was better.

I’m not saying that this is going to fix everything. I do feel that this will be a huge part of my lifestyle change and the example I want to set for my children. Television should not be the first thing that comes to mind when we walk in the door and for this Mama it will no longer be the thing that holds back my progress or that of my family. This tv addict is kicking the habit and giving my attention to the things in life that really matter...Family