Thursday I went clothes shopping. Two pairs of shorts isn't quite enough. Looking at myself in the dressing room mirror, I discovered that I'd decided to do Body for Life again. That's odd. I'm sure I decided NOT to do Body for Life again. How did this happen?
While at Wal-Mart that day, I bought the Body for Life journal, figuring that if I paid over $18 for it and started it, I'd definitely finish the 12-week program. I bought one of the grills I always had my eye on, when doing Body for Life before. Fast grilled chicken tenders? Coming right up.
After I got home, I started to have second thoughts. The first time I did the Body for Life challenge, I did increase my energy level tremendously. I felt euphoric a lot of the time. In the evenings I could hardly keep still. I wanted to move. And I achieved my goal of drawing 12 cartoons a week by the end of the challenge.
But I didn't achieve my goal of finishing the six bowls I had going at the time. Now that I write this, I see that this doesn't necessarily mean that I'd have finished them if I HADN'T done Body for Life. But I'd have had more time for them.
My main reservation about Body for Life isn't that it doesn't work or that it's too hard. It's that it takes attention and dedication that I need to apply to my two top priorities right now: making bowls, and making the website for the bowls. Can I do Body for Life without its sort of taking over? I don't know. It means eating approximately every two hours, eating just the right things, planning the exercise sessions. Inevitably then I'll be tempted to spend hours researching, trying to find out how to tweak diet and exercise to achieve the results I want.
While still at Wal-Mart I saw a book, The Paleo Diet, that looks exactly like the Paleolithic diet my creativity coach recommended to me. I looked at it quite a bit at the store and bought it.
I can sort of talk myself into believing that it might be true. Some of the data seems a little far fetched. And today's medical news brought the information that farmed salmon has high levels of PCBs. I eat a fair amount of canned salmon. Is canned salmon from farmed salmon? How would I know? So do I want to eat even more food this high on the food chain? Or do I want to eat the whole grains and legumes that The Paleo Diet says are causing all our chronic diseases and obesity?
I don't sound very convinced either way. Of one thing I'm pretty sure, though. Worrying and obsessing about what's healthy to eat, is very unhealthy. It's better to eat junk food with truly happy thoughts (and preferably full attention) than to get into a negative groove of worrisome thoughts about food and risks and health problems.
My two top priorities for the rest of this year - 20 bowls and website - seem like plenty to do. If I do Body for Life I'll have to clean off the kitchen counters and clean out the pantry. Do some serious grocery shopping. Good grief, I might even have to clean out a freezer.
Part of the attraction to doing it is the added structure. You can't really do Body for Life without a schedule. I'd have to get up earlier. I might as well get the exercise session over first thing in the morning. Maybe the extra daytime and the extra energy would actually help me achieve my top priority goals.
Tomorrow's Sunday. I'll either decide to start Body for Life Monday, and get ready - or I'll decide to wait a week to see if I really want to. A little voice in my head says "don't wait! you'll chicken out! do it! do it!" Another voice says "get going with bowlmaking for a week, then decide." I see why Eckhart Tolle laughs about the mind taking over.
10:00:21 PM 
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