Dunno

Feel like writing stuff. I ordered Sims 3 yesterday. I love the Sims, its a great way to occupy myself and forget about eating. I can spend hours lost in 'flow' and apparently its good for us to get into that zone now and again. Flow is awesome.
This is what flow is defined by:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.

2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all of these are needed for flow to be experienced. I guess other things that could induce flow would be stock exchange work on high market days, musical improvisations or playing, marathon running, although the rewards are not instant, but maybe stand-up comedy would do it too. There must be other types. People talk about being 'in the zone' - 'on the ball' - 'in the pipe' or even the phrase 'go with the flow'.

The Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix explained: "I was already on pole,...and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."

I love this feeling and I have never experienced it in any other form other than when I play Sims 1 or 2. I am not a gamer at all. In fact I would say that I positively dislike gaming as its such a waste of time, which completely contradicts the fact I love playing The Sims. I can honestly play it for hours and hours and have even once, cancelled my work for the day because I was 'in the zone' and it was too important for me to stop.

I wish that 'flow' could be something that being banded could induce, but I guess we cannot be that lucky. for instance its impossible to focus completely on weightloss, or get immediate feedback and it therefore be intrinsically rewarding. Also the level is high, all the time, and for me, always too hard! HA HA. But wouldn't it be great.

I would love to sit down one day, focus on fat busting and then get up after the session a stone lighter. That is my ultimate kind of game. If only.

I guess with the band its a case of trying not to make the goals too hard, or set the bar too high. I know that the band doesn't magically lose wight for me, as is completely self evident in the last 'punishing' year with my band. I have been punishing it for all kinds of things. I think I punished it for it going wrong. I punish it if I feel rubbish about myself. I push and push and push my band to see if it will break/quit on me. What on EARTH is the point in this?

Goodness only knows man. I don't know why I do it, but I do. I did. I might do again, but I hope not. I know I feel terrible that this time last year I was 15 and a half stone, and this year I am 2 stone heavier. Its my OWN doing though. Its not my bands fault.

I think I had false expectations. Until you have this little thing put in your guts, you don't know how it works. People talk about it. They talk about PB'ing. They talk about fills... People talk about having a baby, but you just DON'T know what its like until you've got the T shirt.

And even then its different for each person you meet. Actually having a baby is a really good example. Yeah, it is. I had DS 6 weeks early my Caesarian. I was proper ill with Full Blown Toxemia and been in hospital on and off for months. I was back in on the 4th January 99 and on the doctors rounds the next morning, they just decided that I would have the operation that afternoon. Just like that. Now, there might be a few people out there who this has happened too, but the majority of people having a baby go into labour of some kind. It either end up with them popping it out with/without drugs, or with C-section awake/asleep but just as they don't know what it feels like to just calmly wander down to the operating room and then be given a baby, I don't know what a Contraction feels like.

After this, all of us will have given birth, but we have all had completely different experiences. The end result is the same however. I guess we can apply this to our band-baby too.

The end result will be the same. It WILL. And however much I torture myself, I am not doing me or the band-baby any good. I have to get with the programme, but jeeez its hard.

Today every cell in my body is screaming at me. To be honest its screaming so loud I don't know what its saying, but I KNOW that its screaming about NOT being good and losing weight. It wants me to give up. I need distraction, and that's where the flow comes in. Its going to have to be a mammouth Sims 2 session, as Sims 3 ain't arrived yet! LOL

Oh, and the spell checker on blogger REALLY ticks me off. Why can't it spell check ENGLISH English rather than just American English. How hard would it be to offer BOTH spellings? I mean for goodness sake the blokes name was CAESAR nor CESAR!!!!!!!! so its a Caesarian. And its Mammouth not Mammoth. If your American, sorry dudes, I know its the reverse for you, but I reckon us Brits should have a spellchecker dictionary choice seeing as we invented the flaming language in the first place...

grrrrrrrrrrrrr