Gained and lost

I am one week into my TV diet. In some ways it has been a lot easier than I thought it would be and in others it has been a lot harder than I thought it would be.

In this past week I noticed that I really use TV as my company during the day. It's the background noise to my day. I also use TV as a way to get out of doing things I really don't feel like doing. like running errands, answering e-mails returning calls, going to the gym etc... TV was my ultimate procrastination tool.

The big revelation is that I use TV to cope with my emotions. In the same way that a drug addict or alcoholic uses drugs or booze to cover up feelings I use television to escape mine. One day last week I was really frustrated and annoyed, all I wanted to do was turn on the television and think about something else, I wanted the TV to distract me from my frustration. Instead I had to just deal. I had feel frustrated and I had to work through it on my own. I couldn't just bury the feelings under a marathon of True Life on MTV I had to work through them and find solutions to my problems which in the long run turned out to be a great thing.

With any Diet its all about the results right?! What you've gained and what you've lost. So here are my results for week one.

Gained:

• Increased productivity, I am getting A LOT more done now that the television is off.
• Cleaner home, cutting back on the TV leaves more time for keeping up with chores
• Procrastinating a lot less
• Actually dealing with my emotions instead of hiding from them

Lost:

• The guilt of not getting the things I want to get done, during the day because of watching too much television.

This is the one diet where gaining more than I've lost is a really good thing. I am sure as the days/weeks go on there will be more insights and in the process I will learn more about myself. These results aren't i bad for one week. I am happy to say that I have gained a lot more than I've lost! I am excited to gain even more.