Re: One Year of IE

[Guest guest]

Liz,I really appreciated your post. It resonated with me. All the energy I wasted in the past on focusing on food and diets (which resulted in me gaining over and over again) could have been spent on far better things.I gave up on diets years ago. I am really working at nurturing myself and taking time out for me.Carole To: IntuitiveEating_Support Sent: Friday, January 6, 2012 10:26:16 AM Subject: One Year of IE First of all let me say that although I don't post often, I read every word posted in this group and it is a daily dose of sanity and encouragement. One of the things I would like to work on in the coming year is to share more and not just be a passive participant here. This month marks one year of IE for me, so I thought it would be a good time to chime in.At first, IE seemed like a dream. I ate what I wanted, was usually able to stop when I was satisfied and my urge to binge eat seemed to be evaporating naturally. I started working on banishing

negative self talk and cultivating body acceptance. After a few months, though, it became harder and harder to stop when I was satisfied. I tried to be gentle with myself while I figured out the reason for the struggle, but I was also realizing that my clothes were getting tighter. Even though I had gotten rid of the scale, I found I was still very much focused on being thin and the idea that IE was making me gain weight started to make me question whether I really could trust my body after all.Meanwhile, I was dealing with being chronically sick with sinus infections and several bouts of strep throat, plus my thyroid hormones were not responding as well as they should to my medicines, all of which left me exhausted, confused and stressed about my health. I began trying to sooth myself with food, and the urge to binge started creeping back in. As the holidays approached, I faced my one year IE anniversary with a

sense of disappointment because I felt like I was proving myself unable to follow the IE principles. It felt like yet another failed diet, and there I was watching the "New Year New You" diet commercials while thinking that even after a full year of committing to IE, I had gained not lost weight.I won't lie, I was in a funk over this for weeks. All through the holiday season, I cried any time I had to dress up for an event because I felt so heavy and disappointed in myself. I didn't want to go back to dieting, but I was afraid that if I was just going to steadily gain weight on IE, then it wasn't any better for me than the diet yo yo machine.I happen to really believe in New Year's resolutions and taking stock of the old year to prepare you for the new year. Every year, I take a week or two to think about what is working in my life and what I want to try and improve in the next year. When I sat down and

wrote my list of what I accomplished last year, though, I was floored. How could I look at this list and be feeling sorry for myself? Last year I: ran a half marathon (!!), gave up dieting, gave up artificial sweetener, started cooking and baking again, began to undo the indoctrination of society's beauty myth and replace it with kindness and self-acceptance, started writing again, painted a picture, returned to singing in public (which I hadn't been brave enough to do since high school), and pulled out the guitar again and started playing almost every day. As I looked at that list, I understood that IE was giving me back my life. Every single thing on that list was something that I was always going to do once I lost the weight. I have been putting off living my life until I was skinny for as long as I can remember, and this year, thanks to IE, I found the courage to go out and live my life right now as I am. I am so

grateful! Also, as I saw this different kind of (non-weight related)progress, my faith in IE came flooding back and miraculously the battle with food started to fade again. This morning I stopped halfway through breakfast because I was satisfied, and it felt perfectly natural to leave the rest on my plate and move on to other things. I am starting year two with a renewed sense of hope because now I know what can be accomplished when I stop obsessing about the size of my tummy and start thinking about the life I really want to lead. The extra weight will take care of itself. Or it won't. Either way, I have better things to spend my time thinking about!-Liz------------------------------------