Maybe it's working!

[Guest guest]

Hi, everyone!

Ellie, that's great about the cookies! Along the same lines,

I think I'm seeing some progress. The past couple of days

I've been engaging in my usual negative self-talk --

worrying because I'm quite sure I've gained weight, debating

what I could possibly do about it, and beating myself up for

overeating. At the same time, though, I was not giving up on

IE, and I was trying to follow the principles as well as I

could.

I was at my sister's house for dinner last night, and I was

a little bit hungry, but not starved. Ordinarily I would eat

everything on my plate and then a big serving of a kind of

ice cream that we both love, which we eat once a week when

we get together for dinner. Last night, though, I only ate

part of my dinner, and I fixed myself a smaller portion of

ice cream than usual. I was definitely satisfied (though I

wouldn't have turned down more ice cream!).

This morning I realized that my self-talk hasn't caught up

with reality. Things are actually going pretty well with my

IE efforts. For instance, I bought a big bag of potato chips

about three weeks ago, and I also bought some ranch dip.

That combination has always been totally addictive for me,

but I figured I'd never get beyond that if I continued to

" forbid " myself from buying them. So I bought them. I still

have chips left in the bag (about a quarter of the bag) and

quite a bit of the dip. I thought I'd be totally out of

control with them, but I wasn't. I've hardly even thought

about them, much less gobbling them down like a madwoman. I

guess it's because I know they're there, so they've lost

their thrill. A while ago I also bought three packages of

cookies, including a kind that I've always had trouble

stopping eating. It took two weeks before the cookies were

all gone. That may not sound like very long, but it

certainly is for me! I'm finding that if I " allow " myself to

buy something that I've been afraid to buy because it's been

a binge food, I tend to forget about it most of the time and

only eat it occasionally. Of course, this may not always be

the case! But it's really nice to see it happen; it gives me

faith that this process really does work.

What I realized this morning was that I had slipped into

habitual thinking -- thinking that was not in tune with

reality. I'm used to blaming myself, so I guess I went right

ahead and did it, without stopping to think about what was

really going on.

For me, being aware and in the present moment are crucially

important to serenity and peace of mind. I always have to

keep renewing my aspiration to be open-hearted and awake,

and I'm doing that again. I would like to be in touch with

what's actually happening and not be hijacked by my habitual

thinking patterns.

Reading the posts on this list is helping tremendously.

Thank you all!

Sue