RE: planning versus restricting

[Guest guest]

You touch on another thing that I’m grappling with, Harry…

I’m 330-350lb (trying desperately to not weight so I haven’t).

That will kill me in not all that long. I’m only 31 so it’s

not immediately life threatening (most likely) but I am very conscious of

it. Last night I found myself really wondering what it is I’m doing

not being in a fully immersive weight loss clinic as I was sitting on the couch

with an aching knee from running around after my three year old daughter for a

half hour. When you’re in this neighborhood of weight it permeates

every minute of your being. It’s hard to not think about weight

loss and make it the only thing that matters. But, that’s an

emotional reaction when I need to be as reasonable and rational as possible.

So while I see and love all the changes that have come in myself

– I really do as last week I was summoned unexpectedly to a series of

meetings in New York on literally no notice and absolutely dominated in a way

that I know I didn’t have in me 3 months ago – I’m still

feeling like a man without a country a lot of the time.

From: IntuitiveEating_Support

[mailto:IntuitiveEating_Support ] On Behalf Of Harry

LeBlanc

Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 9:51 AM

To: IntuitiveEating_Support

Subject: RE: " planning " versus

" restricting "

This is something I'm grappling with as well. I really cherish the

psychological gains I've made -- I'm more in touch with my body, I listen to my

hunger signals, I recognize emotional eating signals, and have gotten pretty

good at addressing my feelings in ways other than food.

But.

I'm more than 200 pounds overweight, and it's seriously affecting

my health and lifestyle. So I'm trying to lose weight. My first step has been

to reduce my sugar intake. I found I was eating sugar every day -- in the

evening, typically. So I've been substituting fresh fruit, and eliminating

sugary soda from my diet (I still drink juice).

I'm not completely eliminating sugar, or making it

" forbidden " , but I notice that sugar kicks off an addictive cycle for

me. I don't like what it does to my body, so I'm choosing to mostly refrain.

Just as I mostly refrain from eating shrimp, which I love, but which cause me

to break out in hives.

I don't know how this experiment will work, and I'm leery of any

food restrictions. But I must lose weight.

Harry

" planning " versus

" restricting "

Hi

All!

I’ve

missed being in regular communication with all of you. My work schedule

has been absolutely insane so I’ve been a bit quiet.

I

have been finding that when I leave my food options to chance I end up with

food choices that make me unhappy because I feel like I’ve eaten less

nutritious food than I want. It’s not that I want to restrict

myself from eating a cheeseburger and French fries if that’s what I want

but when I let life dictate that to me that I feel like I’m eating

“poorly” and I feel the negative physical side effects.

So

my question is “planning” my food bad different from restricting

it? If what I really want is egg white and spinach wraps for breakfast is

it wrong to mentally commit to myself that this is what I’m going to do

and then make sure I have a bomb shelter supply of egg whites and spinach in

the house so I don’t end up at the McDriveThru?

All

thoughts welcome.