Hello again....back to IE

[Guest guest]

Hi all. I've been a member of this group for awhile, but am just now getting back to it after a long hiatus, so I'll re-introduce myself. I'm Betsy. I've been doing IE for at least a year, but I can't remember exactly when I started. Sometimes I wish I'd taken note of it. I feel like I was at some point doing really really well with it, but now I think I've lost my grip on some of the principles, so I'm back to hang out with other IE'ers while I get it together again.As I said, I think I was doing really well. I had gotten to the point where I was really very good at only eating when I was hungry and stopping before I got really full. I was choosing what I really wanted to eat and had actually gotten to the point

where I'd forget completely about food....only thinking "Oops...I need to eat something" when I got hunger signals. That felt great! I'd initially gained about 10 pounds and then lost about 20 or so. No, I never got rid of my scale, but I didn't weigh often and when I did, it was a non-judgmental sort of thing. I didn't really care whether the scale went up or down. I never quite got the exercise bug, but I did make a habit of going on walks with my kids. I felt like I was making pretty decent progress.And then life happened. HA! We opened a business, and then closed the business a year later. I went back to school to get my teaching certificate and hubby was studying for certifications thinking it would help him get a job. Fast forward a year....still no jobs. Eeek! Soooo....we decided that we would have to leave South Florida (I thought that might have to

happen) and he relocated to North Carolina in hopes that he'd get a job there if he were a "local" since no one would call him back for jobs out of state. In the mean time, I did get a teaching job in a very tough, very stressful situation in an inner city middle school (not what I'm certified for!) with very tough kids. I really loved those kids, but they weren't always the easiest people to be around and many of them had home problems that would curl your hair. Soooo....now I've gone from being a stressed unemployed person to a stressed working "single" mom to three kids (one of mine is special needs) while my husband is living out of state and we're trying to afford two households on a beginning teacher's salary. At last my husband did find a job in North Carolina and I spent the rest of the summer packing up our house in Florida and moving everyone up here. Now, I'm stressed over selling the house in Florida and trying

to find a job in Raleigh! Whew! It's been quite a ride. Needless to say, my centered, positive relationship with food went right out the window. I don't think I'm back to square one, but a lot of the things that have happened have chipped away at the progress I thought I'd made with IE. Positive things I think I've retained: 1. No food is off limits....I'll eat anything I like, thank you very much with not even a smidge of guilt. 2. I'd learned over time that I don't particularly enjoy sweets and starchy snacks like crackers and chips as much as I thought I did when I was "dieting". I can still make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and not feel the slightest hankering for one. They just don't do it for me anymore.3. I'd learned to appreciate smaller portions of food...knowing that I could go back and get more

if I wanted....which I almost never wanted.4. Even now, feeling though I'm off the IE bandwagon a bit, I still do not have the slightest desire to "diet". In fact, I went to the library to check out the IE (Tribole) book again this past week since I'd accidentally donated my copy when I was purging my books and I had the weirdest shame feeling....like people would think I was checking out a diet book and I had the sudden urge to announce to the lady at the check-out counter that this was definitely NOT a diet book. Ha!Positive things that I've kind of lost my grasp on:1. Really choosing the foods my body wants. Having been on a very restrictive budget for a long time now, most of our menu choices were based on what was cheap and what we could afford rather than what was in season or looked good or smelled good. We're still not out of the budget crunch yet (and won't be

until we sell the house and I get a job) but the resources here are so much better than where we were. The proximity of a Trader Joe's alone makes me want to cry happy tears. Still, I feel out of touch with this skill....a lot!2. I've developed the habit of eating WAYYYY too fast. I think most people would probably say that I eat slowly, but compared to what I'm comfortable with, I eat really fast. I get past that "satisfied" feeling before I know it and end up eating way too much and then feeling nasty because I've eaten too much.3. I've started eating mindlessly again...picking bits off the leftover chicken or finishing the grapes on my daughter's plate when I really don't want them. Don't know where that's coming from....probably stress.Anyway, I'm making a concerted effort to slow down and pay attention and listen. I'm up about 10 pounds which doesn't

bother me much (except that I don't really have money to buy new clothes if I needed to at the moment) but I'd really like to feel better again.Thanks for listening to my Loooooong-winded post.Betsy