Re:first post...and introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi, ,

Welcome to the group! I hope you find as much help here as I already have. I'm fairly new to the group, too.

Your "struggle" that you write about is, I think, not uncommon. Changing any habit is hard, and for a while it's going to seem like you're barely able to keep it up. It doesn't help to have, as I certainly do, and as it sounds like you do, too, a long history of dieting and giving up because it's too hard. It makes me feel, sometimes, like this is just one more thing I'll fail at. Until, that is, I remember that what I'm aiming at is not losing weight, but instead getting a normal, easy relationship with food. Then I realize that no matter what I end up weighing (though I can't believe I'd not weigh less than I do now), I'll feel better about myself, and not have all this recrimination running through my head about what I should or shouldn't eat/have eaten, and no more feeling like a disgraceful, weak, less-than-human person. Then I think anything I have to try to get to that point will be worth it.

Something a friend of mine told me really helped. She's thin, and I asked her how she stays that way. She told me how she eats: lots of fruit and veggies, salads with moderate dressing, cuts back on meats, eats carbs in moderation. She said her friends all tell her that that's such a "disciplined" way to eat, but she said it does NOT seem disciplined to her--it seems "normal." She eats things like hotdogs when she really wants them, but day to day, she eats healthy foods in moderation. And it does not seem like a struggle. It seems NORMAL.

So what I'm aiming at is a new normal. I know my old normal: stuffing myself because I can't bring myself to face the things I need to do to feel good in other ways than eating. It's not like I have some big terrible life--I'm blessed--and no one I know would call me timid or retiring--but they don't know how much more I *could* do if I let myself. I don't want to obsess anymore about food. I want to concentrate on having a full life, one that isn't centered around what I put into my mouth to soothe myself. Sometimes I have to give myself a gentle talking-to when I fall back into the old obsessions, and even doing IE could accommodate those obsessions--if you bend it all out of shape, that is!

"Counting" is obsessive behavior, even if it's counting calories (or Points--I'm a recent WW escapee). How about letting yourself have two views of your food for now: look at the calories briefly, then look at the food and decide if, as it is, it will satisfy your physical hunger. If not, add more of what will. If so, have at it.

When we get a new adoptee dog, if we're changing his/her name and know the old name, we start out calling him/her by the old name, but add in the new name. Then we slowly drop off the old name sometimes, then always. I think if you let yourself scan the calories (and I bet you're a pro at this and can do it in a few nanosecs!), then scan again for satisfaction of hunger, pretty soon you may be able to drop that old scanning system.

Keep at it. Doesn't matter if you don't get it perfect. Look at people who eat normally: they're not trying to be perfect. Neither do we have to try. Eating doesn't have to be such a big hairy deal, I tell myself, even though I have turned it into one, and honed my obsessions for 40-some years.

About self-acceptance: Yesterday I took a babystep (huge for me!) and went out in summer weather without wearing something loose and hanging open over my t-shirt. I felt naked! But I did it, and I'm going to do it again today. I saw a recent picture of myself with a loose shirt over my t-shirt, and I realized (duh) it didn't work to cover my fat anyway. So I shed the outer layer, and am committing to keeping it off in warm weather. Guess what? I didn't sweat hardly at all--another thing I use to use to beat myself up with, thinking I was sweating because I was fat. Nope: I was sweating because I had on twice as many clothes as anybody else. Sheesh. An easy step to less self-consciousness.

Laurie

wrote:

>>>So now I'm trying to get myself in the right mindset..but its hard to truly accept myself and not subconciosly count calories in my head. Every day is a struggle and I widh that it weren't afterall isn't that the point of IE to be a peacefull eater?<<<