Re: Other side of the spectrum

[Guest guest]

McKella,I have experienced - am STILL experiencing - some of the same things you describe. What I notice when I read your email was that my first instinct was to ask you to be more patient. Our own personal make-up, plus all the social and cultural conditioning, can't be "undone" in less than two years. I also notice that I get just as impatient with myself as you do...don't we always tend to be kinder to others than to own own selves? And how miraculous is it that you don't hate your body? Sometimes I am able to avoid eating certain foods when I stop to consider that they really don't make me feel better. Sometimes i am aware that the story that pretzels or crackers are my habitual go-to response, and not really what I need. And that's a step towards me not hating my body

but actually taking care of it.I hope you are kind to yourself each day. Best to you, Subject: Other side of the spectrumTo: IntuitiveEating_Support Date: Monday, June 21, 2010, 8:23 PM

When I started IE a year and a half ago, I was restricting and had horrible body image. I made peace with food, learned to shut up the food police, and learned body respect. I ate whenever I got hungry, when I thought I was hungry, or when I just wanted to eat.

I have a hard time with stopping when I'm full and I have a hard time feeling satisfied. Sometimes I have wonderful satisfying meals, but I have such a hard time with nibbling and munching all day, whenever food is available. I can't resist food lying around, especially sweets. My husband wanted burgers tonight, so we went out and I wasn't hungry, but I ordered and ate a sandwich and most of an order of fries anyway.

I don't hate my body anymore, I don't consider any food off limits, but I still can't resist the jar of trail mix at work or the container of cookie dough in the freezer.

I think this is a combination of emotional eating and maybe a chemical addiction to food because I have such a rough time with sweets and fatty foods.

I'm working on the emotional thing, and I'm (understandably) stressed because I'm probably moving to South Korea for a year, but I'm not sure what to do about the chemical thing. I don't have health insurance, but it would probably be worth a trip to the doctor, but I don't know if she could do anything. I think I'm leaving in two months and that's not very long to experiment with medications.

I've heard that sugar and fat can act like drugs on the brain, but I think trying to limit them in any way would trigger diet tendencies.

I feel so awful right now because I've gone from one extreme to the other and IE is supposed to help you find balance, so maybe I feel like kind of a failure at IE even though I know you can really "fail" IE.

I know my body isn't comfortable with me eating like this. I know my hunger and fullness signals, but from some reason I keep choosing to ignore them.

I shouldn't get down on myself, but I am. I don't know what to do. I feel like I should be eating intuitively by now, but I know this isn't a linear process, I have to be patient, bla bla bla.

I know everything I need to do, I just can't or won't seem to do it. I'm really frustrated and I don't know why.

McKella