New Member Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hello Everyone!

My name is Casey. I'm very excited to get to know all of you, and hopefully

learn a lot from you too.

I've been " trying " (not a good word, can't think of any better) Intuitive Eating

for about 2 years now, and am so glad I discovered a way to help deal with my

real issues and disordered eating problems. When I look back at my life I'm

sometimes shocked at all of the time I have wasted worrying about and obsessive

over food and my weight. But for as much as I've learned, sometimes I feel like

I haven't made any progress at all. And while I do talk to my husband about

this, there's no one in my life that can really understand or that I can share

and get help from. So I've been feeling a little desperate and downtrodden

lately, and I was searching for some help and resources on IE and came across

this group. I'm really hoping some of you may have gone through or are going

through something similar and can offer some advice (or just commiseration?) for

me.

I say sometimes I feel like I've made no progress at all b/c I've lately

realized that I've never *really* dealt with my core issues. This winter is the

first time I've gained a significant amount of weight since I started IE. And in

feeling uncomfortable with this I think I've come up against a great wall. Like

a gauntlet has finally been thrown forcing me to really, for really really get

myself right, but I also worry that this is not possible. If I'm feeling

bothered about my weight, it really means that I've never given up the ghost.

I've always used the fact that I hadn't been gaining weight as a measure of

success of IE. Really, using my weight as a measure of how good I should feel

about myself like I have pretty much my entire life.

And in struggling with this I now realize that I've also never really been able

to turn off the food police and given myself permission to eat anything, and

while I rarely slip in to binge behavior anymore I also rarely focus on my food

while I'm eating and have a lot of trouble calming down and eating slowly at a

meal. Sometimes I just feel so broken and like I'll never really get better. And

I can't seem to stop thinking that if I just " do this right " I'll get to my

happy weight and everything will be just great. Even though I know that none of

that is true I can't seem to help thinking it or know how to counteract those

thoughts.

Have any of you been through something similar as well? Is there a light at the

end of the tunnel?

Thanks for any help you can give. I look forward to getting to know all of you.

- Casey