Re: Introducing Myself and Requesting Support

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynn, It sounds like you need to read more and do more work for IE. It sounds like you are still thoroughly stuck in dieting mentality, still sick, in my opinion. If you are committing to IE, you need to understand that you will NOT stay at your thinnest WW weight. That weight is a false weight brought on by a semi starvation weight you cannot keep up with for a whole variety of reasons. It is most likely not the weight your body wants you to be. You are actually hurting your health by continuing to diet. Semi Starvation diets like WW play havoc on your metabolism, on your body and on your mental health and well being. You need to make a choice: diet,obsess, be hungry the rest of

your life to be the weight you "want" OR... listen to your body, eat what your body is telling you when she is hungry, be gentle with her and love her, and know that you will very most likely settle into a weight that is higher than you are now. But if you do the work... you will be happier with yourself at that higher weight than the constant fear you have going on with you right now. Because IE is also about dealing with the emotional triggers behind why and how you eat when your body is not telling you to eat. Listen to your own words, they are so judgemental about weight and your body, "packing on the pounds" you say it with such panic. With IE the first step is to let go of the fear that is keeping you clinging to fat free jello cups and hunger and constant vigilance. The world will not end, your family will not stop loving you, you are still beautiful if you gain

weight. Fact less than 2% of Weight Watchers people keep the weight off. WW knows this, you think they dont know? Why havent they ever published their findings? They exist to make money off of the 'moral panic" now ascribed to obesity and being overweight that is completely pseudo science. My suggestions: read Rethinking Thin, read Health At Every Size, read Obesity Myth. Take the blue pill. And instead of panicking: stop counting, eat your fruits, veggies, walk, love yourself, do NOT weight yourself. You are not a failure for gaining the weight back. You are a SURVIVOR for flipping the bird to this sick obsession with being thin and loving yourself and taking care of her and not starving herself over some false ideal, She, your beautiful body made by the Creator, deserves so much more respect than

that.JennaTo: IntuitiveEating_Support Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:14 PMSubject: Re: Introducing Myself and Requesting Support

Hello, everyone,

I'm brand new to the group. I have read the "Intuitive Eating" book and I want to try this process. The problem is that I just recently last about 40 pounds using online Weight Watchers. I decided to try IE because I don't want to be a slave to counting points all of my life. I still crave my forbidden foods and have the diet mentality. Anyway, I've been trying to practice IE for the past month but I found myself binging on these forbidden foods. Now I have gained five pounds and can no longer fit in my "thin" clothes. So I'm panicking big time and wondering if I should go back to WW. How do I "stay the course" without panicking about this weight gain? Is it possible for me to learn the IE process without gaining more weight? Thanks in advance for all of your support.

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynne,I don't think I would make the case as strongly as Jenna, but it's POSSIBLE that you may gain weight, even probable in the beginning. Your body and mind are responding to the deprivation/restriction you experienced with WW. However, you will hopefully find that your weight will find itself at its natural level after a while with IE. None of us can know what YOUR natural weight is. 

Not everyone gains weight with the initial stages of IE, but many do. You have to decide if the benefits of IE are worth it for YOU. also, dieting in itself can cause weight gain, when you stop, because you have altered your metabolism... but this gain is not the fault of IE. they can be hard to tease apart, though. 

I hope this helps.Best,Abby

 

Hello, everyone,

I'm brand new to the group. I have read the " Intuitive Eating " book and I want to try this process. The problem is that I just recently last about 40 pounds using online Weight Watchers. I decided to try IE because I don't want to be a slave to counting points all of my life. I still crave my forbidden foods and have the diet mentality. Anyway, I've been trying to practice IE for the past month but I found myself binging on these forbidden foods. Now I have gained five pounds and can no longer fit in my " thin " clothes. So I'm panicking big time and wondering if I should go back to WW. How do I " stay the course " without panicking about this weight gain? Is it possible for me to learn the IE process without gaining more weight? Thanks in advance for all of your support.

[Guest guest]

Very well put!  And I needed to hear a lot of it again too.  It just shows we all benefit from this support group. Thanks. Sandy

 

Hi Lynn, It sounds like you need to read more and do more work for IE. It sounds like you are still thoroughly stuck in dieting mentality, still sick, in my opinion. If you are committing to IE, you need to understand that you will NOT stay at your thinnest WW weight. That weight is a false weight brought on by a semi starvation weight you cannot keep up with for a whole variety of reasons. It is most likely not the weight your body wants you to be. You are actually hurting your health by continuing to diet. Semi Starvation diets like WW play havoc on your metabolism, on your body and on your mental health and well being. 

You need to make a choice: diet,obsess, be hungry the rest of

your life to be the weight you " want " OR... listen to your body, eat what your body is telling you when she is hungry, be gentle with her and love her, and know that you will very most likely settle into a weight that is higher than you are now. But if you do the work... you will be happier with yourself at that higher weight than the constant fear you have going on with you right now. Because IE is also about dealing with the emotional triggers behind why and how you eat when your body is not telling you to eat. 

Listen to your own words, they are so judgemental about weight and your body, " packing on the pounds " you say it with such panic. With IE the first step is to let go of the fear that is keeping you clinging to fat free jello cups and hunger and constant vigilance. The world will not end, your family will not stop loving you, you are still beautiful if you gain

weight. Fact less than 2% of Weight Watchers people keep the weight off. WW knows this, you think they dont know? Why havent they ever published their findings? They exist to make money off of the 'moral panic " now ascribed to obesity and being overweight that is completely pseudo science.  My suggestions: read Rethinking Thin, read Health At Every Size, read Obesity Myth. Take the blue pill. 

And instead of panicking: stop counting, eat your fruits, veggies, walk, love yourself, do NOT weight yourself. You are not a failure for gaining the weight back. You are a SURVIVOR for flipping the bird to this sick obsession with being thin and loving yourself and taking care of her and not starving herself over some false ideal, She, your beautiful body made by the Creator, deserves so much more respect than

that.Jenna

To: IntuitiveEating_Support

Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:14 PMSubject: Re: Introducing Myself and Requesting Support

 

Hello, everyone,

I'm brand new to the group. I have read the " Intuitive Eating " book and I want to try this process. The problem is that I just recently last about 40 pounds using online Weight Watchers. I decided to try IE because I don't want to be a slave to counting points all of my life. I still crave my forbidden foods and have the diet mentality. Anyway, I've been trying to practice IE for the past month but I found myself binging on these forbidden foods. Now I have gained five pounds and can no longer fit in my " thin " clothes. So I'm panicking big time and wondering if I should go back to WW. How do I " stay the course " without panicking about this weight gain? Is it possible for me to learn the IE process without gaining more weight? Thanks in advance for all of your support.

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynne, welcome! I've only been doing IE for a short time myself , about 6 months now. I did gain weight, about 15-20 pounds when i first started. I then maintained that weight for a long time and now I think I am beginning to lose it slowly, comfortably. I am not sure because I'm suddenly not as scale obsessive as I once was (daily weigher in my diet days). I can barely fit any of my clothes but I think my one pair of biggest jeans actually isn't as tight this morning.

My reasons for gaining weight I believe came from the freedom to allow myself to eat anything I wanted. I mistook the word anything for everything! If you want to lose weight on IE you have to practice the IE principles. Those principles are what I am trying to commit to now. Eat only when I am hungry, stop when I am full or satisfied, but not stuff. Honor my body by not eating things I know make me feel icky afterwards, no matter how much I love them. For example, I LOVE chocolate but I also have cea and chocolate is one of my cea triggers. I can eat chocolate because nothing is forbidden on IE. But if I eat more than a tiny tiny bit, I will walk up with the zits of a 13 year old. Obviously my body isn't agreeing with the chocolate and eating it causes a toxic effect. My choice still. This also goes for several other foods that aggravate other conditions I have.

I'm learning it is also my choice to gain weight or not with IE. Nothing in the IE rules says you can eat everything you want, all day, as much as you want. But if you honor your hunger and honor your body you'll do alright. You said you lost 40lbs on WW and now have gained some back. What you didn't say was if this 40 pounds was only the beginning of a long weight loss journey (like me, I have 100 to lose and that won't make me at anyone's ideal weight). Or did this 40 pounds make you stylishly thin. Like Jenna said, most of us try to lose more than our bodies were meant to weight and that's going to be pretty impossible to maintain in a healthy way, without the constant obsessions with food you obviously don't want. You will come to realize as your relationship with food gets healthier, you idea of right sized will change some and you will become comfortable with your body's natural weight.

I don't remember where I read this, here or somewhere else but I'd like to share it with you, as it was a profound aha moment for me:

"You have achieved your personal best when the size of your body is no longer an obstacle to anything you want in life , and when you can maintain your desired size without obsessing about it" (so sorry I don't know who to credit with this statement)

For me this was a beautiful thing to hear. My body is an obstacle to many things I want to do. I have a mental list of them and hope to be checking them off the list as time practicing the IE principles goes by. But what I really love is hearing my "right size" will be something I can maintain without obsessing and it won't be an obstacle to anything I want to be able to do. That's so empowering. I don't need to be thin to be happy but I'll never be happy if I have to struggle to maintain some crazy thin weight.

If you're gaining weight and are panicked by it you need to commit to the principles of IE. Easier said than done, but work on at least one until you get it and then move on to the next. Remember too, allowing yourself to eat anything you want doesn't mean you should be eating everything you want. Listen to your body, not your mind.

Sunny

Introducing Myself and Requesting Support

Hello, everyone,

I'm brand new to the group. I have read the "Intuitive Eating" book and I want to try this process. The problem is that I just recently last about 40 pounds using online Weight Watchers. I decided to try IE because I don't want to be a slave to counting points all of my life. I still crave my forbidden foods and have the diet mentality. Anyway, I've been trying to practice IE for the past month but I found myself binging on these forbidden foods. Now I have gained five pounds and can no longer fit in my "thin" clothes. So I'm panicking big time and wondering if I should go back to WW. How do I "stay the course" without panicking about this weight gain? Is it possible for me to learn the IE process without gaining more weight? Thanks in advance for all of your support.

------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynne,I don't think I would make the case as strongly as Jenna, but it's POSSIBLE that you may gain weight, even probable in the beginning. Your body and mind are responding to the deprivation/restriction you experienced with WW. However, you will hopefully find that your weight will find itself at its natural level after a while with IE. None of us can know what YOUR natural weight is.

Not everyone gains weight with the initial stages of IE, but many do. You have to decide if the benefits of IE are worth it for YOU. I gained a LOT the first time I did this many years ago. Like almost 100 pounds a lot. There was more involved in it that isn't even connected with ie, which includes some serious problems in my marriage. When I started being nice to myself and cooking and eating real food and exercising because it felt good, I lost a huge chunk of it (more than half). Then my marriage ended and some other stuff happened and I got caught up in dieting, and shock, I went on a diet and that as we all know doesn't work. So I gained some back. I don't weigh myself anymore but have a scale because it does matter for some meds, especially with kids. But I had to get some clothes to make up for the gain. In any case, I share this because it isn't likely to be a one way road, but that's ok. If you treat yourself with respect, which includes treating yourself to eating the foods you enjoy, and for me that includes real food because I tend to eat what's easy which isn't necessarily what I enjoy, just because I won't always cook for "just me." and I exercise but only in ways that feel good and that I enjoy. That was something I had to push a little in the beginning, because i knew I'd feel better. But now it's nice. So you may end up healthier inside and out by giving up dieting, allowing yourself to take the road you need to take (even with detours) and allow yourself to be you. Patti