Re: forgiving my self for a binge today

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Mj,

I have been in your place SO many times. Eating the week BEFORE a family or friend event that I "have to" go to that I am dreading. I have worked with (the writer of the book Intuitive Eating) for the past year on this very issue - it's not an easy one!

What she made me realize is - you don't HAVE to do anything you don't want to do. (Trust me - I fought her a lot on this) It seems as though a lot of girls with eating disorder issues are the "Nice Girls" that always say yes to everything (even thought they don't really WANT to) She also recommended a book to me called "Nice Girls Finish Fat." The title says it right there. ; )

It took me a long time to get to where I am now - because the excuse "but I DO have to go - it's family event!" came up a lot. But there is something very freeing about saying no- and once you do - IT GETS SO MUCH EASIER! : ) Also - a lot of times we THINK that everyone is going to talk about us if we don't go, frown upon us, etc - when in reality - they usually don't really care if you don't make it or not. got me to consider this: Is going to this event THAT YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO GO TO worth sabatoging yourself?

It did take me a while to get to this point - and I still do struggle with "obligatory" family events. When I do decide to go - a great idea that we worked on is to have an "Exit Strategy" for the party. ie - when you get there say, "I'm feeling a little under the weather today - but I wanted to make sure that I stopped by!" or - don't even say anything at all - make your appearance - and then gently slip out after an hour or so. Having this "Exit Strategy" in place ahead of time makes the even seem so much more bearable for me - thinking of it as ONE HOUR makes it much more doable in my mind than a whole evening.

Also, make sure you plan a REWARD for yourself (non-food related) like a chick flick and comfy jammies waiting for you at home - so while you're at the party you can just keep your mind on your reward waiting for you when you get home!

Hope this helps!

Hugs, Jill

To: IntuitiveEating_Support Sent: Thu, August 12, 2010 8:31:39 PMSubject: forgiving my self for a binge today

thanks for this post Meg. I read it just when I needed to because I haven't had a very good day. I've been on a binge today. It would really help me to understand WHY I did this when I was doing so well. It smells of self sabotage. All I can think is that I have to attend a family function this weekend & I'm dreading going but I have made the commitment so I'm going to honor that & go. Now that I'm writing about it I'm pretty sure that I was using food to "numb" myself & to distract myself from thinking about it (dreading it).I'm going to take your post to heart & forgive myself for reverting to old habits even when they no longer serve me. I can stop this right now & I think that i will journal about my reactions to having to attend something even though I am not wanting to do it. It's only one day & I can get through it if I just change my mind about it. I don't want to go? what if I change that to I DO want

to go. Yup, I'm just going to go & be my normal happy self & if there are people who don't want me to be there, then that is their problem. I am not going to use food to deal with this anymore. I'm done with that. I let you all know Saturday evening how it turned out for me. mj>> Hey Josie,> > I was actually thinking about this yesterday myself, so I thought I'd just put in my two cents. > > First of all, from my experience with IE so far, it is important to remember that IE expects you to have ups and downs. I've been working on all of this since October, and I can honestly say that I have had big binges as well as times when I've felt

disinterested in overeating. I've also had periods where I hardly thought about the IE process and just needed a break from it. I really have spent much of the time concentrating more on not dieting/not feeling guilty/not restricting than being an intuitive eater. Lately I've been moving more into concentrating on the intuitive eating aspect of the process (ie eating when hungry, stopping when full) but it took me a while to be comfortable being where I am right now. > > I think that the best attitude that you can take towards binging or towards feeling out of control or distracted from the process is to forgive yourself for it. Learning to do this has been very powerful for me and is allowing me to focus on some issues I have besides my weight. When I'm busy beating myself up, I don't have time to think about what's really wrong. As well, I think one of the things that I like the most about IE is that even if you binge you are still "on"

it, still participating in the process. With dieting, the second you binge the tendency is to feel like you've failed and almost might as well give up. So since you're not on a diet try to relax. And it's okay to feel out of control or unfocused. It doesn't mean you will fail at IE.> > Finally, I don't think that being disciplined necessarily means being rigid or never giving yourself a break. I think that it means taking a positive view towards a task, and then figuring out how much you can push yourself and when you need to relax about getting it done. For example, I have a pretty good attitude towards exercise and do it regularly. However, I used to have a very hard time getting myself to exercise. It wasn't until I started focusing on the positive - how good it made me feel - that I was able to do it more consistently. And at the beginning I made a distinct effort not to push myself too hard. I think there is a tendency to view

discipline as the ability to force yourself to do things you don't like, but I think it's actually more learning to set reasonable goals and work towards them to the best of your ability without giving up. > > Hope that is helpful. Sorry for the novel-length response. I seem to be into those lately.> > Meg>