Hi, I'm New Here (LONG!)

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

My name is Josie and I've just joined the group. So glad to have found it! I

suppose I'll start by telling you about myself and how I got here. (I'm known

to be long winded! Just giving you fair warning up front. LOL)

I'm 43 and have been dieting just about forever. I grew up feeling really fat,

but when I look back at photos, I actually can't believe how skinny I was. It

just about kills me now to realize how much I beat myself up back then for no

good cause. Could I have stood to lose a few pounds (10, maybe 15, as a

teenager)? Sure. But I was nothing like the behemouth I thought I was.

Looking back, I think several things contributed to that feeling. First, I grew

quickly and was always a good head or more taller than most of the kids in my

class. I reached my current height of 5'9 " by the time I was 12. So I was

bigger, and correspondingly heavier, but I wasn't really fat. The other thing

is that I come from a family of athletes but I have never, ever, had any

athletic ability, whatsoever. Just don't possess that gene. So, I could never

compete or keep up with the other kids in gym class or recess. Can't say that I

really had a strong desire to play sports (was far more interested in reading),

but I did feel left out when others were playing and I wasn't. Lastly, my

mother (who is naturally thin and has never struggled with her weight) would

make flippant comments about my size. For example, I have distinct memories of

her calling me Minnesota Fats (I grew up in MN) several times. It wasn't mean

spirited and she never pushed me to diet. I think she thought she was being

funny and never realized how much that might affect me, and I was not the kind

to ever let on to that, either.

Anyway, growing up, there wasn't any purposeful food restriction, but we weren't

rich, so things like Mc's or desserts or candy, were very special treats.

I do remember wanting the things that tasted so good and there not often being

money to get them. So when I got my first job and had money of my own, being

able to buy those kinds of things for myself anytime I wanted them was a big

deal and I did it often. I never went on any structured or formal diets as a

teen, but I was always very conscious of not looking like the models in the teen

magazines and sometimes I would restrict my eating on my own, though always in

secret because I was embarrassed about needing to diet.

When I went away to college, my freshman 15 was a freshman 20. All the dining

hall food you could eat, combined with endless pizza and sodas and other fast

food delivery was a recipe for disaster. During this time, I was always very

conscious of my weight and would sometimes try to cut back, but I never really

went on a formal diet. I briefly lost that 20 pounds in my junior year (more on

that in a minute), but gained it all back in my senior year when I was stressed

out and studying for my final exams during my last semester. From college, I

started a job that I thought would be great but turned out to be a nightmare. I

left it after a couple of months and spent several months searching for work,

lying around the house all day watching tv, and eating. There was another 20

pounds. From there, I went to graduate school, then entered the workforce.

During that time and up to today, my weight has gradually crept up (and this is

when the true dieting started, so the creep was between bouts of dieting and

losing). My highest weight was 252 pounds, but I've been 230 - 235 for the last

year. With regard to IE, I have been doing it for a couple of weeks, but

interestingly have tried it twice before, with good results, once

unintentionally and once intentionally.

The first (unintentional) time was when I spent a semester studying in Paris

during my junior year in college. The whole lifestyle there, good high quality

food in small quantities, easy-going attitude, lots of walking, was so great.

Even though I was conscious of being bigger than all those stylish Parisiennes,

I wasn't trying to lose weight. I was too busy having fun. I ate plenty of

bread, cheese, chocolates, butter, and everything else I wanted, but I came home

the thinnest I have ever been as an adult.

The second time I tried IE was about 12 years ago. At that time, I was probably

about 225 pounds. Interestingly, I bought the Tribole and Resch book Intuitive

Eating, and followed it. I remember feeling really liberated by the concept and

getting to a point where I felt like I was making good progress and slowly

losing weight. I can't remember, precisely, why I stopped. I suspect that the

primary reason was that it wasn't working fast enough and that some diet

promised I'd lose 30 pounds in a week or something and I decided to try it. It

may also have had something to do with my life at that time, too. I was living

in a city that I didn't like and where I had few friends and hated my job. By

and large, I was not a happy camper during that time.

Since then, I've moved across country and now live in a place I love. I still

struggle with friends (sole single among lots of married or otherwise coupled

folks with kids who have little time to socialize), but I am also quite an

introvert, so I actually enjoy, and need, lots of time alone. For the most

part, I don't think I feel lonely that often. I have an insanely stressful job

that often requires travel and a perfectionist boss who is kind but *very* hard

to please and I am a workaholic, often working from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm or later.

This is a source of many problems for me. I'm trying to deal with that. It's

probably my biggest struggle.

In the ten years since moving to where I am, my weight has yo-yo'd up and down

in a 20 - 30 pound range, repeatedly. I have joined, quit, and rejoined Weight

Watchers six times (that's separate from the two times I tried it during

graduate school). I could start a library with all the diet books I own. I

have joined numerous online diet programs. I have belonged to every gym there

ever was. I have paid small fortunes to " experts " (sometimes with questionable

credentials) and health spas who told me the way I was supposed to do things. I

read about nutrition, health, diets and fitness, obsessively. I feel like if

someone gave me the registered dietician test tomorrow, I could pass it with

flying colors because I read everything and I'm always looking for the answer

that's going to help me finally get to my goal weight. Through it all, whatever

little " success " I've had has been fleeting.

I've become increasingly frustrated and neurotic at my lack of progress. I have

literally lost and regained the same five pounds on a weekly basis for the last

year and no matter what, I can't seem to get below 230. I was compulsively

weighing myself several times per day. I'd be elated when the needle went down

a couple pounds, only to be devastated the next week when it went back up. I

knew my level of desperation was becoming unreasonable and out of control when I

seriously considered spending $3000 to go to The Biggest Loser Fitness Ranch in

Utah. It's difficult for me to express in words how much I despise the show The

Biggest Loser. I cannot bring myself to watch it. I think it's dangerous,

unsafe, abusive, humiliating, unreasonable, and that the weight loss is

unsustainable. And yet, I found myself perusing their website and seriously

considering paying them to feed me 1200 calories per day and force me to

exercise six hours per day because I thought maybe I just wasn't giving dieting

my full effort and if I just had one week where I was forced to give 110%, I

would see what I was capable of and it would make a difference. That was when I

said enough. I just couldn't do this anymore. That was three weeks ago.

I started by reading a book called Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat, by

Michele May. It was a good start, but in parts, it still struck me as a little

diet-y. Still, it was someplace to begin. Then I dug out my old copy of

Intuitive Eating (I still have it from 12 years ago!) and I am about 3/4 of the

way through that. I think I prefer this approach. I think I have four eating

styles. At times I am a meticulous Careful Eater. I have a pretty strong Diet

Rebel, so there is often some rebellious eating taking place. When work is bad

(which is often), Chaotic Unconscious Eating is also a big stumbling block.

Refuse Not Unconscious Eating is also an issue.

That said, I have had a good couple of weeks. I felt an immediate sense of

relief when I said I wasn't dieting anymore. I'm finding that I am *much* less

neurotic about food and am not obsessing about it 24/7. I'm not obsessively

trolling for snacks all day long and I have been eating less and feeling more

satisfied. I have been struggling with levels of hunger. I know what ravenous

feels like, I know what stuffed to the gills feels like, and I feel like I have

a pretty good sense of what satisfied feels like. But I really struggle with

knowing when I'm hungry enough to eat. It seems like I go from satisfied to

ravenous with no in-between (then I eat WAY too fast and can't seem to slow

myself down) and I know it's because I'm having a hard time knowing what gentle

hunger is. I also really struggle with not cleaning my plate. When it tastes

good, I want all of it. I'm trying to only eat out where I can get small

portions and serve myself on smaller plates so I don't have to deal with that

temptation right now. I also struggle with eating without distractions. I'm

single and live alone. Sitting down at the table and doing nothing but eating

(no book, no tv, no music, no nothing!) feels lonely to me. I resist that one

right now.

I do have fears, though. I not particularly scared of gaining, but even though

I lost weight using IE in the past, I am afraid that I will not be able to lose

*enough.* I'm not happy at this size and the idea that perhaps I might never

get to a size I'm happy at is scary. I also fear the reactions of others (the

Food Police). I've always had a nagging sense that the reason diets didn't work

for me was because I made excuses. I'm very sensitive to people thinking I'm

making excuses and not trying to lose. The idea that people would judge me if I

told them I was doing IE and think of it as an excuse to stay fat disturbs me.

Those are probably my two biggest fears.

Okay. I guess I've rambled on more than enough. I'll stop now and give

everyone a break! LOL

I'll just close by saying I'm really glad I found this group and am looking

forward to learning from everyone and getting support, too.

Thanks!

Josie