Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone - I've been a member for a while - but I think I've only posted a few messages, and that was several years ago. I literally have thousands of unread messages from the group in my yahoo account. I'm trying to follow Intuitive Eating again and reading everyone's messages has helped. It's so nice knowing that other people feel the same way about food and diets. My goal at this point is to have a healthy relationship with food. To eat foods I like when I'm hungry. And to eat a well balanced diet. I'm tired of obsessing over food. I'm tired of eating too much and then feeling guilty about it. I'm tired of basing my self esteem on my weight. I'm tired of feeling that my life would be better if I lost weight. I'm 32 years old and I feel like I've had the same issues with

food for most of my life. I manage to eat "normally" for a while, then go through periods of time when I binge - sometimes b/c I'm upset, sometimes for no particular reason. Sometimes I feel like I'm just mindlessly eating - I'm not upset, I'm not frustrated, but I just get up and get more food. Like today I had dinner and I guess I wasn't really hungry, and I probably should have waited. I wanted a butterfinger for dessert, so I had one (snack size). And then I got up and ate 5 more and I'm not sure why. I realized what I was doing and that I shouldn't eat them - that I didn't need to eat them and that I really didn't want to eat more of them. But for some reason I did. So I tried to slow down and at least enjoy them. But now I feel bad for having had them.I want to be happy with myself the way that I am. But I would also like to lose some weight, because I don't think I'm

at my natural weight right now. I don't think that this is the size I was designed to be. I've been eating relatively normally for the past few months (with a few episodes of binging including one tonight) and I'm back down to my 2nd highest weight now (a few months ago was my highest weight and I had been at that weight for a while). One of my coworkers (who has some boundary issues) commented recently that I lost weight and I should "keep up the good work." I don't know how other people feel about people commenting on their weight loss, but I don't like it - it just makes me think about how they will notice when I gain the weight back. And it's like a back handed complement. I still remember a comment that a friend's boyfriend made like 8-9 years ago - "Hey, you're cute. Have you lost weight?" The point was clear - at one weight I was "cute." At another weight, I was not.

Sorry for the rambling - I could continue, but I'll spare you for now. Thanks for reading this!Sara R.