Intuitive Eating - pick one/discuss if ya want
This is the other point that caught my eye. Here is another way I know my food compulsion is alive and well: I do feel bad and less than when I go off plan. i know so well that feeling ****ty by itself is not constructive, so one thing I will say for myslef - is I try to learn from back steps.
So, if i understand this way of eating Intuitively, just eat food in reasonable amounts; stop before full and life's all pink and rosy? hmmm. I am with Mary on this one. i think those days are over for me.I MIGHT be able to maintain weight doing that type of thing. I could never try this I don't think!
"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." ~Mark Twain
I highlighted the lines that mean the most to me.
When I was having a horrible few days last week, all I wanted to do was eat just so I could feel something other than the pain I was feeling. I need to learn to stop doing this. This is going to take quite a bit of time, however, because I have been "Feeding my Pain" forever so I don't know any other method yet. I'll figure it out eventually.
It took years to move past this for me. I felt one of the most intersting lines you typed was "all I wanted to do was eat just so I could feel something other than the pain I was feeling." That about sums it up now speaking to me: duh, Denise, all you were doing was trying to feel ANGER!
There was a lot of feel anger over - there were very important things in my life I was ignoring and not taking control of.
"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." ~Mark Twain
Okay, I'm seeing two sides to this. I totally agree we have these bad thoughts that control us and cause us to eat worse, feel bad, etc. But can't it work the other way around too? I mean, at the same time I hear these bad things..like for example they use eating under 1000 calories. But at the same time, you might want to eat less, just not that much less. See where I'm going? Is there good cop bad cop in your head?lol
I'm more thinking it's bad cop, good cop, regarding your moods and your mind frame on that certain day. If I'm in a good mood and feel confident, I will hear only these good cops. I will only hear these cops telling me to eat healthy and it's okay if I splurge and mess up. That it's not the end of the world and it's a learning process, and point out to myself to learn more about this certain behavior. To me this is not a bad cop.
While if I'm having a bad day, a depressed day, a bored or sad day, I will fall right into with what the bad cop is saying. I will say "he's right! I'll eat that other piece of cake. I'm not worthy of losing anymore weight, it's hopeless."
So I can see where you have to be aware of these bad cops. But I can see them being good at the same time.
I guess what the whole thing is about is to forgive, get back on path as quickly as you stepped off. Forget momentarily on the WHY you stepped off...just get back on if the parameters are working for you. If they are not truly working for you, well then, the plan is not something that was ever going to work! Right???
"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." ~Mark Twain
on 1/4/09 1:49 pm, edited 1/4/09 1:50 pm - Rochester, NY
I think what this says to me is the "all or nothing at all" concept that plays with my mind. For me, for years, losing weight or being on a "diet" is all about black and white....no gray areas allowed. The minute I stray into a gray area (eat something not on plan) I feel like I've "blown it", and end up sabotaging myself because I feel "less than" and a failure. That is very deeply entrenched in my psyche. I then feel unworthy and don't feel I deserve the feeling of success that I believe weight loss will bring me.
It's like comparing it to disciplining a child. We don't believe in telling a child that they are "bad" because of their actions. We try to enforce that while we don't approve of their behavior, we still love them unconditionally. For me (and I'm sure these feelings are deep entrenched from childhood ), being overweight = not being in control = shame, fear, anxiety = using food to soothe, stuff emotions = being overweight.
So for me....the solution lies twofold as I see it.
1) Recognizing those emotions when they surface and realizing where they stem from
2) Finding new methods to comfort, soothe that don't involve food
*An AH-HA lightbulb moment here in re-reading this post (specifically the area I highlighted in red) *
Despite the many areas of accomplishment in my life (college education, successful career, raising two wonderful warm and loving children, several dear and supportive friends, mutual adoration with my grandchildren, unconditional love of my SO), I STILL FEEL LIKE A FAILURE BECAUSE OF MY WEIGHT! That is so sad, that my whole sense of self worth is based on this one concept.
Boy oh boy...me, too, Sherrie! When I hear praises from family or colleagues, I have to confess...I DO reject it on this level. Is that crazy? Yes, and it even may be an excuse to stay where we are.
I very often wonder WHY I will not allow myself to really succeed in my weight. I cannot exactly say that my entire self worth is located here, but any at all is too much!
will be thinking this over lots more....good post!
"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." ~Mark Twain
I can really relate with all of this! I was overeating to rebel against my severly judgemental father, and dieting to please him, to get his approval. Yet when I "succeeded" in getting the excess weight off, and he loudly praised me, I secretly hated him because I had given him what he wanted, because all he seemed to care about was how I looked, not the type of person I was inside of my body. He was shallow and cruel to me my whole adult life, and when he died, I cried out that I was glad that he did, so I wouldn't have to pretend I liked him any more. This is a heck of thing to say about your own father, but it was the way I felt. Yet I know intellectually that he did not deliberately set out to teach me to hate my own body, it just turned out that way after he told me at 13 years old that I was "gross, fat, and ugly".
I have yet to be able to master the art of not going for the overeating when I am feeling very strong negative emotions. I just hate the idea of feeling that much pain, so I try to cover it up. My therapist says I need to 1. call her, or somebody in OA, 2. allow myself to actually feel those feelings, because they won't actually kill me if I do, 3. write about the feelings, and share them with her or somebody from OA or just a friend, so I can get them out while learning from them and feeling them.
I also need to stop letting things overwhelm me when a negative situation comes up. I need to face that situation, and imagine just how I would cope with it if it actually happened the way I am fearing - in other words, face it head on, instead of trying to hide from it. One of the things she suggested if my husband died prematurely was to go for grief counseling. You know, I never even thought of this before? Because if he died before I did, I would just be going through life in a fog, and just going through the motions of it, because life would seem so empty without him in it.
Enough, already!
Denise Phares/kitties4
