Ummmm why do I do this???
I have yet to be able to eat more than 1/4 cup of food each meal so i am in for all this fun stuff ahead of me in the days to come.
The important things are that you are aware of choosing those foods (it sounds like you are) and that you eat the cookies, pizza, etc. in small amounts and infrequently.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
Right now, in my refrigerator, there is a sugar-free brownie calling my name. Will I answer? Yes. Will I beat myself up over it? No. I also eat sugar-free chocolate but try to keep it at 2 small pieces a day. Do I ever over-indulge? Unfortunately, yes. My two greatest weaknesses in life are BUTTER and CHOCOLATE. I tried to eliminate these two things from my eating, and all that did was make me crabby and miserable. This is for life, not just a short-term quick fix. So we have to learn how to keep our weight off but still enjoy eating. It's so hard to get rid of the "diet mentality" that most of us lived with. I'm trying.
Sooooooo...... don't beat yourself up! And the next time I come on here beating myself up, you may give me a virtual kick in my butt!
Michelle (OH member since 2004 - new user name)
HW 285 / SW 270 / GW 140 / LW 135 / CW 185
RNY 6/8/2009
Starting size 26/28, now size 12/14
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." -Hebrews 13:8
Best,
~Mo
Learning moderation, is easy right now for me, cause 3 or 4 bites and i'm done...lol But the learning to replace the emotional eating, with something more constructive. That is harder.
Hang in there, love yourself, and dont be so harsh. This is a new lifestyle. We have to live as well. We're on the journey together to find an balance with food.
And while I cannot tell you why YOU do what you do, I can tell you what I discovered about myself.
I had very low self-esteem. And in that low self esteem, the temporary pleasure of the taste of a cookie always trumped the bad feelings I'd have afterward. In short, I simply didn't find my long-term own peace of mind valuable enough. And in that environment of self-worth I desperately craved something to make me feel good, if only for a moment. The cookie made me feel good. It tasted good. And I personally do this "zone out" thing when I am eating for reasons other than hunger. It's like sedation. It takes me away from the stresses of my life and puts me in another place - one where things don't hurt quite as much.
That's one of the many gifts RNY gave me. Eating that cookie is not a great experience anymore. For as good as it tastes, the yuckiness that followed in the beginning just wasn't worth it. Now I don't get sick off of cookies anymore (and eat one or two occasionally). Here's the key to being able to do that (for me):
First, I don't demonize the cookie. A cookie is a cookie. It has calories just like any other food choice. I can CHOOSE to offset those calories with activity or I can CHOOSE not to. Either way, the cookie is not the devil. Embracing that somehow diminishes the cookie. Half the time once I go through that thought process I've worked out my feelings of emotional deprivation and don't even want the damn cookie anymore.
Second, I know when something is going to make me feel crappy. For me, yesterday, that was some chicken skin. It looked so good. So crispy and salty. Just what I love. But it makes me sick. Every. Single. Time. Even at 3.5 years out. Whereas the Nikki that existed 4 years ago might not have given much credence to that thought, this Nikki knows she deserves to feel good - physically and otherwise. So while the chicken skin still looked good, it wasn't worth feeling crappy the rest of the evening. It just wasn't.
Bottom line: you can't fake self-esteem. You have to build it. And once you build it you realize you are simply too good, too precious, too special and too valuable to be putting just anything in your mouth. It comes. It takes time but it comes.
In the meantime, I would encourage you to make peace with the cookie and stop demonizing food (there is no good food or bad food - choices, yes, there are good ones and bad ones but there is no such thing as evil food).
I've decided to write down everythng I'm eating and plan a little better. If I plan to have a cookie or something that is okay as long as it doesn't happen everyday. I also think I am going to start a vlog or a diary where I write down or record the emotions I'm having when I eat. I think that might really help me. Because eating junk every once in a while is fine but I do agree moderation is the key. I've honestly lost sight of moderation.
Thank you everyone for your words and thanks Alice for posting what you did too. I need to work on thinking food is just food and not the badness of the world. I need to also be nicer to myself!