Wednesday, 9/9/2020

Welcome to Wednesday! It is foggy but about 70 here on Martha's Vineyard. We will be making our way home at some point (not sure what time).

I think Mike had a good birthday. We took a walk along the harbor in the morning (the picture below is an example of the houses here). Average price here is over $1M. The ones on the water are over $10M. We took a bus to one of the south facing beaches and saw one of the Obama girls riding her bike on the way. After ****tails on the veranda at our room, we had dinner on the porch of a wonderful restaurant.

Today we were going to walk to the lighthouse and possibly meet a friend for lunch. Early bedtime for me tonight back at home.

Stay safe, healthy, social, and avoid snacks not needed (me too)!

Every ingredient needed for a charming and romantic get away.

Off to radiation, more later.

Breath in...breath out.

172.0

Can't claim perfect, but at least I am in dialogue with my self before making the decision to eat that thing or not- and have stopped the all day seeking and grazing of .... My next goal is to Think and believe that careful, considered, and respectful behavior IS normal and desirable and that what I have been doing is totally ABNORMAL. Somehow I have again made secretive bing eating an ok and normal thing to do! This is to say that

(believing what I THINK NORMAL IS regarding my relationship with food will determine my emotions/feelings/attitudes which then informs decision making which then my drives behavior.)

How in God's green earth is (nightly) making and eating almost an entire sleeve of peanut butter filled cracker snacks and eating them after DH goes to bed NORMAL? I believe people will not stop doing, for any great length of time, whatever behavior they think is ok/normal in the first place.

Got to work on that attitude- that is the wall I am talking about. I've been there before and I want to know, believe, decide and do --yes--continued, ongoing, daily effort. Otherwise what I am doing now is just dieting-temporary and doomed to fail.

This has been an hour of musing that seems like a bit of self therapy, and you have been perhaps the proverbial poor fellow caught in the corner at a party listening to a one sided conversation.....I post it because somehow saying it out loud makes the thoughts truer.

On a lighter note, sweet DH made the replacement cookies, and I'm off to deliver them before it begins to rain.

Very insightful, Bonnie! It makes me think how being single and living alone normalizes secret eating to some extent. No one can see me or give me side eye, or shocked looks, so it's okay...

If you ask me, and I know you DIDN'T **** normal! Who the hell wants to be normal???? Not I! I want to be extraordinary!

All joking aside, eating a sleeve of PB filled crackers is normal. It is your normal. AND THAT'S OKAY!!!! The reason it is okay is that it serves a purpose. You just have to acknowledge the purpose. Lots of people over eat every single day or don't eat the "right" foods every single day. Instead of judging the normalcy of your eating, how about looking at the fact that this secret eating is a form of self care that you adopted years and years ago because that's how you KNEW to soothe yourself. It wasn't until other people shamed you for the behavior that it became "secretive". Maybe you don't really need a soothing sleeve of crackers anymore at all. Maybe you're ready to look at how those crackers help you and maybe try a different approach to get even better results.

This type of behavior is deeply rooted in kindness and love and preservation of self. Kicking it to the wayside to JFDI could be yet another affront to an already delicate psyche.

XO

Some profound thoughts here Peps. Maybe we all need to eat our secret food, out in the open, with dignity, with self care, because yes, for whatever reason we want to eat "what we shouldn't" , it is serving some need for us. Take it out of the shadows, the need is still there, but set aside the shame. Why is it shameful to have a need and try to solve it? And maybe moving it out of the shadows will shed some light where we can lovingly consider what need are we trying to meet. I am always trying to understand: What am I really hungry for?

Forum Is generating quite the mental workout for me today.

I'm absolutely on board with the idea of JFDI as self imposed punishment steeped in the shame based attitude of not good/strong/capable/diminished/broken. Any such effort is bound to fail.

Perhaps the use of the words, "normal" or "right/wrong" (which imply Good/Bad, Rejection/Acceptance of self as deserving of good things and love) may have been poor choices in description-

Maybe the word I'm fishing for is - appropriate. Daily eating a sleeve of peanut butter crackers or a quart of ice cream or an entire jelly covered block of cream cheese is not appropriate behavior for a person whose insides are as diminished and rearranged such as mine are. It is not appropriate for me to abuse and disrespect my body thusly. The form of self care survival behavior ingrained 60 years ago as a child is killing me. You are indeed correct in suggesting a different approach to meet my needs. My inner child is begging for an end to the abuse. (Granted, she is also pissed off , believing I am depriving her by denying her ) What I can no longer support is that current approach is ok on any level. It has become a way of self-loathing which serves no positive purpose. It is inappropriate.

In all love and respect, knowing it is safe here for us all to express our hearts and minds. I hear you.

Our ignored, sometimes abused, but also resilient inner children. Inner child wants what used to work, but oh the futility... And yet the spark too, please find us something better... So hard to untangle. Holding you in my thoughts...

I get it! My inappropriate self care made me gain 34 pounds in about 4 months. It's a matter of finding other ways to soothe yourself that don't involve food. Or at least stop at appropriate amounts of food.