The last time, I`ve looked I have maintained, but I have not been looking for the last three days. I`m finding it hard to stay committed and feel that I`m slowly slipping into the old habits.
Winter may have something to do with it, or boredom. For the last three days, I have been eating as if I was getting my period, but this has not yet come. With the eating however come the very familiar feelings of fear, self-loathing and loss of control. I`m feeling fat, even though when I look into a mirror, I see that I`m slim. I`m afraid to put it all back instantly.
I need to regain control and be as vigorous as I was when I started off. Zero tolerance for carbs at night. Excercising every second day, and not allow the cold weather to be an excuse. Healthy, large breakfast and zero tolerance for snacks. It worked so well, but I appear to be abandoning it bit by bit.
Nothing feels as good as being thin feels.
I used to dislike this quote because it always seemed a bit “pro ana” to me. I am am experiencing for myself that the quote holds true.
When I want too much of a bad thing I remember what it was like to have as much as I wanted but be large and miserable about it.
Thinking I was looking good and then pictures showing me otherwise. I used to have a go at the person who took the photo, for making me look so fat.
Hating to catch my reflection in a window - which I increasingly do just now, as the darker season has started. It could ruin my confidence for the whole day, just to see myself for a split second. I`m now smiling when I do, as I actually quite like what I see.
Feeling confident in bed. Feeling beautiful, believing him when he says it, feeling I`m giving him a gift when he is caressing my body.
The utterly fat and miserable feeling after I`ve eaten too much of what I should not have eaten. Before I have it I want it so much. While I`m still eating it I don`t enjoy it any more and once it`s gone and the pleasure had, I resent it and dread facing the consequences.
Why should I?
Why should I let it all go again for the sake of refined junk food?
Stella, I could have written your post today. I am sorry you are going through this, and I'm equally sorry that I am too. I have no words of wisdom except that we need to do something to get out of this slump. I bought some Vitamin D tablets today in hopes of maybe getting a little extra because of the lack of sunshine, in which I firmly believe is part of my problem. Maybe we should support each other in trying very hard to make it just 5 days without any sugar/refined carby crap and see if we can beat the cravings. I can't go back to what I used to be, and I feel MANY of those negative thoughts and demons entering my head. I feel so out of control, (even though my weight hasn't suffered YET) and need to find that balance that only comes from clean eating....What to give it a try? just 5 days and see how it goes?
I know this feeling, I hate this feeling. I'm coming out of a 2 month slump myself where I hit a plateau and allowed it to derail me. I know it's not easy for you either, and for me it made me reach for the chips, I even stopped calorie counting for a week. It's getting very cold here too and it's getting more difficult to bounce out of bed and into my sneakers. I'm finally feeling like I'm back on the saddle again and so far it seems like I'm breaking through my plateau, but let me share with you what I did to not fall off the wagon completely (I held on by a toe!).
Find something you WANT to control. OK so you didn't exercise today, but take an extra lap around the grocery store, park your car far away, keep carrying around that pedometer. Even if it's minimal, sticking to even a small aspect of your routine will help you get back on much easier. And even though I did so many things wrong the past couple of weeks (bingeing, drive thrus, chips, no portion control), I can look back and say "Hey, at least I was still exercising, at least I didn't give up 100%" It's much easier to get back into your stride if you only gave up 80%, sounds silly but it works for me.
Thank you for writing this post Stella. A lot of things you wrote hit home. I remember having as much of whatever I wanted...but then hating myself for having it. I remember getting all dressed up for a night out with friends and then seeing the pictures from that night and hating how big I looked.
Quote:
The utterly fat and miserable feeling after I`ve eaten too much of what I should not have eaten. Before I have it I want it so much. While I`m still eating it I don`t enjoy it any more and once it`s gone and the pleasure had, I resent it and dread facing the consequences.
This is what I need to re-read over and over again. If I can somehow get through that "wanting" phase or remember during that phase what I feel like after I binge, I may not binge at all. But it's getting through that phase. It seems some "wanting" periods last longer than others, have stronger pulls, what not. For some reason, during the "wanting" I totally forget how truly awful I feel afterwards. Why is that? I wish I could bottle up that feeling I get after a binge and break it out right when I feel that "wanting" phase winning.
I'm going back to the same behaviors and attitude I had before I lost all this weight. Back when I started losing weight, everyone kept asking "What made you start losing?" and I didn't have an answer...it was just like a light switch, one day something flipped it and I was able to get through one day without giving into those "wanting" periods. Then it was two days, then a week, then a month, and started seeing results which further reaffirmed my desire to lose the weight.
Now it's like that switch is halfway flipped in the other direction. I can make it three or four days with clean eating and then I give in during a "wanting" period. No rhyme or reason, I just start eating junk and don't stop. It seems I am back to my old habits and that scares the crap out of me. But I've also realized something else. I've let myself feel like a victim of my binge-eating. I've given myself permission to think that my binge-eating behavior and compulsion is stronger than me. That's ridiculous. A behavior...an inanimate thing, a compulsion, is not stronger than me...an actual reasoning, thinking, feeling person. It can't outsmart me because it can't think. It can talk, because I hear it all the time telling me that one more binge won't hurt. But I can think and talk and I can outsmart it.
I will have these thoughts about being strong and taking control sometimes and then think "Oh sure, you think that now, you feel strong and willing to take this on now, but later, when that compulsion whispers, you'll give in...like always." I'm having that thought now actually. But I'm ignoring it, cause it's the voice of the compulsion and it's not my actual voice. I used to think it was my actual voice, but it's not. I'm done being the victim. It sucks and I hate what I'm doing to myself. I did not lose all this weight just to gain it back by reverting to my old behaviors. I may not feel the same drive I did when I first started losing, but I can sure fake it.
Sorry this was so long, I've been thinking about this all morning and then reading your post just got me started and it all came out! It is hard to keep up, but each time we do is a step in the right direction, right?
Thanks for your replies - I can relate to all of you.
@ Emily: I so wish, too, that I could bottle up the post-binge feelings to use as a deterrant in the pre-binge situation.
Don`t know about yourself, but I feel that now that I have lost weight, I am getting better at that. Pre weight loss, it was even easier to give in - you had nothing to lose. You would just stay the same if you had the binge. I now feel if I binge I actually lose, and if I don`t binge I either stay the same or gain.
I also do visualisation: I really concentrate on remembering what everything was like when I was at my heaviest (it`s only 6 months ago, so the memories are still quite strong). I think about the bits I disliked, different situation where I feel really conscious of my weight. I imagine eating what I liked and then feeling miserable about it.
I remember envying women who did not eat it - that was 10 minutes of pleasure I had which they did not, but they had their whole day of being slim while I was fat. Not worth it!! I used to imagine being them - getting up in the morning, catching the reflection of my naked body when I step ut of the shower and like what I see, chosing between my lovely clothes, knowing that I look good in any, meeting other people and being confident that they would not talk behind my back about my appearance. And I then thought, who needs all the food if you can have all that? (But this feeling only lasted until I next felt the urge to binge, of course!).
After my visualistations, I open my eyes, see what I am like now, rejoice it, think about my fabulous new clothes I can now wear, and I am really grateful that I was able to break this addiction to crap and gain a better body.
@ Lori:
I`d so appreciate some mutual support!!
In the meantime, I have been thinking about what worked well at the beginning, and it`s the things which have been slipping.
Since two days, I have recommitted to being as strict to myself as I was at the beginning:
1. Zero tolerance with carbs at night. The baked beans have to go again or wait until lunch time the next day.
2. I was unable to keep off snacking. This means that my breakfast has to become smaller - yoghurt instead of muesli (which I`m getting bored of anyway)
3. Recommit to excercise. Not let the bad weather deter me. Set myself goals re speed and work towards them.
4. Allow myself one bar of chocolate or one small tub of ice cream a week, to be split up as I like - devour it all in a go or a little at a time. When it`s gone - zero tolerance. That`s 1.5 sessions on the treadmil and should be possible. At least it does not mean deprivation.
Finding it harder and harder to keep it up...
