It has taken a while but i think i am finally finished with the re-feed phase...where you (or at least i did) go a little crazy once you allow yourself to eat whatever you want. It took 2 or 3 months. i went through food phases...first i went crazy with protein bars, and most recently i ate a couple of store-bought cakes with the thick frosting...i ate a disgusting amount of cake but i think i'm finally over the obsession with cake. I am finally beginning to feel like i am not constantly craving food. Sometimes i still think about my next meal right after i'm finished with the last meal, but now it's more out of habit/boredom than anything--i don't actually feel like eating. Which is a change. I think i've probably gained a couple pounds (which is a lot considering i was already at my high weight when i gave up dieting 2-3 months ago), but i think i've stopped gaining at least. Now i have hope that my weight will eventually go down because my food obsession is finally over. I think the whole IE process takes a long time. It's not like you quit dieting and all of a sudden your problems are over. It's taken me a long time to get rid of my obsessions and i'm still not 100% there yet, for sure.
Awesome to read your update surfergurl and that you feel you are getting out of the overeating phase. I feel the same way about myself. we pretty well started this no dieting thing at the same time. You are so right I think that the IE thing takes a long time time. I have to remind myself all the time of the listening to my body thing. Some days are easier than others.
Btw this weekend, i went to a friend's party. I happened to have eaten something before, so i wasn't too hungry--ate a little food and didn't touch the desserts at all. I just remember around the same time last year, i went to the same party and i ate three cupcakes (and other stuff) and felt so awful about myself that after the party, i went home and binged. But more than anything i just remember the feeling of self-hatred that i had during that party, while i was trying to talk to friends and pretend everything was normal. It was so awful. I am so glad i will never go back to that again.
Congratulations on this victory. I have had a couple moments like this that is such a reminder not to go back to my old ways no matter how tempting it is during those times of overindulgences that I have. But I just hang in there and notice the overindulgences are usually followed by natural underindulgences if there is such a word; so it keeps me believing in the process. Everything seems to balance out.
Isn't that the best feeling??? I reread my diet blog (linked in my sig) and I was so desperate and unhappy and, ironically, heavier and eating less than I am today. I sometimes reread my old posts in the binge-free threads around here and realize how far I've come and how fortunate I am that life basically dictated I drastically change my lifestyle and behaviors...
I have also gone back and read some of my older posts; ones that I wrote before starting this thread and ones from the beginning of this first thread. I am surprised at how my thoughts have changed so much.
Just so true about how paying attention to when we are actually hungry instead of following a specific diet takes so much more work in the beginning. People who have followed diet plans for so long are just not used to doing this. It gets easier though, at least for me. It sounds like you are really learning alot about yourself and are coming a long ways with your thoughts. I am happy this thread has been helpful for you.
Thanks! I am learning but I feel like I am learning that its impossible.
Here are my challenges.
1st: the nursing! My baby is a year old but still eats very little solid food and nurses a ton. I am always HUNGRY. yet, I must be eating over my caloric needs because I either stay the same weight or gain a little weight and have to be careful and conscious to get back down to my 30 lbs overweight. So its really hard to get in touch with my body when I feel like its lying to me.
2nd: I want to wind down after the kids are in bed with FOOD. The problem is I am a little hungry from the bedtime nursing AND I want to unwind and relax. My husband pops in Killzone ( a first person shooter) to relax and unwind. I realized that I need a Killzone. I am totally conscious of the fact that I really am not that hungry and that I don't need to eat chocolate to satisfy my bodys physical needs but my mental self tells me that in fact yes in order to relax and unwind I DO need chocolate and if I don't have it I am miserable. And I say chocolate loosely. I usually eat way over my hunger needs when I eat treats at night.
Things I have improved on:
I have gotten MUCH better at eating slowly. At first I was really anxious about going slow, it was SO hard. now it is slowly becoming more of a habit and I do find myself leaving food on my plate more and more as I realize that I am not hungry anymore. (problem is I often seem to think Im full before I really am and then end up snacking after meals. I need to get better at figuring out my real satiety point. Again, a challenge with the nursing and the constant hunger)
I also am eating more mindfully. Even when I eat my treats at night now I am sitting at the table doing nothing but eating. No reading or tv or computer.
I have gotten much better at legalizing food and not feeling guilt for eating treats. I just recognize that I have a need that is not hunger that I am filling with food. And I am getting better at identifying what those needs are. However, it still doesn't seem to stop me from eating yet.
So improvements but its still very daunting. Sorry to blather on about myself, I just hope that reading my thought process and challenges could help someone else down the road.
Last edited by Pinkhippie; 06-14-2013 at 10:07 PM.
Oh also I realized I do the same thing with exercise that I do with food and restriction. I use it as a tool to feel bad about myself and I obsess and overdo until I injure myself so I stopped exercising in a formal way. I got a pedometer and I try to get 5,000 steps in a day. That is actually cool because I find I get way more done around the house because I need an excuse to walk. When I first started I actually had under 1000 steps a day so its been an improvement but with no pressure. my long term goal is 10,000 steps a day.
Thanks! I am learning but I feel like I am learning that its impossible.
Here are my challenges.
1st: the nursing! My baby is a year old but still eats very little solid food and nurses a ton. I am always HUNGRY. yet, I must be eating over my caloric needs because I either stay the same weight or gain a little weight and have to be careful and conscious to get back down to my 30 lbs overweight. So its really hard to get in touch with my body when I feel like its lying to me.
2nd: I want to wind down after the kids are in bed with FOOD. The problem is I am a little hungry from the bedtime nursing AND I want to unwind and relax. My husband pops in Killzone ( a first person shooter) to relax and unwind. I realized that I need a Killzone. I am totally conscious of the fact that I really am not that hungry and that I don't need to eat chocolate to satisfy my bodys physical needs but my mental self tells me that in fact yes in order to relax and unwind I DO need chocolate and if I don't have it I am miserable. And I say chocolate loosely. I usually eat way over my hunger needs when I eat treats at night.
Things I have improved on:
I have gotten MUCH better at eating slowly. At first I was really anxious about going slow, it was SO hard. now it is slowly becoming more of a habit and I do find myself leaving food on my plate more and more as I realize that I am not hungry anymore. (problem is I often seem to think Im full before I really am and then end up snacking after meals. I need to get better at figuring out my real satiety point. Again, a challenge with the nursing and the constant hunger)
I also am eating more mindfully. Even when I eat my treats at night now I am sitting at the table doing nothing but eating. No reading or tv or computer.
I have gotten much better at legalizing food and not feeling guilt for eating treats. I just recognize that I have a need that is not hunger that I am filling with food. And I am getting better at identifying what those needs are. However, it still doesn't seem to stop me from eating yet.
So improvements but its still very daunting. Sorry to blather on about myself, I just hope that reading my thought process and challenges could help someone else down the road.
Pinkhippie - sorry to hear you are having some frustrations, but it also looks like you are making some great improvements too with legalizing foods, eating mindfully etc. Because I have never had a baby or breastfed, it's really tough for me to give advice on this particular thing. I notice though you say you are hungry all the time, but then also say that sometimes at night after dinner you are concious that you are not that hungry but feel you need chocolate. Maybe what you need to work on is differentiating the difference between physical hunger and mental hunger (just an idea, I could be wrong). I have a very tough time sometimes differentiating these 2 things as well. What I've read in some of the books that have helped me is realizing that when actual physical hunger is not the driving force behind eating, there is no point of satiety that can be reached since there is no physical symptoms that need to be shut off by the eating. I don't know if I'm explaining it right, but when I have actual hunger and I eat, I can feel the hunger feelings go away. When I eat for emotional reasons like wanting to unwind at the end of a stressful day, there is just no off switch since nothing to do with physical hunger was turned on in the first place.
Another thing that has helped me to differentiate between physical hunger and mental hunger is the foods I am wanting. When I am physically hungry, I usually want real food (not all the time but mostly), and when I'm mentally hungry I want hyperpalatable foods like cookies and chocolate etc. I think it has helped me to recognize that hyperplalatable foods have a drug like effect on the brain like a sedative. It seems like for alot of people (like tonnes and tonnes of people) have difficulty from the time after dinner until bedtime. It is natural to want to unwind in the hours leading to bedtime, and all the daily stressors and thoughts and worries can make it really tough to do so.
EDIT: opps, posted before I was done. I am continueing this post below.
Last edited by veggiedaze; 06-15-2013 at 12:51 PM.
I think you have to decide where you are in this journey. For me to get my bingeing under control I had to firstly allow myself to feed both my physical and mental hunger. Denying either made me want to binge. Once I had gone a period of time without bingeing and felt like I didn't have to binge, I began working more on IE and trying to only feed my physical hunger. Denying my mental hunger meant getting bingeing urges that I just had to sit wih and feel uncomfortable with until it passed. I still do get the urges and sometimes I try to do something to distract myself, but mostly I just have to accept the feeling and know that it is just that part of my brain that is wired incorrectly. I can actually turn that negative into a positive by realizing I am trying to rewire it and decondition it. Every time I sit through that feeling and do not act, I know I am reinforcing a new behaviour and it gives me confidence to know I can get through the next time. This is not to say I never give in to mental hunger. I do sometimes. But when I do I am aware that because I am feeding mental hunger, there will be no shut off switch. So I do not count on satiety ques to tell me when to stop. I just try to stop. Like I might have some chocolate, and of course when I do I want more and more (the animal brain talking). Being aware of this helps me stop before it turns into a binge. Sometimes I am able to stop at just a little chocolate and sometimes I stop at alot. but I don't binge. The toughest part is not to feel guilty if I stop at alot rather than a little. But this is where the getting away from the "all or nothing" mentality comes in and instead of feeling like a failure for having too much, I remind myself that being able to have too much and not binge is actually a victory. I then put it behind me and try to improve and listen to my body more the next time. And sometimes the next time will be better, and sometimes it is not better. Overall though, I think I do do better with it all. It is like 2 steps forward and one back.
I think also you might be too hard on yourself. Maybe it is unrealistic for you to lose weight while breastfeeding. Maybe also the pressure you are putting on yourself to lose weight is actually causing some of this mental hunger. I think a big part of getting over some of the mental hunger for me was not tracking anything incuding what the scale said. I mean, how can someone honestly just relax at the end of the day when they have numbers floating around in there heads?
So I'm not sure if anything I've said helps. Obviously I am talking from my own experiences and what is helpful to one person doesn't necessarily apply to someone else. But it does sound like there are many positiive discoveries you have made. The key I think is to just keep trying things and staying positive and focus on the victories and build on that. We are all a work in progress. I am still progressing.
Oh also I realized I do the same thing with exercise that I do with food and restriction. I use it as a tool to feel bad about myself and I obsess and overdo until I injure myself so I stopped exercising in a formal way. I got a pedometer and I try to get 5,000 steps in a day. That is actually cool because I find I get way more done around the house because I need an excuse to walk. When I first started I actually had under 1000 steps a day so its been an improvement but with no pressure. my long term goal is 10,000 steps a day.
This is a huge victory! I used to be the same with exercise. I would obsess and run until the point of injury. Now though, I use exercise as a treatment for my mental health. It gives me a huge mental boost and alleviates alot of the mental hunger. It is easy to fall into the thinking of feeling bad about not exercising. I know all too well about that. I just have to keep reminding myself "why" I exercise and make sure it is about health and sanity and not what I look like. I also do activities I truly enjoy.
Just wanted to post about another victory. I went camping/hiking/rockclimbing last week. I took a similar trip to the same place last year. While i didn't really binge (i don't really binge when i'm out and about, having fun; only at home) on the trip last year, food was definitely on my mind. I was so happy to notice that i was free from my food prison this trip. I didn't worry about it, didn't worry about how much i was eating in front of others, didn't look forward to going home so i could binge, etc.
I think you have to decide where you are in this journey. For me to get my bingeing under control I had to firstly allow myself to feed both my physical and mental hunger. Denying either made me want to binge. Once I had gone a period of time without bingeing and felt like I didn't have to binge, I began working more on IE and trying to only feed my physical hunger. Denying my mental hunger meant getting bingeing urges that I just had to sit wih and feel uncomfortable with until it passed. I still do get the urges and sometimes I try to do something to distract myself, but mostly I just have to accept the feeling and know that it is just that part of my brain that is wired incorrectly. I can actually turn that negative into a positive by realizing I am trying to rewire it and decondition it. Every time I sit through that feeling and do not act, I know I am reinforcing a new behaviour and it gives me confidence to know I can get through the next time. This is not to say I never give in to mental hunger. I do sometimes. But when I do I am aware that because I am feeding mental hunger, there will be no shut off switch. So I do not count on satiety ques to tell me when to stop. I just try to stop. Like I might have some chocolate, and of course when I do I want more and more (the animal brain talking). Being aware of this helps me stop before it turns into a binge. Sometimes I am able to stop at just a little chocolate and sometimes I stop at alot. but I don't binge. The toughest part is not to feel guilty if I stop at alot rather than a little. But this is where the getting away from the "all or nothing" mentality comes in and instead of feeling like a failure for having too much, I remind myself that being able to have too much and not binge is actually a victory. I then put it behind me and try to improve and listen to my body more the next time. And sometimes the next time will be better, and sometimes it is not better. Overall though, I think I do do better with it all. It is like 2 steps forward and one back.
I think also you might be too hard on yourself. Maybe it is unrealistic for you to lose weight while breastfeeding. Maybe also the pressure you are putting on yourself to lose weight is actually causing some of this mental hunger. I think a big part of getting over some of the mental hunger for me was not tracking anything incuding what the scale said. I mean, how can someone honestly just relax at the end of the day when they have numbers floating around in there heads?
So I'm not sure if anything I've said helps. Obviously I am talking from my own experiences and what is helpful to one person doesn't necessarily apply to someone else. But it does sound like there are many positiive discoveries you have made. The key I think is to just keep trying things and staying positive and focus on the victories and build on that. We are all a work in progress. I am still progressing.
I took a different approach. I guess i'm not exactly following IE because if i "mentally" want to eat, even without physical hunger, i allow myself to. It took 3 months, but i think i've finally gotten to the point where there is no "mental" hunger anymore. That's because i gave myself unconditional permission to eat whenever, whatever i wanted.
And i'm applying this not only to eating, but to other aspects of my life (in a more general sense, of course). I am trying to be more true to myself and not live in denial about what i really want out of life. I am more happier as a result. It's still a work in progress, but i am happier now.
I think you have to decide where you are in this journey. For me to get my bingeing under control I had to firstly allow myself to feed both my physical and mental hunger. Denying either made me want to binge. Once I had gone a period of time without bingeing and felt like I didn't have to binge, I began working more on IE and trying to only feed my physical hunger. Denying my mental hunger meant getting bingeing urges that I just had to sit wih and feel uncomfortable with until it passed. I still do get the urges and sometimes I try to do something to distract myself, but mostly I just have to accept the feeling and know that it is just that part of my brain that is wired incorrectly. I can actually turn that negative into a positive by realizing I am trying to rewire it and decondition it. Every time I sit through that feeling and do not act, I know I am reinforcing a new behaviour and it gives me confidence to know I can get through the next time. This is not to say I never give in to mental hunger. I do sometimes. But when I do I am aware that because I am feeding mental hunger, there will be no shut off switch. So I do not count on satiety ques to tell me when to stop. I just try to stop. Like I might have some chocolate, and of course when I do I want more and more (the animal brain talking). Being aware of this helps me stop before it turns into a binge. Sometimes I am able to stop at just a little chocolate and sometimes I stop at alot. but I don't binge. The toughest part is not to feel guilty if I stop at alot rather than a little. But this is where the getting away from the "all or nothing" mentality comes in and instead of feeling like a failure for having too much, I remind myself that being able to have too much and not binge is actually a victory. I then put it behind me and try to improve and listen to my body more the next time. And sometimes the next time will be better, and sometimes it is not better. Overall though, I think I do do better with it all. It is like 2 steps forward and one back.
I think also you might be too hard on yourself. Maybe it is unrealistic for you to lose weight while breastfeeding. Maybe also the pressure you are putting on yourself to lose weight is actually causing some of this mental hunger. I think a big part of getting over some of the mental hunger for me was not tracking anything incuding what the scale said. I mean, how can someone honestly just relax at the end of the day when they have numbers floating around in there heads?
So I'm not sure if anything I've said helps. Obviously I am talking from my own experiences and what is helpful to one person doesn't necessarily apply to someone else. But it does sound like there are many positiive discoveries you have made. The key I think is to just keep trying things and staying positive and focus on the victories and build on that. We are all a work in progress. I am still progressing.
Veggiedaze you are so wise. You are right, I realized I have totally been lying to myself about not worrying about losing weight. I told myself I was not going to worry about that but its not true. I was unconsciously trying. And, of course that means for me starving myself without even realizing I was doing it. Of course I was hungry at night. I wasn't eating enough during the day. I read your post on Friday but when I came to post a response the malware warning for this site was up so I had to wait. But all weekend I was concsious and made sure that I REALLY ate plenty of food. I realized when I did that that I could easily tell what mental hunger or physical hunger was. I realized I mostly DO eat out of physical hunger. The thing about nighttime is that I eat a treat AND Im hungry so Im eating a ton of treat. When I eat enough food during the day I don't feel that strong chocolate urge. But if I do, then I eat some. I am still at the point of feeling like I am depriving myself if I don't eat if I want to even if I recognize that is just mental hunger. So thank you, thank you for your words. I think you are right about the nursing and the weight loss. I need to just accept it and try to eat enough so I don't trigger my need to eat junk. I think my body is just trying to get enough fat and calories so it goes a little crazy when I deprive it. I have really been making an effort to eat MORE. It's crazy how I can fool myself into thinking I am not hungry until I am going to pass out from hunger and then have to eat my weight in chocolate. I hate being 30 pounds overweight SO MUCH but I have to really truly learn to accept myself just as I am right now or I am not going to get my eating normalized. I have been working really hard on self acceptance over the weekend too. Thanks again for your perceptive observations. They really helped me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by surfergirl2
Just wanted to post about another victory. I went camping/hiking/rockclimbing last week. I took a similar trip to the same place last year. While i didn't really binge (i don't really binge when i'm out and about, having fun; only at home) on the trip last year, food was definitely on my mind. I was so happy to notice that i was free from my food prison this trip. I didn't worry about it, didn't worry about how much i was eating in front of others, didn't look forward to going home so i could binge, etc.
That is awesome! Sounds like you are really doing great!
I took a different approach. I guess i'm not exactly following IE because if i "mentally" want to eat, even without physical hunger, i allow myself to. It took 3 months, but i think i've finally gotten to the point where there is no "mental" hunger anymore. That's because i gave myself unconditional permission to eat whenever, whatever i wanted.
And i'm applying this not only to eating, but to other aspects of my life (in a more general sense, of course). I am trying to be more true to myself and not live in denial about what i really want out of life. I am more happier as a result. It's still a work in progress, but i am happier now.
I feel the same way about mental eating. It's good to hear that you were able to get to a place to give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever and whenever you wanted. I am still working on that. I never realized how many unconscious "rules" I have for myself regarding food. It's crazy!
Another benefit of letting go of the food guilt...you can actually tell how the food really makes you feel. This morning, i ate a very large, sugary breakfast, and i felt really tired afterward. No guilt, just tired. I think i always experienced that before, but it was covered up by the guilt...i never even knew that carbs actually made me physically tired, i thought it was just me being depressed!
The other night I ummmm "visited the 1960s," lucy in the sky with diamonds, whatever you want to call it, and ice cream tasted foul while raw bok choy tasted delightful.
Not wanting to give too much credit to psychedelic experiences but it was surely interesting!
When I am physically hungry, I usually want real food (not all the time but mostly), and when I'm mentally hungry I want hyperpalatable foods like cookies and chocolate etc. I think it has helped me to recognize that hyperplalatable foods have a drug like effect on the brain like a sedative. It seems like for alot of people (like tonnes and tonnes of people) have difficulty from the time after dinner until bedtime. It is natural to want to unwind in the hours leading to bedtime, and all the daily stressors and thoughts and worries can make it really tough to do so.
I never consciously categorized it this way, but this is so true for me as well.
I am totally conscious of the fact that I really am not that hungry and that I don't need to eat chocolate to satisfy my bodys physical needs but my mental self tells me that in fact yes in order to relax and unwind I DO need chocolate and if I don't have it I am miserable. And I say chocolate loosely. I usually eat way over my hunger needs when I eat treats at night.
