I actually just signed up here, and I think this section is maybe the part of the forum that best fits for me? I wouldn't consider myself particularly "featherweight" like, at about 130-something pounds and 5'6", but I also don't want to lose like 50 or 100 pounds or anything that drastic!
I'm just another classic yo-yo dieter. At least, an extremely short-attention-spanned one...my "diets" usually last at most a week or two and at worst, and more commonly, a day or even just 3-4 hours, and then naturally the rebound binge comes for 2 or 3 times that same length. I also binge eat as a boredom prevention or zoning out mechanism, like as my go-to activity when I've got nothing else to do.
I don't like have a specific weightloss goal or anything, and actually I'm not even into checking my weight, because I know from experience that the way my body looks at different weights can differ hugely depending on how my eating and exercise habits are and if I've been in a "diet" or "binge" part of the cycle. Instead, I've recently become interested in Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size, after reading the two books by those names on a recommendation from my sister. Basically, I just want to get out of this crazy obsessive unhealthy pattern of eating I have and just eat more moderately!
I didn't think too much about it until recently, when my husband started trying to lose weight for health purposes and started tracking his weight, and I was AMAZED to see that his weight actually stayed so consistent day to day. It was honestly like mind-blowing to see my husbands weight being literally exactly the same or at most plus/minus .2 or .5 pounds day to day. I didn't know that was possible....mine is ALWAYS fluctuating by at least a couple pounds (sometimes as much as 10!) from one day to the next, because I am always either eating very very little or very very much a lot. So I guess that's when it hit me that I might just have a problem!
Plus I also noticed that how I feel about myself and my satisfaction with how I look is much more closely tied to my eating behavior than my actual weight. Like, I can look in the mirror and be really happy at a size 6 or 8 after days of eating healthfully, and I can also see something horrible being a size 0 and having binged a couple days in a row. And I have been through such a range of sizes... was super super thin for a while, then up to 80 pounds heavier, then less and less and more and less and back to size 0 again, to now just somewhere in the middle of average.
So that's my little introduction I guess. Just hoping to find some support as I go about this, being moderate and healthy and, just as an added benefit, I'm guessing, lose some extra yo-yo weight along with it.
Hi and welcome! I know exactly what you're talking about - being BLOWN away when other people exercise moderation and control.
2 years ago at this time of year I was having a really, really hard time with binges and then trying to compensate by restricting - I honestly don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't gone through a major life change (moving back to my home country, to my parents' house, then moving out to my current town) that sort of put a barrier between me and binging. Something just clicked I guess - I joined a gym and started doing different kinds of exercise, and the weight kind of took care of itself. I have a half gallon of ice cream and a jar of peanut butter at home and I do not fear them. I suppose I am active which helps - I eat a LOT, 2000+ calories a day pretty much every day.
It's kind of useless to talk about yourself since everyone's issues and journeys are so different but I dunno I just wanted to say IT CAN GET BETTER! Welcome to Featherweights!
You sound a lot like me, Krampus, at least the "before" part. Hope to get to where you are! 2000 calories a day does sound like a lot for me....I know it's bad but on my restrictive days it doesn't seem weird at all to me to have just like a couple hundred calories! But when i think about it, if I eat like 500 calories one day and then binge and have several thousand the next, that's actually like having 2000 a day in the end! It seems so radical to me, but it makes sense and sounds much more moderate and healthy.
I think aknowledging your eating pattern is already a hugeeeee step of the work I had never heard of the book who are talking about, I'll check them out!!
Oops sorry for the weird post timing... I think I had the wrong time zone selected!
It keeps doing it to me too! I have the right one selected but at the bottom it says it's a different time zone & it's actually saying it's posting 24 minutes before the current time. Freaking weird.