Well, the last 24 hours have been hellish, and that's an understatement.
I live in the Atlanta metro area. Not sure how much of this has been covered in the national news, but we had a snowstorm here that somehow managed to tie up the entire metro area traffic. My daughter and SIL were trapped on one of the major roadways but did manage to get home in a little under 12 hours. (1:30 am). I have friends and relatives who spent the night in various locations other than their homes - grocery stores, their own car, you name it.
I'm not really sure exactly what happened, but one of the major contributing factors was the fact that they did not close schools because it was just a moderate amount of snow predicted, so when it DID start snowing around 11:00 am THEN it was decided to close them early. This resulted in parents trying to get to them, along with all businesses letting out early. The result was a traffic logjam of unbelievable proportions. Why they didn't just cancel school to begin with is beyond me, but this was the result. Some school buses just couldn't get to the schools so a fair number of children and teachers had to spend the night at their schools. And it's still completely jacked up.
My daughter had the foresight to take her husband's 4-wheel drive vehicle because she lives 30 miles from her place of work, which is right next to the airport. (Hindsight is 20/20 vision, but if she had known what she was in for she'd have just gone to the airport and spent the night.) Her husband works only 10 miles from their house but he was stuck as well. He was finally able to get down close to her and then they met about halfway on her route. They left her car at the Waffle House where they met and took his 4-wheel drive home.
They were the lucky ones. There are abandoned cars everywhere, and some people are STILL in their cars on the highway.
My daughter had forgotten to get her car charger out of her car when she took her husband's, so she finally lost battery and we couldn't contact her. Fortunately she'd already made arrangements to meet her husband and she did finally get to him around midnight. But not being able to contact her was so scary.
Through all this I did manage to keep from overeating, but I must admit that I had more wine than I should have. I'm just so grateful that they made it home okay and all my friends and relatives who got stuck are either now at home or at the least in a warm place.
Wow amazing on Atlanta. My neighbor had friends staying with her from Las Vegas their flight home routed through Atlanta and was cancelled today. After much rearranging they routed through Chicago talk about of the way from Southwest Florida!
I have been surfing around 3FC the past several days and agree there are a lot of people who sure seem to need Intuitive Eating. One of the interesting threads was in the Eating Disorders section and they were discussing the book Brain Over Binge. There is a website if you search on it and in the blog the author talks about her experience and then people at the bottom comment on what worked for them, there is a link just at the end of the authors comments that takes you to something that I found really useful if I think I have taste hunger and I'm not physically hungry. She talks about visualizing she is intent on a game of chess and a yipping dog is demanding attention and yapping and butting up against you and just annoying as all get out and how it helps her to make sense of the eating out of hunger like saying no to the eating /dog. You know it both seems to put me back in control as with the chess game logically and see the desire to eat as an annoying external force. Anyway we will see how it pans out in the long run.
I'm doing well eating intuitively so far and the weight is falling off. My problem is that I really don't know what to eat. I've gotten used the the structure of dieting. I've found myself drifting between different low carb plans. I understand this whole eating when hungry and stopping when full thing, but I don't know *what* to eat. How do you guys figure it out?
Locke I don't know if this helps but what I do is first off be sure I have ingredients around to make a variety of things I like as in keep things in the freezer and pantry. I like to cook so I go thru recipes and pick out a few things when I go shopping.
Then I ask myself what I want to eat, like in the morning I will go thru do eggs or oatmeal or toast or whatever sound good? I am surprised how often one of them sounds best to me which I think tells me if I need carbs or protein or fruit or whatever physically. If none of them really sound good my next question is are you really hungry and I do sometimes decide that's the case.
Don't know if that helps and it is easier when you aren't trying to deal with a family for sure. Anxious to hear what others do.
Because of my crazy eating today, I would say be sure you are eating what you "really" want and not what you think you should eat. I got up this morning and I wanted cheese toast, but when I looked in the fridge, I saw the egg beaters and decided that I really should eat it not because of "diet" thinking but I didn't want it to ruin. There is a reason that IE says eat what you really want because I set myself off on a journey of a day of being hungry all day. I finally realized that tonight that I should have started my day eating what I really did want. When I was faithfully doing IE, if I didn't know what I wanted to eat, I took that to mean that I wasn't hungry. I would wait and when I did get hungry I usually had something that sounded good to me.
So tomorrow, I'm going IE 100%. I'm not going to eat until I am hungry and I know what I want.
Maven Glad your family is home and safe after their horrible experience in the snow storm.
Thanks everyone. All friends and relatives accounted for and are all now home. It has not been a fun 48 hours, that's for sure.
I'm now getting a bit stir crazy but fortunately my husband has a 4-wheel drive truck so we are going to venture out today. It's supposed to get to 40 so hopefully the ice we always get on the hill at the top of our street will melt enough to be able to maneuver it.
When I went to the grocery early Tuesday morning in anticipation of the snow, I picked up a box of doughnuts - a half-dozen glazed. I've never been a big doughnut eater, but for some reason those really appealed to me. I'd not eaten anything before going to the grocery (I went at 7:00 am when it first opened to avoid the crowds) so when I got back home after putting up all the groceries I got a cup of black coffee and one of those doughnuts and sat down and ate it mindfully. It was delicious, and I really enjoyed it. My husband ate one in the evening, and then yesterday I decided to have another one for breakfast. Enjoyed it again, but not so much. Then I had a third one today, and after I ate it I knew that would be the last doughnut I'd be eating for awhile, as the satisfaction I got from eating the doughnut this morning was very minimal. Hubby had eaten another one last night and I am pretty sure he'll eat the last one in the box tonight, but if he doesn't then I'll just throw it away, because I can't see myself eating another doughnut for awhile.
What I usually eat for breakfast is cheese toast, and that's probably what I should have eaten today, because it sounds a lot more appealing than that doughnut. So chances are that's what I'll have for lunch - unless something else pops into my head that sounds better!
@SouthernMaven, what do you mean you sat down and ate it mindfully? Can you describe what that process is like?
So I'm on my period now, which means I crave lots and lots of food. As I was eating take out last night I couldn't stop myself, I just kept wanting more and more and more. I had a big bowl of beef fried rice, 5 pieces of salmon avocado roll, 3 pieces of sushi, 2 whole chicken wings and a small serving of rice pudding. I probably could have eaten more but I put an end to it. I didn't feel sick or too full afterwards but I also tried not to feel guilty. I did feel a little embarrassed though since my husband just had a bowl of mei fun and some celery sticks. It's a little embarrassing to out-eat my husband. I'm not sure why I wanted to eat that much besides being on my period but if I were to look at that meal from a dieting standpoint it was an epic fail.
Question: How does mindful eating affect your family life? Our family meals tend to be in front of the tv more often than I'd like, and I have a toddler so I'm busy cutting up food and paying attention to his needs more than my own. Sometimes my food gets cold and I don't know how to be mindful through chaos. Do you expect others around you to be mindful too? How does this work while eating with others?
Liliann, I hear you on the self esteem! That's a topic I'm trying to tackle this year, too. I bought the book "Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance". It leads you through a "365 day action-plan", and each day's item is just a few pages long. A lot of them ask you to record your thoughts in a journal. I'm on day 33. Apparently I'm not in a real journaling mindset lately and keep "meaning to" but don't, but I'm making sure I don't let that stop me from reading each day's writing and really thinking about it. Maybe next year I'll go through again, and be a good girl and do the journaling part. But even without journaling, I'm getting a lot out of it. It may be a helpful book for you, too.
Thanks for this recommendation. I often find journaling to be difficult without a set goal or question to answer but I do enjoy doing it. I ordered this book and can't wait to start, this is totally up my alley.
Because of my crazy eating today, I would say be sure you are eating what you "really" want and not what you think you should eat. I got up this morning and I wanted cheese toast, but when I looked in the fridge, I saw the egg beaters and decided that I really should eat it not because of "diet" thinking but I didn't want it to ruin. There is a reason that IE says eat what you really want because I set myself off on a journey of a day of being hungry all day. I finally realized that tonight that I should have started my day eating what I really did want. When I was faithfully doing IE, if I didn't know what I wanted to eat, I took that to mean that I wasn't hungry. I would wait and when I did get hungry I usually had something that sounded good to me.
So tomorrow, I'm going IE 100%. I'm not going to eat until I am hungry and I know what I want.
Maven Glad your family is home and safe after their horrible experience in the snow storm.
It's late so headed to bed. Catch y'all tomorrow.
Yeah I got all caught up in the ketogenic stuff and for the last few days have been trying to eat that way but intuitively. I got really sick and overate. I guess this is just one bump in the road that I can turn into a learning experience- I will try to seek out diets but I need to avoid them like the plague!
I shared last night about how I got messed up with my eating and ended up eating all day. I shared this on the diabetic thread, but then decided I needed to share it here as it is more of the IE lesson.
I got up yesterday morning wanting cheese toast, but saw my egg substitute in the fridge and decided that I need to use it before it ruins. Instead of eating what I "really did want" as I know to do with the idea to remember that the egg substitute was there to use later when I wanted, I made a very nice burrito type egg wrap that really did taste good, but it was NOT what I really wanted and never did get it even though I did eat a lot of other thing. (I have to wonder what the result would have been if I had thought to eat the cheese toast later. Would I have spent the rest of the day eating foods that didn't satisfy me?) Although I didn't eat the egg wrap for a "dieting" reason, it still had the same result as if I had. I ate everything I could find to eat until last night I suddenly had a very strong desire for a really good salad. I haven't had a salad in a while because of the cold... I've been eating veggie soups instead. When the desire for the salad hit me, I finally listened to my hunger and honored it. I finally ate something I "really" wanted and I was satisfied.
My use of WW was never supposed to be used to get rid of what I've learned in Intuitive Eating. It was supposed to compliment it. Guess what, once I had the salad that "satisfied" me, I wasn't hungry any more. I was immediately right back on track and today I am back to using WW but IE is the 1st priority. Perhaps, I should call it IE with WW instead of the other way around. I didn't gain but .4 lbs from it so it is just water gain.
I have been eating a lot of pretzels almost obsessively... sure wish they would make this stuff without added salt. Any way, doing as Allen Carr says on the cd I listen to every night, I put the rest of those things down the garbage disposal. Better down the disposal than on my waist. I've decided that (for me) even in doing IE that there are foods that I personally cannot handle although there is no such thing as bad food/good food in Intuitive eating.
I finally have come to the place where I don't let these set backs be a disaster, but they are learning situations that can make my way of eating become better. I'm not going to allow them to be excuses to get off plan. I like the way Locke put it. They are just "bumps" in the road that gives me information that will help me on my IE journey. I've come to realize that when I hit those bumps that I have to make a choice on how to handle them. I can either make a good choice or a bad one. It is all up to me.
Have a nice day everyone.
Last edited by pattygirl63; 01-30-2014 at 12:11 PM.
DH brought me some dark chocolate for our anniversary. I actually ask him not to bring it in the house. It can trigger overeating. I did well for a couple of days. I included it in my lunch and dinner. I ate it and savored it. Then last night I some hazelnut/chocolate spread with my dinner. I was down hill from there. The compulsion and desire to overeat was overwhelming. I pushed through it a couple of times. But, eventually ate more spread, my chocolate and a host of other carbs - fast and standing and all the other behavior around food I am trying to change. Well - every day is a new beginning. I had a nice breakfast (wasn't hungry until after 10am). I think I am forgiving myself and must move forward. I think I'll take my chocolate in places where it's gone, really gone, when I finish it. At least for now.
My main question is: how does IE work when I am watching sodium and also I have high triglycerides. I really don't know how to proceed with that. What do you think?
SouthernMaven - so glad you and your family are OK. I've watching the news and am horrified to hear what some people had to go thro, ugh. So stressful,
Wannabeskinny - you asked about what is mindful eating. What I have learned about it is that you are really focused on what you have to eat. You don't have distractions from the food like tv, computer, a book or magazine, etc. It also refers to eating slowly. Enjoy and savor each bite of your food. (a lot of folks think about food a good portion of the day - and then eat it so fast that they hardly taste it.) Put your food and/or silverware down between each bite. If you can... feel that food going down into your tummy. All this should help to make eating last a little longer. Having a calm atmosphere around eating if possible. Other people please be free to add to this. Also - I don't expect my husband to be mindful. However, he insists we have dinner in front of the TV. So I try to only concentrate on my food and not what ever is on.
pattygirl - yes, EI seems to be a learning process for sure. Often, as you said, we go along. I think we all use our knowledge of nutrition when we make choices. But - there's suppose to be no judgement in what we choose. I think that's part of it... I don't know for sure.
Cindysunshine.. thanks for your ideas.
locke - so happy for you to have lost weight and be EI. I understand how it's hard to undo the 'diet' mentality. I am still working on that too. Part of EI is freeing to me because I can cook something in the crockpot and on the stove and know that I can have what others are eating too. From what I've read EI is eating when you are hungry - eating what you really want - stop eating as soon as you start to feel full. I am learning as I go.
Have a good day. I am hoping for a good EI day, myself.
Last edited by Beverlyjoy; 01-30-2014 at 02:43 PM.
@SouthernMaven, what do you mean you sat down and ate it mindfully? Can you describe what that process is like?
Sorry I'm so late in answering, Wannabeskinny.
For me, eating mindfully means several things. First, I eat without any distractions (I'm a person who loves to eat while watching TV, so I've stopping doing that, for the most part). Secondly, I really try to concentrate on what I'm eating, enjoying each bite. This is why it is so important to eat what you want, not what you think you should be eating.
This morning I had my cheese toast. I'd had enough of those doughnuts. The first thing I did, after getting it out of the toaster oven, was to cut each piece in half. And I've always had a habit of always taking a bite out of whatever I've prepared before sitting down with it, so I've stopped doing that as well. I took it to the table and very slowly started taking bites, being sure to put the piece back onto the plate between bites. (If I'm eating something with a fork I place the fork down between each bite.)
I also try to really pay attention to everything about the food - its taste, its texture, how I feel as I am chewing and swallowing the food. This is where the "mindful" eating comes into play. Most of us who have habitually overeaten spend more time thinking about the food we're going to eat than actually enjoying it when we DO eat it. I don't know about others, but the guilt I've so often associated with so-called "bad" foods was at one time so strong that I wasn't even aware of how fast I was eating it...much like a child sneaking a forbidden treat and trying to shovel it down as fast as they can before the parent catches them.
It seems a little strange when you first start doing this, but it really does make a difference. I'm much more satisfied when I finish my meal when I do this. I try to leave some on my plate, but I don't always succeed at that. Yesterday my husband and I went to a local barbeque place just to finally get out of the house and we were both REALLY hungry when we got there. I got my favorite meal and I wasn't as good about eating mindfully as I should have been. I began eating and the next thing I knew I was stuffed! I don't like that feeling. I left about 1/4 of my meal on the plate (the waitress even asked if I wanted a to-go box, which I declined) but that was strictly because I was so full - definitely beyond satisfied, which is the goal of IE.
Compare that to how I felt when I finished my cheese toast this morning - certainly no longer hungry, but far from stuffed. Just satisfied.
I'm just so grateful that they made it home okay and all my friends and relatives who got stuck are either now at home or at the least in a warm place. 
The first thing I did, after getting it out of the toaster oven, was to cut each piece in half. And I've always had a habit of always taking a bite out of whatever I've prepared before sitting down with it, so I've stopped doing that as well. I took it to the table and very slowly started taking bites, being sure to put the piece back onto the plate between bites. (If I'm eating something with a fork I place the fork down between each bite.)
