Becky, I am not at all concerned about your use of the word obsessive. If I am not obsessed, I am certainly, determined, focused, fixated........it takes what it takes,I don't care what it is called.

You and I are in the same boat--I know we've discussed it before. While we got heavy, we never were overly heavy. I do believe we come away with a whole different mindset due to this. I agree that I don't like obsession, but focus is certainly a good name for it. But we do lose our focus from time to time.

That might work, but I'm thinking afternoon workouts are more likely. We have excursions planned and most are in the morning--right after breakfast and will last through lunch. I'll have to talk to DD about it when we're getting our mani-pedi's on Thursday.

Fingers crossed for a positive outcome on the biopsy, bargoo.

I'm pretty sure that my mother has had an eating disorder most of her life, though in looking at her pictures she has always been thin. I have no memory of her that doesn't include her listing herself as overweight. She barely eats, and often when she does it is junk food. She has a lot of stomach problems, that I think are caused by stress. When she's tense she doesn't eat at all. She will often make a plate of food at a family event, pick at it or move it around and then throw it away. I don't know if she is obsessed with food in the way I am - she doesn't plan out all of her meals or track what she eats. She more tends to avoid food like it is out to get her.

And I think a lot about food as well - I am almost constantly balancing my food budget. Planning dinner, planning snacks, budgeting in a meal out in the week, looking at macros, etc. It is never just "I want some graham crackers so I'm going to have one", it is always "can I afford a graham cracker" or "man, I can't believe I ate that graham cracker".

When I don't plan out what I'm going to eat I go over the edge. If I make the effort to plan the day and write it down I am more likely to stick to it.

I think relaxing with a cat in my lap is time very well spent. Sometimes I need to slow down and rest, and I think my cat knows that.

I didn't take the term obsession badly, I know that I am obsessed with food. I plan and track and log and measure, I add and re-add calories in my head all day, I wake up in the middle of the night worried about the calories I'm looking at for the next day. I cancel social occasions if I feel like I can't handle the eating out or the snack food. I sit at my desk and think about the snacks in my drawer and sometimes I can't keep working without eating whatever I'm picturing. It will actually make my hands shake. I haven't always been this way, but I also used to be close to 200 pounds. At my highest point I wasn't weighing, but I'm pretty sure I was in the 190s. When I started weighing after losing a little I was at 185. It was never at a life threatening level, but it was uncomfortable and unpleasant and I wasn't happy. But - am I any more happy now? I like my body, I like what I can do with it, I like the way I look - more or less. :dizzy: But am I happy? Have I just transferred to a different unhappy? In my heyday I used to toast a bagel, fill it with 8-12 slices of bacon and some cheese and would snack on it while watching tv at midnight. Or I would take a plate and arrange it with min reese's cups and other pieces of chocolate in a pretty star shape, decorated with chocolate syrup and snack on that. I was somewhat blissful in my terribly bad for me snacking. Thought I was happy, until I went to put on clothes. I'm still not always happy when I put on clothes, but instead of having the somewhat blissful bad for me snacks I have guilt and anxiety every time I overeat, I have planning and weighing and measuring and tracking and logging. Is the exercise high supposed to fill in the happy gap that I used to fill with food? Sometimes it does, but sometimes it really doesn't.

I would like to call it focus, and maybe someday soon it will just be focus for me again. Right now I can't call it anything other than the obsession that it is. :(

Wow - I got a lot deeper in this then I planned to. I'm not depressed or miserable, I swear. No matter how this sounds. :)

Thank you all for the reassurance - it was one of those cases where I looked at what I'd read, and it came out completely different than how it would have been face-to-face!

When I think of "focus", and "driven", I'm thinking about someone who is happily pursuing a passion. Commitment through joy and passion, because it feels good. And when it doesn't feel good, it's still a commitment - until the joy and passion come back. I had it through 2009. Obsession, in my narrow world, does have a darker side that leans toward the compulsive, as in "can't help doing it". Something habitual, something comforting, something that produces reliable success - such as calorie counting and KNOWING what's on the plate, or the daily gym trip ... is a focus or a drive. Am I doing any better about explaining myself? :dizzy: I crave the focus, and fear the obsession - I already have enough dysfunction around me that I try very hard to maintain my own mental balance (long story short, I've had a past experience with mental illness, not related to eating disorders).

shannon, my bad snacking habits used to include a 4-serving portion of instant mashed potatoes, or a full box of Kraft mac and cheese, or a sleeve of saltines with 4 or 5 cheese singles (see a pattern?). When I was swimming in high school, I was eating between 10-12,000 calories a day - if I wasn't in school, in the pool, or sleeping, I had to be eating. In retrospect, I'm amazed I only gained about 15 pounds over the course of my college years - probably because I was either on controlled mealtimes in the dorms, or once I moved off campus, I couldn't afford to eat the way I wanted to! :lol:

So I've been sitting here thinking about being focused, being obsessed, being determined, being fixated. I don't know what I am really. I think I focus on healthy--I really do strive to make my food choices the best possible, but I know I do lose focus at times. I don't necessarily obsess over little issues--like the other night with the ice cream: sure I overdid it, but I'm not kicking myself for doing it. It was, after all, one bowl--not the whole carton. And it was only one night. Sure, I'm determined to lose these last few pounds (again)--I fixate on that every morning when I step on the scale. But obviously I lose my focus at times during the day when the candy dish at work beckons me or when I feel I "deserve" a glass of wine after a day of work. But at these times, I feel as if I'm becoming complacent again. I know that complacency is what allowed the regain of weight. I cannot become complacent. I must remain diligent. I must remain focused. But a small slip-up now and again isn't going to be the end-all of this procedure!

I weighed less today than I did yesterday, and noticed my food-worldview today is entirely different from how it was yesterday because of that. THERE lies my problem.

I never plan my days aside from lunch, which is usually the same every day (Greek yogurt, homemade salad w/chicken, fruit). Any more planning and I would feel constricted or restrained, with my rebellious side foaming at the bit.

Yeah, I often wonder if I'm just an extremist by nature, maybe due to some kind of emotional oversensitivity, which my consumption of food records like some kind of Richter scale. And if any attempt at moderation is doomed, because I see moderation as giving up & settling. And I'm programmed to excel, so I can't let that happen. It feels too much like mediocrity. (Which would be weird, because I used to just want to be mediocre, or normal, knowing I was so obese that it was out of the norm.) In which case, my choices, as someone who goes to extremes, are to be morbidly obese or to suffer from an eating disorder and exercise obsession.

All I know is, I've lost over 100 pounds twice, yes, twice, on two different & separate occasions, more than 10 years apart.

The first time it happened, I started out with the best of intentions, doing everything like the happy women in magazine articles, out walking in their suburban neighborhoods -- but I ended up stark raving crazy, and learned of the mental extremities that I was capable of reaching, which I'd never known before.

The second time it happened, I kept it up at a more moderate way, but have been self-conscious, have always been checking myself, and have felt like I was grappling with an unruly steering wheel, always trying to keep from making a hard right or left into the ditch. I still think I'm far from normal, but it's not a spectacularly miserable eating disorder, with big binges & mood swings. So I may have made a devil's bargain: To look healthy and fit, and to eat healthily (weirdly healthily compared with the mainstream), I have to be somewhat mentally impaired.

allison, great job of articulating your position on things. I'm focused, but easily distracted. :D I'm finding that I will make healthy choices just because it's the way I like to eat now. Unless ... I have that glass of wine, or if something I've never had is put in front of me, or I'm bored, or lonely ... :D I dearly love great food. ("If I don't LOVE it, I don't swallow." - from the infamous food critic in Ratatouille) Yes, I want to see what 140lbs looks like, since it's been two decades. Doesn't matter though if it's this year or next, or next. Man, I just don't want to go higher than where I am now!

krampus, nicely said. The scale's number shouldn't skew EVERYTHING that happens that day. I share that bias.

saef, I get the not wanting to go back to crazy. It's not a good place. The steering wheel reference is particularly visual; mediocrity probably does live on the yellow line and safely (saefly?) within the speed limit. Your pursuit of excellence will always make it more of a wild ride - if you weren't worried about the ditch, you'd likely be trying to get your hands on a car with more horsepower. ;) Performance achieved ... through diligent preventative maintenance!

This is why I'd never make it as an anorexic. Thankfully, I don't binge either--at least not to the extent that some have said they do. I have actually become a lot better at portion control lately.

It all means it is possible. Now the question is When?

My conclusion lately is that dieting trains you to diet, and that's all it trains you to do. And that is a far cry from "normal eating."

Now before everyone freaks out--no, I'm not advocating that you start on some sort of inuitive thing. If you have a program that works, and that you're happy with, keep doing it! Just bear with me here as I develop this idea.

Since we're using metaphors, let me borrow one from Reinhard Engels. With apologies, I'm also going to alter it a little from how he uses it. Let's say that your appetite is a wild animal. Because of lack of training, this animal wants to eat whatever and whenever it darn well pleases. Its habit might be to use food as a drug for difficult feelings, as relief from boredom, as part of celebration. Or, its habit might be to simply overeat whenever it gets the chance, or to go nuts on sugar on a daily basis. The point is, it has some really bad habits. It was allowed to run free, and it doesn't understand heel, sit, stay.

So, one approach might be to train the animal, to extinguish the bad habits and instill good habits. But instead, what do we do? We put it into a diet cage.

And then our mental self figures out what the animal can eat and when, and pushes little bits of food between the bars according to a schedule. It's a good thing those bars are strong, because this animal is pretty strong too... and we'd better be really careful with that door... Oh, and if the animal gets out and runs amok, then we put it on a treadmill. That'll fix it.

Eventually, the animal has to come out of the cage--and if we haven't trained it, the inevitable will happen. So here is the dilemma: Do we keep the animal in the cage forever, or do we look for tools with which we can train it to better habits, knowing that it's going to be a real fight at first?

I'm trying to get my habits under control and learn new ones. If you saw my progress over the last month, you would think that I'm failing--because I have gained weight. BUT, the fact is, I was gaining weight anyway, so it's kind of moot. It's some consolation that I haven't gained as much as I had been gaining before I started this.

Here's the thing: I am both the animal and the trainer. And as animal, I'm not going back into that cage, no matter how much I as trainer push, shove, and whip. So I guess there's nothing much left except to try an out-of-cage approach...

Jay

Jay - for whatever reason your post just made me cry. I'm trying to figure out why, I'll come back and talk about it later. But I like it. Thanks.

Krampus - the weight on the scale does surely impact my entire day. I think that is a bad thing. :)

Saef - I also feel like I have your deal with the devil.

Jay - I'm also the trainer and the animal. I'm weary with being the trainer, but I still have my animal in the cage. And it wants out. Badly. Even running it outside doesn't really tamp it down for long. I'm desperately afraid to try a more intuitive eating model. It terrifies me. Makes my hands shake. Makes me sweaty. It brings tears to my eyes. But the idea of keeping myself in the food log/weigh/measure/plan cage does the same thing. It makes me shake in frustration. It makes me sweaty. It brings tears to my eyes. I find it interesting that I feel similar levels of panic from both sides of an issue. I need to figure out which one scares me less and go with it.

And I need to find some way other than food to feel in control of my life.

Today's postings are great, there is a lot of honesty here as well as wisdom. I think we should all reread every posting for today. I know I have and will do it again.

After reading all that I kinda feel like maybe I don't belong here any more. I have some problems with food but it's never been such a huge struggle as it is for some of you. :grouphug:

Oh sure I whine but I've been keeping my weight around 135 lbs. most of my adult life. It's my vanity that wants to get it to 130. I have gone up to 152 and 147 but those are the only times I've been what I would call "fat" and which is actually moderately overweight for my body type.

Oh I'm not leaving. :p I kinda like all of you gals (and guys). I'll just use a bit more judgement when I post :dizzy:.

And Jay, training any animal using negative reinforcement never works. Kindness, praise, and other rewards work. Keeping any living thing in a cage (including that human invention the cubicle) never produces a positive result. Caged animals almost always develop neuroses.

Dagmar :(

Bargoo - the posts today and yesterday have led me to thinking a lot about my current state of mind. I've been doing a lot of rereading, and sharing with other people who are trying to help me through my anxiety.

I've been irritable and have felt out of control for months now. I can't blame all of that on my diet and exercise. Instead of figuring out the root of my stress and learning how to deal with that I've been pigeonholing other things into the stress place. I've been flashing back to the kid who hid food under the bed - a few months ago I went and picked up takeout. I bought a small food item i addition to my entree, ate it in the car on the way home, left the box in the car so DH wouldn't see it. Two nights ago I snuck a snack bag of cookies upstairs to eat while lying in the bed reading. Neither of these things needed to be hidden - no one would judge me for doing it, yet I felt like I was doing something wrong. I have to let go of the 'wrong' label. I remember people saying that food isn't bad, but that we might make a bad choice. I'm not doing anything wrong by snacking, it just might not be the right choice with my current goals. And I don't have to try to hide it. That just makes me feel more out of control.

More exploration going on in my head - I'll likely be back again later. :)

Dagmar - don't let my crazy make you feel like you don't fit here, either. You're family. :)

I've been lurking because I kinda like this group and have to say that for me it is like putting everything on hold until 'it's good enough'. I took the name 'Exhale' because I though I had finally exhaled and got on a plan that would lead me, eventually, to my goal. But reading some of your posts I realize that I'm still holding my breath.....even when clothes look better on, it's still as if what I'm doing isn't good enough...

Dagmar, I have a problem with food. I like all the wrong things, if it has sugar in I'm all for it and when I eat a lot of sugar I gain weight.This is not a struggle it is just a fact that I recognize .Sure I could say "to heck with it" and just eat whatever I want, but I realize I would be overweight and unhealthy. I prefer not to be either.
Dagmar, your opinions are appreciated please don''t think you don't belong, of course you do.
I have learned something of value from each and everyone of you.

rambling through my mind
 

I have seen references in the media to "food addiction" and "food abuse", comparing overeating to alcoholism and drug addiction.

But food is necessary to LIVE! Food is not the enemy or a poison or something to be avoided at all cost. Food is part of life and necessary to sustain that life. It is a positive thing when we eat what is natural and simply prepared.

IMO it's only when we start adding all the chemicals and preservatives and glucose/fructose and all the rest of the jazz to food that it becomes a negative substance. And sometimes small amounts of negative substances are not detrimental (alcohol comes readily to my mind).

If I eat a massively processed food once or twice a week I am not negating all the positive food I have eaten the rest of the week. Sometimes 110% effort is too extreme - 80% is fine.

So much for exercising judgement when I post :dizzy:

Dagmar :p

Welcome Exhale! Stick around!

After reading JayEll's post, I had to investigate both Richard Engels and his No S diet--which really sounds like an obvious choice for maintenance IMO. The only thing I'd change is forget about the No Snacking part. I've gotten so used to eating 5 or 6 times a day instead of 3 squares, and I kind of prefer that. On the weekends, I'll have a larger breakfast and skip the morning snack--it all evens out calorie-wise in the end in that regard. Anyway, to that point, I've kind of been doing the No S thing for the past month. I've been maintaining. I have not been losing. I sometimes think that if I give dieting a rest for a while that when I go back that my body will respond quicker (rather than being constantly on a diet).

In any case, starting Saturday I am OFF the diet (but will keep a keen eye out for the better choices) as I will be on vacation. I'm hoping to come back with little or no gain. (keep your fingers crossed for me!)

Let's not forget there are 148 thousand members of 3FC and 148 thousand opinions. We are all entitled.

Collective wisdom; no rights, no wrongs. :). I learn something new at 3FC every week. Today, well, was a "heavy" processing day, and we got to know each other a little better. That can only help us in the long run.

Back at goal weight this morning.

Good morning...hope all are feeling positive today. Sometimes I find digging deep and identifying issues leads to a feeling of fresh-start.
Have a great day staying slim :)

Shannon, I want to thank you for sharing with us, I have had some of those experiences, myself.BUT look what we have done !

Yay bargoo!

So is anyone going to switch diet/maintenance based on this small study: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-sci...,3966421.story

It makes me wonder if all my attempts at staying with a low fat diet to maintain is what kind of lead to my regain. Might have to visit the low-glycemic mentality.

Thanks for the great read. I certainly have long paragraphs of my own to share. But, it would take typing, reading, editing, pausing, rewriting ...time... until I got it all down succinctly.

Again, I can say with certainty, we have so very much in common (all of us). And I am grateful to have you all in my life.

have a blessed day (as they day ;))
k

Thanks, Kitty, I would love to read of your experience.

I think lower-glycemic is the way to go. Low-fat is OK as long as it's natural foods that are low-fat, i.e. not buying 'low fat' versions of higher fat prepared foods. Low-glycemic has favorable impact on insulin levels, etc. etc...

Good morning everyone! I'm feeling better today - yesterday turned a lot more more intense for me then I thought it would when I woke up and I thank all of you guys for your support during it all. :grouphug:

Today I'm working from home while my fence gets installed. My cat is lying next to me purring and periodically rubbing me with her head. I'm listening to the purring inside and hammering and sawing outside and I feel oddly peaceful. I'm going to try to keep that peace going today.

Hi all, I ate horrible racetrack (car races in hick town - think $2 cardboard boxes of french fries, fried dough, the like) food for dinner and went to bed with a stomachache. I didn't overdo it as I'm down another pound from yesterday, but I'm quite excited for a nutritious lunch.

I know I'm young and have only been conscious of my food intake since 2010 (how sad - I could have learned this all earlier), but I just want to toss in my 2 cents and say that despite feeling occasionally resentful of having to eat mindfully, I'm glad I learned how to do that.

Krampus, you are wise to do this while you are still young. I promise you that it only get harder as you get older.

I'm realizing that although I know what I should be eating and enjoy eating healthy that I'm not consistent in follow-through. I think to myself - this isn't working - and then go through what I've eaten the past couple of days and realize duh! I read somewhere that folks usually don't/can't maintain a 10% weight loss. And this is exactly the thing...

The other week I was really 'on' and what I learned is that I have a tendency to want to put off eating when I'm hungry for fear of eating. But if I just eat a light healthy meal I'm fine. Light healthy meals are pretty to look at, taste good, and leave me happy. I know how to do this and I can do this. Why am I over-thinking this? It's not like I'm working on the last pound and need to finagle the most minute detail of my metabolism (!)

allison, that article didn't surprise me that much - I've been following Mark Hyman's books and articles for years, and in my own experience, the only place calories are equivalent is in a lab, in a bomb calorimeter. My odd good fortune was to pick up on my sensitivity to artificial colors, which led to lots of label reading, and a definite bent toward whole foods. I would be willing to try a more paleo approach of no grains, legumes, or dairy, just to see what it makes me feel like. And I'd be horribly conflicted if it made me feel awesome, since beer and cheese figure prominently in my life. :D

bargoo - welcome back to goal again! :carrot:

exhale, I have the same problem with over-thinking. I can paralyze myself completely! I get these runs of mental clarity where I just "do" and things are great, and then something changes and I lose it. Then I end up in my rocking chair, playing games on my iPad for hours on end while I rehash all the things I should be doing, could have done, might have said ... and get into this loop of farther and farther off track. Yesterday's discussion helped a lot. At the end of last year, we had a discussion about perfection - and that one I have bookmarked because it was, and still is, a source of great comfort to me.

kitty, even if you don't get around to sharing your paragraphs, it feels really, really good to compose them. If you have thoughts about what was said, write 'em down. It's very cathartic! I expanded mine in my journal, and revealed a connection that was a true paradigm-shifter.

shannon - your thoughts on whether you might be ascribing your anxiety to the wrong source hit me right in the face. That's an incredibly perceptive idea, and I am still reeling. I am very glad you're on solid ground today - I wish you continued peace, a solid fence, and a purring cat. :)

krampus, you're miles ahead of the game! There's lots of things in life that generate mild resentment occasionally - family, kids, relationships, bills, responsibility, that danged 3am mosquito in the bedroom ... life is a whole series of joys and irritations. Balance it with the joy of a strong, functional body that does everything you want, and looks damn good too!

jayell, thanks for popping in yesterday and contributing. I'd hoped the discussion might inspire you to post!

Going to see Ted Nugent, Styx, and RED Speedwagon tomorrow night - it will be a hot night on the lawn! 94 and humid predicted for tomorrow, phew! Then it's off for 2 days and 2 nights of camping. Which leads to July 1st, the first day of the 2nd half of the year and re-visit to the New Year's Resolutions thread to see how things are progressing.

I took a couple of Aleve for neck pain, which has been keeping me from a good sleep for a couple of days. Woke up to sausage fingers, a puffed-up belly, and a staggering 156.0. I'm wondering if it's the drug itself, or if it's the blue coating on the pill. Or both. Green tea, water, more green tea, ginger tea, more water ... :mad:

I'm back from Arizona and gave quite a bit of thought to our discussions about obsessiveness, etc. while I was driving. I came to somewhat of an epiphany regarding myself during my drive. Yes, I may obsess a lot about food/ exercise now-- thinking about my next meals, what I should/shouldn't eat, etc., it is much different than when I was heavy. Then, I thought much less about my food choices. BUT... I thought much more about how unhappy I was about my body. I would berate myself every morning trying to find something to wear. I would choose something and more often than not be unhappy all day-- thinking about how fat I looked-- imagining others looking at me critically. And don't get me started about how horrible it was to try on clothes-- plenty of self-loathing-- and I wouldn't get in pictures and if I did-- all I could do was look at how horrible I looked. So, yeah... I'll take my self-obsession over food and exercise-- but I put on clothes in the morning with little thought-- and usually feel like I look good!

Now, to get off to the gym and to buy some healthy foods to counteract my lack of exercise and poor food choices in Arizona!

Cut the Fat Podcast # 54: Losing the last 10 pounds.... not just for the 'last ten'...great info about tweaking the diet, individual variations, and mindset/reset.

Ah, the joys of having a roommate who works at Dinosaur BBQ...ribs, cole slaw and potato salad after dinner (spinach salad w/chicken and bleu cheese and too much balsamic vinaigrette dressing...and a candy bar) was not the best choice. I had horrible food-nightmares about being held hostage by robbers at my own wedding.

I logged my weight for all of June and found I maintained successfully with minimal effort! Very encouraging:

I wanted to go to Farmer's Market Yesterday but had a migraine. Feel OK today, though. Still holding at goal weight.
Checked out the Podcast that Exhale referred to, some interesting thoughts there for those of us trying to lose those last pesky pounds.

It is BAD out there.
What also impressed me in the podcast was (1) weight loss is not fair; (2) sustainability is key; (3) to get to 'goal' there has to be no 'goal', otherwise the tendency to drop healthy habits....this is a life-long thing.