Thanks Carolr. I think I will just read what I can online and maybe look for the Overfed Head.

I went to the store and bought some things that I want. Still have a tendency to thing diet and "I should eat this and not that". Guess it will take a while to get rid of those feelings.

Last Sunday a transformer blew and the lights went out and we had to end church services early. Got the weekly e-newsletter from Pastor saying that a squirrel caused. Tony sent out our weekly prayer list to our prayer partners and jokingly said for us to pray the squirrels will know the difference in an acorn and a transformer.

Pastor's wife wrote DH a note telling us the cute way how a young sibling of one the little ones in the nursery ran into the nursery last Sunday and told her "Ms Diane we don't have any lights and the grass is on fire and we have fried squirrel". Thought y'all would get a chuckle as children are so cute when they discribe things. Those of us who have worked kids or have them know the joy of listening to them and getting good laughs out of them.

Y'all have a great Sunday.

Hi everybody, I am back on track! I have been off for few days! Some emotional emptiness and then fear as I am visiting family soon and my head is in the food. I overate and I was not willing to listen to my body. I also have some fears of losing weight and I need to address them on daily basis somehow. I keep the weight as a protection thing and this is why I just have it on and off, on and off. But I really need to do this, I am sick on eating because of fear and because of people. I need to become natural and be the person who i am meant to be. It is hard sometimes but I am going to try and go swimming tomorrow or gym, or jogging, something like that! Surrender to my nature and know that it will work!

Hope, I often have that feeling when visiting family. But I'm much better now that I've kept off 30 for a couple years, even though I could lose another 20. Most of the family on both sides have weight problems. Trish, my grandkids and their aunt are visiting for a week. Their mom is a nurse and works 4 nights in a row. Her dh recently left her so she is going through a hard time. They do say and do the cutest things.

Well, I'll try this again. I wrote a post and lost it. So here goes.

Hope for Recovery I used to think that my weight protected me from men hitting on me so I felt safe. Then one day I realized that it didn't work. It was still happening. I think my age keeps that from happening these days. Any way, look and see if your weight really is your protection from whatever you situation is. It may be protecting you and it may not be. If it is, then I would suggest seeing if something else would work better or at least just as well.

Carolr Thanks again for the suggestions on the books. I'm going to use the Am I hungy site for reading and I signed up for newsletters or whatever. I was able to get the Overfed Head book through Amazon for 1 dollar more total than it would have cost me from Bob Stevens sight before shipping and handling. Thought about joining there, but the kit is expensive. So decided to order the book and trust the Lord to help me through the book alone. I gave my email addy so maybe I'll get emails from him. I should have the book by Friday.

As I looked and read through IE#13, I saw CatholicCajun (Tammy) and Becky, but didn't see Blue. Just wondered if you know if she is trying something else? Blue if you're reading this, check in and say hello.

Thank you carol! I suppose with the family, they used to have all these requirements from me and I always felt that I disappoint them and upset them. I felt less than and not good enough and my aim was to please them which is something unattainable. Now I am a grown up and ok around other people but family disapproval always really gets to my self esteem. I am working on it and having some mantras that I don't need them to approve of me, I don't need to live my their values but my values. Who they are does not affect who I am, they love me very much!

I called my gran yest and she did end up saying that I should walk every day because when she walks she loses weight. Immediately I felt I am not good enough but I am working on it. It is her issues, not my issues.

Pattygirl, thank you so much for writing about the weight protection. I have had a though about it before but never got to the place, where things keep on happening regardless of how much I weight. It is such a passive aggressive way of dealing with life. If I ate because I wanted to escape from people and their criticism, they criticised me anyway because that is just who they are. If I ate to run away from responsibilities, they were still there.

If I though my weight protects me from happiness and success and gives me an excuse, then it actually doesn't. Things still happen this way, men still hit on me. It is me who goes he thinks i am fat, he won't like me. People won't like me because I am fat is such a safe zone to be in, I don't have to talk to them, I don't have to let them know me because they might actually like me and then i will not know what to do! It really is an excuse for not being happy, if I do let the weight go I might become very normal and happy and then i don't have this weight problem about me and life can flow and be wonderful! It is so confusing!

But I will try again to accept that it is ok if weight goes, I just need to eat, make effort to eat proper meals, otherwise when i start cutting down on self will, i end up overeating like over the weekend. It actually amazes me how much food really fit people eat. To me, they do seem to eat a lot of food.

have a successful day everybody! I am keeping up with morning exercise but I do need to squeeze in some cardio session and i just don't know how and when but I will do it!

Hope for Recovery I know exactly how you feel. I think a lot of us who have weight issues also have someone or people we've worked hard to get their approval only to realize that we can never please them. You know what I finally learned? They are unhappy people and nothing REALLY makes them happy. For some reason they don't know how to be happy unless EVERYTHING is going their way and even then they find something or someone to criticize. Now it is time to learn what makes you happy. Believe me I'm saying these things to myself as I'm saying them to you.

I shared this when I was hear way back when, but I will share it again as I've really been thinking about it since I came back to IE thread and I read the free chapter from Rob Stevens book Overfed Head.

I was never had a weight problem until I went to college. I was one of those kids who only ate because Mama would make dinner and you were expected to come in to eat. I was never one to hang around asking what or when we were going to eat. Food was one of those necessities like bathing. You just did it. I never questioned it. I never ate breakfast unless we were on trips and we ate out for breakfast while on vacation. On holidays when we would got to somebodies home or they came to ours for festivities, we didn't eat until meal was served. So food held no fascination for me one way or another. At school, I had the same lunch everyday until my senior yr. I had a ham sandwich, a pkg of chips and a carton of milk which came to 24 cents. My senior yr I started going across the street and ate a bag of chips and a coke Mon - Thurs so that Friday I could treat myself to a burger. That is when I started feeling run down. Now I realize it was probably due to the 4 days of chips and coke. Since Daddy let me have the car to go to school and then pick him up from work after, I sometimes would go to my great aunt's grocery store and have a cream puff and a coke. I didn't gain weight back then, but boy did I feel rotten.

When I went to college meals were available and everyone ate so I would eat three meals. I was active enough that it probably wouldn't have hurt me, but my friends wanted to go to the corner drugstore every night and we had either a cherry coke or shake. I'm sure that is what helped put the weight on me. When I went to live with my aunt, she insisted on 3 meals a day and I learned to eat whether I was hungry or not. I remember thinking one day when eating something I was really enjoying feeling kind of guilty because a meal would be coming up soon. I remember saying out loud to myself, "well I wouldn't have a problem if I could just eat what I wanted and not have to eat a meal later".

Last night I was reading Rob Steven's free chapter I down loaded. He said if you get up and your not hungry, but you eat any way because you think you are supposed to eat... YOU JUST OVERATE because your body didn't need it. I remember hearing my pastor say that he only eats 2 meals a day and sometimes he gets busy and forgets to eat and only eats one meal or grabs a bite of something somewhere. Then I read somewhere about a doctor who had not in eaten breakfast in many yrs. Can't remember how long now. So now I wonder just how much we are told about what we "should" do to lose weight and be healthy is true. I can't wait to get my book Friday and start reading it.

In light of what I shared with Hope of Recovery above, I woke up this morning thinking about what I had read and noticed that I was not hungry. So I went back to sleep. When I got up later, I realized that I still was not hungry. My "diet thinking" hit and I thought I should eat something but wasn't hungry. Had that little argument run in my head for a while and finally decided to open a small container of Peach Activia that I had bought DH and he didn't like the peach. Since I really couldn't tell if I was hungry or not by then I opened it and ate 3 bites and realized that I didn't need any more. I put foil over it and put it back in fridge until another time. Didn't eat anything until about 2:30. Didn't have what I wanted so made me a nice big salad which I totally enjoyed, ate almost all of a broccoli and noodle cheese tv dinner I had in the freezer and some Girl Scout choc mint cookies I bought the other day and I am more than satisfied. I did take out a pork chop for later that I've been hungry for. May have it later if I still want it and if not I'll save it for tomorrow or some other time.

I also got my Joyce Meyer book out to read called "Eat and Stay Thin". I've read it 2x before but think I'm ready for it more now. I lost it once before and couldn't find it on her website so may be out of print as she has a couple of other ones now. I've got those and will be reading them as I get back into IE. Looks like IEers have to unlearn some things to learn how to be thinner.

Hope everyone is having a good day and good weather. We are supposed to have thunderstorms with high winds later today.

Trish, I read Joyce Meyer's book once. I didn't think it was IE, however. You can get most any book on Amazon, even ones that are out of print.

Hi guys it's me again,

Up to ie #11 now, you guys write a lot! I am still trying to ie to an extent, but today has been a bit crazy with PMT (i hope. hoping its not a baby as im a bit late eek). But im taking comfort in something i read in the thread way back, that when a woman has PMT/S she needs an extra 300 calories more, so i suppose it would make sense to be more hungry.


Ive realised i need to post a lot more so that i can get my signature up and running with a little ticker The diet club at work hasnt bothered me as much as i thought, as im actual taking a cheeky little delight in losing weight while still eating what i want! I was 192lbs when i started and im down to 187lbs now even though ive not been moving as much as i ought to. So all in all pretty much enjoying it.

Keep going with this everyone it is awesome and it seems to work!

And having read all the posts leading up to ie 11 and seeing faces come and go its lovely to see some of the same people still here, Carolr and Trish

everyone

xx

Post away, Pipstar. Way to go on losing the 5lb.

Well, I've been feeling really weird today as my blood sugar has really been high the past few days. I found out that the diabetic medicine I'm on does better not only with a low carb diet, but that there are certain foods that make it either uneffective or less effective. For example I can't have grapefruit or grapefruit juice with it. I don't think it happens with everybody, but it causes me to go into lactic acidosis (think I said that right). Although there are foods I cannot eat while taking Metformin, the fact is that I still want to do IE. I believe that even eating low carb can still be intuitively. So if y'all don't mind, I think I'll still hang out here. I look forward to getting my book. I believe even eating low carb should be done only when hungry and eat only the low carb foods you want and love and eat until satisfied.

Have a good Wednesday and I hope my FBS is down considerably tomorrow. They say it takes a few days to get it back down.

Later.

Hi everybody! Thank you for what you have shared with me above and thank you for being there so we can all do it together. I hit a rock bottom yesterday with not checking my weight. I am so used to identifying myself with my weight that i was really lost and confused that I just did not know whether i am thinner than before or not. It is the sense of control that comes with it and i was out of control so it was scary. But I didn't check my weight because it does not define who i am. What i would like to do is love my body even when i am feeling fat. I will be feeling fat and bloated every now and then because i am a woman.

What i would like is to love my body just like it is, to connect with it more and to care for it even more and even better.

Thank you reminding me about the unhappy people pattygirl63. There really are a lot of unhappy people out there and i am super sensitive. My self-esteem has been crushed over the years and i only feel worthy sometimes only if people like me. But this is silly, i have lost myself, I want to stop this, no matter what people think.

pattygirl, I do overeat then, it is so confusing trying to find out when my body wants food and when it doesn't. I really need to work at listening to it properly. There is no other way. Sometimes i wake up and i think i need breakfast but i am not always hungry. At dinner I ate ok but I drank a glass of water with it... why on Earth did i do that, I was not thirsty. Now I feel very full and uncomfortable.

Overall, I am positive, I had cereals leftovers and trust me that hardly ever happens. So i shall carry on towards being close with myself and knowing my needs. Not checking weight soon, no matter what.

Have a lovely day everyone! Hope we all get aligned with our bodies and follow them with love and care to the best that we can!

Me, too.

Hope for Recovery Your post brought tears to my eyes. I am 67 yrs old and have felt that way most of my life. Strange even when I was thin I felt that way. My Mother was a beautiful woman. She died when she was 65 and I look just like her always did and can look in the mirror and see her. The problem is I don't see me as even being pretty although I've had husbands who thought I was. My Daddy and I weren't close until after she died and that was because I thought he didn't like me and that he thought I was ugly. I'll never forget the day we were talking and I don't know what I said to him, but his response was "I don't know what ever made you think you were ugly." I never could tell him that he always made me feel that way. As we've grown close through the years, I've learned that he probably didn't think I was ugly... I looked like Mama, but I am just like him and he probably hated the things he saw in me that he hated about himself.

Now I try to do what is best for me. Somehow I hope you can learn to forgive and let go the things said to you or the way those who hurt you make you feel. Then I pray that somehow you can learn to love yourself and be good to yourself because you deserve to love yourself and to take care of you. and prayers coming your way.

Carolr You are still a real inspiration to me. Hope you are feeling well.

Have a great evening everyone.

Do you eat at night before bed if you are hungry or do you just go to bed kind of hungry? I can never decide what to do. Sometimes I eat and wish I hadn't. Another thing, sometimes I don't realize that I am hungry until I take a few bites. Ever feel like that........then it tastes so good so I know I must have been hungry. This is usually when I have waited too long such as putting off eating to finish shopping.