Rats, and here I am all out of peanut butter. Almond butter and raspberry jam on a baguette is close enough, right?

You know what, I may just do that for lunch lol!

I just ate lunch, and my intuition told me I wanted.......grilled cheese!

I guess my PB&J phase came just a bit too early, huh?

I wanted to share something I found with you guys because it sort of shocked me. I've known I've had an eating disorder for a long time but I just lived it- I never really researched communities or anything. I'm reading a book called The Religion of Thinness right now and it mentioned the Ana Creed, which is set of commandments for people who accept and want to continue living with an ED (anorexia, specifically). I've never been anorexic (I'm bulimic) but what SHOCKED me was how I was living my life by this code without even knowing it. I wanted to show it to you all because IE has helped me with learning to not live this way and to love myself.

This may be triggering for people with EDs proceed with caution:

I believe in Control, the only force mighty enough to bring order to the chaos that is my world.

I believe that I am the most vile, worthless and useless person ever to have existed on this planet, and that I am totally unworthy of anyone's time and attention.

I believe that other people who tell me differently must be idiots. If they could see how I really am, then they would hate me almost as much as I do.

I believe in oughts, musts and shoulds as unbreakable laws to determine my daily behavior.

I believe in perfection and strive to attain it.

I believe in salvation through trying just a bit harder than I did yesterday.

I believe in calorie counters as the inspired word of god, and memorize them accordingly.

I believe in bathroom scales as an indicator of my daily successes and failures

I believe in H3ll, because I sometimes think that I'm living in it.

I believe in a wholly black and white world, the losing of weight, recrimination for sins, the abnegation of the body and a life ever fasting.

There are people out there who have knowingly adopted this code because they want to live this way to achieve a thin body. I was absolutely shocked when I read it because each line details a belief or value that I had/have about myself. I had never read this before.

Wow. (I've never seen this before either)

The second line almost took my breath away.

That is really sad, Locke. I am so very glad to hear that you feel IE is helping you through these types of feelings.

I sometimes get down on myself, but I can honestly say I've never felt anywhere near this way. Sure, I do have perfectionist tendencies, and there were times when dieting that I felt like a failure if I strayed from "the plan." I guess I'd get pretty annoyed with myself, but I just never felt this bad about it.

It makes you realize just how much some people struggle. When you haven't walked in their shoes, it's shocking to see that some people really do feel this way.

Where are you, carolr?

Haven't seen you post in a while. Hope everything is okay.

Just want to update that I had another "aha" moment today.

I've been giving my unconditional permission to eat whatever I want for the past two weeks, and I'm still going through my list of "forbidden" foods. Today I was craving an apple fritter donut, so I went and bought one.

I began eating it, it tasted awful! The sweetness, the dough itself..yech. I kept hoping it would get better with the next bite, but it didn't! I ended up throwing the rest away halfway through.

I have NEVER thrown away a donut before! I thought they were one of my favorite foods, but now that I gave myself permission to eat it, it definitely wasn't very good! It's really cool finding out that some of the foods I've been wanting so desperately are ones that I don't even like! It was my deprivation mentality that made them appeal to me, and now that I'm working on getting over that, I'm much more picky in eating what I truly enjoy.

Just another question,

Do you find it difficult to get full on light foods/ vegetables?

I ate quite a bit of butternut squash, I felt full perhaps but definitely not satiated-which lead me to eat more food after...

Does this mean I'm trying to introduce "healthy" foods to soon?

I have an easier time feeling satisfied with my cupcakes! lol

Kolali good stuff on that fritter!! I used to love those things, too and suddenly they got just too heavy for me most of the time.

On you fullness question, I think it is hard to feel fullness on light foods. It is much easier if you add a protein like a chicken breast or whatever. It's also important to be really hungry when you start. If I'm eating something light without the protein or whatever (like fruit, vegetables, popcorn, et al) it helps me to just think about a rational portion and stop at the end of it. At that point you are probably better off nutritionally switching to something else anyway.

But go with the flow...

Yesterday I hadn't eaten much, went to the beach after a nice breakfast and it was late afternoon when I got home quite hungry. I made a lemon chicken recipe I love and had a big salad with a good sized portion tasted just so good. Later in the evening, I probably should have just put together another small meal, but instead I was rather searching eating had fruit, a granola bar, piece of chocolate sort of one thing at a time and it was unsatisfying. Not awful but I should have just eaten another meal would have felt better.

Locke, where did you find that thing? It's horrible. This is not triggering for me because I don't relate to any of it except the one bit that says "If they could see how I really am, then they would think I'm crazy or not normal. That's about it. Try not to visit that site, it's terrible. Self afflicted torture, pain is love - well I'm trying not to judge here but there is nothing that can benefit me from this pledge.

Koalifornia, great job with that donut. Look, it doesn't mean you don't like donuts but maybe you just didn't like it in that moment. And that's ok too! What it really means is that you're getting in tune with your tastes and preferences rather than assuming that you're "game" for your forbidden foods all the time. Whenever I could sneak in an opportunity to eat a forbidden food I took it whether or not I was hungry or even felt like it. I can't tell you how many times I went through the drive thru even though I was stuffed. Just because an opportunity presented itself! Those were particularly bad binges in the sense that they overwhelmed me with self hatred.

Last night for example was kind of crazy. I expected to binge because I got out of work at 10pm and hadn't eaten anything since lunch at 1pm. I knew I wouldn't get a chance to eat until late and I had even given myself permission to go through a drive thru early on in the day. Once I got off work, hungry as heck and equipped with permission to stop at the nearest fast food place I realized I had no desire at all to go through with it. It just didn't appeal to me, I couldn't think of any fast food joint that sounded good. So I drove home and finally sat down to some french bread with camembert and fig jam, and a small bowl of cheetos. Ok, not exactly the most nutritious late night dinner however, I didn't overeat, I enjoyed every bite and I didn't binge. I know someone else who's dieting would feel all sorts of guilt for eating that sort of thing late at night but for me it was a pleasant and welcome relief.

@Koalifornia

Good stuff on the donut. It's amazing the sorts of foods I find myself not enjoying once I actually really taste them. I have had the same experience with "light" foods. Wednesday night I had a chicken breast and steamed vegetables. It's what I was craving. When I finished the portion that I had I could feel that my stomach was full from the vegetables but I wasn't satisfied. I ate more veggies and still wasn't quite satisfied. I stopped eating because my stomach was full (it felt bloated) but I was still hungry. It was not a good experience. I guess lighter foods are better for people who want to feel very full for not so many calories- I'm the opposite. I like not feeling anything in my stomach.

@Wannabe
That's from some random pro-eating disorder website. I found it in a book about how "thinness" has achieved the status of religion in the Western world. I try not to go to ED websites, in fact I really wasn't aware of their existence until I picked up this book. I don't really feel those things anymore, not often anyway. And yet it's a terrible thing. I feel bad that there are so many people struggling to get to a level of thinness that is beyond what most can achieve.

Yes that list really bothered end me and I must say I don't resonate with any of it.

The thing about IE that was a breakthrough for me is that there really isn't a darn thing wrong with me that I didn't create through restricting. I used to lookup my binge behavior and read about all the deep psychological traumas and wonder what the world I was missing. And while I fully acknowledge there are definitely people who do have childhood or other issues at the root of serious eating disorders, it just isn't the case for me. I had a lovely childhood, was trim. My weight gain was the result of normal societal marketing social food pressures and the very normal response of dieting off the gains. Over and over and over again.

At the bare minimum you want to at least eliminate this element of the behavior cycle and then work on what is left.

And I fully recognize that dealing with reasonably minimal amounts of weight that I am is a whole different issue than large overweight and obesity health issues and social implications. But I will still say that the internal war and food obsessions, guilt, and frustration have similarities.

Exactly the same for me, Cindy. I completely relate to this comment.

Ever since Wannabe described her tuna fish sandwich with tomato, I've been craving one too! I do have the tuna but I need to go to the local farmer's market for some decent tomatoes. I'm heading down there in just a few minutes; fortunately for me it's not very far.

For me, this is a perfect meal for a Lenten Friday.

Don't ever feel like because you don't have as much weight to lose as someone else that your struggles aren't valid enough. I HATE it when someone makes me feel like their struggles are more severe, someone did that just this morning on a thread here at 3FC and it ignites so much hostility. Thankfully I know how to tap into my compassion for someone who does that and not react poorly. But there are plenty of people who struggle with food issues that don't have any weight to lose. So let's get that squared away.

In fact SouthernMaven you'll be interested to know that I was cleaning out my inbox and found a PM written to me about you last year! The poster said something along the lines of "don't trust SM because she doesn't post her stats and she's said that she doesn't have much weight to lose like we do and she's doing IE which is a bunch of BS anyway!" My reply to her was "I've never heard of IE but it's worth looking into if she's finding success with it, besides, I don't care about posting stats, that's no reason not to trust anyone and I don't judge anyone based on whether they have a lot or a little to lose."

There was some abuse in my childhood and it may have given me more issues with self esteem than the average person. There are times, particularly when I'm tired, that I feel overwhelmed and then the compulsive negative thoughts creep in. I start to believe that I'm worthless and that I will never be happy (and I don't deserve it anyway). I've spent years in therapy and on medication. Nothing really helps. The zen meditation that I've been doing recently has helped. One day at a time.

Here's an article that I read today that had some IE insights. I thought you all might want to take a look: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/6018...n-made-simple/

Last night I had a bit too much wine and then overate some crackers and cheese. I'm not feeling bad about it. It just happened and that's that. There's something about Thursday nights that make me want to have more wine than I should. *shrugs* Next time I'll be more vigilant about it. Here comes the weekend where I will be inside my house most days writing my thesis. I have trouble not overeating when I'm stuck at home all day. I'm hoping this weekend I will be more attuned with my hunger signals than last.