Mercedes, whether or not to eat breakfast is entirely up to your body. Let go of the shoulds and shouldnt's and take some time to experiment. Use the hunger scale to record everything you eat, here's a thread i started about that http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/chic...ur-hunger.html

So basically make a chart and write down what you ate and how much, what time you ate it, how hungry you felt before, how full you felt after and any "self talk" you had about the experience. Over the course of a week or so you'll start to figure out what your patterns out.

Guess what, it turns out that on the days I ate a substantial breakfast I ate less during the course of the day and didn't snack. So........ it works for me! you may be different, find out!

Thats true, that is another scenario I forgot. Starting on Monday so last supper eating.

Locke, it is So funny you say that about the pretzels. I was at the store last night and I saw peanut butter covered pretzels. I have been known to eat the whole bag in one sitting before. I really wanted them. So, I got some and I ate a few and then put them away. It wasn't hard, I was just done after a few. They tasted great and hit the spot. Anyway I totally forgot I even had bought them until I saw your post just now. hah hah! Normally they would either be eaten or I would have been thinking about them all day. Ahh freedom from food obsession. It is so wonderful.

Hello Ladies! Glad to see more and more people on the board! I am not on the board as much as I would like, but I drop by when I can. You all are such an inspiration! It is also a blessing to be able to come here and discuss this subject and no one thinks you are nuts!!

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get out of a terrible rut I could use the help. I don't even know how I slipped into the diet mentality again. It may have been getting on a scale and seeing weight loss after I returned from my trip, I haven't been the same since. It may have been my friend who's lost a bunch of weight with hard cord diet and exercise. It may be the extreme pressure of getting back to work and having a work event looming in a couple of weeks. It may be sending my kid off to preschool for the first time this week. It may be the fact that since coming back from the trip is my first opportunity to be alone and therefore secretly binge. Whatever has happened it is drastic and this is the first time since I started IE in February that I feel like I'm completely off the wagon. I feel completely disconnected to my body and unaware of my hunger/fullness signals. This is total relapse.

I'm still adjusting to my new schedule of dropping off my kid at school, not sure where breakfast time falls in now. I think my strategy is to write down everything again like I used to in the beginning using the hunger/fullness scale. And then really taking the time to eat midfully. That's totally gone out the window.

Binge moment - this one is bad, really bad. Haven't done something like this in a really really really long time. I went to pick up donuts. Who knows why. I got a dozen donuts split into 2 boxes (6 and 6). I ate 5 of them really fast, standing up in the kitchen crouching down so my kid wouldn't see me. Fast because my husband was due home any minute. I couldn't eat the 6th one and so I wrapped it up in a bag and threw it away. Then I took the empty box and hid it under my bed so that my husband wouldn't find out. When he came home I said "I got you some donuts" and referred to the 6-pack box that was untouched, therefore proving that I can be around a full box of donuts and not eat them. Stupid scary full on binge behavior. The lying, the strategy, the hiding, the pretending, it's ridiculous. I'm doing something like this daily now.

I feel like a total phony. I was so in control of my life and now I'm a disaster. I really thought I was on my way to something better. I really don't believe I can ever beat this.

Well today I did the unthinkable........I ate ice cream for breakfast. It didn't taste as good as yesterday because I was so afraid I was doing the wrong thing for my health. But the IE books say you should eat the best first so that's what I did.

Well you can fight these beliefs that you've laid out. They're not true. You can feel like a total phony, you can feel like you're a disaster, and you can feel defeated but that doesn't make it true. Remember what you've learned because you can't *unlearn it*. That binge did something for you- what did it accomplish? Did it make your stress go away? Did you feel more in control for a moment because you were satisfying your needs?

You are feeling *guilt*. Don't feel guilt. Don't let your negative feelings become beliefs about yourself. You ate five donuts. That's all. My boss ate four donuts for breakfast yesterday morning. He's a skinny man in his 70's. Forgive yourself and move on. You will figure this all out. Love yourself and be kind to yourself. And *fight the false beliefs*. Remember that progress isn't always linear. People are going to have bad days and relapses- and you're a people, too.

Hello all, I have been lurking and reading this thread for a while, but not weighing in as I'm still struggling to wrap my head around what IE means to me. But after seeing the last posts, I would like to join the conversation.

Wannabeskinny: I'm sorry to hear that, and this is why I'm finally posting - I was feeling relatively confident in my expanding IE ability for a few months. Then just recently, I backslid completely into a diet-and-weigh-constantly mentality, with the result that I began some secret eating in earnest. I haven't done that for many years, it was such a disappointment because I was CERTAIN that I was beyond that particular behavior. But, I tried to break it down into its root causes, and it sounds like you are already doing the same.

The sentence you used ("I was so in control of my life and now I'm a disaster") might indicate that you feel the recent changes in your life have removed your ability to be in charge of your life, hence binging and secret eating. Forgive me if I'm way off base - I may be projecting too much as my biggest binge trigger is loss of control (e.g. houseguests that drastically change the schedule, meal plan, etc.).

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I've been in a similar place recently and still haven't reached any momentous realization about why - it has gradually improved since then, and I feel again that I have a chance at making IE work for me. You appear to have made great strides in your IE journey already, and that is likely why these new developments are especially disappointing to you.

I do forgive myself for the donuts. I don't forgive myself for the behavior though, the lying, the sneaking around, the hiding of evidence. This is behavior I thought I had put behind me. It makes me feel like a very sick person.

Thanks for visiting and chiming in. I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out. From what I understand about how my binging works is that it serves as a much need release of pressure in my life. I don't lose control over my life. The things I need to do within my job, family, career are all clear and laid out. But there is extreme pressure, it feels like I'm int a very overblown balloon and the only way I can let off some steam is to binge. My career is never going to change, every few weeks I am going to have a high pressure situation to prepare for. I cannot continue to use this behavior to relieve the pressure.

Well, I didn't want ice cream the rest of the day nor this morning. Maybe there is something to eating the best first.

Wannabe: Im so sorry. I hate that feeling. Do you feel like your husband disapproves of you eating a lot or eating what is perceived as junk food? Or is the guilt completely coming from inside you? It's really ok to eat whatever and however much you want. YOu are doing great, you have overcome a lot and this isn't a linear journey.

Carol, this morning I saw a Snickers Ice cream bar and thought of you because I decided I was going to have it for breakfast. But...

I saw some donuts and I have been craving donuts for weeks now. So I got some and thought of wannabe. I had a couple for breakfast and they were delicious. I thought about my Ice cream bar but really didn't want it. Weirdly I was very satisfied until way past lunchtime. I seriously think I function best on a high carb high fat diet. When I eat what I really want, it seems like that is what I gravitate to with fruit, protein and veggies sprinkled in.

Last night my dh came home with the news that his plant is shutting down early next year. He has been there for 13 years. We stress ate a giant freezer burned cookie together. It didn't taste good, but my dh wanted a cookie and I wanted to eat one with him. Oh well.

It's hard to get past the current thinking.

Here is a quote from the Overfed Head to consider:

"You might suppose that the problem of overweight is driving the growth of the diet industry, that it has sprung up to serve an obvious need. But what if the opposite is actually the case? What if all this data, all these products and services, are actually contributing to the problem? It's clear that the more we've learned about fat, the fatter we've gotten. Might that be because everything we think we've learned is actually wrong? That is the hypothesis I'd like you to consider."

This resonates with me. I was doing really well until I recently made plans to fly to a conference in the winter/spring. The anxiety over airline seating and potentially rude seatmates sent me straight into the calculator trap: "if I lose X pounds per week for X months, I can weigh blah blah by blah." I even lowered my ticker goal weight temporarily and declared that I must reach "onderland" to be safe, as though that would protect me from fat-hating travelers.

The focus on shrinking at a pre-determined pace robbed me of the ability to be gentle and patient with my body on this journey. Understanding that has helped restore a degree of peace, even though I continue to struggle with fears of taking up too much space.

Not really. To be honest he's not very perceptive of what I eat and he has never judged me. The drama is all inside my head.

Ever since reading Fat is a Feminist Issue long ago, I've been fascinated with the concept of women taking up "too much space" in the world - the disturbing subtext of media imagery that suggests women should always strive to be smaller to atone for the sin of being female.

Weight lifting often feels like a wonderful rebellion against this notion. When I see my muscles develop, I feel that I am again taking up space in a positive, powerful way.

PS - I love the phrase "calculator trap".