To be honest, I find that selection too vague to be helpful. I think there has to be a balance between making choices for our health and the culture that makes food and eating into something bad. But I don't feel like that helped me figure it out. I think it maybe goes further towards throwing the baby out with the bathwater than I would be comfortable with. I don't know.

I just had a light bulb moment. All of a sudden food has lost its allure. It just doesn't seem that exciting anymore. Almost like you lost a good friend. Kind of sad in a way. But that's ok.

Hello all, I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoyed your time with your friends, family and yourselves.

I have always noticed that when I "feel fat" I examine everything else in my life as a negative. When I am feeling fat, then I don't feel pretty, I don't think I'm good enough, I start comparing my career choices to other people, blah blah blah...

But when I feel "skinny" I feel like I can take on the world! The day looks bright, everyone is on my side, etc etc.

Why can't I just be a person, and not fat or thin? And how is that how I feel with regards to weight determines my mood so much.

Thoughts?

Could you shine some of that light on me?

YEP!

RANT ON

This is me too, Etherence. Unfortunately my "skinny days" are far and few between. I really think it's the society we live in. Skinny is worshiped, fat is ridiculed and rejected. Just MHO, but I believe Hollywood's shallow view of women has infiltrated the whole country, and beyond. We have shows on TV that tell us what not to wear and how to look 10 years younger that glorify being beautiful and wrinkle-free and ridicule for being otherwise "normal." Money, tummy tucks and face-lifts buy you beauty and this is what is pushed and seemingly expected in women who do not measure up to their standard. Look at any Amish community and see if this problem exists. What you will see is a group of women of all ages and sizes dressed alike who do not compete with one another for beauty status. Instead they live and work together as a community free from society's warped ideals. They shun our lifestyles and probably for very good reason! I can't turn on a TV without seeing some half-dressed (skinny) woman trying to sell me something. Every other page of magazines targeted at women is filled with slim, sexy 20-somethings pushing products that promise you the same results! Even before becoming a woman I was a young miss, far from being seventeen, when I was introduced to magazines depicting what a beautiful female body should look like and those images are forever etched in my mind. We've got celebrities enticing us to call Jenny and products that help us get slim fast! I could go on and on but you probably get the picture. Is it any wonder that just feeling fat would have such a negative effect on one's mood?

And yet the battle of the bulge continues ...

RANT OFF

Well ladies...tried the whole initutive eating thing since Wed night and it DID NOT work for me yet!!! I'm just in one of these rarrrrr moods right now because I'm so dissappointed in myself. I had such good intentions before visiting my folks and when I got there, I just totally lost my mind. ERRRRRR.....

Hey JamieJo~
I totally know how you feel about being frustrated with the process, but the cool thing is since it is a process you can examine why you are frustrated about what happened and what you can learn about it. Maybe if you like you can share with us what happened at your parents...

xoxo,
Rachelle

Haha blue...thanks for the response...it is just so amazing how fat or overweight as a physical characteristic can really affect how one feels mentally...I am trying to work hard to get over that...

speaking of...has anyone ever heard of Geenen Roth? She also talks about IE but I think focuses more on on the psychological aspects of what it means to be "fat" and how that affects a person...

We'll, my parent's house if full of every food "I am not allowed to eat." So I figured, I'm going to allow myself to eat whatever and just focus on if I'm really hungry or not...how eating that makes me feel, etc... We'll one oreo cookie ended up leading to half the bag. A handfull of chilie cheeze freedoes led to an entire bag! One peice of apple pie lead to three. It was like, once I had a taste of one of the forbidden foods, I couldn't stop.

Did a crazy workout last night which made me feel better and thankfully it looks like my weight wasn't effected, yet.

Jamie, if you have been denying yourself those foods, of course you're going to binge on them. But if you did that for a week or so, you would get sick of those foods. Eat nothing but fritos, apple pie and oreos and you will not want to eat them.

THIS, my friends, is why I don't watch TV anymore. Well, the fact that I have two children 19 months and 2 months old is probably part of the reason, too (too busy!).

Anyway, I decided a while back I wasn't going to let them (those who control the media/TV) tell me how to feel about myself, how to think, how to vote, how to dress, whom to compare my life/marriage/body/skills to, etc.

I'M FREEEEEEEEE!

I went thru a long period of time when I just wouldn't have hardly anything to do with the TV or movies or anything ... couple of years I think. Only on occasion would I watch TV and then the program was usually religious in nature. But somehow over the last three years or so I have let it creep back into my life. Honestly, I wish I had never let that happen! I am much more critical of myself now and find myself yearning to be something I'll probably never be! And I know it's because I've been made to feel less than perfect (ha, less than average for that matter) all thru the magic of TV!

I envy your freedom mom2mollie and am really reconsidering just turning off the TV again! Not that I watch it a lot, but I am known to watch shows like the ones I described (if I'm not watching a movie).

We haven't had a TV for about 30 yr. but we did get a computer a few years back and you can get the same things there. It can be a real temptation.

Hey Jamie,
If you go through the book, it talks about the process you are going through in IE. It's natural that when you first start, you may have a large amount of foods that you had been denying yourself. It's the whole legalization of forbidden foods thing. The most important thing is to allow yourself to have those foods without guilt (easier said then done) because the guilt and feelings surrounding them are really destructive.
I went through a period of legalization and overeating myself. The amount of time varies for different people.
One thing to that helps is that I tell mysef it's okay to eat these things, and if I am full now but still want them, I can have them later when I get hungry.
Sorry if this sounds preachy but I've been there and it's hard to go through alone!

xoxo,
R

Rachelle, I just read your blog and it sounded just like what I wrote on the 28th. Can you believe it?

Sigh...the allure of food going away...but the desire to eat for allure still there...

What have you been doing to combat this? Suggestions?