"Homesick" for the old ways?
 

I read this book once ("Tales from the Scale," edited by Erin J. Shea) in which someone brilliantly described weight loss as comparable to moving to a new city or country. You settle in the new land (Skinnyville) and are thrilled to become a part of the culture there, but every so often you find yourself in the throes of culture shock/fatigue and wax nostalgic about life before weight loss.

I think I'm at that stage now, and I'm sure everyone finds themselves here at some point, where I am just angry and bitter that I can never eat what I want to eat ever again. I'm mad that I screwed my body over by being overweight and sedentary for years, I'm mad that I'm heavy by Asian standards yet all these thin coworkers who don't exercise are eating rice and processed bread and weigh 20-40 lbs less than me, and most of all I'm disheartened knowing this is a lifestyle change that I may struggle with forever. I'm willing to do it for vanity and health, but sometimes it's tough.

Krampus, I completely agree. I love that I can wear smaller clothes, look nicer in (some) pictures, and generally feel healthier, but I am sad that I will never make a batch of funfetti cupcakes or pig out on a papa john's pizza. I also have thin girl envy of my friends who are naturally super cute and small and who talk about cupcake stores opening in our hometown or the huge pot of pasta they're making... RAR!!

Yes, indeed. Sometimes it is tough!!!

I really want to check that book out now haha. It really is tough! I'm proud of myself for making all these changes and I'm loving all the progress I've made, but sometimes I miss just sitting down and eating however much pizza and ice cream and pasta I want. Yeah, that's why I got to be so heavy, but it kind of sucks having to monitor everything all the time when friends and family members can just stuff their faces with whatever and not gain any weight.

Yes, regularly. I think what stopped me from losing the weight sooner than now is because I felt it was soooo unfair that I couldn't eat what I wanted and be thin....

I do have days and weeks (like now!) when I'm on a plateau and I know I can NEVER go back to the way I ate before because I will gain the weight in 3.2 seconds.

I hate that I have PCOS and it makes weight loss so much harder. I've been tracking my exercise minutes on the PCOS board and I am realizing how hard I work to lose weight and anyone else doing what I'm doing would have lose the weight 10 times over... and here i am, having lost approximately 5 lbs in ONE YEAR.

ARGH.

I get so frustrated sometimes about it.

That is a good book! I think there are like 4 stories if I remember right.

Yeah, there are 6 different authors and it's broken up into topical chapters on sex, weigh-in day, the horrors of clothes shopping, etc. Very conversational and casual - most of the authors are bloggers. I really enjoyed it, but I made the mistake of rereading the chapter about binging on ice cream during lunch and I haven't stopped thinking about ice cream since. Sigh.

I can't do "never." If I tell myself I can never again eat something, it depresses me, makes me feel defective, and causes me to pine for that lost, beloved food until I give in and eat it.

"Never" is a wretched, cruel, unsexy, parsimonious little word. "Never" is why you cry when your pet dies and you realize all the tomorrows you'll miss with her. "Never" is why a break-up hurts. "Never" is why people gain ten pounds before their New Year's resolutions because they believe that they'll miss out on the experience of a mouthful of ice cream for the remainder of their lives. Even thinking about "never" to write this made me all morose and hungry.

So instead of saying "never," I just say "not yet." Chances are, "not yet" means the same as "never" for me, as I don't know that there'll ever be a future in which I can eat a little bag of Cheetos without it leading to bigger bags and regaining weight. But I can live with "not yet" in a way that I just can't abide "never."

And yeah, I do feel a little ripped off sometimes that I drew the "short and fat" number in the genetic lottery. Then I realize there are far worse things in life to be than short and fat; I can always wear heels and lose weight, but things like "dumb and ugly" can't be fixed. :D

Very very very rarely, I miss those kinds of foods. Normally, I feel blessedly free. All my life I struggled with binging and food craving and now I'm free. No matter how good french fries or fudge or peanut butter pretzels taste, there's no way I'd trade the tastes of those foods for my healthy, slim new body.

I can empathize. I am only just beginning my journey though and I am SCARED of being hyper conscious to the point of being obsessed, with caloric intake in the future. That doesn't seem like a happy life to me.

I never plan to go back to my old ways of excess eating, especially of junk, but I do plan on being able to have whatever food I want once in a while. I hope that naturally I lose the taste for certain foods, for example, this past weekend I went out to a restaurant I love and got calamari, which was fried and had marinara and creamy aioli sauce on top. I looved this dish in the past. It was good the first couple bites but after a few bites it began to taste way too rich and fatty and I started to feel a bit gross eating it. So needless to say, thinking of it now, I don't crave it or plan on eating it again anytime soon. If I naturally lose the taste, I won't be "missing out". Practice becomes perfect, even drinking water, which was hard I have gotten used to and drinking most juices taste waaay too sweet to me now. I can have juice if I want but I find that where I used to want it all the time, now I can only drink it occasionally; I hope that happens with ALL "bad foods". For the things I still like, I plan to ENJOY them! Not everyday or excess amounts like in the past, but I will have them.

I realize we can tend to be super worried about what we eat especially if we're very over weight and worked hard to lose; however, one meal or perhaps even one whole day of eating badly will not cause you to gain tens/hundreds of pound back. It is the prolonged process of doing this ALL the time that leads to that. Hopefully, when you make good habits the norm and also incorporate activity into your life, then you can have whatever you want in moderation. I personally like the idea of making that cake, eating that pie or whatever it is then working out for 2 hours than feeling like I can NEVER have it.

I was reading this great journal article about how celebs are portrayed stuffing their faces with food, eating french fries and pizza and what message this sends out to the public. Remember in the Simple Life with Paris Hilton, she was ALWAYS eating fast food, yet had a perfect figure and complexion? It was like she was making fun of the rest of the world.... she can have her cake and eat it too and still look amazing. Her fattening food became sexy.

Anyway, when you wrote about your coworkers being thin, never exercising, and eating tons of rice - I pictured Paris Hilton eating a huge hamburger. I would love to REALLY know why some people gain weight and others don't. Like, a REAL, long-term study that also focuses on genetics and other factors.

I feel like I would get homesick for food if I were on a diet plan, like Atkins, or if I were diabetic or had a gluten allergy. But, not so much with calorie counting.

But, I think I am reading your post wrongly. I think what really irks you is that you will always have to put in so much time and energy to be a size that is effortless for others. I feel your pain there.

You know those studies that predict how much time the normal human spends sleeping or on the toilet in a lifetime? If I calculated the time that I spent devoted to my weight and body thus far in life, SHEESH - I couldn't even estimate. I'm reading so much, planning so much, worrying so much - I'd say that actually, even though I hate to admit it, I have spent more time in thought about my weight loss than any other activity.

I love the other activities in my life - my boyfriend, my work in Germany, my own studies here - regardless, I'm still devoting SO much attention to my body. I hate that. In that way, I wish I could be like the others who just eat and then they are finished.

I have those thoughts, but then I think of it this way: if calories were like money, there is no way I could spend all the money I want all the time and not go into big debt (get fat). It just isn't realistic to live like I used to. What I do now is what responsible people do.

And my theory is that slim people pay a lot more attention to their weight than we give them credit for. Very few are thin without trying. They may indulge in public - heck, I'm more likely to indulge in public. But behind the scenes, they worry about their weight, too, and take measures to keep it down.

At least that's how I choose to look at it.

Krampus - I'm going to get that book! Sounds very interesting.
bonnnie - that is a VERY telling statement about the time spend worrying or working on weightloss. There is a lot of truth to the expression "Life doesn't begin 5lbs from now."

I have tried to use the analogy of putting gas in my car for feeding my face. If I am mad or happy, do I put super-unleaded in my car? No. If my tank is 1/4 empty, so I stop and re-fill it? No. This has worked for me on both sides of the feeding frenzy - the starve and the binge.

And even though weight loss and maintenance are going to be life-long, uphill battles (I have been battling for 20 years to keep off most of the 50lbs I lost when I was 19), there are probably other things that the "can eat anything" people have to deal with that are just as bad. One of my friends is very thin and hasn't had to diet, but she has body hair that she has to bleach, shave, and get electrolysis for.... She's self-conscious in a bathing suit because of her folicles showing. Not fun. I have another friend who has body acne. She refuses to wear sleeveless shirts even though she has these nice slender arms. Even more not fun.

I want to believe with enough practice, we can all be the kind of people who eat, feel full, and are done.

I think I've just accepted being both defective and discontented.

Defective in that I'm a pear-shaped mesomorph, who spent many years developing really bad eating habits and damaging her metabolism.

Discontented because the ideal that I admire and aspire toward is elegant, slender and athletic.

The effort to reconcile that reality with my ideal is my life's work.

It involves a lot of studying & reading up on nutrition & exercise, keeping abreast of the latest theories, second-guessing my choices, learning how to deal with emotional & psychological baggage, and exercising.

Of course, the other option is to let go of my ideal. But I find that impossible. Over time, though, I've definitely relaxed my standards a bit -- had I not done so, I'd still be suffering from a serious eating disorder, instead of battling with borderline behaviors & always having to watch myself.

But this is my choice. If it feels difficult, it's because I've made it that way. I'm the one who wants to look a certain way, who set a certain standard for herself. I'm also the one who does the eating.

I can also identify with this post... The last time I was at my highest weight was when I was completely comfortable - I was in my senior year of college, I lived with two of my closest friends and was constantly surrounded by familiar faces and places, food did give me comfort and joy, I felt 100% secure.

Fast forward a few years later... I'm now living alone in the city, in a new job (I recently left a job where I shared a workspace with another girl who came to be one of my closest friends and who I could count on daily for support and guidance in all aspects of mylife), other friends who I used to go out with every wknd are now moving on and getting married (meanwhile I recently ended things with a guy who used to be one of my good friends from college before we started dating), and on top of that I have an entirely new body. While it's an exciting time in my life and as I get older I begin to learn more and more of what I want, it's also a bit daunting, and a bit overwhelming. Sometimes I get nostalgic for the days when these close friends (who are now settling down) used to drink on friday and saturday nights, sleep in until noon then order some pizza or pick up Wendys and spend the rest of the day laughing about the night before and watching Real Housewives marathons. Oh the good old days... Now my Saturdays consist of waking up at 8 am, going for a 8-12 mile run, running errands, cleaning my apt, and making a healthy as possible dinner, before going out and obsessing over how many calories are in the vodka soda i'm drinking and making the gut wrenching (or so it feels like at the time) decision not to have that 3 am slice of pizza.

What's interesting though, is that back in the "good old days" I was happy about pretty much everything - except my weight, and I always thought "once I lose this weight, life will be perfect." I envisioned myself being thin, dating all the time, living the "sex and the city" lifestyle in the city... Well, 60 lbs lost later, life isn't "perfect." But even just writing this post has been somewhat enlightening and therapeutic in that I realize that what I've lost in weight, I've "lost" other parts of my life that made me happy, and that I need to work on getting those positives back in my life.

Sorry to go on and on, but trust me - you're not alone. And I also get very, very bitter sometimes that it seems there are some people who can eat whatever and still be thinner than me - i.e. the new girl who i share a workspace with at my new job, probably doesn't weigh more than 120 lbs, goes out all the time and drinks, eats whatever she pleases, does yoga maybe twice a week, and belive me - when i am sitting next to her in a mtg and compare her thighs to mine, and shes helping herself to a second serving of pasta salad, it's brutal....

no.

it wasn't sit down and eat what i want. when i want. there was no real genuine pleasure. i could never fill the void. i was always 'hungry' thinking about food yet not waiting long enough to actually be hungry.

no. no. no. i don't miss that.

i didn't get fat on fast food. i ate whole pots of spagetti. even if i make it with chicken, that's no way to live. i can still eat pizza, noodles, cereal. however, my tastes are different. it tastes too salty, sweet. i used to love alfredo sauce. now? its so bland. its like eating paper and even looks plain. putting even more super glue on my hips and thighs.

so now my taste buds have decided to be high class. i prefer extra basil, a dash of curry seasoning, red pepper...whatever i'm in the mood for. if it has too much fat it's often completely undesirable. makes my stomach hurt. (evoo seems to be the exception) when i contemplate eating the junk which is high in fat/calories it's just not worth it to me. if i have pizza. it's a sliver or my own version. even if i wanted to i can't eat the volume i used to eat.

i miss 1 thing. i want to drink large cups of water. 32 oz. but that's no big deal.

I could never live with the idea of "NEVER"...that thought alone makes me want to GORGE!:o

I've been on a meal plan that has taught me alot about my eating habits. The plan allows for one "cheat meal" per week. YES, anything you want to eat...but there's a catch! You MUST watch your PORTION SIZES! This allows me to eat my favorite foods and as such I feel 'rewarded' for all my hard work all week.

The crazy thing is that knowing I have this 'guilt free' CHEAT MEAL once per week, makes it easy for me to not always take it. I only utilize it maybe once per month! But knowing I CAN use it whenever I want it...makes me NOT want it as much (if that makes any sense..haha!)

OP, I say...reward yourself with some icecream...just not the entire gallon;) You run...you take care of yourself...and heck...the extra calories every now and again actually shock our bodies into dropping more lbs...GO FOR IT!!!:congrat:

i sometimes feel envy, bc my bf is one of these people. seems effortless. but he does pay attention. he doesn't eat often, so his stomach is smaller than mine was. he stops when he's full. has tons of muscle. if he noticed he was gaining too much, he would cut back. it's actually hard for him to gain sometimes. and he's embracing eating healthier. he'll most healthy stuff i cook. most veggies. he does w/o. i'm sleeping or after work he uses the gym at work. he also eats light or nothing on day there's a big meal like buffet or holidays. he doesn't emotionally eat.

all this is just not really visible. he doesn't obsess or talk about it.

I feel quite moved reading all these posts...posts of commiseration, sympathy, empathy, encouragement, devilish encouragement... ;)

I have to say that since I've lost weight and am steadily in the mid-upper 120s, I let out my frustration on the weekends. Weekends lately have become synonymous with disgusting pigouts with friends that result in feeling unpleasantly stuffed and guilty, therefore kicking me back into living the healthy way during the week. I need to fully convince myself that it's OK to go ONE weekend without overdoing it.

alexandraT Your "before" situation is the same as mine, to a T. I gained weight because I was so happy and confident I didn't feel like I needed to worry about it. I'm still not ready to accept that in order to be as healthy as I can, I can't keep up my weekends habit. But like a bratty spoiled kid, I want to have my cake and eat it too and wash it down with guilt-free 4 am pizza.

I don't miss my old self. :no: I think maybe because I didn't really leave it. I eat the same way I did before but with better portions. Sometimes I get a feeling that I wish I could just dig into a pot (yes POT) of macaroni and cheese like I used to but as soon as the thought enters my head my stomach bubbles with acid and I'm reminded of the old reflux attacks I had. That's all I need to knock me back to my senses, thank goodness. I can still have mac and cheese, it's just a side now.

I do miss the Chinese Buffet though. I miss being able to go to a restaurant without fear of salt. I hope I can release that fear once I hit maintenance. I hate what it does to the scale.

I can definitely relate. There are times that I want to stomp around and throw a tantrum that I can't be like those "other people" who can eat whatever they want, or even people who can eat more than I can, and stay skinny. It frustrates me that I have to be careful and choosy about what I eat. I miss the days when I could curl up on the couch and just have a whole bag of popcorn, or when I could go to a restaurant and choose the entree that looked tastiest- not what looked healthiest. Those are the things I'm homesick for.

In the same breath, I think about missing fast food and junk food, but I also know that it makes me feel like crap, so they're all very short lived fantasies that are, luckily, becoming fewer and far between. But I still miss those days where I just ate what I wanted, whenever I wanted to, and didn't care.

I love what you have written here. It really is true, isn't it, and it's also the reason you always start "tomorrow" or "on monday", because you aren't quite yet ready to face that never.
I love your thought about "not yet". Even if the time to eat those things never comes - and even if you pass caring about them - it makes it easier JUST NOW

Sounds like a great read and what a wonderful analogy. I do sometimes "miss" just eating whatever I want- but I try to remind myself the good I'm doing for my body and how much longer I'm going to live because of it. :)

See what you think of this thought.

Suppose you went to the doctor, and he or she says, "I'm sorry to tell you, you can never eat iceberg lettuce again."

Well, probably you will feel a teeny bit sorry about that "loss," or maybe you'll just shrug and say, "Oh well!"

And yet the lack of a fast food burger or pizza makes you sad? Why is that?

Well, it's not about the nutrition, and it's not about the flavor (because let's face it, they are usually not that good). So perhaps it's about a feeling they give you. Perhaps it's an addictive behavior that represents something else, like freedom, joy, fantasy... A "hit" of your favorite drug.

I love clams. Love them. I can never eat them again. I have developed a sensitivity to them such that they could kill me. Just one! Just the juice from a can! :eek:

I feel sad about that. But you know what, life goes on.

I've given up other things, too. Tobacco, for example. I don't feel homesick for a cigarette anymore because it was a long time ago. I can't be around smoking at all now, it seems so disgusting.

My point, and like Ellen DeG. I do have one, is that to a great extent habit, addiction, or fantasy is involved in these tender feelings toward a particular food. These foods are a symbol. It's not really about the food.

You can get over that. :yes:

Jay

To be totally blunt, I wouldn't miss iceberg lettuce the way I miss a fatburger because the fatburger just plain tasted good to me. Some of the former "fat" foods I enjoyed still sound enjoyable to me; others sound kinda gross and greasy. The stuff that still appeals will probably continue to appeal, but not because of any feeling more tender than "cheez-its, you are yummy!" ;)

For me, it really is that simple--some stuff tastes great, and sometimes (though not always) that stuff isn't all that great for me especially as I'm losing weight. Fortunately, I also think that asparagus and lean turkey and crisp apples taste great too, so I focus on adding more of the better-for-me stuff I like rather than on how much I miss the less-good-for-me stuff I like.

In one sense, I'm already "over" cheeseburgers; I don't feel deprived, I don't pine for them, I'm not moved to eat one and count it as most of my day's calories. But in another sense, I don't know that it's realistic for me to believe that after 41 years, I will transform into the kind of person who really would prefer a salad to a slice of fast-food pizza 100% of the time.

Yes, but that's what's called a false dichotomy. It is almost never a choice between "a salad" versus "a slice of fast-food pizza." There is a world of choice between those two.

I stopped eating fast-food pizza years ago when I was stuck at an airport and the only choices were fast food. I went for Pizza Hut. I regretted it for hours afterward, not because it was a "bad" food choice but because I had terrific indigestion and still felt underfed. :p

To each his or her own!

Jay

You're right--it absolutely IS a false dichotomy and I should've recognized it. I regularly eat pizza, but now it's pizza with a homemade crust, vegetable toppings, and a light sprinkle of cheese instead of a heavy layer. It adds up to about 500 calories for the whole thing, but I split it up into two meals and enjoy it with a salad or soup.

So why would I talk about "missing pizza" when I already get to eat pizza? And like you, I used to feel kind of crappy after eating FF pizza. I really don't miss it, yet I used that as my example.

What's interesting is the difference between this post in which I see the false dichotomy you pointed out and acknowledge that no, I really don't miss fat-pizza as I have my own version to enjoy. What's changed? I ate! I was hungry when I posted earlier and now I'm not.

The pizza in my mind sounded a lot better when I was hungry; now it or salad or a cheeseburger or whatever all sound equally "meh" because I'm no longer feeling hollow-bellied. Maybe "fat" foods only sound better to me when I let myself go too long between meals. Considering I used to eat two huge meals instead of six small ones, maybe that contributed to my always opting for the most fattening option after not eating for twenty hours at a stretch.

Lesson learned. I genuinely appreciate your post and what I learned from going back and reading this thread. Thank you! :)

And thank YOU, Nola Celeste! I think this is really important:

Absolutely a factor!

That's why it's good to have a plan in mind...

Jay

My sadness isn't about missing food I used to eat, because like others have said, some of that food doesn't taste as good anymore or I've found better and healthier substitutions.

My frustrations is that I am eating less, more healthy, limiting my calories and my weight loss is sooooooo sssssslllllloooooowwwwwwww.

On very bad days, when I'm tired of this whole thing, I think about how I used to NEVER have to count calories, never had to worry if this food was going to put me over the limit, whether it was okay to eat 1600 today if they were all whole foods/grains and no junk, or whatever, and I even though I weighed 20 more pounds than I do now, I wasn't so obsessed with food.

Now, I am, and I lose weight at such a glacial pace, it's sometimes hard to remember that the focus is on my health, rather than just pure weight loss.

My sadness is not for the food, it's for not belonging anymore.

I can't go back to being completely oblivious & unthinkingly doing what I thought a lot of people all around me were always doing -- I mean in eating certain stuff & staying far away from the gym.

I feel exiled, like I had to go away from all the others & eschew their routines because there's something wrong with me, so very wrong that I can't ever be like other people who get to eat all the stuff advertised everywhere I look.

That's what bothers me the most, having to be one of the weird ones.

Which is why reading about others' discontent here on 3FC is so very comforting.

I was weird when I was fat, and now I'm not fat, but I'm weird in my daily habits because I have to be, to avoid the weirdness of going back to being fat.

Choose your weirdness.

Beautifully put, Rana and saef. I hate to reduce everything to a grossly overused and abused tagline, but ignorance truly can seem like bliss when you feel wholly overeducated. I would make a comparison to "The Matrix" but the cheesewagon already overfloweth.

i completely identify with that. i was and still 'weird'. in school, the bookworm, teacher's pet. as i got older and fatter in conversation always about being healthier, mainly food focused. now my conversation is about fitness with the occasional cool food find. i'm trying to pay attention to cues their done listening to my blabbing about this w/o, that instructor, blah, blah,blah. at least here i can talk about any weightloss nsv's, food finds, issues, triumphs, as much as i want. and at least now i finally can walk the talk i constantly talked about. here, i can belong. surrounded by those that have conquered the mountain.

my mountain is myself. i don't miss eating with people because my binging buddy is me. i eat alone what i wouldn't dream of in front of other people. just a bunch of lonely depressed feelings. of course there's nothing to miss. that mountain, my head will always be there. i always knew what to do. now hopefully this new thinking and habits will stay with me. so i'm never obese again. even in maintance i'll need some type of accountabilty. i don't miss eating 3 plates of spagetti in one night. or alfredo or mac and cheese. doesn't matter. binging alone isn't fun. it isn't i ate whatever i wanted. it's not freeing. not thinking about food. THATS freeing.

i can't do never either. "never" is a guarantee'd binge for me. i have a book called "the thin commandments diet" where He says if you have issues with never, tell yourself when you are old and in "gods waiting room" (LOL) you will have some pizza. But don't waste the prime of your life giving into a breadbasket or desert. He says it much better than me but..... that's what your post made me think of :)

-fm