Six months of:
No bacon.
No Steak.
No hamburgers.
No chips. (OK I snuck a few baked ones, sue me!)
No malts or ice cream of any kind.
NO PIZZA!
No hot dogs.
No ham.
NO BREADS!…(Well, one flour tortilla.)
No peanut butter.
No cookies.
No pie.
No cake.
Did I mention it gets verrrry hard to remain diligent?
Sometimes it’s exhausting….and a little depressing. I'm being honest here..it can be pretty hard.
For almost 5 months I only ate the food that I bought from Mercy Weight Loss Center. It was tremendously freeing to not have to make any food choices. However, that isn't real life, (tho it did really help me lose the weight!) and they are now helping me to develop wise and healthy ways to be selective in what and how I choose to eat.
Over the past several weeks, I have been reintroduced to fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins.
That has taken some of the pressure off of having a much wider variety of foods to choose from, but it has unexpectedly brought another problem with it.
I can normally deal with the "hands-off" foods. I've been having some trouble slowing down on "legal" foods.
I have always been a “High-Volume eater. Getting retrained in my thinking that "Enough is a Feast" takes some doing. Tho I am working at it diligently.
Gradually over these few weeks I have found myself really eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. Eating to the point of being so full my stomach hurt.
I had forgotten what that uncomfortable feeling of over-fullness felt like. I don’t like it at all!
It seems that once I start eating some low-calorie foods like tomatoes or grapes, I can just eat and eat with no real thought of moderation. I don’t wait for signals from my stomach that I have had enough. It's like I never get enough to eat. Even when I’m feeling “full”, I’m thinking about what the next thing I can eat is in an hour or so…thinking about food, and lots of it!
This was the path to hell that got me up to 380 pounds!!
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| DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! |
I want to remain under control, yet my brain gets tired of constantly overruling my stomach.
In the short term of the moment, it is always easier to give in to the temptation to eat(after all these are “just” fruits and vegetables, my brain says) but in the slightly longer term it means that the brakes could be off and other higher calorie foods could be consumed. Just this one time of course! (What a confounded lie that is!)
So it takes practice, and when I fail, I find that strength comes from admitting trouble and getting help. I used to throw in the towel and say what's the use, last time I did that was 20 years and 180 pounds ago! Highly not recommended!!
So the real question is: What am I trying to accomplish emotionally with food that needs to be addressed in more constructive ways?? That is by talking something out or whatever so as not to let food take control?
Well I have been learning a new set of skills these past months. I will be e-mailing this blog entry to my mentors. They will help me strategise and plan and help hold me accountable. My pride could get in the way, but if I allowed that to happen consistently, my stomach(and my mental health) would be "in the way" even worse!
Emotions come and go, and just writing this out is helpful to me. Which is why I started this blog in the first place.
One of my mentors, Megan, gave me a few suggestions to combat trying to comfort myself with food:
[Here is a list of possible comfort strategies that was generated by a group of clients in an Emotional Eating Toolbox Program (not sure where this program exists but I would love to sit through one):
-paint
-go for a walk
-go to the bookstore and read
-put on music that you love
-knit
-call a friend
-visit a message board, forum, or Facebook and spend time online
-journal
-watch a comedy
-(when at work) change tasks, take a walk around the office,
make a cup of tea
-take a nap or go to bed early
-color in a coloring book
-blow bubbles
-do a crossword puzzle
-take a bath
-play with a pet
Last bit of advice for the day is to listen to your body. It is very common to have head hunger, some days I feel it ALL day. Turning off the head hunger can be very difficult and some of the above strategies can help to do so but focus on your body and listen to how your stomach feels.]
God bless my mentors!! It's a team effort and I know I cannot do it on my own!
So I continue (sometimes fighting) heavy thoughts, but I really intend to let them instruct me in the ways of light living.
Now, where did I put that cup of tea...............
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| This is not a picture of me, but it fits my "dark" sense of humor! Had I seen this shirt when I was heavier, I would have worn it...my sense or "lack of sense" of humor. |
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