One of the biggest hurdles for me in trying to control my eating, is that feeling of "I deserve it" -- the idea that somehow, feeding myself will solve all my problems, make me feel better, and soothe myself (and my bruised ego) when life gets hard.
This is a pretty strong habit! One that I've developed over a lifetime, ever since I was a little kid and I was given a lollipop to "make it all better". The idea that a treat can somehow take the hurt away is a very powerful one, because the truth is, it DOES make me feel better -- temporarily.
But the problem is, of course, as a grown woman, I don't need the extra sugar and/or carbs and/or fat (and who ever heard of "rewarding" yourself with a SALAD? LOL...).
So the conundrum becomes, how to make myself feel better WITHOUT resorting to overeating?
I believe the answer is multi-faceted and takes time, and effort.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
FOOD is a FALSE GOD!
It's taken me a lot of years to finally, once and for all, give up my God.
I'm talking about FOOD.
Food was my GOD for far too long. Oh, I wouldn't ADMIT that, of course...in fact I would argue with you. I was raised Catholic and believed in 'one' loving, all-powerful God. He could do ANYTHING. And He worked in mysterious ways that we as humans cannot begin to understand.
That's about as far as my thinking about God went....other than, per Catholicism, God also was a punishing God who would send you 'directly to Hell' if you committed some serious sin. The sins were all spelled out very neatly in the 10 Commandments, and woe be it to the man or woman who ignored them!
I've since come a long, long way in my spiritual thinking....and I believe I've matured to the point where I no longer 'need' to believe in a punishing God....but rather a loving God instead A forgiving God. A God who embraces ALL people, of ALL faiths, nationalities, colors, sexual preferences, you name it.
God loves ALL of us.
But I digress. My point is not to have a religious discussion here....my point is to point out that I, as a Compulsive Overeater, really did not 'worship' God per se....because I worshiped something else instead.
FOOD.
Food was my respite. My 'go to' place when nothing else worked. My sanctuary. The ONE thing in my life that I felt I could 'control', in a world gone haywire.
Life is stressful, it's hard, it's painful, it's frustrating, and it NEVER go easily for any of us. We all have our problems...NO ONE gets away 'scot free' in this life.
So when the troubles add up.....where do YOU turn?
Some people turn to alcohol.
Or to drugs.
Or to smoking.
Or to money.
Or to careers.
Or to academia.
Or to psychology.
Or to drama.
I turned to FOOD. Time and time again, when life handed me lemons, I'd make not even lemonade...I'd make lemon meringue PIE. LOL.
"Eat something, you'll feel better" was something I heard over and over again....as a child...and I believed it so wholeheartedly that it's somehow embedded myself in my PORES. In my SOUL!
And to a certain extent, it's TRUE. YES, I DO feel better (we all usually do) after I eat something, because the physical emptiness in my stomach is gone, my blood sugar automatically rises, and I feel an 'up' from the influx of food.
But of course, too much food...or the wrong types of food...can take that physical benefit and twist it into something DEADLY in a hurry. Diabetes. Liver disease. Obesity. Heartburn. That bloated feeling.
As a COE (Compulsive Overeater), I've been there, too. Not drastically enough to put me in the hospital, but enough to scare me into realizing that food was nothing to mess around with!
It's NOT a cure all.
And FOOD IS -NOT- MY GOD anymore. Because it's a FALSE God!
Food promises the 'world'. Everything will feel better. You'll be fine. Just dive into that tub of ice cream or dig into that jar of peanut butter, and the world goes AWAY......you're hidden now...in your own little world, where nothing can bother you (except running out of peanut butter). LOL
Seriously, though, I KNEW I was doing this sort of thing....this .. ESCAPISM ... every time I had an eating binge....and yet somehow I couldn't stop.
Stuffing myself became a valid OPTION whenever I had an uncomfortable feeling.
And that's the key, in a nutshell. I ATE TO AVOID FEELING BAD FEELINGS.
Anger, frustration, sadness, impatience, anxiety/worry, helplessness, boredom, you name it....FOOD was my GOD and it took it all away (temporarily) because it HID the emotions, covered them up under a layer of whatever sweet-and-creamy delight I decided to indulge in.
"Life is hard, eat cookies" was my mantra.
This leads to a life DEPENDENT upon said cookies. This leads to stunted emotional growth and a lack of maturity and independence. This leads to MORE frustration and self-hatred as the effects of my binges showed up on my body and I hated myself every time I passed a mirror.
Which led me to diets, which led me to eventually 'giving up' the diet, which led to MORE self-hatred and recrimination, which led me right back to my "God"....MORE FOOD.
It was an endless, vicious cycle that I couldn't seem to break out of.
Until I heard the term "emotional abstinence".
Hmmm. What does that mean?
Emotional abstinence means allowing yourself to FEEL your feelings instead of running to FOOD to 'stuff them down'. In essence, it means almost opposite to how it sounds...i.e., instead of NOT feeling your feelings, you swing the other way and DEFINITELY feel them....you ALLOW yourself to feel them! Versus freaking out and thinking they are too powerful, they might overwhelm you, etc.
For years I've been AFRAID of my own feelings! It's true! I wouldn't admit it, of course...in fact I didn't even REALIZE I was 'covering up' or 'stuffing them down' with food....but I was. I definitely was. It was too UNCOMFORTABLE to feel anger, for instance, at my husband. I'd talk myself OUT of being angry with him because it was too much trouble to argue with him. I was afraid he'd walk out on me if I expressed myself! If I asked too much of him....if I disagreed with him....he might LEAVE.
And THEN where would I be?
...so instead, I stuffed myself. I stuffed down the anger, told myself I had 'no right' to feel that way (which EVERYONE has a RIGHT to their feelings!!!! Don't put limits on your emotions!) and then I'd EAT instead
"Ahhhh...."....everything felt better. For...a little slice of time. Not long, though. Soon after, that 'Ahhh' feeling would morph into "What have i DONE?" anger at myself for succumbing to temptation yet AGAIN. For running to food...which of course gave me TWO problems, my original problem PLUS now I'd overeaten! AGAIN!
It was NUTS.
But that's how I lived...for years. That's how many of us COErs live. We lurch from feeling to feeling...hating those bad feelings, being unwilling to really EXPERIENCE them because we might fly apart!....and so we cover them up real quick with some goodie so we forget about them.
And then we hate OURSELVES, more than ever.
All that self-hatred shows up....in our hearts, in our minds, and in our bodies. It's no way to live.
Living with 'emotional abstinence', though, means now I have to EXPERIENCE my feelings. Even when I'm FURIOUS. Even when I'm depressed or sad. Crying is not a sin. In fact, crying is sometimes good for the SOUL! It's very cleansing to just 'get it all out'. And understand that it's all OK. I am HUMAN. I am ALLOWED to have feelings....and ... guess what? Feelings NEVER last 'forever'.
I WILL get over it. Whatever it is. And there WILL be a new day and the sun will come up and maybe, who knows, GOOD things will happen to me today!
But punishing myself for having feelings? That's OVER. DONE. I refuse to play that game anymore.
FOOD IS A FALSE GOD. It doesn't give relief....it gives PAIN when you do it over and over and over again as a matter of 'habit'. It deceives you with its false promises of how WONDERFUL you will feel....for a brief period of time...while you're enjoying whatever goodie you're enjoying....and then it DROPS YOU ON YOUR HEAD when you come 'down'.
Just like a 'high' from drugs or booze or...whatever.
FOOD IS A FALSE GOD. Remember that. Try to look upon food as FUEL, as NUTRITION for your body instead! We don't NEED to eat 'constantly' We can SURVIVE with very little food. We weren't MEANT to eat all day, every day. We weren't mean to eat processed junk and refined sugars and fat layered on carbs layered on sugar layered on more carbs. UGH. The food industry has gone WILD with its creations of gluttony.....but that doesn't mean that WE have to play along! We can choose to shake our heads and smile....and instead cruise the OUTSIDE of the store.
The produce section.
The meats and fish section.
And the dairy section.
That's all we really need. The rest is processed JUNK. Period. GET RID OF IT.
Learn to embrace food as what nature and God intended it to be. NUTRITION. You eat, you hopefully enjoy it (no one said you have to live like a MONK), but then it's OVER DONE. And you do NOT 'run to it' for comfort anymore, because that's NOT what food is meant for!
If you want comfort....try prayer. Or meditation. Or exercise. Or sleep. Or talk to a friend. Or read. Or write. Or do some Community service. Or work.
LIVE your life. Don't hide from it.
FOOD IS A FALSE GOD. Don't fall for it.
HUGS!
Linda
angiecat6@comcast.net
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Are you a human rubber band?
All day long the other day, I kept envisioning a rubber band.
Why?
Because it suddenly occurred to me, that all these years, I've been treating my BODY like a rubber band.
Think about it. Our stomachs stretch...a LOT. They can hold an incredible amount before we actually eat enough to get SICK (as a binge eater, I can testify to that fact, sadly...). And those who have had that 'rubber band' type stomach surgery know that the rubber band can be adjusted, as well. It's flexible.
So what happens is, we stretch the rubber band out too far, and it SNAPS BACK!
Here's how it goes:
1). DIET - deny yourself all the 'goodies' you used to enjoy, 'STRETCH' yourself to keep saying NO (to yourself and to others at social functions), and just be disciplined enough to CONTINUE to deprive yourself, until you reach 'X' weight. Some even say we 'shrink' our stomachs, although I don't know how true this is, because I've found I still have the ability to 'consume mass quantities', even after years of weight loss programs.
But the point is we STRETCH ourselves in our heads to accept much much LESS food. And to DENY ourselves.
2). Get to GOAL weight -- Yay! (for it seems, 5 minutes). Isn't this GREAT? "I'm never going to be fat again". "I know how to take care of myself now".
Famous last words.
but then, inevitably:
3). Start to eat those foods I denied myself when I was dieting....and the Rubber Band snaps BACK. I stretched myself to discipline myself to eat 'only' X + Y ... but now, I feel I can 'get away with' eating X + Y + Z and a little junk, too...'just because'.
After all, I'm THIN now. Right? People are telling me I shouldn't lose any more weight, I'll get TOO thin. And there's so many wonderful things to eat out there! So many foods I've MISSED!
It's NOT FAIR that I can't eat that stuff. So I'll have 'just a little', because I can control it...
Monday, July 20, 2015
The 5 Stages of Grief....apply to ME!
Have you ever heard of the 5 stages of grief?
When we lose someone (or something) that means a lot to us, we all go through stages in learning to ACCEPT the loss and move on:
These stages are:
1. Denial
2. Bargaining
3. Anger
4. Despair
5. Acceptance
What does this have to do with weight loss?
Plenty!
When we finally decide that we have to change our lifestyle....i.e., another 'diet' just won't work anymore, and that we need to not only lose the weight, but KEEP it off...hopefully without white-knuckling it (trust me, that doesn't work for very long)....and embrace a healthier lifestyle, we have to go through these stages, one by one until we ACCEPT that we simply cannot eat the way we 'used to'.
Why? Because giving up our 'goodies' is a mourning process! It really is!
IF we don't go through these steps....if we simply ignore them and go on another diet, reach goal, and then don't change our lifestyle.....you can BET the weight will come back, faster than you can say "Take Shape for Life" :)
So how do these steps apply?
1. Denial
We've all been here. "I can't go on a diet....diets don't work for me". Or "I can't give up my favorite foods". Or "My husband/wife loves me ANYWAY. So I'm overweight. Big deal!"...OR "I'm not THAT bad, just a little chunky"...OR "I have big bones, they run in my family"....OR "I have a low thyroid"....or "I just can't lose weight".
I used ALL of these excuses at one point or another. Until I finally realized, I was only fooling MYSELF. One look in the mirror told me what a liar I was!
So I went on the Take Shape for Life system using Medifast meals...and I lost over 70 lbs.
BUT....! My work was only HALF-DONE. Because my HEAD still hadn't changed.
When I reached goal weight, I was thrilled...and ADAMANT, totally VIGILANT about STAYING there. But over time, that gets 'old' (yep, it really does!)
People got 'used to' how I looked....and the compliments stopped....and I still had the same problems I always had had....and I was still the same person, just SMALLER.
And it just didn't seem FAIR that I had to watch everything I ate while everyone ELSE got to eat 'everything'!... STILL, after all this time!
So little by little, I'd 'experiment' with eating some goodie or two that I was missing, and of course pretty soon I'd overdo it, and I'd gain weight.
And then I'd tell myself "It's cool....look, my goal jeans still fit....I still look good...this isn't the end of the world".
Well, I did that over and over again until my goal jeans got so tight I had a 'muffin top' and had to lie on the BED and do acrobatics just to get them on! It wasn't until I took a good hard look at myself ... AND the scale ... to realize just how bad it had gotten.
I was in denial. AGAIN!
Hoping against hope that I could 'freeze' myself at my goal weight or right around goal weight....and STILL eat what I wanted.
Which brings up an important point. ALL of these steps...we can move backwards and forwards through them at various stages. They don't follow a step-by-step pattern. They don't follow ANY pattern at all! It all depends on YOU and the life lessons you learn along the way.
Anyway, regarding denial....it didn't work. And it doesn't work for long, for ANYONE.
It's just a lie. If you're overweight, you KNOW IT. Nobody has to pull out a weight chart to prove it to you.
So STOP denying you have a problem and turn and face it. Facing it is just swallowing your pride a little bit, and that won't kill you.
What WILL kill you though, is the continual denial....because being overweight leads to diabetes, and a HOST of other diseases that WILL kill you. Not to mention the daily struggle of dealing with all that extra fat around your body!
2. Bargaining
Oh, am I a CHAMP at this one! I can bargain with the best of them. "If I work out REALLY hard today, I'll burn like, 500 calories....and then I can EAT WHAT I WANT".
"If I stay on my Medifast program religiously all week long, I can party over the weekends".
"If I just have X for lunch, then I can have X&Y&Z for dinner".
"I was a good girl today, and I had SUCH a stressful day...I DESERVE THIS."
Ever done that?
The 'rules' that worked for me so well through the Medifast 5/1 (or 4&2, whichever is your preference) program, I threw out the window. (and psst...we all do THIS at one point or another, too....we tell ourselves we're 'different').
I started to make my OWN rules. I joined FitBit and logged everything I ate...but I also logged all my exercise, and BOY, was that a terrific excuse to eat 'more'! The problem with FitBit is, it says (after you enter your exercise and it calculates, or YOU calculate, the amount of calories burned), "You have earned X calories through exercise". To which I immediately said, "Yippee! I can EAT MORE!"
I had to stop with the FitBit. After all, I wasn't exercising to burn X # of calories, anyway. Not really (and if you are, I urge you to rethink your exercise!) I was exercising because it was GOOD FOR ME. It helped my posture, my balance, it turned my body into more lean muscle, it accelerated my metabolism, it made me FEEL good by releasing endorphins in my brain, etc. And YES it burned calories....but I have learned the hard way, NOT to 'count' these calories AT ALL. They are just 'freebies'. EXTRA calories you've burned. They do NOT entitle you to eat 'more'. After all, I'm not a gymnast in training. I'm NOT an athlete. I don't need hundreds of extra calories because I'm only working out maybe 3 or 4x a week, and for maybe an hour (at most, 2) a day. That's it. And that's ENOUGH. You don't 'earn' a piece of chocolate cake by working out for an hour. If you believe that, you're going to have a problem sooner or later if you're a compulsive overeater.
We ALL enter bargaining at one time or another. And again, in fact, with these 5 stages of grief? We can go back and forth throughout the stages....we don't necessarily follow them in order, or do them 'once and done'. You can enter BACK into denial at any point in time. You can be doing great....thinking you're into "Acceptance"...and suddenly Fat Brain is whispering in your ear "You can have that glass of wine AND dessert....you'll make up for it tomorrow".
And...guess what? You've entered Bargaining...AGAIN.
Be ever watchful for Bargaining. It's a tough one!
3. Anger
I've talked before about my anger whenever I see a food commercial on TV. I would really get myself all worked up....the NERVE of these food manufacturers, showing gorgeous, SKINNY young beautiful women stuffing their faces with some goodie or drink. Like there were no consequences! When we all KNOW there ARE consequences, indeed. In fact, these same women in real life probably never TOUCH the food or drink in question. If they did, they certainly wouldn't look THAT skinny for long. Also, the food isn't REAL! They use all sorts of gimmicks and fake stuff to make the food LOOK better than it actually is. When was the last time you saw an actual McDonald's burger LOOK like what it looks like on TV?
My husband would get to the point where he'd not only mute commercials, he'd brace himself for the onslaught of my anger, yet again.
Finally, my Health Coach told me I was wasting an enormous amount of emotional energy getting ANGRY at things I had NO CONTROL over. And she said, "This isn't a personal affront to YOU, Linda. They are just trying to sell a product. Recognizing that the images are faked and all of that is one thing, but getting yourself all tied up in knots over it is another! Why are you letting them GET to you like that?"
And I realized I WAS wasting an incredible amount of emotional energy. So I finally STOPPED. I just don't look at them. I avoid them completely. They don't enter my 'personal space'.
If you spend a lot of time getting ANGRY because you can't eat like 'normal people', rethink it. Maybe your overeating is trying to teach you something. Maybe it's a deeper issue than just wanting to eat chocolate chip cookies. Maybe, just maybe, it's how you deal with LIFE. Maybe you're 'stuffing down' your feelings, and HIDING from life, behind a veil of goodies.
In which case, your overeating...and your handling of said overeating....is VERY important. It's more than just a few extra pounds. It's how you live your LIFE. And getting angry at other people because they can eat what you can't, is just wasted energy.
It is what it IS, right? If you've got a problem with emotional eating or compulsive eating or bingeing or just eating too much....then YOU'VE got the problem; not the rest of the world! Trying to attach 'blame'....maybe even going back to your childhood, and saying "If only...my parents hadn't given me a cookie when I was good", etc....that's instructive, of course, in terms of your background, but it doesn't help if you're allowing it to make you feel angry or helpless.
4. Despair
If you've been here, you know how bad it can get. How many diets must you go on? Why do the pounds keep coming back? WHY, oh WHY, can't you control your eating?
Maybe you've even succumbed to binge eating, just like I did. There's nothing worse than that feeling AFTER a binge. When you did it AGAIN. When all your promises were for naught, and you started with just 'one extra', and somehow that turned into a full-on BINGE.
And now you're mad at yourself. You wonder what the heck is WRONG with you. Why do you keep doing this? You HATE yourself. Your stomach is swollen, you look in the mirror and SWEAR you've gained 5 lbs from this eating binge ALONE (and believe me, I know, I've been there), and you make a zillion promises to go 'back' on your healthy eating plan 'tomorrow'. Maybe you even get into bulima or fasting or over-exercising to try and 'undo' the damage you did.
"Punishing yourself" for eating too much is NOT the way to go. What's done is done. Yes, it happened, but it's behind you now. There's no sense trying to 'make up' for it, because in the long run not only does that result in a "feast or famine" mentality (which is bad for your health AND your psyche) but it also results in WORSENING your self-esteem! And if you have an eating problem, you need all the self-esteem you can GET. Because we identify so much with your bodies, and we feel like such failures if we gain a few pounds. And one of the KEYS to helping your compulsive/emotional eating is gaining more self-confidence!
Please please don't fall into despair. It's never as bad as you think it is. It's CORRECTABLE. Think about it. Our bodies 'empty out' every night. Even if you binged like there was no tomorrow, there WILL come a point when your stomach will be empty again and you'll need to eat again. And that means, you get ANOTHER CHANGE to get it 'right'. Another LESSON that you were taught. The hard way, yes....but that's how we all learn, isn't it? It's NOT the end of the world....it's just your compulsive overeating trying to get better. It's YOU trying to HEAL yourself. So learn from it....and move ON.
5. Acceptance
Finally, we come to acceptance. When you get here, you know it....because suddenly you're realizing that it's OK to have to watch everything you eat. It's OK to even have to plan and/or measure your foods! Yes, it's true, lots of other people don't have to. But YOU do. It becomes a fact of life. Something that is a part of you. It's just one of the things about you that need care...just like a diabetic needs their medication or a person allergic to strawberries has to make sure they don't eat them. For us, trigger foods, maybe sugary foods, eating too much food, etc., are signs of OUR 'illness' (or addiction, however you wish to look at it...there are arguments on both sides of that particular equation and I won't get into them here). It's OUR "cross to bear".
...and so WHAT? Right? I mean, we have two choices when we have a chronic health situation (because don't kid yourself, being overweight IS a "chronic health condition"!):
1. Continue to make excuses for it (denial), fight it, (anger), debate it (bargaining), get depressed over it (despair)....OR
2. ACCEPT IT and WORK with it!
Today, make an effort to WORK with it. ACCEPT that this is something you'll have to deal with, not just today, but (especially if you're an emotional and/or compulsive eater and/or a binge eater) the REST OF YOUR LIFE.
I wish I could tell you I had the 'magic cure'. If I did, though, I wouldn't be blogging here....I'd be writing a book, going on TV, and making a billion dollars LOL.
The 'answer' isn't in the latest diet program or pill or exercise.
The ANSWER is in your HEAD.
Once you RECONCILE yourself that this is what it's got to be like....you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, have your trigger foods around (more on that in another blog), and your cannot, absolutely CANNOT, 'have your cake and eat it too'....that you ARE susceptible to overdoing and thus gaining weight....then the next step becomes, what are you going to DO about it? Over the LONG haul? Not just to get the weight off....but to KEEP IT OFF?
And again, the answer to that question is in your head. It's how you APPROACH food. For the rest of your life. It's eating to keep your body healthy, versus eating for a myriad of 'other' reasons. When you can STOP 'using' food to solve your problems or make you feel better, and you only eat for nutritional purposes (not to say you can't enjoy it, as well, by the way...I enjoy EVERY LAST BITE of my healthy meals), then you can start enjoying a long, healthier life...AND a body that's as good as it can be!
Keep on keepin' on!....
Linda
angiecat6@comcast.net
When we lose someone (or something) that means a lot to us, we all go through stages in learning to ACCEPT the loss and move on:
These stages are:
1. Denial
2. Bargaining
3. Anger
4. Despair
5. Acceptance
What does this have to do with weight loss?
Plenty!
When we finally decide that we have to change our lifestyle....i.e., another 'diet' just won't work anymore, and that we need to not only lose the weight, but KEEP it off...hopefully without white-knuckling it (trust me, that doesn't work for very long)....and embrace a healthier lifestyle, we have to go through these stages, one by one until we ACCEPT that we simply cannot eat the way we 'used to'.
Why? Because giving up our 'goodies' is a mourning process! It really is!
IF we don't go through these steps....if we simply ignore them and go on another diet, reach goal, and then don't change our lifestyle.....you can BET the weight will come back, faster than you can say "Take Shape for Life" :)
So how do these steps apply?
1. Denial
We've all been here. "I can't go on a diet....diets don't work for me". Or "I can't give up my favorite foods". Or "My husband/wife loves me ANYWAY. So I'm overweight. Big deal!"...OR "I'm not THAT bad, just a little chunky"...OR "I have big bones, they run in my family"....OR "I have a low thyroid"....or "I just can't lose weight".
I used ALL of these excuses at one point or another. Until I finally realized, I was only fooling MYSELF. One look in the mirror told me what a liar I was!
So I went on the Take Shape for Life system using Medifast meals...and I lost over 70 lbs.
BUT....! My work was only HALF-DONE. Because my HEAD still hadn't changed.
When I reached goal weight, I was thrilled...and ADAMANT, totally VIGILANT about STAYING there. But over time, that gets 'old' (yep, it really does!)
People got 'used to' how I looked....and the compliments stopped....and I still had the same problems I always had had....and I was still the same person, just SMALLER.
And it just didn't seem FAIR that I had to watch everything I ate while everyone ELSE got to eat 'everything'!... STILL, after all this time!
So little by little, I'd 'experiment' with eating some goodie or two that I was missing, and of course pretty soon I'd overdo it, and I'd gain weight.
And then I'd tell myself "It's cool....look, my goal jeans still fit....I still look good...this isn't the end of the world".
Well, I did that over and over again until my goal jeans got so tight I had a 'muffin top' and had to lie on the BED and do acrobatics just to get them on! It wasn't until I took a good hard look at myself ... AND the scale ... to realize just how bad it had gotten.
I was in denial. AGAIN!
Hoping against hope that I could 'freeze' myself at my goal weight or right around goal weight....and STILL eat what I wanted.
Which brings up an important point. ALL of these steps...we can move backwards and forwards through them at various stages. They don't follow a step-by-step pattern. They don't follow ANY pattern at all! It all depends on YOU and the life lessons you learn along the way.
Anyway, regarding denial....it didn't work. And it doesn't work for long, for ANYONE.
It's just a lie. If you're overweight, you KNOW IT. Nobody has to pull out a weight chart to prove it to you.
So STOP denying you have a problem and turn and face it. Facing it is just swallowing your pride a little bit, and that won't kill you.
What WILL kill you though, is the continual denial....because being overweight leads to diabetes, and a HOST of other diseases that WILL kill you. Not to mention the daily struggle of dealing with all that extra fat around your body!
2. Bargaining
Oh, am I a CHAMP at this one! I can bargain with the best of them. "If I work out REALLY hard today, I'll burn like, 500 calories....and then I can EAT WHAT I WANT".
"If I stay on my Medifast program religiously all week long, I can party over the weekends".
"If I just have X for lunch, then I can have X&Y&Z for dinner".
"I was a good girl today, and I had SUCH a stressful day...I DESERVE THIS."
Ever done that?
The 'rules' that worked for me so well through the Medifast 5/1 (or 4&2, whichever is your preference) program, I threw out the window. (and psst...we all do THIS at one point or another, too....we tell ourselves we're 'different').
I started to make my OWN rules. I joined FitBit and logged everything I ate...but I also logged all my exercise, and BOY, was that a terrific excuse to eat 'more'! The problem with FitBit is, it says (after you enter your exercise and it calculates, or YOU calculate, the amount of calories burned), "You have earned X calories through exercise". To which I immediately said, "Yippee! I can EAT MORE!"
I had to stop with the FitBit. After all, I wasn't exercising to burn X # of calories, anyway. Not really (and if you are, I urge you to rethink your exercise!) I was exercising because it was GOOD FOR ME. It helped my posture, my balance, it turned my body into more lean muscle, it accelerated my metabolism, it made me FEEL good by releasing endorphins in my brain, etc. And YES it burned calories....but I have learned the hard way, NOT to 'count' these calories AT ALL. They are just 'freebies'. EXTRA calories you've burned. They do NOT entitle you to eat 'more'. After all, I'm not a gymnast in training. I'm NOT an athlete. I don't need hundreds of extra calories because I'm only working out maybe 3 or 4x a week, and for maybe an hour (at most, 2) a day. That's it. And that's ENOUGH. You don't 'earn' a piece of chocolate cake by working out for an hour. If you believe that, you're going to have a problem sooner or later if you're a compulsive overeater.
We ALL enter bargaining at one time or another. And again, in fact, with these 5 stages of grief? We can go back and forth throughout the stages....we don't necessarily follow them in order, or do them 'once and done'. You can enter BACK into denial at any point in time. You can be doing great....thinking you're into "Acceptance"...and suddenly Fat Brain is whispering in your ear "You can have that glass of wine AND dessert....you'll make up for it tomorrow".
And...guess what? You've entered Bargaining...AGAIN.
Be ever watchful for Bargaining. It's a tough one!
3. Anger
I've talked before about my anger whenever I see a food commercial on TV. I would really get myself all worked up....the NERVE of these food manufacturers, showing gorgeous, SKINNY young beautiful women stuffing their faces with some goodie or drink. Like there were no consequences! When we all KNOW there ARE consequences, indeed. In fact, these same women in real life probably never TOUCH the food or drink in question. If they did, they certainly wouldn't look THAT skinny for long. Also, the food isn't REAL! They use all sorts of gimmicks and fake stuff to make the food LOOK better than it actually is. When was the last time you saw an actual McDonald's burger LOOK like what it looks like on TV?
My husband would get to the point where he'd not only mute commercials, he'd brace himself for the onslaught of my anger, yet again.
Finally, my Health Coach told me I was wasting an enormous amount of emotional energy getting ANGRY at things I had NO CONTROL over. And she said, "This isn't a personal affront to YOU, Linda. They are just trying to sell a product. Recognizing that the images are faked and all of that is one thing, but getting yourself all tied up in knots over it is another! Why are you letting them GET to you like that?"
And I realized I WAS wasting an incredible amount of emotional energy. So I finally STOPPED. I just don't look at them. I avoid them completely. They don't enter my 'personal space'.
If you spend a lot of time getting ANGRY because you can't eat like 'normal people', rethink it. Maybe your overeating is trying to teach you something. Maybe it's a deeper issue than just wanting to eat chocolate chip cookies. Maybe, just maybe, it's how you deal with LIFE. Maybe you're 'stuffing down' your feelings, and HIDING from life, behind a veil of goodies.
In which case, your overeating...and your handling of said overeating....is VERY important. It's more than just a few extra pounds. It's how you live your LIFE. And getting angry at other people because they can eat what you can't, is just wasted energy.
It is what it IS, right? If you've got a problem with emotional eating or compulsive eating or bingeing or just eating too much....then YOU'VE got the problem; not the rest of the world! Trying to attach 'blame'....maybe even going back to your childhood, and saying "If only...my parents hadn't given me a cookie when I was good", etc....that's instructive, of course, in terms of your background, but it doesn't help if you're allowing it to make you feel angry or helpless.
4. Despair
If you've been here, you know how bad it can get. How many diets must you go on? Why do the pounds keep coming back? WHY, oh WHY, can't you control your eating?
Maybe you've even succumbed to binge eating, just like I did. There's nothing worse than that feeling AFTER a binge. When you did it AGAIN. When all your promises were for naught, and you started with just 'one extra', and somehow that turned into a full-on BINGE.
And now you're mad at yourself. You wonder what the heck is WRONG with you. Why do you keep doing this? You HATE yourself. Your stomach is swollen, you look in the mirror and SWEAR you've gained 5 lbs from this eating binge ALONE (and believe me, I know, I've been there), and you make a zillion promises to go 'back' on your healthy eating plan 'tomorrow'. Maybe you even get into bulima or fasting or over-exercising to try and 'undo' the damage you did.
"Punishing yourself" for eating too much is NOT the way to go. What's done is done. Yes, it happened, but it's behind you now. There's no sense trying to 'make up' for it, because in the long run not only does that result in a "feast or famine" mentality (which is bad for your health AND your psyche) but it also results in WORSENING your self-esteem! And if you have an eating problem, you need all the self-esteem you can GET. Because we identify so much with your bodies, and we feel like such failures if we gain a few pounds. And one of the KEYS to helping your compulsive/emotional eating is gaining more self-confidence!
Please please don't fall into despair. It's never as bad as you think it is. It's CORRECTABLE. Think about it. Our bodies 'empty out' every night. Even if you binged like there was no tomorrow, there WILL come a point when your stomach will be empty again and you'll need to eat again. And that means, you get ANOTHER CHANGE to get it 'right'. Another LESSON that you were taught. The hard way, yes....but that's how we all learn, isn't it? It's NOT the end of the world....it's just your compulsive overeating trying to get better. It's YOU trying to HEAL yourself. So learn from it....and move ON.
5. Acceptance
Finally, we come to acceptance. When you get here, you know it....because suddenly you're realizing that it's OK to have to watch everything you eat. It's OK to even have to plan and/or measure your foods! Yes, it's true, lots of other people don't have to. But YOU do. It becomes a fact of life. Something that is a part of you. It's just one of the things about you that need care...just like a diabetic needs their medication or a person allergic to strawberries has to make sure they don't eat them. For us, trigger foods, maybe sugary foods, eating too much food, etc., are signs of OUR 'illness' (or addiction, however you wish to look at it...there are arguments on both sides of that particular equation and I won't get into them here). It's OUR "cross to bear".
...and so WHAT? Right? I mean, we have two choices when we have a chronic health situation (because don't kid yourself, being overweight IS a "chronic health condition"!):
1. Continue to make excuses for it (denial), fight it, (anger), debate it (bargaining), get depressed over it (despair)....OR
2. ACCEPT IT and WORK with it!
Today, make an effort to WORK with it. ACCEPT that this is something you'll have to deal with, not just today, but (especially if you're an emotional and/or compulsive eater and/or a binge eater) the REST OF YOUR LIFE.
I wish I could tell you I had the 'magic cure'. If I did, though, I wouldn't be blogging here....I'd be writing a book, going on TV, and making a billion dollars LOL.
The 'answer' isn't in the latest diet program or pill or exercise.
The ANSWER is in your HEAD.
Once you RECONCILE yourself that this is what it's got to be like....you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, have your trigger foods around (more on that in another blog), and your cannot, absolutely CANNOT, 'have your cake and eat it too'....that you ARE susceptible to overdoing and thus gaining weight....then the next step becomes, what are you going to DO about it? Over the LONG haul? Not just to get the weight off....but to KEEP IT OFF?
And again, the answer to that question is in your head. It's how you APPROACH food. For the rest of your life. It's eating to keep your body healthy, versus eating for a myriad of 'other' reasons. When you can STOP 'using' food to solve your problems or make you feel better, and you only eat for nutritional purposes (not to say you can't enjoy it, as well, by the way...I enjoy EVERY LAST BITE of my healthy meals), then you can start enjoying a long, healthier life...AND a body that's as good as it can be!
Keep on keepin' on!....
Linda
angiecat6@comcast.net
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Rebel, rebel.....!
So often when I would go on a diet, I would make a list of what food I 'could' and 'could not' have.
I would label certain foods as being 'bad' for me.
The problem was, sooner or later, those "forbidden" foods would tempt me. I'd start thinking about them all the time.
The foods would CALL to me. Whisper in the dark. Tell me how wonderful they were and how great it would be just to have a 'little bit'.
Why?
BECAUSE they were 'bad'.
And BECAUSE the rebel in me wanted to be 'bad', once in awhile. Right?
And the more I told myself I couldn't eat those foods, the more I wanted them.
It's all a question of what you TELL yourself.
We are all rebels at heart, aren't we? We love our freedom, and we want that right to choose. So when we say that a whole bunch of foods are foods we CANNOT have, we are doomed to failure, because sooner or later we're going to want to have them, just for the EXPERIENCE of being 'bad'.
And that can lead straight to binge eating.
And then you've got a setup where you are either very good....100% on your program, weighing and measuring everything, drinking your water, being 'perfect'......
OR
You're totally off the rails, eating everything that isn't nailed down, convinced you 'blew it already, might as well enjoy myself the rest of the day', and therefore you HAVE to have it TODAY, because 'after this I'm never going to eat this junk again'. (famous last words, right?)
All of which is a LIE, by the way. That's your addiction talking. It's Fat Brain, LYING to you once again. There's no 'rule' that says you have to CONTINUE to overeat if you did ONE thing wrong today. And there's no 'rule' that says you have to STUFF yourself once you've started because you'll 'never' have these foods again.
That's all a LIE from your addicted voice, to get you to go back to doing what you USED to do, over and over again.
To NOT change. (Fat Brain HATES change).
Feast or famine. Over and over and over again, while your weight yo-yos up and down the scale and your psyche takes a beating, because you're either being 'perfect' (and happy) or you're 'wrong' and 'bad' (and depressed).
We literally BECOME manic-depressive.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Slow it DOWN!
One of the things I've learned, over the course of my weight loss journey, is the need to SLOW THINGS DOWN.
In my HEAD.
And yes, sometimes in my body as well.
I do a lot of running around, trying to accomplish 'everything', my mind working continuously at 150 MPH, thinking of all the things I STILL have to do AFTER I've done whatever it is I'm doing....and my mind isn't on what I'm doing at that moment in time!
I'm either living in the past, reviewing old hurts or problems or resentments, fretting over them, maybe wishing I could or should have said or done something differently....(what a waste of time THAT is...what's done is done!)....OR
I'm living in the future, projecting what I'm going to do, why, how, etc. What 'might' happen. How to prevent whatever. How to do things better.
Again, I'm NOT in the PRESENT MOMENT!
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Alone with my Food.....
One of the things I always did when overeating or bingeing....was, I preferred to eat ALONE.
Like that drinking song of George Thoroughgood's...you know, the one that goes, "I drink alone....with nobody else...."...that's how I was with food.
Whenever I fall off the precipice of staying on my food plan, that's what I do.
I ISOLATE myself. Close the door, lock it, close the blinds, the shades, whatever...and hole up in favorite LazyBoy recliner with all my favorite binge foods within easy reach, and I eat eat eat.
In solitude. NOTHING is allowed to penetrate this solitude. I won't answer the phone, I won't answer the door, I hide in secret and eat until I can't stand it anymore. Until my stomach is swollen and I literally can't fit another thing into it.
Then I go lie down, HATING myself....lying on my side because I can't lie on my belly, it's too swollen to do so. And I cry, and I pray, and I wonder when it's going to STOP.
Well, it finally stopped when I got REAL with myself. When I stopped allowing myself to fall prey to that emotional 'need' that cried out, "I wannna EAT! I just want to lose myself in my favorite foods".
Of course it never starts OUT that way, does it?
It didn't for me. It always started with just a small extra bite or two....or a dessert I knew I shouldn't have...or a glass of wine....usually with others around, too.
Everything LOOKED 'normal' to the people around me in my life.
Until I started listening to that voice in my head...the one that said, "You screwed up, you had that dessert, you're going to gain weight this week, you are SO hopeless...you might as well just EAT WHAT YOU WANT because you're going to have to go BACK on your plan super-strict TOMORROW".
That's how I started every binge. I would have my binge foods in one hand, and my planned program to 'diet' the next day in the other. I'd be all set, I was going to be 100% on my program .... tomorrow.
In the meanwhile, however, I was enjoying every last bit of every last delicious food I'd NEVER be able to eat again, while I could. Because this was IT. The last straw. The last time.
How many 'last times' did I have? Many. Too many to count.
And what was the result? I'd stay OP maybe a few days, maybe a week, maybe longer if I really gritted my teeth...but I was doing it on sheer 'will' (or 'won't') power only. I really still didn't tackle the BIGGER issue, the issue that was driving me to eat in the first place...
And that had NOTHING to do with the tasty desserts or glass of wine or ANYTHING like that at all. What it came down to, pure and simple, was a desire to ESCAPE. To HIDE my feelings, my fears, and all my imperfections and the biggest imperfection of all which was my LIFE, which wasn't 'measuring up' (although no one ever COULD measure up to my impossible standards)....and cover them up, cover up those feelings and pretend they didn't even EXIST....so I could go on, I could live another day among the 'normal' people.
Even my closest friends and my husband had no clue to what lengths I would go to, to satisfy this need to ESCAPE. I couldn't literally run away, I had responsibilities, right?
So this was my method of 'relief'. Of RELEASE. Of all those 'bad' emotions I had.
If I binged enough, I wouldn't FEEL anything anymore. Except, of course....my anger at having binged yet AGAIN. My hopelessness at not being able to control my eating.
My helplessness, my tears, my self-recriminations, and most of all, my shame.
I've talked about this before....how we as binge eaters and/or compulsive overeaters have a huge amount of SHAME about our addiction (or illness....either one will work for me, because to be honest I think it may be a combination of both!).
Instead of openly treating our condition, we hide it. We don't admit it. We replace the food we've eaten if someone will notice, or we go out and buy all binge foods in advance and destroy any evidence...the wrappers, etc.
But we can't hide from ourselves. And we can't hide from the mirror when we look at our bloated stomachs. And we can't hide from the scale when we step on it and realize we are OUT OF CONTROL and our weight is still going up up up.
So what's the answer?
Well, I believe it's getting in DEEP....with your HEAD. And your HEART. And yes, even your SPIRIT.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
One WILL hurt!
I am struck, again and
again, with how many of us are affected by that nasty little 'one won't hurt'
voice.
You know the one. The one that whispers 'one extra ______ won't hurt you, just for today. You deserve it'.
Or that argues that that 'little bite' won't affect ketosis because it's got, jeez, less than 1/8 of a GRAM of a carb in it, for Pete's sakes! It's just a tiny BITE! I mean, come ON, already.
Hey...you're right! It WON'T affect your overall diet or weight. Physically.
But there are two problems with that reasoning.
You know the one. The one that whispers 'one extra ______ won't hurt you, just for today. You deserve it'.
Or that argues that that 'little bite' won't affect ketosis because it's got, jeez, less than 1/8 of a GRAM of a carb in it, for Pete's sakes! It's just a tiny BITE! I mean, come ON, already.
Hey...you're right! It WON'T affect your overall diet or weight. Physically.
But there are two problems with that reasoning.
1). It won't hurt your body -- MAYBE. But it WILL hurt your RESOLVE, your MIND, your FORTITUDE, and it will most probably lead you to 'one more', and 'one more after that', and 'one more after that last little one'.
Pretty soon you're totally off the rails.
Oh, I know! I've done it...HUNDREDS of times. If not THOUSANDS at this point. I've done it so many times that I've genuinely wondered how could I BE so STUPID? How could I keep making the same mistake, over and over and over again?
Because I needed to learn it ONE MORE TIME. That's why. LOL.
2). It also sets your mind up for 'breaking the rules'.
If 'one won't hurt' this time, what about NEXT time? (because I guarantee you, there WILL be a next time).
And what about the time after that?
Where do you draw the line?
WHEN do you draw the line?
How do you say 'NO' to that inner voice? She's driving you NUTS! You're having a rough day, for pete's sakes...gimme a BREAK already. Right?
Oh, yeah. I've been there!
But here's why I NEVER do the 'one won't hurt' thing anymore:
I tell it NO and firmly IGNORE it, walk away, do whatever I have to do to get through it, because I KNOW it's 'opening that door'.
A door that needs to stay closed. PERMANENTLY. Because if I let it open, even 'just a little bit', it's like Pandora's box...it will spill open and all the bad stuff in the world will pour out of it and I won't be able to stop. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...but it weakens my resolve, and sooner or later I'll 'give in'.
We're ALL only human, after all.
So remember that the next time that little voice says 'One won't hurt'. On the one hand, she's RIGHT...that 'little bit' won't hurt physically.
But what will it do to your resolve, emotionally?
AHA! That's the rub.
I stay on program because every night when I go to bed, I want to look back on the day and remember that I stayed on program. Period. I know that sounds stupid but it's true. I spent too many nights NOT being on program, lying to myself (and everyone around me) and I HATE that feeling. That "I've failed again" feeling.
Because, deep down, whenever I give in to 'one won't hurt', I remember it. My SOUL remembers it. And it diminishes me somehow.
Hope everyone resists those "one won't hurts" today....and everyday!
PS And if a loved one jumps on that and swears you're 'being ridiculous'? AGREE with them and laugh about it...but stick to your guns anyway. Swear you're nuts but you "HAVE to be", because you have an addiction and you need to deal with it in your own way.
If 'one won't hurt' this time, what about NEXT time? (because I guarantee you, there WILL be a next time).
And what about the time after that?
Where do you draw the line?
WHEN do you draw the line?
How do you say 'NO' to that inner voice? She's driving you NUTS! You're having a rough day, for pete's sakes...gimme a BREAK already. Right?
Oh, yeah. I've been there!
But here's why I NEVER do the 'one won't hurt' thing anymore:
I tell it NO and firmly IGNORE it, walk away, do whatever I have to do to get through it, because I KNOW it's 'opening that door'.
A door that needs to stay closed. PERMANENTLY. Because if I let it open, even 'just a little bit', it's like Pandora's box...it will spill open and all the bad stuff in the world will pour out of it and I won't be able to stop. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...but it weakens my resolve, and sooner or later I'll 'give in'.
We're ALL only human, after all.
So remember that the next time that little voice says 'One won't hurt'. On the one hand, she's RIGHT...that 'little bit' won't hurt physically.
But what will it do to your resolve, emotionally?
AHA! That's the rub.
I stay on program because every night when I go to bed, I want to look back on the day and remember that I stayed on program. Period. I know that sounds stupid but it's true. I spent too many nights NOT being on program, lying to myself (and everyone around me) and I HATE that feeling. That "I've failed again" feeling.
Because, deep down, whenever I give in to 'one won't hurt', I remember it. My SOUL remembers it. And it diminishes me somehow.
Hope everyone resists those "one won't hurts" today....and everyday!
PS And if a loved one jumps on that and swears you're 'being ridiculous'? AGREE with them and laugh about it...but stick to your guns anyway. Swear you're nuts but you "HAVE to be", because you have an addiction and you need to deal with it in your own way.
And for us, sometimes just saying NO is the only way to survive.
NO ONE can put the food into your mouth but you!
Remember that, the next time you hear a food pusher (even if that food pusher...is YOU!)
Keep on!
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Dear Medifast and/or Take Shape for Life.....
This blog is addressed specifically to those folks who made the decision to redesign the MF community website and who did so on October 28, 2014.
I'm here to tell you, (and I know you've heard this before but you NEED to hear it again), that your experiment FAILED.
Maybe you saved money with this redesign.....obviously using the FitBit front end was a plug and play type of thing, much easier to maintain than to have a bunch of programmers on staff dedicated to the site...but you also caused at least 100 people, maybe more, to lose their mojo, stop their progress, and in many cases STOP using the program altogether, because their support system was yanked out from underneath them.
Literally, like a ladder to success had been yanked out beneath us, leaving us high and dry.
It is IMPORTANT to have a support system....a place to go where you can share how it's going for you, in this ongoing battle of food addiction/weight loss/bingeing....with OTHERS who share the SAME addiction.
Having that MF Community website, populated ONLY with people doing MF, was important. We got to blog honestly about how it was going....and we got to read others' blogs. And no matter where we were across the country, there were so many similarities to our stories, and our EMOTIONS, and how we struggled....that we felt like long-lost sisters.
We WERE sisters, in a way. Brothers, too (although men were far less likely to participate on this website, there were a few, and they were honest and friendly and noteworthy for their compassion). Brothers and sisters of a type, all fighting the same battles. With our own shorthand and our own nicknames and our own stories, as personal as we wanted them to be.
We SHARED our pain and thereby lessened it. We commiserated when we failed, and celebrated when we succeeded.
I remember the day I hit goal in late July, 2013. I got over 100 reads of my blog....maybe more (I forget the exact number now but it was eye-popping), and dozens of congratulatory comments. Comments that really meant a lot to me, because these people KNEW my struggle -- they had been with me every step of the way.
I had started out at 235 lbs, and lost over 70 lbs to reach my goal of 160. That was HUGE, and the biggest weight loss of my life. It also made the biggest change on my lifestyle, for GOOD. I now had the 'answer'!!! The answer to a weight loss prayer that had started way back in February 2012. The Medifast program WORKED! Like a charm. And those folks who had been working the program right alongside of me KNEW what it took to succeed, so their congrats meant even more to me.
I only wish now that I had saved those comments, because they would STILL make me smile, even 2 years later.
No one knows how hard it is to change a lifestyle, like someone ELSE who has also changed his/her lifestyle.
And maintenance was....not easy, far from it (in many ways, this is where the REAL work begins) but I managed OK. Slipping and sliding sometimes, because that 'goal' of hitting a certain weight was no longer there, and simply maintaining the status quo while everyone around you seems to be eatingeatingeating like there's no tomorrow is TOUGH...! But I was doing it.
And then, on October 28, 2014, everything changed. The "powers that be" decided to redesign our website, and in so doing they ripped out ALL shreds of personalization, ALL our blogs, ALL our friends' lists and messages, everything that connected us, in a real way, to others working the program.
It was purely a business decision, based on dollars and cents. Programming the website was too expensive. So they fired the programming staff, and replaced most of the website with a 'canned' front-end that they had partnered with the FitBit people on. Suddenly owning a FitBit gadget was the thing to do. It recorded your activity and you could, hopefully, increase your exercise and decrease the amount of time spent being a couch potato.
This was kind of amusing, as the Medifast meal program is one where exercise is NOT required. Of course it's nice to do....but it can be dangerous during the first few weeks of working the program, due to ketosis taking such a toll on the body. You can get light-headed and even pass out. The official recommendation is to wait 3 weeks before starting an exercise program...and if you're already working out, cut it in half.
And after that time period, exercise is great, but it's NOT necessary. In fact, I know people who went through the entire program without doing ANY exercise at all. It's not required.
Yet suddenly, because Take Shape for Life had partnered with Fitbit, an exercise gadget, owning a Fitbit was not only encouraged (and of course, SOLD by TSFL as well) but it was the 'thing to do'. The entire front-end was designed to be used with a Fitbit!
The FitBit is a good tool, but it's NOT necessary. Period. In fact, for some, especially those of us who tend to be perfectionists and anal and WAY harder on ourselves than we need to be (which happens very frequently with food addicts) it can do more harm than good, because suddenly everything's a competition. Did you get your 10,000 steps a day in? Heaven forbid if you didn't. No provision for weight-training, by the way (which can be just as important as cardio for a person interested in weight loss), other than a blanket generic 'weight training' exercise selection, which of course fixated only on calories burned rather than muscle gained....and you had to wear the thing night and day and recharge it every 3 days or so, and download your information and it gave you all sorts of charts and graphs, etc. Ho-hum. Big deal. I'd been there with the charts and graphs. After awhile you realize, it's all kind of SILLY. Because in the final analysis, they are UNNECESSARY. All you really need to do is move more and eat less. (which for us means stay OP). That's all.
And our blogs? Were replaced by blogs from Dr. A and company.
They weren't blogs, of course, either. They were ADVERTISEMENTS. Plain and simple. Ads for TSFL. For whatever the company was pushing this month.
Those of us who had been loyal bloggers and/or readers and followers of the old MF website felt like we had been ROBBED. Robbed in the night, our stories, our blogs, our shared confidences, all ripped away in the dark, never to be seen again.
And to add insult to injury, the new website had a note hard-coded on the front page which promised that our 'blogs would be coming back'.
That was 8 months ago.
Yeah, right.
I'll believe it when I see it.
But here's the saddest part. For awhile I only suspected this in my heart....but I have since done some reading and research, and found a lot of the people who used to blog on the old website, and I would venture to guess that nearly ALL of the people who used it to blog, or to read others' blogs, or both, have been struggling since the redesign.
There is NO replacement for a safe place to communicate with others going through the same things you are going through.
Because unlike Facebook or blogs on Blogspot or whatever....even Fitbit or MyFitnessPal, both of which have users and messages and in some cases even blogs....all of us on the Medifast Community website were working the SAME program. We didn't have to get into arguments about whether or not the MF meals program worked, because we were already convinced, we were DOING it! We didn't have to worry about people who never worked the program reading our stuff, because we all were WORKING it.
We had a SHARED task...to lose weight using the MF program. That was it. That was the common ingredient.
And that single-minded purpose made us FOCUS on the task at hand, and gave us compassion to do so in a gentle, friendly way. Anyone who attempted to become nasty was quickly shouted down (and out!). The emphasis was on loving SUPPORT. No matter WHAT. Because if you were in good place, you shared and helped those who weren't in a good place...because you KNEW that sooner or later, you would be in a bad place.
It's not that way using other websites. Even Facebook websites supposedly dedicated to Medifast....there's no way (unless you make it a closed or secret group, which sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it, because new folks trying the Medifast program can't find you!) to keep the general public OUT.
And so our safety net, our feeling that what we said would be kept in confidence and understood, was GONE.
We lost our place to VENT, to get your feelings out in a SAFE environment, and have others (gently and compassionately!) steer you back on track when your head got messed up.
Because we all have gotten our heads messed up from time to time. LOL.
And it was NICE, in fact I would venture to say it was IMPERATIVE, to have an understanding shoulder to cry on. Someone who had been there, done that. EXACTLY that.
To make matters worse, the FORUMS, which were the only form of input and communication with other users left in, became antagonistic, bitter, angry places where people (who were now anonymous, having had their personal info stripped away completely) could poke at each other in anger, make sarcastic comments, and play 'who can be nastiest'.
The anger and bitterness felt by these folks, many of whom either were angry at Medifast and TSFL for changing the website, came through loud and clear. And because the twin companies, Medifast and TSFL, were NOT LISTENING to the cries and complaints of those who hated the redesign (to date, I've yet to hear from ONE person who likes the changes!), they instead turned on EACH OTHER, and especially on Health Coaches.
Health Coaches are working the program, just like everyone else, only they ALSO help others to get to goal by being there to answer questions and just to have a shoulder to cry on sometimes. For this they get compensated directly by TSFL. It's free for the client. But like everything else, there are good coaches and bad coaches. And the few bad apples, of course, ruin it for everyone else because their misdeeds are spread at the speed of electronics via stories that grow worse and worse with every telling.
So Health Coaches became the 'whipping boy' of the website's redesign, and in fact for ALL of the complaints and problems that clients had with the program. When the prices were increased for MF meals some months later, it was the Coaches who were blamed. When there were problems of any kind, Coaches were singled out.
As a Health Coach myself, I had tried to keep up blogging on one of the forums, just as a matter of principle, figuring they could take the blog out of the website, but they couldn't prevent me from blogging ANYWAY via another method. I was NOT going to be deterred!
But I quickly learned that not only were there fewer and fewer people listening (because people got disgusted with the new website and stopped visiting), but those that were, were doing it only to make FUN of me. To make jokes at my expense. To post sarcastic, bittter, angry comments.
I tried to ignore it at first. Not give any credance to the haters.
But of course I'm only human, and I have feelings, too. And it nagged at me. Why was I taking this? I wasn't to blame!
So I tried to fight back. I posted rejoinders to the comments. I reminded them that the Coaches had had NOTHING to do with the website redesign OR the price increase, at ALL. And that we were clients, as well, and were just as upset as they were. I tried to explain how it works with Coaches, because there are so many misconceptions....people think we get free trips at the expense of our clients (NOT true), that we all band together in some sort of a secret society and all tell lies (ALSO not true), that we are in 'charge', somehow, of the methods by which TSFL communicates with its users (WAY not true!).
But all my honest, up-front explanations just fell on deaf ears. NOBODY WAS LISTENING.
They preferred to hate instead. To make value judgements and make up stories and see who could spew the most venom.
Sad but true.
So eventually I stopped blogging. Why bother? I was dealing with an audience that could care LESS. All they wanted was to bitch about the website and the program. Why they even spent time doing so if they hated it so much was perplexing....but whatever.
All I knew was, it wasn't worth it anymore. I wasn't made of stone, and these attacks HURT. They were uncalled for and anonymous and unprovoked, vicious attacks. Plain and simple.
So, like everyone else, I sought a place to go for support. I had my own binge-eaters Facebook website and my clients' Facebook page, and those were helpful....but I still needed a connection to others who were working the program and yet not part of my client base. I found a few and we connected, and they've been helpful. But of course it's still not quite the same....and it never WILL be the same....as it was back in the old blogging days on the old website.
So this blog, dear TSFL and/or Medifast, is to let you know, from the users to the powers that be, that your experiment FAILED.
BIGTIME.
Whatever dreams you had about saving money and supporting your clients at the same time? They have failed. What you have created is a monster.....and you are LOSING clients because of it.
As a Health Coach I can personally attest to clients' leaving because they were 'mad at Medifast'. Seriously. That's why. They are angry about the website changes, they are angry about the price increase, and they are angry in general and feel left out in the cold.
I've told them that their business won't be missed, if they are thinking of 'speaking with their pocketbooks. Because obesity is at epidemic levels, for every one person who leaves in disgust, there are 3 newbies investigating the program as a last-ditch effort before gastric bypass.
It's sad that customer retention doesn't get the attention it deserves....but there it is.
And yes, it doesn't make SENSE to quit the program because you're 'mad at it'. I've even blogged about this. But tell that to someone totally discouraged, totally disgusted and having nowhere else to turn to vent, and to get encouragement.
BRING BACK BLOGS. Bring back some PERSONALIZATION in the website, so that people can be IDENTIFIED and no longer 'hide' behind a made-up anonymous username. And bring back friends lists and messages. WE NEED THEM. We need that connection.
And stop saying that other social websites are the 'same'. They are NOT. They are too public. We need a MF-ONLY support website, one that allows for USER TO USER COMMUNCIATION. The forums are not enough.
As I write this I'm also standing aside in my own head and shaking my head, because I KNOW, in my heart of hearts, that those responsible will either never read this blog, or will read it and totally ignored it.
But I had to write it anyway, for the sake of the 100 or so others out there like me, who have lost our support. I feel your pain. I just wanted you to know that. We ALL feel the same way. We HATE the new website. But just know, you're NOT ALONE.
Linda Leiby alias "Catlover77"
angiecat6@comcast.net
I'm here to tell you, (and I know you've heard this before but you NEED to hear it again), that your experiment FAILED.
Maybe you saved money with this redesign.....obviously using the FitBit front end was a plug and play type of thing, much easier to maintain than to have a bunch of programmers on staff dedicated to the site...but you also caused at least 100 people, maybe more, to lose their mojo, stop their progress, and in many cases STOP using the program altogether, because their support system was yanked out from underneath them.
Literally, like a ladder to success had been yanked out beneath us, leaving us high and dry.
It is IMPORTANT to have a support system....a place to go where you can share how it's going for you, in this ongoing battle of food addiction/weight loss/bingeing....with OTHERS who share the SAME addiction.
Having that MF Community website, populated ONLY with people doing MF, was important. We got to blog honestly about how it was going....and we got to read others' blogs. And no matter where we were across the country, there were so many similarities to our stories, and our EMOTIONS, and how we struggled....that we felt like long-lost sisters.
We WERE sisters, in a way. Brothers, too (although men were far less likely to participate on this website, there were a few, and they were honest and friendly and noteworthy for their compassion). Brothers and sisters of a type, all fighting the same battles. With our own shorthand and our own nicknames and our own stories, as personal as we wanted them to be.
We SHARED our pain and thereby lessened it. We commiserated when we failed, and celebrated when we succeeded.
I remember the day I hit goal in late July, 2013. I got over 100 reads of my blog....maybe more (I forget the exact number now but it was eye-popping), and dozens of congratulatory comments. Comments that really meant a lot to me, because these people KNEW my struggle -- they had been with me every step of the way.
I had started out at 235 lbs, and lost over 70 lbs to reach my goal of 160. That was HUGE, and the biggest weight loss of my life. It also made the biggest change on my lifestyle, for GOOD. I now had the 'answer'!!! The answer to a weight loss prayer that had started way back in February 2012. The Medifast program WORKED! Like a charm. And those folks who had been working the program right alongside of me KNEW what it took to succeed, so their congrats meant even more to me.
I only wish now that I had saved those comments, because they would STILL make me smile, even 2 years later.
No one knows how hard it is to change a lifestyle, like someone ELSE who has also changed his/her lifestyle.
And maintenance was....not easy, far from it (in many ways, this is where the REAL work begins) but I managed OK. Slipping and sliding sometimes, because that 'goal' of hitting a certain weight was no longer there, and simply maintaining the status quo while everyone around you seems to be eatingeatingeating like there's no tomorrow is TOUGH...! But I was doing it.
And then, on October 28, 2014, everything changed. The "powers that be" decided to redesign our website, and in so doing they ripped out ALL shreds of personalization, ALL our blogs, ALL our friends' lists and messages, everything that connected us, in a real way, to others working the program.
It was purely a business decision, based on dollars and cents. Programming the website was too expensive. So they fired the programming staff, and replaced most of the website with a 'canned' front-end that they had partnered with the FitBit people on. Suddenly owning a FitBit gadget was the thing to do. It recorded your activity and you could, hopefully, increase your exercise and decrease the amount of time spent being a couch potato.
This was kind of amusing, as the Medifast meal program is one where exercise is NOT required. Of course it's nice to do....but it can be dangerous during the first few weeks of working the program, due to ketosis taking such a toll on the body. You can get light-headed and even pass out. The official recommendation is to wait 3 weeks before starting an exercise program...and if you're already working out, cut it in half.
And after that time period, exercise is great, but it's NOT necessary. In fact, I know people who went through the entire program without doing ANY exercise at all. It's not required.
Yet suddenly, because Take Shape for Life had partnered with Fitbit, an exercise gadget, owning a Fitbit was not only encouraged (and of course, SOLD by TSFL as well) but it was the 'thing to do'. The entire front-end was designed to be used with a Fitbit!
The FitBit is a good tool, but it's NOT necessary. Period. In fact, for some, especially those of us who tend to be perfectionists and anal and WAY harder on ourselves than we need to be (which happens very frequently with food addicts) it can do more harm than good, because suddenly everything's a competition. Did you get your 10,000 steps a day in? Heaven forbid if you didn't. No provision for weight-training, by the way (which can be just as important as cardio for a person interested in weight loss), other than a blanket generic 'weight training' exercise selection, which of course fixated only on calories burned rather than muscle gained....and you had to wear the thing night and day and recharge it every 3 days or so, and download your information and it gave you all sorts of charts and graphs, etc. Ho-hum. Big deal. I'd been there with the charts and graphs. After awhile you realize, it's all kind of SILLY. Because in the final analysis, they are UNNECESSARY. All you really need to do is move more and eat less. (which for us means stay OP). That's all.
And our blogs? Were replaced by blogs from Dr. A and company.
They weren't blogs, of course, either. They were ADVERTISEMENTS. Plain and simple. Ads for TSFL. For whatever the company was pushing this month.
Those of us who had been loyal bloggers and/or readers and followers of the old MF website felt like we had been ROBBED. Robbed in the night, our stories, our blogs, our shared confidences, all ripped away in the dark, never to be seen again.
And to add insult to injury, the new website had a note hard-coded on the front page which promised that our 'blogs would be coming back'.
That was 8 months ago.
Yeah, right.
I'll believe it when I see it.
But here's the saddest part. For awhile I only suspected this in my heart....but I have since done some reading and research, and found a lot of the people who used to blog on the old website, and I would venture to guess that nearly ALL of the people who used it to blog, or to read others' blogs, or both, have been struggling since the redesign.
There is NO replacement for a safe place to communicate with others going through the same things you are going through.
Because unlike Facebook or blogs on Blogspot or whatever....even Fitbit or MyFitnessPal, both of which have users and messages and in some cases even blogs....all of us on the Medifast Community website were working the SAME program. We didn't have to get into arguments about whether or not the MF meals program worked, because we were already convinced, we were DOING it! We didn't have to worry about people who never worked the program reading our stuff, because we all were WORKING it.
We had a SHARED task...to lose weight using the MF program. That was it. That was the common ingredient.
And that single-minded purpose made us FOCUS on the task at hand, and gave us compassion to do so in a gentle, friendly way. Anyone who attempted to become nasty was quickly shouted down (and out!). The emphasis was on loving SUPPORT. No matter WHAT. Because if you were in good place, you shared and helped those who weren't in a good place...because you KNEW that sooner or later, you would be in a bad place.
It's not that way using other websites. Even Facebook websites supposedly dedicated to Medifast....there's no way (unless you make it a closed or secret group, which sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it, because new folks trying the Medifast program can't find you!) to keep the general public OUT.
And so our safety net, our feeling that what we said would be kept in confidence and understood, was GONE.
We lost our place to VENT, to get your feelings out in a SAFE environment, and have others (gently and compassionately!) steer you back on track when your head got messed up.
Because we all have gotten our heads messed up from time to time. LOL.
And it was NICE, in fact I would venture to say it was IMPERATIVE, to have an understanding shoulder to cry on. Someone who had been there, done that. EXACTLY that.
To make matters worse, the FORUMS, which were the only form of input and communication with other users left in, became antagonistic, bitter, angry places where people (who were now anonymous, having had their personal info stripped away completely) could poke at each other in anger, make sarcastic comments, and play 'who can be nastiest'.
The anger and bitterness felt by these folks, many of whom either were angry at Medifast and TSFL for changing the website, came through loud and clear. And because the twin companies, Medifast and TSFL, were NOT LISTENING to the cries and complaints of those who hated the redesign (to date, I've yet to hear from ONE person who likes the changes!), they instead turned on EACH OTHER, and especially on Health Coaches.
Health Coaches are working the program, just like everyone else, only they ALSO help others to get to goal by being there to answer questions and just to have a shoulder to cry on sometimes. For this they get compensated directly by TSFL. It's free for the client. But like everything else, there are good coaches and bad coaches. And the few bad apples, of course, ruin it for everyone else because their misdeeds are spread at the speed of electronics via stories that grow worse and worse with every telling.
So Health Coaches became the 'whipping boy' of the website's redesign, and in fact for ALL of the complaints and problems that clients had with the program. When the prices were increased for MF meals some months later, it was the Coaches who were blamed. When there were problems of any kind, Coaches were singled out.
As a Health Coach myself, I had tried to keep up blogging on one of the forums, just as a matter of principle, figuring they could take the blog out of the website, but they couldn't prevent me from blogging ANYWAY via another method. I was NOT going to be deterred!
But I quickly learned that not only were there fewer and fewer people listening (because people got disgusted with the new website and stopped visiting), but those that were, were doing it only to make FUN of me. To make jokes at my expense. To post sarcastic, bittter, angry comments.
I tried to ignore it at first. Not give any credance to the haters.
But of course I'm only human, and I have feelings, too. And it nagged at me. Why was I taking this? I wasn't to blame!
So I tried to fight back. I posted rejoinders to the comments. I reminded them that the Coaches had had NOTHING to do with the website redesign OR the price increase, at ALL. And that we were clients, as well, and were just as upset as they were. I tried to explain how it works with Coaches, because there are so many misconceptions....people think we get free trips at the expense of our clients (NOT true), that we all band together in some sort of a secret society and all tell lies (ALSO not true), that we are in 'charge', somehow, of the methods by which TSFL communicates with its users (WAY not true!).
But all my honest, up-front explanations just fell on deaf ears. NOBODY WAS LISTENING.
They preferred to hate instead. To make value judgements and make up stories and see who could spew the most venom.
Sad but true.
So eventually I stopped blogging. Why bother? I was dealing with an audience that could care LESS. All they wanted was to bitch about the website and the program. Why they even spent time doing so if they hated it so much was perplexing....but whatever.
All I knew was, it wasn't worth it anymore. I wasn't made of stone, and these attacks HURT. They were uncalled for and anonymous and unprovoked, vicious attacks. Plain and simple.
So, like everyone else, I sought a place to go for support. I had my own binge-eaters Facebook website and my clients' Facebook page, and those were helpful....but I still needed a connection to others who were working the program and yet not part of my client base. I found a few and we connected, and they've been helpful. But of course it's still not quite the same....and it never WILL be the same....as it was back in the old blogging days on the old website.
So this blog, dear TSFL and/or Medifast, is to let you know, from the users to the powers that be, that your experiment FAILED.
BIGTIME.
Whatever dreams you had about saving money and supporting your clients at the same time? They have failed. What you have created is a monster.....and you are LOSING clients because of it.
As a Health Coach I can personally attest to clients' leaving because they were 'mad at Medifast'. Seriously. That's why. They are angry about the website changes, they are angry about the price increase, and they are angry in general and feel left out in the cold.
I've told them that their business won't be missed, if they are thinking of 'speaking with their pocketbooks. Because obesity is at epidemic levels, for every one person who leaves in disgust, there are 3 newbies investigating the program as a last-ditch effort before gastric bypass.
It's sad that customer retention doesn't get the attention it deserves....but there it is.
And yes, it doesn't make SENSE to quit the program because you're 'mad at it'. I've even blogged about this. But tell that to someone totally discouraged, totally disgusted and having nowhere else to turn to vent, and to get encouragement.
BRING BACK BLOGS. Bring back some PERSONALIZATION in the website, so that people can be IDENTIFIED and no longer 'hide' behind a made-up anonymous username. And bring back friends lists and messages. WE NEED THEM. We need that connection.
And stop saying that other social websites are the 'same'. They are NOT. They are too public. We need a MF-ONLY support website, one that allows for USER TO USER COMMUNCIATION. The forums are not enough.
As I write this I'm also standing aside in my own head and shaking my head, because I KNOW, in my heart of hearts, that those responsible will either never read this blog, or will read it and totally ignored it.
But I had to write it anyway, for the sake of the 100 or so others out there like me, who have lost our support. I feel your pain. I just wanted you to know that. We ALL feel the same way. We HATE the new website. But just know, you're NOT ALONE.
Linda Leiby alias "Catlover77"
angiecat6@comcast.net
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
What are YOU hungering for?
I'm in Day 24 back OP (on program) and still rolling along, feeling good. I had a minor slip-up over the weekend but I was able to crawl and claw my way out of that particular hole, and got right back 100% on Monday, but it got me to thinking.
This morning I grabbed - pretty much at random - one of my binge-eating self-help books, one of many I've read and some are better than others but I usually can find a little nugget of truth inside me after reading them so they DO help - "The Food is a Lie: The Truth Lies Within" by Bronwyn Marmo....and reading from it I came across a chapter about making peace with your hungry side.
Here's a quote:
"Healing from binge eating began with the awareness and understanding that the coping strategy I had once used was no longer working. Food had previously served an important role and purpose in my life, as it was my best friend and lover. As I matured and my needs grew, my expectations of what the food should give me, increased. However, the food couldn't keep up with my demands. No matter how many times I gave it a try, my needs were not being met. Sadly, I realized they were never met by the food. The food was a substitute and failing me miserably now."
THIS is what it's all about, when you come down to it.
We "feed" our problems when we're food addicts. We feed them because it's what we learned to do, from an early age when Mom or Grandma gave us a cookie to "feel better", and so we associate food with solving our emotional problems, whatever they are. Normal eaters grow OUT of this....either they stop using food to solve their problems, or they are the type that can be happy with ONE square of chocolate.
But somehow WE don't.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
It ALL Counts!
Starting over?
Well, the first thing I want to tell you is to STOP beating yourself up for whatever mistakes you made to get you here.
Because each and every bit of experience you have had, COUNTS.
It all adds up.
I know it feels like it was a waste. Like you're going 'round and 'round in circles, getting nowhere.
I know you feel like you're beating your head against a wall sometimes, like you'll NEVER 'get it'.
After all, how many times can you repeat the same dumb mistakes, right?
How many times have you overeaten? Or binged? And hated yourself afterwards?
We can't understand it. We aren't stupid, most of us....so WHY?
Why is it that we can do so many other things 'right'....we can have successful careers, run our households, be the organizer or central hub that our families and/or friends depend upon, do SO many things well.....yet we can't do a simple thing like control our eating?
What the heck is WRONG with us?
Listen to me. There is NOTHING wrong with you.
NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING.
Because this isn't like long division. You don't learn it and then that's 'it', you're done.
This is a CONTINUAL learning process. A LIFELONG journey.
I know you don't want to hear that. You want to have it 'once and done'. We're all so busy in our lives, we don't have patience for a slow learning process based on experience.
But it's necessary.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Living in the Enemy Camp!
I love to write (duh...), but I also love to read.
Right now I'm neck-deep in a Tom Clancy 'Jack Ryan' novel....one I've read before, but that's OK (if it's a good book I'll come back months or even years later and re-read it)...about cybercrime and spies and running surveillance in hostile territory.
I love books like these because they take me out of my hum-drum world and into another one, an exciting one full of danger and intrigue and I always get to be the good guy who saves the planet. LOL.
But I was thinking this morning that my life isn't all that dissimilar to that of a spy living in enemy territory.
Not that I'm in physical danger, of course.
....Well, not unless you count the danger from an inevitable heart attack or diabetes or other major health problem due to obesity if I DON'T get - and KEEP - my attack together in terms of my eating and exercise.
No, I'm talking about feeling like you're living ONE life, and believing ONE thing, while the rest of the world believes...another.
I'm talking about food.
We live in a food-centric society where we are virtually SURROUNDED by food cues. And the most vocal of these cues is about the worst stuff for us!
The other night I saw a Coke commercial that actually SAID...."Excite your tastebuds while you're young" (or something to that affect). Seriously, they were actually coming right out and SAYING that they wanted to hook you while you're young because it 'excites your tastebuds'. Yeah, right. That excitement comes due to the caffeine + sugar combination! And of course, once you're hooked on sugar and caffeine, they own you for life. A guaranteed consumer of Coke. Yeah, gotta have it. Gotta have that slug of sugar before I go do that impossible trick with my skateboard LOL....
Of course, they don't show that same person 20, 30 or 40 years later with no teeth because they rotted out from all the sugar. Obese, unable to even walk up a flight of stairs, let alone do tricks on a skateboard. Sitting on the couch 'binge watching' reality shows, and not really having much of a life anymore...
but hey, they still are drinking that Coke!
Sigh....
Is this what we're coming to?
America won't be conquered by another country, she doesn't have to be.
America is doing HERSELF in. On sugar and sludge and the desire to have it NOW.
We wait for...nothing. Patience doesn't exist anymore. And neither does eating healthy, unless YOU make a concerted, sustained effort to do so, DESPITE everything around you.
Despite the birthday parties and barbeques and all the other events that have FOOD center stage. And drive-throughs because you can't wait to actually COOK and eat a healthy meal, God forbid, you have to 'eat on the run' and eat this wonderfully-tasting stuff. No, it's not good for you, but hey, we want our instant gratification, right?
Yes, I sometimes feel like a lone spy in an enemy camp. "No, thank you" has to be practiced over and over again. Even my GYM has sludge sometimes....someone will bring in cupcakes to celebrate a birthday of a long-standing member or staff person at the gym. Or they will do half-price protein shakes (with more calories than in THREE of my Medifast meals LOL).
But you know what? It's OK.
It's OK because I can't change the world, I can only change my little part of it.
Monday, April 27, 2015
It's about CONTROL!
Today is Day '9' of staying OP 100%, and I'm happy to say it's getting easier every day.
Once you get past those first couple/4-5 days...definitely the first week....you get
into a routine and you can just cruise along. And THAT'S when the weight practically FALLS off your body. And you feel more and more energy coming back, and your
confidence soars and you know that you can do ANYTHING.
The funny part is, I'm doing it this time without logging like crazy, without
charts and graphs, without the scale, even! I'm not even active on MyFitnessPal
anymore. All I do is record what I eat in pen on a xeroxed copy of the Daily Food Log
real quick....and move on. No counting ANYTHING.
Why not? Well, with the 5/1 it's not necessary! I mean, I KNOW what to eat. It's not
rocket science. 5 MF packets and a full L&G every day. Simple.
It's a great way to eat. No more calorie counting. No more bargaining that I did
Spinning so I burned 600 calories so I get to eat that much yada yada (what a mess)...
And if you have a good food plan, even AFTERWARDS, when you hit maintenance,
if you stick to your food plan...'x' amount of lean proteins, 'x' of veggies, 'x' of fruit
(when you get there), etc....you don't NEED to count calories.
The calorie-counting/scale weighing thing can be a TRAP.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
I think too much!
It occurred to me last night that I think too much.
LOL.
Seriously! From the time I was a kid, I'd prefer to read, alone in my room, to running around outside with the other kids. I just was always 'into my own head'. My mother used to say "How did I get such a DEEP child?"
But here's the thing. All that thinking, when you're a food addict, isn't necessarily a good thing!
We all have a conversation going on in our heads, all day, every day. Call it your conscience, call it your soul, call it your spirit guide, even call it Fat Brain (because if you're a food addict, you definitely HAVE a Fat Brain LOL...)....it's that little voice inside your head that is your constant critic, or constant cheerleader, or somewhere in between. He/she tells you what to do sometimes, justifies what you're doing, etc.
And I don't know about you, but my Fat Brain NEVER shuts up. And listening to her...and doing all that "thinking"....is what gets me into trouble, time and time again.
It's like, I analyze, and overanalyze, and over-over analyze, to ridiculous levels. To the point where I can justify eating just about anything and have it make sense...at least for the 5 seconds it takes me to make the decision and put it into my mouth. LOL.
"One won't hurt"
"I NEED this"
"I deserve this"
"I had such a hard day"
"I'm bored"
"I'm not feeling well, this will help"
"I'm so tired, I need a pick-me-up"
"I'm stressed out, it's either eat, or snap someone's head off"
etc. etc.
Do you do that? Do you here yourself in some of these?
Of course you do. We all do if we have a weight problem.
But the KEY is, learning not to listen! Learning to shut that little voice OFF.
WHY in the world do I keep listening? WHY do I fall for it?
Because I want to. Because on some level, it's easier than staying the course and staying OP. (On Program...the Medifast 5/1 program, that is).
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