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| Elven_Eyes |
This WILL work for you!!!... that is, it worked for me, so it follows that it may work for other people who have similar problems because of similar reasons who are in a comparable mental and physical weight to myself. End disclaimer.
I read a blog that was a tangent on someone else's blog that was apparently about weight loss, and that made me think. For years I was the fat girl whinging as she applauded- "Oh my gosh, I am so happy for you, why can't it happen for me!" I am not that person anymore because, guess what? It DID happen for me, and I am NOT fat anymore. Pudgy, sure, even a tad overweight, but much less than I was and my weight is still dropping. If you really want to know the miracle cure, and see if it could work for you, then step right up, sit right down, and limber up your ears. Here it comes.
First, what's your background? Me, I'm an over-eater. Never ate too much junk- I was too broke to eat takeaways and pizzas, don't have a taste for haribos and crisps. I have always eaten healthy, home prepared dishes. I just usually emptied the whole serving dish, and said, "I'm so sorry, that was for four?". Add to that, all my hobbies and enjoyed activities are sedentary: reading, writing, sketching, films, playing the flute, and all the other fulfilling and rewarding ways of sitting on an ever-more-padded ass.
Too much caloric intake for the relevant expenditure of energy equals a girl who got pudgy at 8, fat at 12, and obese at 14. I am not tall- I am only 5'3". At 17, my supposedly "sexy" high school years, I was a fleshy 12 stone and a bit- for my height and build, I am supposed to weigh 9 stone. I topped out at 14 st 5 (ish)- and this happened several times between the ages of 18 and 25; I'd pile it on and peel it off. I was 26 when I turned it around. I turned 27 on Saturday and I am the thinnest I have ever been.
So! What worked and what didn't.
What doesn't work: bad reasons to lose weight. Weddings, including my own, bikini seasons, the concerns of parents, unflattering comparisons with friends, etc. Like with any addiction, the addict (or fatty) WILL NOT change until they are ready.
Oh yeah, that was the clincher for me- realizing I am an addict. I do NOT believe that addiction is a disease. Calling it a disease allows me be a victim, and I am NOT. Addiction is a series of bad decisions that have become habit, like smoking, like drinking, like gambling, like sex. All of them can become destructive. So can my drug of choice... which is gravy.
So I finally found my good reason to change. Have you got one yet? Mine was, my husband leaving me and not coming back (we've been separated a year). I thought it was completely out of the blue, so trying to understand why made me re-evaluate who I had become.
I didn't recognise the bitch in the mirror, and I DON'T like her.
I used to lie down in my bed at night and feel magical, beautiful, serene, and content. Somewhere along a long hard slog, I had lost my sparkle, and I needed to find it. With my husband out of the scene, it was the perfect time to focus on me. I learned a lot.
Eating isn't my problem, and it probably isn't yours- just like a runny nose isn't a problem. It's a symptom. This is why diets don't work. Diets treat the symptom rather than the cause. The symptom will recur until the cause is cured.
I finally sorted out my root cause, which was confusing emotional excesses with hunger. I am almost never hungry, I am instead sad/upset/lonely/bored/celebrating/commemorating.
I had almost always been a little bit unhappy (abusive father), and I was trying to stuff the clichéd metaphorical hole in my heart with anything that would fill it, including boys, drama, and especially any metaphorical filler that was creamy and perhaps lightly fried. I had used that same self-soothing technique for over a decade. It has made me fat.
Now, I have not been on what I call a diet. I have addressed my root cause. When I feel an emotional excess, I deal with it in a positive way. When I am happy I make music, when I am sad, I write. When I am bored, I find a book or design a room.
This correction of behaviour has negated most of my overeating. I still eat the exact same foods! I still love cream scones and roast dinners and dark chocolate and savoury pies and lasagne, and eat them all. Only, I only eat when I'm properly hungry. Not more than 3 times a day, usually only twice. And much smaller portions. And I don't feel hungry because I never really felt hungry- and now I know the proper names for those feelings.
I recently weighed in at 11 st. 5 which is the least I have weighed as an adult. Since then I had a Starbucks, a Chinese takeaway, and a Ben and Jerrys in honour of my birthday, so I may be a pound or two over, but it will fall away again. The weight loss has been so swift and consistent that I am worried about my skin which is hanging deflated and saggy and quite gross around my tummy. I've taken to wearing shapewear under my clothes every day to hold my skin in place, and that seems to be helping.
So, are you fat? Why? Don't say, eating habits, that's just a symptom. Find your real cause and sort it out. It will make you thin.
| 13 Sep 11, 8:59 PM totallycoverme UK(M), 4 yrs |
this is a radical way of thinking and i like it...i'm really grateful to you sharing this and it would be awesome if i could make it work for me. i love eating because it brings me a pleasure that feels like no other pleasure but ironically, that makes me really sad  can i ask, did you calorie count or did you literally say to yourself "I want to eat but it's not because I need to eat, it's because actually need to cry/celebrate/be creative etc"
Congratulations It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:03 PM NimueBanditQueen UK(MK), 2 yrs  |
Wow! Utterly wonderful! What a brilliant brilliant blog! For different reasons I too am going through a period of sitting back, working out the inner me. In my case it is a diet of ideas. Trying to slough off all the layers of concepts that other people have stuffed in my head and figure out who I am, what makes me tick, what I actually think when I take all that overburden away.
But eating when you're not hungry, yup I recognise that, I think most of us will. And finding and acknowledging yourself and your feelings- there is buried treasure indeed. Buckling my swash through the IC high seas. Edited 13 Sep 11, 9:04 PM by NimueBanditQueen | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:07 PM andrewsean UK(CO), 5 yrs |
Some brilliant points made and thank you very much for sharing them with us and I am not taking the piss with that statement (rare I know) until now I thought along the lines of..... Any diet book needs only 2 pages. 1st page......eat less. 2nd page......move more. I know I am overweight and should lose some but I keep losing sight of the fact that the hole at the top is a lot bigger than the hole at the bottom. Simples. Men reach adulthood about 6 months following death Edited 13 Sep 11, 9:09 PM by andrewsean | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:11 PM Navare UK(B), 9 yrs |
A very interesting post thanks for sharing, I started again last week with the added fun of giving up drinking for 30 to hit the ground running. Day eight and I feel amazing.. N.x http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Impulsion_group | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:23 PM Elven_Eyes UK, 5 yrs |
Believe me, I understand what you mean when you say eating feels like pleasure, because it does for me too. I still, when I am upset, make mashed potatoes with gravy for my evening carb; it was my childhood fave and still makes me happy. But I only have a normal portion, so it isn't too bad. I really didn't calorie count, I didn't ban any foods, I banned a behaviour- eating when emotional rather than hungry. And that was because I wanted to fix my heart. My waist changing was just a nice side effect. One of the hardest things for me was friends trying to be helpful saying "oh you aren't fat" or "just once won't hurt" or, my all time favorite, "you aren't that fat, for an American..." When the fact is, I was fat, and when they were trying to make me feel better they were enabling me. But once I had made the decision, their help (and not helping help) wasn't as important as it had been.
and thanks "The chaperon is there to make sure no one else has any fun, but nobody chaperons the chaperon. That's why I'm so right for this job." -Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:26 PM Elven_Eyes UK, 5 yrs |
I wonder if we all have these periods of re-evaluation... it think they must be periodically necessary for continued optimum self-hood "The chaperon is there to make sure no one else has any fun, but nobody chaperons the chaperon. That's why I'm so right for this job." -Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:28 PM Elven_Eyes UK, 5 yrs |
I still agree with your two page book. I did the moving more thing, and it helped, but I just couldn't eat less for any length of time, and fixing that has allowed me to complete both pages. "The chaperon is there to make sure no one else has any fun, but nobody chaperons the chaperon. That's why I'm so right for this job." -Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" | |
| 13 Sep 11, 9:47 PM Honeyblue UK(B), 9 mths £ |
so glad it worked for you, donT THInk it will for me. I have not been hungry for yeaRs I binge too much for that. I am classic fat girl that ate all the pies I want to be as free in life as I am in my mind. | |
| 13 Sep 11, 10:48 PM Elven_Eyes UK, 5 yrs |
ah, but why do you binge if you are not hungry? "The chaperon is there to make sure no one else has any fun, but nobody chaperons the chaperon. That's why I'm so right for this job." -Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" | |
| 13 Sep 11, 11:07 PM Who_Knows UK(EN), 22 mths |
Good points all. The problem for me is that I eat as soon as I get a little bit hungry, or 'snacky hungry', but because I'm only a little bit hungry I only have a little bit to eat, and it's usually something easily grabbable (noooo.... stop it you filthy-minded lot!), which means it's usually not the healthiest thing in the fridge; and then after a little while I get 'snacky hungry' again, and the pattern repeats itself. Not eating until I'm hungry enough to have a sandwich, or toast, or something more substantial works for me, because there's more time between eating and what I do eat is less likely to be something high in calories or sugar.
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I would love to be able to lose weight...people keep telling me I need to and then I also have a few friends who I suspect are trying to keep me fat...confusing times :-S
