Cattypuss
Miaow
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2001
- Posts
- 3,666
OK.
I've been a yo-yo dieter since I was 12 (that's 31 years ago now). My weight has varied from just exactly right for my height and build to 70 pounds above that. Over and over again. Though in the last 10 years the yoyo has never hit bottom - it sort-of goes half way down and then snaps back up again.
I've done Weight Watchers (five times), Slimming World (twice), "eating healthily" (more times than I can count), calorie-counting (ditto), and the sickener is that every time I lose weight it starts to go back on INSTANTLY - because I return to my old eating habits.
Now, my eating habits are generally very good - I prefer real food over junk, I am not a huge carnivore, loving pulses and tofu etc, and I love getting my five portions of veg a day (I don't like fruit but I love veg of all kinds). I don't even have a sweet tooth - I eat chocolate one week a month sometimes cos I get cravings, but that's all.
My downfall is not my general diet. It's my binge-eating. Which has long been a terrible, shameful secret. Some dieters, when they binge, eat "forbidden foods" - foods they love but are banned because they are highly calorific.
Me? I'm more hardcore than that. The foods I love most aren't really fattening, so when I binge I go out and buy food I don't particularly like, purely on the criterion of calorie density. I buy food that allows me to consume thousands and thousands of calories at a single sitting.
My motivation? I think it comes from rejection of my by my mother when I was 11 - made me feel not loveable, not good enough (and I think I punish myself with the bingeing for not being good enough) and made me very angry but I never expressed that anger (so I squash it down with food when it starts to rise in me).
So long story short, I have decided that I am going to try NOT dieting. Dieting deals with the weight but not the root cause of the weight.
The cause of the weight is the bingeing and the cause of the bingeing is the emotional stuff.
I am meeting with a therapist who specialises in depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem next Thursday to see if we "click" and if we do she says people rarely need more than three sessions with her. So I have some hope there.
Also, I have been reading books about binge-eating (anti-diet, anti-binge books such as those written by Geneen Roth, Susie Orbach and Sophie and Audrey Boss). These books advocate eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're satisfied (phsyically) and eating whatever you fancy, and eating mindfully. I know if I can do that then I will lose weight, because the foods I most tend to fancy represent a healthy, varied diet. I just need to stop bingeing.
I noticed recently that I start a binge when I feel panic rising in me and that the panic comes from this anger that I mentioned (I start to feel the anger, feel panicked that it will get out of control, and then squash it all down and recalm myself with food). My boyfriend, P, suggested I do breathing meditation as an alternative to bingeing when I feel that need to self-calm.
I find though that the panic rises so quickly that I get too stressed to successfully meditate before I know where I am (I have always found that meditation can calm me very effectively, but only if I'm MODERATELY stressed - if I am HAIR-TEARINGLY stressed when I start to try, it just doesn't work).
I noticed though that brushing my dog will get me from eye-poppingly panicked to a less extreme level of stress - less extreme enough to allow me to meditate successfully. But the poor dog doesn't really enjoy being brushed, so more than once a day would be unfair on her.
I discussed the dog-brushing with P and realised that the useful panic-reducing qualities it has must exist in other activities (can be done at a moment's notice, requires concentration and gentleness so as not to poke the dog in the eye etc, but is not at ALL intellectually demanding, has an element of repetition about the movements, and leaves me at the end with an achievement - a smarter-looking doggy).
He bought me a beginner's needlepoint kit for Xmas and that fits the bill brilliantly - a very appropriate alternative to dog-brushing (the dog has breathed a sigh of relief lol).
Dog-brushing and needlepoint don't always avert a binge but they sometimes do and that's a start.
Anyhoo, this thread is terribly self-indulgent of course but I wanted somewhere to record my battle of the binge, and to vent when I fail or am close to failing.
I've been a yo-yo dieter since I was 12 (that's 31 years ago now). My weight has varied from just exactly right for my height and build to 70 pounds above that. Over and over again. Though in the last 10 years the yoyo has never hit bottom - it sort-of goes half way down and then snaps back up again.
I've done Weight Watchers (five times), Slimming World (twice), "eating healthily" (more times than I can count), calorie-counting (ditto), and the sickener is that every time I lose weight it starts to go back on INSTANTLY - because I return to my old eating habits.
Now, my eating habits are generally very good - I prefer real food over junk, I am not a huge carnivore, loving pulses and tofu etc, and I love getting my five portions of veg a day (I don't like fruit but I love veg of all kinds). I don't even have a sweet tooth - I eat chocolate one week a month sometimes cos I get cravings, but that's all.
My downfall is not my general diet. It's my binge-eating. Which has long been a terrible, shameful secret. Some dieters, when they binge, eat "forbidden foods" - foods they love but are banned because they are highly calorific.
Me? I'm more hardcore than that. The foods I love most aren't really fattening, so when I binge I go out and buy food I don't particularly like, purely on the criterion of calorie density. I buy food that allows me to consume thousands and thousands of calories at a single sitting.
My motivation? I think it comes from rejection of my by my mother when I was 11 - made me feel not loveable, not good enough (and I think I punish myself with the bingeing for not being good enough) and made me very angry but I never expressed that anger (so I squash it down with food when it starts to rise in me).
So long story short, I have decided that I am going to try NOT dieting. Dieting deals with the weight but not the root cause of the weight.
The cause of the weight is the bingeing and the cause of the bingeing is the emotional stuff.
I am meeting with a therapist who specialises in depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem next Thursday to see if we "click" and if we do she says people rarely need more than three sessions with her. So I have some hope there.
Also, I have been reading books about binge-eating (anti-diet, anti-binge books such as those written by Geneen Roth, Susie Orbach and Sophie and Audrey Boss). These books advocate eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're satisfied (phsyically) and eating whatever you fancy, and eating mindfully. I know if I can do that then I will lose weight, because the foods I most tend to fancy represent a healthy, varied diet. I just need to stop bingeing.
I noticed recently that I start a binge when I feel panic rising in me and that the panic comes from this anger that I mentioned (I start to feel the anger, feel panicked that it will get out of control, and then squash it all down and recalm myself with food). My boyfriend, P, suggested I do breathing meditation as an alternative to bingeing when I feel that need to self-calm.
I find though that the panic rises so quickly that I get too stressed to successfully meditate before I know where I am (I have always found that meditation can calm me very effectively, but only if I'm MODERATELY stressed - if I am HAIR-TEARINGLY stressed when I start to try, it just doesn't work).
I noticed though that brushing my dog will get me from eye-poppingly panicked to a less extreme level of stress - less extreme enough to allow me to meditate successfully. But the poor dog doesn't really enjoy being brushed, so more than once a day would be unfair on her.
I discussed the dog-brushing with P and realised that the useful panic-reducing qualities it has must exist in other activities (can be done at a moment's notice, requires concentration and gentleness so as not to poke the dog in the eye etc, but is not at ALL intellectually demanding, has an element of repetition about the movements, and leaves me at the end with an achievement - a smarter-looking doggy).
He bought me a beginner's needlepoint kit for Xmas and that fits the bill brilliantly - a very appropriate alternative to dog-brushing (the dog has breathed a sigh of relief lol).
Dog-brushing and needlepoint don't always avert a binge but they sometimes do and that's a start.
Anyhoo, this thread is terribly self-indulgent of course but I wanted somewhere to record my battle of the binge, and to vent when I fail or am close to failing.
