Merry Christmas

I have had a wonderful Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve as we had just finished the last minute jobs and crawled into bed at 1am I was dreading it. I didn't want to get up early, I didn't want to see any family, I just wanted to hide away and sleep through everything. Thankfully the feeling shifted about an hour after waking up.
Both boys loved opening their presents. Even Leo who is only 14 months old got stuck in tearing the paper. His favourite thing was a pair of maracas, and Toby's favourite thing was Leo's wooden trike :OD Typical! They've had a lovely time and are enjoying all of their presents.
I got those lovely boots after all. I even managed to get the left one to do up completely yesterday :OD It won't be long before they fit, and they are the most comfortable boots I have ever worn!
Among other things, I got "Feeding The Hungry Heart" by Geneen Roth and "The Craggy Hole in My Heart" but that one didn't arrive on time. I also got my very own domain name! So in a few days, this blog will be at http://www.neverhungryalwayshungry.co.uk !!
I got a box of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat and so far I've eaten one. I'm not hungry at all. I ate a little too much at Christmas dinner and I've eaten a little at each meal since but not much. I also haven't felt anxious that other people are eating all the good chocolates and leaving me with the rubbish ones. Most of the Quality Street and Cadbury's Heroes have gone now, but I don't mind. I'll just pick some up next time I go shopping. I am still always very pleased when I realise just how free I am now.
We're just going to have a quiet couple of days now - relaxing with eachother, playing with new toys and games and not having to stress about anything. I'm really looking forward to New Year's Eve. Every year since 2004 I've done a yearly recap of how each year has been and even though this year has been overshadowed with negative things, I am feeling very positive about what 2008 holds for me. By this time next year, I expect I'll be slimmer, plus I'll be three quarters of the way through my Chocolate Fairy course, I'll have completed my first OU course. I'm also excited about forming a new identity for myself. I've realised that I'm living beyond my years too much and I would like to change that. I want to take more pride in my appearance now that I can see that being fat doesn't mean there is no point to bother with the rest of how I look. I'm also now able to see that I need to put my needs higher than I do. Being a mother, particularly a young mother with a point to prove, doesn't mean I have to be some kind of beaten down martyr. Looking after myself means I'll feel more positive about life in general and passing that onto the rest of my family can only be a good thing.

It's been a while since I've felt such positive anticipation. Roll on 2008!

Silence

The house is silent. Ben is out in town with his friend and the children are tucked up in bed. I don't like silence much, I find it a bit eerie.
We got a Wii! I've been playing with it tonight while Ben has been out. I've played table tennis, bowling, boxing, tennis, golf and snooker, I've fished, raced round a track on a cows back and knocked down scarecrows and flown around a galaxy with Mario :OD
I've also felt a bit more in tune with my body tonight. I'm feeling a bit larger, though I think the time of year is getting to me slightly. Realising that I will be seeing a lot of family that I haven't seen for two years, and in that time I have gone from a 10 to a 20 and then back down to an 18. All they will see is the increase from 10 to 18, and then I'll be telling them that I'm going to teach people how to lose weight without dieting. I can just imagine what they'll be thinking because I would have thought it myself. Not good.
But, I did feel hungry today for the first time in a while. I think my depression is still slowly getting worse so my appetite is mostly non-existant again, but tonight I felt hungry. Perhaps even too hungry maybe since I wasn't bothered what I ate as long as it stopped me from being hungry? I ate mindfully though, mostly, and I didn't overate. I hate overeating now and find it almost alien that I have lived for the past five years, if not more, living my whole day-to-day life overeating. In fact I think I would struggle to overeat even if I tried. The food doesn't taste nice, I don't feel good physically, I feel bad emotionally as I know the physical draining feeling will continue for a couple of hours... it's not worth it anymore.
Now I'm here, I can see the Beyond Chocolate tools simply as tools. They were a little out there - letting yourself overeat if you need to for example, but it was a necessary step to get me out of a hole. Until I could open my eyes enough to really see how it feels to overeat, I never could have stopped it. I still remember the night when I decided to "sod it" and just throw myself into the BC principles. I remember it feeling like I'd just jumped out of a plane, and then I remember climbing into bed with a load of food and getting stuck in, mindfully of course, and then out of nowhere, I wanted to stop. I think I perhaps ate a yoghurt and a half, or maybe two, and then I was done. There I was, convinced I would have eaten myself out of house and home given half the chance and then fifteen minutes later I was done. What kind of a poor effort was that :OD
I still can't thank Sophie & Audrey and Geneen enough. I don't think there is anything I can do to repay them for what they have done for me. It feels awkward to have this intense emotion and not know what to do with it. I almost feel like I want to grab them by the shoulders and say "But you dont get it! I am SO GRATEFUL for what you have done for me!!", but of course that would just be plain silly.

Just 4 more sleeps til Christmas. I am so not ready for it this year. It feels like it should be at least a couple more months away. My best friend's baby is due in the middle of January too and that has just flown by as well. I think perhaps a part of it is due to my depression - the only way I can get through each day is to be as self absorbed as possible as too much reaching out to others exhausts me mentally, emotionally and physically. So the weeks fly by without me really noticing, which is sad, but even more so while I have young children.

Success and Perfection

Somehow I had never managed to separate the ideas of success and perfection. This evening, I've just been looking for a new quote to update my BC signature with and I came across this one:

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.
Dr. David M. Burns

I think that kind of makes it a little clearer.

Also, I took part in a BC teleclass!
I was so nervous, I wasn't going to do it, I was going to sit the whole call in silence, then I wasn't going to bother at all again But I just did it. And I'm so glad I did, it was so helpful to hear these women in real time and their real voices telling me how they feel and for them to pick up on some points I made and to identify with them on points they made too.I was worried because it was about feeling ok with our bodies and the idea of ourselves being beautiful and so on, and I kind of felt like I'm ok with my body now. I want to lose weight still, but I'm ok. So I wondered if maybe I wouldn't be any help to anybody or maybe the class wouldn't really help me but it was great. It brought up some new things to think about, made me realise where I'm getting stuck with some things and also cleared up a few misconceptions that I had about working towards liking my body.

I'm so glad I did it because before I did I had no doubts that I wouldn't bother joining that part of the guru club and now I am looking forward to being part of the teleclass every month!

Definitely worth a go if you can get a free taster session like I did, just to see whether it works for you. If it doesn't, you can stay quiet for the whole call or maybe like me you'll find it surprisingly easy and helpful.

My Chocolate Kingdom

My Chocolate Kingdom
A Fragment of a Dream ...and in my Chocolate Kingdom they brough me great MOUNTAINS of CHOCOLATE and thereof did I eat. And it did not make me feel ILL or ASHAMED, neither did it put weight on my THIGHS. For the chocolate was health-giving and NOURISHING, and the more I ate, the more BEAUTIFUL I became.

-Edward Monkton.

:O)
It makes me smile to think this is no longer a dream for me. That I can fill my cupboards with chocolate and I don't have to eat it. And that when I decide I would quite like some, whether that be a single piece or several bars, I can eat it without feeling sinful afterwards, and it doesn't equal weight gain anymore. So for me now, it is health-giving and nourishing because it nourishes my emotional and sensory health. Sometimes the soothing sensation of chocolate melting on my tongue is just what I need to cheer me up, and that's not a bad thing. Am I more beautiful? Yes, I think so. Not because I have lost weight, but because my soul is being recognised, respected and treated well by me.

Only nine sleeps to go!

Just nine more sleeps til Santa!

We went to fetch our Christmas tree tonight from Sherwood Pines Forest Park. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed choosing our own tree. The children had a giggle too.

We haven't decorated it yet though. I need to buy some more decorations as a lot of the glass ones got smashed, and we had to dash out to the ice hockey game. I hadn't been to one before and tbh I don't think I'm too fussed about going again. The players were really aggressive with eachother, and the commentator had to keep advertising all the sponsors which was really annoying.

But anyway, our tree is fantastic even undecorated. It's a beautiful dark green colour and smells fantastic. They had spruces, pines and firs for sale and we got a fir tree.

I also the most AMAZING night at the Take That concert on Thursday. I was worried it wasn't going to be too good and I'm not a big fan of them but I'd bought the tickets to cheer my mum up. It was absolutely fan-tas-tic! There was lasers, opera singers, ballet dancers, bridges that descended from the ceiling, travelators, fires and firedancing, african drums... It was so fantastic. You could see in their faces that the boys loved it too, they really put their hearts and souls into performing.

I'm making an effort to dress more like a 21 year old in the hope that this will raise my spirits enough to start acting more like one. Obviously I won't ever get back that freedom, but I don't have to be the frumpy mother that I've become. It's hard though, it's definitely a symptom of my struggle with finding an identity. Forming an identity that fits both a mother, a wife and a young woman hasn't been easy and I think I've acted older than I am to prove that I can be a good mother even if I am 21, and also to blend in with other mothers instead of looking different. I don't want to do that anymore though and thankfully, with BC, I've learnt that it isn't slimness that enables me to be young. Being slim would make it easier to dress younger, but I don't have to wait until I'm slim to even try anymore.

I also went out for dinner with Ben to celebrate our second anniversary last night - it's not til Tuesday but getting a babysitter on a weeknight is close to impossible. We went to one of our local pubs, The Chesterfield. I had goats cheese and sundried tomato salad to start, followed by venison and then a chocolate mousse. The starter was fantastic, the venision was very bland which was disappointing, and the chocolate mousse was so rich! I only managed to eat half of the main and pudding. We did finish a bottle of Veuve Cliquot between us though. I've waited four years to try that particular brand and it's now my favourite. Yummity yum!

I'm going to have a busy week this week getting everything ready for Christmas. I'm determined to have everything ready slightly in advance otherwise I end up completely run down and usually ill on Christmas day and boxing day. Not good.

Anyway, I'm off for a slice of cake. Bye xx

Hmpf

Tonight I'm feeling rubbish and desperately want to be slim so that others find me attractive. Why do I want others to find me attractive? Why do I want to feel validated in that way?
*sigh*
Perhaps a bit too "heart on my sleeve" but I think I'm feeling a bit frumpy and fed up as a wife and mother. I think I'm associating my previous younger life with slimness. I'd say young, free and single but I've only been single for six weeks since I was fourteen and a half lol. Perhaps it's wanting to have it all - that rush that you get from other people finding you attractive, but the security and stillness and stability that love provides. I'd never switch the love that I have with Ben for anything in the world, but it'd be nice to feel sexy too sometimes. Why can't I associate my size with sexiness?
Hmmf.
Well, now I just feel sad and silly, which I guess is better than feeling like I wanted to ring my mum (Cambridge Diet counsellor) for shakes and soups.

Silly me!

God I'm good

*toot toot toot* <-- Me blowing my own trumpet :OD

I got 77%!! The number of minor mistakes (mostly typos) is hilarious, but I got 77% after spending a couple of hours doing an assignment that should have taken 12 hours!!

Yayyyyyyyyyyyy!!
And finally we have some cash, so I am going to get a bottle of wine and some lovely fish for dinner to celebrate. Yummety yum!

Rubbishy Rubbishness

Went to see my doctor this morning. I'm being referred to the Psychiatric team because I'm still not improving and over the last month or so I've got considerably worse. Utterly determined not to let this affect either my OU work or my BC fairy course in April. Though saying that, I had a mad rush to get my assignment in tonight. I submitted it with 3 minutes to go, though I think I did a good job considering the circumstances. I got a 79% on my first assignment. I will be happy with anything above 65% but realistically expecting somewhere between 50-65%.
The doctor gave me a questionnaire to rate how bad the symptoms are and I got 22 out of 27, so quite high. I have no appetite again.
I am also having some binge type desires that I'm not entirely sure are linked to the weight loss thing. I want to eat when I feel hard done by, and I wanted to eat tonight to celebrate getting my assignment in but we didn't have anything I felt like eating. I'm also very aware that eating doesn't work the way it used to anymore so it would be utterly pointless as it wouldn't even be a comfort, which makes the desires all the more confusing.

Ordered £32 worth of stuff from Avon though, so hopefully that will cheer me up a little when it arrives on the 12th. I bought some red lipstick and nail polish (my favourite colour), a teal eyeliner/eyeshadow duo thing as I always wear neutral colours and wanted to try something difference, and a tamagotchi pet thing LOL. I'm such a kid. I'm sure it will be rubbish, but it's only a fiver and I'm sure Toby will use it if I don't. Still, the thought of treating myself to something silly like that brings a smile to my face which is worth a whole lot more than a fiver at the moment :O)

Geneen Roth

I've just been flicking through some of the sections I'd underlined in Breaking Free from Emotional Eating. Some of the things Geneen says almost moved me to tears. When I read the book normally, it felt kind and comfortable, but picking out the best statements and reading them without the bumf really shows how amazing that woman is. She really writes from the heart, and it's like she's talking to you the way a mother should.

One part that particularly stuck out for me tonight was this, on how to be after a binge.

" It is crucial that you be KIND to yourself, that you be kinder to yourself now than you have been in a long time. This is when you need yourself the most. Don't leave. Your are most prone to self-condemnation, punishment, deprivation at this time, and if you let yourself fall into that trap, you'll be lost until you can muster the compassion the retreive yourself. Do something wonderful ... You need to let yourself know that you still believe in yourself."

There is so much wisdom in that book. I don't think I could ever repay her for the change she has made to my life.

Big Fat MWAH

To all the lovely ladies who left me comments on my last post :O) It's lovely to feel so supported.
Happily I am not at all affected by other peoples' weight worries. It hadn't even crossed my mind this year that I should be slim at Christmas. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less what my family think of my weight and if they think rude comments then it says more about them than me. I hadn't noticed how good it is to be free of those dieting deadlines.
I seem to have lost my hunger signal again. It's not too bad and I think it is related to the depression, which has taken a horrible turn. Think I need to try some different antidepressants as these seem to be making things worse rather than better.
I've had a couple of struggles over the last few days - a bit of a push me pull me, again originating from an "I shouldn't eat this" as usual. I start second guessing myself as to whether I should eat something or not, and with the lack of hunger signal it's hard to feel like I'm making the right decision. It hasn't resulted in a binge though so I must be doing ok.

And in other news - it's nearly Christmas!! Yay!! I saw the Coca-Cola advert, and we're going to get a Christmas tree on Sunday, a real one! I can't wait. I sorted out all the decorations the day before yesterday, though I seem to have lost a load. Not that I need an excuse to buy more. I bought some gorgeous Gisela Graham ones from John Lewis last year, they are beautiful. I also managed to win an auction on eBay for a beautiful fabric advent calendar. It's the same one that my step-grandmother made for me as a child from a kit that can't be bought anymore. It only cost me £6.50 as well. Bargain!

I've begun planning the Christmas Day evening buffet as we have all the family over. It's so nice to be allowed to eat whatever I want without guilt and without regret the next morning. I've got some fantastic ideas and I can't wait to get started shopping and preparing it.

That's about all. I'm sooo tired and I have so much studying to do before my assignment on Tuesday so I better get cracking.

Brain twisting.

Gah. So, losing weight that is obvious in clothes sizes seem to result in the same effect that losing weight on the scales seems to have. I want to eat more. Al recommended I do the fat conversation thing again which I think will be a good idea. I also came up with another possible explanation as I was walking yesterday but I've forgotten what it was now. Useful, aren't I!

I've been writing my Christmas list this week. I found a gorgeous pair of knee high boots in Clarks.

I went to try them on this evening and they won't zip up over my fat calves. Strangely, I am not having a go at myself the way I used to. I am, however, really upset. And angry. Though I'm not sure who I'm angry at or why. I'm definitely fed up about that. I've wanted them for weeks and now there is no point getting them.
I'm still feeling positive that this is working for me. I am in size 18 jeans again, albeit with hold-it-all-in pants. I think there is definitely a feeling of impatience. When I gave up the scales, I started to give up the intense desire to lose weight. Weightloss has always been non-negotiable; it had to happen, but the intensity was diminishing. This week, when I realised I was really losing weight, it brought that desire back. I tasted success, it tasted good and I wanted more. I'd lost the patience, and the bad food habits/incessant gremlin niggling came back scarily fast.

I'm in for the long haul. This makes me feel so free and so happy, even the crap days are never as crap as they used to be. Only five months til fairy training starts! :O)

Being ok

I'm doing ok with my eating still. It feels odd though, like I'm waiting for something to go wrong. I know this is something I'll have to work on continuously albeit at a less involved level. Before I couldn't even contemplate the idea of missing a meal. Whether I was hungover, sick, tired, had nothing in the house that I fancied, I'd eat anyway. Plus snacks. I was always hungry. These days, I'm hardly ever hungry. My emotional needs aren't getting met as much as I'd like, but the desire to eat has gone now that I've dealt with that "emotional discomfort never gets solved with food" thing.
In a way, it's a little scary as I can't hide from my emotions like I did before. Eating something doesn't even distract me anymore in the way it did. That's good though. That's where I want to be. That is exactly the reason that intuive eating has been such a journey for me. While on the surface it seems to be about having the willpower to follow the principles, it isn't. It's about separating yourself from the crutch that eating has become.
We're brought up in a society that inadvertantly creates disordered eating patterns. Learning how to eat now seems to me to be as important as learning how to walk or talk, and just as difficult. And I've learnt that making mistakes is not a negative thing. I now see them as discovering boundaries. If I make a mistake with IE, I've just discovered something new about myself or my eating habits. Putting it like that makes me realise that it's impossible to do IE without making mistakes. I think it was Thomas Edison that said "I haven't failed, I've just found many ways that don't work".
Ah ha, here we go, the exact quote -

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in
proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that
will not work, I will find the way that will work." –Edison.

That is definitely a quote that reflects my journey with intuitive eating. When I discovered Beyond Chocolate, I never believed that my life would change so much. I thought I was just going to eat better and lose weight. I never thought I'd have to change so much, to acknowledge myself and my feelings all the time. And now it seems absurd that I had been ignoring myself my whole life. I need looking after and I deserve to be looked after, not by other people but by myself.
That part is massive. And so, so difficult. I still find it extremely hard to ask for help. I've often been praised for being independent, so I think I interpreted that as it being a good thing to be able to cope alone, and so by asking for help I'd be giving up the image of being independent or self sufficient. That's what I need to work on now.
In other news, my depression has taken another turn for the worse. I was taking too many tablets for a few weeks - 150mg imipramine as my prescription, but I was still taking 100mg dosulepin. Now I've run out of dosulepin and I'm falling to pieces. I went to see my doctor again yesterday and she's increased my dose of imipramine to 200mg. I wanted to tell her that I'd been taking too many tablets but I couldn't. I think I might need someone to come with me next time if the increased dose of imipramine doesn't help so that I can put the 150mg imip + 100mg dosulepin idea to her. I suspect the answer will be no (which is why I'm scared to ask!), but it really worked before and I felt like myself again. We'll see anyway.

Happy Birthday Leo!

Today my baby boy is one year old. Already! I am in shock I think LOL. This last year has been momentous for me. I started my pregnancy a size 10, quickly going up to a 12 with the bloating/bump plus the all inclusive holiday weight that we went on the week before I found out I was pregnant. By the end of my pregnancy I was a size 18, yet I didn't know this until after I gave birth. I was mortified. I was (and still am!) over the moon was my son, so totally and utterly in love with him, the second he was placed onto my chest. The first words I managed were a breathless "Oh my gosh, I love him already".
Then two days later I decided to brave clothes, and being generous to myself, tried a size 14. I figured I'd need bigger jeans to allow for the post-baby bulge. They wouldn't even go up to my mid-thighs.
I couldn't understand it. It made no sense. I'd been wearing size 10/12 maternity clothes the whole time. Nobody had commented on my weight throughout my pregnancy. I couldn't possibly be a size 16! The idea was ridiculous. I had no choice but to drag myself to Next and buy the 16s. Better try them on first I thought. They wouldn't do up. Size 18?! I've never been a size 18. Size 18 was past my size 16 (the biggest my mum ever was) "limit".

I bought the size 18 jeans. I had no choice. I had nothing to wear. I wore size 16 tops though. I wasn't a size 18, I was a size 16/18. It's different. I wouldn't buy a coat because the size 16 coats wouldn't do up. I spent the winter quite cold!

Nine days after giving birth to Leo, I felt so terrible about my size that I joined WeightWatchers online. I was back to points, and thank god breastfeeding allowed so many extra points because I was overloading food to push away the feeling of shame that came with my new size. The feeling of being a complete and utter failure. Nothing else mattered. I was fat. Again.

The Diet started every single day. I didn't wait for Mondays or Tuesdays (the new Mondays dontcha know!). Always grasping points here, saving them there. Overspending mostly, promising myself that tomorrow I'd stick to my points. I couldn't wait until Leo was 6 months old when I'd decided that was an ok timescale to stop breastfeeding and go back to the Cambridge Diet.

Over New Year I think it was, I read about Beyond Chocolate in my subscription magazine Psychologies. It sounded good, but I'd dismissed it as expensive without even finding out the prices. After LighterLife I knew that all "the answers" were expensive.

Then in March, after breaking my heart and posting on an internet forum, a wonder lady called Rache told me that Beyond Chocolate was really worth a try, and asked me if I had seen their book. I hadn't but I ordered it that afternoon, after she promised me it wasn't about "Embracing your Fat Self" and staying fat but not minding that. When the book arrived, I read it in one day. Just reading the introduction and I was sold. I had The Answer in my hands.

And for once, it really is the answer. The pain is going, the binging is gone, the overeating is finally an exception instead of the norm. I'm not "cured" by any means, but I don't think you ever are cured of this. I still struggle with my feelings. I don't know how to deal with things when I'm bored or lonely but I don't actually want to do anything about it. I don't want to be making friends or taking up a new hobby, I'm fine enjoying my own company but I want that general unease to go away. I'll get there.

And I'm hungry! Well, not right now. We had triangle sandwiches, mini pizzas, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on sticks followed by birthday cake with jelly and icecream. I'm stuffed! But tomorrow I won't be very hungry, and then I'll probably feel a little hungry in the afternoon. I love feeling hungry. It makes me feel alive. That sounds a little silly, but I think anyone who has been through this knows what I mean.

It's good to feel connected.

And I am still breastfeeding! And I love it. I have a life, I have a baby and I am ok now. I wish I knew then what I know now. I wish I had just enjoyed those early days instead of fretting.

Can't wait for the next one now. Hehe. But not for a while - had a coil fitted on Monday. Non-hormonal - I won't have any hormones messing with my appetite anymore!

Title inspiration?

I have no title inspiration today.
My mum rang my Dad about the issue with him getting married. My sister was just as distressed by it all as I was, so my mum offered to gently raise the issue with my Dad so that he is aware of our feelings. I'm glad she did. I'm too scared to rock the boat, so having her support really makes the difference.

Foodwise things are ok. I don't really have much to say on it all really, which is dull for the rest of you IEers who read my blog and support me. We have been broke for the last week or so though, which means the abundance side of things is lacking, and therefore the cravings are on the up but in a way it's nice to explore this side of things. I did have Haagen Dazs mini pots of icecream for dinner on Thursday night though. Yum! It was nice to be broke but still have ice-cream, because I didn't have to pay for a dinner I didn't want but felt compelled to eat as I have in the past.

I've been going over the e-course work this week. It's even brought up some new things that I hadn't discovered before. I think the "I want, I need, I desire" exercise is my favourite. It seems I definitely have a real conflict of wanting to be noticed in a positive light, but also wanting to be alone. I guess the two aren't mutually exclusive though.

Learning to eat intuitively has really forced me into living intuitively. I can't ignore my feelings because they won't go away, and I'm not prepared to risk hiding them under food anymore, nor do I want to take up drinking, smoking, risky sex or gambling! I found the concept of living intuitively a little "hippyish" when I first discovered IE but now I'm discovering that actually it's just a state of being confident.

Valuing yourself brings an automatic boost of self esteem. I also feel compelled to honour my needs, wants and desires. Obviously this isn't always practical - I can't afford those gorgeous shoes every week, but I can feel that I am worth spending time and money on when I can afford it. And in terms of time, making sure I can afford to spend time on myself because I need it and I am worth it.

I can't wait until I am a real Chocolate Fairy and can start spreading the magic fairy dust, so to speak.

Hurting

Excuse my probably OTT reactions, I've only just heard the news and I'm reacting emotionally and probably being unreasonable.
My parents are divorced. My Dad has always been rubbish. At the most we seem him once a month. He doesn't see the importance of coming to visit when my children have birthdays. At the same time, he is always saying he is proud of me, my husband, my children, that he is glad to be a grandparent to such lovely boys etc. I assume his uselessness is laziness rather than malicious.
Today he called to announce he is getting married some time after next April. No problem except I didn't even know he was with anyone, except through hearsay from my grandma (his mum). He previously broke up with this woman because she was manipulating him financially and emotionally. That was about 18 months ago. I've got no idea how long they have been back together, I only heard the rumours last week.
His uselessness is always upsetting me. He's always letting me down, but because he doesn't mean to I brush it aside and forgive him. Nobody is perfect, I don't expect him to be. I feel this is one step too far. He openly admitted he didn't tell anyone he was back with her because he wanted to keep it a secret in case it all went wrong. I hate this woman. She has been rude to me and to my sister (including about my house, about my children, about my mothering ability, about my sister's size (she's a size 12, woman is at least a 16)). She was also rude to my husband's best man at my wedding, and left the wedding reception without saying goodbye to anyone, including my dad.
I don't want anything to do with her. I don't want to come up and see us when my dad comes. I don't want her mail sent here (my dad's does as he lives on a narrow boat as he's on the road 5 days a week) when she moves in with him. I don't want to go to their wedding. I don't even want to pretend I'm ok with it anymore.
But I don't want to cause a rift. I don't want to be the one holding a grudge, but I don't want to see her, talk about her or for her to have any contact with my children.

I feel sick to my stomach. I've lost my appetite, but for some reason ate my dinner anyway. I am hurting so much. Hurting because I've been deceived, hurting because he's letting me down, hurting for all the times I know he's going to let me down in the future as he's always worse when he's in a relationship. Hurting because I'm not a priority for him the way I am for my mother and the way my children are for me and my husband. Hurting because I was stupid enough to honour him by giving my son his name as a middle name and he doesn't deserve it. Hurting because I'm too scared to admit that he's shit and I hate him and I don't want anything to do with him yet at the same time I don't want to lose him, or rather the person he could be if he just tried.

I'm feeling a desire to fill myself with food, yet I know it won't work so I can't do it and I don't know how else to make this pain go away.

Off on holiday!

We're going away for the weekend with the children and H's parents. I get on with them well, but I'm worrying about this being the first time in 18 months and the first time during my IE journey that I've not had control over what I'm eating. We've been using up the food in the house rather than buying more, and I'm beginning to find I would rather go hungry than eat something that doesn't "fit" (and yes, this really is me, I haven't been abducted and replaced ). Not sure how that will go down. I don't want to be seen as faddy, but I need to be true to myself.

The old faithful "I'm not hungry, but thankyou anyway" is good for the odd meal, but for 4 days?

Hmm.
I'm sure I'll be fine. These things always seem like they will be worse than they actually are.

To the future.

This is a reply I posted on the minimins forum about whether legalising food is a good idea or not.

I'm firmly in the legalising is ok camp I'm afraid. Even if that means we do put on weight first. It's ok. It's ok to put on weight. Your life will not end. It takes some getting used to, it's scary, it goes against all the advice we receive (but fortunately it DOESN'T go across the research associated with IE).

Dieting is bad for you. I'll probably get flamed for saying that on a primarly dieting website, but it's true. There is so much research out there that proves it. Yo-yo dieting (which is inevitable given that it's practically impossible to keep the weight of once you have done it) is worse for your health than staying the larger size in the first place. And that hurt me to read for a long time. I felt like such a fool for believing the dieting propaganda. I felt let down, that I'd wasted my time, that I had been well and truly duped.

All of the IE books I have read with personal accounts give personal experiences of people eating junk food a lot at first. It's almost important to the journey. There is nothing wrong with it. It gets it out of your system and you move on. The only time I started messing up my IE journey was when I joined the Normal Eating website and started following her rules of how many fists of food, numbers for a hunger scale etc. I'm sure it works for some, but for me there was far too much of an underlying feeling that we should only eat 1.5-2 fists of food, we should eat a paleolithic diet, we shouldn't eat carbs as there was no "essential carb"... too many rules for someone taking her early steps along a very delicate path.I'm pretty sure I put on weight at first. The only time I fall back into bad habits is when I start telling myself I shouldn't eat this now, or I shouldn't want this food, or I shouldn't be this hungry. For me it's that immediate.

Legalising food is not about saying "I can't eat whatever I like whenever I want and will do so all the time", it's about "I can eat whatever I want whenever I WANT IT". I've written about this before. Eating a chocolate bar when you want a chocolate bar is great. Eating a chocolate bar when you want an apple is only ever going to be as satisfying as eating an apple when you want a chocolate bar. We've all been there. It isn't satisfying at all.Intuitive eating is about be able to learn what you want in terms of body hunger rather than mouth hunger, but even then it isn't all the time. Normal eaters eats out of mouth hunger sometimes. Intuitive eating is about letting go of other peoples rules and creating your own. Read around. If stricter rules TRULY work for you, use them. If they make you feel deprived or make you feel inferior to the rule giver, throw them away, they will only do more harm that good.

The difference between eating what you want all the time and eating what you want when you want it is provided in the other BC principles. Eating something you don't really want is not enjoyable at all when you are tuned in to what your body wants. Eating past satisfaction level is not enjoyable if you are tuned in. Eating when you aren't hungry in the first place doesn't bring that sense of celebration that it brings when you are hungry. You don't really enjoy it unless you are really hungry.That's not to say you shouldn't eat unless you can be true to all the principles. You try your best and you instinctively, naturally, without much effort if any at all move towards normal eating. Putting effort in, restraining yourself often turns IE into another diet that is followed by yet another backlash.

Have I lost weight yet? I don't know. I don't weigh myself. Weighing myself is dangerous for me. It tells me I've failed to stay at a "healthy weight" (although the research about the truth of BMI is fascinating!). It tells me I don't deserve to eat, to go out or to even live on the bad days. It tells me I should go on a diet. Most importantly though, I don't care what I weigh. I'm not a number. My number is not me. My number is not my health. Overweight fit people are healthier than slim unfit people, period. I am not even my clothes size. The label in my clothes is just a non regulated number of inches of material that varies between shops. When I had a 29" waist, I needed a size 18 pair of jeans in one style, a size 10 in another style in the same shop!!

I am me. I am so much more than my weight or my size. Far more affects my health than my weight and size. Mental health needs to be included here too. Now that I am free from peoples rules about my size, I am free to put my energies into training to be a chocolate fairy, training to be a psychologist, practising yoga, taking my children to the park because I'm not afraid of going out anymore, becoming more confident in my body and letting myself have a sex life again. Hell, I'm coming to the point I was absolutely completely and utterly terrified of. I don't care about my size. Right now, I don't care if I stay fat forever because I am HAPPY! I have a LIFE! I still have issues with food but now I can LIVE!

But for once, I am putting my money on the fact that I probably won't stay fat forever because I am sorting out the problem, not the symptom.

Yoga

I'm still suffering from sievebrain syndrome and I've completely forgotten to write about my yoga class.
I've been trying to find a week-by-week course as so many round here are run in six week blocks and are term time only, which is no good for me. I managed to find a lovely class in the village my mum used to live in, run by a lovely young lady called Katherine. She is so encouraging, tipping you slightly this way or that way when you haven't quite got it right. When you do get it right, she beams a great smile at you as reassurance.
She also tells us all the names of each move in Sanskrit as well as English which makes it feel very authentic.
We started off with breathing exercises, then did some warm up moves, then some bigger sequences. At the end, Katherine lit two candles and turned all the lights off while we lay in the dark and did a relaxation exercise. It was so calming, I'm surprised we didn't all fall asleep!

That was on Tuesday night, and I am still aching today but I can't wait to go again :OD

Thankyou

Thankyou to everyone who has left me wonderful messages of congratulations.
It's really appreciated :O)

Wahey!

I did it! I got a place on the Chocolate Fairy training course!!
Still no post as their Office Fairy was off ill last week, but my email this morning paid off, and Sophie has very kindly let me know that they want me to be a Chocolate Fairy!

Apart from my children being born and getting married, I don't think I can ever remember a time when I have been so happy! I am absolutely over the moon! I'm 21 years old and I've already been given the chance to do the exact job that I want to do. And to think, this time six months ago, I thought I'd have to be training for 6-7 years before I'd be able to even start!

[super ginormous beaming grin]

Nothing today either...

Sorry ladies!
I've emailed Sophie just incase it's lost in the post.
I hope I don't seem too pushy. But I also don't want to just be waiting and waiting and come across as though I'm not really bothered about it.

Lunch in Nottingham

Today I managed to offload both children at my mum's and meet my best friend, Natalie, for lunch in Nottingham. She's 5 months pregnant and just had her scan on Friday. She's having a little girl. And it doesn't make me the tiniest bit broody. Honest. Nope. Not one tiny weeny bit. Ahem.

So we met, and stood in the centre and tried to decide on somewhere to go for lunch. And all that could spring to mind was - McDonalds, Costa, Starbucks and Wetherspoons. In a city as big as Nottingham, that was all we could recall. How sad!

Anyway, we managed to make it up to the Cornerhouse where there are a few and settled upon Bella Italia. The food was ok, nothing special. The service wasn't great but not poor. I had Torta Caprino, which is Goat's cheese and spinach tart, followed by a lemon tart. They also sold flavoured sparkling Sanpelligrino which was lovely.

I just had a bowl of tomato soup for my dinner, but it was so dull I only ate half.

I started a bit of preparation work for my OU course as well. It doesn't start until the 6th October, but I have all the materials and they sent us a Preparing to Study booklet on learning to how read and taking notes efficiently.

Only another 9 hours until the morning post comes. Fingers still firmly crossed, and I really, truly appreciate all the support you have all given me over the last few weeks. It means so much, even if I didn't get a place on the training course, that you all think so highly of me. Thankyou :O)

Nope

Still nothing...

Today, I ran.

And it felt good.
Not planned, not for long, but today I chased my three year old son around a playing field. It's not easy to run in flipflops, as I discovered, so I kicked them off and ran the way I used to when I was young. It felt so good and I felt so free! And it wasn't exercise, I was just running, just for the hell of it.
There is a proper running track around the corner from me, so I'm going to try and find out if I can run barefoot on there. I have some running shoes, but I felt so much freer with no shoes on. Odd perhaps, but if it actually gets me moving, it's worth a shot :O)

No news

Nothing came in the post today. I couldn't sleep last night because I was so nervous thinking about getting the letter. Roll on Monday! I'm feeling a strange mix of excitement and nervous. Excited because I could be given the chance to do the exact job that I want to do and I get to start so young. Nervous because there is no other place I could do this kind of thing except on my own, which was my original plan but (A) I wouldn't be qualified for probably 6-7 years and (B) I would be sad to miss out on working for such a wonderful company. Pink beanbags instead of chairs, friendly, down to earth women instead of know-it-all experts, training courses in beautiful hotels instead of suited, stiff boardrooms - how fantastic is that?

Old Myspace Entries

I just wanted to copy these across. This is from the 2nd January this year.

I can't take credit for this as it was written by the lovely Rache but it struck a chord with me, currently being some 3 stones above my preferred weight.

Being overweight can feel like one of the saddest of life's problems because it's the one you can't hide. If you're overweight then you can't stop everyone looking at you and wondering why you're the way you are. Is she depressed? Is she lazy? Is she unmotivated? Doesn't she have a sex life? Doesn't she care? Isn't her health suffering? Is she just a slob? Everyone else can keep life's difficulties under their hat, but if you're overweight it's there for the world to see.

Standing in a queue you can't tell a wife beater from a burnt out trader on cocaine from a potential mass murderer or a child abuser. But an overweight woman who has gained a few stone through a few years of bad eating habits as her problem clearly on display. And it makes her a easy target.

It makes me so sad to have my fears confirmed: that a lot of thin people do think I'm a lesser person for being overweight. I'm lucky in that my self esteem does not revolve around how I look but I'd be lying if I said it never crossed my mind. It doesn't help to hear all of this though; and it certainly doesn't make me want to do anything about it. It just makes me want to eat.

And this one is from the 10th April. I read Beyond Chocolate in full on the 26th March.

I'm not on my no food diet anymore.I woke up on Day Three, and the thought of not being able to breastfeed Leo anymore just about killed me.
So I'm still fat.
It's not cool to be fat, and I don't think it's cool to care about it either but I do. I hate it. I hate that everywhere I go, everyone I see can look at me and see that I have a problem.
I'm working on it.
But for now I'm sad.

In a way it's sad to read. Sad to see how much my size was overshadowing everything else in my life. Nothing mattered much apart from the fact that I was (am) fat. But it is also good to read. Good to see how far I have come, good to see that I am building a life now, away from that awful obsession (both with my size and with my food).

It can be easy to forget how far you have come sometimes. When you find yourself, six months later still without that perfect relationship with food and size that you can't help imagining at first, it's easy to beat yourself up for taking to long, still being this size, still relying on food.

I am reading Beyond a Shadow of Diet at the moment, which is actually aimed at therapists treating clients, but the authors wrote in one chapter that if all we had to do was be told what to do, then we wouldn't have a problem in the first place. It reminded me that it's ok to find this hard sometimes, it's ok to be frustrated with myself, but that it's ok to be where I am. I'm still trying, that's what counts.

Sieve-head

Yes, that's me. With all the excitement of my interview, I completely forgot to even mention the BCers meet in Manchester on Sunday.

Well, it started off with a real bang. Literally. I crashed my car and it was all my fault! What a div :OD I was too busy looking at all the signs and traffic lights and listening to my husband's silly sat nav and ended up turning straight in front of a car pulling away from the traffic lights and he ended up going into the side of my car. So that was £300 down the drain!

Then I picked Amy up, and we drove for miles around the M60 before we finally came to the turn off for the Trafford Centre. We met Liz and Elizabeth in Starbucks and had a drink before we went to dinner at Carluccio's. Al joined us there. Poor Lesley hurt her back and couldn't make it, and somehow we managed to miss Jean even though we were all in the same Starbucks at the same time, and it was probably the smallest Starbucks I've ever been in!

The menu looked fantastic, and it's was difficult to decide what to have! In the end, I decided on the pan fried sea bass with tomato salsa and sauteed potatoes. Yum! After that I had some Italian cheeses with Italian bread, and then a ciocolatta fiorentina which was thick, hot chocolate sauce served like an espresso. Gorgeous.

After that we had a look around the shops as I think everyone had at least one thing they wanted to pick up. I managed to buy some shoes my interview in record time, but sadly the damage to my feet from wearing them is still visible!

All in all, a fab day and I can't wait for the next one!

Lovely trip

I have just arrived home from my trip to London. The hotel was lovely and had a decent restaurant attached too. I got chatting to another guy who was dining on his own and he had come down from Nottingham too! It was slightly odd dining alone, but an experience I have wanted to try for a while. It was strange having no alternative other than to focus on my food. I am getting better at doing nothing else but eating, but I still often prefer to be doing two things at once. I had a plate of olives to nibble on, followed by duck confit with mashed potatoes, garlic, cannellini and green beans with rioja sauce. I was going to have a plate of cheese and crackers afterwards but I was delightfully satisfied so I decided not to have anything else.

I ate alone again this morning, but I couldn't find anything I really wanted to eat. In the end I opted for a sausage, a rasher of bacon, some mushrooms and some grilled tomatoes and a bowl of fruit salad. It didn't quite hit the spot though, sadly.

I got on fine with the tube and thankfully it wasn't at all rushed or crammed like it had been on my previous trips to London. I wore my lovely new shoes, but they were killing me by the time I got back to the hotel to pick up my overnight bag. It was such a relief to get my trusty flip flops back on!

I think the interview went well. It was really quite informal. It was just me and Sophie as Audrey expecting a baby soon. She was cooking something delicious that both Sophie and I caught a whiff of as I was leaving. Yum! We were sat on big pink beanbags in the new office and we chatted about my history, my work with the computer business that I run with my husband, the training course, what being a Chocolate Fairy involves, and plans for the future of Beyond Chocolate. The plans for expanding the company and what they offer is very exciting and I can't wait to see it come into action!

After my interview I went back to the hotel to fetch my bag and went to grab some lunch. I had an emmental and mushroom panini with a bottle of water.

My fingers are well and truly crossed. I felt that the chocolate fairy position would be a fantastic thing to do before my interview and meeting Sophie and hearing what she had to say about it all has made me even more excited!

Catching up...

I'm still around! I've been really busy this week with Toby being back at pre-school, starting my tai chi classes, and I've bought loads of books that I am ploughing my way through.

The Manchester meet is on Sunday and I am so excited about it! It will be great to finally meet some of the people that have truly enriched my intuitive eating experience. Then on Monday evening I'll be travelling down to London and staying overnight before my Chocolate Fairy training interview on Tuesday. Good luck vibes would be greatly appreciated!

All the course materials for the Level One course towards my psychology degree arrived yesterday as well. It looks fascinating and I can't wait til it starts (Oct 6th). We have been given an introductory booklet to work through in the meantime, focusing on how to read and take notes effectively.

As for my eating, it's mostly going ok. I am still finding myself restricting myself without really noticing, and it's hard to get out of the cycle. I restrict myself, so I crave, then I tell myself I am only craving because I am restricting so I resist so I crave more and so on... I find I have to really, honestly let myself have what I want to have (which feels really scary) and sometimes I notice that almost immediately the craving subsides because I never really wanted it in the first place, but sometimes I eat it anyway. I'm getting much better at not having a go at myself though, which really helps things.

I bought a copy of Beyond Chocolate for my mum but she hasn't said anything about it, so I think that maybe she's not convinced it is a viable solution for her. It is hard though when she is always beating herself up publically for having gained 1-7lbs. I don't want her to be going through that pain that I'm sure most serial dieters go through, but I guess intuitive eating is something you really need to believe in.

I can't believe I'm almost at the end of my e-course already! It has been fantastic so far, even though I am taking it a little slower than the course runs at. I am pretty sure I'm going to sign up for the Guru Club after the e-course has finished. The sense of security that you get from knowing that there is always someone there to help is fantastic, really reassuring.

And talking of things going fast, it's almost time to start preparing for Christmas! I'm not sure what we will be doing this year. We went away last year which I absolutely loved, but the family were slightly offended so we won't be doing that this year. Ben is planning a weekend trip for just the two of us in December to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. I have been given a list of seven places that it could be. It started off as a huge list, and he asked me to pick the places I want to go to the most, and we got down to the final seven and that was as far as he was prepared to go! It will be one of: New York, Quebec, the Hebrides, Edinburgh, Paris, Reykjavik or Riga!

And my little baby will be one next month! That is unbelievable at the moment. Leo is definitely more of a baby than Toby was, though I suspect that is my own perception rather than him actually appearing younger to everyone else. He is a skinny malink though - he's still wearing 6-9 month clothing, bless him.

Well I think I've rambled on for long enough...
Byeee!

End of the summer!

Already! Can you believe it? I can't.
Still, I'm a winter girl at heart so I'm excited. Organizedchristmas.com has already started it's Holiday Grand Plan. I feel naughty for being tempted to join them. Heehee!

Toby is back at preschool on Tuesday. The holidays haven't been great as I haven't been too well this summer, but I'm hanging in there. I've got a lot to look forward to and I know it will go away in time.

I joined the local doctors and the local library last week. I had a medical check up, and they needed to know what I weigh. I told her I didn't want to know, and that I was aware I was obese, verging on morbidly obese but it was important that I didn't know what I weigh. She didn't tell me, but my BMI flashed up on her screen. 31.4. Lower than I expected! Last time I weighed myself, I knew my BMI was climbing and I think it was somewhere around 34/35 but I was too scared to find out. So, I must be losing weight!

It makes sense. I have been doing well with IE lately (hence the lack of blogging, nothing much to say!) so while the real success is my relaxed relationship with food, I was still surprised by the inevitable weight loss.

I have also joined the library - something I have been to shy to do for a long time! Silly really as the librarian was fantastic and I now have White Teeth, Shopaholic and Baby and Chocolate Girls to get stuck into. I have started White Teeth already and I can't believe I waited seven years to read it. It's brilliant already and I'm only on chapter two!

I've had some good food finds recently too! I found Rococo dark chocolate with cardomom in Waitrose yesterday, and tonight I found that Ikea sell the Lingonberry syrup for their lingonberry juice that I love! I picked up some sachets for the cream sauce and a jar of lingonberry sauce too so that we don't have to go all the way to Ikea for meatballs now!!

Not long now til the Beyond Chocolate meet and I can't wait! I am so excited to meet everyone. And my new exercise movement classes start this week too. And I got my appointment through for the Mother & Baby assessment unit for therapy sessions. Now I remember why I blog - it shows the negative thoughts are merely thoughts, and the positive things get plonked into one place and everything feels brighter!

:O)

Size 20 Jeans

I haven't been around much recently but I think the last time I was worrying about buying size 20 jeans.

Well, I went and did it and although I walked out of the shop feeling a litle I can say today that I feel I am so comfortable, the jeans are a little loose and I do need a belt, but my 18s were always digging in to my tummy, making me feel slightly full even when I hadn't eaten all day!

I haven't burned the label, in fact I starting to actually like it. Wearing my "fat jeans" has become my fingers up to the dieting industry.

And as for my mum (I couldn't bare to tell her I'm a size 20 when she thinks I'm a 14/16) she commented that I look like I had lost weight, even though I hadn't (and still haven't) told her what size my jeans are. I don't know whether I have lost weight or not, although I must admit that last week when I tried on the jeans I was dying to get on the scales to see where my weight is now.

But what does that figure tell me? Not that I am worth more or less, simply that I am learning to look after myself, after years of punishing myself with food.

Chilling out

I have had a rubbishy week this last week. Too much stress, Leo is finally teething and Toby is home because of the school holidays, and Ben has my car so I don't really have anywhere to go.

Intuitive eating wise things are going ok. I can't remember the last time I binged (she says, clearly tempting fate!), I haven't really been bothered by food this last week, it's all been quite boring. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but I just can't find the motivation to find something I really want to eat, and when I do find the motivation, nothing comes. I feel like I could live off air quite happily! I think I am finally getting to grips with this hungry signal though. I'm not sure about it as it is insanely subtle, though I guess it will get stronger the more I wait for it. I don't really feel anything, except my mouth feels empty and my stomach feels light. Food definitely tastes more "vibrant" when I get this.

I have been re-reading my "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" book by Geneen Roth again, and underlining the things that stand out for me and making notes at the back. I did the same with my Beyond Chocolate book as well. It's handy to just be able to look at the back and find the exact page I need for how I am feeling. I think underlining/highlighting parts also makes me read the book more closely and I get more out of it. It's such a fantastic book, especially the chapters on judgement.

The only other thing this week is clothes sizes. I went to buy some trousers and I needed a size 20. I found it so upsetting I couldn't buy the trousers, just left the store and drove home trying not to cry. It symbolises so much for me, both bad and good but I wasn't strong enough to face up to it all on Friday. Thank heavens for the girls on the Beyond Chocolate forum coming to my rescue. I now feel like I can go and buy the trousers, cut out and burn the label and get on with my life!

I think I am having a very introspective week. I feel like I want to push the whole world away and just concentrate on myself. That sounds a little selfish but I am coming to learn that the need for isolation and self-care is an extremely important one, even if it is not valued in the slightest in this culture. I have been losing myself in my Sims2 game - it's nice to be able to switch off sometimes :O)

Legalising healthy foods.

I have been reading my way through "The Diet Survivor's Handbook" by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel. It has a short chapter on something I never would have imagined having to do in my lifetime - legalising healthy foods.

They say:

Common examples might include apples, oranges, carrots, celery, cottage cheese and salads. You may find that now whenever you eat or think about eating one of these foods, you feel like you're back on a diet. As a result you avoid these foods, even if they are what your body naturally craves.

I know I was guilty of that a few weeks ago. Why have apples when you can have cream cakes?!
One word: satisfaction. You can't satisfy a craving for an apple with a cream cake, just as you can't satisfy a craving for a cream cake with an apple.

It reminds me of the calorie example in the Beyond Chocolate book. You want a mini roll, but instead you have enough healthy foods to equal the mini roll through the morning, then you go and have the mini roll anyway because you want it, then you've "blown it" so you eat two more! The moral of the story: if you resist what you want, you will end up eating your way round it before eventually eating it anyway because what you resist, persists! I know the example is a mini roll (usually a "bad" food) but it works just as well for healthy foods. If you eat something else because you are afraid of being "too good" (whatever that is!) then you will end up overeating just the same as when you were on a diet.

I am still craving fruit and vegetables like there will be none left tomorrow! When I imagine eating other foods, my intuition tells me they will sit too heavily in my stomach and I won't feel happy. Thank heavens the Tesco order is coming tomorrow, lots of lovely fruit and vegetables, yum!

The chapter I am just reaching now is chapter 20 - "Once you have become an attuned eater, reaching for food when you are not physically hungry signals that something is bothering you. Nudge yourself to learn more about feelings. This is something that I am just getting to grips with at the moment. I get fed up waiting to get hungry sometimes. My hunger signal is virtually none existant, even when I wait all day! Perhaps I need to drop that principle for a while, until I am off my anti-depressants when I will be able to figure out if the tablets are suppressing my appetite.

Same old, same old.

Another crappy day.
I was up late, reading, and then Ben has been at work today and the house is a mess. He promised to clean up the kitchen and playroom before he left but he overslept. Normally I would have been able to cope but I think the lack of sleep just about finished me off, so I have been scraping my way through the day doing nothing productive at all, except eating biscuits that taste rubbish and I don't even want.

I'm starting to feel paranoid again as well. I know it is just my depression playing tricks on me, but I start thinking nobody likes me, they only say nice things to me because they feel they should, that Ben is only with me because he pities me, that my kids wish they had a better mum, I've even started telling myself that I have only got an interview for Chocolate Fairy training because everyone who applies gets one(!)... Oh list goes on. It's pretty pathetic really, but I know "pulling myself together" won't work and I am learning to sit with it and just feel it instead of going into self-destruct mode like I always used to.

I have started going right off food as well. It's hard because I still never really feel hungry even if I don't eat all day, but now I look in my cupboards and there is just nothing. It's packed full of stuff that I normally love but no luck.

I think I have found something to wear to my interview, but they don't have any in stock at the moment which is frustrating! I was really worried about that, as I hate clothes shopping at this size. I think I need to work on accepting my size. I've been a bit bloated over the last couple of days as well and I don't know whether to buy the next size up jeans or not. My current ones are just on the uncomfortable side, but if I'm going to go back down again in a couple of days then I might as well save my money.

Room for Improvement

I was just reading Janey's blog and she finished her post for today with "Still room for improvement though!" and it reminded me of something I have read in the last few months but I couldn't remember where.

I searched on google and found this on a blog by a man called Manish Verma.

If everything we attempted in life were achieved with a minimum of effort and came out exactly as planned, how little we would learn-and how boring life would be! And how arrogant we would become if we succeeded at everything we attempted. Failure allows us to develop the essential quality of humility. It is not easy-when you are the person experiencing failure-to accept it philosophically, serene in the knowledge that this is one of life’s great learning experiences. But it is. Nature’s ways are not always easily understood, but they are repetitive and therefore predictable. You can be absolutely certain that when you feel you are being most unfairly tested, you are being prepared for great achievement.

Courtesy: Napoleon Hill Foundation.

I had never thought of it that way. Imagine having nothing to improve on. I imagine at first it would be a little cool to be the best at everything you cared about, but then it would get boring. What would you fill your days with without improving yourself?

--------

Today, apart from receiving the wonderful news about the interview, has been pretty dull. I have had no desire to do anything. I managed to spill burning hot ratatouille all over myself and dinner was a big glass of orange and mango juice with duck pate on one slice of bread. I need to give in to this tiredness!

I'm considering starting running. I was going to do this before I found out I was pregnant with Leo. I've got a fantastic book on running called Running Made Easy by Susie Whalley and Lisa Jackson. I might fish out my running shoes, buy some clothes suitable for running in and start doing it. I need something active to fill my time between now and September.

Maybe I could run to the gym while I'm at it!

Wahey!

I've got an interview for the Chocolate Fairy Training!

Nervous, excited but hopeful would sum up how I am feeling! Now I need to figure out which hotel to book as I'd rather be in London the night before than stress about travelling down there in rush hour.

Ooooh!

What to wear? What to wear? Does an interview qualify for an excuse to buy new shoes? I think so, don't you?

A good day

Today is going ok. I am finding it easier to wait until I am hungry now, but my hungry signal is still very subtle. I had a lovely prawn stirfry tonight with spring onions, courgettes, tatsoi & mooli. I've never had mooli before but it was similar to waterchestnuts. I don't feel quite so pulled towards the kitchen as I used to. Sometimes I think "Ooh I could just eat", but then I tune in and realise I am not really hungry at all and then I check to see how I'm feeling and as usual it's often loneliness or boredom.

Today is the first day of the six week holidays that I have been home alone with both children. It has been a bit of a mish-mash of a day today and both of them were being a handful so I think I am going to structure the days a bit more from tomorrow, for my sanity as much as theirs!

I am still reading "Fat, So?" by Susannah Jowitt. It's quite funny but it is very fact based rather than really having any new ideas or anything. Still, it is interesting to read about the histories of the diets and about how complex the weight/health/activity balance can be.

It's hard to believe that in five days time we will have been living in our new house for a month! And I still haven't changed my gym membership. I will try and do that tonight, and I will try and find my mp3 player as well. I need to start getting some decent sleep as well now that I have to be up so early for the children. My anti-depressants make me so tired. Four hours after taking them I can't keep my eyes open and they keep me extremely drowsy for twelve hours. I take them at night but if I forget to take them til after 8pm it's makes for a really hard morning.

The food shopping arrived last night, and my efforts to keep the biscuit tin filled seem to have gone a bit crazy. The biscuit tin is full and I have a further three packets in the cupboard! I think chocolate supplies are dropping, I have about two bars in total. The crisps just aren't getting eaten at all. I'm finding it hard to get excited about food at the moment which is half relief but also half frustation.

Oh, but I did somehow manage to forget to buy any fruit! Goodness knows how. I have been really enjoying fruit lately. I think I will pick some up from the market on Thursday instead.

Nervous!

I have just emailed my application for Chocolate Fairy training.
Oh my goodness!
I am so excited and so nervous.
My fingers are well and truly crossed :O)

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In other news - I've had an ok weekend. I've finished reading Geneen Roth's Breaking Free from Emotional Eating and I am so glad I bought it. She touches on a few areas that I hadn't even considered towards the end of the book. I recommend it to anybody.

I am now reading "Fat, So?" by Susannah Jowitt which is subtitled "For anyone who's ever wondered why they just can't managed to eat less." I'm only a few pages in but it seems like it's going to be a good light-hearted read, full of laughs.

Today I am not hungry at all but have eaten a quarter of jam sandwich and one and a half digestive biscuits. I am really craving vegetables at the moment but I am all out until the Sainsbury's van arrives between 5-6pm.

Janey on the Minimins forum has quoted part of my blog and told me that it helped her to discover that intuitive eating isn't about eating junk because you are allowed to, but that it is about eating whatever you want because you are allowed to - be that a chocolate bar, an orange or some avocado houmous on a rice cake!

Thoughts on IE

I actually posted this on Minimins but I wanted to keep it for my own reference.

Intuitive eating is not about eating piles of junk. It is about listening to your body, listening to your intuition and listening to what it tells you about when you are hungry and what it wants you to feed it.
Intuitive eating is also known as normal eating. It is about just eating normally, without diets giving us rules, without listening to compulsions formed by emotional problems, without punishing it by eating too much or for the wrong reasons, without depriving it of foods that bring us pleasure simply because Dr. X says it is "bad" for us. If a food is wrong for your body, your body lets you know.

If your body says "please feed me healthy foods" then to feed it healthy foods would be eating intuitively. The task that says to bring lots of chocolate into your house is not about eating lots of chocolate because you have it, it's about normalising chocolate, removing the word "bad" or "fattening" from it, because it isn't bad or naughty, it's just a food.

Good quality chocolate has some great health benefits, and eaten in an amount that is appropriate to our own bodies, therefore a personal amount our body accepts it. Bad quality chocolate has little health benefits, if any at all, therefore our body will only accept small amounts or even nothing before it starts to let you know in varying degrees that it doesn't appreciate being filled with poor quality foods.

Allowing all foods into your diet isn't about eating all foods, it's about being allowed to eat all foods but you making the call on whether you want to eat them or not. It's about you holding the responsibility, not giving it to your Weight Watchers leader or similar. You make the call. It's your body, your food, your decision.

The Beyond Chocolate approach also includes being kind to yourself. This is a major piece of the puzzle for me. If I berate myself for eating lots of chocolate, I feel down and I end up eating again because I have internalised societies morals on eating.

We can't be moral about eating and eat intuitively. It doesn't really go hand in hand. So whilst I said it isn't about eating lots of chocolate, it is also not about NOT eating lots of chocolate. It's about listening to your body, listening to your mind and making the judgement about what you really want. It's also about overriding your body and saying "No, I want chocolate and I know it is going to make me feel rubbish in a few minutes/hours, but right now I want to eat it and I am prepared to live with the consequences" if that is what you want to do.

It is not easy to move from dieting to intuitive eating, especially when we are bombarded by dieting messages of morality from every source of the media.

Also, the Beyond Chocolate method encorporates moving your body in a way that works for you, and not focusing on the weight loss benefits but focusing on the pleasure that it can bring when you allow yourself to enjoy it, the way we enjoyed it as children when we ran in parks, played kerby or football or kiss-chase.

The other things that I have learned from BC are that it is ok to be sad or angry and that I don't have to hide those feelings. It's also ok for me to get it wrong (and by wrong, I mean eating in a way that is ignoring any intuition but eating compulsively instead - it is wrong for me, it isn't necessarily wrong for everyone) sometimes, I don't have to do it all, and when I do get it wrong I don't have to jack it all in. I have also learned that I have the chance to take responsibility for myself and that I don't have to do things the way everyone else does and I don't have to answer to anybody, and certainly not people who criticise the way I eat or how I look.

That is what intuitive eating is about for me.

Eating what I want...

I've had a bit of a revelation with intuitive eating lately.

I had taken IE as to mean I should include "naughty" foods into my life and eat them regularly. But now I see that it isn't that at all. Now that the "naughty" foods are part of my everyday life, they are just everyday things, which means I am equally as satisfied by an orange. If I want chocolate, I have chocolate, but if I want an orange, I don't eat chocolate because its "naughty" and therefore fun, I eat an orange, because that is what I want.

I find this tuning in thing quite hard. Tuning in to my hunger is hard enough because my signal seems really quite weak. I seem to be neutral most of the time and then very suddenly reach ravenous. But the next step for me is tuning in to what the food I want is. My mind is often shouting "chocolate! cookies! cream!" when my body says "I'll just take an orange, thanks". I like eating vegetables, lot of them, and fruit. It sits better in my stomach than chocolate does, so I am gradually starting to naturally gravitate towards them.

I like getting the hang of this. Now I want to learn how to be kind to myself when my natural reaction is to shout "No, greedy pig, if you eat that you'll be a real fatty!". I'm still reading Geneen Roth's "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" and I'm picking up more and more tips.

I'm so glad I chose this path. It's blooming hard work but for once I understand the meaning of delayed gratification :)

Feeling better now

I think I was more tired than I realised yesterday. Thankfully I had the support of the girls on the Beyond Chocolate forum to come to my rescue and point out what I was too fretful to see. I've slept and rested a lot of the day today, I had a bath about an hour ago and I'm feeling much better now.

My books from Amazon arrived - one box yesterday and one box today so I now have six books to keep me busy and a copy of Beyond Chocolate to pass on to my mum. I've read about a third of "When You Eat At The Refrigerator..." and I'm about a third into "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" as well. They are both Geneen Roth books. The "When You Eat.." one is great. It's set out into fifty small sections of ways to help you get feeling better when you are being down on yourself. "Breaking Free..." is similar to Beyond Chocolate but a little wordier and obviously more American. It has a few new suggestions in it which I am glad I have been able to add to my "tool-belt" but I'm definitely a Beyond Chocolate girl :oD

One thing I have noticed over the last couple of days is how much it affects me when someone is too busy to give me support. I also depend on people to notice when I am down, rather than just telling them. I suppose I always think that if someone loves me they should be aware of me to notice that I am down. I am gradually getting more and more used to asking for help. It does seem easier to ask for help from people that I don't know well than from people that I do.

I had a bit of an odd meal today. First a bowl of organic carrot batons, boiled and then with a teaspoon of butter stirred in. This was absolutely delicious. It had a kind of nutty flavour to it as well. I'm not sure if that was because I was actually paying attention or whether it was because they were organic but they were brilliant. I then had three squares of chocolate (served myself four but felt indifferent about the last square so I put it back in the cupboard) and lastly a slice of bread with paté on it followed by one grape. I felt satisfied but not full and felt OK to stop eating.

I think I need to be kinder to myself when I am having a hard time. I think I was overanalysing and thinking that if I started binging last night then I never would have stopped. Now I'm feeling better about things, I can see that it was ok to want chocolate last night, and I can have chocolate when I actually want to sleep, but that a sleep will do me better. It's ok for me to have both, and it's ok for me to choose just one of them.

Gosh this is never what I had imagined when I first heard of BC. I am so glad that everything is coming out now though. I have repressed so many feelings, it (eventually) feels good once it is all out!

Rubbish

Rubbish day.
I am mostly frustrated that I had been doing so well over the last week or so, but today feels like a big release of frustration and resentment and like I just want to lash out.
I don't really have much of an idea why. I'm sure it can't possibly still be about the incident with my husband's dinner on Monday night. I have had a tiring day, walking to pre-school and then going to fetch my car from Ben's workplace as I couldn't face walking there and back again and then Ben not coming home till 8.30pm this evening. Maybe I'm just tired.

I'm struggling to actually feel what it is I am feeling because I am so used to just ignoring it and making myself feel good (and then worse) by eating nice things. I am struggling to notice the difference between hungry and not hungry and even when I eat my hunger level doesn't seem to move. I keep zoning out whilst eating, probably because I am eating in front of the television, all the while telling myself I'm "doing it all wrong" and "need to do it properly".

I just want the indecision in my head to shut the hell up and just leave me be for a while.

So I gave in and ate chocolate and climbed in bed and typed this.

Now I can feel I'm repressing something, and while I don't know what it is, I can feel I need to let it out by crying. Why am I berating myself again and telling myself not to be so effing immature?

Rambling

Today has been pretty odd. I have felt like picking all day long, and have been doing that occasionally throughout the day. In the last week or so I have been able to take it or leave it. I think it's stemming over from last night to be honest, I guess rejection is another thing I've been afraid of.
Of course, my husband didn't reject me, just the dinner I had cooked but if there is one thing I have learned since starting my blog it's that there is often more to an emotion that meets the eye. I guess nobody takes rejection well, but I know it's something that has always stood out for me. I'm not really very good at just picking myself up, dusting myself down and starting again. I tend to see rejection as a rejection of my whole self rather than just one aspect, and then start believing that I must be worthless.
I have tried to use this occasion to be my own guru, but it's just not coming. It's like I know the truth but I'm struggling to believe it if that makes sense. Still, must not berate myself, must not berate myself, must not... Why is it so hard to follow your own advice?

It's tipping it down with rain here and there is little more frustrating than being stuck inside with a bored three year old boy, so I've decided to give in to his insistance to have his new umbrella up inside the house, laid out a blanket and put on a mini picnic for him and my little 9 month old. Nothing fancy, just a few cubes of ham and cheese, some sticks of cucumber and halved strawberries, grapes and bananas. It's kept them busy for 45 minutes so far but I suspect the novelty will wear off shortly.

I'm still struggling with my postnatal depression getting in the way of "just getting on with things". I'm just frustrated with it all now. I just want to get on and be mum instead of feeling like crawling under my duvet all the time.

Ben should be home soon, perhaps I will crawl into bed then.

Zzzzz.

Worrying

Hmm. I was hungry. I cooked my dinner - salmon with mashed potato and steamed vegetables, something I love, and dished it up. Then my husband arrived home and said he wasn't hungry. I felt upset by this, because I had been working hard to make sure everywhere was nice when he came home, the children were fed and bathed, I even had put on a non-baby-stained top. Oh, the glamourous life of a housewife!

So I shoved his dinner back in the oven with foil on top and sat down to mine, alone. I must have completely zoned out because when I tuned in, I felt stuffed and yet I felt I was still hungry, as I hadn't actually eaten anything. I let my dinner go down a bit and had two chocolate yoghurts (which I made sure I kept tuned in for), which seem to have done the trick. I am not food hungry anymore, but I still feel so sad.

Apart from feeling rejected and disappointed that my efforts came to nothing, I can't think of why I reacted the way I did. I feel like there is more to it than just being annoyed at my husband.

I am sad that his rejection resulted in me zoning out, especially as I have been doing so well recently. I wonder if the tuning out was what made me feel like I needed the chocolate yoghurts. The salmon was a little bland actually. Maybe what I needed was something with a lot of flavour.

I feel better for realising I felt rubbish and coming and posting here instead of sitting and feeling low. I think I am tired too. And a bit bored too. And I guess I'm a bit lonely as well.

I think I might go and curl up in bed with my Beyond Chocolate book as soon as the sheets are dry.

Treating Myself

Finding ways to treat myself without food being the focus is coming quite easily to me, which I found really surprising. I've just had a bit of a shopping spree with Amazon and have bought the following:
Breaking Free from Emotional Eating
Body Confidence: Loving Your Body Is Only a Thought Away
When You Eat at the Refrigerator
Fat, So?
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Beyond Chocolate: How to Stop Yo-yo Dieting and Lose Weight for Good (for my mum)
The Diet Survivor's Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-care

I'm so excited to receive them! Also I've got fresh flowers in my living room from my best friend and in my kitchen from my husband.

I've also had an email to say the Good Food Show tickets are on sale so after I've checked with my husband I'll hopefully get to buy some tickets to see Gordon Ramsey.

I still treat myself with a biscuit or a square of chocolate sometimes, but I think food does have it's place in this way once you are calmer about having legalised them. For me now, eating a biscuit is no different to eating an apple and I treat myself with a bowl of strawberries and grapes just as often.

It sounds awful but I'm waiting for it all to go wrong as it all seems to have come together for me over the last two weeks or so. I don't feel deprived when I'm waiting to be hungry, I'm much less bothered by "bad" foods, I'm getting better at eating for body hunger instead of tastebud hunger and I have almost shaken myself free of the all-or-nothing approach to food. I just feel calm, relaxed and released.

To think that a month ago I was doing the BC Diet, trying to follow all the principles all the time and berating myself if I didn't follow it to the letter is almost slipping from my memory.

Hopefully now this peace will stay and I will be able to move onto the body image and self-support side of Beyond Chocolate. I am still quite disappointed by my body and I really struggle to ask for help, but I feel excited by the fact that I know it will come with time.

I had my feedback from Sophie on the first week's worksheet. It was quite complimentary and I could feel myself grinning and blushing as I read it. One thing she pointed out was that I said I felt purposeless and I hate my attraction to the superficial and material. Then she asked me what would give me a purpose, what would I do if there were no restrictions and for a second I was dreaming of the life-long holiday image of running off to start again in a foreign country. Then bringing myself back down to earth, I know what it is. I can think of no better purpose for me to be working with women the way Sophie does.

It was when I joined LighterLife that I first realised the perfect job for me would be in helping women to overcome their issues with food. Unfortunately at the time I couldn't afford the £12K it cost to become a LighterLife counsellor, though with hindsight I can see that is a fortunate thing. A few weeks ago, I was emailed an announcement to say that Chocolate Fairy training applications are being taken. I am nervous, and my initial reaction seemed to come from my chatterbox, the negative LittleMy-like creature telling me not to even bother applying. What would be the point? I wouldn't get the job. I don't have any official qualifications apart from GCSEs and a Childminding Practise certificate. I haven't worked as a counsellor or anything like that.

Somehow I managed to open up to my husband and tell him about this. He pointed out that my life hasn't been on hold over the last 3.5 years. I have so many skills that I have learned through becoming a mother to our two children, supporting our family and working on our computer repair and sales business together with my husband. I have also supported my mother through a traumatic time. I have learned to connect with people regardless of age and background. And I learn from reading a lot of books. And most importantly I want it, I want to help people overcome the dieting rat race, more than anything.

So later this week, I will be treating myself to the chance to be a Chocolate Fairy :O)

I'm joining a bellydancing class

Belly dancing is one of the things I told myself I would do once I was slim. The truth is, I lost all the weight but I still put it off so I can only conclude that it wasn't really about being slim at all. Since joining Beyond Chocolate, I've begun to truly embrace the saying "Time waits for no woman".

I had been sat there thinking that for some reason, slim people have a right to go to these classes, but that I would need some kind of extra approval because I am obese. Yet when I put the situation on it's head, if I was a slim member of the class, would I really think "OMG, that lady is so fat, she has no right to be there, who does she think she is?". And I simply wouldn't. And, if there was someone there who did think that, would I really want to be taking orders from someone so shallow?

Of course I am still scared about starting the class in September, but I think that is because it symbolises so many things for me. It symbolises accepting my size, using something other than food to fulfill my needs, that I need want to make friends, that I am fascinated by bellydancing and that I have a new belief that anyone can do it regardless of size.It puts all of these beliefs in a vulnerable place, but I whilst I am scared I am willing to take the risk.

I read a good book recently called The Road Less Travelled and it is about taking risks means that you grow. Choosing to take the risk of facing up to the pain is a way to grow and develop your self instead of cutting yourself off and sitting in the place you know because you feel it is safer than the risks of learning or doing something new.

I think what it boils down to is that I could choose to hide myself away, but I'm beginning to see that take the leap of joining a bellydancing class by myself is probably less painful than sitting here with no friends and feeling lonely and rejected from society because of my size. I'm still only comitting to one class though!

I'm starting tai-chi in September as well. I like the fact that it isn't just about the body, but also about the mind and soul. I am really looking forward to joining both of these class :O)

Some thoughts on not buying "bad" foods

I've re-read my post about being in the dessert aisles a few times and thought I must be getting something wrong. How can I be legalising all foods if I think it is good when I choose not to buy the "bad" ones.

What I have decided is that it wasn't that I was pleased that I hadn't bought "bad" foods, it was that I have overcome my compulsion to buy and eat something sweet at the end of my savoury meal without checking if something sweet is what I want after my meal.

So it's not about bad vs. good and good winning, it's about tuning in to see what I really want and not feeling compelled to eating anything more just because that is what I have always done.

More discovery

After reading a post on the Beyond Chocolate forum, I think I might have discovered why it hurts so much to throw away food on my plate when I am full.

I think that is my old self, disappointed or frightened that I have rejected food as a way to cope. Throwing food away, for me, is a reflection that when I am hurting, I now have to feel the hurt instead of stuffing it down, and there is still a part of me that doesn't want to feel that hurt, and by eating the food that I don't need I stay in the place where I don't have to hurt.

I also realised that I don't love junk food like I thought I did. Even biscuits and crisps and chocolate, I only choose the real quality ones now. I get much more satisfaction from a handful of Tyrells crisps or a square of Green & Blacks chocolate than I ever did from cramming down the cheaper alternatives.I never understood that when I was dieting - I never got how one square of good chocolate could satisfy someone more than a whole bar of the cheap stuff. Now I realise that is because I wasn't satisfying my tastebuds or my hunger, I was trying to satisfy a big hole of unfulfillment and it worked for a while when I was eating to distract myself, so I thought it worked it the long term.

For me now, junk food is a way of punishing my body because generally it makes my body feel awful. Unsettled and overfull. Sometimes I might need a whole bar of good quality chocolate, sometimes I might need two or three, but I eat the good stuff and it's a way of rewarding my body for putting up with the abuse I gave it over the last five years. It's a rare occasion that I can comfortably put away a whole bar now though. And comfortably is the key word. If I zone out I can still binge, but being tuned in (which is almost automatic now) means that I can only fulfill my tummy hunger with food and that trying to fulfill some other hunger with food doesn't and won't ever work, not even in the short term.

Frustration

I am a little frustrated with myself this afternoon. I waited til I was hungry and found myself something I would enjoy eating but I ate too much. I got the signal but I still wanted more so I had two more mouthfuls and then I had two squares of dark chocolate.
It's silly really, and barely worth getting bothered about, but I'm a bit fed up that I know where I'm going wrong and I know what to do to fix it but it seems my inner child is still throwing tantrums when her dinner is being taken away.
Yet, maybe this is me on the verge of another breakthrough. I hope so. I have been feeling much happier with the challenges that intuitive eating brings lately. Most of the time I feel happy and released instead of deprived and trapped. I know I still have a long way to go, but it feels like a gentle stroll along the water's edge rather than a gruelling uphill slog.

I forgot to post on my blog last night, but wanted to copy the topic I posted on the Beyond Chocolate forum as it was another achievement for me.

Tonight I walked down the dessert aisles.
Yes, aisles.
The cream bun section, the chilled desserts, sundaes and yoghurts, the cakes and biscuits section, the chocolate bars section, the ice cream and frozen dessert aisles.And what did I come home with?
King prawns, linguine, extra virgin olive oil and a lemon which I had with black pepper from my cupboard.
Oh, I fib - I bought a bottle of Peartiser as well, no more listening to my husband tell me I must drink because it's Friday night!
No chocolate, no pudding, no icecream, and I don't even want any. I have chocolate mousses in my fridge, four bars of chocolate in my cupboard, icecream in my freezer and I forget it is there!
I appear to have been sucked into the Beyond Chocolate website and replaced with another self!

So I am progressing, I know I am, I'm just loving the buzz of realising I'm making progress and want to make more and more and more!

Stepping forwards again

I started my e-course today, and must admit I was initially disappointed to see that the first worksheet was something that was already in the book. However, when I actually sat down and did the worksheet, I was most surprised to discover that there was far more clarity in actually doing the exercise than I thought there would be.
I now see that the hate that I have for my larger size is probably linked to my desire to be dependent on someone (which I think is mostly reflected in eating a lot when I am lonely), but this conflicts with my desire to be independent as well, and that it is definitely linked to my feeling unfulfilled but not knowing how to fulfill myself, or believing that I don't have what it takes. Now I just feel sad for everyone who either hasn't found an intuitive eating path or doesn't believe it will work.

I seem to be stuck in a bit of a slump with my postnatal depression as well, but my husband is being truly wonderful and has sent me up to the bedroom with the laptop and some peace and quiet and I think I will be zonked out before 8pm tonight as I am so tired.

My thoughts on the principles

Tune in
I find tuning in easy now, and have recently learned to tune in to what my body wants as well as what my tastebuds want, leading to brocolli at 10pm one night, and just plain fruit for breakfast.
Stop when you are satisfied
I am generally quite good with this one. I struggled with it last night, but I have been under a lot of strain the last few days and I think I just needed to rebel a bit. I find the signal creeps up on me quite quickly.
Enjoy
I do this one quite well. I think it ties in mostly with tuning in and focusing, but I do try hard only to choose the things I truly want to eat and not be swayed by what others think I should or shouldn't eat.
Eat whatever you want
This one I am mostly good at, but I am aware that sometimes I place subconcious restrictions on myself. This morning it was "I shouldn't eat biscuits for breakfast". Funnily, it was somewhat right as when I properly tuned in I realised I wanted fresh, juicy fruit, but those sort of subconcious restrictions lead me to thinking I want something more than I really do.
Be your own guru
I am learning how to do this and seem to be starting to pick it up. It is this one that I find a real relief. I like trusting myself and standing on my own two feet, making decisions for myself etc. I'm finding it easier to reject "should's" from others and doing well with telling my inner gremlin to STFU
Put it on a plate, sit down and focus
This one is one that I try and do, but can sometimes be difficult. I often find myself daydreaming instead of focusing, and sometimes I still sit down and eat in front of the television or computer, but I am slowly starting to pause while I take a bite and eat, then read/watch tv, then pausing to take another bite and eat and I know gradually I will work up to just eating.
Eat when you are hungry
This one I find quite hard. I don't seem to have much of a hungry signal, it's more an absense of fullness/satiety. Every so often I try to wait as long as possible, but I am not too hard on myself when I do this otherwise I think I might end up binging.
Own your body
I am not good at this at all. I still really struggle with my size (I went from a size 10 to pregnancy to size 18!) and I find it hard to be affectionate towards my body at all. I have managed to bag up all the clothes that are too small for me and I have about 90% of my wardrobe made up of clothes that I like wearing, but that size 18 tag still chokes me and I desperately hate my stomach and sagging breasts.
Move
This one I am awful with. I am very unfit, and I know I need to move my membership from my old gym to my new gym as I have moved house. I love going to the gym, so it's not that, it's just that I am so tired and am dealing with a lot at the moment so it slips down the list. I have signed up to a tai-chi class that starts in September, and I am trying to find a local bellydancing class at a suitable time for me as well, but I'm not actively moving much at the moment.
Support yourself
This one I am the worst with. I never ask for help except for in a roundabout "I'm feeling awful" whine to my husband. I only have one friend (how sad!) and she works a lot. My sister is 18 and quite caught up in her own issues and I'm rubbish at asking anyone else for help. I suppose I have made a good start by joining the Beyond Chocolate e-course, and posting a diary on here but apart from that I tend to keep everything bottled up.