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?

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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.

One step back

I've taken a few steps forward over the last few days, but tonight I took a step back by eating past my full signal. I know why, it's because I've been subconciously restricting my food intake and I feel a little deprived, which is silly because I knew before I even ate that I would end up feeling horrible.

Still, positive thinking, every step is another towards letting go of the diet mentality. I am trying to quietly observe myself, and now I just need to figure out how to deal with wanting to overeat even when the other half of my brain is begging me not to do it.

I've been quite tiredly lately and my depression is taking a turn for the worse. Actually, having written all this down I can see that I haven't done all that bad at all, juggling everything on my plate plus learning to eat intuitively.

Ooh, I also have put my name down for a tai-chi class in September (when the new course starts), and I am trying to find a belly dancing class close to me too. I am really pleased about this, as they are both things I have been putting off "until I am slim", but BC has helped me see that I don't need to wait. You don't need to be slim to do it, so I'm not wasting any more time.

I think I'll get off to bed now as I am almost falling asleep, and a tired mummy with a three year old and a poorly 8 month old is not a good combination.

Night :)

A Successful Day

It seems keeping a blog is helping me to keep focused a little bit. Today I waited until 5.30pm before eating anything, as I just don't seem to have any real hunger signals at the moment. I sat myself down and had a mini feast. It was originally going to be just a bag of crisps, but I went off those quite quickly so I probably only had about 8 crisps, then a square of chocolate but that wasn't hitting the spot either, so I had a Toffipop biscuit and then a blue WKD. My hunger scale seemed unaffected by this.
I was still hungry when I dished up chili con carne at 8.30pm, but I only dished myself up a small portion, and I had about half a slice of chocolate cheesecake before I decided what I really wanted was a ham and cheese sandwich with some soup. I've just finished that now and I feel like I am at about hunger level 5.
My stomach feels peaceful, if that even makes sense. It feels calm as it isn't stuffed with food. I still feel a little anxious, like I want to eat, but it isn't hunger. I think it's a mix of boredom and feeling a little lonely, but I'm learning to just sit with this feeling and it's not the end of the world. It is uncomfortable, and I can't seem to figure out how to alleviate it, but I'm not feeding it anymore.

I think I am going to stop eating for today now, as we are going out for lunch tomorrow and I want to be hungry for it as it is a fabulous restaurant. They use local ingredients and it's all freshly cooked, not microwaved like so many restaurants seem to be opting for these days.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to the week ahead as well. I had a good time exploring the town on Thursday, and I love sitting in my garden and pottering around the house and I truly feel like I am beginning to bless my family by taking care of them and the house properly.

Now I just need to figure out how to pull myself out of this awful depression. I am so sick of one part of me being so immensely happy but it being horribly overshadowed by a black cloud feeling of deep sadness that won't shift. I remember seeing a Happy Mums plan on netmums so I think I'll check that out again.

Progress

I've made some progress over the last couple of days. I've realised that I have been treating the Beyond Chocolate principles as the "Eat when Hungry" diet, or the "Eat Mindfully" diet. I need to re-read my Beyond Chocolate book again, but also from reading blogs by Scales are for Fish, Liquorice Torpedoes and Sweet Chocolate Kisses, I've been able to see where I was going wrong.

I have learned that the whole point of Beyond Chocolate is eating without judgement, and that the only rule that there can possibly be is to be kind to myself however and whatever I eat, but also to observe and learn from what I see. And observing is nothing like judging. It's a bit like an experiment, to see what happens when I eat at certain hunger levels, or when I eat certain foods. And indeed the goal isn't even to be perfect at the Beyond Chocolate principles - even normal weight people don't eat only when they are hungry!

I also had a small success today. I waited as long as I could before eating to make sure I was somewhat hungry. I think I was somewhere between 3 and 4, and served myself chicken soup with a ham and cheese sandwich. As I was eating, I realised that my attentions were drifting elsewhere, so I prepared myself to stop early. I managed to leave the crusts from two sides of my sandwich, and half the bowl of soup. I was a little full, in that I could feel that my stomach was stretched slightly, but I was not really uncomfortable, and I stopped, I reckon at 6 on my hunger scale! I told myself I had two more cans of chicken soup in my cupboard, and plenty more bread, butter, ham and cheese and I could have it again for the next time I felt hungry.

Mostly, I am proud of myself for focusing on the positive instead of berating myself for not waiting til a 2/3 to eat or eating past a 5.

Introduction

Having recently read some fantastic blogs on intuitive eating I thought I would start my own. I guess I should start by introducing myself, so I am Nicola, a 21 year old mother of two boys - Toby, aged 3 and Leo, aged 8 months. I am around 3.5 stones overweight. I live in Nottingham with my husband who runs his own business as a computer engineer, and we have just bought our first house in a small town called Bingham.

Before having my second son, I lost 3 stones on the LighterLife meal replacement diet but then whilst pregnant I put on 9lbs in three weeks and decided to "sod it" and ended up 3.5 stones heavier when after I had my son than before I got pregnant.

It was back in March that I realised that I always ate, for any reason, whether I was hungry or not, and this is where my blog name comes from. It was a mystery to me at the time, I couldn't figure out why I always felt hungry, but my tummy never gave me hungry signals. It's only now that I realise that I was also hungry, but it wasn't food I was hungry for. It could have been anything - a hug, friends, my husband, something to alleviate the boredom, something to make me feel more successful or happy with my achievements... the list goes on. All of these hungers had been replaced by food so it was no wonder I was piling on weight.

I have found intuitive eating to be quite hard. It's similar to learning another language. A language that you have never even heard of. It goes against almost every "food rule" I have ever learned but I know that it is absolutely the right answer. It is very hard for me to lose my all-or-nothing approach when it comes to intuitive eating. I have this approach to most areas of my life, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I tend to do something perfectly or not at all. This doesn't work with intuitive eating. The all-or-nothing approach simply leads to binging.

I have just signed up to the Beyond Chocolate e-course and that starts next Wednesday. I have also applied for membership of the Peaches and Cream Intuitive Eating forum.

The recent discovery that I have made with intuitive eating and myself, is that I have been treating intuitive eating like a diet. I tell myself I must stick to the rules, or that I will follow the rules but adjust them slightly to make sure I don't gain weight, and I still struggle with "wasting" food, I still tend to eat at "normal" meal times and I am still quite caught up with my weight.

I am going to use the blog to keep a record and to explore myself and how I react to and cope with different situations and also to set my self little experiments. Not challenges, as there will be no win and no lose, just experiments so that I can see what works for me and what doesn't. Today I am trying to wait until I feel hungry before I eat. I find this step quite hard as I focus on feeling deprived and then end up eating something I don't really want just to stop the voice of deprivation in my head. I'm going to try and keep myself occupied today though. I have to take my eldest son to pre-school in half an hour, and then I'm going to explore the local market which is on til about 2pm.

Nicola x