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