What a great post, lena. I totally agree about the balance and I can see that what you're saying about the yoga fits with what else I've been learning about what works for me.

I had not thought about this bit before: our self-esteems are low and hence our self-criticism tends to be too poisonous , but that absolutely makes sense.

Thank you. This is so very cool. I only get to give rep on it once though!

thanx
i realized the balance thing about a months or so. people here were trying to tell me that i have to be positive and pick up my self-esteem by silencing that inner-hater. but then i got thinking...what if the inner-hater isn't really an inner-hater but is only helpless so is using the worst amo possible? and once i started picking myself up by telling me that i deserve to be better the inner hater became inner-critic again...sometimes not very constructive but its getting better. i'm embracing that voice now.

I will check back in your diary. I read your posts over at Steve's place, and that gave me a little summary.

Since I've been trying to deal better with the stress in my life while it's arriving, and now also considering self esteem issues I see that it's not just an inner voice affecting me. It definitely wreaked some havoc without needing any help months back, but now it usually bobs up to chime in with someone else criticizing me from the outside.

(As if anyone could have grounds! Me being amazed that they could imagine they did, doesn't stop me from taking notice that they have. If it's my kid's voice I'm inclined to think either that I've made a mistake that they're reacting to, or that I've made my children into someone who reacts wrongly. So the worse they are, the worse I count myself. Nasty little ideas I get.)

So I decided I will do the love affirmation after all. Only I'm including some for knowing that they love me too - because I know they do love me deeply and I really do have to cope with teenage crap from the position of the grown-up. I often feel like I have to imagine myself into it, or pretend that I am, which is sort of silly but helpful. I just can't always do it instantly.

Hopefully, as I overcome my issues with anxiety, and generally become more healthy again, I will also be less prone to reacting too quickly to genuine irritations and causing them to become worse. I know those things are all related.

(Mind you, I really ought not have to explain why I don't want to talk about where the blu-tac is at 1:30 am when I have already had my bedroom door shut for an hour and a half! LOL! )

My eating and weight loss are going well. I had an icecream tonight (yep right after a phone call with a young one). But it was no binge. I sandwiched it straight in between a solid meal and a yoghurt. Being in with the other food makes it harder for it give me a sugar spike, insulin crash craving. Yoghurt after dinner makes it feel finished for me somehow, without making me want to eat masses. I put the icecream in a cone to give it a controlled serving size. And I ate it slowly, something else cones help with. Also, if I was counting calories properly, I know there was plenty of space for it, in my day and in my week. So, I wish I hadn't felt the impulse, not for the sake of the icecream or its calories, but because it hadn't occurred to me to have one until I was distressed, and I'd like to be over that response.

As far as exercise goes, well I'm getting there. I'm doing more than I was, and I've made a relevant change. I used to go straight from getting up in the morning, to weighing myself (in a routine barely interested way), to having breakfast. I always thought I was doing the right thing there because of the emphasis on having breakfast - which I'm not changing. Now I want to exercise first though - maybe with just a banana or a piece of toast beforehand. Right now I'm a bit limited in what I can do and also I'm spending a bunch of time every day on some physiotherapy, so I just put one of those sessions in between waking up and breakfast. That's long enough for me - by then I'm impatient to eat, but I'm content to have managed that change at least, because I actually see getting that morning exercise in as crucial to long term success for me.

And I am trying to improve the sleep thing ... I'm making sure I get enough again, but not doing so good on falling asleep when I plan to ... the midnight visits have not helped. I am trying hard to stop them assertively but roused is roused - tonight it was the other kid!

Hola, Felici.
I just wanted to drop by and say hello; I am glad to see almost all is well, and you are looking AMAZING! (per your picture)

I have been so busy I haven't had time to come here for months; almost a year! It is good to see others still doing well

I'll be back more often these days; I had a desk job keeping me busy 12 hours a day... Less work-computer time means I can enjoy home-computer time a little more

How is your walking going? I see a few posts related to slip-ups, but not much showing successes in the past days; have you been keeping to your goals more often than not? (Yeah, I know, goals are fluid)

Don't let the small failures outweigh the successes,

Back soon.

OMG Qjay!! How exciting to see you back on board.

I haven't been back here long myself. January 10th was my first post in this thread in a long while. Sorry - that avvie is me last year not this year - now it's more like my version of a bikini picture - you know - a goal not a reality.

I lost weight until September 2007 with no probs really. After that I started to struggle with binge eating. The picture in my avvie was taken in January or February, while I was still looking like I'd lost a lot of weight but actually it was bobbing up and down. I didn't know how to handle the binge eating issue and after a while I stopped posting here.

I didn't give up on my goal to be healthy, but I thoroughly lost my way.

Not long before I started posting here again I read something Steve quoted : "for every one person who is clinically mentally ill in this regard, there are thousands who are sub-clinically fucked up" http://weight-loss.fitness.com/541165-post66.html and I thought yep that's me. Sub-clinically fucked up.

Recently, one on-line trail led to me to a site where they were offering on-line self help using CBT - not for bingeing - just for whatever was wrong with you that CBT might help with. I got so unreasonably cranky with the process while I was trying to register, that I took it as a sign of subconscious resistance against a change and registered anyway. I was cranky with every step I took on the site. No way could I relate to the example of they gave of how someone with anxiety might behave - until a lightbulb moment a couple of days later. And it did help. I think what I learned there was what I needed to know.

I'd already made some progress before that. My husband suggested we could do without having chocolate in the house, I agreed. A couple of days later I started writing about my weight again, though not here. Oddly, it turned out I started writing consistently again, on the two year anniversary of the first time I registered here, which was also a major turning point. Also, as far as I could tell from using my unreliable scales, I weighed about the same as I had back then. Had I paid myself out enough? I thought so.

I can't say I'm over the binge eating now, but when I started writing again on November 28th, I went back to something like the stage I was at last summer, with good patches where I thought I was over it, and then maybe a relapse of a day or two - Christmas didn't help. However, it was different to last year in that overall I have lost weight. So far in 7 and a half weeks I've lost about 5 kg (11 lb), I think. It blipped up and down again over Christmas.

Better than that, I've made heaps of progress with the anxiety that I figured out was the main underlying problem with my binge eating. So now with a combination of having fewer moments where I want to binge - partly from dealing with my life better and partly from eating better - and better strategies to manage any binges that sneak in there, I reckon I'm in promising shape.

The way I eat now is nowhere near as strict as it was two years ago. I don't want it to be. I don't want something that will fall apart on me the moment I have to adapt to different circumstances. So I don't worry about measuring my food strictly against the plan I started with. Also I don't exactly count calories either. I have a good rough idea of what calories I'm getting from last summer when I tracked them. Now I just sort of know what's ok and what's better and try not to stress about the whole thing. I have an idea that counting carefully might not be good for a binge eater. Just at the moment I don't even think much about food and I like that. I just try not to go too long without it, and to eat a high fibre carb (not too much though), some protein and some vegetable (almost) every time I do eat.

I'm exercising right now more as an attempt to control my stress than to help my body. I know I need to step that up, but I don't want to start freaking out about how I can't fit it in properly. I just want to keep pushing towards developing an early morning exercise habit so that I can start doing something I can maintain.

Though my weight is not that far off the beginning weight I had when I started here, I don't feel like I'm at the beginning at all. I feel like I'm already working on maintaining a decent weight rather than losing it. I believe if I get myself properly oriented towards that and get my mind in order, I will naturally lose weight. That's how it's been so far. I have no idea how far down that will take me.

Sorry - still a long post, but shorter than it was.

That's wonderful that you're brainstorming and coming up with your personal "triggers" for getting off track with your nutrition And it's always great to pinpoint what worked for you in the past when you successfully lost. I recently got back to counting calories consistently (I kept trying and giving up over and over again until I joined Claudia's challenge, which kept me accountable) because it was the only way I managed to get closest to my goal--and this week I noticed a significant drop so I'm trying to maintain that, now. Hope you have a peaceful and successful week!

Thanks Val. I'd noticed your results have been really exciting lately - quite amazing considering where you're already at. I loved the 30 day dry thread too - it can be easy to overlook the impact of alcohol on weight despite the fact that it can involve so many calories. It's THE significant factor in keeping weight higher than they'd like, for a few people I know in RL.

I think if I got back to the low weight I was last year, I might have to count calories again to make progress dropping weight - I'm not sure. I see that binge eating is the single significant factor with me being obese though, so I have to make it a priority to deal with that.

Yes, totally--I was a binger for many many years, and it took years to stop that behavior--I still overeat sometimes!!!! But not one any one thing, that counts, right?? HAHA! Seriously though, I feel I've finally reached a state of balance with stopping eating, and I noticed it ABSOLUTELY has to do with my emotional state, feelings of self-worth, and if I'm drunk or hungover or tired.

You reminded me to update that thread, thank you.

Counting calories is sooooooo annoying but it was the only thing that made it possible for me to lose 5 pounds a month for 4 months back in 2007--I keep pages of a spreadsheet I printed in a binder and use a "fun," purple-sparkly pen to track what I eat and I try to update it after every meal, although sometimes its a test in memory when I'm with friends and don't get a chance right away.

Best wishes to you!

Amen!

Lol.

Maybe one day we'll get it all figured out.

I'm confident. People do recover from binge eating.

It looks like Curvie Girlie has a good handle on it. And best wishes to you. It's great to see you having such fun while you're fine tuning a weight that's already very healthy.

Ugh. This was not a good day. I felt barely awake the whole time. Now there's nothing to stop me going to sleep except that I don't feel sleepy.

It needn't have been like this. If I'd been more disciplined about when I went to bed last night I would have been fine. I have to get used to leaving things half finished and going to bed anyway.

I sorry your day was poopy.

Lets have a party.


Now you feel better, right?

I feel GRREAT now!

I had a nice long sleep - and then I was woken by a phone call to tell me ...

I GOT A REAL JOB!! wOOt!!!

I got a real job! I have no idea whether I can do it without having a nervous breakdown or killing a kid but still. I am teaching in a hard to staff school which is what I asked for so that I would have a chance of getting work at all, and of getting permanency within our state education department within a couple of years. But I really didn't think it would come through.

It's not far from home though, only about 12 minutes - a pre-primary/Year 1 split.

Seriously as far as how I thought things would pan out for me this year, a real job was way at the back of my mind. This is actually the first year I've asked for full time work, now that feligirl is going to high school. I qualified when she was in KINDY!

I am so excited!!

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S

I am soooooooo happy for you. You deserve this so much. You see when you start paying attention to yourself good things start happening