530 "ripped off?"

Fun time at the weber state block party. I actually did the big obsticle course--felt like a fool (someone took a video and I looked like a fool too), but I'm proud of myself for doing it. I want to keep doing the fun stuff even when I get old and the only way to make sure that happens is to do the fun stuff now, even at the risk of looking silly. So, kudos to me for that! Today was the "taste of the town" I only paid $5 for it, but I was annoyed that literally half the places had run out of food by the time I got there. Yet, what I had was plenty and the price was cheap, so why do I feel ripped off? Classic little kid style envy. I saw what the others had and although mine was enough, I felt cheated. This is also classic diet feeling--whether or not I have enough or more than enough or the best stuff on earth, there is always a feeling that somehow someone else has more or better. Childish and ridiculous, but real just the same and it trips me up!

529 example

Got to see some IE in action yesterday at a baby shower. 7 year old very skinny girl goes up to the treat buffet, takes one chocolate chip cookie--wanders around the room for a bit nibbling, then goes back to the buffet gets a plate and loads up on fruit. 18 month old brother gets a strawberry--mom says she doesn't like him to get the chocolate chip cookies because he only eats the chips out of them. PERFECT. Why can't I get the hang of that?

Tomorrow sybolizes what will one day be a success for me I hope. It's the block party at Weber and some restauraunts are coming with food for those who bought a ticket. Of course I bought a ticket. After work, we're going to Park City to celebrate Mom's house being done. This includes a three course meal at a fancy Italian restaurant. Someday, I want to look forward to a day like tomorrow--including looking forward to the food, WITHOUT thinking of it as an excuse to overeat. Amazing how powerful that feeling is. I'm not interested in honoring my hunger! I somehow think I'll be happier overeating. Will I be happier overeating? Not so very deep down, I'm afraid I think the answer is YES!

Maybe that's what I'll really look at tomorrow. If I overeat---how do I really feel? Will I really enjoy everything? and if the answer is an honest "YES" what do I do about that?

528 Carrying on

Yikes! I don't want to become an erratic blogger. I think one of the hardest things about IE is the illusion that it's easy. Because I think it's easy I have less to blog about--sort of. Truth is, if I pay attention, I have as much as ever to say because it's a struggle. I wish I could marry IE to weight watchers. IE nails my problem on the head time and time and time again--it is SO refreshing to feel understood, if only by a book. On the other hand, it isn't all that great about telling me what to do! And the lazy part of my wants very much for someone to just tell me what to do, rather than to thrash this all out for myself. Anyway, one obsticle--IE keeps telling me to trust myself around food--especially "forbidden" foods. Actually, that's not so much of a problem. It's "forbidden" portions. Letting that go is SCARY. Give myself full permission to eat how much I want all the time? Actually, I do that quite a lot anyway. There is a fine line---if I really said ok to that would I eventually stop wanting so much? Or would I simply relax into a new "natural" weight of 300 lbs? Would there really be a difference? All my life have I been overeating because it was somehow the last time or a special occasion? This blog certainly testifies to the huge number of "special occasions."

524 First Experiment

Okay! First day's experiment results are in and I.....drum roll....need practice! Maybe I shouldn't have skipped breakfast--but honestly, I wasn't in the least hungry. I was still stuffed from yesterday. Instead, I had some water, and walk/ran a 5K. Still not hungry. Had some more water and made my mom's pflaumekuchen (plum cake--the real thing with loads of butter), put that in the oven and mowed the lawn. Still not hungry--had more water. When the cake had cooled a bit, I WAS ready to eat a little. It was surprisingly hard to cut myself a small piece!!! I had to tell myself several times that I could have more if I wanted. I did succeed in having a small piece and a small glass of milk. I was perfectly content--but still a little freaked out that here was all this pflaumekuchen and I had hardly touched it!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!! You know the motto, "make peace with food" ?--for me, I think it's going to be "making peace with portions". Anyway, I had some errands to run and when I came back I was ready for lunch. Ok, I think. I was truly hungry--I had a grilled cheese sandwich, some olives, some doritos and some raw cauliflower. After I'd eaten that, I'm not sure if I was still hungry or if I just wanted more cake? Cake won. I had a larger piece than I'd had before (because I happend to cut it that way) and some more milk. Had a nap, and went to SLC for a birthday party. I wasn't hungry when we left, and wasn't consciously all that hungry when we got there, but my body must have been really hungry. It was difficult to speak to people I was so eager to get to the table--that annoyed me. I did NOT succeed in dishing up small portions there. I ate two plates of fruit, chips and dip (my favorite) and two hotdogs, plus cake and ice-cream.

So--ok, I think skipping breakfast might be a bad idea even if I'm not hungry, especially if I exercise. The first small piece of cake was a success and so was adding the cauliflower to lunch. I will build on that tomorrow. One thing I did right when I was pregnant was to try to eat as healthily as I could when I could eat. I want to do the same here. If for whatever reason my body doesn't want a lot of food--I think it's important to make sure that overall the food I do eat has nutritional value.

I'm frustrated with my reaction at the party--not just that I ate a lot, but that I wanted so much. I feel a little betrayed. I WAS honoring both my hunger and my fullness all day long and then suddenly I just had to eat a big birthday dinner? Why didn't my body reward my efforts with a normal sized appetite at dinner?? Maybe it was backlash from skipping breakfast, but it's still annoying.

Tomorrow is another day, and I like this idea of practicing portions. Obviously, there is a lot of work to be done.

an experiment tomorrow

Well, I broke my word and got on the scale the other day. I know I've been overeating. Each day, I make MANY correct IE choices, but unfortunatley each day I make too many dumb choices and I feel fat and bloated. 190. However, I was dressed and was feeling bloated, which is probably why I weighed myself then because I wouldn't have to really accept the weight I saw.

Ok, here's tomorrow's experiment. I honestly and truly have not been wanting as much food as I've been eating. But if it's offered to me, or it's on my plate, I have a devil of a time saying no--even if I don't want it! So---just for tomorrow, I'm going to serve myself up little portions and take those little portions away from the main source of the food. If I'm still hungry I can go back for seconds or even thirds or fourths or whatever--but if I'm full maybe it will be a little bit easier to say I'm done.

I suspect that if I could just let go and let my body do what it wants it really might revert back to something very similar to when I was pregant--that is, I'm carring around so much extra, that I doubt my body wants or needs very much food at all at this point. I bet my body WANTS to eat like a mouse until I get to whatever my normal size is, and then I bet my appetite will increase to a normal size to maintain that weight. I just need to get out of my own way. MUCH harder than it sounds!

512 Learning something?

Did I say yesterday that I was learning something here? i doesn't feel like it. I made a pig of myself last night. Well, maybe I have learned something about myself as an emotional eater--the number one emotion that triggers eating for me is celebration--whether that's joy or a nice day or just plain relief. Negative emotions shut me down. Weird, but I really don't eat in response to stress, sadness, anger or other negatives. But happiness?? That's different. To me, food is like salt, it just makes everything better--so if I'm already happy--I wan't to eat for sure!

Yesterday was a relief eat. Dave surpassed himself and went all the way to SLC to take my nephew back to school shopping. I couldn't go with (and didn't want to!) and it felt GREAT. I got my church work done and then I took myself out to Sizzler which was foolish financially as well as waist-wise. I ate WAY past the point of fullness--to the point where I came home and unbuttoned my pants which is rare behavior for me. The only good news here is that eating a large salad, a steak, potato, texas toast and a sundae hasn't always or even often, been enough to bring me to stomach-ache fullness. While it was still WAAAAAY too much food, I'm relieved that it felt like way too much. It's also been nice not to force myself back on a diet today. I ate a little bit for a late breakfast, and then I was hungry for lunch. I just wish I would hurry up and begin naturally undereating so my body could be brought back into line!

511 A better day!

PHEW!!! Amazing how things can turn around. It was a difficult and nerve wracking weekend. Would the DI pod come so we could load stuff at Mom's? (yes) Would Christine actually get stuff out of the house? (not really) Would anyone come to help? (YES!)

For a lot of reasons that I don't want to rehash here--lack the energy, and it wouldn't be helpful anyway--I spent Sunday and most of yesterday furious at my sister. I don't like feeling that way. It's exhausting, and negative and worst of all purposeless.

But today is a new day. We got a lot done cleaning-wise at the house, and best of all one of the new owners came by and saw that we were doing it. That's what I really wanted. Mom's house is old and isn't really cleanable anymore because it needs to be re-painted--so you can scrub all you like and it still looks dirty because it's just stained. At least they know we're trying. Whether or not my sister actually loaded everything up in the pod before they took it away this morning I don't know or really care. If they didn't--I'll drop everything I can carry on her front porch and that's the end of that. I feel now, as though the rest of the work is doable and it will be DONE on Friday. This is an enormous elephant weight off my shoulders. Even better today--Dave asked last night if my nephew had school supplies? I told him I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was no. I thought school started next week, but no, it starts tomorrow! Dave is still going to go to SLC and take him shopping. I can't go and I think it's a good thing for them to spend some time together. I'm so blessed to have such a terrific husband! I'd been wondering about that too, but lacked the energy to follow up

What does this have to do with food? Nothing perhaps, except that life has to do with food and emotions definitley do. I think things are slowly healing and improving even though my eating has been weird by diet standards. I AM having meals where I'm eating lightly or not at all. I still have trouble with others---I ate a kids meal for dinner last night and didn't even finish the bag of salt and vinegar chips. After cleaning, I still wasn't hungry, but Dave wanted ice-cream. Well!! My full share of a huge sundae went down no problem. This morning, I WAS hungry and I wanted eggs, bacon, an english muffin, a slice of cheese and milk. Got to work and wasn't the least bit tempted by the monkey bread. I've been reading in the IE book about an experiment where normal men were put on a strict diet for 6 weeks. After the diet, it took them a full 5 months to normalize their eating. IE is definitley working in that I'm thinking about food less, worrying less, and feeling much less compelled to eat the "good stuff" this, to the point where I'm surprised by how little I'm caring about food. On the other hand though--I seem to be reverting to the foods I grew up with--a very German diet, bread, cheese, meat with some fruits and veggies. Perhaps not the greatest diet in the world--although, when I was eating that diet I sure weighed a whole lot less! (Course I was a kid and it was the 1970's). I don't feel thinner. On the contrary, my thighs and bottom feel fat. I think, on the whole, I'm excited---this IS a little different from when I just "gave up" in Iowa. Then I slowly lost 20 lbs. This time, I'm willing to embrace nutrition and exercise--just not at the expense of what I really want. I still don't trust that I'm not engaging in major wishful thinking, but I sense that I'm on the right path and will learn something important here whatever the actual scale results.