Food stress
I just want to have a normal relationship with food. I do NOT want to:
- Spend my days counting calories.
- Feel guilty every weekend for eating more than I do on weekdays.
- Feel anxious about eating out.
- Feel anxious about eating in public.
- Feel anxious about eating ALL THE TIME.
- Worry I will regain all of the weight I have lost.
- Worry I will stop caring about myself again.
Someone please tell me this is possible. Because right now, I feel like I spend so much of my time thinking about eating/health/weight loss it is sickening.
I’ve been spending my weekends and free time searching for other weight loss and health blogs on the internet for inspiration. I now have a folder of 50+ of them in google reader. I’ve found so many cool people going through the same thing I am (there are a few that I would love to recommend – Escape from Obesity, Morgan Gets Thin, Perfect in our Imperfections, Coming Clean: Tales of a Disordered Eater), but I worry that I am being too obsessive. I worry I am thinking about being healthy too much and not living my life.
I’m reading another “food and health” book – Intuitive Eating. Yes, another one. I saw this book recommended in quite a few places. I always read these books with a grain of salt… but I am still picking them up and reading them. I guess I am hoping for some revolutionary insight? I already know I overeat when stressed/anxious/bored. Someone please just reprogram me so I don’t do that anymore.
This book is an anti-diet book that focuses on getting back to “intuitive eating” – basically listening to hunger cues and following that instead of a diet.
Well, I’ve never followed a diet, but I do have internal rules for myself about eating. Maybe, just maybe, I can learn to have a normal relationship with food. How many posts have I ended saying that?
Why I am feeling so stressed/anxious/nervous/restless all the time? When will this go away?! When?!
Themocracy
Your biggest weapon in all of this is your running. If you continue running, you’ll get to a point where your body will actually need more calories to keep up. You won’t need to really worry about what you eat.
ajooja – I was fantasizing about that earlier today. I thought “If I run more than 5 miles EVERY day I wouldn’t have to worry about what I eat!” But… I feel guilty for even thinking that 🙁
ouch, could this post describe me exactly? i was thinking, did kim get inside my head without me knowing?!?! ever since i really committed to losing weight i have been what i consider “a freak” about food and everything that i put in my body… i suppose this could be a good thing but really, to obsess like i am?!?! could i be re-programmed too? please?
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The neurotic behavior we associate with food is SO hard to deal with sometimes. I just try to make good eating decisions at least 80% of the time, and I make sure I get my work outs in every day. I too struggle with guilt after the weekend, and like right now, my fridge is FULL of things that are not the healthiest because loved ones donated a lot of food to me to help me get through this first month on my own. I really appreciate that they care, but part of me wishes they hadn’t so much.
Don’t stress about the fact that you’re stressed. We’ll beat this thing, one of these days. 🙂
I have to admit, this could have also described me to a T. I think that when you work really hard at something, you can’t help but want to keep it that way. And sadly, the only way I know to keep things where they are is to keep doing EXACTLY what I did to get there. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium for me. I hope you reach one yourself and are able to teach the rest of us the trick 🙂
Hi there — another great book is The Beck Diet Solution, about overcoming emotional eating which eventually will allow us to just eat to live instead of living to eat (obsessiveness, etc.) The Intuitive Eating book is a great tool, also.
I also am learning there is no “normal” with food. All women seem to be “weird” about food in some sense or another. It’s rare to meet a woman who just “eats.”
If I could eat like a toddler or like my husband (intuitively), I’d be 10 lbs less and at my goal weight yet again.
It’s a struggle for sure!
I am so sorry you’re suffering, I can definitely relate to one’s brain not behaving anything at all like I’d like it to. I know when I’m trying to quit smoking, simple distraction works wonders. Like, as soon as you catch yourself, have alternate activities for mind/hands/body at the ready to begin and distract yourself.
CourtneyInControl – I think it is definitely normal to feel that way when you first embark on eating healthier. But I think… it should get better? I wish! Maybe we can both try to figure out how to make it better, lol!
Jillian – My family and friends used to give me food in college when I was poor. A lot of it wasn’t extremely healthy though. When I was eating whatever I was just happy to have it. When I was eating healthy I felt guilty and didn’t want to eat it, but did. It’s actually kind of hard to afford to eat healthy!
TC – Yeah! My mentality is “Why stop obsessing if it is working?” Er… to have some piece of mind! Maybe this is a perfectionist type thing. I just can’t seem to let things go!
Melissa – Thanks for stopping by! I love the “eat to live don’t live to eat” saying. I just wish I could figure it out! But you are right – no one is 100% normal about food. We can’t be in our society. The best we can do is to be conscious and try our hardest!
Catherine – I am going to try that. I always say I will come up with a distraction, but I don’t. Maybe I should make a list of things to do, then carry it with me. It seems dumb but might actually help!
ironically, i can’t tell you how many blurbs or posts i ran across yesterday alone where people were talking about how obsessed they are with food when they are trying to lose weight… on truebodyconfessions one post said something along the lines of i would rather be fat than the neurotic obsessive compulsive person i was on weight watchers… in a way it makes me feel better knowing i’m not alone in this battle but on the flip side it makes me sad that everyone takes it to such extremes (and i am for sure in the taking it to extremes category!) where’s the win-win situation at?!?
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CourtneyInControl – I think it is out there, somewhere. It just takes a lot of reprogramming to find it! 🙂