Thread: Minerva; Confessions of a Food Addict.

That's exactly what I did Anders. Thank you for the information on the liver! That certainly does explain the 'bloating'! A few days of watching what I eat and it went down, felt lots better too.

^_^

Way Min, great to have you back & positive. Amazing how a bit of rationalising can make problems disappear!


Thanks for the theory & explanation, I'm off on holiday for 3 weeks soon and will be thinking of this A LOT.

thanks min!
this has been going round and round in my head the last week, seeing it in black and white it makes sense!
i have been struggling, but you are right i can;t have gained 6 lbs of fat just by a few bad choices...
nice one!
daisy x

Glad you found this useful Daisy! So never despair, never give up - because the choices we make in the LONG TERM are the ones that matter most! The small short-term choices are insignificant, as long as we can approach them in a healthy way. It's the negative guilt spirals that usually let people down and they give up what they've started. You are a bright positive beautiful person, I know you won't let yourself fall into it! *hugs*!

And Sean: I KNOW you'll do brilliantly on Holiday! Let yourself enjoy it, and I know you will. Your head is definitely in the right place because I myself have learned from you in many ways! Stay light on the wine though!

Hi Min - Thanks very much for posting that as it has helped me to put things into perspective. Your whole diary is a very interesting and inspirational read and good to see you back to your usual self

Mel

I suppose I should write an update… I have been keeping to my calorie counting ways for the last two weeks post-holiday, and yes, the rebellious child is screaming! But I’ve been dealing with him, drinking flavoured water, coffee, chewing gum… Sugar-free chewing gum is really great for containing unnecessary cravings, strange hunger pangs, wanting to binge. I do find after a nice dinner, and a lovely dessert (which is only 0% Greek Yoghurt and Frozen fruit -- I sometimes wonder if I need to eat? Since I’m not hungry – it’s a pure pleasure thing, and I feel guilty!!); even after all that I feel a strange urge to keep eating, to go find something else to munch on … It’s not so much that I want anything in particular, just a need to chew something. I guess it must be part of the reason why I got big in the first place. It’s not a certain kind of food that is my comfort. It’s not chocolate, or crisps, or pasta, or any ACTUAL substance. It’s the CHEWING that is comforting. I never really considered chewing gum as an option, so I kept stuffing my face with food – just to keep chewing and eating. And at 5 “calories” per s/f gum, it’s a good enough coping mechanism for now. The others include having some unshelled sunflower seeds at hand (I guess it’s a Russian thing, to sit and slowly munch through unshelled seeds… you can never eat too many, and it’s strangely satisfying…). Another mechanism is having coffee. Or going for a walk, or outside of the general ‘habitual induced’ area.

I am not actually all too sure how to go forward though. I am finding my mind is lapsing now, even with all the counting, it wants more. Wants food that I haven’t really been allowing myself. Of course I wouldn’t dare at this moment in time, but I am at an odd place. I don’t know how to do this. On the one hand, I am counting calories, and letting go of that control completely when my boyfriend cooks. I have to control my portion size instead, eat a bit less, serve myself an approximate amount, and sort of rely on just general knowledge. But I do freak out over it. … And then end up hungry and feeling quite deprived because I force myself to eat less. … Then again the other side of that is when it’s *completely* out of my hands, I go “feck this” at a restaurant and just have lots of food without really thinking about portion size at all. Where is the middle ground? How do I know that I can control myself when I stop counting? I am terrified of complacency setting in, because maybe after a month of giving up counting, a little more will creep in, invisible things, an extra bite of a cookie will evolve into an extra cookie, an extra two. I know it’s all down to me, I know I’m the only one making the decisions of what goes into my mouth. But I guess I’m scared of the thing that KD so often described. That feeling of “Oh, I just don’t care right now”. And what if it keeps going? What if I can’t catch it? … Hm.

Well, first I have to lose the 2lbs I really DID put on, on holiday! Then I’ll start thinking about all this a bit more. Though it’s made difficult because again I feel quite lifeless and lethargic and my brain is just not functioning properly … It’s making me think that we really DO need the glycogen stores from the carbohydrates in the liver and such. Life was a little bit easier with them there…

...Hm... am I controlling it... or is it controlling me...

Min - Does it have to be about control?

How about a it being a relationship where you talk and resolve conflict with a bit of inner negotiation?

You are more eloquent with words that I am, so I hope you know what I mean.

Originally Posted by thin_inside

Min - Does it have to be about control?

How about a it being a relationship where you talk and resolve conflict with a bit of inner negotiation?

You are more eloquent with words that I am, so I hope you know what I mean.

I have been thinking about this for a few days now... And I guess, it sort of highlighted the sort of behaviour which has been getting unhealthy. I didn't want to admit it, but somewhere, it was going very much into the danger anorexia zone. ... I guess it took some thinking, and admitting to myself that I don't want to go down that path, which leads me to write this.

I guess the control is a sort of coping mechanism. Without the strictness of Lighter Life on me, I have to set my own boundaries. I can't stray from them because I know them, and they are in a way a comfort zone. If I don’t have the boundaries of NUMBERS for example, I suddenly lose control over what I do. It’s probably because… when I don’t know what I’ve done, when I don’t know what I’ve achieved, then I feel like I’ve failed. Makes me more readily able to throw in the towel and give up. It is difficult to be like this. I hate being a perfectionist. And the boundaries I set myself over the last two weeks have been too … strict. Keeping an average of 900 calories per day for the last two weeks, doing 4-5 hours walking without rest on an empty stomach… obsessing over every salad leaf, every morsel… Hell I’m even counting every piece of sugar-free gum of 5 calories each in my daily total. Obsessive? … maybe just a little. … the physical effect it all has on me are not pleasant either…

However, after all this though, I said to myself: When I reach my pre-holiday weight of 9st 1, I’ll stop counting. … Have I stopped? No. … But maybe it’s time to, before I start chasing lower weight targets… hell, I’m tempted though. Still. Failure in weight control is not just in the gain of lb’s or kilo’s. It’s also in the extreme loss of sanity. I can’t let myself fail … but … I really wish I knew how to balance my inner-perfectionist and the fear of failure.

For the sake of completion: which is also very important, I’ll keep logging calories until the end of the week. I have set myself that deadline now, here. Officially on record! Then I will stop counting and see, if I can manage my portions and set in motion everything I’ve learned. Just without the numbers.

Maybe I’m looking back at the ‘old me’ and am scared of being HER again. I keep thinking that I am still her and want to eat like her… But after all, I forget how much my eating habits have actually changed. I don’t really snack in the day or between meals. I try to wait until meal times to eat. I naturally want and crave vegetables and salad over anything else now...! I can’t imagine my life without at least half a plate of something colourful, perhaps mostly green and wonderfully crisp on my plate! My portions are a fraction of what they used to be as well, I hate feeling bloated, and that’s what I used to think was ‘full’. Being nicely satisfied is lovely, and enjoying my meal over the course of an hour with chopsticks is extremely enjoyable ~ rather than scoffing the whole bucket down in about 5 minutes! … I’ve made the changes under my strict guidelines, I guess next week, I’ll see if I can actually do it… on my own… so to speak.

And I’m not too scared… I have shown myself that I CAN lose weight – it’s completely in my control to do so. Not just on Lighter Life, but same with my gain on holiday. It’s gone, hence… I know that there is always a way I can get back to where I want to be.



Patience is a virtue; and it’s something I have plenty of. After all… if I don’t make the effort to help myself, then what’s the point of living at all?



Thank you T_I for your comment, it really made me think about all of it in more perspective.

Originally Posted by Minerva

Thank you T_I for your comment, it really made me think about all of it in more perspective.

Min - Thank YOU for your expressive contemplations of your progress on here. If I can be a tiny bit of help then you are very welcome.

I, like you have already achieved, am hoping to lose 50% of my body weight. You are teaching me much about the thought process. I am not very good at expressing myself and you so often hit the nail on the head, so to speak. I have often wondered how I will cope with the idea of not losing weight week in week out.

Knowing the struggles you, Daisy and Sean have been blogging about is helping my self-awareness. I am hoping that by the time I reach RTM I can be prepared for many of the issues that arise - at least be aware of what may be happening in my head and body.

Thanks again xx

Umm Min. No great words of wisdom, but just a few things that are going through my head as I read your last few messages.

Sugar. Sugar is evil?? Or maybe the food you ate on holiday took you out of ketosis? I'm pretty sure that you are in some level of ketosis at the moment. So you think you are controlling your food intake? Well, yes to a certain extent, but perhaps you are controlling it by avoiding it, rather than learning how to control the 'demons' you have put them aside for the moment as we do with CD/LL/LT.

As you rightly say the 9lbs wont be fat. It will be you'll glycogen/water restoring back to normal levels. So what do you think is your 'normal' weight? With glycogen stores near to full? That's the more important number. To be in a state where a sudden influx of carbs doesn't give a massive gain on the scales, otherwise you are going to be chasing those number down forever.

You may think you have control over food, but I beg to differ. It's still the leader of the pack, and you are submissive to it.

I know only too well how important it is for us not to let too much of a gain show on the scales, but your aim must be to have power over food, not the scales.

You are controlling the scales admirably but the problem is still there because you haven't really tackled it.

So instead of Sugar is evil...avoid at all costs, it should be sugar makes me want to eat more blah blah, but that's not a problem because I'm in charge. I don't have to eat more than I want. I can stop at any point.

In your attempt to get those numbers correct on the scales you are avoiding the biggest issue. Getting a good relationship with food. Trying to control weight alone brings up all sorts of eating disorders.

My opinion is that you shouldn't stop counting calories. You should hang on a little there. Get that 2lbs or whatever off if it makes you happy, and then count calories, carbs and protein and increase them all! Gradually

I would guess you aren't getting enough protein for good health and protein is absolutely vital. You also need to get right out of ketosis to learn how to tackle the food 'demons'. And you need to increase your calories to get your metabolism back up to normal levels. Then have a go at dealing with the food issues. Letting more of the higher carb/even higher sugar levels back in gradually so you can work on them.

At the moment, it feels like you are trying to convince yourself that you are the officer in charge of the army, when in fact there's a whole army out there and you are hiding in the trenches..scared, but saying "I'm in control...I'm in control...as long as nobody comes to get me, then all will be well"

Of course, I could be wrong, but hey...been there, done that (was a bit younger than you at the time). Going on my own experience which could be different.

*

Originally Posted by KD

Umm Min. No great words of wisdom, but just a few things that are going through my head as I read your last few messages.

This whole message was a wake-up call! So what are you on about: “No words of wisdom”…!!

*

Originally Posted by KD

Sugar. Sugar is evil?? Or maybe the food you ate on holiday took you out of ketosis? I'm pretty sure that you are in some level of ketosis at the moment. So you think you are controlling your food intake? Well, yes to a certain extent, but perhaps you are controlling it by avoiding it, rather than learning how to control the 'demons' you have put them aside for the moment as we do with CD/LL/LT.

Ok, ok… Sugar isn’t evil. But it was my reaction to it that wasn’t great. I lost a bit of control, but you are absolutely right… Now that I know how I react to it, I need to learn to manage it better, rather than run away and hide, which is what I seem to be doing. Same with bread. I suppose I know it will always be a trigger food and that part doesn’t change… the only thing that CAN change is how I perceive it and how I consume it.

I definitely know that I can stop whenever I want. I haven’t actually had a ‘binge’ so to speak in the uncontrollable sense for many months now, because I have developed enough restraint and self-worth to stop. It’s enough for me to ask myself : “Do I really need this?” mid-bite, for me to get up and leave. Just needs the thought process to go on, rather than mind-less grabbing and eating – which is exactly what I used to do.

*

Originally Posted by KD

So what do you think is your 'normal' weight? With glycogen stores near to full? That's the more important number. To be in a state where a sudden influx of carbs doesn't give a massive gain on the scales, otherwise you are going to be chasing those number down forever.

Yes, I do consider TRUE weight the one with glycogen restored to full, but it doesn’t stop me wanting that figure to be below my target of 10st! I want a good leeway between my fully restored weight and my target weight for my body to settle while my metabolism settles back to normal, and I play around with the right calorie daily intake.
I’m using the weight number as a tool, however I can see how it can become an obsession.

Technically speaking I’m actually HAPPY with my body now. I look in the mirror and I don’t see much wrong. I don’t hate any of it, and I don’t feel like I deserve to hide in the background when I’m out on the street. I love my new found confidence, I can easily talk to strangers without thinking how they are perceiving me. I guess I’m terrified of going back to how I used to be, a self-hating shadow in the back of the room. But, I know… it’s all in the mind.

*

Originally Posted by KD

You may think you have control over food, but I beg to differ. It's still the leader of the pack, and you are submissive to it.

In your attempt to get those numbers correct on the scales you are avoiding the biggest issue. Getting a good relationship with food. Trying to control weight alone brings up all sorts of eating disorders.

Yep, it’s the hole I am avoiding falling down into at the moment. I can see how easily these things can develop, and the other day I was indeed faced with the heavy realisation that I was not in control of food anywhere near as much as I thought…! If I can pick up a pack of bloody WATER BISCUITS and suddenly decide that 30 calories each is too much, and put them back then there’s something wrong. I want the water biscuit, but for some reason in the back of my mind, something tells me no. If I keep saying in the back of my mind “Oh, I can’t have that, or that, or that”… then yes… food is in control. Not me. … I am in control when I can have a little and stop when I want… Which; I know I can do!

When I went on holiday, I was perfectly happy to order some proper cake, and have a few bites and leave the rest without any problem. If I can learn to CONTINUE that sort of self-control, then I’ll be ok… but I guess the main thing is: it requires effort. It’s less effort to avoid it at the moment… I guess I’m scared of the next step, the actual WORK part!!

Originally Posted by KD

You also need to get right out of ketosis to learn how to tackle the food 'demons'.

At the moment, it feels like you are trying to convince yourself that you are the officer in charge of the army, when in fact there's a whole army out there and you are hiding in the trenches..scared, but saying "I'm in control...I'm in control...as long as nobody comes to get me, then all will be well"

This made me smile…! This control thing is definitely easier when I’m hiding, but I have indeed seen the demons grow when I upped the intake! They’re tiny at the moment and I can step on them, and I have seen them tower over me as well… But at least, I believe I am aware of them as entities who need to be recognised for what they are, and I have worked on healthy ways to deal with them, learning to walk away. It is difficult, but I all I can do is try, and try again if I fail the first time.

Originally Posted by KD

My opinion is that you shouldn't stop counting calories. You should hang on a little there. Get that 2lbs or whatever off if it makes you happy, and then count calories, carbs and protein and increase them all! Gradually

I would guess you aren't getting enough protein for good health and protein is absolutely vital. And you need to increase your calories to get your metabolism back up to normal levels. Then have a go at dealing with the food issues. Letting more of the higher carb/even higher sugar levels back in gradually so you can work on them.

Actually all I eat is protein and vegetables at the moment. Lol. Lots of pulses, chicken, fish, beef, eggs. Lots of Greek Yoghurt. It’s just the carbs I have trouble with? I do introduce them slowly, having a baked potato, porridge, home-made pizza sometimes.

I need to get over my mental block of going over 1000 calories per day as well… which is harder than it sounds. Any day that is over 1400 makes me feel like I’ve failed that day? …

I just don’t know HOW to up the calories slowly, and where is my limit? How do I know how quickly to do it? How do I know when to stop? Because I want to live a “normal” life rather than this … restrictive prison I seem to be building.

It makes sense not to stop counting then for the moment then, however, it poses the problem of my brain frizzing at the mention of any extra over 1000. I suppose it’s the next demon I need to tackle?

I’ll give it a go starting on Monday and document it all here. Lol!


So;
Monday’s target:

* Calories go up to 1100 for the week.
* Have at least 1 serving of carbohydrates per day. (1 serving following LLLite RTM guidelines)


Argh! I have the rest of this week to get prepared mentally!

Thanks KD and T_i.



EDIT: ... guess I didn't want to admit it, but I don't feel proud of this at all. On the scales this morning it told me I'm 8st 13. A bit low for me, and I certainly do feel it, my body doesn't feel comfortable, it's hard, and doesn't have much padding ... and to be honest, I can't buy tightly fitting clothes because I'm ashamed as to how my body looks. I don't like how thin my thighs are. ... ? Lol, hiding the fat back in the day, now I'm hiding the bones! Strange!

Min

KD makes many valid points, but your responses show you are engaging with many of them already, perhaps not quite in the right place yet, but definitely getting there.

Like you I think I want to maintain somewhere between 9.5 and 10 stone. My target of 9.06 is to give me some leeway to replace my glycogen and be in the range for my normal weight.

I think in 'normal' people there are natural weight fluctuation cycles daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Accepting this and not pouncing on every pound gained as a sign of failure will be a big mental shift. Think of starting to manage in the bigger picture rather than daily detail.

I am learning so much about myself here too. xx

Originally Posted by thin_inside

I think in 'normal' people there are natural weight fluctuation cycles daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Accepting this and not pouncing on every pound gained as a sign of failure will be a big mental shift. Think of starting to manage in the bigger picture rather than daily detail.

Actually I got my head around this one already! I document my weight on a weekly/monthly basis, and sort of look at it that way rather than individual daily readings - those don't provide a good picture. I also know that bloating, and water retention DOES happen!

I did an experiment: one week I consumed copious amounts of Diet Coke - and felt gassy and bloated... When I cut down the amount I drank to a small tumbler's worth with my dinner - suddenly the belly bloating and constant burping were gone within a few days and my weight suddenly dropped a bit also. Diet fizzy drinks really aren't all that great are they.


"Normal" people I suppose though, have some sort of innate instinct on how to eat though, KD in her blog often documents this subconscious behaviour in her son - and it's something she needs to put effort into maintaining. I guess it's good to be aware of our limits, and as you rightly said: look at the big picture rather than get discouraged by looking at every single detail.


Thank you.

Hmmm, getting prepared to up my calories on Monday. I am going ahead with it, though I've finally figured out what it is I'm scared of.

I'm terrified of hating myself again. ... Because as it is, after the weight loss, and having all the loose skin and stretch-marks and what-not..... I actually LIKE my body. I never thought I'd ever say this. ... Never thought I'd feel completely at ease with myself, never thought that there would be a time when I'm not ashamed of it. ... Granted it's not perfect - I have a saggy belly, saggy arms, weird wrinkles all over the place...! But I love them all in their own way.

I'm scared of losing this confidence...



I am scared of who I used to be; lost in self-destructive patterns.