Food without the angst - Vegan SW

Wow Micci. That was a very interesting read. It sounds as if we have experienced common coping mechanisms in the past. Good to see an analysis of it articulated well.

I think you're right about foreseeing situations and coping ahead. Once I'm in the rut there is nothing that will bring me back. Trouble is, some are easier to spot than others I find. But part of that is around admitting that you sunk and why you sunk in the first place.
 
You are so right Pinkie, life has a way of throwing disasters at us that we could never have expected. But maybe, and this is a rather tentative hope, when we get better at coping with the difficult situations that we have predicted, we will have gained strength and different habits to cope with the unexpected?

I flipping hope so, I've had a bit more than a decade of yo yo ing, thinking I've got it sussed, then something else goes wrong.
 
Yes, it's about conditioning isn't it? In some ways it's yet another habit to break (or form).
I saw a CBT therapist for a while. That helped me break situations down and start to think about how I could behave differently to avoid what otherwise became massively self destructing behaviour. Still a long way to go though. I never cracked real self belief.

But good luck to you. I shall keep an eye on your progress. :)
 
Yes, it's about conditioning isn't it? In some ways it's yet another habit to break (or form).
I saw a CBT therapist for a while. That helped me break situations down and start to think about how I could behave differently to avoid what otherwise became massively self destructing behaviour. Still a long way to go though. I never cracked real self belief.

But good luck to you. I shall keep an eye on your progress. :)

Oh, interesting, I did a bit of CBT but although I found it very interesting looking at how I got to be where I was at the time I wasn't in the right place emotionally to work with it. I was too ashamed to keep a food diary until I got into fasting again which rather frustrated the practitioner. Then I had an appendix emergency and didn't go back.
 
I went back, fearfully got on the scales ... AND ... I only last a flipping half pound! No gain. So that means I lost a lot really, I must have really gained a lot in that week and a half.

So, I'm feeling very very determined now. I've faffed around with a pound here and there, no decent losses since my first week. So here I come with renewed vigour.

Today's food:

Breakfast: Scrambled tofu with roast tomatoes, coffee with Blue Diamond Almond Milk

Lunch: Pasta with a sauce made of olive oil HEXB roast tomatoes and peppers with oregano, sage, garlic, onion salt and liquid aminos with SW homous. Melon.

Supper. A fancy wholemeal flatbread from Sainsbury's. Technically I worked it out at about 7 syns but am counting it as a HEXB plus a few syns the rest of the homous and lettuce and a whole bag of frozen black cherries YUM

Snacks, more melon, bananas and peaches

Before bed I shall have the rest of the Almond milk warmed up with cardomen and cinnamon. I invented this over the weekend and it is very good.
 
I went back, fearfully got on the scales ... AND ... I only last a flipping half pound! No gain. So that means I lost a lot really, I must have really gained a lot in that week and a half. So, I'm feeling very very determined now. I've faffed around with a pound here and there, no decent losses since my first week. So here I come with renewed vigour. Today's food: Breakfast: Scrambled tofu with roast tomatoes, coffee with Blue Diamond Almond Milk Lunch: Pasta with a sauce made of olive oil HEXB roast tomatoes and peppers with oregano, sage, garlic, onion salt and liquid aminos with SW homous. Melon. Supper. A fancy wholemeal flatbread from Sainsbury's. Technically I worked it out at about 7 syns but am counting it as a HEXB plus a few syns the rest of the homous and lettuce and a whole bag of frozen black cherries YUM Snacks, more melon, bananas and peaches Before bed I shall have the rest of the Almond milk warmed up with cardomen and cinnamon. I invented this over the weekend and it is very good.

Half pound off is really positive - and so are you. We all seem to be suddenly realising we need to stop being so negative about ourselves and realise 'I may not have got my body to the place I want it to be, but it works ok, I'm able to do the things I need/want to do and I should be happy with that as that makes me luckier than many millions of people'.

Let's get some reality into our lives! I think we live in a dream world where we see ourselves totally differently to the reality
 
Let the positivity continue ....

Late breakfast, homemade seitan and mushrooms fried with 1 teaspn olive oil with salad. Previous snacks on fruit: melon banana and pear. I can't eat apples so easily now, they have to be cut up to save the filling on my front tooth. It pops off rather too often and biting into apples was the reason for this the last two times. So, now I am being very careful.

Aiming for 3lbs this week. Lots of salad and fruit and the home made seitan seems to have worked quite well in my disaster reclamation efforts.

This is really prevarication, I've the last lot of minutes from the school, done the photostating so will now go and co-ordinate the atachments, write a covering letter and POST the DLA form.
 
Only 257 posts to go before I can get back into my old diary ...
 
It is done and posted. Phew ...

Today for food I am having home made seitan and mushrooms non stop. Most recently with the BBQ frylight, this is a good combination. Before I forget, I had a small amount of the Tesco cheddar Style Cream Cheese alike stuff. Good ness knows how many syns but that can be it for the day.
 
Well .... I had 4 chocolates at 2 syns each, more fruit and tasters of what I was cooking for everyone else, so a bit heavy on the syns in the end. I'm not really hungry now so will have some melon and apple with a mug of almond milk with cardomen and vanilla - it's SO good, really satisfies the craving for seet when I'm tired.

And tired I am, but me and the boy got a fair bit more done in the 'lets turn the jungle back into a garden' project. I cleared around the paved area where the picnic bench is and scrubbed it yesterday. Today I oiled it and did more cutting and sweeping and clearing. He chopped down a (sapling) tree and was pretty chuffed with himself. That area used to have our fire pit and we will probably burn what we have hacked down in a couple of weeks when it is drier. Then maybe have that as quite a private sitting area. Ah, it's nice to have dreams that could come true. It is always possible disaster will strike.

Oh, whilst rambling on in my tired way, I remembered a little triumph I didn't realise at the time was so good. I've been planning on how to cope emotionally with difficult events that I could see soming up, and wondered about the unforeseen problems. It's been a difficult week medically for my boy and he was refusing to see the doctor, I've cancelled three appointments now. At one stage I was so worried, and sitting with him for a couple of hours trying to get him feeling safe enough to go. To no avail. I got so worried and frustrated that I went away and cried. Binging didn't even occur to me. Talking about it tonight I realised it was quite likely the crying and releasing my emotions that helped a lot.

But I am chuffed. A difficult situation and no thought to binge. And amazingly enough, the sore eye that was immensly painful and had blurry vision got better by itself. And the deafness went away do goodness knows what it was.
 
Well done on your food and not going to pot when you knew your syns might be a bit over. Sorry your son wasn't feeling too good - will you get him to see the doc today instead do you think?

They say a good cry can do you wonders - sounds like it did in your case. The saline must have helped your eye I guess!! And to not binge is great. Baby steps and all that!!
 
'I love my body. It has served me well, it has been with me in the happy times and the sad times, it has walked and run and swum and cycled for miles. It has made and supported children, I have fed them to healthy growth from my body. Lovers have enjoyed my body with me, it brings me pleasure. I love the feel of warm wind on my skin, I love the feel in my body when I snuggle in front of the fire'

My body is aging now but dammit, I don't give up on it, the better I look after it now, the more pleasure I will get from my body.

I do like this. Positive affirmation is so important, to acknowledge the true worth of what we have.

Wherever we are in the cycle, eg, ate more than was healthy, we feel bad, we feel like we ARE bad, if we are bad, we do bad things. That is it very simplistically buut it rang bells for me and made sense of why I get cought up in the binge part of the cycle. I used to binge and fast but have lost my will power to fast now.

Yes, isn't it strange that we condemn the whole person for doing something that wasn't entirely right (I hesitate to use the word wrong, perhaps too harsh a judgement sometimes). If someone we love makes a mistake, we wouldn't dream of viewing them as a bad person. Even though the mistake may hurt/frustrate us. We don't stop loving that person. And yet, with ourselves, it's very difficult to genuinely love ourselves. Otherwise a mistake like eating too much would not induce self hatred. Which is such a powerful and thoroughly destructive force.

Right now, getting personal again, I am feeling very strong, strong enough to go to a group and admit I messed up, see what the scales say and start again. I can't stay for the chat part as my boy is unwell and I need to get back asap but, yay, feel good factor here I come.

ps, having clothes that feel loose and comfortable always helps. I get to a despairing stage when all my clothes are too tight and I dare not wash the only thing that fits as I know that when it is clean and dry again I will have grown more and it won't fit anymore. I can feel better about myself if I am comfortable in my clothes. Wearing too tight clothes as a punishment just doesn't work, however much I try and kid myself.

How did your weigh in go? I'm glad you have felt strong enough to go to the meeting, I'm gearing myself up as well for Monday. How is your son doing?

And as for the tight clothes, I'm with you on that. I'm happy to discard clothes that have become too loose when losing weight but at any stage of size/weight I want to be comfortable. Making yourself deliberately uncomfortable, especially coupled with a mind that has become accustomed to smooth discomfort over with food, is no way to deal with yourself.

I will have to ponder some more on your comments, Micci. But thank you for taking the time to write all of it. It's very thought provoking and so important to do that alongside a healthy diet. Losing weight and hoping that once I am slim I will be a happier, less obsessive compulsive person is a fantasy. The mental change has to happen before and during.
 
Hey Micci, I finally kept reading in your diary after I wrote my endless comment above :) and well done on your weigh in!! I know, during the time that we are trying to lose weight, it can be frustrating not seeing the numbers go down. But really, what I want to learn is to balance out a day when I've overdone it with a healthier day and that way neither gain nor lose. In short, I'd like to learn to eat and think like a slim person.

And well done as well for avoiding that binge. It is so hard to fight it sometimes, almost leaving a feeling of deprivation which is quite twisted considering that not giving in means to do something really good for yourself.
 
Well done on your food and not going to pot when you knew your syns might be a bit over. Sorry your son wasn't feeling too good - will you get him to see the doc today instead do you think?

They say a good cry can do you wonders - sounds like it did in your case. The saline must have helped your eye I guess!! And to not binge is great. Baby steps and all that!!

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I was worried about my son's eye. Very worried, he couldn't see clearly and it was painful. He's a stoic carachter and doesn't complain about pain, so it must have been bad. My eye (touch wood or whatever) is fine :)

Today had been busy, I've been at work all day and not stopped to eat. I got home all ready to hassle my son to get ready for his tutor and turns out he's gone out into the garden of his own accord and done another half hour hacking and slashing. This is unheard of! A day to celebrate indeed.

I haven't got the faintest idea what I will eat but had better make plans, we all know what happens to a hungry woman's weight loss plans when she has no SW friendly food to hand, don't we?
 
That's the strange thing, BeeBee, I had no urge to binge .....


.... an hour later. Just been speaking with OH who has been asleep solid since the early hours of Tuesday morning when he got home from work. It's not strange for him to sleep, he works 12 hour shifts day and night and is not well. But something bad has happened, he collapsed at work and some ******* took a photo of him collapsed in a corridor and sent the photo to a senior manager.

This person didn't care that here was someone collapsed, or think to help them. The managers are outraged that someone could behave like this and they will trace back to see who sent to photo. And deal with them. Apparantly it is obvious he was collapsed as his legs were all crumpled up under him ... and he won't go and get medical advice until his next day of which won't be till Monday, he wants to sort this out with his colleagues and management.

I am only just starting to realise just how angry I am that someone could act like this towards anyone, and when it's someone I care about. ... yes, I'm fuming. My OH doesn't even remember coming to and getting off the floor, goodness knows what happened to him. He came home saying he hadn't been well and was feeling sick again. I asked him if he'd hit his head but he has no obvious lump or injury, his nose is grazed presumably where he went down. We both had thought that the sickness was his ulcer playing up, but maybe not.
 
Phew, GPs had a cancellation. The receptionist said OH should really go down A&E but I know my chances of persuading him are zilch but if a doctor tells him then he will do as told. I hope. I googled and discovered that prompt aftercare is crucial for people who have a mini stroke. Of course, who can say if he did have a mini stroke?

Trouble is, he reckons if he doesn't go to work tomorrow, he won't be able to go back. He's on the autistic spectrum and doesn't always see things the way a NT would. So, I'm here, waiting for m'boys tutor to get here, waiting for phone calls from OH telling me he has to go to A&E. Should do some washing up, or gardening, or something but here I sit and type.

Food, half and half plate of tinned toms and Linda Mc free sausages. 2 ryvita and 5 syns worth of chocolate.
 
Phew, GPs had a cancellation. The receptionist said OH should really go down A&E but I know my chances of persuading him are zilch but if a doctor tells him then he will do as told. I hope. I googled and discovered that prompt aftercare is crucial for people who have a mini stroke. Of course, who can say if he did have a mini stroke? Trouble is, he reckons if he doesn't go to work tomorrow, he won't be able to go back. He's on the autistic spectrum and doesn't always see things the way a NT would. So, I'm here, waiting for m'boys tutor to get here, waiting for phone calls from OH telling me he has to go to A&E. Should do some washing up, or gardening, or something but here I sit and type. Food, half and half plate of tinned toms and Linda Mc free sausages. 2 ryvita and 5 syns worth of chocolate.

Hope all turns out ok with your oh. Sending love x
 
Thanks Mal, he's down A&E now and I'm hovering by my phone, hoping to be picking him up in a few hours.
 
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