Sarah's Management Thread (August 12th - November 5th 2007)

Well I've had a couple of days of quite alarming behaviour which has led me to think that I need to keep doing RtM, but I need to do it with an extra protein meal to stabilise my blood sugar (will run this past my counsellor). My weight keeps dropping and I get to the point where my spine and my tailbone actually hurt and then I freak out. I have other issues in my life which have got worse before they can get better and - well - I can see my way beyond them, but I don't think that the counselling support LL offers is technically good enough to deal with my bullimia - it's a medical condition after all. I wonder if LL has much idea about what happens with bullimics in RtM as I know that I didn't declare it during my introduction session as I have never had an official diagnosis due to typical evasiveness on my part and I was also scared that they wouldn't let me do LL and I actually hadn't B/Pd for 4 years anyway...so yeah - they probably don't know the full stats, and well - I'm going to have to come clean with my counsellor about money and my eating problems.

So Friday will be interesting as I will need to call the LLC and discuss this with her and work out the way forward - forward I will go - but maybe down a slightly adapted path.

I will draw a line again and start again tomorrow - using the same technique as I use for running, my middle distance is getting to the end of September without a binge. For now it's getting through to Friday.

This matters to me very much - I am getting slimmer still, my sagging stomach is disappearing - I suspect that in 6 months you will barely know that there was 8 stone of fat inside my outer casing as it seems to be pinging back. Looks like I caught myself in time. (I'm 33 and a half!) Today I measured at 36 27 36 - my calves now look like slim calves. I have barely any cellulite, my arms are now skinny to the degree of scrawny...
I am done (a tiny bit underdone in the thigh area and overdone in my arms and back!)
 
Hope you are ok, mentally. Physically you are ...incredible. Any chance of some photos?

I am doing the opposite of you - gaining! Not good. : (

Hope you stay strong until Friday.

Mrs Lxxxxxxxxxx
 
Day 19

Well after three days of not doing LL to plan, I finally got the courage up to talk to my LLC prior to Sunday’s meeting. And of course she had all the time in the world for me, assured me that what I have been experiencing is normal and said that usually she wouldn’t let someone start management in her absence (but it appears that mistakes or no mistakes, I have been handling myself correctly and in a manner she would have advised so that’s good). We’ve talked about my healthy picking (the veggie nibbles at the fridge when I get home from work) and recognised that that is symptomatic of ‘something’ and we have also recognised my pattern of eating to avoid criticism at work. This is why I had a bit of a funny five minutes on here about comments…she also revealed that during Management we could do with having someone to have a bloody good whinge to almost all the time – I remember now that the other person who started with me and went into management whilst I was in development mentioned the fact that her dog would get an earbashing during the first few weeks of RtM – I wish I’d made a note of all this at the time.

We also went over the fact that I am upset about people’s reactions to me and that when people don’t recognise me I am actually insulted that they don’t recognise me, the Sarah who is still inside the new shell – I am not my body and I resent that that’s all some people in my life could see.

My LLC has asked me to do a Cost Benefit Analysis every time I want to binge. She has also asked me to relax, not to judge myself or beat myself up (I happily informed her that I wasn’t! That for the first time in my life, I wasn’t!), that this is all perfectly understandable and normal and happens to almost everyone and that some people need to go through the revolving door a few times before they can slow it down and get out where they wanted to be. I have been using food to cope for 20 years and whilst I have spent 6 months breaking the back of the issue with abstinence, it won’t have suddenly been magicked away, but I do have a new heightened awareness of how I ‘use’ food to cope so I should use that gift to help myself.

Phew!

Anyway – today’s tips for management are

The first rule of Route to Management is that it is a ROUTE to MANAGEMENT
It is not about perfection – if it was about perfection a lot of us would be thrown out by Day 10.

Management is all about choices and mistakes and how you MANAGE them – in fact – it is the ROUTE to Management – some of us take the motorway, and some of us end up going via the B roads…but we will make mistakes, our paths will be different using different transport and taken at different speeds, so comparing your management journey to anyone else’s is pointless.

Ask for help
If you feel lost between a session – pipe up to your LLC! I didn’t and I struggled – but when I asked for help it all felt a whole lot better. If you can’t get hold of your LLC, enlist a backup team – whether a fellow Mini, a friend, a pillow or something -
you need a donkey to talk the hind legs off of – beginning management is a bit like beginning foundation when you first start doing it there are thousands of thoughts and feelings and strange senses and annoyances and unless you have somewhere for them to go, your friend Mr. Cadbury or Mr. Domino is going to seem strangely attractive.
 
Thank you, Sarah; this is very timely for me. I don't even have the oomph! to post here on Minis properly.

I am glad that you found your LLC was there for you.

Take care.

Mrs Lxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
Ask for help
If you feel lost between a session – pipe up to your LLC! I didn’t and I struggled – but when I asked for help it all felt a whole lot better. If you can’t get hold of your LLC, enlist a backup team – whether a fellow Mini, a friend, a pillow or something -
you need a donkey to talk the hind legs off of – beginning management is a bit like beginning foundation when you first start doing it there are thousands of thoughts and feelings and strange senses and annoyances and unless you have somewhere for them to go, your friend Mr. Cadbury or Mr. Domino is going to seem strangely attractive.


Thank you. This paragraph meant a huge amount to me, as you will be aware Sarah. Although a fair way from management, I needed this reassurance that my problems with food are "normal" and that to ask for help, or to lean on another person is ok.


Mrs L, I am not on managment, as I said, but if you need to chat in private or just want an ear to metaphorically bend, do PM me. I am very happy to listen. {{{{BIG HUG}}}}

This whole thread is, as I have said before, amazing, and one I intend to keep for future reference.

Keep going everyone! Thinking of you all!:sign0168::grouphugg:
 
The best thing about Week 4

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SATURDAY BREAKFAST IS BACK!!!

The Guardian Weekend just hasn't been the same without bacon and mushrooms. And I enjoyed it just as much as I would have done had it been in a buttery sandwich.

My management book had been hiding from me a little - and when I read it, I read the very simple section on Happiness (from week 4) a story and lesson I had heard so many times growing up that even though I had read the management book cover to cover 14 times and despite doing a lot of work on my goals and desires and where my happiness lies...it is quite funny doing my list of 100 'touchstones' - my alternative list of things that make me feel happy and loved and comfortable that are things I can learn to use in place of food when I feel disconcerted - I keep having sudden flashes about things I love 'Bunnies!' 'Red Balloons!' 'Ballet Shoes!' and then having to remember to put them on my list when I get home...anyway - despite doing having read that story, I have decided that my goal for this week is to find happiness in other places.

What I have noticed about my binge behaviour both on plan and off plan is that I am carrying it around like some sort of security blanket. It has been important for me to put on a few pounds again, I can think so that I can work out the comfort I find in food and also - strangely - in putting on weight. I think I equate weight with strength and adulthood.

I have also noticed that my binges are all triggered by events and things that happen at work. My job keeps making me unhappy because I am constantly reminded that I don't want to be there, I don;t want to be doing it and although I chose the job to stay in my comfort zone, being there reminds me that I need to break out of my comfort zone - I need to break free from it. And that's really scary. We've noticed recently that the LL forum has become moodswing central for the developers and the managers - and you know what - that's no bad thing. I think - as much as it's maddening and scary and we go from ecstatic to in the dumps at the flick of a switch, it's part of the enlightenment process - I mentioned the story about happiness. A lot of us look for happiness in the place where we suppose it might be most easily found (ie food) regardless of whether it is the right place. I mentioned the other day that my Thursday night binge disgusted me. Why? I ate cheap baked goods of the type I would never ever choose to put in my mouth willingly - that artificial long life buttercream and pink fake jam in a sponge that had probably never seen a real egg or butter. I took the addiction to the point where I saw it for precisely what it was - pure and needy - it was my body crying out for comfort. Something in my head says that if there's cake, it's okay. And I realised that that was the story throughout my childhood.

I binged on fruit yesterday instead (it was all I could do to stop myself from going out and doing the same with sugary food, so I managed it in that way) I was trying to fill a hole, an emptiness, cure my tiredness, my panic, my rage at the apparent failure I allow myself to feel day in day out at work, my lonliness - and you know what - I realised that if I could substitute sugar for fruit, then it must be possible to substitute fruit for something else.


Week 4 allows you to start cooking vegetables - I only have a few days this week where this is actually an option as I am at a festival from Thursday. I am sort of taking LL back to basics a bit - I think that coffee - black coffee supresses my appetite - that dropping the water intake has actually been a contributor to my panic levels
rising - milky sweetened tea triggers off my cravings - but then trying to avoid action does the same. So although I am heavier than I want to be, I fit into my clothes just the same and I know more about what the hell is going on in my head and in my body.

I really don't have people to turn to for comfort in my day to day life (but as an honourable soul I would feel terrible about creating friendships with this end in mind) - and I've also realised that I don't have this at work, so I either have to create one, or find a way of working without them.

This is a bit garbled but I sort of know the lines I want to think about this week. It is a new month, and I want to come out the other side of it back at goal, having contained my binge behaviour to foods on the management plan. It's only 30 days (I know it's actually another 65 days or so, but I'm keeping the goals short and sharp!) I am rather glad that the food introduction this week is quite simple as the fruit week was quite enlightening in terms of my eating patterns and reminding me of my pre-teen behaviour (I frequently binged on apples and satsumas as a young girl).

Anyway - today - a spot of shopping, a trip to the gym and maybe watching No Reservations. I have to resize some 16th century replica stays I made for myself 3 years ago - I need to take at least 8 inches off each stay (a total of 16 inches off the corset in total).
 
Hey Sarah :D
Can't really put into words how helpful your management thread is. It's the perfect balance for me just now, as I've put myself on a day to day Development path. I've got all of my management kit in place and it feels like a crutch - in a good way. ie I don't actually want to start RtM yet, I've still got 1.5 st to lose. BUT the realisation that I can start anytime I want is really helping me stay in abstinence.

This thread is so detailed with true insights around what management is actually like, it's really helping me! I know RtM is not some kind of nirvana state where all of the issues just magically disappear, it's almost like the absolute starting point. Your thread has made me realise that! So thankyou!!!
(I really hope that makes sense!)

:)
 
That makes complete sense! The only management thread I ever followed made it seem easy and I thought that I would have no problems following it perfectly! Because I hadn't been doing this perfectly I have been tempted to drop it a few times, but I think a lot of people start management thinking that it's reasonable to expect to lose another stone on it - and now I realise that my LLC has more experience and has observed more people going through this than this forum can and that her suggestion of not starting management until you are a few pounds below your goal is not quite as crazy as I first thought. I really did go into this assuming that I had my adult head on. How wrong I was - I dived into it like the crazy rebellious angsty teenager with bullimia I was 20 years ago. I can laugh at my naive behaviour now and I'm cautious about being cocksure so I won't begin to suppose that I've got it right.

It boils down to this

To do development you have to say

'I am not happy, I have a physical problem, I want to get better'

To do management you have to say

'I have solved the physical problem and abstinence helped me to see that my hunger was often in my head. I will always want to feed that hunger so I choose to learn to be able to manage it for the rest of my life.'

The biggest mistake I made was assuming it would just be a process to follow - as easy as setting your mind to abstinence. I love the fact that I am learning that mistakes are actually rather nice - I've been frightened of mistakes my whole life and despite all the pratfalls I've had so far on management, I can quite happily say that I have never ever contemplated actually quitting - and on every other similar journey before LL I really would have been long gone by now. It's very powerful stuff!
 
Back from the best festival ever

Hello everyone,

Sorry that I haven't been in touch with everyone, but it's been a funny old few days. The Isle of Wight is beautful and possibly the friendliest place in Britain. I can't think of many places that would welcome an errant bunch of 20 and 30 somethings quite so gladly and with such good humour as the people of Newport did - but that aside, I had a great time - apart from the food. It was really difficult to find anything that I could eat. Abstinence is one thing, early management is another. Drinking enough water without ruining the entire weekend with too frequent trips to the horrible toilets was a bit of a drag and despite claiming that salad and fruit was on sale I managed to find one stall that sold a bit of fruit. Plain protein that hadn;t been mucked about with was impossible to get hold of (and you really don't want to queue behind 20 people to be told you have to pay £6 for a bit of chicken) so I survived - I went to pizza express and had a salad without the dressings, I even had the full english at our B&B with a poached egg and no sausage. At the festival I survived on pieces of fruit, 2 bars a day (I didn't trust the water enough to take the dried foodpacks) and I was fine. On Sunday evening after 3.5 textbook days, I had some chips and a bit of chocolate but it was all good. I was not tempted to drink at any point. Even though on the Sunday I could have had a wine or a spirit if I had wanted to, it just seemed a bit irrelevant. I had an amazing time with no narcotics whatsoever (okay so I smoked cigarettes all weekend - but the deal was that I could only smoke on the Isle of Wight and I have kept to that pact on returning - I haven't had a cigarette for 3 days - so I know that I can control that addiction. And whilst it's not good that I did smoke those 40 cigarettes, it is alos nice to know that something that was so hard to kick over a year ago is now something I have complete control over. Hopefully next year I will feel the same about Caramel Bites.

I have put on a stone since getting to my lowest weight, but to be honest I am kind of happy here - I think I need to learn to be happy and hold here.

The reason it has taken me so long to post is that there are 2 very very rubbish things in my life that are causing me a lot of anxiety and they are not appropriate for a public forum. And I do not want to talk about them, so please don't ask.

My counselling group changes time this week - the last session I had, as mentioned, went quite deep and I really am getting to the root causes of everything at the moment - I can see my attitude to food changing almost daily. I am not longer sweating management. I will get through it...it might take me a week or two longer than I expected, but I have the definite feeling of progress. I'm coming to a point where sharing what I am going through becomes a little more tricky, it's all connected to very specific things that have happened in my life.

Hopefully, if I have the timing right, by next Friday I should be registered for my Open University degree conversion to psychology course. I am doing this because I want to be able to write about my journey in a more technical, balanced way that is less personal and more useful to other people.

Things are busy round here - and on Minimins too. I realise now that I need to kick my internet habit - I have been asleep by 9pm most nights this week and that's a habit I really want to engender. I will update the blog in more detail shortly and maybe put some festival before and afters - I have one from Lowlands last year and some good ones from Bestival this year.
 
Sarah

It all sounds good.

I must admit I was a bit dubious when you said you were going to eat salads at a festival - but then I hadn't ever been to Bestival so I didn't know if it had better food stalls than Reading or V. Glad to hear you made it work for you.

Of course it is perfectly okay for you to keep things to yourself on the forum. We are all different that way. I am an open book and will admit all kinds of things to anyone who asks BUT I have been burned by that at times and keep trying to be a bit more private. But it's against my nature and I can't do it. I guess I just have to learn to deal with the consequences of that.

Very happy to hear from you again as I was getting a bit worried that you'd disappeared.
 
Most of the major hippy/boutique festivals unlike reading and V (I've been to Leeds and V and the food there was appalling compared to other festivals) have fruit stalls and wholefood stalls - turns out that if I had read the website more thoroughly before I had gone I would have known exactly where to find what I wanted!
 
So I'm at week 6 of management - and I guess I'm kind of getting there. I think - I'm having all sorts of issues with food and it's too much to take on all at once to be honest. Bits of my life seem to be falling apart - I haven't got much to complain about really, but...ugh...I just wish I could talk to someone. But LL has taught me that I really don;t have anyone close enough to me - I had to do the journey alone really...and now I'm out the other side I've realised that that independence is probaby one of the things that got me into this mess in the first place.

Now you see - I've started talking and now I just want to eat. This, my friends is why I've been so quiet all week. I can control myself around food as long as I am busy all day every day and don't have time to get food or think about food. the minute I sit down and start talking about it I want to stuff my face. So I have made the blog private and haven't been on here very much.
 
You need to do whatever it is that makes this really difficult part of your journey easier. I for one will miss reading you, am a filthy lurker on your blog and on here, but I'll survive!!! I hope you carry on doing well.
 
Hi Sarah,

I am a bit of fan of your blog, although I don't think I have ever left a comment. I agree with all the sentiments expressed above, will miss your writing but you have to do what's right for you.

take care
xx
 
Hello everyone - I'm doing very well. I'm maintaining and learning lots about eating - I had lunch with a student nutritionist the other day who explained that my chocolate craving may be due to my body recognising it as an instant hit of magnesium. When I mentioned my problem with apples she suggested that in the future if I reintroduced them I would need to follow them with a small handful of nuts otherwise they can cause really strange fluctuations in your blood sugar. Pears are much better balanced, she said. Ha! Well - you know I had a problem with fruit - well - I cut out apples and...problem solved!

I needed a break from here for a little while as it's a strange place to be when you haven't got a result to declare every week - and also it's strange being amongst abstainers. The other thing is, I'm trying to learn to be less black and white - I don't have all the answers, I have most of the lessons to learn and my education is keeping me far too busy!

I am exercising my ass off, literally. I have cycled or walked into work every day this week as I am determined that I should only use the bus to work in an emergency from now on - especially now that my reduced weight means that I can walk the 4 miles home from work in an hour and in the winter on match night the public transport solution can take me 1.5 hours.

I have a couple of projects to work on in coming weeks to take my personal focus off food. I have watched myself use food to calm myself in times of anxiety - well - work has got as busy and challenging as it can possibly get, money has got as bad as I am prepared to let it get, my personal development in terms of education and running my own business is starting to throw up new challenges and my personal relationships are daring me to do something about them - no wonder I am exhausted - I had put my life on hold to abstain and I recognise that a lot of people don't have that luxury - so eating opened the floodgates - I had the permission to work, play and study again...and so no wonder I wobbled so wildly.

The really nice thing to know is - I can actually eat whatever I like whenever I like - I'll give myself time to learn the 3 medium sized meals interspersed with 3 smaller snacks through the day habit. I am a grazer by nature...small freuent meals suit me well.

I can't control myself around chocolate at work at the moment - but I have kicked the at home binges this week.

Thing is, I have made a bottom line for myself - I am never going back. I am getting used to being solid, healthy and strong at a normal BMI - I actually started to panic at BMI 22 - that bit happened so quickly any my body didn't know or recognise how to be 'thin' because at that weight I was thin. I will go back there, but slowly and with exercise and good food. My other problem with Maintenance at the moment is the foodpacks. They really do seem irrelevant given my eating issues - and in a diet that is trying to introduce non-processed foods it seems so weird to be eating chemicals out of a pack alongside carefully prepared low GL meals.

My nutritionist friend also said that after 100% total nutrition for 7 months, attempting to rebalance 2 packs (or - lets be honest - some days 0 packs) with real food might mean that I am missing the odd thing and so I should probably resume taking my good multivitamin.

I am going to reach my true weight and eating goal at Christmas time.

So here it is -
I will weigh 133 lbs by the 18th December and when I go home for Christmas, I will run 4 miles before breakfast and eat my goose and stilton without overeating myself into unconsciousness.

I will remain under 10 st from that point forwards.

Just watch me ;)
 
Good to see you back Sarah and the fact your doing so well. I for one never doubted for a minute that you would find the answers. Good luck with your xmas challenge not that I think you need it really.
I eat apples everyday so I'll take that tip on board.
 
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