Sounds like progress, Alecto
This dieting malarkey is all in the mind. It's a battle with our demons more than anything else, eh?
I have days where I just want to say sod it, I'll just be fat and do what I want, but then I realise that ultimately it wont make me happy or healthy. ( not that being thin will make me happy either) I sabotage myself when I'm unhappy, it's a pathway I made in my mind, I guess I need to sort that sh*t out.
When I'm feeling cynical I do wonder if people like us who post on forums such as this are just testament to the fact that 'diets' don't work and we perhaps should be posting on some kind of 'mental disorder' forum instead? I'm totally serious when I say that, but then again, members of diet forums do give each other mental support, so umm, oh I dunno, I'm waffling.
Anyway, I hope things are improving for you. x
They are and they will improve. It's just 'normal' daily ups and downs, isn't it. Sometimes things go nice and smooth other times it's bumpy. Regarding your cynical thoughts - which I get to an extent also - I don't think it's just us on these sort of forums nor do I believe that as a whole 'diets don't work'. I think it's a lot more patterned than that. Basically - we all have an emotional life. And none of us comes to this world with a handbook attached to our bums (although that would be well good) so we are all taught to deal with emotional events in various ways - with some things better, with other things not as well. For instance, I'm rather good in my day-to-day life when the sh*t really does hit the fan - like big events-type things. Although in my 'writing' I can process the emotions verbally, you would not see all that happening to me if you met me in person as I am being very efficient and 'on-the-ball' so to speak. In the past I would've kept hold of those things for weeks and it's only recently I taught myself to process such emotions sooner to prevent built-up over time. However, when it comes to small stresses - like missing a bus, having a weekly deadline or really small things, I worry and fret like mad. What I am trying to say is that we've all learnt to deal with stress-type events (big and small) in different ways and it's different things that will make us feel stressed (i.e. I may be scared of spiders, you may be scared of snakes) and we all continue to learn how to deal with such things throughout our lives - from what we read, experience, people we meet etc.
I don't think there is any one human being out there that doesn't end up dealing with these things, sometimes, in an less than useful way. Some people will end up sleeping lots, others will have panic attacks, some will spend their whole time 'avoiding' situations by playing computer games, hiding in good stories, watching TV a bit much or.... eating. None of these things is essentially bad, they're only bad when they become a bit much. Again, I don't think there's any such thing as a "perfect" human being out there who has not ever experienced too much-ness of one thing or the other to one extent. The issue with that only comes to light when either 1. the much-ness of whatever it is starts interfering with parts of your life (either work, friends, family etc) - with or without oneself realising that; 2. the much-ness starts bugging you to no ends and want to change it.
And I think this is where diets come in, as a mechanism. We all come into them with various triggers and ways of coping. Not all diets are made the same but their mechanisms have something in common - you (throughout I am referring to a general 'you') need to start being as aware as you can of what works, what doesn't for yourself. Not finding that does mean a diet might not work; and even if you realise, it is a thought and physical process, there's no way around it, so even then it's not going to be full-proof. After having spoken to people and having read diaries of all sorts of diets this does come through a lot - people become more self-aware of things, from how many calories a potato has, to emotional triggers (whether happy or unhappy), or when they want a take away and why.
I think having forums such as this one, Slimming World meetings (baby support groups even) and support of this sort out there is more a statement to the world acknowledging we need each other and we need social support in various circumstances, to be able to talk through these things, rather than living them in silence and on our own. For instance - I love the fact that I'm seeing mum-baby support groups in all GP practices - that is a statement to the fact that a pregnant woman or new mother should not go through all the changes on her own, and she can meet with people going through the same things to gain support; my mother, 30 years ago didn't have these things; my grandma, 70 years ago, when she became a new mother - no such thing. I think it is brilliant that we have these things in place nowadays and I hope that such support groups develop more in time, for those who have similar 'challenges' to be able to chat about the topics that interest them. I want to listen to all of your stories regarding your challenges and successes, and while someone else may sympathise and appreciate your efforts, I am not sure if someone who is going through, for example, 'the new mother changes' will be able to empathize with a weight loss journey to the same extent as someone who is going through the weight loss themselves at that point in time; and vice-versa. And it is not in any way due to not caring etc - it's just about the ins and outs and little details that we will want to share and have them understood. I guess it's just another type of 'hobby group' in some ways.
And re mental disorders - yes, more services and forums etc could be out there and I am sure they will develop in time. But not everyone who is emotional has a mental disorder and not everyone who wants to lose weight has a mental disorder. And there are different extents to the definition of that - from mildly sad for example, to feeling sad, to having episodes of depression, to having a major depressive disorder. And each of these inter-related with do you have a favourizing event (i.e. bereavement, acute or chronic illness) or a favourizing situation (i.e. higher deprivation, poor social support, etc), which if resolved in a pragmatic but also empathic manner would actually resolve the feeling? All we are is a mixture of physical and mental - if you have diabetes you may be more likely to have a lower mood (in certain circumstances), having a cardiac event increases the changes of having a low mood, which could potentially predict the next one. There is a very tight inter-relationship there, between physical and mental health, so it is very difficult to dissociate what came first in certain situations. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much research out there trying to figure out what would need to be dealt with first and what will work best for various people.
So I guess what I'm saying to the latter is... careful about the mental disorder label.... there was a really good article on the guardian a month or 2 ago about that whole thing. So I'm not going to get more into this as I think it's a bit of a can of worms. I can give you the link to the article and there are a lot of people's comments pro and con on there. I think it's a topic that one can speak about for a very long time, but overall we just need to be careful about using the term, I believe.
Aaaanyway - no worries about waffling, it was interesting what you said - and here I went as well... Hope you're having a good day, Keto
x
