Fight my Disordered Eating with Vehemence.

about how certain nocturnal activities, or more importantly the associated intimacy, are good for losing weight, because they release the same sorts of chemicals as eating does, while reducing anxiety and improving self-confidence (or something like that – I’m paraphrasing wildly but if I can find the article again later I’ll post the link).

Anyway it got me thinking how easy it would be to substitute sex for food, and how I might feel less like eating if I felt less lonely whatever. Which in turn made it clear how superficial it all is – after all I always have the option to do something else, and surely there are hundreds of truly glorious things in my life I could substitute for food. When I binge I am just zooming in on the very few negative aspects or emotions in what is a generally positive bigger picture. When I look at it like that it seems much more manageable, even childish. Maybe weird eating patterns really are something I can (emotionally) grow out of, and not need any more.

the one thing I didn’t do was come back and eat last night – I just came home, surfed the job sites, made a practical list of things I can do that will make a difference, and then basically went to sleep. This is progress.

to have five good days, until Thursday.

I have stopped doing the two things that were giving me structure _{and making me feel like a constant failure}:

weighing myself, and
setting strict daily eating limits

in favour of making decisions on a pretty-much ongoing basis about what I want to eat and how much and when, in the light of all the other factors that are involved in eating – emotional state, long-term goals, body image, physical health.

It’s kind of exhausting but I am fed up of (a) dieting, (b) feeling like a failure (did I mention that lol?) (c) failing to believe that I will ever be able to sustain a healthy diet on an ongoing basis.

It might not work but then, weighing myself every day and setting calorific limits only worked for one month out of every six, and I was miserable and guilty in between.

So far as I can see this moment-to-moment decision making, growing a consciousness about the consequences of my eating and balancing that up in the present, is the only way to really confront my disordered eating and make lasting changes to my motivation.

What it will take for me to have the shape, weight and level of health I want is for me to eat less and more healthily on an ongoing, daily basis over months and months and then maintain it for the rest of my life. There is no getting away from that basic fact and I have to keep making that decision, over and over, until it becomes second nature.

of ever being able to instinctively eat exactly the right amount of the right things for my body.

I fear this will always a problem and I will have to keep coming back to the drawing board a million times, and always be on my guard with food.

As intractible life-issues go it’s not the worst to have but I hate that I am losing this battle. And to not lose means having to fight and I honest to god don’t know where the power for that is gonna come from right now.

But heigh ho, tomorrow is another day.

loved this goal and reading about others’ progress on it ever since TJ first added it, and this has been on my mind a lot so I think now is the time to jump in with my own fight.

I don’t actually think my eating is “disordered” like it used to be, in the sense that the binge-or-go-over-to-the-dark-side moments are incredibly few and far between now. If I have a moment when I really feel like there is nothing I can do but eat, I always still retain some awareness that I am being silly and the moment passes quite swiftly. Usually though, I’m able to deal with my emotions or problems in other ways before I reach that point, and have a greater range of tactics to process them – so in terms of food-addiction/dependency I think I’ve come a long way from where I was.

I am however left with a load of bad habits when it comes to food. In all sorts of states (boredom, tiredness, stress, anxiety, even excitement and elation) I am in danger of grabbing food if it’s around and to be honest, the presence of more food than I need always makes me nervous, because my instinct for so long has just been to hoover up whatever’s available to try and preempt cravings or insecurity or whatever it is. I want to be around food that is not for me without being scared of eating it. That’s for starters.

At the moment I want to mainly focus on actively policing and controlling what enters my cakehole. I have a good daily structure of meals that includes some little treats, and I’m not on any weird and wonderful diet, but I want to avoid unplanned eating or anything that even remotely resembles, or might lead to, binging. And I want to do this for long enough that it becomes natural, second nature, and stop feeling like food is something I have a problem with.

Very difficult session today for some reason. I am cranky, not running well and this is getting me into a funk.
Doctor suggested I try yoga. I found it entertaining that he also suggested I reduce some of my other exersise so I can do yoga. While the idea of yoga appeals, the idea of stopping running doesnt

The doctor did make me laugh a little afterwards because he actually told me to take care of my “tum” (worried that I am taking a bit of ibuprofen…) and that wasn’t a word I expected from him.
nutritionist was alright, I learned today that yams are not sweet potatos. Who knew. Sweet potatos have more nutrients.

Will look into whats offerred at the gym for Yoga. Amazing how that man has a wya of getting me to do what he wants, even if I outwardly refuse and refuse and refuse. Wierd. Something tells me I might need to move on from that.

Is the latest MD to join in my team. One thing I wish people understood is how much eating disorders affect all parts of your health.
It really isn’t just about being thin, or not. Nor is it just affecting your stomach or how you feel emotionally.
Because of my eating habits for years, I am at a high risk for Osteoporosis. With my recent bout of leg and hip pain, I am going back to my orthopedist. I actually am getting better and didn’t want to,but the other Doctor seemed to think it was a very very good idea.
It really isn’t worth all this. THere are so many far reaching consequences that are never consdiered when these habits start to form.
And darn it all, it is expensive to keep having to see specialists etc.

Things were sort of status quo. This past week I had too much stress…Relative died, I had no new contract and no really good prospects, finances have been tight, recertification exams, concerns about my injury to my leg. Any one of these things would have been fine, but put together it became quite a bit.
And within a few days, any semblance of normal eating had disappeared.
Once that stress went away, regular eating has prevailed.
Nutritionist is now actually weighing me at the office which I find sort of not very fun.
Doctor seems to think I am doing fantastically, however, he has not seen me in a week or so, so he was unaware of my interesting meals.
I’m getting somewhere, but I am not exactly sure where.

Saw the MD today. He is usually quite reserved about giving any sort of praise/scolding approval/disapproval. But he did actually say today that he though I was doing fantastically well. Nice. I feel marginal, mostly because of the leg injury. I am down some pounds which puts me into an iffy position. I noted MD looking at me rather carefully today…not sure though if he was trying to gauge my weight or look at my gait which is gimpy and of concern to him. Of course he could have been overwhelmed by my stellar good looks from the behind LOL (Pretty sure it wasnt that.)
Nutritionist tomorro, where I am sure I will have to discuss the weight in detail at his request, so he doesnt have to be the one to comment….Ha.
Feeling a lot less pressured with this. but I know as soon as I let down my guard I could really screw it up.