I'm going to write this just to back up my own feelings, because I need a positive mantra. But I hope it's helpful to some others too.
I'm feeling really down about weight gaining and my mind is full of "OMG 200 lbs", "OMG 40 inches", "OMG huge" etc. messages. In my brain, I know why I'm not fighting my fat, but I need for my emotions to come on that level too.
I do not diet because
...that mindset is detrimental to my eating disorder recovery.
...for once in my life, I really want to be taken and accepted as I am, and anyone who doesn't can go screw.
..it usually fails, and I could be setting myself up for a huge disappointment.
...I believe fat acceptance is true, and it makes way more sense than the anti-fat mentality.
...I've come such a long way in self-acceptance, and I'd be tearing up everything I've built.
...I'd be letting people down. I'm not a big name blogger, but I know some people get strength from my struggle. There's not that many of us, we need each other.
...heck, because I LIKE TO EAT and I'm only just learning to do it without fear. There's nothing wrong with that!
This isn't helping me right now but hopefully, if I tell myself these things many enough times, I will realize it's really all true, and this is the way I should follow. I just wish I had some peace of mind. Does a lack of peace of mind mean there's something wrong with my values? Or is it just a sign that I'm not there yet?
Or maybe it's just human life, everything is always hard and takes many years of hard work and dedication, and you get there step by step. No matter which way you choose, that's how you find peace.
Sad and Tired
13 years ago
Firstly, you're human and you should question things. Second, it sounds like your inner critic needs a swift kick to the curb! We do need each other as a community. That is certain. We also need to give ourselves the room to be and breathe within our own lives. Not an easy feat, but worth the effort to find it. After all of the years I've been active in the fat acceptance community, I read this yesterday: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html, and it sort of re-solidified all that I'd been building in my own head and belief system and I realized I'd just never read the hardest of facts in this way before. You're on a journey of self-acceptance, but there is no destination. Those of us who are already self-accepting have days/weeks/months of stumbles, questions, etc. Don't sweat it. Your weight is not your worth. And I can promise you that getting rid of toxic relationships in your life will pay off! It is never easy, but it can be so very worth it. *Hugs*
ReplyDeleteThank you so much :* *hugs* It feels touching when readers really care about my.. *sniff* Awww.
ReplyDelete..I have no words but I feel touched :*
ReplyDeletehuman brains are pretty disturbing... I can tell myself I am only allowed so much fruit and immediately I barely taste it, but feel starved... if I just say eat without limit, I can taste the food again and how it feels in my system (the fruit will actually start tasting sharply sweet!). I can still eat too much, but I at least can feel the signals that I only heard about for most my life. Just throwing it out there as something to look forward to... there are no shortcuts or tricks
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to learning those signals! I never starved myself but I've treated food as a symbol for something - rebellion or compliance, control or indulgence. I doubt it's possible to see food ONLY as nutrition, but it's also a mistake to only see it as a symbol. In fact, I seem to be more interested in food now, and cooking myself. Maybe that's one way of learning to eat my way.
ReplyDeleteI wish you all the best on your journey. <3
Cooking and baking is the best way to establish a stable relationship with food. You learn to work with it, all its different properties, what it can and can't do. It also gives you such a great sense of accomplishment! I don't think it's right to see food as ONLY nutrition---it's also something that fills my best memories and binds me to my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and everyone who made this excellent stew before me. It's deeply personal.
ReplyDeleteI hope you find a sense of self-acceptance wherever your journey takes you. In my mind, gaining or losing weight doesn't really impact my self-acceptance. I prefer to have the scale read a certain number not because I think it needs to be there, but because that's where I feel the most healthy and at ease with myself (and my wardrobe!). Try to quiet your inner critic, but if you think something different would make you feel better don't dismiss it entirely. If it upsets you you shouldn't simply tell yourself to not be upset anymore. As another commenter said, your weight is not your worth. Only you know that. :)
I probably made the mistake of making cooking too "easy" earlier. I'd add no spices except salt, and thus it was very bland indeed. If it has no flavor, I have no incentive to eat it, and would rather buy a frozen meal that has some taste to it. Even a little garlic powder or something makes it taste totally different, and doesn't take so much more time. This was a fun discovery. I also realized I love vegetables when fried or cooked! I don't always like raw veggies, so it was nice to see that I can easily make a healthy meal I enjoy. You're right, it's a sense of accomplishment. :)
ReplyDeleteI might be more likely to try dieting if I'd felt better at a "normal" weight, but I was already upset about weight issues then. I believe my self-loathing and fear of judgement stem from being bullied as a child, and it's something I have to deal with whatever I weigh. The intellectual pressure of not agreeing with the mainstream culture might be a different thing, or might relate to the same feeling of being an outsider. However, even if I lost weight, I wouldn't be able to agree with the diet culture again, and the intellectual pressure might stay.
The truth is, beyond these two issues, I really don't know if I'm uncomfortable with my weight at all, or if it's a mental issue entirely. It's so hard to analyze yourself, isn't it?
I understand perfectly. I remembered being very angry with my ED therapist when my weight went from 170 to 230 pounds in A YEAR. I had dieted my whole life or so (and weight cycled) so no wonder it happened... but still, I was SO ANGRY. I couldn't understand that having a better relationship with food could go along with severe weight gain. It screwed my self-esteem for a while and you know, after 3 years I still have to fight alarms in my brain that yell «OMG DEATHFAT». I found out, that these alarms discourage you from being active, and encourage you to binge because it contains a deeply entrenched mentality of «bad foods» «bad for you» «fattening» and such. I am food journaling and I can see that on days that I wake up feeling that I would be «a good girl», I always end up eating twice as much sweets... when the beast inside will be tamed, you will feel more at ease with your body, your choices, activity, food and pretty much everything, but patience is the key. I know I know it pisses me off too because I hate to wait, but in the end let's keep confident it will work. Re-read your FA stuff, the Fat Nutritionist blog, the Fat Chick Works Out blog, Ellyn Satter and Linda Bacon's books, do what it takes to continue to believe you will get to some positive change. We can't fix something that has been broken for many years in a couple of months. Keep the faith. *hugs*
ReplyDelete*hugs* Thank you! That's so encouraging to hear. I think that's also true of me, with eating more "bad" foods on the days when I feel like being good. I've been known to read an article on health, decide to mend my ways, and go on to just eat chocolate all day. It's weird how that works, like my body's crying for freedom.
ReplyDeleteWeight gain has always been one of my depression triggers, maybe because my Mom used to make such a big deal out of it. I worry about how others see me, whether I'll ever fit into clothes again, etc. On the other hand, I see the "deathfats" online looking fabulous and being self-confident, and I sorta want to be one of them! I don't mean gaining weight on purpose, but just ALLOWING it to happen, if my body wants to go there. I'd take that over misery any day. I just need to learn to deal with weight gain as a part of recovery, rather than a sign that I'm KILLING MYSELF.
I suppose our culture is telling us that gaining weight=doing something WRONG, so we assume "healthy relationship with food" equals "weight loss or keeping a steady weight". But maybe those two things have nothing at all to do with each other.
I keep telling myself I worry about other people's reactions, but thinking logically, it probably bugs ME because I have these issues, and has nothing to do with how others treat me. Apart from family members, no one's really ever told me to lose weight, not even my doctors. So maybe it'll work out once I get myself into gear?
If something is making you unhappy, that can also be a warning signal as well, and not something that just needs to be gotten used to. There has to be a middle way between unhealthy restriction and eating that is causing weight instability. Food journaling is very powerful, because it can help you realise the connection between food habits and emotions. The cooking suggestion is excellent, too. Anything that gives you mastery tends to lead to happiness.
DeleteRestrictions cause me anguish and make me binge, so I'm not sure where I could draw the line without impairing my mental recovery. I know some binge eaters have found help in abandoning sugar etc., but I can't see myself doing that. The point of this sort of unrestricted eating is specifically to find a middle ground where one can eat when hungry and not be constantly binging. I'm still on track as far as that plan, because both weight gain and anxiety are normal at first.
ReplyDeleteOn a logical level, I'm not very worried about "weight instability", because everyone gains and loses weight. I hope to find a relationship with food that doesn't make me constantly gain weight, but I'd settle for weight gaining and peace of mind, as opposed to feeling miserable on the inside.
Maybe I should try food journaling. I recently had an epiphany that I binge when angry, so I've tried to vent anger in different ways. That's one step towards understanding my emotions re: food, and I hope to discover some other triggers and ways to avoid them. That might in itself be a restriction, but I prefer to call it "a better way to deal with emotions, rather than eating them down". I have a lot of bent-up anger so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the most important cause behind the overeating.
I wonder if an emotion journal might not be more useful to you than a food one? Or at least adding emotions to a food journal. After all, if you're looking for the intersection of emotion and bingeing, it might be more useful to look at how your feeling and how you respond than necessarily logging your meals exclusively.
DeleteThen again, keeping a journal without worrying about whether it's about food, emotions, or what you thought of what the people around you wore that day could be a great way of helping you express your feelings in a way that doesn't lead you back to patterns you're trying to break. Sometimes I'll write fictional things that ultimately, when I go back and read them, include some thoughts about my own life and my beliefs that I suddenly realize I'd needed to examine more fully... but I just couldn't do it when it was about me, if that makes sense.
Whatever you decide, I'm hoping it works for you.
True, I was just thinking that I'd need to log the emotions before the food. On the one hand, it might prove to be something that makes me go "OMG I ATE THAT MUCH?!" so it could lead back to where I want to steer away from. I would at least have to keep out amounts, and definitely not start counting how many pieces of chocolate, because that easily goes to calorie-counting.
ReplyDeleteAlso a mood journal might help me with the depression recovery. But how to combine that with food? It sounds like it's worth the shot, in terms of finding triggers.
The fictional approach is interesting too. I write surrealist nonsense stories, but they almost always come back to the issues of food, weight gain, and fat acceptance/fetish. That says a lot about me. (Also names and pregnancy, for some reason.)
What Twistie said maybe a greatttttttttt idea for a while. For the moment, it might be a bad choice to «food journal» if it is making you nervous.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said:
«There has to be a middle way between unhealthy restriction and eating that is causing weight instability.»
Not sure of the meaning, because it is not clearly said if only weight gain is bad. As for myself, I think that weight cycling is not good for you, but you will go through a phase where you weight is changing frequently as you will give yourself permission, find your stopping point, etc. Don't be too harsh on yourself about that. <3