Hello December!

I can hardly believe that December is really here! December for me is a time for reflection and celebration. I love looking over my experiences and seeking where I have grown, and looking at lessons I have learned along the way. I plan to review my journals and see what I discovered and to do a post on it at the end of this month. One thing that I can see right now is that when I started 2013 I thought I was on a weight-loss journey, I ended up learning more about myself in the process of trying to lose weight and discovered that I am a compulsive eater.

This month my journey has taken on a new focus. In the past I was focused on weight-loss and then I became focused on managing my compulsive eating. In my journey to manage my compulsive eating and I really should say, control my compulsive eating I discovered that the real problem is not my compulsive eating, but the emotional problems that lead me to eat compulsively. (Problems being anxiety, stress, depression and trauma.) I have begun to seek therapy to help me to address my emotional issues, and in the course of trying to fix my emotional issues I made yet another discovery, that underneath my emotional issues was a spiritual problem. That problem being that my Hope has been damaged. I have undergone some very  tough stuff over the years and the more stuff I went through the more I ate, and the more I ate, the larger I got, and the more I fixated on losing weight as the answer to all my problems. Weight-loss was not going to fix, that jobs dissatisfaction, the depression, the grief etc. I use to have a tool box for dealing with my emotional issues, and that was Hope. My hope can in a particular package and that was in the form of my religion. When I experienced some shifts in my belief system and I lost my tool box with my Hope in it. I am now on a journey to build a better tool box to contain my Hope with my new beliefs.

I just read a new book that opened my eyes on Weight, “Health at Every Size,” by Linda Bacon. The book talks about how the body can naturally maintain a set point weight and how it is easier for the body to maintain or gain weight than it is for it to lose weight. The book asserts that being larger does not automatically make you unhealthy. I can personally attest to not having high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer or any of the other big bad’s, despite my larger size. The book also advocates intuitive eating, eating more mindfully and listening to your bodies, wants, hunger and fullness levels.

I personally find the mindful intuitive eating part to be a bit of a challenge in our busy world that is full of processed foods, but I do like the idea of looking inward for food cues instead of always focusing on external cues.

Through reading this book I did some reflection on my previous methods to control my compulsive eating, such as food restriction and I am re-thinking that approach, since instead of motivating me to eat less, I seemed to always binge more. I am now focused on an in-direct approach to dealing with my compulsive eating. Perhaps leaving the food out of it and focuses more on filling myself with spiritual food aka Soul Food, by truly taking care of myself, I can in-directly have an impact on my compulsive eating. Sometimes I am trying out are journal writing, prayer, art, music, and therapy. I will be seeking out ways to please myself without just using food. I don’t think that I will find a magical cure and that I will cease to binge eat or compulsive eat for good, but I do think that I may be healthier in the long run and that these indirect effects while not entirely measurable, may produce a healthier  and happier Carolyn that does not always need to binge.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

CLM

Not on a weight-loss journey?

I learned that I am a compulsive eater and that makes it difficult to lose weight. Being a compulsive eater does not define me, but it has redefined my journey to acquire and maintain good health habits for life, because there is no point in getting healthy if you don’t plan on staying healthy. Healthy is a state that is constantly moving and changing, I think  striving to live a healthy life is all one can hope for, because you only have so much control over your health as the human body ages, is exposed to accidents and encounters illnesses. For me living a healthy lifestyle is not about weight-loss, diet and exercise. Living a healthy lifestyle is about total wellness, mental, physical and spiritual health. I will never be at a point where I feel like I have arrived, what my focus on instead is on developing, building and maintain healthy habits that I can maintain for life. The standard I use to develop these habits and test them for usefulness is whether the habit is realistic, attainable and sustainable. I can do a self-check periodically on my habits to see how I am doing with them and to make any adjustment s I need to make. I do aspire to lose weight, but I am no longer setting weight-loss as a hard goal or using it to measure my success. Over the course of my journey so far as it has evolved from a weight-loss journey into a wellness journey I have observed that I have developed and maintained many healthy habits despite what the scales says. I have been on a solid walking routine for over a year now, I have continued to drink plenty of water daily, I have cleaned up my breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. I have found ways to stay inspired and stay motivated and instead of focusing on what has gone wrong I am choosing to give myself credit for the lifestyle changes I have made and managed to stick with.

CLM

Tracking for People Not In Love with Numbers!

I have a love hate relationship with numbers. Some times I think they are so cool, it can be exciting to learn the amount of calories in a container in X,Y,Z, but other times, I just get a headache constantly counting numbers. I found two ways to tracking/monitoring/observing your food intake that are free of the dreaded numbers.

#1 You can keep a food dairy/journal. In your food diary you can record just what you ate, or you can record your moods and tudes along with your food record. You can use descriptive language such as, "banana, cereal and milk," You can choose to add other data such as the quantity, "1/2 banana, 3/4 of a cup of Special K," you can develop your own short hand. This frees you from having to do database searches and looking up food data. You can use any journal type, note book or even your computer screen, or random scraps of paper if you please. I have tried many different things and what works best for me is an excel spreadsheet, I have a column for the day of the week, the date, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and I just record what I ate in the row. I like to add color to my chart, by pick a different color fill for each day. I have a sheet for each month. I found that using the spreadsheet was the most consistent food recording I have ever had. As a some what perfectionist I can understand how bad it feels to forget what you ate for a meal, or to have skipped a few days of recording, that is why I also use descriptors like Skipped, if I have missed a few days of tracking, or ate random junk, if  I can't really recall what I ate, if I am recording a few days later. The wonderful thing about keeping some type of record of what you ate, is that it can keep you accountable, you might see that you are eating a ton of junk and it might inspire you to eat more veggies, or if you are having a bad week, you can look back to a good week to get some food ideas. No matter how crazy I am eating, I feel better about my eating when I am recording my food intake.

#2 Another device I use quite often is Meal Planning. I create a plan for the day, as well as use a calendar where I come up with meals for months at at time. I am very flexible with my menu calendar, If I scheduled broccoli for Tuesday and I find I am craving string beans, I will eat them. Having a plan does not mean you are forced to eat what is on it, I can always cross something out and change the menu for a meal or a day. I see my meal planning in much the same way that a retirement home or school might have a menu plan for the week or month. I have a daily meal plan, and I also have menu's that I choose from to help me with making food decisions. I find that having a meal plan, helps me with grocery shopping and preparing healthy quick meals. With meal planning I have noticed a significant decrease in the amount of fast food that I consume. I also have very few days where my eating is totally out of control. ( Still a binge eater! I am a compulsive snacker, do pretty well with regular meals especially during the week.)

Hope this helps someone who may be feed up with their current calorie tracker. For those who do love the numbers here are two  websites that I used frequently www.myfitnesspal.com and livestrong.com, you can also try WW online if you like counting points.

I will also say that I do keep my membership to the numbers database websites, because it is nice to be able to spot check an item for the calorie info, when I am using Calorie Common Sense. Calorie Common Sense is when I look at the calories in foods while shopping to choose foods that are lower in calories, without counting my daily calorie intake. Calorie Common Sense might help me to buy Skinny Cow ice cream bars vs eating a pint of Ice Cream. Also if you are noticing that you have gained weight and you ever want to look up your calories for the day, you can always do a spot check by recording the info from your food diary/journal into one of the databases.

There are also some people that might be following a particular diet plan such as Atkins and may not want to track calories, but may want to look back as some of the things they are eating for meal planning, keeping some type of food journal even one without numbers could be helpful.

CLM

Hello November!

This past month I have been really struggling with my compulsive eating. I decided to try out some new things, I have been using a Sobriety Journal so that I can stay in touch with what is really eating me every day and I have also been writing out Sobriety Prayers, a way to draw strength for the day. I have been attending some OA meetings and keeping an open mind.

When I first began this blog I had one simple goal and that was to lose weight. Through this experience of trying to lose weight I have discovered that I am indeed a compulsive overeater. Now I understand that weight-loss for me isn’t as simple as exercise more, as I have held to a walking regimen for the past year. It is also not as simple as eating right, while I did learn a great deal about nutrition on my journey. I have learned to eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as healthy between meal snacks. The problem for me is that I have a compulsion to eat junk food after dinner and to eat junk food between meals on the weekends.

I thought I would find the answer to weight-loss in diet and exercise and that when I began this blog, that I would end it with a beautiful after picture, a number of pounds lost and a few tips on what helped me to lose the weight. I know understand that my problem is not being overweight, my problem is that I am a compulsive overeater and that problem will not just go away, I cannot fix that problem through diet and exercise alone. As of this moment I am no longer on a weight-loss journey. I am on a never ending journey to manage my compulsive overeating.

The purpose of this blog is no to no longer record my weight-loss journey, but to share any wellness, self-love, inspirational, motivational healthy lifestyle tips that I come across along my own journey to self-love and complete wellness. I may occasionally share some of my struggle with compulsive overeating, and what I am doing to help deal with it from time to time. Thank you to all the readers that came along to share in my weight-loss journey and thank you to any readers that want to share in my wellness, self-love, healthy lifestyle journey.

To any readers that are compulsive overeaters, you are not alone. I do not claim to have any answers and I am not cured. I am learning to take every day “One Day At A Time”. Like I said earlier I am using three things right now to help me, the Sobriety Journal, a journal where I reflect on my thoughts and feeling’s for the day,  a written prayer for Sobriety that I write each day and I am currently attending OA meetings.

CLM

Hello October!

September was a hard month indeed. I had a ton of binge eating episodes; in fact I only had three days when I did not binge and those three days or when I made up my mind not to have any after dinner snacks at all.

In this month of October I am celebrating my one year anniversary of walking five times a day for every week except the one when I had to rest because of my shin splints. When I reflect on my experience walking for an entire year, I am disappointed that my body did not change! A long time ago I lost weight without changing my diet, but by simply walking and a part of me felt like if I just took up walking again I would lose the weight. The truth is that while I have made many positive changes in my diet and with my exercise routine I have not addressed the big elephant that is in the room with me at all times, my Compulsive Eating!

Over this year I have come to realize that diet and exercise are not cures for Compulsive Eating. I can definitely say that the OA 1^st step rings true for me. “We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.” I can say that I am indeed powerless over food. I am a Compulsive Eater and nothing that I have tried short of abstinence has worked. I think this month marks a shift from me thinking that my problem is that I am obese to my problem being that I am a Compulsive Eater. As a Compulsive Eater I take in 1,000-5,000 extra calories every night, despite eating a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner and healthy mid-morning and afternoon snacks. I read a story in Overeaters Anonymous from one of the members and he spoke about their being a difference between physical hunger and the hunger that comes from Compulsive Eating, and the difference being that real hunger is satiable, this explains why I can eat a healthy breakfast and be full, but after dinner when I eat I am never satisfied no matter the amount.

I also admit that my life has totally become unmanageable. I am a prisoner living in my own body at 270+ pounds and a size 26 at Catherine’s on my five foot two inch body. I have spent the past year trying to manage my life through a healthy diet and exercise program, and I have not managed to defeat my obesity or combat my Compulsive Overeating.

As I move forward I am doing the following things. I am giving a name to my condition. I am a compulsive overeater, and I am claiming my cure, which is to abstain from compulsive overeating by refraining from eating after dinner snacks, avoiding all trigger foods, and avoiding eating between regular meals and regular snacks. I will be reading AA and OA literature, keeping a sobriety journal and I have a jar where I can earn sobriety rocks each day for remaining abstinent. I know that my physical recovery is more than possible as long as I remain abstinent. I do not think abstinence will be an easy journey, but I do think it will be a worthwhile journey, and I believe that it is my only option.

I will continue to keep up with my walking routine as it is the highlight of my day. I will continue to use meal planning, because having structure in my regular eating will help aid me in staying abstinent. I do believe that my addiction to compulsive eating is very similar to an alcoholic’s disease and just as they can’t just have one drink, I can’t just have one treat. My goal is to eliminate the behavior from my life completely.

“One Day At A Time”

CLM

The Power of Satiety!

Low satiety foods have added fat, sugar and salt. The added fat makes the food very easy to digest. You can dissolve the food in your mouth easily. The fat also compresses the food making it lighter. The added salt and sugar make the food highly addictive. The fiber and protein are removed from the food as well. Low satiety foods are very difficult to stop eating (Remember the popular brand ad, “Once you pop, you just can’t stop!) The body does not know how to regulate low satiety foods because the brain and body do not get a full signal. Examples of low satiety foods included; chips, French fries, and cookies.

High satiety foods are high in fiber and protein. They are lower in sugar, fat and salt. The brain and body are able to tell when you are full when you eat these foods. The foods are very easy to portion control, as the body can signal when it has had enough. Examples of high satiety foods include potatoes, apples and beans.

The satiety test: Next time you want a snack, pick a snack eat it and notice whether you immediately want more of it. How much of the snack do you need before you feel full? Have you eaten several servings? Is it possible for you to just eat 1-2 servings and put this snack down?

My own test:

There is a reason I only need one granola bar and yet I need 10 cookies. The granola bar has road oats which are hearty and full of fiber, it even has some protein and it is much lower in sugar and fat than most cookies. The cookies literally melt in my mouth from the rich butter and oils they are prepared with. The sugar makes them irresistible. I could eat 10 cookies in less than 10 minutes and still want an extra cookie. When was the last time you polished off a sleeve of cookies? While I have eaten loads of cookies in one sitting, I have never recalled a time when I have eaten more than one granola bar in one sitting, unless it was the highly processed, highly sweet melt in your mouth chewy kind and even in that case I have never eaten a box full.

CLM

Hello September!

August has been a month of struggles. During this month I was able to lose 6.4 pounds and during this same month I gained 5 pounds. I experimented with eating a ton of fresh salad, managing to eat salad for dinner for about two weeks. I also gave up after dinner snacks for 4 days ( the salad and lack of snacks lead to the 6 pound loss). I also had one of the most terrible binge eating episodes on my journey thus far. I ate a ton of ice cream, pizza, doughnuts, chips and candy over a two day period.

Even my exercise took a setback as my plantar fasciitis kicked in! Overall I would say that this month was a valley experience, and I long for the mountain top experience. In a valley experience you have intense struggles, but you have got to hang on and keep fighting. I kept myself fighting this month by continuing to journal and read inspiration weight-loss stories.

This month of September I am looking forward to getting stronger while I am in the valley. I have a plan that I believe will sustain me through December. I am harnessing the power of my dinner calendar which worked really well in the month of July. I have planned my dinners out for the next few months. I follow the structure of having a big healthy meal that will be cooked on Sunday and last from Monday-Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I have my soup nights. On the weekend I will prepare a beautiful fresh salad to eat for dinner.

During the day I will continue to feast on energy bars, yogurt and fresh fruit, as well as my veggie burger that I eat for lunch. I will continue to go for my walks, but I will take rest days and think about using the stationary bike to give my poor feet a break. I will get some new shoes with more support. This month I will be also monitoring my weight each week.

Lastly, I will be completing a challenge in which I dine on the following after dinner snacks, fresh fruit, jello pudding and light chips such as the special K chips or pirate’s booty. My goal is to stick to these snacks only!

CLM