Got time on your hands? That could seem like a problem, if you're a former food addict. Now that you're trying to eat intuitively, you're realizing that most of the day doesn't get "eaten up" by eating.
What to do with your time, then? And worse, you're faced with the wasted years. What to do with the feelings of regret?
This is where cognitive therapy comes in. Do you push away bad feelings such as regret? Look objectively at this. If you must justify the wasted time by continuing to overeat, I guess that will help regret-prevention, but do you really want to waste even more of your life away?
Is that feeling of regret truly an intolerable feeling? What evidence do you have that you will die if you feel that ugly feeling? None, I would dare to say.
Time to get creative and brave. You'll need the creativity to find things to do with your new-found time. And you'll need courage to face your fears of ugly feelings.
You won't die, though. No one has ever died of regret. Instead, you'll find a new life. And that can start at any age.
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Some of you might remember the pop song, "Fifty ways to leave your lover." Well, yes, in a sense as diet survivors, we're trying to leave an obsessive relationship. Not only that, but the title of this blog fits to the tune: Fifty ways your food is garbage. (Well okay the rest of the lyrics don't fit.)
Food is garbage when
1. It's stale
2. It's overcooked
3. It has something disgusting in it
4. It's old
5. It's burnt
6. It's undercooked
7. It's soggy
8. It's slimy
9. It's stringy
10. It's cold
11. You don't like it
12. There's too much of it
13. It's the wrong brand
14. It's been on the floor
15. It set off the smoke alarm
16. You're suspicious of the ingredients
17. You're sensitive or allergic to it
18. It was cooked by someone you don't like
19. It's moldy
20. It's curdled
21.You're tired of eating that food
22. It's Halloween candy
23. It's boring
24.You find something in it that belongs to one of your children
25.It smells bad
26.It reminds you of somebody you'd rather forget
27.It makes you sneeze
28.It makes you cough
29.It makes you wretch
30.It 's monochrome (i.e. cod, cauliflower, and mashed)
31.You were once forced to eat a similar food forty years ago
32.It contains fake fat
33.It contains carb-blockers
34.It's a food substitute
35.It doesn't look appealing
36.It's a rind, a pit, fuzz, membrane, peel, seed, green top, or the bottom half of your asparagus
37.It's under ripe
38.It's overripe
39.It's too spicy
40.It's stuck together
41.It has a lump
42.It's sticky
43.It's too dry
44.It's too sweet
45.It's too sour
46.It's too oceanic
47.It tastes like the can
48.It's the baby's leftovers
49.It's been partially eaten by the dog
50.It's perfectly good but you're not hungry
Quite a list! Does it leave you wondering if food is ever food? Yes it is! In a rather narrow window. You know what you really like. Don't eat garbage. Trash is for the trash can.
Do you have trouble throwing away food? Here's one Diet Survivor's revelation. Sue Corning, of Seattle, Washington writes:
"For awhile I put away EVERYTHING (even leftover soggy salad) in Tupperware containers in the fridge. I suspected I would throw the food away the next day, but I felt less guilty about throwing away something that spoiled in my fridge than throwing away something I 'wasted' by overloading my plate at a meal. Eventually I realized I could save washing a Tupperware container by just throwing out the food I was too full to eat."
Nice idea about sparing the Tupperware, don't you think?
In fact, most food is going to be garbage. Sometimes, you'll just need to find a way to be polite about it.
Today, meditate on the narrow window of what constitutes delicious. And maybe start humming this: "Fifty ways my food is garbage" to the tune of "Fifty ways to leave your lover," Oh, and one more thing—the part that's delicious is the only part you paid for. The rest was free.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
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You care, right? You care about your weight, you care about your looks. So you set out to lose that weight.
You're ready to count calories or maybe eliminate carbs. You know about the hunger and fullness method, but that can wait. Right now, you want that jump start. You'll succeed because you're motivated. You care!
Then something happens. You have a bad day. Or you feel deprived. Or the scale hasn't budged.
And there's a whole coffeecake on your kitchen counter, calling you.
A switch goes off in your brain: "I don't care. I just want this coffeecake."
You eat it all.
What happened? I call it the care/don't care dance.
You were relying too much on fleeting feelings. You were depending too much on your own surge of motivation.
But you can't stay enthusiastic all the time. People aren't like that. So lay off the self-judgment. You didn't fail. Rather, you were expecting too much from yourself.
What to do instead? There's a method of weight control that you can sustain, regardless of how you feel.
It's the hunger and fullness method. Once you learn it, the hunger and fullness method becomes second nature in a way that no diet can. That's because our bodies actually like it. Our brains like it too.
It's just plain easier than the other methods.
Here's how you do it. Wait until you're hungry before you eat, then eat (not too fast) and look for signals that you're getting full. That's when you declare the meal over. Oh, and eat real food, not doctored food.
The fact that it's easier to sustain is a great reason to do it. So don't do it because it's natural. Don't do it because it's more rational. Don't do it because it's healthier.
How about doing it because it's just plain easier. That way, on lazy days, you won't lose your cool and eat that whole coffee cake.
For more information about the hunger and fullness method, consider joining the free Diet Survivors message board on Yahoo! Details below.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
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A Diet Survivor by the name of Beth once said, "sweets are my weakness."
Many of us can identify our weakness. But there's another way to think about it. Is it really the food that's our weakness? Or is it our beliefs?
Do you believe that sweets are bad? Do you believe that sweets make you fat? Do you believe that you are unable to have only one? These are all faulty beliefs.
Diet Survivors have goals, just as dieters do. But unlike dieting, the goals of Diet Survivors are fun and achievable.
One goal of Diet Survivors is to learn how to eat small amounts of every kind of food, with no food off limits. Eventually you will be able to eat just one caramel candy. You don't know it yet, but you will. As a Diet Survivor myself, I learned that I could eat a little bit of granola.
That's why it's so helpful to address any black and white, all or nothing, or distorted thinking.
For Beth, and everyone else here who thinks that a particular food is to blame for your problems, I suggest doing an exercise today. Write down all your current beliefs (and feelings) surrounding this issue of a food as your weakness.
To get you started, you might write:
- I'm afraid to have my favorite food in the house because I think I'll eat it all at once
- I don't have self-restraint like ordinary people do
- In order to control my weight, I must eliminate certain foods
- Some foods have power over me
But see if you can add a few dozen items to your list. Be brutally honest.
Then scrutinize each of your beliefs. See which ones are distorted or even downright irrational. Then contemplate whether there is enough evidence to prove that they are true. If there's not enough evidence, then consider some new beliefs which you are more sure are true.
For example, I now believe:
- Granola is just another food, and I like it a lot
- Granola is delicious with full-fat yogurt mixed in
- I can have granola if I want to
- My portion size seems to be one of my blue dessert dishes full
- I can let a whole box of granola get stale if I'm not in the mood
- Granola has no hold over me
- I'm in charge, not the food
- I can have a kitchen filled with every kind of food I love
- My only rule is to wait until I'm hungry, and stop when I'm eighty percent full
- Too much of any sugary food gives me a headache, so I don't eat too much sweets in a day
- I do not have some kind of weakness that causes me to lose control due to any particular food. I am perfectly capable of stopping while eating my favorite food
- I don't get stressed any more when I have granola in the house
This exercise is based upon principles of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapists believe that all humans harbor faulty and irrational beliefs, leading to unhelpful conclusions and very unpleasant feelings. But they also believe that with effort, humans are able to overcome their distorted thinking, especially in areas of their lives that are very dear to them.
Once humans adjust their thinking, their resulting feelings become more tolerable and livable.
This is really an effort at reprogramming your mind from the diet mentality to the normal eating mentality. You can make many other lists, too, such as the list of all your beliefs about your inability to lose weight. You'll be pleasantly surprised to discover they're not true.
In fact, making such lists and addressing your distorted beliefs is where the bulk of the work lies in learning normal eating.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
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Eat your veggies. No, I'm not suggesting this as a way to lose weight. Rather, I'm suggesting that as a chronic dieter, you've probably forgotten how to eat vegetables with love.
Vegetables are yummy sauteed, with sauces, with full-fat dressings, and all those ways we carefully learned not to make them yummy.
Dieters are brainwashed into believing that the goodness of a vegetable is in its freeness--that is, it carries no calories. Those few with naturally occurring calories, such as avocados or carrots, are less virtuous.
So let's set the record straight. Now that you're not a dieter any more, you can treat vegetables the way they wish to be treated.
Yesterday I made broccoli rabe. First I scalded them. Then I filled a wok with a generous dose of extra virgin olive oil, and sauteed some minced garlic, minced shallots, and red peppers. Then I added the drained but still wet broccoli rabe, causing a luscious sizzling sound.
Along with some broiled salmon and a baked potato with margarine, I was in heaven. Who needs a quantity of food when you can have quality food instead?
Never be mean to your vegetables. Don't leave them naked unless you actually like them naked.
Moreover, now that veggies are yummy again, that's where your focus can be in the kitchen. That's where my focus is.
Make a nice veggie dish with all the fat. On the side, have a slab of meat (or if you're a vegetarian, another protein dish), and some kind of nice complex carb such as brown rice or potato.
And whala! You have a delicious meal.
Keep veggies in y our house again. Give them tender loving care. You'll get all the benefit of the vitamins, minerals, taste, and satiety.
When our bodies are happy with eating delicious food, that's how they settle into a healthy weight. Quality over quantity.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
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Are you baffled by the whole subject of "feelings"?
You might even pretend to know what other people are talking about, but actually, you have no clue why feelings are important or how they fit in with ditching the diet.
You may think you're perfectly fine in this area.
Perhaps it's because you have something called "frozen feelings." Adults who were raised in chaotic homes can sometimes suffer from this malady, and any therapist will tell you that it is, indeed, a malady. It's an impairment to normal living.
Often, when a home is just too troubled by abuse, addiction, neglect, or other problems, a child responds by shutting down. Usually, in these homes, there is no adult to notice or to model healthy identification of feelings, so shutting down of feelings happens very easily.
These children come into adulthood not knowing that anything is wrong. The insidious part is when your feelings are shut down, it doesn't mean feelings don't influence your decision.
Frozen feelings are like an unseen devil. Sight unseen, they influence your every decision without your intellect having any say in the matter. When you have frozen feelings, you cannot sufficiently analyze their worthiness in your decision-making.
Often these adults don't find out anything is wrong until they're in some kind of crisis for which they desperately seek competent counsel, such as job failure, divorce, or addiction.
Melted feelings are feelings that we're aware of. When we can identify what we're feeling, we gain control.
For example, if you are about to start a new career, but you're terrified of your first interview, it's helpful to realize the extent of your fear so that you can decide to have courage in spite of the fear. In this case, you are deciding to override your feeling, rather than follow your feeling and cancel the interview.
But you could also decide that a feeling should influence a decision.
Let's say that every time you're around a certain person, you end up feeling inadequate. If you can identify this feeling, you might realize there's something about that person, not you, that's causing this.
As circumstances allow, you can then decide to avoid or limit your contact with this person. Or you might decide to negotiate the relationship.
Adults with frozen feelings are not able to do these things. They often make poor decisions. Their relationships remain limited, and so do their choices in all areas of life.
Does this describe you? It's helpful to recognize that when you were a child, you made the best decision you could at the time to protect yourself by shutting down feelings.
But now you've reached a crisis. Maybe it's time to realize that frozen feelings aren't working in your favor any more.
It may be time to make a new decision. Maybe it's time to become aware of various feelings, and learn to identify how you're feeling at any given time. It's a process. It's hard work. It requires courage to feel unpleasant feelings like embarrassment or sadness. But you can do it. Everyone can.
And take heart. You don't have to wallow in those feelings once they're melted. Just a general awareness of them can improve your quality of life. And remember---no feeling can kill you. You can, indeed, tolerate feelings.
And you don't have to numb the feeling with food. You are capable of feeling the feeling fully, and then letting it pass. Start believing that.
What's more, feelings have expiration dates. Isn't that great news?
So the next time life brings up a feeling, take a moment to follow these three steps.
Three steps to emotional freedom:
- Identify it.
- Tell yourself "I can tolerate this feeling and still go about my day."
- Tell yourself, "And feelings have expiration dates. May this one have a very short expiration date."
For those of you with a spiritual life, you can pray for short expiration dates, or meditate on the idea of short expiration dates.
You are in charge.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
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You're in the middle of a construction project, and find you must return to the store because they sold you the wrong part. Do you stay gracious and request an exchange? Or do you go storming back into the store, ready to throw a fit?
Or maybe your relatives have been driving you crazy, and you want to do something about it. All of us struggle to some degree with when to make a stink and when to let something go.
If you're ready for a new way to think about the difference, maybe this will help--try distinguishing between frustration and injustice.
Life is full of frustration, and because we're social creatures, many of those frustrations come from co-existing with other people. When you're getting upset, ask yourself whether the source is just a frustration, or a true injustice.
Suppose you gave a large donation to a charity, and then they misspelled your name in the credits. That would be a frustration over human error. You might initially be offended, but you can set that aside when you realize there was no ill intent and no ill effect. If you let this go, and refrain from commenting on it, you won't likely harbor resentment and you won't be participating in enabling bad behavior.
Or, in the same vein, suppose you and your small children just moved to a new neighborhood, and then your next-door-neighbor starts building a pool. Even with the fence, you're a new parent, and you're nervous.
It's very frustrating, but as long as your neighbor is complying with the law, this is not an injustice. It's up to you whether you decide to quietly move away. Or perhaps you can gradually help your neighbor get to know and become attached to your children, in the hopes that this will prompt your neighbor to help look out for your kids.
None of these examples were necessarily injustices, but they sure can be frustrating.
Everyone has frustrations--they're just part of life. When you let them go, you can find some peace in knowing you are already doing all that is appropriate. You laugh at the misspelling, and you make sure your kids are fenced into your own yard, and that you're watching them closely.
But what if you think you have been passed over for a promotion because of your race? Or perhaps a loved one is injured by a drunk driver.
People sure can be frustrating, and we don't always agree with their beliefs or lifestyle, but there's another component here--these events are also injustices.
Sometimes a frustration is tugging at you because it's really an injustice. With some thought-time, if you realize there's a true injustice, then pursue it. But even then, there's more than one way to correct an injustice.
Case in point. My disabled son brings many frustrations to my life, and one of those happened when he got off the bus from his field trip and his glasses were gone. They were nowhere to be found. Apparently, his aide, who is supposed to watch out for him, was not with him for part of the day. The school was all too happy to let it go.
This frustration was bugging me, and I started to realize it's an injustice that the school isn't doing anything about it. So I decided it was worth it to me to contact the Director of Special Education. She pursued it as far as she could--the bus company was contacted and the site of the field trip was searched, but in the end the business office still did not offer to compensate us in any way.
Rather than pursue it further, as I'm rather busy doing better things, I decided a different way to correct the injustice--one that I have control over--one that would allow me to let go of my resentment. I stopped my charitable giving to the school. I ceased all giving until I felt that the expense was made up.
No anger. I felt in control again. Problem easily solved. Yes it's true that I didn't solve the problem for anyone else, but in this case, I'm satisfied with how far I've taken it. And now the special ed office is on the alert that my son did not have his aide with him when he should have been. The department can quietly correct that problem without me.
If you've had difficulty knowing when to pipe up, try testing the issue with this sharp division between frustration and injustice. You might be surprised to find that most of the time, it's just a plain old frustration.
And remember, frustration, and even occasional injustices, are part of life. You can tolerate them. You can even do something about them sometimes. But you don't have to eat in response to the feelings!
In the one case, if you realize it's just a frustration, you can remind yourself that all of life has frustrations and that you can tolerate them. The feelings will thus fade on their own, without your having to do something to chase them away.
On the other hand, if you determine that there was an injustice, instead of eating those feelings, you can decide upon a constructive act that will allow you to feel better. Either way, you won't need to eat in order to numb those ugly feelings.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
.
When you set out to ditch the diet and learn norm
al eating, you follow two paths at once.
The first is the path of skill-building. Normal eating requires some skill knowledge. You can learn that from a book about intuitive eating or Karen R. Koenig's book The Rules of Normal Eating.
The second path is one of evaluating your thinking. Koenig's book covers that too. But there are also some free helpful materials.
Let's start with just one today. It's a free chapter from the book, "Three Minute Therapy" by Dr. Michael R. Edelstein.
In it, you will learn how to address your thinking, how easy it is to go off the rails into distorted thinking, and most interesting of all, the ABCDEF method of capturing and transforming your thinking.
Here it is Chapter 1: Ending Your Self-Inflicted Pain
If you're a member of the Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board, consider discussing there what you've learned from Edelstein's chapter.
And if you're not a member, join us today! We'd love to have you.
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
.
"I eat for emotional reasons." Have you heard people say this? Perhaps you have said it yourself. 
You're an emotional eater. You try not to be, but sometimes you wonder how one goes about turning off one's emotions. Well... you don't have to.
All humans are emotional, and what you're really doing by eating is trying to TURN OFF your emotions.
Read Do Social Blunders make you eat?.
Hi everyone. The Diet Survivors message board has been a labor of love for over four years. As most of you know, I sell a book, but it's never been my focus.
However, those who do focus on their books are entitled to. Karen R. Koenig is a professional in the field, and now has several helpful books that help her make her living.
Of all the authors on the topic of normal eating, she is my favorite. Karen's books have been a lifesaver for so many.
If anyone is interested, look up her name, Karen R. Koenig, on Amazon.com, and you'll find all her books.
I, on the other hand, am not a professional in the field. I am just like the rest of you. I overcame some of the distorted thinking that is the root of disordered eating, wrote a book about it, and started this message board.
Over time, I am easing my way out, and moving on to other things. I am actually an I.T. specialist, and would now like to focus more on my love of computers.
As such, I have printed my last print run of my book, which, as of today, is discounted on Amazon.com.
I am selling it new through "East Coast Booksellers" in the "used and new" section of Amazon.com.
Here's the link: Linda's book discounted on Amazon.com
Let me reiterate, though. There's a point at which the reading should stop and the living should begin. Only each of you as an individual can know when that time is right for you.
With much love to my Diet Survivors,
Linda Moran
If you're a member of Diet Survivors, or you read this blog, there's never a need to buy a book. But if you would like to read a book, here's one written by the author of this blog:
Click on the book cover for more information
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Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.
Visit the home of the book, The Rules of Normal Eating
Learn more about normal eating at Eat Normal Now
