Diet Survivors: February 2006 Archives

Here's what really happens after a diet. This excerpt from her story, "The Big Diet," is adapted with permission from Jennifer Semple Siegel:

Tonight’s the night. Goodbye, Optifast.

The big moment.

Solid food.

Shel, ever the Gestalt psychologist, takes me to the Starboard Restaurant, a popular seafood place in cahoots with the clinic. We’ve been told that we should take our first solid food here so that we don’t have to prepare it ourselves. We might go out of control; besides,
it’s important that this first meal be prepared properly. Still, $8.95 for three ounces of poached chicken, three asparagus spears, and a diet soda seems extreme. I wear my new dress, pretending, for Shel’s sake, that this momentous occasion marks its public debut.

I wish Brian were here instead.

The minute I walk into the restaurant, my knees go weak with desire, from long-forgotten aromas of lobster; King crab; broiled and fried crab cakes; scallops; steamed shrimp and red sauce; Shrimp Scampi; Lobster Imperial; rare roast beef, freshly sliced off the slab; melted butter--I just want to dive right into the melted butter, feel the warm, silky grease coating my body and hair.

The horn of plenty--all on the buffet line, all for the taking at $19.95, plus tax. I stand before this wondrous offering, my mouth watering, and body weak from a monstrous hunger so huge I swear I’m close to orgasm--

"C’mon, Samantha." Shel pulls me away from the buffet line. "You’ve got to stop torturing yourself."

I allow myself to be led away; if I don’t get the hell away from here, I’m going to start grabbing food and stuffing it into my mouth, swallowing whole chunks without chewing. I’m so famished I can barely walk to my table, which is tucked in the no-smoking section, far away from the bacchanalian smorgasbord. Shel literally has to help me walk.

My meal comes. A pale lump of white meat chicken in a watery juice and three steamed asparagus spears, fanned out like three prongs. Carrot curls, fresh parsley, and strips of pimento add color to the plate. My Diet Coke comes with a bowl of lemon and lime slices.

I stare down at my plate. Where I should begin? Should I even begin?

Shel’s meal comes. Grilled chicken breast, plain baked potato, plain steamed broccoli, salad with vinegar dressing. For once, simple fare and only slightly more tempting than my own meal.

"Maybe you’ve forgotten how to swallow, so take tiny bites," Shel says, trying to be helpful. He cuts a bite of meat, spears it with his fork, and pauses. "I wouldn’t want you to choke, you know."

Like hell you don’t! I unfurl the wet coolness of a carrot curl. When I let go, it curls up again, but not as tightly as before. It looks longer now, like more food. I’m not difficult to please.

I pick up the parsley sprig and shake it over the chicken breast; drops of water sprinkle on my dress. I nibble on the sprig, chewing its crispy lace. The crunch echoes in my head.

Who says parsley has no taste?

"Are you supposed to be eating the garnish?"

"Look, you jerk," I say, shaking my finger at him, "if it’s on my plate, I’m going to eat it, so there."

He seems surprised, but he doesn’t say anything.

It’s true: I feel gaunt and mean. Starved. I pop the rest of the sprig into my mouth and chew it to a pulp, its bitter juices coating my mouth. I gulp the Diet Coke.

Shel puts his fork down and gapes; I systematically cut each item on my plate into tiny pieces, beginning with the pimento strips, continuing with the carrot curls and asparagus spears, and finishing up with the chicken. Then with my fork and spoon, I mix all the pieces together as if I were tossing together an elaborate salad.

Shel leans toward me and whispers, "I’m not sure this is altogether a healthy response to your refeeding program--"

"Shut up." I grit my teeth, not looking at my husband. I mix and mix.

He takes my hand and covers it with his own. "How are you feeling now?"

I yank my hand away.

"I’M GODDAMN HUNGRY, YOU ARROGANT SON-OF-A-BITCH! DON’T TOUCH ME!"

Everyone around us stops eating and talking. All eyes on us now.

Shel holds his hands in front of his face. "Okay, okay. Just keep it down."

"I don’t want to hear any mumbo-jumbo shrink stuff. I just want to eat without being analyzed."

"Okay, so eat."

As Shel looks on, I eat my mixture, first slowly like Diane, the program nurse, and Brian have said to do, and then shoveling it in, breathing it in, consuming it with a fire that I have never felt before, even during those first love-filled days when Shel and I discovered our heat for each other.

Maybe this is lovemaking in its purest form.

And then the food is gone, but I’m not satisfied yet, and I need more food, more lovemaking--

I grab the lemon and lime slices out of the bowl, sprinkle them with NutraSweet, and suck the pulp from the rinds, little sacs filled with love-juice--sweet and sour, sweet and sour, sweet and sour.

I grab Shel’s plate. He watches in horror as I slice large chunks from his chicken, potato, broccoli, salad, and stuff the bites into my mouth, swallowing without thoroughly chewing.

My body craves food, my cells need sustenance now, needed it yesterday, will need it tomorrow, I’ll never get enough, never in my lifetime, and then Shel’s food is gone, and I’m still looking for more.

I grab my plate and run to the smorgasbord, race through the line, slap God-knows-what onto my plate, I don’t even see or smell the food now, I know that I need it, and I can’t stop needing it until my body fills up, fills up, fills up, balloons, and bursts--

Six months later

Happy birthday, Samantha. Three-nine and counting down to the big four-O then the down side of life. Here I am, back to 180 pounds. I don’t remember much of the past few months, except that I’ve been on a feeding frenzy, a whirl of food going by and my grabbing what I could before I die--

Three months to get the weight off, six months to put it back.

Now I lay on the sofa, patting my belly, wondering what else there is to eat or is that what I really want? What can I do to fill this void, which is obviously not in my stomach anymore?

Or was it ever really in my belly?

Find out about Jennifer's book, Are you Ever Going to be Thin?

Do you think if you don't eat it all, the rest will magically disappear? Do you fear never having access to food again? It's time to dispute your beliefs about the disappearing food, and tell yourself "the food will still be there." Read the personal thoughts of some members of the Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board (printed with their permission):

Ann Blachly, Pomeroy, WA

What is the rush?
What's the rush to eat or drink food when my body is very clear in telling me I've had enough for now/enough for today?

Whatever it is will be available tomorrow/next hunger. Every day doesn't have to be a party in my mouth...non-stop until bedtime.

Let my body and digestion rest/finish the first task before starting a new one.

Multi-task eating/digestion is painful, miserable. Real pain in my gut, bloating, indigestion, reflux, gas, most likely bad breath, clogged sinuses/snoring, poor sleep.

Acid reflux: Simple rejection of certain "food" stuffs. If I can't digest it--it isn't food for me. Use imagination. Choose foods that don't cause acid reflux/anti-digestion. Take half the serving I usually do. If I am not satisfied, I can always get more.

Big time-waster: Could be doing fun stuff. Sewing, decluttering (yes, decluttering is fun as sludge is removed to NEVER have to spend time or energy on again). Home improvement - painting the bathroom, cleaning carpet. Things I can take pride in and enjoy. Be grateful!

Writing letters, creating items to love my family with. Create things of beauty to sell and support my family--share the load.

Time to move my body to increase strength, agility, flexibility, stamina, create good tiredness for restful sleep.

Time and energy to keep up with outside the house and yard maintenance.

Time to be with my husband (errands off the farm) instead of staying home to DO what could be done previously.

Time to be able to get to bed and sleep at a decent hour, instead of waiting for digestion to finish.

STOP--I prefer to not create overload/disorder in my body. I desire to create orderly ingestion and digestion, rest and sleep, recreation of my body and mind. (Contract to treat myself with respect for my digestion for one week at a time---journal positive results)

Eating to be sociable is rude and senseless. No one cares what or how much I eat.

I don't need to eat it to be rid of it. Freeze it or throw it out.

I am more important than sugar and flour. If waste is a concern, don't make so much or don't make it at all. If the desire isn't 10 out of 10 or 100%, Don't Bother.

Example: Caramel rolls that didn't rise properly. Eating the tops still caused indigestion. Baking them twice in attempt to cook the bottoms didn't work. Threw them out. Need to throw out the old yeast, too. And buy a much smaller amount of yeast in the future.

Sharon James, Adelaide Australia

The less food I had in the home the more I would panic and the more I would binge.

When I was young I lived with a very young mother (14 years older than me) and her partner at the time. He was very controlling and would be in "charge" of food distribution.

I was always hungry and when I wasn't sneaking into the kitchen to steal potatoes that I could eat raw behind the shed out the back, I was munching my way through his beloved home grown vegetable garden.

Sometimes I would even bump into my mother behind the shed while she ate raw vegetables in secret also.

I guess this is where my food obsession was born.

I don't need to eat constantly, I just need to be surrounded by food! I need to see lots of it to feel secure and know that I am doing my "job" and taking care of my family properly.

Once the light at the back of the fridge actually becomes visible or the cupboard is looking empty, worry would set in and I would eat, as if I was afraid I was going to starve.

A year or so ago I was spending up to $300 a week on food just to have it there to look at! I guess you could say I was collecting. Just to feel like my family had enough to never go hungry.

I have noticed that I am much better as the preoccupation with food diminishes but for a while (mainly when I was dieting) it was a very real obsession.

Sue Corning, Seattle, WA

I had an irrational belief that I must eat everything on my plate or whatever I served myself at a meal, because I won't get anything to eat before the next meal. I feared that if I don't leave each meal uncomfortably full, I will get hungry before the next meal and not be able to eat.

Often my hunger is accompanied by low blood sugar symptoms of faintness, irritability, anxiety or just big bad hunger headaches that remain even after eating. That fear motivated me to overeat at meals. However a BIGGER fear that I would lose control and binge if I let myself snack between meals perpetuated my fear of having no food, because I would not ALLOW myself to have food between meals.

My irrational beliefs that I must eat until I'm uncomfortably full to prevent between meal hunger and I will lose control and binge if I allow myself between meal snacks actually were rooted in reality. During family of origin dinners my brother and dad `finished' up leftovers.

So I didn't have seconds. My mom would not allow me to `snack' between meals, because she thought I was too chubby. I learned to take as much as I might possibly want with my first serving. When I started dieting, I learned not to allow myself between meal snacks limit my intake. During my first marriage my ex- husband relied on my leftovers at restaurants to get enough to eat.

He was a foot taller and 75# heavier, but saved money by eating anything I didn't eat from my entrée. I eventually just ate the food to keep him from eating it and taking away my choice. Later after I was diagnosed with celiac disease, restrictions of gluten, dairy and soy containing foods severely limited my food choices unless I carried `safe' foods with me.

However, more than my mom, brother, dad, ex-husband and CD, I DEPRIVED MYSELF. I feared I would lose control and binge if I ate between meals. My belief that between meal snacks were wrong and would make me `fat' motivated me to binge after between meal snacks to numb my guilt and purge to `get rid of binge calories'.

However, my `no between meal snacks' rule perpetuated overeating at meals. I loaded my plate at meals and `cleaned my plate' no matter how uncomfortably full I felt.

Even when I tried to stop overeating when I felt satisfied or full at meals, my fear that I would get hungry before the next meal motivated me to keep eating past full. I realized I had to confront and change my opposing fears about getting hungry between meals and not allowing myself between meal snacks.

So I tried some techniques to motivate myself to STOP at satisfaction:

First I tried eating alone at least once a day without distractions to stay aware of my stomach hunger/fullness sensations. I hoped to recognize the exact point I felt satisfied. That also allowed me to hear what I said to myself when I felt satisfied but wanted to kept eating.

Then I confronted my `keep eating' self-talk by using the `3 minute refutations' technique which I read in Three Minute Therapy by Michael Edelstein. I listed my excuses for eating past satisfaction at meals, which began with physical hunger: Then I wrote `refutations' or arguments to oppose each of those rationalizations. Here are some of my excuses and refutations (in all caps):

(1) I'm not hungry any more, but I waited so long for this meal, that I DESERVE to enjoy more of this food. I worked so hard to prepare this that I don't want to stop enjoying it because it tastes so good. I don't care if I AM full.

I CAN WRAP UP LEFTOVERS AND EAT THEM AT ANOTHER MEAL. I'LL ENJOY THOSE SO MUCH MORE WHEN I'M HUNGRY WITH SHARPER TASTE BUDS.

(2) I'm satisfied, but I don't have enough food left for another meal. I don't want to throw away this food. If I throw it away, my husband will see how greedy I was when I put more than I needed on my plate. I should have taken less. If I just eat it, he'll never know that I took too much. I only have a few bites left. That's too little to save for another serving. I might just as well eat it.

I CAN THROW AWAY FOOD IN FRONT OF MY HUSBAND. HE IS NOT MY MOTHER. HE SUPPORTS ME WHEN I STOP AND THROW OUT FOOD.

(3) OH NO!! I can't be full. I wanted to eat some dessert. I'm full, but I'm not satisfied. I didn't eat what I really wanted. I still need something sweet. Even if I'm full, if I don't eat some dessert, I'll feel deprived and probably binge on that dessert tomorrow.

I DIDN'T CHOOSE WHAT I REALLY WANTED AT THIS MEAL, BUT I CAN INCLUDE THAT DESSERT IN MY VERY NEXT MEAL. THE NEXT TIME I FEEL HUNGRY I WILL CAREFULLY ASK MY BODY WHAT IT REALLY WANTS, RATHER THAN DECIDING WITH MY MIND WHAT I THINK I SHOULD EAT.

(4) I'm not hungry anymore, but dinner is many hours from now. What if I get low blood sugar or light headed before my next meal? I need to eat more to last that long.

I HAVE MANY FOODS WHICH I CAN EAT IN SMALL AMOUNTS BETWEEN MEALS TO STABILIZE MY BLOOD SUGAR. I CAN CARRY SAFE SNACKS IN MY BACKPACK OR PURSE WHEREEVER I GO BETWEEN MEALS.

After using the 3 minute refutation process on my overeating excuses, I thought I could just talk myself into stopping when I felt satisfied at meals. So I tried eating slowly so I could stop eating when I recognized satisfaction. I also tried watching how my stomach sensations changed during a meal to notice the exact moment I felt satisfied--not hungry, but not full However at the moment of decision, when I was no longer hungry but not full, I stopped eating
only half the time. I realized I needed to reinforce my refutation arguments by actively changing how I approached food and eating between and during meals. So I decided to:

(1) Carry a variety of snacks with me whenever I left the house

(2) Eat 4 small meals or 3 normal plus a snack or 2 each day

(3) Leave something on my plate at every meal. If the remainder was a small amount I committed to throw it away. If the remainder was a larger amount, I wrapped it up for another meal. Even if the remainder was too perishable for another meal or snack, I felt more comfortable saving it than throwing it away.

(4) Allow myself to eat whatever I crave when I'm hungry and wait until I feel hungry to decide what would feel best in my stomach, rather than try to predict what I will want at the next meal.

All of those techniques helped me identify the exact moment I felt satisfied and could stop eating. However, I chose to continue eating more often than I chose to stop. I knew that my irrational beliefs about getting hungry later and not letting myself eat motivated me to keep eating, but even challenging those beliefs and allowing myself
between meal snacks did not help me stop me consistently when I felt satisfied. I needed a simple technique to use at that choice point to make me risk stopping if only for a few minutes to distance myself from the food.

Then I read in When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies about `voting for the inside'. That concept told me to value the sensations in my stomach or physical comfort MORE than what I saw on my plate. I realized I needed to make my stomach, not the food my plate, the final authority on how much I would eat at any occasion. Those 4
words "vote for the inside" gave me something to say to myself when I was satisfied, before I started the internal struggle between my body cues to stop and my rationalizations to keep eating. That gave me a way to jump over my fears and rationalizations about starving between meals or losing control and bingeing and just STOP EATING.

"When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies" also suggests that large supplies of foods can deemphasize portions. Thanksgiving leftovers allowed me to eat out of large serving dishes without putting ANYTHING on a plate. After years of portion control, eating from large serving bowls previously frightened me, because I feared I would lose control and binge.. However deemphasizing portions was exactly what I needed to eat according to my stomach, not the portion on my plate.

When I ate bites of leftover turkey and dressing from larger containers, I ate much less by stopping when my stomach had enough, than when I dished out portions. After a few successful experiences using that technique I finally realized I can't always predict exactly how much will be a comfortable amount. So I'm FORCED to rely on my stomach to tell me when I'm not hungry anymore. My stomach signal is the only true measure of 'enough'.

The processes of observing when my body felt satisfied at meals, listening to me self-talk when I tried to stop eating at satisfaction, challenging my fears about getting hungry if I didn't stuff myself at meals, putting away leftovers, throwing food away, carrying between meal snacks, allowing myself to eat what I craved and deemphasizing portions all helped me to stop eating when I felt satisfied. However, the realization that I can't always accurately predict what I will crave or when I'll be hungry nor exactly how much food will satisfy that hunger taught me to use my mind to merely fulfill the wishes of my stomach.

The fear that I won't be able to eat when I'm hungry was only in my mind. I CAN feed my body whatever it wants, whenever it is hungry and only as much as it wants to satisfy hunger.

Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

There are always new layers of the onion to peel. There are always new things we'd like to learn to do.

As some of you know, I'm learning to stick up for myself better. I used to vacillate between quiet passivity and clobbering people for screwing up.

I learned from cognitive therapy that we live in a world in which people mess up sometimes. Sometimes it's even WE who mess up. By unspoken social contract, we treat each other in a civil, cordial manner when there's an injustice or when someone has failed to comply with rules and laws. Interestingly, when you go to court, even if you win the dispute, you don't get compensated for being inconvenienced.

Knowing this has taken the edge off of my frustration when sticking up for myself. Now I can do it without regret afterward. And now it's not such a big deal to do it.

Now, when I mutter to myself, "I shouldn't have to do this. I shouldn't have to make this phone call...yada yada yada," I stop myself and say "Why not? What am I expecting? Perfection?"

So today I called the town to inquire how to get my neighbor to shovel his walk. This was the second call, because yesterday I called them to tell them about a DIFFERENT piece of the same walk that the town was supposed to shovel.

They came out later yesterday. Today they told me that residential shovelling is handled by the police because it's a town ordinance. So then I called the police.

With each phone call, which took up my precious time, I was polite and cordial. And it's all being handled.

I feel real good. I think I left those folks on the other end of the phone happy to work with me again in the future.

And by tomorrow, perhaps, my children will be able to walk to school safely.

This is BIG progress for me. Sticking up for myself is becoming less and less of a big deal. But it wasn't because of a technical change--do you see that? It was a change in my THINKING.

If you change your THINKING, then normal eating will become easier and easier. It will be less of a big deal over time.

Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

Folks trying to recover from their eating addictions mistakenly believe that they have to give up their comfort eating. Once again, this very predictable group of folks is being harder on themselves than the rest of the world.

Is it okay to eat for comfort? You bet. Just watch a naturally thin eater. He'll console himself with a bit of pudding, then he won't eat again until he's hungry.

How to learn? We learn normal eating from watching and listening to others. Sue Corning, of Seattle, Washington, has a unique and insightful take on comfort eating, and she was willing to share it with us:

"Whenever I feel hungry, I try to choose what I eat according to how it will feel in my mouth as I eat and my stomach after I swallow. So I could consider whatever I eat 'comfort foods' for me in that moment. In order to determine what will feel 'comforting' I ask myself many of the questions about food qualities from "Psychologists' Eat Anything Diet" by Leonard and Lillian Pearson (which I consider the ORIGINAL nondiet book).

"To determine what I want to eat I consider what tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter), textures (dry, wet, soft, creamy, hardy, crunchy, grainy, smooth, etc.), temperature (cold, hot, warm, room temperature), mouth feel (full mouth combination of textures like a bite of sandwich or pizza vs. small separate texture bites, like a pickle or olive or separate tastes of foods) and distinct flavors (spicy, herbal, bland, fruity, etc.) I want.

"Then I try to find foods which satisfy the textures, tastes, temperature, mouth feel, etc. I'm craving.

"I also consider where I crave a certain sensation, such as in my stomach which often wants a heavy starchy food, or my throat (especially when I'm coming down with a cold) such as a citrus fruit or iced drink or spicy foods, or even my mouth (I prefer full mouth combos like sandwiches, soups, casseroles, so each bite is a potluck in my mouth).

"Likewise I consider what I enjoy doing while I eat, like filling my mouth with big bites of mushy foods or chewing crisp foods or experiencing an explosion of flavors on my tongue with spicy foods or sucking something like a lifesaver or licking pudding or sorbet from a spoon.

"Above all (especially because I have celiac food intolerances) I consider how that food will affect my whole body 3-6 hours after I eat. I want to be comfortable in my body after eating, which influences my preference to
stop eating before I feel uncomfortably full, as well as choose foods which feel really good.

"Perhaps that's not the cultural definition of comfort foods, which I suspect means foods we eat to comfort painful emotions when we are not hungry, but I know I will not be physically comfortable if I delay eating too long or overstuff my stomach. So I try to eat my 'comfort foods' whenever I feel hungry.

"However what I sense is comforting will change according to how I feel physically that day. Also considering all those food qualities and eating sensations allows me to eat not only what I want but to experience eating in the way I want at that moment. So I think 'comfort' foods are individual and personal and can vary from hunger to hunger."

Today, you might consider that all eating is for some kind of comfort. Instead of tuning out our need for comfort, let's tune in.

Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.