Diet Survivors: March 2006 Archives

Some of us hold off on breakfast for the wrong reasons, such as to "save calories" for when their will power breaks down later in the day. This is, of course, irrational thinking.

But there's another, more sane reason, that we hold off on eating in the morning. Consider that empty feeling. There's something good about that feeling, isn't there? Many of us actually enjoy that feeling. There's a reason for that.

Our bodies need a break from eating. This need is so ingrained that it's even crept into our language. When we eat breakfast, we "break" our "fast." Fasting is good for us, and it feels good, too.

Why not extend that feeling to later in the day as well? That is, once you have eaten breakfast, go about your day and once again go all the way down to empty. You wouldn't want to do this with the fuel in your car, as it would be a pain to run out completely.

But the old style cellphones and even laptop computers recharge better when they're run all the way down sometimes. There's health and vitality in this.

After breakfast, work up that hunger for lunch again. Find that same good feeling again. You will be amazed by the vitality you feel, the weight loss if you're overweight, the enjoyment of food (which is heightened when you're good and hungry) and the loss of guilt over indulging in tasty food.

"Work the program, not the problem." That's a slogan used in the 12-step groups such as AA, Narcotics Anonymous, and many others. Why are members advised to do this?

Let's answer this question with another question. Have you ever gotten sick of listening to yourself rehash the problem? We can get so bogged down in analyzing the difficulty, probing its causes, conjuring up its childhood origins, and evaluating all its related implications, that we forget to solve it.

How can we ever find our way clear to the solution with all these distractions?

If this sounds like you, consider asking yourself a new question, "Am I so used to this problem that I'm comfortable working the problem forever?" "If I identify my 'strongly prefers', do I strongly prefer to solve the problem and move on?" It's up to you whether you would strongly prefer to get out of your rut.

In fact, you probably never needed to work the problem as hard as you have. A little self-awareness is nice, but then maybe it's time to move on to find solutions. Move on to "working the program" instead of the problem.

But what do we mean by working the program? Do we mean a new diet or food program? No. Working the program is a broad term that means working out solutions. For non-dieters it means working the tools of recovery you've learned, such as more rational beliefs and better self-talk. It means practicing hunger and fullness. It means adopting new attitudes and values such as delayed gratification, balance, and temperance in all things.

I once overhead an interesting objection at a Weight Watchers meeting. A woman said, "But it's not fair that after all that work to lose the weight, our reward is we have to eat less food!"

This woman is working the problem, not the program. She needs to understand that wanting the right amount is a goal to be achieved. That working the program has far more to do with the mind than with food.

There are so many positive steps you can take while learning normal eating. Why get bogged down working the problem? When we work the program, what we're really doing is coping with life and our frailty with all the tools we can find. We're simply staying positive. Working the program, then, is simply working life to the fullest.

I like Beethoven. One of the greatest classical composers and musicians of all time, Beethoven had a problem--he was losing his hearing. By the time he was 50 he was completely deaf. Yet he wrote some of the world's greatest music even though he could not hear a note of it.

Beethoven's violent temper and moodiness can be blamed in part on his hearing loss. For a while, he was so angry and sad over his deafness that he thought of killing himself. He even once wrote a suicide note. Indeed, for a while, he was working the problem. But eventually he chose to cope with his handicap, and went on to write some of the world's greatest music.

To hear sounds, Beethoven cut off the legs of his piano and placed the instrument on the floor. He did this to feel the vibrations in the floor when he played. Now that's what I call working the program.

s=books&v=glance&n=283155&tagActionCode=lindamorannet-20">How to Survive Your Diet.

Sometimes our family's help looks like sabotage. But is it always? Read this eye-opening guest essay, adapted with permission from the author, Sue Corning of Seattle, Washington. Thank you, Sue.

Do any of you live with 'normal eaters' who just don't understand your struggles with weight, dieting and food fears? My husband was a thin, normal eater most of his life, BEFORE he met me and came face to face with my DISORDERED EATING HABITS. He usually ate exactly what he wanted, which meant snack foods, desserts or fast foods for most meals, and sometimes a home-cooked, balanced meal for variety.

He was a bachelor until age 42 when we married. Then he tried to accommodate my 'no snacks between meals'
approach by joining me for meals while he continued to snack. He gained 25# during the first 8 years of our marriage. Fortunately I found Weigh Down Classes which reminded him of his previous normal eating style and helped him lose 20# and taught me normall eating for the first time and helped me begin my recovery journey.

However, my husband endured many years with my distorted body image, food fears and rigid eating habits. During those years he mostly bit his lip when he wanted to tell me that my eating habits kept me in a counterproductive battle between my brain and my body. However after I began my normal eating journey, he patiently answered all my questions about what hunger or satisfaction felt like. Nevertheless he still DID things
which seemed like sabotage, but which I now recognize as very sane systems to challenge my insane eating and body beliefs.

When I decided to legalize all foods (and especially my former binge foods), he indulged me with gross amounts of any foods I loved or spoke of fondly ... NOT the veggies, low fat meats or low fat dairy products, but fruits,
cookies, candy and ice cream! Then after I learned I had celiac disease with specific food intolerances to gluten (wheat, barley, oats and rye), dairy and soy, my husband did everything he could to prevent my feeling 'deprived'
of goodies. He picked up breads and pastries at TWO local gluten free bakeries. When we found gluten/dairy/soy free 'kosher' chocolate bars at a local grocery store, he purchased those by the case every time we visited
that store.

He never read 'Overcoming Overeating', but he did exactly what that book suggested I do when I 'legalized all foods'. He filled the house with more than I could possibly eat in one binge ... even a binge/purge episode. I
STILL binged and purged after legalizing foods. However I never could consume the whole stash of goodies in one binge. I often 'cleaned out' all of one kind of 'treat' in one binge, but there was always enough other
treats left in the cupboards and freezer for at least 3 more binges. I often considered getting rid of all the tempting food during those binges.

However I eventually learned I would always love those foods and want them again after binge/purge episodes. During that process I learned to eat everything sanely. Meanwhile my husband kept buying everything I liked in
abundant supplies. So I realized the food was not going to disappear. Slowly my binges declined. Finally I learned to interrupt binges and eliminate them altogether. Was my husband's goody supply generosity a SUBTLE
SABOTAGE OR SANE SYSTEM???

I recently considered that question when I found 12 single rolls of toilet paper stored on my bathroom scales. I asked my husband to put a 12 roll TP package in my bathroom cupboard. Previously I also had made some 'fat'
comments about my body. Of course I'm not overweight, but I haven't been doing firming exercises, so I 'feel' a little flabby.

Anytime I have celiac bloat, I also see a 'fat' stomach. This month I weighed 2 pounds more than last month. I suspect I gained those during the 3-4 binges I interrupted. 2 pounds is a small price to pay for that priceless lesson of learning how to interrupt and/or transform binge wannabe situations. Nevertheless, I weighed twice already this month and I told my husband that I needed to cut back a little.

I'm not sure what he was thinking when he unwrapped the 12 roll cellophane wrapped package of TP and covered my scales with those rolls. However when I considered weighing myself a few days ago, I opened the cupboard to retrieve my scales and found those 12 little precariously balanced characters inhibiting my use of the scales. At first I felt frustrated, but then I laughed at my husband's system to sabotage my bad body image insanity.

So I want to ask anyone reading this topic:

Do you live with any 'normal eaters'? Are they 'clueless' about your fears about food, your body shame or hatred or your rigid eating rules?

Do your eating habits frustrate or confuse your family members or housemates? If you rigidly restrict, do they suggest that you 'just eat'?

If you try to avoid your favorite foods in order to lose weight, do your 'normal eater' pals surprise you with gifts of your favorite foods?

Do those normal eaters do crazy things like put 2 bites left from their meal in a refrigerator storage container which eventually takes on a life of its own, because they forget about those leftovers? (I manage the contents of
our refrigerator and continually scold my husband for forgetting about his leftovers. I NEVER FORGET ONE BITE OF LEFTOVER FOOD!)

Do you wonder whether those normal eaters are trying to sabotage your dieting success? Or do you wonder whether they could teach you how to eat and approach foods more sanely?

When I consider how I ate during the first half of my marriage, I wonder:

Were my eating habits rigidly restrictive enough to be considered anorexic? Did my regular episodes of binge/purging qualify me for the 'bulimic' label?

Did my husband even care about eating disorder labels? Did he ever realize how much he helped me to become a normal eater, not only by modelling normal eating AFTER I learned from Weigh Down that normal eating was sane, but also by using his sane systems to challenge my insanity?

I'd have to answer those questions: yes, yes, no, and not until tonight, when I read this topic to him.

Do you have normal eaters in your family or living situation? If so, go give them a hug ASAP and thank them for modelling sane eating habits while you pursued disordered eating habits. If you don't have any normal eater models,
keep reading and posting.

You can watch a few of us evolve into normal eaters. Some of us are lucky enough to be caught up in sane systems which we thought were subtle sabotage until we grasped the meaning of 'normal eating'.

Are you a volume eater? Volume eating has become normalized in our obsession with finding new ways to get away with eating more food. Even the famous Weight Watchers asks their members what kind of eater they are, and one valid choice is "volume eater." But is it normal? Are you even eating real, satisfying food?

No normal eater is a volume eater. Normal eaters will tell you that bulking up on the lettuce with low-fat dressing only stretches their stomach. Chowing down on three bowls of pasta with non-fat sauce only causes digestive upset. Ingesting potato chips made with fake fat or swallowing other non-foods disturbs both body and mind. And to parallel the low-carb eaters, no normal eater wolfs down a sixteen ounce steak in one sitting.

So how did we get to the place where we're normalizing volume eating? It's the diet mentality again. Big shock, right? When we go on a diet, what's the first thing we ask? "How can I get away with eating more food while I'm on this diet?"

Low-fat dieters cut the fat in the name of weight loss, but what they're really thinking is "Now I can get away with eating bigger portions, because the bulk of the calories in this dish would have been in the fat."

Low-carb dieters cut out the pasta and bread in order to lose pounds, but what they're really thinking is "Now I can eat all the cheeseburgers-no-bun that I want because I'm keeping my glycemic index low."

Both kinds of dieters reward themselves for the loss with volume eating. Volume eating is encouraged by the diet industry as a way to meet your emotional needs for a lot of food.

But why is it we want to eat more food anyway? Is there really something more satisfying about large, unbalanced portions? Dieters forget what really satisfies.

Rapid satiety (not rapid eating), it turns out, comes from small, satisfying, full-fat, full-carb meals. The tastier the dish, the sooner you'll be satisfied at the table. It's not all the chewing that "does it" for anybody. Did you know that taste is enhanced by fat, variety, and balance? Sufficient fats reduce the bulk needed to feel satisfied. Variety and balance satisfy all your body's needs at once.

Try it out. You may be surprised to find out you're not a volume eater at all. And your digestive system will thank you. So will your waistline. Are you a volume eater? Who told you that? Meditate on this question, and find your own truth.