Christmas is almost over…

We are heading to my partner’s Mum’s house today for a couple of nights and after that I’m kind of done with the whole xmas indulgence thing. I would like to say that I have listened to my body and been a bit sensible, but I haven’t. I had Christmas cake for breakfast. But here’s a few things from the last week or so…

• I feel better when I drink lots of water. I naturally do drink lots (at least 2 litres a day just while I’m at work), but when I’m busy with entertaining etc, i forget to drink so much, and it makes me feel rubbish
• Eating badly makes me less regular, which is crap and makes me feel horrid. Things like eggs and white bread, combined with less veggies and water cause it
• It also makes my skin pretty rubbish
• But! I did go for a jog on boxing day!! Woo! And I got lovely new bouncy jogging trainers in the sales yesterday. I just wish that the weather would get better quickly. The cold burns my lungs and makes it hard work.
• I want to eat less dairy. I end up having more stuff like cheese at xmas, and I want to make a proper effort to cut down in the new year. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. It messes with my sinuses and my stomach really doesn’t like it so I feel better with less of it
• I want to try this whole “green smoothie” thing! I could take them to work for breakfast maybe? Starting the day with fruit and spinach sounds like a great start to the day. I’ll make some this week
• I do feel like, to a certain extent, I could have been worse. I haven’t been eating loads of chocolate, or really stuffing myself. I have just been eating much more than I usually would, and not making sensible choices at all
• But also, and this has only just occured to me, I haven’t had any binging or secret eating. And this has always happened before, which i think was a symptom of restricting and feeling deprived, while others indulged. But I guess because I had what others did, and what i wanted, there was no feeling of deprivation etc, and thus no binging! Hoorah!
• I really miss fresh fruit and veg when I don’t have as much of it as I’d like
• I want to keep up swimming in the new year. I found a session on wednesdays, which is women only 16+, which is perfect because it means no kids, and lots of women of all shapes and sizes. I really love swimming but hadn’t done it for years (literally. 10? more?) because of the attire which is involved

So, much as I’m not making new years resolutions, I do have an idea of what I want 2010 to look like. I want to continue to work on intuitive eating, and finding balance. I want to keep respecting myself and embracing health. I want to exercise because it makes me feel good and eat healthily because I want to. I want to feel peace around food and think about it less. I want to lose the anxiety I have always had about my body, and get somewhere towards feeling comfortable in my own skin.

Diet habits

After reading this post, I decided to do what is recommended in it…

Step 1: Figure out what you already have

• I drink lots of water
• I avoid caffeine after lunchtime
• I walk 3 miles a day, 5 days a week (1.5 miles between my car and workplace)
• I always have breakfast – and generally it’s pretty nutritionally sound
• I always have vegetables with my evening meal

Step 2: Identify small changes to make

• Take packed lunches to work (I’ve started doing this)
• Stop eating at my desk (I’ve started trying to do this too)
• Make one of my snacks at work a piece of fresh fruit
• Have fruit with my breakfast
• Swim every wednesday (started this, loved it and want to keep it up)
• Plan my meals better

Step 3: Replace bad habits

• Stop having diet coke (started this – I have fruit juice in pubs instead)
• Stop having weeks where I don’t do any exercise (purely due to lack of organisation)
• Try lots of new recipes so I don’t get bored with my evening meals

I feel kinda ok this week. This attempt at intuitive eating is such hard hard work. I definitely feel like I do not have “off limits” foods any more, but still need  to work more on my hunger/satisfaction levels, and listening to my body. I guess I have been not listening (in fact consciously avoiding listening) to my body for such a long time, that it will take a while. I am a work in progress.

Guidelines?

OK so this isn’t working. Huge binge last night. I feel like going on a diet again! Argh. But I know I don’t want to really. So I think I need to give myself some guidelines to work around – it’s the rules side of dieting I miss – I have way too much freedom at the minute and actually I’m just not ready for it.

So here goes…(this plan is based on weekdays)

• Breakfast: (6.30) Cereal and soya milk. Possibly a muffin at work once a week instead if I feel like a treat.
• Snack: (10.30) Nakd bar, cereal bar, fruit, nuts, or a couple of biscuits
• Lunch: (12.30) Things I mentioned in a previous post – balance of veg and carbs with some protein
• Snack: (3.00) Same as morning
• Tea: (6.30) Healthy balanced meal, sensible portion
• Pudding: (sometime after tea) Yogurt, fruit, a small treat

I’ve been trying not to snack, and feeling a bit guilty if I do, but I need to stop that. If I don’t snack I get overhungry and I overeat. OK so I will try and stick to this and I need to get back to exercising. I haven’t jogged for 2 weeks because I’ve had cold/flu stuff which has been rubbish. But I just ordered a swimming costume and I intend to go swimming on wednesdays after work (there’s a ladies only session, which means no kids and lots of ladies of all shapes and sizes to take away some of my costume anxiety), and I think I’ll go to the gym for these winter months while jogging outside is hard to get motivated for. It’s just got very cold here! I need to get over my fear of treadmills so I can keep up my jogging, but do it at the gym.

Food thoughts – lunch

As I do my best with this intuitive eating lark, I thought it might be worth writing down some of my thoughts and discoveries around specific meals, so this is about lunches at work. This is a really important meal for me. I get up at 6, so by the time lunchtime comes 6 or 7 hours later, I need something really satisfying. Also, it needs to keep me going until tea at about 7.30pm. If my lunch is rubbish then I can eaily end up either over doing it on the snacks in my desk drawer (nuts, fruit, cereal bars), or going daft on the cakes and biscuits which are always in the bloody office.

Having done lots of diets where sandwiches/bread was off-limits, I have done a fair bit of experimenting with sandwiches in the last few weeks. And guess what!? I’m SO not that bothered about them!!! They don’t really satisfy me, they are never as nice as I think they will be, and the vegetarian options are quite often rubbish. If I buy the stuff to make a lovely wrap at home (tortilla wrap, salad, humous, felafel), then it’s great, but shop-bought ones just aren’t worth it.

Here’s a list of lunches that are great…

• Jacket potato and hummous
• Jacket pot and roasted veg
• Soup and bread (without bread it doesn’t keep me going at all)
• Salad from the awesome salad shop
• Avocado and salad wrap
• Salad and pasta/couscous/quinoa etc salads from M&S
• Quiche and salad from the art place cafe

I’m not sure how I feel I’m doing at the minute. I know I am gaining a bit of weight, but I am still in a process of trying to have foods that have always been off-limits, to see how I feel about them, and also to stop them being “forbidden”. I do feel like to a certain extent, my relationship with food is changing. I think about it a bit less, and stress about it a bit less. And I am a bit more able to have foods in the house without immediately wanting to eat them. I think I need to be a bit more careful though, because I don’t think I am being as healthy as I could. I feel a bit all over the place really. I am stressing more about my body, and wanting to be smaller, which isn’t doing me any good. I feel like maybe xmas this year will be a bit easier than it has in the past though – it’s always been riddled with stress around what family will feed me, how much i’ll lose control, secret binges, restricting my calorie intake, delaying the date when i get “back on track”, and feeling guilty all the time. Maybe it’ll be a bit easier than it has been in previous years? Hope so.

WEJ

The wonderful evolved future you

Following on from Katie’s blog post (see link above), I wanted to investigate this idea of a Wonderful Evolved Jen (WEJ). I have always nurtured this idea in my head of how I “should” or would like to be. I think this is my WEJ! The future me that has found peace with food, comfort in her own skin, and peace in her heart.

She jogs sometimes, in a non-competetive (with herself) and carefree way. She does it because she loves it, and loves how she feels afterwards. She smiles sometimes when she jogs and she comes home glowing. She also has has a yoga practise built in to her life. Again, there is no competition with herself in terms of improving, and forcing, just enjoyment and peace. She does it without even thinking and it is part of her. Food is approached casually, with thought put into hunger and health, but in a relaxed manner. She naturally leans towards healthy foods because they make her feel good and she appreciates the taste more than processed food. However she loves processed food sometimes and feels no guilt about this. No foods are good or bad, they just are. Nuts are healthy and not calorific, vegetables are the friend rather than something she forces herself to eat tons of because she “should”. Decisions around food are easy, and based on taste, and there is no internal war every time a meal is mentioned, or the topic of food comes up. When she’s not hungry, she doesn’t think about food. There are more important things in life. She is happy in her skin, loving it for its stretchmarks and soft bits. This comfort makes being naked easier and in turn she feels closer than ever before to her partner, because she is not preoccupied with how she looks. She swims regularly, having lost her fear of swimwear, and is not intimated by spending time with groups of women. She wears clothes easily, feeling comfortable in everything in her wardrobe and not caring about the number in the label. She wears things that she loves, instead of feeling like she can’t buy the nice clothes because they won’t look nice on her; in turn, she feels special and even sometimes attractive. She gets rid of her glasses and wears contacts nearly all of the time because she knows she looks and feels nicer this way. Her green-blue-grey eyes twinkle. She has a nice hairstyle because she values spending time on it. She has a positive attitude and glow that makes people around her positive and happy. Her smile is always geniune and not something she forces anymore to avoid questions. She has answers for anyone who expresses something upsetting or inappropriate towards her about image or food – these are not defensive or angry answers, but calm and though-provoking ones which people understand and she feels happy and in control if she ever needs to say them. She appreciates that had she not gone through years of struggles with food, she would not be in the great place she is now, and she applauds herself for being brave enough to dedicate time and energy to helping herself. She appreciates her body for what it has done for her, and is capable of. She treats it with kindness.

Diet chat

I remember reading about this in IE – that it would be weird not being a part of the conversations with friends about dieting. And I’ve experienced it quite a few times, yesterday was the most obviously weird.

I was in the back of a car, with two colleagues in the front. One of them starts drinking a slimfast milkshake and talking about it. I said something to the effect of “oh dear, why are doing that to yourself?!”, and then stayed quiet for the rest of the conversation. She said she’d gained two stone (28 pounds) since coming off antidepressants, and was desperate. She’s been doing slimfast for a week, and lost 4 pounds in the first 3 days. She claimed she wasn’t hungry, and liked that having 2 shakes a day took away having to even think about food. She said she loved the milkshakes, they felt like a “treat”. Her and my other colleague talked at length about yo-yo dieting, re-gaining, keeping the weight off, clothes sizes, wardrobes full of all kinds of sized clothes, quitting drinking to help weight loss, not having time for exercise, etc etc etc.

And I sat and listened. The reality is that I actually have two of those godawful milkshakes in the back of my car, from an attempt about 2 months ago. And I said all of those things, about loving not having to think about food. How messed up is that? Drinking chemical-filled bottles of crap and calling it a “meal” all to lose weight and avoid thinking about food!? I want to think about food, not avoid it. I want to embrace it and love it, not be terrified of it.

Previously I would have loved a conversation about diets. It might even have made me want to try this diet that she was finding to easy to do. I would have said everything that these ladies did, and loved it because it showed that I wasn’t the only one struggling. But this time I just listened, and I was glad I didn’t want to be a part of it. This doesn’t mean I’m “fixed”, but I think it really does mean I have rejected the diet mentality

Ups and downs

I am struggling with quite a few issues at the minute…

• Quite a bit of this week has been filled with a feeling of panic – “Shit! what am i doing, just thinking I can eat what I want!? fuck. I should probably snack on carrots. Surely I can’t want lunch already. Am I hungry? Or greedy? I’m going to gain loads of weight. What is this doesn’t work? Aaaargh” etc. It’s been a combination of panic and hopelessness.
• I am having difficulty getting out of the “ooh that looks nice, I’m going to eat it, I can since I’m not on a diet”. Not considering hunger, health, etc.
• I wish I was smaller. My work clothes are really unflattering and I have a wardrobe of clothes I don’t fit into. Not because I used to wear them, gained weight and now can’t! It’s because I can’t bring myself to try clothes on in shops, and always buy a size 14 (UK size), when actually I am a 16. Occasionally I’m a 14, and in some shops even a 12. But generally a 16 if something is going to fit quite nicely. These clothes all live in my wardrobe in a “I’ll be able to wear that soon” way. I wish they fit. Speaking of clothes, I feel like because of my size I don’t dress how I want. I always pick up things I like the look of, then put it back saying “it wouldn’t look as nice as I want it to” to myself. I feel like the way I dress isn’t ME if that makes sense.
• I need to get a breakfast routine sorted out – since starting my new job 3 months ago this has been an issue. I need to make time for it in the morning at home, at my table. Even if it means getting up before 6, which it will! It’s such an important meal, and I am realising that when I used to have something that was 200 calories for breakfast, it was ridiculous. I need double that.
• I still think about diets alot. I don’t want to start one, but I can’t help having that dangerous love of the hope of the new diet! I won’t start one, I really won’t, but I have to check myself when I start thinking about it.
• I keep thinking about calories. Not counting them particularly, just I see a food, and a number pops into my head.

Positives:

• Having apples and bananas at work in my desk drawer is a great idea – I am gradually re-learning a love of fruit. Apples became so unappealing to me because I would have one for a snack in the morning, and one in the afternoon, no matter what I wanted or how hungry I was.
• I weighed myself this morning (because I got really sad about my size/clothes last night, and what better way to try and ruin my self esteem more!?) – I’ve put on about 3lbs since “quitting” dieting last week. I’m ok with it, and it’s way less than I thought it would be. And the best thing is that after weighing myself, I didn’t think about it again all day. I only remembered when I went in the spare room and saw the scales a minute ago. PROGRESS!! Intend to weigh myself about once a month, (no schedule though).
• I am starting to realise what foods I actually like and don’t. Hot chocolate = not bothered at all. Pasta with pesto = as good as I remembered, sensible portion. Curry = awesome (sauce from a jar! nice and convenient!). Rice = not at all interested.

Challenge!!

On sunday I am going shopping and I intend to buy 2 boxes of awesome looking cereal, especially ones I have binged on in the last month or so

Honour your hunger

This is the second principle of intuitive eating. I’m not sure I have any idea what hunger is, how to deal with it, or what to think about it. I’ve spent such a long time either forcing myself to eat carrots and low calorie meals which leave me hungry and going to bed early hungry so I don’t eat any more, and also eating carefully planned snacks at regular intervals because of a fear of hunger.

I realised a while ago that while dieting, getting over-hungry was a major lead-in to a binge. I could even plan, cook and eat the meal I planned, but then immediately after I’d finished eating, I’d think I wasn’t done and head to the kitchen, to launch a full-on attack on a loaf of bread and/or a box of cereal. So, now I am scared of being hungry. Hunger also makes me indecisive about food and I will rarely make the choice which is best for my health.

One thing that is mentioned in the book is that lots of people might have difficulty gauging their hunger, and this definitely applies to me. For me, I have no handle on what happens between neutral (last meal or snack is still holding me over, so I’m not feeling like I need more food) and ravenous. For people like me, it recommends going no longer than 5 waking hours without eating. This is really good because it validates my need for a morning snack at work! I have always have an internal dialogue around snacking – “snacks are important and helpful” vs “snacks are bad, you should have 3 meals a day”. And actually, since I have my breakfast at 6am, there’s nothing wrong with having a snack at about 10.30/11am.

So is this what “normal” eaters do? Listen to their stomach? But without thinking about it and food all of the time? I still find it amazing that anyone could just have the intuition to eat the right things for themselves, it baffles me. Really hope I get there one day.

Fear foods

After over 10 years of dieting/having a dysfunctional relationship with food and my body, there are lots of foods I am scared of. These are generally foods which I (or the rules of a diet) have deemed “bad” or off-limits. Therefore these are the foods I gravitate towards in a binge. They are all foods I have binged on more than once, and I am scared of having them in the house or buying them because I am scared a binge will happen.

I thought I would write a list of them because I need to get past this. As long as I am frightened of certain foods or they are off-limits, I won’t be free from the dieting mentality, and the threat of binging. I was going to keep the list vague but I think writing specific brands will make it more useful to me.

• cereal – literally any kind. Most recently, start, cinamon grahams, muesli, porridge
• Cereal bars – specifically, go ahead ones – apple bakes and yogurt break bars
• chocolate – bars of dairy milk or cadburys caramel, easter eggs, cadbury shots
• fudge – dairy free or normal
• bread / bread products like hot cross buns, muffins, tortillas, pancakes
• cheese – low fat leerdammer and full fat mature cheddar
• biscuits – either fancy fresh cookies, or just normal biscuits my partner gets or that people buy at work
• cakes – specifically cake bars, flapjacks and very recently tunnocks teacakes
• yogurt dessert things – recently chocolate corner ones, or mini mousses
• ice cream/choc ice bars – magnums, skinny cow ice cream sandwiches
• cashews nuts and dates – these 2 are things I have had in the house because they are “healthy” or bought with the best of intentions but now am scared of buying because i don’t trust myself not to eat enormous amounts in one sitting (but I don’t necessarily “binge” on them)

I think the tricky bit will be allowing myself to have them, and also not avoiding them (and convincing myself it is because I don’t want them, when actually I do but I’m scared of losing control).

A small positive from some of them being binge foods is that actually they haven’t been quite as wonderfully delicious and exciting as I had hoped. And certainly, after 3 cakes I’m certainly not enjoying or tasting them, I am on autopilot. So some have actually lost their appeal but lots of them still remain scary for me.

Cereal is a big one. I have written this list because I had a small incident yesterday. Well, if I’m honest, yesterday wasn’t the best day. To start with, I had too many cookies at work. I actually bought them as a treat for my co-workers at the end of a crap week, and I made a conscious decision to buy some I would like. It has always been my tactic in the past to get things I don’t like much for other people so I could avoid the temptation. I thought about doing this but realised it wouldn’t be progress, and would still be in the “diet” mentality. This got me thinking about fear foods. I ended up eating more cookies than I meant to. But 5 cookies isn’t the end of the world, is it? I have to learn to be less hard on myself. There will be days when I have 5 cookies, everyone does. That’s life! After the cookies I had my nice healthy lunch (veg chilli) as planned, and had a jog in the rain when I got in from work. But after my tea (veg, potatoes, cheese pastry thing which I thought would be more exciting), I had a bowl of cereal when I wasn’t hungry and I really didn’t need it. Afterwards I realised that maybe I was just thirsty and a good cuppa would have sorted me out. Obviously one bowl of bran flakes isn’t a binge but it was unneccessary and made me feel overfull and heavy and got me thinking about cereal. For me, binges involve cereal so often. Sometimes I would even buy nice cereal (by “nice” I mean more exciting than bran flakes) and convince myself I would stick to sensible (40g) portions, and enjoy it, but in the back of my mind, I knew I’d binge on it (I have eaten a whole box in one sitting before). Maybe even just having this in the back of my mind caused the binge. There’s like this indestructable link in my head: cereal=binge. This is definitely something I want to fix, because I genuinely love cereal!

Not perfect

This is the comedian, Tim Minchin

He’s a genius. I went to see him live a couple of weeks ago and it was awesome. I just watched one of his shows on TV, and one of the songs (a more serious and less insanely hilarious one) made me cry! It’s such a beautiful song, called “Not perfect”. These are some of the lyrics…

This is my body
And I live in it
It’s twenty-nine and twelve months old
It’s changed a lot since it was new
It’s done stuff it wasn’t built to do
I often try to fill it up with wine
And the weirdest thing about it is
I spend so much time hating it
But it never says a bad word about me

This is my body
And it’s fine
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time
It’s not perfect, but it’s mine
It’s not perfect