Can we do a roll call?

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 03:35:17 -0500, Annie Benson Lennaman
wrote:

Another problem I see with the list is that it suggests that you ought
to do one thing before moving on to other. My head was much broker when
I started than it is now, and to be honest, I still have some pretty big
issues to deal with. I'm pretty sure that if I had waited till my head
was "fixed" to move on to the other steps I would never have lost a
pound.

I'm with you on that. I'm 16 months into maintenance and I still have
things to fix :-).

The steps "repeat" and "forever" did strike a cord with me. I hadn't
really vocalized to myself that I was going to have to keep my new WOL
forever if I want to keep my new, healthier self as well.

For whatever reason, I think I pretty much realized this -- probably
based on past experience regaining weight. (That said, though, I find
I'm able to be a bit more liberal with my eating than I might have
thought -- probably because I get a fair bit of exercise. I think my
metabolism has changed for the better.)


Chris
262/130s/130s
started dieting July 2002, maintaining since June 2004

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 16:53:51 -0500, Dally wrote:


This doesn't resonate with me at all. I didn't care that I looked fat
and didn't care if others thought I looked fat. I didn't feel unhealthy
or that I was particularly damaging myself with my weight - except for
some knee pain. Your reasons for losing weight are completely different
than mine.

But that's sort of my point: no matter where we're coming from, so much
of weight loss is in the head. You've got to get past the excuses
("it's genetic") and you've got to figure out what your payoffs were for
being fat and face them or you'll sabotage yourself. For a big
transformation you've really got to take the bad with the good and I
think most people give up when the bad comes along if they don't
acknowledge it in advance.

Dally, every time I read where you were coming from before you started
to address your weight issues I find it almost impossible to relate
this to my own situation.

I absolutely agree with you that so much of weight loss is in the
head, in fact sometimes I would put it as high as 100%, but you
describe your "epiphany" as if it happened more or less overnight. I
just can't relate to that at all.

For me, my entire adult life has been spent struggling to keep weight
off, ever since I became overweight for the first time at 16 as a
result of developing binge eating behaviour. I've never ceased to be
conscious of my size or of the potential damage to my health,
particularly when I've been in the upper range of weight (my top
weight ever being 237, but I haven't seen anything over 200 for a few
years now, and fortunately I have very few health problems anyway).

I suppose what I find myself wanting to ask you is, first, how could
you possibly have not minded being overweight or at least felt very
conscious of it, and secondly if the epiphany happened so suddenly
for you does part of you feel that if this happened for you once you
started to care about being overweight, it should be equally easy for
the rest of us?

Every time I see you set out your stages to permanent weight loss/life
change I feel that "fix your head" is such an enormous mountain to
climb for some people that perhaps, as others have said, we need to
just get started on the other points first or we'd never start at all.

I know that the "for ever" part is absolutely right, even though at
another level it's hard for many of us to accept and that is probably
part of the problem, and why as I've said in another thread saying
goodbye to eating foods I love in quantity can feel almost like a
bereavement.

I've probably misunderstood some of where you're coming from. Anyway,
this would probably make a far more fascinating discussion IRL

janice (just rambling really)

Thanks for the info Dally I didn't know all that about the site. My real
name is Lora but family and friends call me Lori so I here it all the time I
get to calling myself that.

During tax season we work 6 days a week 9 to 9 and on day 7 were closed but
we go in and work on drop offs. I also take classes through out the summer at
home over the internet. We have to have 30 hrs of continuing ed every year.
And the ranch takes alot of hours the rest of the year. But its still the
least demanding job I have ever had and I love not working in the summer it
means more lake time.

Lori

--
9/1/05 224 10/1/05 217.5 10/07/05 213 10/14/05 212
1st mini goal 199


Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/For.../diet/200510/1

janice wrote:

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 16:53:51 -0500, Dally wrote:



This doesn't resonate with me at all. I didn't care that I looked fat
and didn't care if others thought I looked fat. I didn't feel unhealthy
or that I was particularly damaging myself with my weight - except for
some knee pain. Your reasons for losing weight are completely different
than mine.

But that's sort of my point: no matter where we're coming from, so much
of weight loss is in the head. You've got to get past the excuses
("it's genetic") and you've got to figure out what your payoffs were for
being fat and face them or you'll sabotage yourself. For a big
transformation you've really got to take the bad with the good and I
think most people give up when the bad comes along if they don't
acknowledge it in advance.


Dally, every time I read where you were coming from before you started
to address your weight issues I find it almost impossible to relate
this to my own situation.

I absolutely agree with you that so much of weight loss is in the
head, in fact sometimes I would put it as high as 100%, but you
describe your "epiphany" as if it happened more or less overnight. I
just can't relate to that at all.

Well, it's like any other "overnight" success: the work that went behind
it was silent and forgotten. I had decided to try to stop being fat in
mid May, 2002, and this epiphany happened at the end of October, 2002.

For me, my entire adult life has been spent struggling to keep weight
off, ever since I became overweight for the first time at 16 as a
result of developing binge eating behaviour. I've never ceased to be
conscious of my size or of the potential damage to my health,
particularly when I've been in the upper range of weight (my top
weight ever being 237, but I haven't seen anything over 200 for a few
years now, and fortunately I have very few health problems anyway).

I certainly understand why my weight issues would be so foreign to you.
Foreign in many senses, I suspect.

I suppose what I find myself wanting to ask you is, first, how could
you possibly have not minded being overweight or at least felt very
conscious of it,

As a person living in the Northern U.S. I'm surrounded by fat people,
including in my own family, and it didn't seem unusual or really much of
a problem. I'm happily married and not trying to compete with porn
stars, I just sort of thought of the nubile women as a different
species, sort of an older version of teenagers. I didn't feel like I
was one of them.

and secondly if the epiphany happened so suddenly
for you does part of you feel that if this happened for you once you
started to care about being overweight, it should be equally easy for
the rest of us?

I'm uncomfortable with the use of the word "should" in here.

I think it's quite reasonable to question whether it's worth being
slender. Several people have harped on me being some sort of control
freak lately, and I realize what they're saying is that I'm monitoring
food intake more closely than they're willing to. What I hear is that
they aren't willing to put that much effort into weight loss and I don't
think there's any particular reason they should. I had to laugh at
Seldom Seen's confession that he was perfectly fine with his weight and
planned to continue his Little Debbies. He certainly showed me! I
mean, here I am thinking he wanted to stop being overweight, but that
was my OWN trip. He's perfectly fine at his weight. I wouldn't be.
But I don't think he SHOULD lose weight. He thinks he's happier the way
he is. I don't see a problem with this.

But if he comes here and complains about being overweight, well, I do
think he could decide to do it. He'd have to choose to eat less and
exercise more. He'd probably figure out that "eating less" works best
if you throw out calorie-dense nutrient poor trigger foods... if not
FIRST, then inevitably as you get smaller.

This is where I get into trouble with you, because your brain just isn't
wired the way mine is. I honestly cannot even fathom the concept of
binge eating. I mean, I get that it is serving some emotional need.
What I don't get is how that emotional need is so overwhelming that it
doesn't respond to logic, self-love, sublimation, substitution,
pre-planning... any of the tricks. It feels to me a little like Jude
Law explaining that he HAS to bang the nannies because he's got a dick.
I mean, sure it's an option, but can't you control it? I just don't
get it.

Saying all that, I've got a compulsion of my own that is an OCD and I
have problems with it from time to time that aren't easily fathomed.
But they are easily predicted, there are substitutions I can make, and I
can choose love of self to avoid the most self-destructive versions.
Barring that, there is medication.

I don't want to carry this too far: just because I've got problems and
have dealt with them doesn't mean everyone's problems are as amenable to
being dealt with. Maybe I got lucky, maybe my problems are that bad, I
dunno. It just feels to me that the obstacles you face are solveable.
Maybe I've just got to believe that. Maybe I just WANT to believe that.
But when it comes right down to it, what harm comes from believing that?

Every time I see you set out your stages to permanent weight loss/life
change I feel that "fix your head" is such an enormous mountain to
climb for some people that perhaps, as others have said, we need to
just get started on the other points first or we'd never start at all.

Oh, agreed. I didn't start there, either. I started with exercise, put
in eating less, then fixed my head so I didn't have to use willpower all
the time. That worked for me, another person would do it differently.

I know that the "for ever" part is absolutely right, even though at
another level it's hard for many of us to accept and that is probably
part of the problem, and why as I've said in another thread saying
goodbye to eating foods I love in quantity can feel almost like a
bereavement.

I've probably misunderstood some of where you're coming from. Anyway,
this would probably make a far more fascinating discussion IRL

janice (just rambling really)

I'm so sorry if my own rambling offend. I'm bitterly conscious of my
lack of awareness about binge eating. I feel like I have so much to
offer in so many venues here, but helping people with binge disorders is
just not in my skill set. I'm fascinated by it, but just in the dark.

I'm really interested in the voices I'm hearing saying "good enough is
good enough. Go ahead and eat that twinkie." I'm not sure if it's
coming from overweight people trying to make their status be okay, or if
it's coming from people who are slender and healthy and telling me that
the ten pounds of lard on my thighs just aren't worth the work to get
rid of.

I think I'm starting to hear voices in my head!

Dally

At 26 I divorced and subsiquently lost alot of my weight due to the "divorce
stress diet". Great diet, but the way you lose weight is not very healthy
and will bite you in the ass in the long run. So, I dropped into the low
120's range but did not own a scale so i dont' have an accurate account,
although size 4 jeans were baggy.

Er... sorry to jump in, but I'm not sure i understand this... Divorce
stree diet? Are you the type that eats LESS when you're stressed or
something?

I hate to admit, I have a tendency to eat MORE under stress...

BTM


__________________________________________________ ___
"For what's inside's awakening
I'm not, I'm not a whore
You've taken everything and oh
I can not give any more"
-Korn, "Here To Stay"

To respond via email, remove the "54"

"BTM" wrote in message
...

At 26 I divorced and subsiquently lost alot of my weight due to the
"divorce
stress diet". Great diet, but the way you lose weight is not very
healthy
and will bite you in the ass in the long run. So, I dropped into the
low
120's range but did not own a scale so i dont' have an accurate account,
although size 4 jeans were baggy.

Er... sorry to jump in, but I'm not sure i understand this... Divorce
stree diet? Are you the type that eats LESS when you're stressed or
something?

I hate to admit, I have a tendency to eat MORE under stress...


for me - it depends on the "stress" as to whether I eat more or less.

Emotional stress = loss of appetite.

physical stress or pressure stress = eat more.

Divorce diet = emotional stress = loss of appetite, and weight loss,
although not a healthy form of weight loss.

Think about friends or family that have lost a loved one, divorced or
breakups, and how often those people lose weight because they don't feel
like eating. Its quite common.

Now, deadlines at work and that kind of stress lead me to eat.

I don't post too much any more, as I am busy with my family. I am eating
a vegan raw-food diet using fresh, organic foods, and it has benefitted my
whole family (they're not raw foodists) just by increasing their intake of
authentic whole foods. I'm at my lowest weight so far, and only have 35
left to go until my goal. I mostly visit raw-food support boards,
where I've seen other people's accounts of changes in their lives too.

Crafting Mom.