"women, food and god" or "when food is love."

[LivingFree! 478]

There's something to be said about driving ourselves batty over finding our "exact answers" to our emotional eating--as I initially commented about Roth's deep soul-searching approach. Just way too deep for some of us.

May I offer some excerpts from Alexander's great book "The Emotional First+Aid Kit" that might offer a perspective that just maybe you don't HAVE TO know WHY.

QUOTE:

It is very common to hear, "If I could just find out why I eat this way, it would be so easy to stop." Some people want to figure out why they eat for emotional reasons. The fact is, you don't need to know why in order to change. Even if you are able to get to the root of your emotional eating, that information will not usually automatically lead to change. It may be helpful to know why, and you may be very curious, but that knowledge is not of key importance to your weight loss. For most people it makes sense to skip this Quest, and proceed directly to the step of changing the habit. It is important to look at the emotions you experience when feeling out of control, but it may not be necessary to find the root of the problem in the past. It is not just how the habit started, but the repetition over many years that makes it hard to break.

. . .Expect to always feel conflict about eating. Except for the first few months after surgery, you will probably want to go back to eating your favorite foods. If you EXPECT the conflict, you can plan to deal with it and win the battle of recreational and emotional eating.

...The hard truth is that if you use food for comfort or other emotional reasons, those thoughts and cravings will probably always be there. ... Once the connections have been established between food and emotions they wiill not easily go away. They may diminish in intensity with time, but will likely be a part of your life for a very long time. You will gain confidence and control with experience, but expect to have cravings to some degree.

UNQUOTE

CGJ put it best-- learning to LIVE and ACT differently--creating day-to-day new, healthy choices is where change begins to take hold.

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

i tend to think that learning new skills and good planning trump any insight... but i get stuck in that belief that i need "something" before i can move on. i was pretty much on my own as a kid and so inside, i drag my feet and pout and tell myself i cant do it, i need someone to hold my hand and care about me. but its just me. i need to care about me as much as i think others need to care about me. its really that simple, but not easy.

[CowgirlJane 14,261]

Well my insight into this topic is that my over eating certainly had a strong component of "messed up childhood" in my youth- I had the whole usual list of suspects (mom that used food for reward, dad who was a force feeder, emotional neglect and verbal abuse from parentd and sexual abuse by another relative) Heck I was obese by first grade. At some point I genuinely believe it became less about that and more about the physical disease of obesity. By the time I was sleeved in my late 40s I think it was like 2-5% emotional. As a brilliant woman on this forum once said "turns out I was just freaking hungry all the time"

So that is what I meant by just a shadow of the original reasons even remained and all the talk in the world didn't change that I was physically hungry.

We all have our own journey and I don't mean to discount another's experience in the least. I am just saying that for me the "reason" is old news and I am about every breath I take TODAY not what happened decades ago. I have that attitude largely because I tried the path of trying to heal inside and while I think it did help, I was still super morbidly obese!

I am quite sure that the loss if appetite thing I went through this spring, a year after I hit goal, was some of this old stuff coming up. My counselor is into more modern thinking about all this and again rather than focusing on the history focused on the now. Example, she helped me learn that it's ok to feel bad and how to rebuild some resilience around that. I honestly think it just makes it worse to dig up the dregs of old hurts. What I do think is useful is to recognize how patterns repeat in our lives like as an example I used to pick friends and that had a way of neglecting me...hmmmm. now I am much better at recognizing when someone is playing a role from my past. My counselor asked me once to think what I " get out" of relationships with people. I ask myself that question constantly now and it makes me so much more aware of healthy friendships that I should nurture and the ones that perhaps I should let die away

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

having spent 7 years as a chem dep counselor and then 10 more years working in various positions in private practice and human services i know there is a very fine line between a person being "heard" regarding his/her wounds and learning new ways of coping with life in general. if you focus exclusively on the trauma, the new way of doing things get overlooked.. but expecting someone to be able to make good choices when he/she is still living in pain from the pain is unrealistic.

it has a lot to do with that "bolting from yourself" roth talks about in WFAG.

which i am just beginning to deeply explore in myself.

the question i keep asking myself is, what do i need to give myself, so i can keep making good choices every single day?

[LivingFree! 478]

Moonlight. . .

I think you've greatly narrowed down your challenge--what do you need to GIVE YOURSELF so you can keep making good choices every day...

Although of course it's great to have loving and caring people in our lives, people come and people go--the only one we can ALWAYS rely on is OURSELVES. As long as we keep searching for "someone" to "hold our hand care about us," we will continue to live in that state of feeling let down.

You CAN be your own BEST FRIEND when there's "no one else." For me, letting go of the past was significant. Yep, it's unfair there's no one to hold my hand, but I made the decision to let go of all that past junk and live in the NOW and rely on ME. Staying present remains hard for me, but has helped immensely. You've probably already explored these things, but in terms of discovering what you need to GIVE YOURSELF, have you tried actually crafting a meaningful bulleted list? Sometimes the visual impact can be powerful to work off a written list.

I was a big "I CAN'T" person. I also needed BIG LESSONS in extreme self-care. I didn't know how to be good to myself. Author Cheryl Richardson has written some great books on this subject.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

I'm finding this really interesting. While I certainly had lots of disordered or "bad choice" eating habits, I live with someone who has some real eating disorders. Sometimes (mostly in the past, I grant you) I read posts from others that talk about how if we can't admit we had an eating disorder that forced us to the point of surgery, we are in denial. For me, I think it was more that I *was* in denial about my eating habits. But like CGJ I was also hungry all the time. Strangely, in times when I was sick I completely lost the physical hunger. And I would say, at 10 months out now, that one clear difference in my world is that the physical hunger is much more under control.

We all have to figure out what works, right? I know that I spend maybe more time thinking about food and cooking and meal planning than most people, even now. Part of this is what my life is: I have an obese and ED husband, an obese son, and a not obese but highly sensitive, tending-toward overweight teenaged daughter. There are family-wide habits that I am struggling to break for everyone, and I think I accepted (too much) that everyone's weight and eating habits were strictly my responsibility. We are all working now to come to terms with what it means. As my time goes on, though, the biggest help for me is that while I will always love food, it is so much easier now to see it as fuel rather than a pleasure center.

So, for me, I don't know if counseling or reading would help what I am struggling with. It might help those around me. It's all up to what ultimately works for each individual.

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

i feel like i am moving along the path now that this surgery has short circuited my mindless eating. but i am still in a place where when i get really specific with myself about what i need, i feel tremendously sad and become very withdrawn. its really painful and makes it hard for me to function. so i just keep trying to do what is good for me and not get sucked into the pit.

i know what i am hungry for is not food. again, thinking too much about the longing makes me really sad and so i avoid dwelling on it too long. even though i know pretending its not there isnt helping anything, i just have no way of approaching it at this point in my life... so i just keep trying to put one foot in front of the other and keep examining things and trying to be open to what might arise in me that will allow me to deal without collapsing in on myself. (though from time to time it feels this might happen anyway)

Edited September 1, 2014 by moonlitestarbrite

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

Well, I think this is life, isn't it? There are days I really hate sitting and being still with myself because I start to think about all of the ways I am a failure. That unpaid bill, that project that is sitting over my head, my laundry room being a disaster, that uncleaned closet. My avoidance techniques include reading compulsively, and getting out of the house. I have to be very careful these days with some of the old standbys: cooking an elaborate meal, drinking wine with friends. Not to say they don't ever happen; I just have to be careful.

I have my days when all of my negative feelings are focused on the weight loss journey and my "lack of success" or at least my not going as quickly as some others…and that threatens to swallow me up. I also have days when I can actually understand in my pea brain that I'm doing okay.

Overall I think the hardest thing is being both gentle and responsible with oneself. Somehow, I never learned that as a kid or young adult, and that has been something I have had to learn in the second half of my life so far. There are good days and bad days. The best days are the ones that I can honestly say to myself, "Today? That went okay." Neither the high nor the low. In other words you are in good company. One foot in front of the other, my dear.

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

i do want to thrive in my new life... not just plod. yk? so much of the last 12 years of my life has been surviving...

i found this a few days ago and finally got a chance to read it. it really resonates with roth's idea of compulsive eating being a way to bolt from oneself. i checked out her website and she has some free resources there i might check out.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/05/if-your-relationship-is-failing-heres-why-dr-margaret-paul-2/

[LivingFree! 478]

Moonlitestarbrite--glad you found Elephant Journal. Love it for its practical, no-nonsense, and today's real world approaches to practicing mindful living.

I admire you for your determination to "thrive" over merely surviving. Twelve years is a long time to just survive. You deserve that highest quality of life. Your hard work WILL pay off for you. Stay strong, especially on the days when you don't feel like it . . .

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

elephant journal is such a mixed bag! some great stuff and then lots of drivel too! lol kinda like real life.

[livvsmum 2,370]

I have been seeing an eating disorder therapist since about 7 months post op and in my very first session with her she recommended that I read "When food is Love". The first time I read it there was so much to take in because I felt like there was something meaningful that applied to me that I had never considered before on every single page. So I went back and read it a second time (I'm in the process of it right now) but this time with a journal in hand so I could reflect as I go. It really was pivotal in me getting things in perspective with eating and binge eating specifically. I purchased her other book, but haven't yet read it.

[Jen35 283]

I love this thread - thanks for starting it! I definitely think the emotional/mental aspect of the weight loss process is not addressed enough.

I haven't read these books but I had some pretty intense therapy with an amazing counselor. I definitely had disordered eating but I also had a huge appetite (I believe that there is/was some hunger "switch" that just doesn't turn off for some of us). I refer to the sleeve as my "rehab" from food. It gave me a breather from the hunger to work on the mental issues I had/have with food. I had a crappy childhood - abuse, mom died of cancer when I was little, my dad was emotionally incapable of being a father. I grew up with no love/comfort that a child needs and was never really able to grieve from all of this trama. Therapy and EMDR helped me process the feelings that I never allowed myself to feel. Food was the drug that I used to numb everything, give me comfort, etc.. For me, I had to deal with all of this and understand why I behave this way in order to learn how to change those destructive behaviors. I really HATED myself and that was reflected in how I treated myself. After dealing with my past, therapy then became about finding healthy ways to cope with my feelings and self comfort without food. I have a much better relationship with food now and I am much more self aware (even as I have been slipping into some old behaviors lately because my counselor moved 4 months ago and I haven't found a new one). But in the past I would just ignore those warning signs - now I'm less afraid to do that self-assessment of where I am and the path that I'm heading down. Alarm bells are going off in my head telling me that I'm not dealing with my stress in a healthy way - I'm leaning on food for comfort, etc. And so.... I"m going to start looking for a new therapist tomorrow:)

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

good for you! i am concerned when i see people in my FB support group who say they are out of control and gaining weight, but have no real plan for dealing with their stress. winging it doesnt really work, yk?

[Oregondaisy 2,021]

This is a great thread.

The only book that has really helped me is the Beck Diet Solution. I really need to get the work book. I like it because it gives you stuff to do to try to combat snacking and learning to say no to weight gaining foods.