ED Disordered eating

[ms spock]

The awareness will expand. Patterns will become clearer.

They are getting clearer.

Sometimes we can choose to use food, other times we can choose not to.

It is a more balanced view.

I think the feelings beneath the food issues are intense and rough going. It's gentle exposure to them that I think we do.

It is not easy.

It is tricky also to work at both ends, I still have a bit of a restrictive voice. So just yesterday as I caught myself trying to eat as little as I could that day I decided to go have chocolate, even though I could have easily gone without it. Because I'll be damned if that restrictive voice tries to derail the progress made with the growing sense of safety inside.. that comes partially from really knowing and learning there will be enough food.

It is a fine balancing act.

 

[ms spock]

Does any one have some suggestions on books or websites to read?

Has anyone read "Food: The Good Girl's Drug: How to Stop Using Food to Control Your Feelings" by Sunny Sea Gold? Another book that could be of use might be Unashamed : healing our brokenness and finding freedom from shame by Heather Davis Nelson? Anyone read this one?

Doing okay today 1 omelette, and 1 scone. I ate blueberries and raspberries last night. 4 scones yesterday - so yes with the comfort eating.

On the up side I am noticing it more and more, and I can see what I am blocking and/or numbing. So I am working on more ideas on how to manage what I need to manage.

 

[ms spock]

I know this is from another thread but I really want to be able to find this to read quickly when I am struggling.

It's a weird ass feeling to come to the realization that you've fought and won many battles against various chemicals, not to mention the f'n humans, that tried to attach themselves to our psyche (like street drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, specifically, in my case) only to find that we've been born into other various chemical addictions fostered from birth that are said to be vital, nutritious, highly regulated and safe, FDA approved, and often times specifically designed in little test tubes in some factory to be highly addictive to ensure ongoing and repeated purchases.

There is a book written by an Australian writer David Gillespie he wrote a book called "Big Fat Lies". It talks about what you are talking about. His website is interesting as well.

But yet it's ALL allowed to be called nutrition of some sort, albeit synthetically so, which our body greatly struggles with recognizing, healthily processing and eliminating, and the specifics of the whole scene are taught in very many misleading (mainly by selective omission of other very relevant information) ways to the very folks being educated to help us care for our health. Many bodies are simply in a state of ongoing shock from decades of misleading consumption habits, yet their symptoms are all diagnosed as many other things, rarely ever attributed to food choices, at least in my experiences as a former 324 lb. patient. No wonder we struggle like a mofo when trying to figure it all out as it pertains to our individual circumstances and biology. Misled, mis-fed, and pretty much left for dead is how I felt.

The research in Australia is really interesting, particularly on nutrition and anxiety, nutrition and depression, and nutrition and suicidal ideation.

The only things that truly help keep me well in that regard now are remembering how bad I felt before in every single area of my life, learning to make dishes/snacks/beverages that taste a lot like the "comfort" things I used to not be able to control myself around so I feel like I'm not depriving myself, and to only stock the ingredients I know I can safely and healthily consume and not suffer the deep emotional hangovers once I do.

That is where I am trying to head.

I don't have to restrict my overall intake as much when I make the cleaner forms of nutritious stuff available, as long as I remain mindful of not eating solid food after dinner. If I start that again, it ends up leading to late night binging, as I used to do.

Yeah going to bed late leads to late night binging for me as well. Watching TV at night leads to binge eating.

For me, having anything else in the house is akin to expecting a crack addict to safely navigate a crack house w/o taking a hit. It simply can't happen.

I find it really, really hard.

I do, however, have to restrict my interactions with the places and people (imagine it being other crack houses and other crack addicts) who continue to be immersed in all the things that made me so ill for so long, and that's not easy, but very necessary if I wish to maintain the quality of life/wellness I've finally found for myself. If I were giving up alcohol, I sure as hell couldn't frequent the bar.

Yes and it really pisses me off when my sister gives me chocolate. It makes me so angry. There are people who are going to be cut out of my life.

It's the absolute hardest thing I've faced in my life so far. Quitting the other things/chemicals seemed like a breeze compared to this. I didn't have to consume alcohol/street drugs/tobacco several times a day to live, but I do have to eat and hydrate, making every single choice a critical one.

It makes it hard.

It took becoming almost bed ridden, then a trip to the ER facing organ removal to make me finally act on it fully, though. I tiptoed around it all for years without actually doing much about it, nor did the doctors/specialists seem too concerned as long as I kept going back to keep getting the meds they said I needed at various times, which seemed to break me down even worse rather than help me. I never gracefully enter into helpful things, it seems, but rather have to be catapulted by life circumstance. May we all find our comfort in things that don't harm us any further. It's a f'n jungle out there.

It hard is hard to negotiate.

 

[ms spock]

So I have to get a list of books and websites that I can start reading and working through. I think that is the next step for me.

Effects of High-Fructose Diets on Central Appetite Signaling and Cognitive Function
Katrien Lowette,1,2 Lina Roosen,1,2 Jan Tack,2 and Pieter Vanden Berghe1,2,* This is an article where the science tells us weight gain is caused by sugar’s unique ability to dysregulate our appetite control, and I certainly have that problem.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Thanks for the book reference...will check it out. It's a game that seems to be stacked against us in many ways.

Food Rules by Michael Pollan was one of the first books I read that made me think twice about my choices.

Let Them Eat Junk was another...Albritton, I think is the author's last name.

Documentaries really hit home, too....Forks Over Knives; Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead; What the Health....I'd watch pretty much anything food related in the documentary section of Netflix and/or on You Tube while I was too sick to do anything else.

Watching those led me to more you tube videos and it just kept going from there. Sugar Addiction, Effects of Gluten, Chemicals in Highly Processed Food, You are What Your Food Eats, Dehydration and the Foods that Cause It, Food Combining and Transit Times, Chinese Medicine Body Clock (to learn when the best eating/digesting times were), etc., etc. (those aren't specific video titles, but the kind of stuff I'd search for) Then I'd watch the animal industry vids and that sealed the deal. I can never go back.

I did a drastic overnight change, though, and went straight to whole food plant-based vegan via a juice "fast", then all kinds of smoothie concoctions, and that was way too much too soon and my body didn't know wtf was up...and I felt it for quite a while....but then I learned to more mindfully and rationally hydrate, nourish, and fast via another book/facebook group/the direct help of a local practitioner who'd been practicing it for several years...The Mucusless Diet Healing System, Annotated and Revised by Prof. Spira, originally written by Arnold Ehret in the 20s or 30s.

So much of what they said made so much sense to me and it helped motivate me in a major way to keep on the path of vegan consumption, while being much more mindful of foods that form mucus and doesn't eliminate in a timely manner, etc. It helped me realize vegan in no way equals healthy and there's just as much junk in the vegan aisle as it is elsewhere. That's when I learned more about the energies in various foods and was able to better see which ones I'd want fueling my meat coated skeleton from now on. That book/method is definitely "out there" compared to what I'd been taught the rest of my life, that's for sure, but it was one of those gems I'm glad to have found.

I don't practice any one single method, other than not consuming animal products, but rather pulled from the ones that made good common sense to me, ones I had been able to observe others who'd tried similar methods long-term, and ones I knew I could attempt and practice safely. Having a supportive husband, the one on one help from a local experienced friend, and a safe environment is the only way I was able to make it work so well and make it stick, and it still got/gets complicated. It got scary because it was all so opposite of what I'd been taught for decades. It still gets scary at times, depending on where I roam.

Respect and hugs. It's a hell of a fight.

 

[ms spock]

Respect and hugs. It's a hell of a fight.

I am just making my way slowly through the maze.

 

[ms spock]

This website has books about the food industry, and the impacts of sugar. Dead Link Removed I have read one of these books. I think one of them is in the local library. The other one I own.

 

[ms spock]

I saw a talk by this woman in the Mindfulness Summit, and I really didn't like her, she didn't seem genuine to me, but maybe it was hitting too close to home? I really thought that she was lying. But this book could be of use for me to read? 50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food Mindfulness Strategies to Cope with Stress and End Emotional Eating by Susan Albers? I have to look for different strategies. Or I just have to go back to playing my musical instrument rather than eating?

 

[ms spock]

Today I was present without using food to numb myself, it was at a music lesson, and now I am exhausted but it is an important step forward.

The only thing is now I am scared and concerned that I will go to the other extreme!

 

[ms spock]

Being present in your own body is absolutely exhausting. I am so tired. But I did it for a few minutes today.

 

[ms spock]

I did better yesterday. I did comfort eat before bed last night, the fear of rape came up strongly and I resist falling asleep in such a big way - the fear feels really overwhelming. But I ate less, and I didn't eat sugar. I ate a bit of a small healthy nut loaf.

So small incremental steps.

 

[ms spock]

So I joined Weight Watchers, so I don't go to the other extreme of eating too little now that I am working towards not overeating most days. I am not going to put too many shoulds on myself because it all goes to shit in a hand basket. So each day is a new day, and each day is a day that I get to begin again, and each day I will do just a little bit better.

The emotions under the eating are the tricky thing. To sit with what is there, obviously I can't do that all at once, but I can do a fair bit more than I am currently doing. I am in major avoidance, yet again, and lately I am really connecting the dots between the origins of my behaviours and the sadistic behaviours of my parents. Wow I have survived so much. I have lost so much. But with some ups and downs I will get there. So Self Compassion. Self Compassion Breaks and the boundaries books, and all those 5-6 books that I have been putting off reading. Time to go there now.

Had a shower, and well rather late in the day. Got to get moving once again.