The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[nickieluv]

Yes, hol, thanks, the storm seems to have been a one-day event in our area at least. And here at home we didn't get hit too badly - if I hadn't had to travel yesterday I wouldn't have minded the snow so much. The weatherpeople are saying almost 60 degrees by Sunday so maybe spring is finally coming after all.

Tawanda, I ran out of time before responding to your post, too, but I wanted to say thank you for your continued support. I am afraid that when I have these 'episodes' and work them out for myself in a way that others might not agree with, that I will lose the respect and support of the boards. And I need this place, and you, and everybody. But I know there are a few people on here who have had to modify the program for medical reasons, or who have added things for their own reasons, and they were not abandoned. So I have to relax in that knowledge.

Donica - thank you, too. You must have been on at the same time I was reading because your post wasn't on the thread, and then when I clicked 'post reply' and got to the next screen, your post was the first one when I scrolled down to 'topic review.' I think I gave you the wrong idea, though. It's not really easy for me to come back to the plan. I still have to go through those 3 days of struggle again. I know tonight when I get home I'll think about ordering more unhealthy foods and binging again. I won't DO it, but I know I'll THINK about it. I always do - and then tomorrow it will get a little harder - and then day 3 will be a little easier. If it really were EASY for me to get back on plan, then knowing my mind, I'd cheat once a week or something like that. But then I'd keep losing and gaining the same 3 pounds and never get anywhere.

I don't have a problem with the odd bite here or there - I don't do it. I resist and resist and resist until finally I burst and have a huge foodfest. And sometimes it works if I tell myself I can have it later, after goal, but sometimes that doesn't work.

I think the reason the cheats can be good for me is that I am still learning things. I don't binge and then spend the next few days feeling that I'm worthless and what's the point in trying and I'm doomed to failure. At least, not this time - that was what I learned this time. A binge is just eating a lot of food. It has no power other than what I allow it to have. I chose to eat. A lot. Off plan. That's all that happened. I was not force-fed the food - in almost every case I even have to leave the house to get it, so it's not like I'm giving in to immediate temptation. I am seeking out the food. It's what I know - it's what I go back to - binging.

I want to try an experiment. I'm going to allow myself to have a bite of something if I want it. Like the EasyMac - I don't believe I will ever crave that again, because it tasted awful. And if I'd just had a bite of my daughter's mac&cheese one of those days I would have known that it was gross. The other day I was smelling her pasta dinner - I imagine that would have probably tasted bad to me, too, if I'd had some.

Now, notice I said a BITE. A taste. That's all. If my husband is having bacon and it smells good, and I want some, I'll have a bite. The only thing I will draw the line at is sweets and chips. I'm only talking about real food for this experiment - an actual dinner item. Not fruit, either - too sweet and I know I won't stop at just one bite. But let's say I already had my L&G but my husband is making a hamburger (he's on Atkins so no bread of course) and I feel that desire - I'll have a bite.

I'm also not saying I'll have a bite of EVERYTHING just because I can. We're talking actual cravings and desires only. And as I write this I don't think I'll even need to take the bite. Just knowing I CAN - I've given myself permission and it won't count as noncompliance (no association with any food as being 'bad') - makes me feel somehow calmer. And taking a bite when I'm craving something has GOT to be better than being 'good' and denying myself and then eating 5000 calories worth of McDonald's food three days or three weeks later.

So that's my experiment. I'll keep you posted. I'll document all the tastes here. And if anybody sees a pattern, let me know, if I don't see it myself. Because if the tastes start leading me to stray (like Donica said) then I will stop the experiment. But this sounds like a good idea to me right now.

[SuzyQ66]

Nicki - I am an all or nothing type of person. I either follow programs so rigidly and if I mess up I just automatically throw in the towel. Somebody at work knows this about me and gave me an article from the March edition of Good Housekeeping called "yourGoodlife - You say you want to change?" by M.J. Ryan. Here is an a part of the article:

Have you ever succumbed to the "I just ate one cookie so I mgiht as well scarf down the whole box" syndrome? The first time we slip up, most of us become convinced that we are hopeless, weak or unmotivated - which makes us feel even more stuck than we were before. We're so made at ourselves for violating a rule that we punish ourselves by abandoning all self-control. Or we decide we might as well give up because we've missed one day.

Psychologists call this the abstinence-violation effect - a harsh, all-or-nothing attitude toward our behavior. It's paradoxical, but the more we hold ourselves to this rigid standard, the more we then abuse ourselves with the very thing that we've outlawed.

It's not because we are weak or undisciplines - it is an inevitable part of the change process. It simply goes with the territory. You say you're going to change, you may even do it for a short while, but then something happens and suddenly you are back to eating HoHos and vegging out on the couch instead of working out. Experts refer to this as 'instinctual drift,' the tendency to slip bak into old patterns.

But why? Because the pathway to our old behavior still exists in your brain. Scientists tell us that neurons that fire together, wire together, meaning they are likely to fire the same way the next time. Don't lose heart. Our brains have enormous 'platicity,' meaning they can generate new cells and pathways. Think of the two options as parallel roads. As long as you go down the new road, you'll get the results you want. But stress can cause your resolution to wane and your car to jump the tracks and travel down the old road in a blink of an eye.

It takes mental preparation, self-awareness, and lots of practice to create a new pathway to the new behavior- six to nine months, say many brain scientists. The more you understand this the fewer negative consequences there will be when you do slip up. you won't have to punish yourself with overindulgence just because you relapsed today. Tomorrow you can make a different choice.

Those who study change say the best thing you can do is to prepare for lapses and commit to not giving up. What is tha tyou want to remember when you revert to your old habit? Write it down and pull it out when you need it. many of us think that self-forgiveness is just a way of letting ourselves fail without consequences. But it's acutally the opposite. Forgiving ourselves keep sus from self-punishment that actually causes us to compound the error. So when you backslide on a resolution, whatever it may be, please forgive yourself and move on. "Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do onw and do it."

If you can get your hands on the article you will not regret it. There is so much more to it such as what to do when cravings come. I could continue to type more of the article but I don't want to take up more space in your journal.

Have a wonderful day!!

[nickieluv]

Thanks, Suzy - does Good Housekeeping have online archives? I'll try to look up that article - it does sound like it would have a lot for me. What you typed already is almost like pages from my journal at times.

I refrained from writing 'all-or-nothing' in the last few entries but those who have been reading my stuff for a while know that's just what I am. You're either on plan, or you're not. And really, I still feel that way - but I'm trying to adjust what 'on-plan' means. Having a bite of my daughter's dinner is not on-plan in the strictest sense. But if doing that keeps me from a binge, then it is much truer to my goals than staying 100% on-plan would be in that case. If I try this experiment for a while and it turns out I am having more and more binges - or that one bite becomes two or three or ten without thinking - then I will know it's not working.

For me, a 'binge' is defined as eating for reasons that have nothing to do with eating - whether it's 5000 calories or 5. So if one bite led to ten - that would count as a binge. And my goal is to become a non-binger.

MY GOALS:

- lose enough weight to feel healthy and strong, and be at a normal BMI
- stop binging
- stop using food to replace or suffocate emotions
- (in maintenance) eat real foods and only when hungry
- learn what hunger feels like (I think I'm starting to know)

If this were only about reaching a healthy weight, it would make no sense to ever cheat or to give myself permission to taste off-plan foods. But I am dealing with more than just weight and so I think lightening up is a good thing for me. Because I really do think, and hope, that giving myself permission to do something will enable me to not do it by taking away the feeling of rebellion and deprivation that dieting usually leaves me with.

And I know I've said before that I could eat whatever I wanted and just choose not to - but I only said that. I did not truly, deep down, give myself permission to eat ANYTHING. Because if I ate anything off-plan, even licking a crumb off my finger, I was cheating and I was 'bad.' Now, I am saying and BELIEVING that I can truly eat anything I want, at any time. And if my goals above are really my goals, then I will accomplish them. If it is instead more important to me to stuff myself, then I will quickly learn that. But I don't think that's going to happen. I really want those things, and I have never before had a pathway that would guarantee me success. MF is that pathway. I have it now, I have the answer. What I have spent the past months doing is learning how to LET myself succeed. Removing mental blocks a little at a time. I think this is another victory. And in a while, we'll know for sure.

[SuzyQ66]

I tried to bring up the article by the name but didn't have any luck- maybe if you bring it up by Good Housekeeping you might have better luck. I am glad that it was helpful.

[Pashta]

I subscribe to that magazine and I did read that article. It's a recent one, sometime this year for sure. If I were you I'd go check the local library and borrow it.

[nickieluv]

I'm sad. I did well all day and then, for no reason, blew it once I got home with the baby. Really, it was for no reason, other than the food was there. That's what I get for not throwing out all the binge materials, thinking that the baby could have some (the leftover mac&cheese and ice cream - gone now - plus I ordered in because I figured if I was doing it anyway I should eat anything I might possibly crave in the next six months and really be thorough about my cheating).

I shoved it all down, even after I was full. I feel stuffed right now and a little nauseous. And thirsty. And of course tired because I stayed up too late tonight after getting 10 hours of sleep yesterday.

This one bothers me. This one was - pretty perfunctory. I see no good reason for it and nothing to be learned from it. It was plain and simple lazy, thoughtless indulgence. I even thought about just coming here and posting that I was going to take a week off and eat whatever. But that's not what I want. I want the junk food eating to be over. I want that light, healthy, comfortable-in-my-own-skin feeling that I've come to love - I want it back. It's long gone at this moment.

I do NOT, however, feel that everything I posted today was justification for this - or even necessarily motivation for this. All of that still feels valid and right to me. This was me forcing myself to do something I didn't really want to do. I haven't done that - or at least recognized this feeling - in a long time. I want to say since January (which is a long time for me as I used to do this constantly) but if I really went back and looked up what I wrote about my binges since starting MF, I might find that it wasn't so long ago as that.

I don't want to talk about this one too much. Like I said, I don't see that it served any purpose. After, I stood in front of the refrigerator (where I have all my progress charts posted) and I looked at my weight loss graph and my goals chart. One year ago I weighed 35 pounds more than I do today. I am in the 220s - I haven't been there in a long time. I have come so far, even though I still have so far to go. I deserve better than to give up on myself. I deserve to feel good in my body, like I do when I'm being compliant. I deserve to be proud of myself for taking action to create a more healthy life.

Anywho - I'm tired now and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is a fresh start and I'm going to try again. I want to be compliant. I want to hit the 40# club, and then 50, and 60, and beyond. This can drag on forever if I let it (see January) so I just need to take control again. And I will. Not because I should or because I have to - but because I WANT to. I want to lose the weight and I want to achieve all of the goals I have, not only regarding MF but in life. I want those things more than I want instant gratification. If I want instant gratification on occasion, that's why I have a baby to hug and love and play with and gaze at, and a husband to hold me, and a mother to talk to, and a sister to roll my eyes at.

[Mike]

So maybe I can learn to feel that I CAN eat anything - it's my choice - but I also have the ability to choose NOT to eat something, too.

Sometimes I think life would be easier if I didn't have any choices, but what kind of life would that be?

DonicaB

I don't always read the journals... heck, I hardly keep one myself, but I just happened to be skimming tonight... and this one struck me funny.

Donica.... I think that the no choices life is called prison

Anyhow.... glad you both are doing so well. We teachers gotta hang in there.

[Tawanda]

Nickie, just wanted to say I am thinking of you. I hope you'll have a nice day.

[nickieluv]

Nicki - I am an all or nothing type of person. I either follow programs so rigidly and if I mess up I just automatically throw in the towel. Somebody at work knows this about me and gave me an article from the March edition of Good Housekeeping called "yourGoodlife - You say you want to change?" by M.J. Ryan. Here is an a part of the article:

Sue - I found this article last night - in my bathroom. How sad is it that I don't even know what magazines I subscribe to? I thought I got Ladies Home Journal, not Good Housekeeping. Anyway, I read it - still pondering it. But thank you for bringing it up here. I think I need to read it a couple more times - I read it quickly last night and didn't take the time to think about what was being said.

I am thinking that last night was about punishing myself. I was 'bad' and I hadn't suffered enough - I didn't feel guilty enough, I didn't gain enough. So I thought I needed to cheat again and maybe then it would sink in how unredeemable I am.

I always in the past have believed that when I cheated, it was showing the world what I already knew deep down - that I was weak, lazy, undisciplined. In the two days of cheating I just had, I was not feeling any of those things. I was disappointed but I understood why the binges happened, and I had a plan to try to keep it from happening again. I think that's the healthiest my mind has even been about a cheat. I was compliant all day long, and felt good about it, and I had 'only' gained about 3 pounds and was grateful for that and ready to move ahead again. Then, I was eating cold mac&cheese, and it went on from there. I recognized at several points that I could stop at any time - but I didn't.

I feel that I was trying to prove that I was not the strong, healthy, competent individual that I have come to think I am in the last few months. Sticking with MF and losing a lot of weight - and even though I have far to go, 39 pounds is a lot of weight - made me feel like I could accomplish things. I had higher self-esteem and self-worth. I stopped being so very jealous of my husband's female friends (and boy does he have a lot of them and we talked about that ) because I realized that if he left me, it would hurt him just as much as it would hurt me. I was able to believe that he could love me, because I was starting to love myself. But all these feelings are still new, and you can't overcome 28 (OK, so I probably didn't hate myself from birth - but at least it's been 16 or so)years of self-loathing in only 3 or 4 months.

So today, needing a pick-me-up (after gaining 6 more pounds overnight) I put on a pair of pants I wore before losing any weight, knowing that even with my bloating they would still be loose - I did not need to put on my new pants and have them be tight today. And even though I know I've gained this week, it was reaffirming to know that I didn't gain back everything.

The fact that I sometimes eat more than I should and eat unhealthy foods should have nothing to do with my picture of myself. I am still competent, strong, healthy, beautiful, loved, loving, intelligent, and many other good things. I am also still emotionally needy even when I am 100% compliant with my food. Sometimes my emotions win out over my intellect and I express them poorly or try to squash them by eating. That does not make me lazy, weak-willed, or ugly.

I had a bad three days - we all know that by now. Actually, no - I had a bad three nights - the days were fine. And nights were always my problem eating time, so of course the strain showed there. Tonight is going to be difficult again, but I can make the choice to stay compliant - even if to do it, I have to go to bed at 7 to keep myself away from the food. I can do whatever it takes for the rest of this week to get myself back on track, back in the MF habit, and losing again. It's very likely I will post a gain this week - but I'm not going to change my ticker until I'm below it - I'm not moving it up. I still earned the weight that shows on that ticker. I'm not deleting that progress, that's not fair to me.

I'm going to try not to check in for the rest of the day. I have some things to get done that I didn't do over vacation and I have a good chunk of time today to do them. I won't get them finished, but starting is the hardest part anyway, and I can get a good amount done. So I'm going to let this sit for today, and maybe I'll check in tonight at home but maybe I won't. Perhaps I just need to be with myself today and keep myself on track. If I think coming here will help that, I will - but otherwise, I'm going to try to focus on quality time with my baby tonight and getting to bed early. Have a great day, everyone.

[holberry]

hey Niki, take care of you today it's a new day.
hb

[Lizabette]

[Pashta]

Ok, cheating's over, time to get back on plan chickie! NO MORE SABOTAGING YOURSELF ok?? You have come so far don't throw it away!

[bikipatra]

I had a bad three days - we all know that by now. Actually, no - I had a bad three nights - the days were fine. And nights were always my problem eating time, so of course the strain showed there. Tonight is going to be difficult again, but I can make the choice to stay compliant - even if to do it, I have to go to bed at 7 to keep myself away from the food. I can do whatever it takes for the rest of this week to get myself back on track, back in the MF habit, and losing again. It's very likely I will post a gain this week - but I'm not going to change my ticker until I'm below it - I'm not moving it up. I still earned the weight that shows on that ticker. I'm not deleting that progress, that's not fair to me.

Nickie the first step in honesty is SELF-honesty. Changing that ticker is an ackowledgemnet that changes must be made for you to continue to lose in this program. Speaking of fairness, it is not fair to the newcomer to read about people cheating and not gaining any weight from it. That is sending the wrong message. Do what you want-but please consider these points.

[nickieluv]

Yes, cheating is over - done - no more. Moving forward.

Biki, I do understand your point. I'm not going to lie about having gained weight. I will post on roll call that I gained, and if anyone wants to know the whole saga I'll refer them here. And my graph at home will show a spike this week. But thinking about changing my ticker seems like more punishment to me. Mentally, to see it move up is going to just make me beat myself up every time I see it, until I am able to get below where it is right now. And I'm trying to stop hurting myself.

See, the ticker to me is not just a graphic - it represents the whole of my journey, whether that's good or bad. I put a lot of stock in it. Do I deserve to feel bad? Do I deserve to suffer every time I see that higher number? Normally I would say yes to both of those questions, but I'm trying to treat myself better than that. And really, it's not much different than gaining or losing during the week and not updating my ticker every day when that happens. Or stalling out for a few days and then on Sunday, showing a gain even though I've been compliant all week. I would not post a gain on Sunday in that situation - it would piss me off too much and make me feel like giving up. I'm choosing not to change it this week, and for however many weeks it takes to get me below it again. But I'm not trying to lie to anyone about what I've done.

Maybe when Sunday arrives I'll feel differently. This episode will be a few days in the past by then, and I might be able to disassociate from the number on the ticker the way I've tried to disassociate from the number on the scale, not letting it rule my mood or my day. I'm not sure. But at the moment, I can't handle moving my ticker up 8 pounds. It will depress me and not help me to do what I need to do, to get back on track, to see what is possible. I've let myself lose sight of my real goals for three days, choosing only to see what I'm missing out on instead. And now I'm missing out on feeling good - not feeling hungry - not being driven crazy by sugar highs and cravings. Discovering that I really do feel worse when I eat my so-called favorite foods is hopefully going to help me not to miss them.

I have officially passed over into 'thinking too much' territory. It's time to put the cheat behind me. I said I wouldn't come on here again today - I can't seem to stay away though. But I don't want to drive myself or anyone else nuts by hanging on to this. This was a blip. A bigger one, sure, but a blip. It does not define my commitment or my journey.

Here's to a long, long stretch of what I will heretofore call 'realistic compliance' - for me personally. Having 2 bars in a day if that's what I want. Even having an extra snack or shake if it will keep me from binging. Trying a bite of anything that leads me to think 'someday when I reach goal I can eat all of that I want' to realize that either a) it's worth waiting for or b) it's nothing special that I need to fantasize about. And on the vast majority of days - strict compliance according to all the rules. I am not recommending this as an official alteration to the plan - I don't have that power, anyway. But I need to stop knocking myself down before I've even started. Putting this out there, giving myself permission - I feel like it's what I need to do right now. And if it backfires and I am binging left and right, taking bites of everything around me even when I don't want it - then I will go back to being strict with myself. I have a feeling this new way is going to work better for me. And I will mark down bites, tastes, and deviations from strict compliance in my calendar so I can see patterns if they start to emerge.

OK, well, that's me for today. I have 35 minutes to start my project. Off I go.

[DonicaB]

Nickie~ It sounds like you are doing a good job of regrouping your thoughts. I know you will regain your strength to stay compliant. I've been following your journey and whether you realize it or not......you've have grown tremendously.

I only change my ticker on Sundays. I'm not sure why.....it just seems to be best for me. Even if I lose a pound on Monday......I don't change it until the following Sunday. But, that's just me.

Hang in there.......make today a good compliant day........and night too.

DonicaB