Fixing Emotional Eating

I'm on day 5 of my cleanse and so far I am feeling pretty much the same as before. No "symptoms", no headache or digestive issues, nothing weird going on. Absolutely no effect at all. The only thing even remotely different is that this morning I had no appetite and still don't. I am not nauseous or anything, I just don't feel like eating, so I had a protein shake instead. That works fine! It is a ten day cleanse so I will finish it up and see if anything is different. I did have a couple of comments and emails worrying that this was a "diet" but I want to assure you it is not. It is just herbs (Parasite Pro) that are noted for their anti-parasitic, cleansing properties. They're supposed to kill off anything bad you have living in your gut. Like I said before, I'm skeptical, but my friend had such great results I figured I'd give it a try. There is no change in eating involved. I just eat my pizza and ice cream and take a couple pills and everything is normal.

On Sunday I was back down 2 pounds to 250 again... just normal fluctuation from hormones, salt, foods eaten, etc. I have become non-reactive to the scale and it is such a good feeling! I did not have any difference in emotions when I was up 2 pounds to 252 or when I was down 2 pounds. It's all the same, I have no excitement or disappointment about the numbers. If I weighed tomorrow and saw 247 it would be no different than seeing 253. I don't "hope" I lose weight and I am not worried about gaining. Isn't that a wonderful freedom?

My eating is feeling natural and not disordered. There is no anxiety about it. If I want to make vegetable soup, I do that. If I feel like having a frozen eggroll, that's okay too! I have, over the past few weeks, STOPPED myself from even thinking about calories, protein, fat, carbs etc because my anxiety would rise when I got into that mindset. But now that things are calm, I am making calm decisions to make choices that are what I consider good for my health. For example I have started to lower my carb load in a way that does not feel restrictive to me (choosing root vegetables instead of grains, or choosing lower GI fruits, or picking healthier natural meats over things like processed sausage or deli meats). I am making these choices slowly and carefully and if I were to start feeling stressed I would just stop. I am training myself to have NO stress about food, diet, and weight. That is the most important thing to me!

This is something I have actually been working on for a year or so. Last winter I had decided to work on lowering my emotions around eating, and on NOT dieting. But it was hard, and I couldn't seem to REALLY believe I could be free from the diet mentality. I also was still stuck in that deep inner fear of being fat (forever) or fatter (than I have ever been) and deep down I believed that the ONLY way I would ever get to the weight I wanted to be was by some kind of diet or restriction. It was a step in the right direction (trying to calm down the ED about food) but I didn't go deep enough. It led me here, though, and this feels different than anything else I have ever done. I appreciate everyone who has been so supportive of me doing this, even though you might not understand it fully. I welcome questions. I don't have any written instructions for this; it's not like the Whole 30 or AIP where everything is written out for you and you follow X rules to get Y result. There is no mapped out course to recover from disordered eating alone. I am kind of winging it, but I have a lot of experience and knowledge about what has NOT worked and what MAY work and I am going with my gut, too, in a way. The bottom line is I refuse to be owned and driven by a number on the scale and by what everyone else thinks I "should" eat/do. It's my life and I am shaping it into what I want it to be. It may not be as fast with results on a scale as with other methods, but it is getting me results that others cannot see...permanent, meaningful, and healthy results.



Weight Loss