When I say that the program I am in is diverse, I certainly mean it. They are looking after my mind and my body. While the body side hasn’t really started yet (I’m waiting for the next open slot), the mind side is well underway.

Yesterday I took part in my first stress management class. While the content wasn’t much of anything that I didn’t already know (causes of stress, responses to stress, etc), it was a lesson in being in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people. It was very upsetting at first, but I settled in quickly. I have always loved taking classes and learning.

One quick tip I did learn that seems to be going well for taking down anxiety and stress is to step back from the situation just long enough to give it a rating out of ten. Just pausing to think about the situation objectively like that can make it easier to calm down. Or, at least, to start calming down.

I was kind of amused (and a little bit disturbed) that on our break, most of the people went and got a coffee. I was thinking, “Hello, we’re in a stress management course and you’re drinking coffee?” As it turns out, some people geniunely didn’t know that caffeine can make stress symptoms worse.

All in all, I’m very happy. I feel like I’m in the right place where I’m going to set the groundwork I need.

When I was a child, I always prided myself on keeping my promises. While eating was the one thing I could control day in and day out, I still had the occasional opportunity to make a promise – and keep it.

On Sunday, I made a promise. And while I don’t want to keep it at this moment, I still hold to that childhood pride of never breaking a promise.

I swore to you that I would take a picture of everything I put in my mouth. The two times I haven’t been able to, it was because I didn’t have my camera with me and because of weird disappearing pictures. (I took the picture; it’s just not on my memory card…)

But there is something I didn’t take a picture of, and it’s not because of technical difficulties.

I’m a binge eater. I don’t say that as an excuse so much as a preface that I hope will help you to understand.

You see, when I talk about my binge eating experiences, it’s always my fear that people won’t stand the utter loss of control when it comes to a binge.

When I was making brownies last night, I binged. I binged not in terms of size but in terms of the lack of control. I made the brownies… and lost control. My logical mind knew I didn’t actually want the brownies, I couldn’t stop myself from licking the spatula. From eating not one, but two spoonfuls of brownie mix.

Two spoonfuls of brownie mix, not huge in size but huge in the amount of guilt it gives me. Huge in how I am reminded that my binge eating rises from emotional issues that won’t just go away if I don’t deal with them. Huge in reminding me that I have come a long way, but I have a long way to go.

Now that I’ve typed it, I’m not sure why I was feeling so afraid of typing this here. It’s all part of the journey, after all, and the emotional blow it has dealt me won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

It began not as a decision but as a single acknowledgment.

I’m eating because I’m emotional.

The thought didn’t stop me. I still ate. But it did give me pause.

The next time it happened, I thought: I’m eating because I’m bored.

That time, it did stop me. I acknowledged that I wasn’t hungry, just bored. So I didn’t eat. Again, I didn’t think about it much past the acknowledgment and action.

What started out as such a small event has now snowballed into something I think about nearly every time I consider putting something in my mouth. Sometimes the thought stops me from eating, sometimes it doesn’t. The thoughts vary.

I’m eating because I want comfort.
I’m eating to punish myself. (I really dislike feeling full.)
I’m eating because it tears me up when The Bloke is feeling down and I can’t make him feel better.

I’m eating because I’m afraid.

More often than not lately, all of these thoughts have come together in a jelly mass of:

I’m eating because something is missing.

I live in a new country where I am safe, have a home, have enough to eat, have an amazing husband I love with every ounce of me, get to work doing what I love even though I don’t always make much…

What could possibly be missing?

That’s the question I am stuck with as I try to get past all the triggers that make me want to eat. It’s something I’ve had on my mind nearly constantly, sometimes depressing me and sometimes inspiring to get ‘out there’ and ‘do more’.

The more I have been thinking about it, the more I know that fear is what is keeping me from discovering what it is that I need to do to shake my dependence on food to try to fill that gap.

Perhaps I need to get out in the world and take some classes to meet new people.

Perhaps I need to join a club, day-travel more, get lost or do other things that make me nervous.

Or perhaps I need to stop worrying about whether people will believe me or whether I’ll cause trouble and finally do what I have been aching to do ever since I moved to Australia:

Stand on the rooftops and scream, “I left because I was being abused!”

Perhaps.

All I have at the moment is the knowledge that I eat because something is missing – and that missing part is clouded by a whole lotta fear.

Sometimes it amazes me that we can be told things hundreds of times over, but we will only truly *get* things in our own time.

For instance, I have been hearing ‘don’t treat your body as your enemy’ for a long time now, but only now am I really feeling like my body is something I need to love and cherish. Partly that is due to me considering my own mind to be the enemy in getting healthy, but it’s also partly because I needed that time to come to it of my own inner knowledge.

If there is only one other thing I feel I have truly learned at this point, it is that, in the end, we need to do what is right for us.

We cannot forever listen to the diet gurus, the meal plans, the dietitians and the naturopaths. At some time, it comes down to what works for our individual bodies, all of which differ in many amazing ways.

Like nearly everyone who has ever tried to lose weight, I have tried plenty of different things. Many silly things, many dangerous things and many completely safe things that just plain didn’t work. I’ve tried cleanses, pills, plans, replacements, etc. Some… well, some I regret ever putting my body through. While others had their time and place, and I am thankful for giving them a go.

With mostly raw eating, I feel like I have found what is right for me.

You may have recalled me saying the same thing with meal replacements. I don’t despite that. Earlier this year, meal replacements were exactly what I needed to start losing weight, to start taking control of my binging and to start taking control of my life in general. I occasionally have a meal replacement for breakfast still because I have a hard time eating breakfast.

And now I have moved on to what I need now, which is something that gives me peace and happiness.

If you’re struggling right now, feeling like nothing works for you, I encourage you to please keep going. You may not feel like it now, but you really are worth it. You are an amazing, unique individual and you will find what you need to maintain not only a health body but a healthy mind and soul as well.

Well, the raw food eating isn’t going quite as I thought, but it’s only day three. Not exactly a huge thing. But, I have incorporated even more fruit and vege into my diet.

Not only have I done that, I have stopped all suppliments, medications (don’t worry, it’s nothing I need to live or anything even close to that), etc. (Except birth control because I at least need to finish up the month with it. I’m not going to screw with my body like that.) I had this overwhelming feeling that my body needed a break from everything chemical, etc. Even the herbal pills I was taking to help digestive processes.

My body told me in no uncertain terms that it needed a break and that is what I am giving it.

Pair that with the increase in raw stuff, and my body is sighing the pleasurable sigh a woman sighs when she sinks into a hot bath after a long day…

My stress levels are still a hiccup in the total health I’m trying to achieve, but I have been working on that as well as all the other stuff.

With all this, I am feeling more relaxed overall, feeling more rested – even though I’m still sleeping too much – and my headaches actually leave me in peace every now and then.

Who would have thought things could start helping so quickly?

I’ve started reading the book Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories by Lorraine Clissold not because I want to stop counting calories – I never have and never will – but because, while flipping through the book, I saw that Clisshold addressed more than just calorie consumption…

I’ve known that my (and Western culture’s) approach to food has always been wrong. Not innately wrong, but definitely steering away what the approach to food should be. I’ve also been searching for things to help me deal with the stress and emotional issues in my life.

Already, on the first page of the first chapter, I have had to stop to contemplate.

“When you eat, you should not worry.” – Sun Si Miao (581 -682 AD)

You may think I’m fairly easily impressed if the first quote of the book gives me pause, but… well… I don’t care if you do.

Sun Si Miao’s statement struck me as something so simple and yet so profound. Why? Because almost every overweight person always worries when they eat. Especially when it comes to binging.

“Should I be having this?” “I shouldn’t be having this.” “How badly is this going to reflect on the scale tomorrow?” “I wonder if this will go to my hips or my butt…” “Here we go again. I’m failing. I’m going to have to start the diet all over again.”

I have worried so incredibly often when I’ve eaten. Back when I hid my binge eating, I always worried I would be caught. Even after that, there were worries that I wasn’t making the healthiest choice of meal or worrying whether I would regret this particular treat in the morning.

How much nicer would life be if we could take a stance of acceptance instead of worry?

“Okay, so I had that brownie. I enjoyed it. I accept that. Back to the usual tomorrow.”

When I talked about the certain kind of peace last week, this is the kind of thing I was talking about – acceptance. And yet, I still never connected it with the nearly incessant worry I have done with so many meals.

I haven’t beaten the habit by any means, but I am going to keep trying to stop worrying less while I’m eating so I can simply enjoy the nourishment I’m putting into my body.

I have a feeling this book is going to make me pause and think a lot about things as I’m reading it. If they are all as meaningful and motivating as this simple quote, I will come out a much better person in the end.

Have you ever been going along just fine, things have been going well and suddenly you just lose the plot?

I feel like I have lost the plot with my weight loss lately.

I don’t know if it’s just a funk I am in lately or all the stress that has happened with the site switches and everything. Or maybe it’s just that I’m very sensitive and the fact that ALL my girlfriends are in a moody funk right now is getting to me.

I tell myself I won’t gain the weight back. And I know, on some level, that I won’t. But I’ve still gained this week and I don’t like it one bit.

The thing that pisses me off a bit is the fact that I’ve been pretty good. I haven’t been perfect, but most of my indulgences have come in the form of yummy hummus, having a veggie burger on bread instead of just alone.

Of course, tomorrow the husband and I are heading out on an overnighter. It shouldn’t be a big deal food wise (the place we’re going to has fantastic food, but it’s good, natural food) but food is still a stress to lately.

I can handle two days. Easy. But I know that when we get back, I need to go through the cupboards, get rid of anything detrimental to my health objectives, stock up on my meal replacement stuff and, most importantly, get back to exercising.

For now I’m just going to try not to stress about it too much. I’ve still lost more weight than I ever have. I just need to get a grip on things before I go back to my big pants…