Escaping the Prison

N

NotWaving

New member
Female, 5’7â€, 60 years old. Need to reach 10 stone.

A lifetime of failed diets behind me so this one will be simple. No planning, no exercise until I’m several stones thinner, just taking each moment (and meal) as it comes.

Wednesday 11th April: 16.4
Thursday 12th April: 16.1

I don’t believe in positive thinking and have no expectations of this working, but would be grateful if I can record my weight loss and thoughts here as I think it would help. It certainly helps me to read other people's stories here. It's so good to keep company with others on the same journey.

I never look in mirrors or at my own reflection because I can’t accept what I’ve let myself become. But yesterday, for the first time, it’s not that I saw myself for the first time (I didn’t strip naked and look at myself in a mirror) but I *felt* what I’d done to myself. I became aware of *me* as if trapped inside a huge prison of fat that I’d made for myself. That prison has turned me into someone who avoids human contact as much as possible, and push away anyone who cares about me, and I wondered how I’d ever come to hate and punish myself so much.

Today I’ve started to work on escape. It's like taking a teaspoon to concrete so it will take a long time to break down the walls of the prison, but at least the only person trying to stop me will be me.

So I don’t want to record my meals or exercise routine as keeping that kind of diary has never helped me in the past. I just want to record my weight loss and thoughts about food and to try and discover what made me either support or sabotage my past diets. I don't need advice about nutrition - I need to discover what it is inside me that has stopped me from losing weight in the past.

No one else is to blame.

Thanking you.
 
Friday 13th April: 15.13

2 lbs lost since yesterday. 5 lbs lost in two days.

It will be mostly water loss for the first week.


Yesterday I just ate small amounts of anything I wanted, and ate it very slowly. I'm avoiding gluten, processed foods, diet books, diet foods and anything low-fat (none of that worked for me in the past). Trying to keep things simple and will not be following anyone else's rules. Just want to listen to my own body for a change instead of what 'experts' tell me what to do. We're all so different so I can't see that any one rule can work for everyone. Barring eating less, of course.


I'm trying to find that *me* underneath all the fat and follow what she wants. I haven't listened to her in decades. I think I forgot she even existed, but whoever she is, she's got to be a better person than the one she evolved into as she built her fat fortress. I don't want to be that person anymore, but I'm not sure it's possible to return to the one I was.


I'm trying to still my mind and listen. To be aware of what I choose to eat, how much I eat, and how and where I eat. But most of all, why. Unless I'm physically hungry I should not eat. I managed this yesterday and ate much less than usual.
 
Hey well done on the loss so far, i wouldnt be weighing myself every day though, can lead to an unhealthy obsession!! Cant wait to read the rest of the updates from your diary!!



xx
 
Thanks Irishprincess :)


Know what you mean about not weighing oneself daily, but I've weighed in weekly in the past and that hasn't helped either. Mostly though I'm adding to the diary daily to record my behaviour towards food, and noting the weight lost as an aside. I won't get discouraged by recording pounds lost or gained as I don't have any specific goals outside of losing weight over time, no matter how slowly.


Right now I'm running into the garden with a camera to take my thoughts away from mindless eating. It's also inconvenient and messy to eat and take photos at the same time ;)


Well done on your own weight loss too :)


NW
 
Saturday 14th April: 15.12

1 lb lost since yesterday. 6 lbs lost in three days.


Offspring treated me to fish and chips and a box of chocolates yesterday. I was satisfied with half of the fish and chips but went into a bit of a trance over the chocolates and kept eating them when I was no longer enjoying them. Still lost a pound.


Offspring refused to take the rest of the chocolates out of the house today. Probably for the best. Treating some foods like an enemy that's too dangerous and tempting to be near is giving them too much power over me. Thinking that way will just reinforce the idea that I'm helpless in the face of temptation and ensure that I'll overindulge the next time I'm alone with a large amount of high calorie treats.


So I'm going to be at home alone all day and night with half a box of chocolates ;)


Throwing them in the bin, as I've often done to sweet foods in the past, feels like admitting my fear of them and lack of self control. My mum kept a trim figure into her eighties and used to keep a box of chocolates going for about a month without ever finishing them off in one lot. I want to be like her.


They're in the next room. I'm not into total self-denial. I'll eat sensibly today and allow myself four chocolates this evening. In the past I've binged occasionally and always crammed as much food down me as possible. It was a mixture of self-punishment and a bizarre way of getting rid of temptation by swallowing it all. In later years I used the binning method to get rid of excess binge foods.


Me vs. the chocolate box. Update tomorrow :)
 
Good luck! i do weight myself every day and find it to be a great confidence booster! I'm looking forward to following your progress!
 
Hi Let's Go, and many thanks for the best wishes
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I totally agree that weighing-in daily is a confidence booster. I weigh myself daily as it helps me work out what I've done right or wrong the day before and quickly stops me going off-track. I also went digital and weigh myself in pounds. My scales also register quarter pounds and it motivates me even if I've only lost four ounces overnight :)


I think it's a personal thing though. Some people get discouraged by small daily variations in weight and weekly weigh-ins work best for them. I don't have any weekly target weights or any date set for reaching an ultimate goal, so while the trend is down overall I'm happy.


NW
 
Sunday 15th April: 15.12

0 lbs lost since yesterday. 6 lbs lost in four days.


I won! Chocolate box lost ;) I just had four as planned and the rest stayed uneaten.


However, I was bested by an uncontrollable desire to add far too much butter to my home-made lentil and bacon soup. I also ended up drinking tons of water because of the sudden carb-overload and feel like a water bed this morning. Unsurprisingly, no weight loss overnight.


Enjoyable day home with Offspring planned today so it will be another high-carb, high-fat one, but I'll be eating everything slowly and stopping the moment I feel full. I'll probably do a couple of lowish-carb, high-veg days to follow and lose all that water.


Hope you're all having a good weekend.


NW
 
Congrats on the weight loss so far! :)


I really like your idea of vs box of chocolates. I am going to try that but my stomach is actually filling with the apprehension of saying no but you are right; now I think about it throwing it away or hiding them isn't really building our self-discipline. Yesterday I went to a salon and although I am unhappy with my body even though I know I'm attractive it never really hit me how big I was until I SAT in front of that mirror with a healthy young woman stood behind...


You have inspired me to weigh in daily although I didn't before I am going to also take a picture a day standing and sitting and turn it into a flick book of sorts! For my eyes only!


Thank you so much and I wish you all the best!


NorN :)
 
Good morning NorN
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It's strange how we see ourselves. Avoiding my reflection as much as possible has been my way of not facing just how fat I've become. It's not exactly denial because I avoid going out in public as much as I can (which is a lot) as I feel so self-conscious about my weight, but I just don't want to face the actual reality of the way I look - I don't want to know how I look to others.


Our eyes just look out and away from our bodies, mostly. Mirrors force us to confront the truth. But I wonder if we do see ourselves as we appear to others? Anorexics famously fail to see the reality of their frail bodies, so maybe we don't see ourselves truly.


I love your excellent idea of making a weight loss flick book!


Onwards and downwards
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NW
 
Tuesday 17th April: 15.12
Total weight lost this week: 6 lbs

Treat day with Offspring on Sunday and a very large Irish Stew yesterday followed by four chocolates meant that I’ve stayed at 15.12 for the last two days. But I consider that a victory as I ate exactly what I wanted, really enjoyed my food, and maintained my 6 lb weight loss for the week.

A week gone now and I’m starting to think about what I’m eating. I have a choice between calorie counting and low-fat foods or eating my favourite foods in small portions.

Since I’m the only one responsible for making this prison of fat I must have been punishing myself for something. If I am to succeed in breaking out of the prison I must forgive myself and treat myself well. I really hate most low-calorie/low-fat/diet foods and to force myself to eat them would just be more punishment - I never lasted on past diets because the food was so awful and I could never have accepted that as a diet for life.

So for the next week I’ll continue to eat whatever I most want. I’ve studied nutrition in the past but don’t want to see foods as ‘bad’ or ‘good’: that kind of thinking made me completely neurotic in the past. I’m done with whipping myself for getting fat. I want to look forward to my meals and to savour them - not see them as prison rations. This time the only enemy for me will be in overindulgence, not food choices as such.

It may or may not work, but I’m experimenting on myself and my weight at the end of next week will help me decide whether to change my tactics or not.

I’ve spent too many years hating my body and imposing one diet or another on it without result. This lack of trust in myself has prevented me from losing weight. It’s as if I cut the mind-body connection when I was around the age of 19 (I was 9.7 then). This time I want my mind to make contact with my body again. To still my mind and listen to the older wisdom of the body. I want to learn what it wants to eat and how much.

It’s really helping to write thoughts down here. I’ve decided to write at the beginning and end of each day from now on. It helps me keep aware of what I’m doing and not drift into mindless eating. Reading other people’s diet diaries stops me feeling hungry, oddly enough. Grateful thanks to everyone who takes the time to share their journey.

NW
 
I did a lot of thinking today about the way I think and talk about my body and food. This is a bit of a fragmented rant continuing on from my last post, but writing it down has taken my mind off food all day.

I’ve created these metaphors of imprisonment, escape and punishment to express how I feel about being fat, which isn’t far from the diet industries’ way of talking about dieting as war, of fighting temptation and battling against our wayward appetites.

The metaphors are so common that most of us don’t even notice them, but I’m wondering how they influence the way we feel and behave towards food and dieting.

If I try to banish the fat and whip myself into shape then dieting will just be a continuation of the punishment and will reinforce the idea that I’m a weak person. Maybe if I just decide to gently let it go it won’t seem like such a hard thing to do.

I don’t want to have to have to use up so much energy exerting continual control over my body as if it’s some wild animal that will consume me.

I don’t want to see any foodstuffs as dangerous. All this stuff about “sinful foods†and “guilt†just makes me feel even worse about myself when I “failâ€.

Most of all I don’t want to see my own body and mind as the enemy to be defeated. How can I listen to my body’s normal internal body cues if I see it as the enemy?

To be at war with myself for so many years has taken its toll. To ‘fail’ at dieting so many times doesn’t encourage me to believe that I can ever ‘win’.

If I fear my body now, I’m still going to fear it when I’m thin.

I stopped listening to my body and started using food as medication a long time ago. To see myself as an addict renders me powerless and in need of outside help....unable to do it myself. I don’t want to conquer my cravings, I just want to understand them and learn to distinguish true hunger from other emotional needs. Knowing what to eat isn’t my problem. Knowing when to stop is.

In general foods aren’t intrinsically completely ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Overindulgence is the problem. For every ‘good’ food touted by the experts I can find something ‘bad’ to say about it. And in the end it depends on whether I want a large amount of diet foods or a smaller amount of everyday food. Either will get me thin in the end.

This idea pushed by the diet industry that mind has to win out over body is exhausting. I’m wondering if so many years of thinking about it that way made it seem true. I want my mind and body to work together for a change - equal partners. My body is older and stronger than my mind. I need its co-operation over the coming year to repair the damage I’ve done to it in the past.

So I hereby declare a truce. I’m going to trust my body from now on and treat it gently.

NW
 
Hi NW,


Sorry i havnt commented in awhile (ive had alot of reading to do!)


i agree 100% with you RE "Good Foods and Bad Foods" its so easy to do with ANY food, I had to get over this problem as well as i found that when i classed foods like that after i "felt like i lost" i would think "whats the point" and give up.\


You doing really well keep up the good work!
 
Originally Posted by Lets go


Hi NW,



Sorry i havnt commented in awhile (ive had alot of reading to do!)



i agree 100% with you RE "Good Foods and Bad Foods" its so easy to do with ANY food, I had to get over this problem as well as i found that when i classed foods like that after i "felt like i lost" i would think "whats the point" and give up.\



You doing really well keep up the good work!
Click to expand...


Thanks so much for the support This time I’m determined to just keep going regardless of any stones along the way. This awareness thing is really helping.

Well done for getting over the problem. Food is just food. Acting as if it has actual power over us is setting ourselves up for failure. Looking at it from the outside the way we relate to food is positively psychotic sometimes. There we are - representing the so-called pinnacle of conscious evolution - scared of a plate of nutrients!

NW
 
Yesterday was interesting. Revenge of the chocolate box time ;) After confidently saying that dealing with other people tempting us into over-eating was simply a matter of just saying “no†I found myself saying “yes†instead.

I didn’t put any weight on, but didn’t lose any either. I managed to stay aware of what I was eating and ate much less than I normally would whilst still enjoying every bite. But it was still past the point where I felt full. Working towards becoming more aware of what I’m eating is slowly leading to a change in behaviour, as I’d hoped it would.

However, I’ve been thinking about how I came to say “yes†when I really wanted to say “no†and how to avoid it happening again. I wasn’t even hungry when she offered to get the Chinese or opened that box of chocolates. So why did I say “yes� I"m thinking that it's because I still equate sharing treat foods with her as part of all the good times we've had together.

Offspring still lives with me and we love each other’s company. She’s within the “normal†range BMI-wise so doesn’t have a need to lose weight and she makes her own food choices. We’ve always enjoyed sharing treat foods together, but from a very early age I taught her how to stop when she was full and never to feel guilty about leaving food on her plate.

I thought of asking her to help me say “no†but have decided against it. To do that just reinforces the idea that I can’t do this without someone else policing my actions. She never waves food in my face, and if I say “no†she accepts that without trying to talk me into overindulging.

In the end she didn’t “tempt†me. It would be unfair of me to blame my lack of self-discipline on her. If I’m going to lose the weight this time I have to take full responsibility for all my actions. There are, of course, people in this world who deliberately try to sabotage other people’s diets, but that’s not what she’s doing. We all have to live in a world where other people eat around us, so I need to learn how to deal with that instead of just apeing the actions of those around me.

So what’s the hardest part? The idea of sitting on the couch watching TV whilst the person sitting next to you is munching on food you’d really like to have but are not actually hungry for. Funny how the aroma of the food seems so much more intense, and the sound of them eating so much louder ;)

I’m going to try various tactics the next time it happens. I might say “no†and find something I can eat without stalling my weight loss, or I can try to just have a couple of bites of whatever she’s having and chew them very slowly. I’ll experiment.

If anyone else has found ways to deal with this problem without trying to alter the behaviour of others I’d be very grateful to pick up some tips :)

NW

Wednesday 18th April: 15.12

6 lbs lost in 7 days
 
i tend to eat when im bored...i work in car sales DOESNT help, anyway if i see some body eating something i like i have a drink of water, if still after 10 15 minutes im still hungry i have a peice of fruit, i find the feeling of eating SOMETHING works better than trying to ignore what there eating.


i work with alot of people that spent the first few weeks trying to get me to eat fast food, drink beer, eat pies etc...i have given up all alcohol (the easiest part of my diet i think). in the end when they have finished eating the food cravings i get are gone and i feel alot happier for it.


Stay strong, i believe in you your doing well!
 
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