Help!!! There is yummy food in my house!
June 9, 2007
Even the in the aftermath of her return to Aussie yesterday…a half of an entire carrot cake that was left on my bench has now mysteriously disappeared. Well…maybe not ‘mysteriously’ GRRR…and the packet of icing covered biscuits, though only opened yesterday, has been shrinking in size gradually and only has about half of them left.
Its not like I have just piled the cake on a big plate, smothered it with cream, got my knife and fork and eaten it in one foul swoop…NO, its having it there sitting on my bench looking luscious and inviting and picking at it throughout the day, bit by bit, until to my shock…I go back and it is ALL gone! The same with the biscuits…biscuit packets should be made with claws so that every-time my hand dips in the bag the claws crunch down on it and I get bitten!!! Instead, now I have to suffer the gradual pain as I get on the scales and watch the pointer go up over the next few days.
Then there is my smoking…despite all good intentions to quit I have still been puffing like a chimney.
I keep on telling myself…there is always tomorrow, tomorrow is another day. In fact I have been encouraging y’all of that very thing…but I feel like a fraud this week I have had 7 tomorrow’s and still haven’t done any better. I made the same mistakes over and over. I justify it by saying..Well, its been a extraordinary week, I had a friend to stay, i had to be hospitable etc etc… But everyday…I had a choice, I didn’t HAVE to eat out so much…I didn’t HAVE to drink 2-3 glasses of alcohol every evening…I didn’t HAVE to puff, puff, puff and continue puffing, I could have stopped, could have said NO, could have chosen a salad instead of a bacon and egg pie etc.
I have to take ownership for what happened this week and bear the consequences of my own decisions. Instead of saying tomorrow is another day…maybe I should be saying NOW is an opportunity for me to be making a right decision…when I am dipping my hand into that biscuit packet, when I am two inches from sipping that glass of wine…when I am reaching for my lighter. Perhaps living a life of ‘tomorrows’ is not getting me anywhere because there is always and will always be ‘tomorrows’ but there is only one NOW!
My Best Friend/Worst Enemy?
May 31, 2007
Though I don’t know exactly why…there is something about going to a funky modern cafe and sitting in the window seat watching the world go by as other people go busily about their perfect lives…that calms me especially when mine is not so perfect.
My husband rings up and uses his usual manipulative and un-relenting tirades, I am feeling harassed, guilty, like its ALL my fault, even defeated, so I go to the cafe…
I find out my house is going to sell for a lot less then what we had first been quoted, I am scared, frustrated, I go to the cafe…
I am wracked in debt and the credit card companies come knocking, I have no idea where the next minimum payment is going to come from, I am scared, overwhelmed, so I go to the cafe…
I get on the scales and the digit hasn’t moved an inch I am feeling upset, frustrated, and again defeated so I go to the cafe…
I am behind in my studies…so far behind that it is hopeless to think that I will ever be able to catch up and I know its going to be another term I have failed, I am overwhelmed, again defeated, feeling like its all out of control, so I go to the cafe…
As soon as my life seems somehow out of my own control, Like I am falling into a bottomless pit and there is no-one there to catch me, I am alone, afraid, defeated, resigned to my fate, I go to the cafe.
It is usually always carrot cake and a hot mocha very rarely do I deter from my source. I don’t exactly know why?. In fact many a time, I have gone to the cafe and they haven’t had carrot cake available so I have walked out! That’s how important it is for me. I have always liked carrot cake it would have to be my favourite cake in the whole wide world and have only recently discovered mochas as an alternative to coffee.
I started eating carrot cake after one of my very first jobs started going sour. I was 17 and working at an Specialist Eye Clinic with stuffy doctors and ‘catty’ female work mates. It was the kind of environment where if you weren’t in the ‘click’ you were ousted at every opportunity and I just didn’t seem to fit into their ‘company culture’. Everything I did was wrong…even when I tried to use initiative and get ahead of my work, I got chastised by my supervisors…They would jump down my throat whenever I did anything wrong but never even acknowledge when I did most things RIGHT. This i believe was the start of my ‘breaking’ as a person and an optimistic visionary. You see…I had just returned from an amazing journey travelling solo around the world and spending 6 months in Africa voluntarily teaching in a school in one of the slum areas there but arriving back in Australia and starting work at this place in particular… from the first day, I felt boxed in with their expectations but the problem was; no matter I hard I tried I just never could live up to them. Needless, to say I hated every minute of it and every day I would go down to the nearby Hospital cafeteria and purchase…yes you guessed it Carrot Cake.
Lately, I don’t turn to chocolate…or perhaps I do in a way as there is chocolate syrup in a mocha…But in my head, chocolate is WRONG WRONG WRONG! If I eat chocolate, even a bite, I kick myself so hard…”Your a stupid idiot Flab you have just undone all the good you are trying to do”…As much as eating chocolate would probably send me straight back to the cafe for carrot cake and a mocha hehehe! I guess in this I am guilty of having a deprivation mentality. For me trips to the cafe have become a necessary evil. I justify cake cause hey…it’s flour and grated carrot…ok it probably has quite a bit of sugar and butter but at least it gives the illusion of ‘healthy’.
One thing I do need to mention…I usually don’t have a whole piece of carrot cake…Oh NO I couldn’t do that! I usually have the top half…with the icing. and give the rest to my kids or whoever happens to be with me at the time…I guess that’s where the lap-band kicks in. Cause a full 1/12th of cake fills me like a main meal in-fact even the half of the piece fills me. It is rare that I EVER have a whole piece especially when I have the mocha as well. But, on closer thought I don’t think it is so much the mocha and carrot cake as just the environment, and illusion of feeling like all is well with the world when I am sitting at the cafe…Its a reminder for me of another time long before…
Probably THE happiest times of my life… at university, 8 years ago, when, in-between subjects, I would meet my small select group of university mates at the on-campus cafe. There we would have a smoke and drink coffee occasionally share a slice of something (if we could afford it that day)…We would joke, laugh, tease each other, dream of our wonderful futures…They accepted me and I them. We were a strange bunch really, a cigar smoking blond, a recently out gay man, a Chinese exchange student, and the coloured girl with identity issues…ME! But that time of my life was pretty well perfect. I was young, full of vision, and passion I was going to change the world. I wasn’t pretending…just being myself and doing great at UNI…straight ‘A’ student actually. I even got an invitation to the ‘Golden Key International Honours Society’. The world was my oyster and I was going to do and experience everything. Its funny really, its the only time in my whole life where I can remember that I actually felt completely ‘Happy’…sitting outside that same old cafe with all my friends smoking, drinking coffee and feeling complete. I wish I was that girl again…but adulthood and pain reared its ugly head. I realise I can never go back…just forward and its up to me to make the most of what I have now which does include two very important new additions in my life…my kids.
So I cant pinpoint exactly WHY carrot cake and a mocha. But I believe going to the cafe is more of a ‘lifestyle’ thing A. It gets me and the kids out of the house; B. It makes me feel like all is ok with the world and ALL is going to be ok with me; C. and the Carrot Cake they make Is damn yummy!
Re: The War with Food
May 25, 2007
Hi Everyone
What Ms Flabuless is going through is probably similar to what many of you go through and feel on a daily basis. This same problem afflict many of my clients and is one that is initially difficult to change. It is soooo difficult every day just to survive and avoid temptation in our world, as every day we are bombarded with up to 200 messages from the media, food companies, governments and the likes that constantly conflict. One message will tempt you to eat and the next message will tell you that you are putting your health at risk or that you don’t conform to society norm. As a result we begin to play this tug-of-war inside our own heads. At times it may feel as though you have a split personality - one personality tricks you into eating (the devil or child) and the other personality will be trying to fight against this urge (the angel or adult), and then after you have eaten you have the guilt or critical/judgemental personality. These personalities fight against each other more and more and rebel against each other with greater intensity (big binges, long binges) if you reform to a restrictive or deprivation mentality. By this I mean, depriving or restricting yourself for long periods of time until you can no longer take the deprivation and the emotional builder up gets so strong that you blow up like a volcano and you impulsively binge or go on unhealthy eating binges for weeks on end or stop activity for weeks on end. This is why, when you go out (away from your controlled home environment) you are hypersensitive to the signs and signals of food and feel overwhelmed and compulsed to eat.
So the first step in the battle is to first identify that you have an addiction. Many of you are using food for other reasons than for nutrition and energy. So you need to identify what your relationship with food is, in certain circumstances. For example, you may use ice cream, chocolate, chips etc to destress you when you feel stressed or anxious; you may use pizza or hot chips to comfort you when you feel lonely. The more awareness you have into the situations, emotions and foods you use the more power you have.
The next step is to find out where your emotional attachment to food came from and why. For example, one of my clients always binged on chips and chocolate at the end of the day. She could not pinpoint why it ‘had to be’ chips and chocolate until one day she had the light-bulb moment that her Grandfather would pick her up from school and he would buy her chips and chocolate. From that moment on, she was able to change her emotional attachment to the food and move past it. Over a 4 week period, we decreased the frequency and amounts of the food while we worked on other strategies and emotions until she no longer needed the food. She lost 30kg/66pounds within 6 months just by doing this.
It is important for you to learn how to control food and be able to have a small amount of indulgent food 2 or 3 times a week. So instead of buying a family block of chocolate and eating it in one sitting or one day, buy a small freddo frog or snack mars bar and have that. Eat it slowly and savour the taste. Many of you may find this a strange concept initially however, if you try this you will find that you will begin to lose weight without effort and rebellion and of course guilt and disgust.
Homework -
Step 1) Identify your relationship with food - write down the foods, the emotions and the situations in which you use the food
Step 2) Identify the initial/significant emotional attachment event that lead to you using particular foods in particular situations (as above)
Step 3) Identify whether you have a restrictive or deprivation mentality (and is this one of the reasons you binge?)
Step 4) Slowly reduce the amount of food you use in an emotional eat eg. instead of a large packet of chips, have a small one; instead of a family size block of chocolate, have a small bar
Step 5) Reduce the frequency of emotional overeating, binges or unhealthy food eating
Step 6) Develop new strategies to replace food - we will do more of this over the next few weeks.
I hope this helps and good luck.
“We create our own world with the ingredients we put into it, so take care with your recipe”- Greg Phillips
“If you want to change what you are doing you must first change what you are thinking”- Greg Phillips
The War with Food
May 25, 2007
I walk down the street and the smell of freshly baked bread from the local bakery assaults my nostrils. I walk past the cafe and a parade of cakes, slices, biscuits, and all sorts of yummy delights jump up and down, begging me to save them from the rubbish bin (their fate, at the end of the day, if not sold)…I go into the grocery store and even after I have manage to walk past the dairy section, ice cream freezers, chips, and lollies sections I finally get to the counter to purchase my goods and my hand accidentally bumps a packet of chocolate coated turkish delight balls…What’s a girl to do?… and then on my way home again I smell, I see, I struggle to conquer.
Dieting would be so much easier if I could just stay home 24/7 and get my carefully ordered groceries delivered there without having to step out. But life’s not like that I guess…too easy. so every day I battle this war. Some days I win, some days I don’t, but there is always another day and if the worst comes to the worst, the ‘Elliptical Trainer’ in my parents garage.
Re: Reinventing the Wheel
May 22, 2007
Hi Everyone. I wanted to say hi and I am really looking forward to working online with Ms Flabuless. This is a very unique experience for all involved and hopefully, it will be of great value to you and will help to show you how you can begin to deal with similar issues and change your lives. Becky has plateaued in her progress and this is normal (and no doubt many of you are there or have been there) and this can be a very frustrating time. So, how do we move past a plateau? We up the intensity on everything - mind and body (nutrition and activity). So now Becky will be challenged and confronted with issues that may be painful and difficult to move past however, she is willing to do this to help the Find Flabuless community. I encourage you to participate in our live online events where Becky and I will answer your questions and as this is where you will get the most out of the experience, for you. I look forward to guiding and helping Becky and all of you and I look forward to learning as much as possible from all of you. I am a ‘blogging virgin’ so this is definitely a new experience for me so already, I am learning something from this experience.
Bye and until next time - ‘challenge yourself to one thing every day that moves you towards where you want to be and who you want to be’.
Recent Comments