As many of you know, my mom is showing up today or tomorrow, to spend the weekend and sort her stuff.
I've realized that she is one of the triggers that contributed to my weight gain, initially. It was a way to rebel against my parents and to, ironically, have control over my own body.
I was picking up the raisins, the chocolate, etc which I tend to leave out in my normal life, because I know she'll make some smart-ass comment, because she seems to beleive I should only eat leafy greens and fish and chicken until I'm thin. (yes I still have some frustration).
Another trigger for me was self-protection from bad relationships. I knew I never had good relationship skills, so I gained the weight and blamed the bad quality of the men I attracted on the weight. It was also an excuse for why men tended to treat me as a "buddy".
Granted, right now I am dealing with the mom trigger, simply because she is coming. I want to wear big baggy clothes and hide myself from her...I need some coping armor for dealing with her!!!!!!!
I am going to wear things I know are flattering, and am going to take a walk or retreat to my room, if need be. I'm going to try to plan something to do, she is going to be in the basement most of the time. I have choir tomorrow night, and I have a free ticket for two for "shopgirl" tonight.
I do have coping skills. I'll get out the garden planning books, and talk to her about some of my ideas... and I will not accept any furniture of hers I do not want!
I know just thinking about this is giving me a lot of stress.... but she has been a trigger in the past, and she will no longer be a trigger, I will not allow her that luxury.
I will overcome!!!!!
What were your triggers for the weight gain, and how are you overcoming them?
STRESS of any kind can trigger overeating for me. I do know that as a child I was petite and then at about 10 a life altering experience caused me to start "sneak" eating. I vividly remember the first time I did it...oh, how sad.
3 years ago I realized that I was the only one who could get me healthy and happy and content with life. At the time dh was in a deep depression, but I needed to be the best I could be in order to stay sane.
There are times when I feel that I always have to be the one in the relationship who is "in control" during stressful times. When this happens I get frustrated and that is when I tend to overindulge the most.
I believe this lifestyle is a Live It and each experience gives me new ammo to deal with similar situations down the road.
Kat
Goal: Exercise at least 3 times per week.
Remember the positives.
Get the munchies under control!
Posts: 1068 | Location: Mount Vernon, WA | Registered: July 03, 2005
One way I try to combat it... If I am wanting to binge on fast food. I just imagine like the food I'm eating is essentially pouring vegetable oil down my throat, or how sick I will feel afterwards, but not be able to get sick, or I remember the icky smell that's in my vehicle the next day and takes at least a couple of days to dissapate.
The big baggy clothes... I wore last Friday. I went to see a former manager and I didn't want her to see the weight loss or bring it up even though the outfit just hangs on me like clothes on a hanger.... if my pants were any looser, they would have fallen off. I was afraid our conversation would turn to my current boss or other issues w/the projects at hand. She can be fair at times, but she is critical of anyone outside of her group. Her group is perfect.... um please..... I didn't want the extra attention. Luckily, I don't interface with her as much as I used to.
I do have clothes which fit better, but I feel so self conscious when I wear them. It's just hard. The only thing I am pretty happy about, is that I work mostly with men...and they don't say anything.
hheheheehe
Summer Se7en Challenge Goals
1. Binge control: no more than 2 times per week 2. Think positive and give credit for all the little successes 3. Go swimming
[QUOTE]Originally posted by GoingSkiing: I get to the check out counter and the clerk is all happy and says, "Go get another roll! They are on sale - buy one, get one free!" I say, "NO thank you. I don't want two. I really don't need two." QUOTE]
This happens to me on a regular basis at our market and I always have to "fight" too ; )
Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.
Originally posted by Sandy: Here goes me thought process: They were on sale- 3 for $4.00
True confession time.
About a month ago I wanted some raw cookie dough... BAD!
So I decide I'm going to buy a log of Toll House and eat 3 cookies worth and throw the rest away.
I get to the check out counter and the clerk is all happy and says, "Go get another roll! They are on sale - buy one, get one free!" I say, "NO thank you. I don't want two. I really don't need two."
This totally throws the clerk and the lady behind me. They start telling me how I can freeze one log or I can bake them and freeze them. And the whole time I'm refusing to go get my free log. I'm trying to explain that don't need all those cookies and actually, I really don't even want the whole first log... but it isn't possible to 1/6th of a log.
They can not understand how I can pass up a free roll of cookie dough.
I ended up giving the lady behind me my free roll, which made her very happy. It also made the clerk happy that I wasn't "wasting" my buy one, get one free "deal".
I did come home and weighed out 3 cookies worth and did throw the rest away, but I really had to defend my right to pay full price for the log of dough.
Originally posted by Sandy: For example, I recently bought 3 packages of Whole Grain Goldfish crackers. Here goes me thought process:
I LOVE hearing your thought process...
quote:
I am not at all making light of what you all brought up. I have certainly hidden behind my fat at many levels. I have deep and ugly family issues that involve food.
Yep... I've got deep-y deep thoughts and wonder about my family history of alcohol and drug abuse and how my drug combo of choice is a cocktail of white flour, sugar and transfats with some healthful cocoa mixed in... in the form of frosting works well. But I wonder about nature and nurture and stuff like that...
But day to day, the stress involves that profound question, "Shall I eat at Taco Bell today? Shall I have a cheese quesadilla and/or a Mexican Pizza? Or shall I eat at home?"
As some of you mentioned, I am generally ok wiht the big visits even when I get revered up and stressed about them. It is the day in and day out stressors that can do me in. For example, I recently bought 3 packages of Whole Grain Goldfish crackers. Here goes me thought process: They were on sale- 3 for $4.00 They have no trans fats They are mostly whole grain They make easy snacks. They keep forever.
I did NOT allow myslef to hear the important stuff like: I am too stressed when I have cheese cracker ANYTHING in the house. Dd doesn't care much about them- would rather have a yogurt or applesauce or pudding. I am the one who cares about them. I end up giving in to them eventually.
Now I have spend my $4.00 and have 3 packages in the pantry. UUGH!
These are the real stressors in my life. When I am in line with food, exercise, mental outlook and sleep, I can handle my mom's questions or my sister's whatever.
I have to get rid of them! I hate this when I do this to myself. I will not eat them today. I feel on plan, satisfied. But they can't be here for they day when my lunch is late or dd is sick and I am tired.
I am not at all making light of what you all brought up. I have certainly hidden behind my fat at many levels. I have deep and ugly family issues that involve food. It is just that these days, I know that most of my stress is over simple things like Goldfish. I have to stay really local and in the moment to keep stress at bay.
Originally posted by Bee: I recently had a light bulb moment about this.
I think that it is amazing that years after losing weight, we are still having light bulb moments.
I think that it is really important to taking it off and keeping it off.
Kathleen wrote in one of her books, that a person doesn't have to have it all together and every issue in life sorted out in order to lose weight and I totally agree with that.
And at the same time, figuring out what drives us is also really helpful.
Originally posted by Bee: We also used food as reward in our family big time.
I realized a year or so ago that it was after my mother left that I started picking up weight. My father would go out in the evening to the local tavern and bring my brother and I home either ice cream and Hershey's syrup or chips/pork rinds and Coke--right at bedtime. I guess it was his way of saying "Sorry I checked out for the whole evening and left you alone." Of course, I wasn't going to turn down food, so I always ate the "offering."
Posts: 7212 | Location: Rehoboth Beach, DE | Registered: March 12, 2004
Originally posted by GoingSkiing: I currently torture myself ANTICIPATING stress. Last time we went to visit MIL, I anticipated how stressful it would be… and it wasn’t.
UGH! I do this to myself all the time regarding visits to/from my mother. I start to stress out in a major way about 1-2 weeks before a visit. My behavior changes (I tend toward depression) and I tend to stress eat. It was, in fact, a visit to my mother in August 2004 that was the dividing line between when I was still actively losing weight and when I stopped. Talk about bad memory association!
Like you said with your last visit to MIL, I tend to "awfulize" my impending visits with Mom and then often find they are not that bad at all.
Posts: 7212 | Location: Rehoboth Beach, DE | Registered: March 12, 2004
I currently torture myself ANTICIPATING stress. Last time we went to visit MIL, I anticipated how stressful it would be… and it wasn’t.
Granted, the anticipation of stress inspired me to put together a list of coping behaviors - so I guess that it really did serve a helpful purpose.
I did gain a couple lbs after the last visit to MIL’s. One of my coping strategies was to walk to the coffee shop every morning and get something to eat (rather than getting up at 6am with the dog and waiting until 10:30 or 11am for breakfast.) The strategy would have worked really well, except I discovered the most incredible whole wheat scones at the coffee shop. So I did gain weight last visit… but at least I wasn’t stressed!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It has really helped to learn the biology behind binging and stress. I don’t think that biology is destiny. Just because stress triggers the urge to eat… doesn’t mean that I MUST eat or overeat… But to look at it objectively and scientifically helps me. It takes it out of the realm of me being “weak” or “bad” or "crazy" - and there is a biological urge to eat and even overeat. But, again I can channel that urge into exercise or some other way to reduce stress or to eat a food that is healthier than chips and cookies and cake.
I found these paragraphs from webmd.com interesting and helpful.
quote:
Our three experts say it's important to remember that to binge is to be human. In fact, we're hard-wired for it, says Katz, who directs the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.
"Primitive people had to go long periods without eating, and the natural response to food was to eat everything in sight," Katz says. "When modern people go too long without eating, they reactivate that primal response. It becomes a behavioral pattern that propagates itself."
In other words, cut yourself some slack.
And whether your binge was one supersized meal, a week of holiday treats, or an indulgent monthlong vacation, don't try to make up for it with a punishing regimen of diet and exercise.
"It will work, but you'll gain the weight back at the first opportunity," says Katz. "It sets up a crazy pattern of going from extremes of indulgence to deprivation, and it makes you desperately anxious about your relationship with food.
"Remember the fable of the tortoise and hare? Everybody in dieting wants to be the hare. But who won that race?"
It also helped me to learn that our bodies specifically crave sugar and carbs when we are stressed out. It helped me learn that this is biology and not because I’m crazy. In the past when humans became stressed… it was often because we were in physical danger. Muscles need carbs for fuel to run or fight. Craving carbs is part of the “Fight or Flight” reflex.
Of course, we are the first or 2nd generation in history to be able to walk into a grocery store and have our choice of 94,873 different packages of carbs. Our ancestors didn’t have Oreos and Lays…
So this craving of carbs worked well for us when we really were in physical danger and our choice of carbs were limited to a bowl of grain mush or fruit.
Anyway, it helped me to realize that my craving of a piece of chocolate cake was driven by biology and it wasn’t some character flaw or weakness.
And a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit isn’t such a bad thing to eat if you are stressed and really are hungry. It isn’t exactly known as a “classic binge” food.
I recently had a light bulb moment about this. My parents have always had a very rocky relationship and fought constantly when I was growing up. The only calm and happy times I remember as a family were around the kitchen (or dining room) table. My parents entertained a lot and having other people in the house acted as a buffer and things were temporarily calm. I always ate seconds and thirds I think in an effort to prolong the experience and calmness.
We also used food as reward in our family big time.
What started out as a coping mechanism for dealing with my parents' fighting turned in to a coping mechanism in dealing with all kinds of stress in my life. Job stress, grief stress, moving stress, really any thing to rock the boat.
It's been a hard habit to break - this comforting myself with food, but I'm getting better with it but it's still a work in progress.
Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.
I think that the ROOT of my initial weight gain goes back to my mother leaving the family when I was 12-13. As I've posted here before, I had always thought of myself as a person who has been fat since birth. It was only in the past few years, when two family members shared some old family photos with me, that I realized that I was actually slender when I was a toddler and young child.
My mother leaving was painful, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. As much or more as the pain of abandonment or missing my mother was the embarassment and shame of not having a mother living at home. In that time (mid-60s) and in that place (very tiny Ohio town), I was the only kid who didn't have a Mom & a Dad living under the same roof. It was humiliating and it made me feel apart from everyone else. I actually lied to total strangers (phone solicitors and such) by telling them my mom was in the shower or at the store because it was too painful to say "My mom doesn't live here anymore."
In my adult life, I have used weight to hide from intimacy and relationships with men. I have never completely understood all the reasons why I do that, but I definitely know some of them.
'Tis no wonder I have a long history self-sabotage.
Posts: 7212 | Location: Rehoboth Beach, DE | Registered: March 12, 2004
Work stress has been a huge trigger for me lately. Coincidentally, on one of my worst days last week, someone had left a plate of fun-size candy bars in the kitchen. Make that a huge plate. I took five of them back to my desk, intending to make them last the afternoon. Well, they did, if an afternoon is about 10 minutes long.
However, I think I can claim some measure of victory for two reasons: I realized what I was doing -- stress eating -- and I didn't go back for more, which I would have done not so very long ago.
When the food temptations aren't there, I usually deal with work stress by taking a walk. Even if it's up and down a few flights of steps, it puts my energy into something besides wanting to choke a co-worker.
I think what you were saying about the clothes you had on was so crutial. My outer armor is so much a part of how I cope. I have a family thing coming up in two weeks, and I swear I think of what I'm going to wear every day lately. Basically it comes down to this for me: How do I want to feel? Safe? Powerful? Sexy? Cute? Invisible? Heck, if I can put my finger on it, then I can dress for it. On that note, Cate, I hope you are wearing something that makes you feel how you want to feel, not how your mother is making you feel.
My triggers for my weight gain were not so different than my new and improved triggers for losing it, strangely enough. I think I used to say, I deserve this comfort, and I am going to care about myself with this food. I actually still do this, except now I comfort myself and care for myself by making healthy choices.
In a stressful situation now, I am even more vigilant to eat exactly what I planned to eat, because I don't need one more thing to stress over! Does that make sense?
Lynne
Posts: 1104 | Location: NH | Registered: February 28, 2005
