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| May 2011, 144 pounds |
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| May 2012, 165 pounds |
I'm just a bit more round in the middle than I'm comfortable with.
But I don't really mind all that much. Worrying about my body size is not at the top of my priority list anymore. I'm actually somewhat successful in a goal that I made recently to focus on OTHER areas of my life more. There are many things that are just way more important to me than dieting.
And for a recovered(ing?) anorexic/EDNOS-er, this is a huge accomplishment.
I recently realized something about my successful weight loss in 2010 and the first few months of 2011.
From January 2010 through May 2011, I was on the Weight Watcher website 8 hours a day (at least). It was always on while I was at work, and I was often on the boards, constantly updating my tracker, blogging about WW, etc... In other words, in order for me to be successfully losing weight at a decent rate (about a pound a week), my life has to revolve around my diet program.
When I'm focusing on other areas of my life and putting my diet on the backburner (thinking about it often but not always, following "rules" only sometimes, tracking only sometimes) I balloon back up to my body's preferred size, which is about 165 pounds and about a size 16. This was my high school weight, and the weight that my body naturally gravitates towards. This is the size that I can comfortably maintain without much effort.
I can eat all of my favorite foods, eat while watching TV, and eat out sometimes and maintain this weight. This is also because I still exercise almost every day. I love my cardio workouts!
However, when I stop tracking altogether, keep chips in the house, and let myself eat out and order pizza whenever, even when my exercise routine stays the same, that's when I gain weight. That's how I got back up to 183 recently. I stopped caring about my diet at all. If I had continued on that route, I would have gotten back up to my 220 start weight within a couple of months.
But here's the rub: I still really want to get back down to 145-ish. I love the way that I look and feel at that size!
But I don't want to obsess about it, and definately don't want to think about it 24/7 or to be on a dieting website 8 hours a day. I don't want to constantly be worrying about what I ate, or what I will eat, and how I will stay in that calorie range.
I also don't want to gain weight, so I cannot just stop tracking and order pizza every other day.
I really think that I will be able to finally lose the rest of this weight and maintain that loss comfortably if I address one thing:
EMOTIONAL EATING.
Many times I eat for reasons other than hunger. I know this, because I often will eat a big meal, then eat a big snack less than two hours later. No way am I phsyically hungry, yet I convince myself that I am. So I eat. And I sometimes track it. Some days I don't, but most days I track everything.
Anyway, my next big mission in the dieting scheme of things is to conquer my emotional eating.
I am going to start another 21 Day No Junk Food Challenge, too.
Starting tomorrow, I am going to start conquering this emotional hunger problem. I will continue to track every bite on My Fitness Pal, and will be giving up junk food for 21 days.
But most importantly, I will be keeping a hunger journal. I will write down my food, and also write down the emotions that I feel before and after eating. Hopefully I will be able to see any trends between my emotions and my eating and will be able to start the healing process.
Also, I'm about to order this book:
The Emotional Diet: How to Love Your Life More and Food Less, by Bill Cashell
I will let you know how it is! If I love it and it helps me (as I suspect it will) I will be doing another book giveaway. :-)
Do you struggle with emotional eating?
How do you handle your non-hunger food cravings?
4 comments:
Emotional Eating is my big thing at the moment. And I know this in part because it's been all about the carbs. I have od'd on carbs with gusto and then of course I experience a sugar dip hours later and it's a horrid spiral!
Emotional eating is a problem I am learning to limit. Still have it overcome me now and then, but nowhere near as much as I used to.
Having the same issue with my body being happy at a higher weight than I want (mine will maintain around 148-150 with tracking and exercise along with occasional slip ups, but have to tighten down to get any lower). So fustrating!
We can work on this together and get to where we want to be on myfitnesspal! I think I am going to see about reading that book you mentioned during break in a few weeks.
I think most women struggle with emotional eating. Granted that could be more influenced by our peers/media than genetic, but alas, I think most women struggle with it.
Right now, I'm unfortunately giving myself a free pass in my last few days/weeks of pregnancy, but you bet your bottom dollar I will most certainly be back on track as soon as I can be.
I'm a little late commenting on this post but man I am right there with you!!! I've been stuck for a long time the loss has stopped and I've slowly let a lot of thing creep back in. I'm loving the no junk food challenge. Going for it!!
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