Emotional Eating 101 pt 2 of 4

Emotional Eating 101 (Part 2 of 4)
by Roger Gould, M.D. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed emotional eating and hunger and how they compel people to eat. In this article, we are going to explore how emotional eating really is a symptom of food addiction.

Food Addiction
As we all know, dieting is the most common private approach to obesity and it just doesn't work. The last two decades there have been more people dieting and more diet programs yet obesity has increased over 20%. Dieting programs and fads have a 99% relapse rate. Their failures have been proved by many studies. And as we've said, the problem is not so much what you eat, but that you can't control how much you eat. This means that you're addicted to food.

This may sound harsh, but you have all the evidence you need. Do you struggle to control what you eat? Have you been overeating for years? Have you put your health at risk because of your eating habits? Does the idea of giving up food as comfort make you nervous? Have you tried to change your eating habits but failed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it should be pretty obvious that you are addicted to food.

Many people ask at this point, "Aren't we all addicted to food?" In some sense, yes, everyone is addicted to food. Obviously we need to eat to survive, so in that sense we are always seeking enough to keep us healthy. That's the essential addiction common to all animals. The biological hunger drive is a basic survival mechanism, but that is not what we are talking about here.

When we say food addiction, we mean that you are compelled to overeat for reasons other than survival or health. You are not responding to the biological hunger drive. These other reasons fall in the domain of psychology. You may know some of them already, but you don't know all of them, or all of them well enough yet to break the addiction.

Food addiction comes in all sizes. In fact, you can use your weight as a rough measure. If you are overweight by one hundred pounds or more, that means food is so overly important to your mental equilibrium that you will sacrifice all your health to keep it as a coping mechanism. If you are twenty to fifty pounds overweight, you are probably very dependent on food, but realize that it's not the only way to handle life. If you just can't seem to lose those last 10 pounds, then you are on the other side of the spectrum and probably use food as a reward, but not too often.

But where does it come from? We all eat every day; so why do some of us become addicted and others don't? The potential for food addiction starts innocently at birth. When a mother feeds her baby, the baby stops crying. Babies equate the mother's milk—food-with survival, love, and peace of mind. Even a pacifier, which has no warmth, taste or nutritional value, is close enough to that primal experience to soothe the infant. It's normal to be addicted to your mother's soothing function as an infant, and easy enough to make food the pathway back to that comforting state of mind.
As adults, we all continue to use food as a tranquilizer from time to time. But some people begin to overuse this method of coping and, little by little, it becomes the preferred way of dealing with problems. Using food to cope can get out of control when food is constantly seen as a source of comfort and tranquility. It's okay to eat for sustenance, for the love of food, and even—in moderation—to fend off a blue mood or to give ourselves a reward. But there is a big difference between occasionally using food to fix our moods and compulsively overeating as our primary coping mechanism to deal with the stress and strain of daily life. When someone overeats on a daily basis, it's almost certain that they are addicted to food. The addiction matures slowly over life, but it's not entirely clear why some of people get addicted while others don't.

The worst part about it is that overeating works. It really is a powerful way to temporarily change the whole state of your mind. If you are anxious, eating can rid you of anxiety. It can give you time to regroup. Some people have described how eating puts them into their own bubble, and makes all the worries go away for a while. Others have described a state of feeling insulated and protected instead of vulnerable and raw. When you are addicted, eating has become a way to silence your mind whenever it presents you with ideas or images you'd rather not deal with. In that sense, it does work; it temporarily banishes uncomfortable thoughts and the feelings associated with them. And when you are addicted to this feeling, you have very little control over how much you eat.

If all this is true, and emotional eating is a sign of food addiction, and if you are really addicted to food, does that mean you have no control over what you eat? That's the interesting dilemma. You always have a choice. It is definitely you who lifts the fork to your mouth or buys the cheeseburger when you just finished telling yourself you were going to watch it and lose some weight. You may make the right choice sometime, but when day after day and year after year you make the decision to overeat (which I define simply as eating much more than you need to stay in caloric balance), you will have to admit that you are acting like a person who is compelled to do something that you have consciously decided not to do. There is no way around this unless you tell me that you want to overeat and you don't want to control your weight.

In most cases, however, this compulsion to overeat sets up a very painful process. It makes people feel weak and out of control and actually afraid to commit themselves to another diet because they are certain they will not be able to defeat this adversary.
I have heard the inside story of this struggle for decades from patients I have seen. So often I have heard people describe their relationship with food exactly like an addiction. I'll take you through a few examples to let you get an inside look.

Several years ago, I asked Mary, a 35-year-old married mother of two, what it would be like if she finally succeeded in controlling her weight. She said, "I would be on top of the world. Last year I lost about 65 pounds and I was a totally different person. I could wear really cool clothes instead of the dreaded plus-sized fashions. I didn't hate what I saw in the mirror—it was a stranger looking back at me, but one that I had admired from afar. I was able to get off my blood pressure medication as well. But somehow I knew it was only temporary, because of my lifelong battle with fat. It started with a donut—one donut—and then I would eat three or four at a sitting, especially when my boss was cranky; donuts were my salvation. Now, I hate to buy clothes. I'm back on medication, my knees ache, and I am feeling tired and hopeless again."

Mary had strong motivations to change but her goals were thwarted by her dependence on food as a source of comfort. When I asked Mary to give herself a positive vision of her future to keep her weight loss efforts on track, she was hesitant to even describe what success might feel like. "My fear of failure is like a ghost in my life … chasing me around every day."

We have to look below the surface to understand what's really eroding Mary's confidence. Her personal secret is that she doesn't believe she can actually give up food as her best friend when she is distressed. She's locked in a vicious cycle and she needs help. While she doesn't look like an addict, she is one. Her addiction is legal, socially acceptable—even encouraged—but it's no less destructive than the addictions that have been outlawed or so stigmatized as to become unpopular.

In countless stories similar to this one, I have come to understand the pull of the addiction to food. It didn't surprise me at all to hear one patient say she felt there was a "demon" inside of her tempting her towards food. For many people, their emotional eating habit is so strong they don't believe they can ever break it. Instead, they try to work around it.

For example, Norman was thin when he was younger because he ran four miles each morning, rain or shine, to justify his enormous appetite. Food was the only thing that calmed his anxiety, but he knew he had to compensate for his overeating to stay trim. If he had a fight with his wife, he would stuff himself at dinner, and then just go out and jog another few miles. But after a knee injury, Norman couldn't run anymore. Twenty years later, Norman is 55 and very overweight, and he no longer exercises at all.

Jan's story is similar. Early in her marriage, Jan was bulimic. She would eat two dinners and the better part of a cake every evening. Friends marveled at her ability to stay thin. What they didn't see was what she did when Jan was finished stuffing herself, she would find a private place and force herself to throw up. As soon as she was finished, she promised herself never to do it again, but the next time she found herself binging, she had to purge to make up for it. Jan was fortunate enough to find people who could help her beat bulimia. Millions more are not that lucky. Bulimia is their way of compensating for their primary addiction to food. They can't give up their insatiable need for food, so they control their weight through vomiting, tearing up their insides in the process.

Emotional eaters have become dependent on food to survive the challenges of daily life. There's no other way to explain their behavior or craving. They are addicted to food as much as an alcoholic to alcohol, a smoker to smoking, or an addict to drugs. They don't think they can make it without this handy non-prescription tranquilizer, and they're fearful of trying to do so. In that sense, overeating has become a mental compulsion. It's not that they really want to overeat, but that they are compelled to overeat. This sometimes-useful coping mechanism is transformed into a compulsion because it works so well, but only for a short time. That means that every time they are distressed, they automatically generate an image in their head of which food will make them feel better. These activated images of relief are there to tempt them until they're satisfied. That's how a compulsion works.

Unless an emotional eater finds a new way to make peace with his or her distress warnings, the unconscious compulsion to overeat will win out time and time again. It will win no matter how motivated and disciplined the dieters consider themselves. Even those who succeed in losing weight for a year or more find this strange inner opponent coming back to claim yet another victory after they hit a stressful patch in their life. Until food addiction is broken and the emotional eating pattern under control, weight loss is impossible.

Now that you've read this article and thought about it a little, it's time for you to personally evaluate how it applies to your life. Below are some questions and discussion topics that will be the focus of the discussion for this article.

1. Try to pinpoint the times when you were tempted to break your diet or overeat. What were the main causes? Were you anxious or angry? How about depressed or stressed? If you do ate during these times, how specifically did it make you feel? Content or safe? Numb or detached? How many distinct patterns can you identify?
2. Beside emotional eating patterns, what evidence for food addiction can you find in your life? Your weight might be one piece of evidence, but there is probably more if you think about it. Try to think of at least a few things besides your weight that show food addiction plays a major part in your life.
   Hint: In what ways have you acted in the past that might seem strange to someone who didn't suffer from food addiction?
3. You undoubtedly have positive motivations to lose weight. What are these positive motivations? Try describing what you would feel like if you reached your target weight. After you're done, ask yourself why these motivations aren't strong enough to carry you to success?

Emotional Eating 101 pt 1 of 4

I've found a great thread on minimins have a look at the debate on the forum its very thought provoking. i'm posting the article here as well because its so good.

Emotional Eating 101 (Part 1 of 4)
by Roger Gould, M.D. This is the first of several articles on the subject of emotional eating. Over the next couple weeks, we are going to explore emotional eating, how it leads to obesity, why it should be considered a real addiction, and the strategies that work and don't work in dealing with the addiction.

Emotional Eating
If you are like most people, you are keenly aware that diet programs don't work for long. It's safe to say that no new diet or exercise regimen, no matter how biologically sound it may be, is likely to result in lifelong weight loss. But why is that? It's because you can't control what you eat.

The bottom line is that you already know how to lose weight. You know that if you eat less and exercise more eventually you'll see the pounds come off. But if you know that eating less and exercising more will result in weight loss, why don't you just do it? What's getting in your way? Or, if you do succeed in losing a little weight with a diet, why do you usually regain the weight you lost? Why can't you hold onto healthier habits as a way of life? Why do you overeat despite your best intentions?

The answer to all these questions is the same: emotional eating. Most simply defined, emotional eating means you eat to satisfy emotional hunger; it means you use food for comfort or as a way to cope with life; and it means you eat for reasons other than what your body needs.

Take any moment in time, focus the camera lens on your neighborhood, take a close look, and you'll find emotional eating. You'll find dozens of people—maybe even hundreds or thousands—breaking their diets at this very second. All those people woke up this morning determined to stay away from fattening treats or eat reasonable portions, but by afternoon, many had one hand on the Twix Bar and the other on the forehead, wondering why, why on earth they had no willpower. In fact, you are probably one of those people. Maybe boredom at work has propelled you to the snack table, or a snub from a friend or an ugly new assignment. Whenever you reach for a boredom-breaking snack despite your commitment, or whenever you eat to quell anxiety, that's emotional eating. Whenever you binge after a fight, or double up on portions because your day turned sour, that's emotional eating. Whenever you feel that sharp craving for your favorite food, that's emotional eating.

When it comes to emotional eating, people aren't eating to feed their body. No one needs a candy bar after a fight to make it through the night. When people eat at times like these, they are eating to satisfy, numb, or avoid their emotions. And unfortunately, it's all too common.
People who are suffering from emotional eating are driven to eat so they won't have to face what's bothering them internally. And in many ways, they become addicted to this way of handling life. They feel compelled to eat in this way and can't control what they eat. That's why diets don't work. If you're struggling with emotional eating and can't choose to eat less and exercise more, you can't lose weight. It's that simple. And since no diet ever teaches you how to control what you eat, they are doomed to fail sooner or later. In other words, unless you can learn to stop emotional eating, you will never be able to lose weight and keep it off. Period.

Emotional Hunger
Emotional hunger is what fuels emotional eating. Unfortunately, you will always have emotional hunger no matter what you do. That's part of being human. However, emotional hunger is not so much the problem as how you deal with it.

People who suffer from emotional eating usually only deal with emotional hunger by eating. And, since life is rife with emotional turmoil, emotional eaters are normally overweight. They are so attached to dealing with the ups and downs of life with food that any suggestion that they can stop emotional eating makes them nervous. Many people cannot imagine being able to handle a bad day without turning to food for comfort. In this way, the tendency to handle emotional hunger with food is no different then a smoker's tendency to handle stress with a cigarette.

When you are an emotional eater, the odd thing about emotional hunger is that you feel truly hungry, and at the moment when the craving for food grips you, you can't tell that your hunger originates in your mind, not in your belly. People who are not emotional eaters, who never really satisfied emotional hunger with food, usually eat less when they are troubled by emotional hunger. Their emotional hunger doesn't feel like physical hunger, just as a non-smoker's stress doesn't give them the urge to smoke.

I like to think of it this way: emotional eaters eat when they aren't really hungry because they have two stomachs—one real, the other a phantom. The hunger in your belly signals you when your system has a biological requirement for food. If that was the only signal of hunger you received, you'd be thin. It's the phantom stomach that causes the problems. The phantom stomach sends out a hunger signal when unruly emotions and unsolved personal agendas start pushing themselves into awareness. A short-circuit occurs, and you feel so hungry that you're compelled to eat.

I see the power of the phantom stomach demonstrated almost daily in my work with patients. The other day, a patient who had just finished breakfast told me in the middle of a difficult session that she suddenly felt extremely hungry. As soon as we started talking about her sexual problems with her husband, her appetite kicked in and she could hardly wait to get to McDonald's. Her phantom stomach was shouting, demanding action.

Phantom hunger has such power that it drives you to go to almost any lengths to satisfy it. I saw this fact demonstrated in Technicolor when I consulted at the Pritikin Institute in Santa Monica, California, where clients paid ten thousand dollars a month to take part in a controlled diet and exercise program. Although the tuition for the program far exceeded the cost of attending the most expensive private university in America, I frequently found participants sneaking out for hamburgers and french fries at a corner stand. These were all highly motivated people sent to Pritikin by their doctors because of serious, life-threatening health problems, but positive motivation clearly wasn't enough to help them resist phantom hunger. As you know, all dieting programs depend on positive motivation, ignoring the obvious: that there's such power in the emotional forces underlying the desire to binge or overeat that if you don't expose those forces and conquer them, you'll always be at their mercy—you'll always have weight problems.

In a later article, we will discuss the 12 types of emotional hunger that I have identified, but for now, let's point out the main differences between emotional hunger and physical hunger so you can begin to differentiate between the two in your daily life.
First, emotional hunger normally comes on like lightening, while physical hunger develops slowly. Emotional hunger is like a rocket going off: it happens suddenly. Physical hunger develops little by little: first there's the tummy rumble, then the grumble and then it really starts complaining with hunger pangs. But, the slow stages of physical hunger are very different from the quick onset of emotional hunger.

Second, emotional hunger demands food immediately, whereas physical hunger is bit more patient. Much like its quick onset, emotional hunger demands immediate satisfaction. On the other hand, even if you are ravenously hungry, your physical hunger will wait for food.

The third difference between the two involves mindfulness. Satisfying physical hunger involves a deliberate choice and awareness of what's being eaten. How much of what's being eaten is noticed, meaning you can stop when full. However, emotional hunger on the other hand usually doesn't notice how, why or what's being eaten. Emotional hunger will even demand more food even after the person is stuffed.
Fourth, physical hunger is open to different types of foods, but emotional hunger often demands very particular foods in order to be fulfilled. If you're physically hungry, even carrots will look delicious. If you're emotionally hungry, however, only cake or ice cream might seem appealing.

Fifth, satisfying emotional hunger often results in guilt, or promises to do better next time. This is in sharp contrast with physical hunger, which is viewed as necessary to survival and therefore has no guilt attached to it.

And sixth, emotional hunger, of course, results from something emotionally upsetting, while physical hunger results from a physical need.

Whenever you feel compelled to eat in a way that doesn't match the patience or speed of physical hunger you are struggling with emotional eating and hunger.
Now that you've read this article and thought about it a little, it's time for you to personally evaluate how it applies to your life. Below are some questions and activities that you should answer and do before the next article becomes available. Taking these questions and activities seriously will help you get a better understanding of emotional eating.

1. How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you've got in mind. Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing weight? If it's not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
2. Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger. What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn't you deal with it directly, instead of using food?
3. Until Part 2 of this series becomes available, examine your hunger whenever it arises. Try to use the six distinctions we laid out as a guide. Do you feel emotionally hungry more often than physically hungry? Do you always give into the emotional hunger or do you sometimes find another way to satisfy it without food?

Roger Gould, M.D., the creator of Mastering Food, is commonly recognized as a pioneer and expert in the field of adult development. He developed a revolutionary, interactive approach to therapy, which has been studied by UCLA and tested on over 20,000 people. The latest study, conducted by UCLA and Kaiser Permanante, found that each of Dr. Gould's Guided Sessions are about as effective as traditional in-person therapy. According to Psychology Today, "Dr. Gould's program is the only online therapy program of its kind that is based on proven research results."

can't think of a title for this post

because i'm too miserable to be creative or even be normal. Don't know whats wrong either and doesn't feel like hormonal type blues so god only knows whats the matter with me. I'm not the kind of person to let problems or random negative thoughts to get me down for too long - mind you that's probably because in the past i would change my mood with food . just going to list my thoughts see if it helps to clear my mind a bit

• feel like i haven't been a good enough parent and the reason lew is being a cheeky little bugger is that he has no respect for me. Really worried that i don't have the skills to raise a happy and confident male teenager and the result will be a moody unsociable yob.
• i don't earn enough money - i realise that everyone lives to their means and that if i earned more we still wouldn't have loads of excess money but still - £800 a month is a pittance and i feel like i have no way of increasing it. I know how much money the shop makes and unless the general public decide to forget about the credit crunch i cant increase my wage.
• My doctor is rubbish. Just not interested in me at all. begrudgingly gave me champix but said they probably wouldn't stop me smoking - honestly! he never made one comment when i told him I'd lost 4 1/2 stone. If i have any chance of any post diet related surgery i need to change doctors asap.
• kel is still really poorly and i haven't had a kiss or cuddle for days!
• cant think of anything else but still feel like moaning
• oh i know wilsey is really down, medically and mentally and i don't know how to help. mind you when you feel like turd no-one else can really help - i should know, kel has been trying to cheer me up to no avail.
• i really really want to eat - i know its aam and i can eat but i want to overeat and have that lovely comforting feeling and the blank mindlessness that comes during a binge.
• and i'm only 2lb lighter than i was 3 weigh ins ago which is extremely annoying when i haven't cheated at all. hopefully aam will kick start things again.

didn't feel much better after writing it down but just re-read it to spellcheck and it does seem a little over dramatic! I think the truth of it is that i dont want to binge to change my mood and i havent really learnt any other techniques (other than thinking about winning the lottery but that's not helping this time just making me angry! usually works well though!)

anyone any suggestions? and please don't say have a bath - its what everone seems to say and i really cant see how having a cold top half and being squished will make me feel better!!

not quite

hi all not quite the stone munch was looking for only 6lb bit gutted cos i wanted to be 16 something this week and am 17.1
Not staying to chat i'm really poorly still xxx

day 60!

who'd have thunk it! Us two foodies (that's me being polite - what i mean is fatties) have done a vlcd for 60 days! I'm very proud of us both, yes we have had struggles when our food addict gremlins have shown up and maybe the odd bit of chicken has been eaten when it shouldn't but on the whole we have been bloomin fantastic. Yea us!

I'm getting excited now about add a meal next week. We've worked out the menu and imagined each meal (A LOT!) I feel much better this time round. The run up to the last aam i was in a state of pure panic! I know now though that i will be able to eat what we have planned and not overeat, not pick after the meal has gone and even better i know that once the week is over i will be totally able to stop and continue with another 4 weeks of ss-ing. I guess the fear i had last time was due to my feeling of ss being rehab - total abstinence is safe, ketosis means hunger is a very brief and fleeting thing and the lack of food choices means the lack of food 'issues'. But reintroducing food however limited surely would bring all the negative stuff with it? I was as surprised as anyone that at the end of each meal i felt full, satisfied and elated that i had some control over food. And come the sunday night and time to get ready for ss-ing for another 4 weeks i was fine and had no need to read the lecture I'd written myself the week before anticipating mega tantrums.

I'm starting to miss our little man a bit today - he's in Tunisia with my mum. He's told me to tell everyone he's in North Africa - apparently that's way more impressive! I don't know - any foreign destination sounds good to me, i haven't been abroad for 5 years! Funnily enough thats how long we have had the shop! in fact except for my illness last year I've never had more than 3 consecutive days off work lol
Mum and i had a chat before she went away and she has committed to letting me take a whole week off next year either the may hols or Easter. I am determined that we should get a last minute cheapo holiday abroad. Kel isn't as sold on the idea - she sees every penny spent as a lost opportunity to save for the wedding!

Talking of saving money I still haven't stopped smoking, kel and mum have been non smokers ages now - very naughty Munch. Made an appt with smoking cessation woman at the village chemist (for some bloody stupid reason my doctors don't do it) when i got there she had gone home ill. Tried to rebook it yesterday, took me a day or so to stop fuming, and was told she has now gone on holiday till November - honest to god! that is a well good enough reason to puff away in my opinon! No i am going to stop - spending an £5 a day on cancer sticks is ridiculous. I've got an appt with the doc on Monday anyway (i want to show him i've lost 4 stone so that when i go having lost 14 stone and need a tummy tuck he wont be too surprised lol) so I'm going to ask him if he'll prescribe champix coz its worked on mum and kel. We'll see what he says - i didn't think much of him but I've only seen him once so I'll give it a go.
wow that was a bit of a long post - sorry!

manflu

I'm so illllllllllllllllllllll...feel all sore throaty and achey want to just lie in bed groaning really want to eat cream cakes and watch cartoons like i did when i was a kid...dont worry tho i wont got to go to work poor me xxx hope everone out there in blog land is doing well I'm having a really good week not sure on the stone but according to my scales im half way there fingers crossed weigh in sunday xxx

3 stone by xmas

Ok so ive just joined a pledge to lose 3 stone by christmas, what do you think my chances are?
The odds were against me this morning i turned up at work to find the guy who works in our kitchen was off sick, so muggins here as any good manager would stepped up to the breach. Yes i merrily made sausage, bacon and egg butties not to mention pies and cakes but i was a good girl and remembered munches notion of me losing a stone by next sun and left well alone. Bl**dy hard though, this sort of thing doesnt seem to get any easier.

A whole stone!

Hi its kel, i know long time no speak i'm just so blooming busy all the time i should be a size 8. Well i did amazingly well at the conference food wise...unfortunately everytime my wine glass was empty (i only intended to have one honest) it kept being topped up i was trollied. All that sugar it doesnt bare thinking about. Also its extremely dangerous to have all that alcohol whilst on cambridge so i dont advise it at all, fun though till the next day. Anyway i still somehow managed to lose 3 pound better than putting on. I love this diet. so two months in and 3 stone not bad. Family party on sat night and they were all impressed which is ace.
Munch is my inspiration she looks amazing i cant stop staring at her, i'm sure its very annoying and perhaps a little disturbing but i cant help it. I'm a little concerned my weight loss is slowing down so munch has set me the goal of losing a stone this week, I cant see it myself but i'm gonna try.
Wish me luck x

While Kel's away Munch will ?

Blog lol. She's gone to a works conference at Alton Towers. Jammy devil! I'm so so proud, she's been nervous all week because not only will there be about 1000 people and she only knows 3 but all the food and drink is paid for by the company and while she doesn't want to ruin the diet she didn't feel as if she could refuse the meals in front of the big bosses (especially as I want her to learn to network lol). anywhoo spoke to her a couple of times yesterday and she was having a fantastic time, shes made new friends, had ss+ food (no carbs and low fat) and best of all been on 4 rides! The night time do was 60/70's themed and they all had to dress up or else! so she went all hippyfied - she text me a pic of her last night all done up in a long blond wig - hilarious but also you could tell how much weight she's lost coz her cheekbones are fab. I sent it to mum who was well impressed and said wouldn't it be lovely when kel is at target if she has long hair OMG Kel would die! One of her big motivators to losing weight is to have as short and funky a lesbo crop as she can lmao

Measuring success by the scales

KD - super super cambridge guru from the minimins forum has posted this brilliant thread this morning. Thank you KD

Measuring success by the scales

Fact: Stick to the plan and you definitely lose weight
Fact: You can control what you put in your mouth
Fact: You cannot control what the scales say.

So what do you celebrate? The scales showing a loss, or the fact that you kept to the diet all week?

What if you stick to the diet, but the scales don’t reflect your effort?
Will you be disappointed, even though you have done everything correctly and couldn’t possibly do any better? Knowing that you will have lost weight…but it didn’t mean anything because the scales are giving the wrong result?

What if you ‘cheat’ and the scales show a big loss…does that mean you’ve succeeded and need a pat on the back?

Or even if you’ve been 100% and the scales are showing a loss? Does it mean more to you? Does that mean you’ve done even better than 100%?

I think the scales are a wonderful tool. I weigh daily, and love seeing them give the same reading day in and out, but that’s not what I really celebrate.I celebrate being in control of what I put in my mouth, because that’s what I have done. I don’t celebrate what the scales say.

So if you’ve stayed the same one week, or just lost that one pound….if you’ve kept to the diet 100%, then be proud, because that’s what it’s all about. Stick to the diet and the weight is coming off….whether or not the scales agree. And you’re worth the same amount of applause than those who have lost more.1lbs, 1 stone, it doesn’t matter.

You can’t do better than 100% after all So do me a favour, and next time you go to your CDC for a weigh in, if you’ve been 100%, go in rejoicing. Tell him/her you are going to be one of their success stories, because you were in control this week and will be next. If the scales reflect this, that’s just the icing on the cake. You’ve lost weight anyway. You don’t need a mechanical instrument to tell you whether you are in control or not.

week 7 wi - HOLY SH!TE

well according to my cdc's scales i have lost 17 pounds this week! I'm finding it very hard to believe since its week 7 not week 1 and i havent done anything different. The lovely people on minimins.com have all been great and think its very likely to be right since i have got a lot to lose but still keep thinking that the scales must be broke! I feel a bit ungrateful for not being over the moon and jumping for joy but i dont want to be all disappointed next week when i found out that it was a mistake! Its very negative and not like me at all but hey - tough!
on a much more positive note everyone can now tell that i've lost some weight and even i can see that i look a hell of a lot better in my clothes.

day 48

well check me out i've stuck to a diet for 48 days - bl**dy nora! Got to say i'm mightily impressed with myself - go Munch! I'm very excited about weigh in tomorrow, according to my scales i've lost 6lbs but i'd really like it to be at least 7 by tomorrow morning lol never satisfied

We're babysitting again tonight which is fab coz Kacey is just a bundle of gorgeous fun. I've never known such a happy child - she giggles about everything - not in a simple way though lol! She is so content in herself last time we had her when she woke up in the morning she was sitting in her cot playing with a dolly and giggling to herself for ages we just couldnt stop watching her. I'll probably be extremely broody again by tomorrow night when we have to give her back but its worth it to spend a night and a day with our adorable little monkey. Lew is mega excited too, he loves her to bits. I'm really impressed actually both with his attitude towards a little one and how he actually treats her. He loves playing with her and talks to her in a fab way - like a little daddy lol - i'm quite surprised really because as wonderful as Lew is I didnt expect a 12 yr old boy to be at all a*sed with a toddler let alone get excited and bang on about wanting baby sibs.

Week 6 Weigh In and shopping trip

When you work a 6 day week it is just not right to get up on a Sunday before 10am but for some stupid reason we booked our weigh in with our CDC for 9. Needless to say after saturday nights overindulgence we found it incredibly difficult to rise and shine and were a tad late! Despite the previously mentioned naughtiness we both lost 6 pounds this week hurrah! This means in total I have lost 3 stone 2.5 pounds and Kel has lost just 1 pound under 3 stone - in 6 weeks OMG so chuffed.

When we got home we decided to root out our old clothes that have been languishing in the garage since we moved house. Kel now has quite a few 'new' outfits but i just have 1 pair of trousers and a couple of tops that now fit. I also found a brand new pair of gorgeous pinstripe trews with the tags still on but they dont do up - yet! So inspired by our fabulous weight loss we went into Hanley to spend my birthday money and the best bit - i bought a top from a shop that wasn't Evans!! YIPEE at last - only us chubs can really understand how god damn awful it is to only be able to buy clothes from one shop and how liberating it is to finally be able to look elsewhere.

So this week we are both very determined and have promised to SS 100% and hopefully we can have a great big loss next. Its all so exciting lol!

Saturday Night Naughtiness!

On Saturday night my birthday surprise was being taken by Kel to the Regent Theatre in Hanley to see the Blues Brothers Party

Even more of a surprise was that Mum and Lew met us there with pork pie hats and shades on lol! Even though I would have said its not my kind of music I had a brill time - boogied in the aisle and sang myself hoarse!

Afterwards Kel and I went to Pink and we were very naughty and had a couple of alcofrolic beverages oops! I had such a great time, the drag dj's were hilarious, the cabaret fantastic - sooo much better than in Crewe's pitiful excuse for a gay bar. But where oh where have all the gay boys gone? the club was mostly full of women gay, sr8 and curious lol and a few older gay men - very strange! The usual mix, especially in Crewe, is 90% young gay men on the pull and a 10% mix of Dorothy's old male and female friends and a couple of fag hags who just want to dance and not be bothered by men. Got to say Pink was brilliant fun, really lovely refreshing atmosphere and great dancing although just like every drag queen they refuse to play much R&B! They did however play Justin's Sexy Back - to which I did a Wade Robson inspired number LMAO

The evening was finished off with a small box of doner meat on the way home - naughty munch and kel!

Fab Fat Blog Find

OOh just found a fab new blog - new to me not to blogland. In fact seeing the amount of readers its got i am probably the last person in the world to read it. This particular post and its comments are a great read. havent got time to go on need to get off the pc like an hour ago but had to make reference to it asap. might update later.

Week 5 Weigh In

Well add a meal is over and its back to sole source this morning. Not worried about it at all and i haven't had to read my tirade to myself yet. This week we have really enjoyed eating but been restrained and not gone overboard and have both lost 2lb each. Since i was expecting to stay the same i am chuffed that we have lost anything. I am thinking of this journey in terms of blocks of 4 weeks with a week of aam before starting the next 4 week block. So our totals for this 1st block are

kel 2st 7lbs
Munch 2st 10.5 lbs

it might be a little unrealistic to expect the same losses for this next block of ss but another 2 stone in 5 weeks would be great - fingers crossed (and mouth shut lol)

True to form

Wilson has just rang to say she has a prior engagement for tonight that she had forgotten about. Mind you she has let me know before I've bought food so i'll forgive her just this 'once ' lol. Actually I don't mind because it means i can go on the wii fit again lmao it's now letting me on it without making rude comments about me so last night I did an hour and a half! Dont get me wrong though - i had a couple of breaks throughout the night! I get REALLY sweaty doing the aerobic stuff pretty minging but i love it - especially the step plus one - I just need to beat Kels massive score!

Day 32

Feel great today. I am putting Gillian Riley's advice to action re Times and Plans. So today i will have my second meal replacement - gorgeous chocolate shake - no sooner than 3pm. The plan for tonight is

1. To cook a lovely chicken dinner because our best mate Wilson is coming for tea
2. I will not eat while i'm cooking
3. I have planned to eat the chicken, cauliflower mash, courgettes, mangetout, red pepper and a small amount of pesto sauce.
4. I will not eat any of the potatoes or gravy and if i need them tasted i will ask Lew to do it for me.

I feel supremely confident that i will stick to the plan but i hope that i will feel an 'addictive desire' to snack while i'm cooking or eat the potatoes because then, according to Gillian that will give me a chance to retrain my brain.

Can't wait to see Wilsey, she's been in Oz for a month and we've really missed her. We call her our adopted teenage daughter, she's 29 but very naughty !!and treats us like her parents - coming for tea and bringing her laundry, trying to bend the truth when she's been extremely naughty and generally being very teenage. But we can't help but love her, she's pretty adorable really, like a naughty overexitable puppy! I can't even begin to imagine what exploits she will enthrall us with this evening!

"Eating Less" by Gillian Riley

This books is great. I'm on chapter 3 already lol. It makes a fantastic point about weight loss not being the primary goal but rather to make controlling the addictive eating the priority. I have always said that even though I am more than double the body weight i should be, it is the horrible way my mind works, the binging, guilt, depression cycle, that i have always found worse than just being fat. Its not just that being fat makes me feel bad - its the awful things i do, like lying about and hiding food, stuffing food in when i dont even want it, taking out my nasty mood on my loved ones, and the headaches and tiredness that I really want to end.

What Gillian is saying is that if weight loss is your primary goal then not only are you not really dealing with the main issue - like an alcoholic making his red face the thing he wants to be rid of rather than the actual act of drinking excessively: but also that weight loss can be the very reason that you become demotivated and overeat.

I'll confess about what made me so miserable last night and made me want to eat everything in the house. As planned I went on the Wii fit as soon as I got home and it said that I was too heavy to use it! Don't laugh! Its like that joke about a fat person getting on the scales and them saying 1 at a time please!!
Now I had been on the wii that morning and the night before so I flew off the handle and was distraught about what weight i must have gained during the day. I suppose I was especially distressed because it was my first day on add a meal and I had chicken salad for lunch. So what did I do? I went on the scales and they said 4lb up from what I weighed the morning before. Did I allow myself to think that you always weigh more in the evening than in the morning and thats why we all know to be consistent in our weigh in times? No. Did I feel good about having managed to leave my lunch till the alloted time rather than wolf it down early? No. I became wracked with guilt about eating - and the solution? Eat some more! So i had some chicken and veg (thank God thats all we have) And the result - a thoroughly miserable munch all night and when i woke up this morning I felt exactly the same.
I guess what i'm trying to say - none to elequently, is that yesterday I fell into the trap of prioritising my weight loss and therefore when the loss was in question I lost the motivation for doing CD so I overate.
I dont yet know the answers - but I do know that i'm putting the scales away tonight and i'll be focusing on not overeating when we have tea tonight. And when I achieve that i'll be basking in some positive self-esteem for having achieved todays goal. I am going to try to go on the Wii again tonight even though this morning i was adamant i wasnt going anywhere near it ever again and if it is rude (lol) I will just understand that my weight fluctuates and i have nothing to feel bad about because i have followed CD to the letter today and I will be able to go on the Wii again soon. So there!

day 30 by Munch

Feeling really down today. I know why and its a bloody stupid reason but all the same i am miserable and today would definitely be a binge day. But I am not binging and i have no inclination to because i know that it would make me even more depressed. So i could look on the positive side and see growth in that comment - but i cant coz i'm miz lol!


The post lady has just been and delivered my new book EATING LESS by Gillian Riley. Its all about food addiction and understanding and conquering it. In the first chapter it lists 21 characteristics of a food addict to see if this describes you - 20 of them describe me - omg!

this particular passage really hit home

' To varying degees addictions temporarily change the way we think and feel; they make us high, drugged, absentminded, or numbed in some way. Overeaters can go into a kind of daze while eating a perfectly ordinary meal. A food binge can create a state of intoxication or stupor not unlike that produced by alcohol.
This altered state of consciousness can create a buffer between us and our feelings which brings us a sense of comfort, and this is why we often turn to our addictions when we are unhappy or stressed. '

I'm amazed that someone can describe exactly my experience - bodes very well for this book helping me to get a grip on my food addiction. I might have cheered up a little bit ;)