Post
by oolala53 » Sun Nov 08, 2015 9:33 pm
Be gentle on yourself for the past, but possibly a bit firm for the now and future. Get clear what your motivation is. Why is living with moderation better than living with overeating? It makes thing a lot easier when you pump up the value of this in your mind.
Calmly and with objective curiosity, ponder whether stress eating actually relieves stress. Is it a temporary fix with little repercussion or something else? It is important not to to panic about this or get incriminating, but to be thought-ful and calmly rational about it. When it becomes clear, it gets easier to make the better choice in the moment. Not necessarily easy, but easier.
I have found that for the most part, eating moderate meals regularly, of decent food- I don't have to be perfect, especially if I'm sticking to one-plate meals- is a stress reliever and supports living in difficult times. This is relatively hard-won knowledge! I had to go through some stressful experiences of tolerating the anxiety of wanting to eat without doing it. Making sure I had meals to look forward to made it easier. And it was worth it. Of course, the old habits do have definite "grooves" in the brain that can make them seem attractive or even imperative, but we can create new ones, one meal-gap at a time. Just think that every time you get from moderate meal to moderate meal without a food crutch, you are building your bank account of successful experiences and/or creating new grooves in the prefrontal cortex or making new neural patterns, etc., whichever metaphor (or make your own) seems most powerful. These go a long way!
BTW, on N days, I do not wait for hunger. I used to get hungry for my meals, but as I've gotten older, eating even tiny meals doesn't not lead to hunger in a reasonable meal gap, say 5-6 hours. I ran into trouble when I skipped meals on weekdays. I am more likely to skip meals on weekends, ironically. But that didn't come for about two years.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23
There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)