New to this site! Background information...

iheartsamberg · Post by **iheartsamberg** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:51 am

Hi all! My name is Marie, and I'm 18 years old. I love movies, television, music, and hanging out with friends. And I have a slight obsession with Andy Samberg.

Now that the VERY BASICS are out of the way,

, let's get down to the serious stuff. Although I'm not overweight, I'm at the higher end of my healthy weight, and feel as if I am eventually going to go over because of my disordered eating.
I came across this site awhile ago, but didn't really look into it, until now. Like most of you, I've been through numerous diets (and was ALWAYS hungry or obsessed with food).

I have a problem with compulsive overeating and binging (I have for about 5 years), usually binging about twice a week. The only time that I can get relief from binging is when I'm NOT dieting. This has made me depressed and my life has been very unbearable lately. If I'm not dieting, I'm coming up with bogus diets, or being upset about my weight gain and body image.

Even though I don't binge when I'm not dieting (and I always lose weight, which tells me that I am probably not at my set weight right now), I've always gone back to dieting because I've always had that fear of gaining weight, or not losing - so I would go back into my dieting pattern and binge on a regular basis again, all while the scale kept going up. I felt so uncontrolled - I felt like I needed rules to my eating - or at least a guideline, despite the fact that I was losing weight!

I also have a HUGE sweet tooth. HUGE. After fully looking at examining these problems/things in my life and seeing this site, I realized, this diet might be it...an end to my compulsive eating and obsessive thoughts. I'll be able to enjoy food for what it is - AND lose weight without feeling starved. I like the fact that sweets are reserved for "S" days, not entirely cut out.

I plan on starting tomorrow, and I'm actually very excited. Usually when I think of starting a new diet, I binge the night before because I want to "get as much as I can before the diet" - but this time, I feel no urge to binge. I am hoping for support from you guys...I don't talk to anyone about my eating problems/self-esteem and it'd be LOVELY to have a few people to talk to that really understand. If you are interested in chatting, my AIM screen name is "KABLAMO Marie". Thanks for reading this! I am looking forward to posting in here and starting a new chapter of my life![/i]

gratefuldeb67 · Post by **gratefuldeb67** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:12 am

Boy are you lucky to have found NoS at this point of your life Marie!
NoS is an absolutely perfect maintenance plan...
Welcome and good luck with it!
It will really help you enjoy food and drop your unnecessary obsession with worrying about diets...

Best wishes!

Peace,

Deb

peetie · Post by **peetie** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:19 am

Marie,
I came to this site for exactly the same reason as you. I wanted some order to my disordered eating. I just wanted to maintain since I had been up and down for decades with dieting and bingeing.

I, agree with Deb, that you are lucky and smart to be doing this at such a young age. You will save lots of wear and tear on your body.

I hope you like it here, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. This board has an incredible group of really bright and helpful people. And it has me too!!!

Good luck,
Peetie

Sinnie · Post by **Sinnie** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:52 am

Marie,

I'm only a few years older than you and I totally sympathize. I have very similar behaviours and have been like that for longer than I would like to remember.

What caused all this for me was dieting itself, and I am very bitter about it. I wish I never started, because I didn't need to, I was a slim kid. But these days we are told to look like starved animals.

The fact is I am in the predicament, which sounds a lot like yours. I have received so much relief from No S. And I mean a massive relief.

You are not really doing anything different from normal people. So you won't have to feel weird about eating strange foods going out to eat with friends like other diets. You are simply managing the excess, it almost feels undectable to you, and totally unseen by others. That's why this works because we mostly snack mindlessly, we don't even think about it.

Eat normal foods, enjoy, savour, eat slowly. Wait until the next meal. There will be days that you mess up, I know I did yesterday. And I'm up this morning at 6:30am because I can't sleep and was thinking about it in bed. Overeating on non S-days sucks! It feels guilty rather than deserved.

I know I will do better today, and since I did so poorly, I may trade in an S-day for it. That is just how I do it.

Good luck, we are here for you! Please, give NoS a fair chance.

Hugs,
Cynthia

carolejo · Post by **carolejo** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:44 pm

Hi Marie. Welcome to the NoS board.

It sounds like this will be a very good match for what you want to do. It can take a little getting used to, NOT being on a diet but also not being able to eat EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING anytime!

People here are very helpful and friendly and will chip in often with help and advice, solicited or not

.

The best advice I can think of for you at this point is to be sure to eat enough food at your actual meals. Don't worry if your plate looks very full. Just concentrate of building the habit of 3 platefuls of non-sugary food a day and no snacks and the quantity will eventually scale itself down as your body adjusts and you start to find a balance in your eating habits. If you make sure that you are eating enough nutritious food at your mealtimes, then you will be much less likely to cave in and snack on all that sugary or salty junkfood inbetween times.

Anyhow, welcome to NoS. Hope you find health and peace and wellbeing and a healthy relationship with food.

C.

iheartsamberg · Post by **iheartsamberg** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:08 pm

Hey everybody! Thank you for the comments, I appreciate them tremendously! Today has been a great day, and I'm glad that I can be a part of these discussions!

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:47 pm

Hi Marie,

Forget about weight loss. The best part of No-S is that it reasserts a healthy relationship with food. At least it did for me (and yes, I've lost weight since I started).

But I haven't gone on a fullscale binge in a long time.

I can now enjoy everything I eat, because No-S provides a framework from which to enjoy food.

And yes, at the risk of sounding condescending I'll agree with the others that you are fortunate to begin thinking about this stuff now. When I was 18, I too was slightly overweight. By the time I was 25, I'd put on about 150 lbs. So be careful.

No-S is good for portion control, but make sure you learn something about nutrition and exercise as well.

iheartsamberg · Post by **iheartsamberg** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:28 am

I finally realized that...the minute that I looked at the scale, I was happy with results and decided it was "ok" to binge - needless to say, that was never good. I should be focused more on health!

Post by **reinhard** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:06 pm

Welcome, Marie (and sorry for the delay)!

I wouldn't spend so much time looking at the scale right now (especially for an excuse to binge!). It's much more important that you build the habit of moderate mealtime eating. Habit doesn't understand calories or pounds, habit understands routine. So focus on literally adhering to these routines to teach habit.

Looking forward to hearing more from you,

Reinhard

nonskanse · Post by **nonskanse** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:38 am

I have a similar issue, I used to get excited about a slight calorie deficit and then have 2 bags of microwave popcorn. I'm a little obsessed with statistics and numbers in my entire life. I calculate things like crazy. But I can still count my calories on this diet (no one's stopping me), but there's no way to have that extra popcorn, because its not budgeted in. (Ah budgets... my heart aches to calculate my savings in 3 months... or 3 years.)

Anyway, I obsessively eat. When I'm happy, when I read, and when I'm mad about eating too much. So stopping the _S_nacks will be a big step.

Good luck to you!