Vacation was great. We had beautiful, sunny, beach weather, the kids had a blast looking for shells and going in the ocean (when the lifeguards said it wasn’t too rough) and it was relaxing.

I was truly unplugged, not tied to my laptop and it was really nice. I trained for this Saturday’s triathlon six days out of the eight we were away. There was a local gym I went to and used their pool, I ran on the boardwalk and biked on bicycle/family friendly streets, all according to my training schedule. So I’m still in a groove to do this triathlon this weekend and a second one the following weekend. Then I think that will be it for me as far as races go until the season starts up again late spring of 2011. Hopefully I will be a stronger, more confident swimmer by then =).

In addition, every night I enjoyed all the delicious treats that the Jersey shore has to offer. I ate in moderation, enjoyed it and didn’t give any of it a second thought.

As I mentioned prior to leaving, for the first vacation in memory, I did not bring down my calorie book to jot down every morsel I ate. Did I do some calculations in my head once in a while just to touch base to see where I was at, yes, but it was not nearly the obsession that it used to be. So freeing and empowering just to eat with no strings attached.

In fact, while we were away, I hit the 32-month mark of being binge-free! I added another bead to my bracelet. Actually, the bracelet broke a few weeks ago. I fixed it, but I have not been wearing it anymore. It is on the bulletin board at my desk, so I still see it every day. I took the breaking as a signal that I didn’t need to wear it on my wrist everyday anymore. I still look forward to hitting the 3-yr mark on January 1 and ordering my 3-year abstinence coin from OA.

Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to put out the word about a great book I’m in the middle of reading, called “Fat Boy, Thin Man” by Michael Prager. The author writes in great honesty and detail about how he overcame obesity, alcoholism and drugs. He writes about his addictions (among them gaining and losing 100 pounds over and over again) and poignantly tells how he has overcome them all to lead a healthy, productive life. I always find this type of book compelling. There is nothing like reading how someone struggled through the trenches of an addiction and made their way out. There is always something you can relate to and be inspired by. You can check his website out HERE.

Back to trying to catch up on a week’s worth of laundry, phone calls, etc….

Within the next day or so, tune in, as I will be making an announcement.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

However, there is a bit of a wrench thrown in there with the triathlon training… as often happens when you workout a lot/differently, you sometimes lose your appetite.

Now if I was following the rules of IE, I would only eat when I’m hungry. But because I know that my body needs refueling from all the effort it is putting out, I really need to make sure I’m eating enough calories so I have the energy for the training.

So as a recovering compulsive overeater, I’m walking a fine line here. Because I know that I need to do it for my body, I’ve often been eating even when I’m not hungry. That is dangerous territory, but I know training-wise, it is the right thing to do.

A friend saw me at the gym last week and thought I looked like I had lost weight. I appreciated her honesty and took it the way it was intended, with caring. I had some major trouble sleeping last week, so that combined with her comment led me to get on the scale Friday morning (instead of waiting for this week’s weigh-in for the month) out of medical concern. I have dropped another pound. That makes 3-4 pounds down since starting the IE. While that is a wonderful, hopeful thing for all of us to know, (as I feared I would gain weight by not counting calories and weighing/measuring food) to be honest, it would not be healthy for me to lose more weight.

Aside from the freaky two nights of not sleeping, I feel OK and my training is going well. So I’m really in dangerous territory here — I know that I can afford to gain a few pounds, and due to training, I’m eating more because I know I should, not because I’m hungry, yet I’m still trying to be an intuitive eater. Quite mixed bag, huh? *sigh*

I’m wiggling the “rules” a bit to stay strong for my workouts, but I SOO don’t want this to head in the other direction. It’s hard to tell a recovering compulsive overeater, who has been binge-free for over two years, that they really can/should eat more. I’ve worked so hard at my recovery, got to a really great place, but I’m not an idiot, like an alcoholic or drug addict, it wouldn’t be hard to slip back into the old habits I had for 30+ years.

I need to keep my head in the right place. I can do this. I’M WORTH IT and it is definitely not worth going back to bingeing/compulsive overeating.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

Saturday will make seven weeks of no weighing/measuring of food or counting calories, though I do admit to still doing some tallying in my head once in a while. Long-standing habits are hard to break! For what it’s worth, I used to write down all the counts and use a calculator to tally. But now since I stopped officially counting, if I feel the urge to get an idea of how much I’ve eaten, I have to figure out everything in my head, which is quite a daunting task for my pea brain!

I had a pretty big test over the weekend. We had a dessert event Friday night, a dinner and dessert event Saturday night (where we ate dinner at about 9:00 pm, VERY late for me) and then a luncheon on Sunday for Mother’s Day. (Happy belated mother’s day to all the moms!)

All three times I did not frame any foods as forbidden, and I allowed myself to taste things to see if they were worth it. Some things were, some things weren’t. If they tasted good, I enjoyed them, but without bingeing.

After the third day in a row, because my body was probably in a bit of shock after eating treats that it hasn’t had much of since I’ve been binge-free, along with eating dinner very late one of those nights, I didn’t feel too good both physically and mentally.

Physically, my stomach was feeling full throughout a good portion of those three days, something I’m really not used to anymore. (On a side note, I have been pms’ing for a week on this estrogen supplement, so I’m sure there was some bloating going on. TMI?). Mentally, I didn’t like the feeling of being full.

Actually, both those things worried me a bit. Though I did not binge, there were some bad/disordered behaviors going on in my head. Basically, overeating a little bit at these three events, three days in a row, made me a little nervous in that – would I go back to being a “normal” eater, someone who can overindulge a little bit at a special event, but then go right back to normal eating the next meal or the next day? As a compulsive overeater for decades, it would be SO easy to slip back into my old disordered ways. So would I slide right back into that sickness or would I be able to keep my act together, be the recovering/recovered person that I have worked so hard at being, and bounce right back?

The answer is… I was able to get back to being a recovering person, although on Monday I was still a little bit pick-y with some leftovers.

On top of the 3-event weekend, I also discovered that the 12-pack of caffeine free soda which I drank seven cans of during the course of the week, was not diet soda, as I usually drink. So there was an extra 1050 calories right there. Ugh! To add insult to injury, I dropped a can on the floor and it exploded onto just about every wall, pantry door, table and chair within a 5′ radius in my kitchen. Talk about a sticky mess!

I’m due to get on the scale for the first time in a month on Tuesday. Though my clothes still feel pretty much the same, my jeans slightly less loose, I will touch base on the scale just to see what’s what.

Another good recovery step for me – I had my annual physical with my primary care physician yesterday. Though I’ve only known I’ve had an eating disorder since December of 2007, I came clean to my doctor about it. Add him to the short list of people who know.

On another note… There were two great eating disorder-related shows on yesterday, if you didn’t see them, try to check them out on line.

First, on Oprah, she interviewed author Geneen Roth about her latest book called “Women, Food and God”. Here’s the link to the show on Oprah’s website. (I have previously posted about Roth’s awesome book “Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating” here, here and here.) I think I’m going to be picking up this new book. Oprah rattled off a quick list of guidelines at the end of the show and one of them was something to the effect of – to eat in full view of others, which struck a chord with me.

Then on Dr. Phil, he did an “in your face” with a girl who has been suffering from anorexia and bulimia for the past nine years, and her family. It was pretty disturbing. Here’s a link to the show on Dr. Phil’s website.

Lastly, I’m going to remain on “blog break” to enjoy being more present and until I figure some more things out, but I will check in again soon. I apologize for not reading your blogs and keeping up. I hope you are all doing well!

I’ll be back, so please bear with me. If you have any questions or want to contact me, please feel free! love2eatinpa@gmail.com.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

1) What physical features do you love about yourself?
I think I have nice arms and shoulders. I’m lucky that I don’t carry weight there, so from working out, my arms look pretty toned and cut. Of course my mother-in-law and her friends think I look ill, but they don’t come from a generation where women workout/lift weights. Ironically, I am one of those people who is always cold, so I practically always have my arms covered. Go figure!

2) How do you personally take care of yourself?
I take care of myself by eating as healthy as I can. I’m pretty fussy and don’t like a lot of fruits and vegetables, but I do try to eat the ones that I do like as much as I can. I workout four days a week like clockwork, and my sleep is very important to me.

3) What are you looking forward to?
Warmer weather, a one-night get-a-way planned with my husband tomorrow!!

4) Who has aided your recovery the most?
My therapist, followed by books I’ve read. And of course – me! =)

5) What was the very last thing you ate?
breakfast – oatmeal with scrambled eggs in one bowl (thanks, alicia!)

6) What is one material thing you are dying to have right now?
A necklace from The Silver Maple or a snow-blower for next winter. =)

7) If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
Hawaii or Israel

8 ) What is/was your biggest fear food, and how will/did you conquer it?
That’s a tough one… I have learned from my therapist not to frame foods in that way, that nothing should be feared or forbidden. But prior to learning that from him, I guess I would say dark chocolate. I safely always have a bag of dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses (my gravatar!) so I can have a few to get my sweet fix after dinner. Years ago I would have some, then keep jumping again for “just one more” over and over again. I don’t remember how I conquered it, but it is always in my house and always for after dinner.

9) What are your dreams for life after ED?
I feel like my toe is dipping into “life after ED” right now and it feels wonderful. My dream is for it to always be as it has for the past month – I’m not obsessed with food thoughts, I don’t weigh/measure portions, I don’t get on the scale every day. I’m binge-free 2+ years. I want to maintain my current weight while doing these things and be able to live this way for the rest of my life. I also dream/pray that I don’t pass down an ED to my daughter.

10) What advice would you give to someone concerning eating disorders?
Definitely to seek help to find the root of where the ED comes from, analyze it and then put it behind you. I think that has been key for me. Another huge thing is being honest about it. Maybe not with the whole world, but with some people you can trust, because I really believe in my tagline – you are only as sick as your secrets.

Hey all, as I mentioned in #3, I will be away Sunday – Monday (woohoo!) so I will be MIA blog-wise. Catch up with everyone on Tuesday! Have a great weekend!

And oh, there is still time to enter the book giveaway, see original post here. Deadline is May 2, a random winner will be chosen on May 3.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

Well, since I ate a salad for lunch yesterday, I decided to take, what probably seems ridiculous to most of you, but a big step for me, I ordered “regular” food.

I started with a side salad, then got a meal of broiled scallops, baked potato and veggies du jour (which actually included corn, one of the few veggies I like!).

So for the first time since I started on my quest to be binge-free over 2 years ago, I ordered non-rabbit food for dinner. Even my daughter said incredulously – “you didn’t get a salad!?!?” Ugh, how sad is that!?!?!

So I only ate roughly half of my meal, plus I ate some of the cheese off of my daughter’s personal pizza and took one french fry from my son’s plate.

I was quite pleased with myself as I have had a fear all this time that if I ordered ‘normal’ food I would not be able to have the whole plateful of food in front of me and be able to stop eating when I’ve had enough. When I order salad, I know that I can eat every morsel. So yay! A small victory for me!

I even finished off my son’s ice cream sundae with no regrets, as dessert. And the other day I took my kids for water ice and actually joined them in getting something. Normally I would have looked over the water ice place’s nutritional info ahead of time and would know in advance which item (with the lowest calories of course!) I was going to choose, if I was going to get anything at all. But I didn’t this time. I ate a small water ice treat like a normal person. I didn’t look up the calories when I got home either. I didn’t care. I ate when I was hungry and just trusted myself and my body.

I know this stuff all sounds silly, but it is so huge for me. I’m feeling “normal”!

Though I admit to doing a little bit of tallying in my head at dinner to make sure I didn’t go crazy, I did not hit my computer the minute we walked in the door to see how many calories I consumed (nor did I tally them later). My gosh, it is so liberating to be able to do that!

And oh, I just looked at the calendar and realized that today is the 4-week of anniversary of no calorie counting and weighing/measuring food!! Woohoo! If you would have told me six months ago I would be doing this, I would have laughed in your face.

Anyway, just wanted to share this little victory, because I was pretty happy about it. Each day that goes by, I get a little more confident and it’s such a great feeling. I pray that it continues. I’m still a work in progress, but one that is making progress.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

To be honest, I think what I’m doing is more of a combination of intuitive eating/healthy eating/mindful eating.

I’m not “totally going for it” as the intuitive eating books tell you. I think that is aimed more at people who have been dieting and have been depriving themselves. I don’t think I fall into that category as I am someone who has been eating healthy, but does not deprive myself and does have small treats every day.

At this point, I prefer to look at what I’m doing as just doing what I was doing before – eating healthily, but I’ve dropped the weighing/measuring my portions and counting calories. I prefer to err on the side of serving myself a little less, knowing that if I get hungry a little later, I can always eat more.

These past weeks have been freeing and empowering. If you told me six months or a year ago, even being binge-free at that time, I could let go of the these other controlling behaviors I would have said – no way! But through therapy, reading and blogging, (and perhaps the estrogen supplement?) I found myself in a really good place, a place where I trusted by myself and my body to do the right thing as far as food goes.

I do try to honor my hunger and stop when I’m feeling full. However, I sometimes don’t wait until I’m hungry to have my dessert after dinner. But guess what – that is normal and it’s OK!

It is so amazing to go out to eat, not write down what I’m eating while at the restaurant, tally calories as I’m going along, and then come home to immediately look up the foods I didn’t know the calories of and calculate everything.

In fact, the tallying that I’ve been doing in my head is slowly stopping too. Who would’ve thunk it? I thought the not knowing was going to kill me, but it’s not. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, it is FREEING!!!

I think it’s going to take a few months of this to truly see how it’s going, to see if this intuitive trust in myself that I now have will keep me maintaining my current weight, give or take a few pounds. The reason I say this is because in the past when yo-yoing, I have been “good” for a while and then started bingeing/compulsive overeating again and it took weeks before the weight came on. At first I thought – sweet! – I can binge and no weight is coming on! But then of course, the weight caught up with the eating and the pounds surged right back on. So I think I need to give my body time to adjust to these new changes I’ve made to really see how it effects my weight.

Tomorrow or Saturday I will do my monthly weigh-in. Aunt Flow made an unexpected visit earlier this week, so I will wait till she is gone for two days so I can get a more accurate reading. My clothing all feels pretty much the same, but I still feel like I just want to touch base to make sure I’m on track.

Another change I’ve made is that I no longer frame foods as being forbidden. While I’m not actively seeking out junk, I let myself have it when we are out and I eat it with no regret. Because I’m framing it in that manner, I don’t feel a need to binge. I feel *gasp* “normal.”

I still go with a big salad for a dinner whenever we got out. My reasons are two-fold — 1) I am embarrassed to admit that I really don’t like many vegetables, but over the years I have come to really like lettuce and baby spinach, so eating it 3-5 days a week is my way of getting a good intake of vegetables. 2) I love how I can order the salad exactly how I want it (with the dressing on the side) and can feel free to devour the entire plate. I have yet to try ordering “regular” food, eating a portion and leaving the rest. I do hope to get to that point some day.

We went out to dinner a few times during the past few weeks since we’ve been back from DC. I have had small pieces of bread and bits of appetizers, thing I would not allow myself in the past. They were forbidden and could cause me to eat too much. How freeing to know I have allowed myself to have them and just have a bite or two if I am hungry.

So I have put away my measuring cups and measuring spoons. So far, I do not miss them. It is still a little shocking to me.

Grabbing a bite of something my kids didn’t finish, and things along those lines, now feel normal to me instead of me thinking of it as being disordered.

Overall, so much of my thoughts/framing has changed and it has made such a big difference. It feels great to trust my self and my body after so many years of needing that white-knuckle control over everything relating to food.

Still, I’m taking this all one day at a time. I feel really good about it so far, but it’s such a far cry from what I’m used to, I need to remember to take it slow.

Have you ever changed your thoughts so much about something that it ended up changing your life?

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

I just got done reading a really great book about recovering from an eating disorder and learning to fall back in love with life and yourself. It’s called “goodbye ed, hello me” by Jenni Schaefer, a recovered anorexic and bulimic. (Ed was her way of referring to eating disorder in the third person.)

Even if you do not have, are recovering from, or have already recovered from, an eating disorder, this book reads in fun, upbeat, down-to-earth language about how to love your body and yourself, and live your life to the fullest.

In fact, this book has been pivotal for me. It helped me recently to take the giant leap of faith from 30+ years of disordered eating to intuitive eating, and for that I am so grateful. It’s only been 13 days, but so far, so good. I’m taking it one day at a time.

I read this book with 27 months of being binge-free under my belt. Through therapy and blogging, I was fully understanding the things that went on in my childhood that led me to become a compulsive overeater all these years. I saw patterns that I repeated with people throughout my life. I was gaining new awarenesses and growing.

I have stopped weighing myself once a day and instead now get on the scale once a month. I am following my hunger cues and asking myself what I really want to eat when I’m hungry. I also found out that my estrogen level was low and started taking a supplement. I don’t know if any, or all of these things, contributed to a new wonderful sense of calmness I am feeling. It is a peacefulness. It makes me feel like I am learning to trust myself and my body.

I felt like I was on the cusp of taking the next step which would be dropping the calorie counting and weighing/measuring my food, but I was floundering on how and when to begin.

I’m a firm believer in that people and things come into your life for a reason. One night, as I picked up the book to read before going to bed, it just so happened that the chapter entitled “Jump” was where my bookmark was.

The author said, “I can’t emphasize how important is it to put on your metaphorical parachute and jump… Jumping is scary, so don’t wait around until you’re not scared to do it. Jump now and declare your independence from Ed.”

There was my answer, my sign. I woke up the next morning and didn’t measure out my cereal or anything else I would typically put in a measuring cup, nor did I put any of my other foods on the food scale. I ate when my body told me it was hungry. I admit to still doing some calorie tabulating in my head (a hard habit to break after decades of counting!), but I never wrote anything down and never truly knew exactly how much I had because my brain couldn’t handle doing all that math. =)

I could relate to so much of what Jenni Schaefer had to say in this book, I hope that some of it resonates with you as well.

Other stuff that resonated with me from the book:

Schaefer said that her eating disorder had become her identity and that (after therapy and hard work) as long as she kept referring to herself as being in recovery from her eating disorder, she was giving Ed a place in her life. This, she says, was a self-fulfilling prophecy for her. As long as she believed that Ed would haunt her, he did, so she stopped believing it. When she started referring to herself as being recovered, she took a huge step forward. She refused to give Ed any power in her life.

Schaefer writes about how she was looking to regain and love herself, no matter what size she was. She challenges – imagine a world where everyone believed the the happiest and most successful people were the ones at their natural weight? Better yet, she says, imagine a world where being at your natural weight was embraced by society without having to be tied to happiness or success at all?

She learned that people are attracted to her energy, to her soul, not her body as she used to think.

The author also admitted to being a perfectionist, but she said being that way caused her to ignore or discount what she had achieved, but that now, she is able to fully acknowledge her accomplishments, providing her with the self-confidence to keep moving forward in a healthy way.

She realized too that a big part of her eating disorder revolved around approval seeking, not just from society that said she should be thin, but that her ED became a coping mechanism for her people-pleasing behaviors. She knew this needed to change and took the steps to do just that.

Lastly, she says not to let the past dictate your present. She said the idea of “impossible” is often just an idea constructed in our minds. As long as we believe something is possible, it will be.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

To be honest, I never had a goal weight in mind.

About 27 months ago, when I realized I had an eating disorder and started my quest to be binge-free, I pretty much went on a 1700-1750 calorie a day routine of eating healthy foods with some chocolate thrown in every day so I didn’t feel deprived. As you know, I weighed/measured my food portions and kept a tally of the calories I ingested.

I also worked out (and still do) four days a week pretty much without fail.

Well, the weight came off and my body, after about 10 months of being binge-free, just somehow naturally settled at the weight I am now while eating that amount of calories per day and following the same workout routine. I guess that was my body’s way of telling me that this is a good, healthy weight for me.

So I really didn’t have a weight I was shooting for, I just stopped losing weight and have maintained for about 18 months.

Now that I’ve switched to intuitive eating, I guess I will really find out what weight my body wants/needs to be. I hope it isn’t too much different than my current weight. I’ve started on a new journey and I’m interested to see where it leads me.

Do you feel like your body is at it’s natural, healthy weight?

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

The birthday celebration started Friday night when two dear friends took me out to dinner. There is nothing like getting out with a couple of friends and just relaxing while the husband takes care of the kids.

Saturday night we went to a casino-type fundraiser for our synagogue. I already knew the dinner menu was not foods that I particularly care to eat, so I ate dinner beforehand. I was a little concerned about the dessert buffet, but was armed with a plan of being choice-ful and enjoying a few things that I really enjoyed.

Some little victories happened… first, they had m&m’s and hershey’s kisses out on all the tables. For some reason that I cannot fathom, I didn’t want any. (Um, hello, did I just say that I didn’t want any chocolate!?!?!)These candy’s are my some of my favs too! I don’t know whether I knew that they are triggers for me and I knew that if I had one I would keep on going. Maybe they just weren’t special enough and I was waiting for the good stuff on the dessert buffet. Perhaps my stomach felt full from the can of caffeine free sprite I just drank. Or maybe, I was just being a “normal” eater and I was able to be present in conversations instead of fixating on the chocolate that was just inches away from me. Whatever the case may be, I was pleased with myself.

Two hours into the four-hour event, the desserts were not out and I was hungry and I was feeling chilly. I wanted something at home, not the m&m’s or kisses. So my husband walked me out to our car and I left. (He would easily get a ride home with someone else in our neighborhood. And oh, turns out that when they did in fact put out the desserts, they were killer. While I would have enjoyed them and hoped that I would stick to my plan and not letting the food rule me, I was kind of glad that I didn’t even have to deal with it.)

So I came home, had the dessert that I wanted, made a nice cup of decaf coffee and felt good about my choices.

For SO many years my birthday revolved around food. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I would make a list of food, that I would work on for months, of special, decadent treats that I would typically not indulge in, that were saved especially for my birthday. I would spend the day driving around to bakeries, markets, etc to buy all the things on my list. Some I would eat in the car as I was going, some I would just gorge on when I get home. It was a a true day of utter gluttony. I felt stuffed all day, but that didn’t stop me from shovelling these treats in, because after all, it was my special day and I deserved it, right?

The past two years of being binge-free, I worried what I would do on my birthday, because the usual binge-to-end-all-binges was out of the question. Quite frankly, I really didn’t know what to do with myself to celebrate.

But this year, something has changed. I told my husband that I wanted a day of peace and quiet. I wanted him to take over (most of) the parenting reigns of our elementary school-aged children. I wanted him to the be the one, for this one day of the year, to wake up with the kids and get them ready for Sunday school. Instead of me being the one to tell them – hurry up and eat… get ready…get your sneakers on…you gotta go..etc, like I do for school. I left him to be do the parent policing in the morning for a change and he was happy to oblige.

I lazed in bed, which I never do, caught in that sweet world of not quite asleep and not quite awake, knowing that I, for once, did not have to rush downstairs to get the kids ready to go out the door. It was wonderful. I ate my breakfast and got ready for the gym in a calm, peaceful manner, knowing I had no agenda or commitments to my day, other than to just chill out.

Typically my days are gogogo, rushrushrush, hurryhurryhurry, dododo, so to be in a relaxed mode was a fantastic.

The cardio portion of my workout was unusually high energy. A good way to kick off my first day of being 42!

My husband and kids surprised me in the early afternoon with one of those “baby” cakes (chocolate cake with chocolate icing, of course!) that is double layer and only about 6″ in diameter. I had a small piece and the frosting was really delish. The four of us at half the cake.

I started contemplating eating just the frosting off the rest of it. I hadn’t eaten anything after lunch and more frosting could be eaten instead of my afternoon snacks. I ran it past my husband, who said I should enjoy my birthday and just toss what’s left of the cake in the trash.

So you know what, I did just that. I slowly ate and savored just the chocolate icing over the course of about 30 minutes. I tried to keep a rough mental count of how much I was having so I could account for the calories. It was a yummy, special birthday treat and I felt no guilt in eating it. It was not a compulsive, secretive, frenzied binge, just someone “letting go” and enjoying a treat in a controlled fashion for one day.

That evening the two of us went out for a nice dinner. I ate lightly as I was still satiated from the frosting. The restaurant brought up a cupcake with a candle in it, which was an unexpected surprise. I ate maybe 1/3 of it at best, my husband at the rest.

Then they brought the dessert tray over. There were a couple of things that looked really good. I knew I didn’t want chocolate, because clearly I had enough of that already. I was in a real quandary – do I split one of the desserts with my husband simply because it was my birthday and why shouldn’t I enjoy, or do I truly realize that I have had quite enough dessert for the day and pass. The voices in my head were having quite a field day arguing with one another. I looked to my husband for his opinion and he said – it’s your birthday. I honestly didn’t know what to do.

So after a few minutes of my wishy-washy indecision, my husband finally said the magic words – let’s pass. My immediate reaction, a physical reaction, was the feeling of a punch in my gut. But then I realized he was right and was glad he made the decision.

So all told, I went over my calorie count by around 400. Certainly not the end of the world for one day and so ended my birthday story, and today I’m right back to my normal eating habits, but….

the winner of the “Stop Overeating TODAY!” book is Diana! Congrats!! Diana, please email me your mailing address and the author will send the book directly to you.

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body

As always, I left his office with not with what I thought I wanted, but instead, with what I needed.

First of all, most of what I’m going to write about here, he has mostly already told me. As the days and months pass, (and hormones take over =)) I sometimes forget all the great things he has brought to my awareness, so I really needed this session to get grounded again in fighting this eating disorder.

So in no particular order….

What stood out to him from reading my blog and talking to me yesterday was that for me, the important things in my life, in my recovery right now, is that I give great value to the fact that I have been binge-free for 26 months and that after all of these weight struggles, I’m happy with how I look and feel and that I don’t want to gain any weight back. He told me that I should be really proud of my accomplishments and there is nothing wrong with these items being the things that I give value to and are of great importantance to me now.

He said that it was his opinion that I was not ready to totally follow the Intuitive Eating path. Quite frankly, this was a huge relief because I am currently only dipping my big toe into the Intuitive Eating waters (allowing myself to enjoy foods that are worth it and listening to my hunger cues) and was scared to jump in with two feet for fear of bingeing out of control, gaining a lot of weight and being back at square one.

He said that he knew that I was looking for the special “tool” for my belt that would take away the food-frenzy feeling I get around buffets. But like the awesome therapist he is, he said that I needed to get to the core of what was REALLY drawing me to the food and that would give me the tool I was looking for.

We talked about how it’s all in MY PERCEPTION of the food, not the food itself. I have made the food mesmerizing, I have created that in my head, I am the one who is allowing it to have so much of my focus and attention. He likened it to me putting this giant spotlight on the dessert table. I was putting the spotlight on it and that’s not where the spotlight should be.

He asked me why I would give my sense of power over to the food? The desserts can literally and figuratively make me sick. As he has thrown out there in the past – I need to ask myself – will eating the dessert do something “to” myself (that would be against my better judgement) or something “for” myself?

At a dessert table, the need to satisfy the impulse that we think is about the food, we’ve actually confused with love and self-soothing. He encouraged me to question myself – what is going on in my life that is not satisfying me? No amount of decadent desserts is going to satisfy what I truly need at that moment.

He said that food is just a moment in time that I make into a huge event. I make it bigger than the more important things like how I feel, that my body is healthy and strong, and that I’ve worked so hard to get to my current weight. THOSE are the important things in my life, not some silly food.

I’m going to continue this post tomorrow because I’m still processing the rest of what he said, so please stay tuned…

One Day at a Time... Nurture myself... Awareness... Letting Go... Listen to my Body