I has been two weeks from today that the book arrived. (WOMAN FOOD AND GOD). I have notw read it twice and I feel like a different person already. Things are starting to make sense to me. I have been able to reach back in my past and observed things that have happened. I try not to judge these incidents, but sometimes I do. Although I have not felt angry about some of these situations that happened in my life, I do see now how I have numbed myself from really feeling. I did not want the book to make me go back and see these things but it has.
There really was no decision made on my part to follow the eating guidelines. They all made sense to me and felt right. I began that first day to only eat when I was hungry, eat what I wanted to eat and eat without distractions. The eating only when I was hungry has been easy and really effortless. Out of habit, I have been inclined to grab some food but when I ask myself if I am hungry and the answer is "no", it has been easy to walk away from the food. I shrug my shoulders and tell myself that when I am hungry, I can have whatever it was that I was going to grab. Funny thing is that when I do get hungry, I don't want what I was going to grab. Do you know that I have never, since I was a teenager, eaten this way!
I also have realized that the feelings of being hungry do not always feel the same. They are different during the times of day. Morning hunger comes on fast and I can feel it in my throat. Afternoon hunger creeps up differently and it depends on if I have had caffeine. If I did have my coffee that morning, the feeling is somewhat shaky and feels real empty in my belly. At night it comes up quickly but the feelings inside my body are much deeper. Almost like I have to ask myself "Wait a minute, was that hunger I just felt?". I do not feel that panicky feeling when I am hungry like I have felt my whole life. Just, "Oh, it is time to eat something. What do I want?"
Eating at the table with no distractions has been the hardest for me, but I am getting used to it. I am tasting things that I have never tasted before but have been eating my whole life. My kids love the new rule and we are enjoying each other during these meal times. We are experimenting different tastes, textures and sensations and talking about them together!
I have also realized foods that I used to love and have stayed away from for years because of the beliefs I have had regarding them. I am slowly rediscovering foods that I loved and have really missed. I love this!
I have no idea the exact weight I was when I started and the great thing is that I really do not care. My body feels better. I did not start out to lose weight, I just wanted this obsession with food to end and I feel like it is ending. I know that the weight will just start falling off and feel that it already has.
I am starting to feel my body again and I am starting to feel again. Period!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What I have known for a very long time!
I do not know how, but for a very long time I have known that there was another way out of the over weight hell. I knew that it was not just about the food. I had a very hard time finding the support to back up that way of thinking. I tried to find the answers in all of my spiritual teachings and tried to put things together that make just common sense. After living a very long time with so many rules (this is bad for you, you shouldn't eat this, eat as much as you want of this), I had come to a place where I really did not know what was real anymore and what was propaganda for the diet industry.
Every diet I have been on that had the eating plans that were taught to me, did help me to lose weight, but how I suffered. All I could think about was food, food, food and how to make the very most out of every point I was given (and totally not calculating the m & ms). Food in general IS the problem and every diet made me think about food even more. What was even worse was the thought that I would have to live like this FOREVER! I suffered through each diet, angry at myself all the time that I had to do this. What was defective about me that I had to go through this hell? Day after day food was even more magnified than before. I dared not ask God's help in this because I always thought of losing weight something superficial and egotistic, both of which God has no interest in.
It was not until I read the book that I began to understand that I am not my full potential being because weight is on my mind 24/7. I did not have room in my life because this issue was taking up my mind space. It made me crabby, it made me unable to focus because all I could think of was what I was going to eat next. My mind was filled with food concoctions of what I could look forward to. I was always future thinking and that takes you away from the beauty of the present moment. And I have been doing this for a very long time. It is almost as if, once I had figured out what I was going to eat at the next eating time, I could then concentrate on whatever I was doing at the time while still anxiously anticipating that next feeding time. And, oh, was I going to make it something wonderful! Eating became the only thing I looked forward too. I only ate with people who I thought would totally accept my ways of eating or else I would eat alone. I did not feel bad about myself before I ate, but I always did after.
God did not intend me to live my life this way. It is not important to Him if I am fat or skinny, but I know that he wants me to LIVE, FEEL, BE AMAZED and most importantly, love myself so that I could serve Him better. An obsession, like food, will take you away from GOD. That is the affliction that I wanted to end. It wasn't being overweight, it was the role food played in my life and the misuse of it that was the affliction.
I feel like after reading the book, I am on my way home. I am on my way to where I have wanted to be for such a very long time. It is no longe that I want to "Lose Weight" which I have wanted my whole adult life, it is that I no longer want to be obsessed with food!
Every diet I have been on that had the eating plans that were taught to me, did help me to lose weight, but how I suffered. All I could think about was food, food, food and how to make the very most out of every point I was given (and totally not calculating the m & ms). Food in general IS the problem and every diet made me think about food even more. What was even worse was the thought that I would have to live like this FOREVER! I suffered through each diet, angry at myself all the time that I had to do this. What was defective about me that I had to go through this hell? Day after day food was even more magnified than before. I dared not ask God's help in this because I always thought of losing weight something superficial and egotistic, both of which God has no interest in.
It was not until I read the book that I began to understand that I am not my full potential being because weight is on my mind 24/7. I did not have room in my life because this issue was taking up my mind space. It made me crabby, it made me unable to focus because all I could think of was what I was going to eat next. My mind was filled with food concoctions of what I could look forward to. I was always future thinking and that takes you away from the beauty of the present moment. And I have been doing this for a very long time. It is almost as if, once I had figured out what I was going to eat at the next eating time, I could then concentrate on whatever I was doing at the time while still anxiously anticipating that next feeding time. And, oh, was I going to make it something wonderful! Eating became the only thing I looked forward too. I only ate with people who I thought would totally accept my ways of eating or else I would eat alone. I did not feel bad about myself before I ate, but I always did after.
God did not intend me to live my life this way. It is not important to Him if I am fat or skinny, but I know that he wants me to LIVE, FEEL, BE AMAZED and most importantly, love myself so that I could serve Him better. An obsession, like food, will take you away from GOD. That is the affliction that I wanted to end. It wasn't being overweight, it was the role food played in my life and the misuse of it that was the affliction.
I feel like after reading the book, I am on my way home. I am on my way to where I have wanted to be for such a very long time. It is no longe that I want to "Lose Weight" which I have wanted my whole adult life, it is that I no longer want to be obsessed with food!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
How it started
Realizing that I am 48 years old (soon to be 49) and that I have spent most of my adult years overweight, I finally got sick of it. I fell to me knees and asked (begged) God to deliver me from this affliction! Knowing what I know about God, I had total faith that he would. My problem was that I did not know if this was something that I SHOULD ask God to help me with. After all, the physical body I have always thought was my responsibility. I had never understood what GOD's interest in the physical body would be. In my prayer, I told him that if this was not something that I was supposed to ask him for help with, that is OK. But I truly did not know what or how to get rid of this affliction of being overweight.
I have know for some time that there is something more to this issue than the food I eat and how much of it I eat. I have felt for a long time that going on a diet was a bandaid fix on a much bigger problem, but I did not know what that problem was. I also have known for a long time that the messages that I grew up with in regards to food and weight were constantly playing in my mind and I could not escape them.
I have looked back on my life many times to pinpoint what happened and why. Reasons have dabbled my brain but nothing so concrete to give me a way to fix it. This I know, when I was a teenager, I was not overwieght! Sure, there were thinner girls than me and I admired their thinness but I was satisfied by my body. When I was a senior in high school, my mother decided to join Weight Watchers with some of her friends. She asked me if I wanted to join with her. I was absolutely floored! "OMG, my mother is asking me to join Weight Watchers with her! Does she think I need to loose weight? She must think so if she asked me! OMG this is my mother and she knows so much better than I about these things (even though I would never admit that to her) so it must be true that I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT!"
So at the ripe old age of 17 I joined Weight Watchers with my Mom. They weighed me and told me that I needed to lose 32 pounds. I sat in the meeting and listened to everyone talk about their temptations that they struggled with that week and about the weight they lost. Anyone who lost weight was applauded and anyone who did not were made to feel as if they had done something wrong. There was one woman in her 50's that stood up and said that she was in "maintenance"for 18 years and that she knew she would always have to watch her weight. I sat there in total fear thinking that I would have to spend the next 18 years in "maintenance". I quickly turned the page in the book to the maintenance page to see what you could "all" eat on maintenance and became immediately disappointed in how the rest of my life was going to be only eating the foods "on maintenance"!
Of course I lost weight. Anyone would with what we were allowed to eat! But did I suffer. Up till that point in my life, I ate what I wanted and did not pay a whole lot of attention to food. It was no big deal. Now, food was so magnified in my life. I had to pre plan every meal. Believe me, what I planned the day before to eat the next day was never appealing to me on that next day. All of the sudden food was front and center in my life. I yearned for those simpler days when I just ate when it was time to eat whateve sounded good to me. I got the ooohs and aaahs from everyone about how great I looked. I really liked that part! Mom was bragging about me all over the place! AAAH! I finally found a way to be front and center with her. Being one of seven children, that was not easy!
And so the diet cycle began and so did all of my weight problems.
Now go forward to me being on my knees asking for GOD's help. The Oprah show (which I rarely watched because it was on during my Piranha time of the day) was on and I was able to watch about 20 minutes of it. I was eldersitting and my replacement was not there yet because she was running late. They had this woman on named Geneen Roth who had written a book called "Women Food and God". The whole audience was filled with people who had read the book and all of them had lost weight. Something about it grabbed my attention (maybe it was the line that she said she made the decision to never diet again) and I immediately decided to buy the book. Well, the cd's would work better for me so I could put it on my Ipod and listen to it.
I do not know if I have ever been so anxious to get something in the mail! The moment it came, I put it on my Ipod and began listening! GOD HAD TRULY ANSWERED MY PRAYERS! I realized very quickly that I was as close as I had ever come to ending this affliction.
My blog is about my journey to end this affliction of being overweight. Little did I realize what the real affliction actually was.
I have know for some time that there is something more to this issue than the food I eat and how much of it I eat. I have felt for a long time that going on a diet was a bandaid fix on a much bigger problem, but I did not know what that problem was. I also have known for a long time that the messages that I grew up with in regards to food and weight were constantly playing in my mind and I could not escape them.
I have looked back on my life many times to pinpoint what happened and why. Reasons have dabbled my brain but nothing so concrete to give me a way to fix it. This I know, when I was a teenager, I was not overwieght! Sure, there were thinner girls than me and I admired their thinness but I was satisfied by my body. When I was a senior in high school, my mother decided to join Weight Watchers with some of her friends. She asked me if I wanted to join with her. I was absolutely floored! "OMG, my mother is asking me to join Weight Watchers with her! Does she think I need to loose weight? She must think so if she asked me! OMG this is my mother and she knows so much better than I about these things (even though I would never admit that to her) so it must be true that I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT!"
So at the ripe old age of 17 I joined Weight Watchers with my Mom. They weighed me and told me that I needed to lose 32 pounds. I sat in the meeting and listened to everyone talk about their temptations that they struggled with that week and about the weight they lost. Anyone who lost weight was applauded and anyone who did not were made to feel as if they had done something wrong. There was one woman in her 50's that stood up and said that she was in "maintenance"for 18 years and that she knew she would always have to watch her weight. I sat there in total fear thinking that I would have to spend the next 18 years in "maintenance". I quickly turned the page in the book to the maintenance page to see what you could "all" eat on maintenance and became immediately disappointed in how the rest of my life was going to be only eating the foods "on maintenance"!
Of course I lost weight. Anyone would with what we were allowed to eat! But did I suffer. Up till that point in my life, I ate what I wanted and did not pay a whole lot of attention to food. It was no big deal. Now, food was so magnified in my life. I had to pre plan every meal. Believe me, what I planned the day before to eat the next day was never appealing to me on that next day. All of the sudden food was front and center in my life. I yearned for those simpler days when I just ate when it was time to eat whateve sounded good to me. I got the ooohs and aaahs from everyone about how great I looked. I really liked that part! Mom was bragging about me all over the place! AAAH! I finally found a way to be front and center with her. Being one of seven children, that was not easy!
And so the diet cycle began and so did all of my weight problems.
Now go forward to me being on my knees asking for GOD's help. The Oprah show (which I rarely watched because it was on during my Piranha time of the day) was on and I was able to watch about 20 minutes of it. I was eldersitting and my replacement was not there yet because she was running late. They had this woman on named Geneen Roth who had written a book called "Women Food and God". The whole audience was filled with people who had read the book and all of them had lost weight. Something about it grabbed my attention (maybe it was the line that she said she made the decision to never diet again) and I immediately decided to buy the book. Well, the cd's would work better for me so I could put it on my Ipod and listen to it.
I do not know if I have ever been so anxious to get something in the mail! The moment it came, I put it on my Ipod and began listening! GOD HAD TRULY ANSWERED MY PRAYERS! I realized very quickly that I was as close as I had ever come to ending this affliction.
My blog is about my journey to end this affliction of being overweight. Little did I realize what the real affliction actually was.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)