Thursday, June 21, 2007

No Surprise



During our time in Adventureland (in the Magic Kingdom) Mabel got sprayed by the squirting totem poles, and in the heat of Florida in June she thoroughly enjoyed it. While she was somewhat surprised by that specific shot of water, she knew walking into that area that she would probably get wet.

Similarly, while I was a little disappointed this morning when I put on one of my new smaller shirts this morning, it wasn't a big surprise that it was tight. While I still haven't weighed myself, I can feel the extra pouchiness to my stomach, and there was no doubt about it this morning when I tried on that shirt. I knew last week as I ate (and ate and ate) that I would pay the consequences for it later, and here it is.

At the same time, while I'm not happy about my added padding on my abdomen, I've been down this road before. In fact, this past six months every Monday usually involved that extended belly syndrome from my weekend binge eating. And after a few days of exercising and "good" eating, the water retention decreased and my clothes fit better again.

Of course, now I'm not dieting anymore, so logic tells me that I won't have as rapid a turnaround as I did when I was severely restricting my intake to make up for the binges. This gives me a little apprehension, because I do still worry about permanent and substantial weight gain as I wean myself off dieting.

Rational thinking tells me, however, that if I stick to the principles of intuitive eating, the most important one of all is striving to take good care of myself, in time my weight will regulate itself. For example, yesterday was my first day that I made a conscious effort to get back to intuitive eating. Instead of putting myself on a strict, low-calorie diet, I ate what I wanted, which included some more of my birthday cake. But this also included a big salad for lunch, and at supper I ate small portions of grilled chicken breast, sauteed veggies and couscous and wasn't even interested in eating past full (on my personal scale there's satisfied, lightly full, full, and too full -- I never went over lightly full).

Short, slightly off topic detour here: Beula commented yesterday that "If I eat only what gives me satisfaction, at the moment I would be eating only cheesecake and onion rings! I might be able to stop at small amounts, but still. Do you think my body/mind will ever want healthy food if I can eat cheesecake?" I guess it comes down to personal preferences and experiences. I still crave salads, grilled veggies and fresh strawberries, in between the cravings for cake and ice cream. I think the more I legalize the old "bad" foods the less of a hold they have on me and the more freedom there is to pick from all the foods out there. I still have a major hangup about cottage cheese, though; as much as I liked it when I was dieting, I just can't bring myself to eat it right now. Hopefully that will lessen with time.

I will also say that another reason I wasn't shocked that I still felt pretty bloated this morning was because I didn't exercise yesterday. I was going to take my morning walk with my SIL, but we wound up sitting on her porch talking because she's going through a really hard patch right now with her teenage son and had only sneaked a few hours of sleep out of the tumultuous night. While I wanted to go work up a big sweat walking 2 or 3 miles, at the time it felt more important to be there as a sounding board and friend to SIL.

Today I did get my walk in, and despite the Tight Shirt Incident, I'm telling myself that I'm back on the right path and in time this will pass. I just have to be patient and keep taking care of myself, and eventually that shirt will fit right again.

4 comments:

Ty said...

I am so glad to hear that you had a great trip with your family.

And you will get off what little weight you may have gained. I have several intuitive eaters in my family and even they usually gain a few pounds when on vacation. They just naturally go back to their normal eating habits when they get home.

I give you so much credit for sticking with this.

Bea said...

I bought raisin toast. I haven't eaten raisin toast in two years. I had one slice with some low fat cream cheese. Was marvelous. I was going to buy full fat cream cheese but know several normal eaters who don't want all the saturated fat for health reasons. Me either. So I bought the low fat because it was healthier. I think this is progress.

BigAssBelle said...

sounds ilke you had a great trip. it also sounds as if you've worked through this post-trip stuff re eating more than you might have normally and feeling more rounded ;-) as a result.

my sheer joy about having abandoned dieting generally comes when i get on the scale. when i stepped on it last night, it was with the full knowledge that 20 minutes of cardio had given me an emotional lift and the chances were good that the scale would have bad news (given my inactivity, being away from home, willy nilly eating, etc). the bizarre thing was that i did it anyway, as if i were powerless over making a decision to step away from it and not weigh.

that's where i need a lot of work, still allowing the scale to affirm me or not. and of course it was great news last night ~ staying the same after such a month. so of course i'm happy.

but i'm really, really getting to the point where i believe this is a life change, that there is no going back to the insanity of dieting. i have so much more energy for all things, so many of which actually restore my spirit and lift me up when i'm feeling blue. it seems i've spent 40 years with a head constantly buzzing over food and how much to eat and what kind of food and on and on and on and on and on to the point that it's not even really living. it's just going through the motions.

if you could allow yourself to go on vacation and to eat what you wanted to, even if it's too much, that's a positive step. to do that without a committee meeting in your head assessing every morsel is even better. you are making really good progress here, andrea. i'm inspired by you every day. you expected this trip might be difficult and it was and so what? life goes on. how important is it that my tummy feels a little more full today? it doesn't affect my value as a human being or my purpose in life. it's just a puffy tummy. it is meaningless unless i assign it meaning, as i so often have.

Jocelyn said...

So glad to hear you had a great trip, but it is lovely to have you back :-)

As for any weight you have gained, I dont know many people who never gain any weight while on holidays, in fact I think even normal eaters do that, then when they get home, they slip back into their normal habits and the weight goes.

It is harder for us newly reformed non dieters, as we dont yet have a normal pattern, or normal habits, but you have to believe that the path we have chosen, non dieting, will begin to feel normal at some stage, and that this is not a permanent problem.

You have made such amazing progress already with IE, just trust that it will take you where you need to be.