Changing my internal dialog

Luna said:

I think I keep allowing myself to eat too much, and eat the wrong foods,
because "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" doesn't work for me
anymore.

Honestly, does it every work for anyone? It's pure BS imho. Food tastes
good and makes us feel better because of hard real scientific reasons.
Thin feels exactly like what?

Quoted message said:

So, since focussing on being thin wasn't the answer for me, I am now
going to focus on being healthy. And not just healthy down the road,
but healthy in the moment. When I overeat or eat something carb-laden,
I can feel it having a negative effect on my health. I feel bloated and
hot and sluggish. When I eat small portions of low-carb meals
throughout the day, my energy stays up and steady and my mood improves.
That's what I'll focus on whenever I'm tempted.

If you restrict your diet the chances of failing are very high. Is it
possible to eat some of the foods you love?

In article <[email hidden]>, greg <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Luna said:

I think I keep allowing myself to eat too much, and eat the wrong foods,
because "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" doesn't work for me
anymore.

Honestly, does it every work for anyone? It's pure BS imho. Food tastes
good and makes us feel better because of hard real scientific reasons.
Thin feels exactly like what?

Well, the foods I want to avoid don't make me feel better at all. They
make me feel icky.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So, since focussing on being thin wasn't the answer for me, I am now
going to focus on being healthy. And not just healthy down the road,
but healthy in the moment. When I overeat or eat something carb-laden,
I can feel it having a negative effect on my health. I feel bloated and
hot and sluggish. When I eat small portions of low-carb meals
throughout the day, my energy stays up and steady and my mood improves.
That's what I'll focus on whenever I'm tempted.

If you restrict your diet the chances of failing are very high. Is it
possible to eat some of the foods you love?

I eat lots of foods I love. The "lots" is the problem. Some foods
cause an addiction-like response for me. If I start eating them, I feel
compelled to continue even if I'm not hungry. If I don't start, I
hardly miss them. My other issue is not eating enough during the day
and then pigging out at night.

: So, since focussing on being thin wasn't the answer for me, I am
now
: going to focus on being healthy. And not just healthy down the
road,
: but healthy in the moment. When I overeat or eat something
carb-laden,
: I can feel it having a negative effect on my health. I feel
bloated and
: hot and sluggish. When I eat small portions of low-carb meals
: throughout the day, my energy stays up and steady and my mood
improves.
: That's what I'll focus on whenever I'm tempted.

going for "the healthy bod" is a great idea and shows acceptance!

This appears to be your giving-up speech.

I remember being concerned that you reported needing a lot of calories, even
when you claimed your carbs had been consistently low. I suspected there
was another factor, such as not getting enough fats, but you have been here
long enough to know what to do.

When the "appestat" is compelling more eating, the mind alters to comply.
In my view your eating the wrong foods, and fewer calories than the appestat
wanted, has caused you to believe that you really don't want to be 150.

As I recall, your living situation was making it hard for you to avoid the
carbs. I think you said your dad kept something carby, like cakes on hand.
Sorry, if I'm not remembering quite right.

Regain of weight is a 95% outcome of dieting. I want to believe that low
carb is different, but so many people seem to go back to carbs. It is
depressing.

You might consider at what weight you would no longer want to continue to
"eat the wrong foods." 200? 230? 300? Deciding ahead of time might
help you re-motivate when you get there.

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I think I keep allowing myself to eat too much, and eat the wrong foods,
because "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" doesn't work for me
anymore. When I think about being at my lowest weight, when I briefly
got down to 150, it wasn't a completely positive experience. I didn't
like how suddenly my body seemed to be the focus of everyone around me,
how people, both men and women, were treating me like I was a new member
of a "hot people" club (I wasn't hot at all, I think, just thinner than
a lot of the other girls in my social circle). I was being treated like
a different person even though I felt like the same person, and it made
me uncomfortable in my own skin. Not to mention the fact that losing
weight in what for me was a short amount of time was disorienting in and
of itself, no matter how other people reacted. We all just assume that
smaller is better, but having a smaller body made me feel smaller as a
person, like I was vanishing from the world.

So, since focussing on being thin wasn't the answer for me, I am now
going to focus on being healthy. And not just healthy down the road,
but healthy in the moment. When I overeat or eat something carb-laden,
I can feel it having a negative effect on my health. I feel bloated and
hot and sluggish. When I eat small portions of low-carb meals
throughout the day, my energy stays up and steady and my mood improves.
That's what I'll focus on whenever I'm tempted.

"Cubit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

This appears to be your giving-up speech.

Exactly.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cubit said:

This appears to be your giving-up speech.

I don't see how. It's a refocussing. I'm changing my reason for losing
weight to feeling better instead of looking better. I'm ambivalent
about wanting to look more attractive, so it doesn't work as a
motivator. I'm definite about wanting to feel better though, wanting to
be strong and healthy and have lots of energy, so if I focus on that in
times of weakness it will help me to butch up.

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Luna said:

I think I keep allowing myself to eat too much, and eat the wrong foods,
because "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" doesn't work for me
anymore.

Honestly, does it every work for anyone? It's pure BS imho. Food tastes
good and makes us feel better because of hard real scientific reasons.
Thin feels exactly like what?

It's a trite saying, to be sure, and not particularly effective.
Frankly, simply "being thin" is not enough of a motive for me or I would
have STAYED thin to begin with. I prefer "Nothing tastes as good as NOT
having long periods of constipation interspersed with INTENSE, gut-
wrenching bouts of diarrhea feels". It's effective for ME, anyway :-)

--
Saffire
205/142/125 - 5'1.5"
Atkins since 6/14/03
Progress photo: http://photos.yahoo.com/saffire333

Did you quit smoking ?

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cubit said:

This appears to be your giving-up speech.

I don't see how. It's a refocussing. I'm changing my reason for losing
weight to feeling better instead of looking better. I'm ambivalent
about wanting to look more attractive, so it doesn't work as a
motivator. I'm definite about wanting to feel better though, wanting to
be strong and healthy and have lots of energy, so if I focus on that in
times of weakness it will help me to butch up.

Luna wrote:
<snip>

|| So, since focussing on being thin wasn't the answer for me, I am now
|| going to focus on being healthy.

Michelle, this is exactly the conclusion that I came to over a year ago. I
decided to meausure my success by by health, not by my weight. Low carb has
had such tremendous health benefits, that keeping those benefits is now my
top priority. I'm not losing any more out of vanity or a desire to be more
atttractive. Instead, I want my blood pressure to stay normal with reduced
meds, my blood sugar to be normal without meds. And I want my former acid
reflux, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, exzema and panic attacks to be
gone forever -- all of which have been banished by controlling my
carbohydrate intake.

I realized long ago that I don't need external validation (others' approval)
to have self esteem. And approval, vanity and looks are such subjective
things, where health is a purely objective goal.
Sure, we're all human and liked to be stroked for our appearance, but in the
end it's just plain not the most important thing.

I was just thinking about Viktor Yushchenko, the once very handsome pro-West
Russian leader whose face was horribly disfugured last year by an attempt on
his life with poison. The fact that he returned to his position in public
life with even more determination was very inspirational to me: his noble
goals and visions of an equitable democratic Russian government were far
more important to him than his looks or what others think about how he
looks -- and I admire him greatly for it. Coincidentally, his arch
political rival, old-Soviet school Vladimir Putin, underwent rhinoplasty a
few years back to try to improve his political sellability by making himself
more physically appealling. It's very telling that Yushchenko -- despite
his disfigurement -- is the hero in the story as well as the political
victor, and is extremely popular among his countrymen and the world.
--
Peter
Website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

I did. Then I started again after the robbery. When I get my tax
refund, I'm going to the doctor to see if I can get a prescription for
some type of anti-anxiety meds. Probably should have been on something
a long time ago, but I'm stubborn and I keep trying to fix it on my own,
but it keeps not working.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Peter said:

Did you quit smoking ?

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cubit said:

This appears to be your giving-up speech.

I don't see how. It's a refocussing. I'm changing my reason for losing
weight to feeling better instead of looking better. I'm ambivalent
about wanting to look more attractive, so it doesn't work as a
motivator. I'm definite about wanting to feel better though, wanting to
be strong and healthy and have lots of energy, so if I focus on that in
times of weakness it will help me to butch up.

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I think I keep allowing myself to eat too much, and eat the wrong foods,
because "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" doesn't work for me
anymore.

It's all a matter of motivation, Luna. You're doing the right thing IMO,
which is to realize when the once-effective motivator isn't cutting it any
more, and finding something else that does. And health and fitness are great
motivators and, as Peter pointed out, more inner-directed, which is good.
You're starting to want it now more for you than for someone else's opinion.
Progress, actually.

I totally understand your feelings of ambivalence re how differently you're
treated when thin. That happened to me too and it kind of made me angry and
a little bitter. And I think that's natural. Perhaps people who have been
obese are often less shallow about equating people's worth with waist size?
Dunno, but you can't help thinking, where was all this attention and
positive feedback when I weighed 60 pounds more? When maybe I needed it
*more*? Anyway, those feelings will fade with time. Hopefully they will
leave you more compassionate about the disabilities and failings of others.
It can go either way. Some formerly fat people are very judgmental towards
fat people - the ex-smoker syndrome.

Anyway, it doesn't appear at all to me that you've given up. You're just
correcting course a little, something we all need to have the flexibility to
do. Not to mention the smarts to recognize when something is starting to not
work, so you can figure out a correction before you've gotten way off track.

HG

Quoted message said:

I was just thinking about Viktor Yushchenko, the once very handsome pro-West
Russian leader whose face was horribly disfugured last year by an attempt on

Ukrainian leader...

Mirek

Quoted message said:

looks -- and I admire him greatly for it. Coincidentally, his arch
political rival, old-Soviet school Vladimir Putin, underwent rhinoplasty a

Also, Putin is president of another country (Russia) and never was his
political arch-rival.

🙂

Mirek

Mirek Fidler wrote:
||| I was just thinking about Viktor Yushchenko, the once very handsome
||| pro-West Russian leader whose face was horribly disfugured last
||| year by an attempt on
||
|| Ukrainian leader...
||
|| Mirek

Oo[ps, sorry, my error :-)

--
Peter
Website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Mirek Fidler wrote:
||| looks -- and I admire him greatly for it. Coincidentally, his arch
||| political rival, old-Soviet school Vladimir Putin, underwent
||| rhinoplasty a
||
|| Also, Putin is president of another country (Russia) and never was
|| his political arch-rival.
||
|| 🙂
||
|| Mirek

I worded it wrong; you're right of course that they are not political
rivals in the sense that they are on opposing parties in the same country;
but in the sense that they have diametrically opposed viewpoints on the
direction of democracy for their respecitve countries that have emerged from
the former Soviet blok. It's hard for us older folks to get used to not
referring to anyone from the former Soviet Union as "Russian," which is what
anyone from aany of the former Soviet states (Russia, Georgia, Ukraine,
etc.0 used to be called when I was growin up in the 60's and 70's. Old
habits die hard.

The semantics errors didn't affect the point that I was making, however.
--
Peter
Website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Michelle,
You sound like a humble person and the fact that you are uncomfortable with
the attention you are getting for the newer you sounds like a testament to
that. Do not let that attention detract from your goals and NEVER feel
guilty or uncomfortable for succeeding. You work for it and deserve it.

We men are simple creatures and if you are attractive we are going to look.
Feel good about it. Give us an attractive woman, block of cheese and a
football game and you could take over the world and we wouldn't notice. The
glaring eyes are proof that you are doing something right. You have pictures
posted that prove you have what it takes to succeed. It must make you feel
good knowing you look better as a thinner person. Doing whatever keeps you
focused on your goal is what it is about.

I just wish that someone would look at me :-)

Mertz

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I did. Then I started again after the robbery. When I get my tax
refund, I'm going to the doctor to see if I can get a prescription for
some type of anti-anxiety meds. Probably should have been on something
a long time ago, but I'm stubborn and I keep trying to fix it on my own,
but it keeps not working.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Peter said:

Did you quit smoking ?

"Luna" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
"Cubit" <[email hidden]> wrote:

> This appears to be your giving-up speech.
>

I don't see how. It's a refocussing. I'm changing my reason for
losing
weight to feeling better instead of looking better. I'm ambivalent
about wanting to look more attractive, so it doesn't work as a
motivator. I'm definite about wanting to feel better though, wanting
to
be strong and healthy and have lots of energy, so if I focus on that in
times of weakness it will help me to butch up.