The Queen of Cans and Jars said:Luna said:(The Queen of Cans and Jars) said:Luna <[email hidden]> wrote:
> [email hidden] (The Queen of Cans and Jars) wrote:
>
>
>>therapy.
>>
>>not kidding, not being sarcastic, NOT PICKING ON YOU. ok?
>>
>>get some help. you don't have to keep going forever. just use it to
>>work through this stuff.
>
>Thanks. Yeah, I've been thinking about it. I went to therapy once,
>for a few months, and I felt like it was a big waste of time. Just
>talking about stuff doesn't fix anything. And I don't even know what
>the "stuff" is that I need to work through. I know I've dealt with
>stress and anxiety by being orally fixated at least since I was 4
>years old, because that's when I stopped chewing on my hair and moved
>to biting my nails. So it may be that this is just my personality.
therapy isn't necessarily "just talking about stuff" and if you didn't
get anything out of it the first time, you probably weren't working with
the right person.
True. I didn't get a choice though.
yeah, well, you're an adult now and you do have a choice. you can dwell
on the past or you can move forward and try to do something to solve
this problem that's obviously bothering you so much.
Are you the queen of cans & jars or the queen of cliches?
"Dwell on the past" ??? Everyone "dwells" on the past, it is how we move
forward, by using our past as a yardstick. I don't see Luna as being
overly preoccupied with the past, I see her as looking for answers and
as she certainly can't look at the future for them, the past, by
elimination, is all that is left.
i don't get the
Quoted message said:impression that you have enough insight to do it on your own, so that's
why i recommend an outside source of help in the form of therapy.
That is a fatuous, insulting, and pointless remark. You wouldn't have
any idea regarding another person's insight, not if your only experience
of that person is on usenet.
Therapy can be useful, but in most cases it is a slow, expensive and
rather ineffective waste of time.
Although some people find therapy of genuine use, many don't. In order
for therapy to be successful the person seeking therapy has to believe
in the efficaciousness of the process and also to have total trust and
confidence in the therapist. Very often this is not the case.
Recommending therapy without in depth knowledge of the situation, the
person requiring assistance, and of the potential therapist, simply
illustrates a enormous lack of understanding of therapeutic process.
Quoted message said:
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:it may indeed be that it's just your personality. you could try st.
john's wort or 5htp on your own if you wanted to. 5htp has been helpful
for me in that it has almost completely eliminated my desire to overeat.
mind you, i quit smoking sixteen years ago so i wasn't battling that.
still, it's helped. you can google for more information about both
supplements.
i think it's a deeper problem, though, and that self-medication isn't
what you need. you need to find out *why* you do this to yourself so
that you can take action to stop it, not just try to placate it into
some semblance of submission. it's obvious that you know better than to
stuff your face but you are unable, for whatever reason, to stop
yourself from doing it. i don't think just popping a pill is the way to
solve a problem like that. i think it's a behavior that you've learned,
and if you can learn it you can *unlearn* it, too. how to unlearn it is
something you'll have to figure out for yourself, and a good therapist
can help you with that.
Well, like I said before, the oral fixation has been a lifelong problem.
This compulsive eating is relatively new though, just since I quit smoking.
I mean, yeah, I overate before, but it was at regular mealtimes and it was
when I felt hungry. This isn't.
you say you don't know how to stop but it's as simple as NOT PUTTING
FOOD IN YOUR MOUTH.
<Sarcasm on.>
Wow! What brilliant insight.
You have the answer, once you spread the word, there will be no more fat
people. That's it! You've got it! Just tell them not to eat so much!
You are a genius.
Why didn't someone think of this before?
I am going to run out and buy shares in companies that make thin clothing.
I notice that you are involved in a weight loss/ diet newsgroup. As you
obviously have all the answers, and cannot possibly have a weight
problem yourself, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
<Sarcasm off.>
Over the past few months, reading Luna's posts, I do not get the
impression that she lacks insight, just that she is human and has come
to a time where things are not as easy as they might be. If, as you
suggest, all she needs is to make a decision not to eat as much, then
you have the answer, but somehow I really doubt it. If, as I suspect is
the case, she needs to find a more realistic answer, then perhaps what
she needs is a plan of attack, a way to ease her way through the next
few days or weeks.
Luna, what you are feeling, what you are going through is not easy, but
not insurmountable either. There are a number approaches you can try.
One of the best is to allow yourself the excesses, but pay for it in
advance, not by promising yourself to make up for it later. I.e., if you
really want to eat a cake, some candy, whatever, calculate the calorie
value of the thing you want, then earn it by exercising to that value
first. If you want to have an ice cream soda, about 242 calories
according to FitDay, you need to walk, briskly, once again according to
FitDay, for 35 minutes. If you want a piece of Coffee cake, walk or
exercise to the value of 137 calories. You can have what you want, not
feel at all guilty about it, cost yourself nothing in the way of damage
to your diet, and actually improve your metabolism. You can turn it into
a positive thing, using it as an incentive to do extra exercise. It is
a lot easier to earn something, then enjoy it, than it is to deny
yourself something.
I do the same, if for instance I know that I will be eating out, and
perhaps wanting to drink and not watch what I am eating too closely. I
will spend an extra hour or sometimes two hours exercising during the
day, before I go out, not try to make up for it after I get back. I put
myself in "credit" to my diet, then can draw against it without concern.
You can also do things like make it a fast rule to drink a large glass
of water and wait ten minutes before eating anything. You can make sure
that you have a lot of filling but low carb/calorie snacks around, i.e.,
things like diet yogurt and diet jellies. Diet jellies are tasty,
effectively carb free and often less than ten or fifteen calories. You
can also make savory jellies,(Aspic) to bulk up meals without adding too
much to your daily totals. You can use a low carb/low cal stock,
chicken, beef etc, with gelatin and some vegetables, diced lean ham etc.
I make one regularly with asparagus and ham that is very low in
carbs/cals and very filling. Drinking tasty broths or unthickened Asian
soups can be satisfying and not too damaging to the diet.
I gave up smoking about twenty-four years ago, and at that time I was
smoking three packs a day. I bought a bicycle the day before I gave up
and rode everywhere instead of driving. I was doing a graduate degree at
the Australian National University in Canberra at the time and I rode to
and from every day, a twenty-two kilometre round trip. It enabled me to
lose some weight rather than gain, although at the time I wasn't
watching diet at all, I still ate whatever I wanted. It was a long time
before I ever heard of type 2 diabetes. It was probably about two months
before I even began to adjust to not being a smoker, but once I did, I
never had a compulsion to take it up again.
I have some neighbors at the moment, a husband and wife who are both
trying to lose weight and they have taken up letter-box delivery. They
don't need the money, but the obligation to complete their rounds every
day has made sure that they spend three hours or so every evening
walking. I imagine that the extra money they earn comes in handy as
well. They have only been doing it for three weeks, as well as low
carbing, but the difference in them is quite amazing.
I spent six years as a relationship counselor and found that I was
continually involved in assisting with fitness and weight management as
it was often a cause of problems in relationships. I have repeatedly
seen how hard it can be for even quite determined people to keep their
resolve at all times, but it does get easier as you progress. It helps a
lot if you have a supportive partner, but failing that, forming a local
support group can be very beneficial. You may find that one exist
already. There is life away from usenet. <g>
Keep trying, even if you lose some ground, don't give up, just learn
from the experience and try to avoid that particular situation in the
future. Many people feel that once they fall off the wagon, that the
whole trip has been sabotaged, whereas really, all they have done is
taken a bit of a detour, it will take them a little longer, that is all.
As for trying to find an event or reason that you can accept as the
underlying cause for your behaviour, it probably not a good idea while
you are under the added stress of giving up smoking and worrying about
your weight. Often the things that have negative affect on us, (unlike
the manner so often portrayed in popular pop fiction) have no single
underlying cause. We are shaped by many things, some of them, when
regarded individually, seemingly quite insignificant, but when combined,
having enormous effect. The popular belief that all negative traits, bad
habits, phobias etc., are the result of one forgotten or "suppressed"
event, is completely erroneous. While that can be the case on occasion,
it rarely is that simple in real life.
Often you have to adjust to the problem without ever really solving or
defining it fully. You also have to remember that no one is completely
normal, normal is a statistic, an averaging of everyone. We all have
traumas and negative events in our lives. Only cartoons live in
Disneyland, real people live in a real world. Sometimes negative events
can be skipped over without noticeable lasting effect, then suddenly be
triggered later by another event, or more commonly, by a period of long
term depression. Even being depressed is not necessarily a negative
thing if there is a genuine reason for the depression. Being depressed
without reason is another thing altogether.
Hang in there. You've come a long way, don't stop now.
Regards
David
