Love/Hate

[Keepers23]

I have a love/hate relationship with junk food.

I cheated tonight. Badly. I don't even want to talk about what I ate.

But what I do want to talk about is how crappy I feel now. Not just "I feel guilty for cheating" kind of bad, but the "holy crap, I'm tired and lethargic and my stomach hurts and I'm ridiculously full and I just wish I could poop it all out" bad.

Why don't I ever remember how bad junk food makes me feel? It's such a ridiculous cycle. I have a bad day, so I eat comfort food, then I don't feel well and don't want to do anything. Thus, I sit on the couch watching "What Not to Wear" reruns on TLC and thinking about how I wish I could just puke up my dinner because I have to get this horrible stuff out of my system.

JUNK FOOD MUST HAVE BEEN CREATED BY SATAN.

It lures me in. I can't get away from it. Then I completely regret it. Completely.

AND IT SERVES NO PURPOSE.

I get zero nutritional value from it. And although I eat it for "comfort", I end up feeling incredibly worse for it. Satan, I tell you. Satan.

So, I'm starting over tomorrow. I'm on a new track. I may even rent "Super Size Me" again just to remind me how horrible that stuff is.

I AM MAKING A DECLARATION.

Tomorrow I will:

WALK to the organic grocery store down the street and get some fresh fruit for breakfast. (I sure love me some pineapple, strawberries, bananas, grapes, apples, and raspberries. I haven't decided what kind I'll eat yet, but trust me, there will be fresh fruit.)

Complete my C25k workout, and thanks to inspiration from Choco, I will push my running speed up a bit. (But I am not crazy enough to attempt 7.4mph. I like myself too much to risk a full-on face plant.)

Upon completion of my C25k workout, I will do one of my pilates videos to help me stretch. (One of the longer ones).

I will have a smoked turkey sandwich on whole grain bread for lunch, and a grilled chicken breast and salad for dinner.

AND I WILL FEEL BETTER FOR IT.

There. It's written in stone. Posted for all of the universe to see. Consider it a contract - signed, sealed and documented by Keepers23.

[Choco-cat]

Wow Keepers...that's some pretty serious talk for a Friday night!

But yeah, I've been there with the "comfort" food. Makes you just want to splurge and purge, doesn't it? (Fine print: No, I'm only kidding. I do not intend for Keepers to become bulimic, I'm merely stating that that's probably what she FEELS like doing, not what she should do.) It's like Frank the Tank in the movie Old School: "It tastes so good when it hits your lips!" Ever seen it? If not you don't have a darn clue as to what I'm talking about, but it's a funny movie!

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand, you sound like you're feeling remorse for what you've done and you'd like to repent. Go for it. Start over tomorrow morning. Heck, I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell myself, "That was just stupid! Why the heck would you eat all that? And then chase it down with some ice cream? Why? Oooh, you're gonna get it at the gym tomorrow!" I tend to have these conversations with myself less frequently than I used to, but I still have them occasionally.

Hang in there girl. It's a long road with lots of bumps and pot holes. Just look out for them, learn how to dodge them, and you'll get there.

Choco


BTW, I've never done a face plant! (((fingers crossed that I never do!!! )))

[Keepers23]

LMAO , Choco, at your "FINE PRINT". Fortunately I don't have the "stomach" to make myself purge, so no worries there.

And yes, I am going to get at it tomorrow! I did the math, and because of my love/hate relationship, I now need to burn an extra 600 calories tomorrow! So, I will be up and at it!

I swear, there must be a pod of underground scientists who exist solely to create whatever chemical it is that causes your brain to think that junk food tastes oh so good even though you know you'll regret it later. I bet those big corporate junk food execs pay them bunches of money!

They should start some of those "Truth" adds that go after fatty food companies as well as the tobacco people...

...or maybe I should just get more willpower.

Anyway...I needed to WRITE DOWN how horrible and unhealthy I felt so that the next time I think those french fries look good, I'll remember the bloating, dehydration, and sluggishness and I WILL STEP AWAY FROM THE FRIED POTATOES.

I can't say I'll step away from them for the rest of my life, but I will definitely use more discretion.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! It really means a lot. I know it's a long road, and I need to stick with it. I've never dieted or tried to lose weight before, so this is all new. It's hard for me to think about every piece of food I put in my mouth, but I'm getting used to it. Goodness! I've been pretty athletic my whole life, so I've always been active for sports and competition...but not for weight. It is quite a new experience and I am adjusting! This is freaking hard!!!!! Argh!!!

Talk to ya soon!

[iwannabeabigloser]

The last time I had a binge and felt miserable, I wrote down exactly how I was feeling....inside
and out. Then, I forgave myself, I put on my workout clothes, and went for an extra long walk/jog! Anytime I feel the urge to binge, I read that note I made...and it reminds me of how full and miserable I was!! It is not worth it!

Keep your eyes on your weight loss goals!!

[Keepers23]

Thanks iwanna!!

I'm off to get some fruit!

Good morning everyone!!

[missus]

Hey Keepers, good luck to ya girl. YOu can do it. I'm rooting for you. Keep us posted.

Hugs

Missus

[Keepers23]

Thanks missus!!

1 cup of fresh cut pinapple, and 24oz of water down!

Off to me C25K workout!

TODAY IS A NEW DAY!

That's the beauty of life...you can always start over!

[Suzie 2]

Hi keepers and everyone.I am so right there with you tonight.
I have done so bad I feel like I am gonna be sick as well. I too wont even begin to tell yall what I have ate tonight. I feel the same way so mad at myself.
I was telling my hubby about the TV commecials
all you see is food commercials. I am trying not to even think about cookies and what comes on E.L. Fudge knowing there are some up in my pantry. I think they should be banned from TV as well. (all junk food and restruant commercials)
I so think you are right it aint nothing but satin. And that is what really bothers me I want to Love GOD more than I do food. Food is controling me. Not me controling food.

iwanna I am gonna do that write it down so the next time I think about eating like I did tonight. I can go back and read what I wrote.
thanks girl.

Choco hey to ya. how have you been? Havent talked to ya in a while. ( you are the one who got me posting and to quit being a lerker)
By the way you are looking so good girl so proud of ya!

Hey Missus went Friday and got the MRI (on my daughter) She did do it without getting put to sleep. That suprised me. She was so nervous she got sick again in the car on the way there. But all and all she did fine. Waiting now for the results. I know its all gonna be all right! Results should be back they said end of next week. Dr. app isnt until Feb 2 I dont think I can wait til then.

[Keepers23]

Hey there Suzie -

It's amazing to me that this is such a battle. It's constant. We just have to be stronger than our tastebuds, I suppose!

Why is your daughter getting an MRI? She looks young. I hope she's okay.

Looks like she is a cheerleader? I was a gymnast for 14 years and a cheerleader for 6. I broke my back in high school (stress fractures from years and years of pounding on my body). I had to have several MRIs, cat scans and bone scans, and I was in a fiberglass back brace my entire junior year of high school. (Friends nicknamed me turtle). I had to have an MRI every month to make sure my spine wasn't slipping, and I can tell you they're especially not fun when you're young.

I hope she's okay. I'm sort of assuming it's a cheerleading related injury because they are very common, and that's about all I know about her! Let us know if she's okay. My orthopedic surgeon said he sees more cheerleaders than football players....as fun as it is, it's a rough sport...

Thinking about you guys...

[Deanna150]

Have you ever tried that Hoodia. There was an interview where Anna Nichole Smith uses that with her Trim Spa to keep her thin these days. I think I will try it. I get the urge to eat at night. and Rice Cakes( Flavored Air) Just dont cut it for me. I have found myself eating.. Just to be eating.. And it has to be sweet stuff.

I even thought if I had bought those smart ones chocolate cakes, that I would not feel so guilty. WRONG..... However those lil cakes were sooo good. I wont buy them again.

[jaspernotting]

Keep up the breakfast Keepers!! I have fruit juice for breakfast every morning and LOVING every drop!! Fresh juices/fruit keep one from feeling hungry till noon!! You are doing great!

[Choco-cat]

Hey Suzie!
Hope your daughter's ok. She's not doing that "extreme cheerleading", is she? Have you heard of that? They do all these stunts and throw people in the air outside, so there's no mat in case someone falls? They do all kinds of weird stuff. Anywho, I'm sure she's just a regular cheerleader. Little cutie.

Like Keepers said, we just have to be stronger than our tastebuds. ~~~~ That's still a constant battle with me though! There's a book I want to read about overeating, or obsession about food or something...I don't remember what it's called but I think I'll go to the library today to see what I can find.

Choco

[Keepers23]

Actually I did order Hoodia. (From paradiseherbs.com - I read that theirs is better because it has ACTUAL plant extract in it - not something that's made in the laboratory. And, part of the proceeds are donated back to the indigenous people of South Africa where the plants were found. That makes me feel better - I don't like taking things from poor little tribal people without paying for it).

I took it one day, but stopped because I knew I was going to get my thyroid checked. I wanted to make sure the results were right, so I didn't want to put anything in my body. I think I'm going to see what the test results say and then I may take it again.

Honestly, on that one dose, I felt like my appetite was smaller for like three days. I kept thinking - no way is that pill still working. I had really upped my water dosage that week as well, so I'm thinking that was it. Who knows?! It's worth a shot!

I told my doc I took it, and he didn't say anything. I mean...he didn't recommend it, but he didn't say it would hurt me, so...

Deanna - LOL at your "flavored air". And those smart ones fudge cakes are freaking good. I was shocked.

Jasper - thanks for the encouragement!

It's still amazing to me how hard this is. I honestly think it's a type of addiction. But one that's much less understood. They have all sorts of rehab clinics for alcohol and drug addictions, but nothing for french fries. I need a french fry detox clinic...

Choco - I haven't heard of that?? It seems like they keep putting more and more regulations on everything as time goes on and more people get hurt. I thought it was getting safer!

[Choco-cat]

You mean the extreme cheerleading? Yeah, try googling it or typing it in dogpile.com, see what you come up with.

[Suzie 2]

Hey Girls! My daughter has been haveing some trouble in school and I took her to my family Dr. we thought she was A.D.D. and we put her on Straterra. Hasnt helped much. So one day my daugthers teacher calls me and is very upset. Thoma had given her a picture of her and her teacher at Halloween. Well the teacher taped it next to her pc. A day or two later Thoma was so lost she had totaly for got about the picture and went to her teacher and said "where did you get that picture from" The teacher called me and was very up set. She also knew something was wrong with Thoma. My daughter has had bad grades since K. She is now in 3 grade. It has been the worst year ever. My K teacher said she feels Thoma is haveing trouble processing things. So I took her when she was 6 to get a (sp) autatory processing test. Thinks came back low but ok. I had an IEP done on her at school. In the first grade and her IQ was low. She did not get to get in. No problems. Just very low. I knew as I also work with preschoolers. Something is wrong. She was the last to write her name the last to tie her shoe. She just isnt like the girls her age she just seems like she is imature(sp)
I mean she is a normal child. Sometimes when you talk to her she isnt there. I dont know where she is. I have to say her name over and over. Well my family sent us over to (sp) Neoroligist and she sent her in for an EEG. It came back abnormal. Said my daughter is haveing seizures.
I still dont beleave it! So she sent her to get an MRI. To see if there is something on her brain causeing this. Or how things are? I just want to know has she been haveing these since she was little. She is now on meds so.. She goes to the DR. Feb 2....Keep her in your prayers! Missus has been GOD sent she is always there for us! Missus I know GOD is gonna bless you girl. Always the right thing to say.
Sorry for going on and on. Thanks for asking.
She loves cheerleading!!! Just not sure if she will be able to or not.

[Keepers23]

Oh my goodness, Suzie, I'm so sorry. That is definitely worse than a cheerleading injury! The good news is that at least someone is working to find what the problem is. Poor thing...she's absolutely adorable.

I hope everything is okay. Keep us posted.

You're in my thoughts...

[Suzie 2]

Thanks Keepers She is my baby girl! She goes to the DR. Thursday get the results from the MRI.
She loves cheerleading and I just hope the DR. doesnt take that away from her. She said no four wheelers anything that can cause a head enjury??? Gymastics? thats gonna break my girls heart. I will post as soon as I hear something. Thanks for asking. You all are the best freinds a girl could have!

During my Phen journey, I've been reading a book called "Anatomy of a Food Addiction; The Brain Chmistry of Overeating". I highly recommend it.

There is a CHEMICAL REASON that we seek out junk food. Here is an excerpt:

Set Up to Fail

For years, we have been saying to ourselves and hearing others say to us - both rudely and subtly - all that we have to do is stop eating: "Put down the fork. You'd be so pretty if you lost weight. Your sister eats just one of those."

These messages are demoralizing. Like drops of water on a bar of soap, over time our self-esteem is worn away by them. We have been told we can control our eating, and God knows we've tried. We've not only tried and failed diets countless times, we've abused our bodies with extremes in deprivation or exercise or by eating, say, only bananas for three days.

Rather than being told that we were up against something harder than we alone could fix, we concluded that the fault was in us. Since we thought we were supposed to be able to control it and had failed, we decided we must be weak. We believed we had no self-control.

Thus, we also abused our emotional selves. We told ourselves we were stupid or weak. We abused ourselves when we tried an extreme diet that had no chance of succeeding because it was too foreign to our tastes and schedules. Of course we couldn't maintain such a diet. Of course we failed. Then we nodded our heads and said, "I failed again." We took the blame for all our failed attempts.

No one helped us realize we were trying to control something beyond our control.

We are not like normal eaters. We can't tell ourselves to stop eating any more than a person can stop a cold by telling herself to quit sneezing.

When we start a diet that has little chance of succeeding, we set ourselves up to fail. Later I will talk about the impulses and desperation that cause us to send $89.95 to some company that has promised amazing, quick results with its diet plan. But the point here is that continually hoping something will change, trying some extreme measure out of desperation, and failing again are abusive experiences.

TEST YOURSELF

Are you a Sugar Addict?

1. Do you think about sugar products frequently during the day?
2. Do visions of certain candies or sweets get stuck in your mind, rarely going away until you obtain the snack and eat it?
3. Are you aware of the location of every sweet thing in your house or kitchen? For example, could you tell me exactly where every package of cookies, every twinkie, every piece of candy is lurking?
4. If special sweets come into the house, such as a box of candy or homemade cookies, are you haunted by them until they are gone (that is, eaten)?
5. Do you have a very clear awareness about how much of any sweet is left? Do you get angry when you think there's a half-piece of pie left in the fridge and find that someone has snitched some so that only an eighth is left?
6. Do you hide the evidence when you've eaten sweets? Do you wash pans or conceal wrappers so that your mate or children won't know that you've eaten?
7. Do you sometimes try to get everyone out of the house so that you can curl up and eat your special food without anyone knowing?
8. At a party, do you try to disguise your trips to the dessert table? Do you make excuses for the size of your helping?
9. Are you less interested in an activity if no food is involved? For example, if a dear friend were having a party with absolutely no food and an acquaintance were having a party to launch the arrival of a new pastry chef with fresh samples of his desserts, and these parties were at exactly the same time, would you have difficulty deciding which party to attend?
10. If I mention a holiday, is your first thought the food associated with it? Let's try it: Valentine's Day. July Fourth. Easter. Anniversary. Birthday. State fair. Circus.
11. Once you start eating sweets, is it difficult to stop?
12. Do you often break your own rules about when you'll stop? For example: Do you set rules such as, I'll only have two cookies, I'll only eat one bowl, and then break these rules and set new ones, only to break those too?
13. After you eat all you can (the bag is empty or until you hurt), does your mood change? Do you feel dreamy or out of it? Is your thinking fuzzier?
14. If you'd planned an afternoon of eating and your best friend came to the door, would you try to get rid of her so you could keep eating? Would you feel impatient for her to go? If she called on the phone, would you try to end the conversation quickly? If a housemate came home unexpectedly that afternoon, would you feel angry and cheated?
15. Do sweets make up too high a proportion of your daily food intake?
16. You are at a dinner party and the woman next to you leaves half a piece of pie on her plate. Do your eyes keep straying to that piece of pie until the waiter mercifully takes the damn thing away?

"Habituation to food means depending psychologically on food. Examples of psychological dependence are reaching for a sweet when you come home from work as a reward for making it through a day and to make up for spending the day focused on others (similar to the five-o'clock martini), chomping on crisp carbohydrates out of anger because a good friend let you down, or spooning in a frozen sweet because you're lonely and needing comfort. Psychological dependence arises when food is repeatedly used to cope with life.

With certain people, the bond with food is quickly and forcefully established. With many compulsive eaters, this starts very early. Many of my clients can remember extra efforts to get hold of sweets at 5 years of age. I remember clearly the taste, feel and consistency of a candy bar I made elaborate efforts to have money for when I was very small.

As Steven Levenkron has pointed out, our first discomfort in life is met with food. After the violent passage through the birth canal, we are given milk. And the most frequently repeated comfort given us as infants is food. The bottle is often used to stop crying regardless of the cause.

With this as a common start, why isn't everyone overdependent on food? I'll discuss this in detail later, but to some small extent, almost everyone is dependent on food for relief of more than hunger. Food is used for many purposes other than nutritional survival. It is used to soften people up socially, to sell houses, to manipulate business sales, to impress a date, as a centerpiece for activities, to stabilize families, to unite a culture. In fact, food is probably used for psychological purposes more than any other activity or substance."