changethetape

Hi All!

I know I’ve been all “my knee this…” and “my knee that…” lately, but I did want to post a quick update about how things are going on the food/body image front.

I have been reading Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch though I must admit, I have not gotten very far. I have, however, gotten far enough to know that in order to really start listening to my body for its fuel needs, I HAVE to stop thinking about losing weight. It just can’t be part of the equation right now.

I can’t express how scary this is. I thought it would be so freeing. I thought I would embrace it wholeheartedly. I mean, it sounds wonderful – don’t diet? SIGN ME UP.

But I have been so focused on one thing and one thing only for so long, giving it up feels like a loss. I don’t know who I am without it.

Pardon my stream of consciousness, but I just realized that I am writing about losing weight the way I wrote about BodyJam a few posts back. It’s an ingrained, integral part of me. (I also just realized that I’m pretty sure I’ve been saying “intregal” instead of “integral.” The hits just keep on coming.)

I would like to state for the record that I find this to be a sick perversion of normal self-identity and now that I’ve realized it, it will be motivation to continue working on eating intuitively and NOT on losing weight.

The good news is that I really have already begun to let go. I have been far less obsessed with weight loss over the last four months than before and, since injuring my knee, I haven’t really worried about it at all. Maybe that seems like a no-brainer. Of course I’m not focused on weight loss, I need to focus on my knee and getting ready for surgery.

But, I bet some of you are right there with me: Of course I should be worried about my weight. I just went from working out five days a week to zero in a blink of an eye.

But I’m not. I’m really not. I have my moments of course, but I really am just focused on recovery and moving forward with…life. It’s happened very naturally.

Of course, it helps that I have zippy appetite. My registered dietician (RD) friend assures me this is normal when your activity drops so quickly. This is reassuring because I really don’t feel like eating. Not like I did three weeks ago.

If you want more specifics about what or how I’m eating, stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll be posting more on that at some point. For now, I am working on changing the tape to say there are no bad foods (not even white flour or refined sugar), that my body will tell me what it needs if I listen and that I deserve to enjoy food.

My weight has stabilized. I fluctuate a couple pounds up and down, but I have not gained weight since beginning this latest journey. I have committed to, rather, promised myself, that I will only weigh twice a week and have stuck to that since November. I have actually had weeks where I have forgotten to weigh a day. This is a huge win as I was a daily (if not multiple times a day) weigher.

Without overeating or at least without the perception that I’m overeating, there is no guilt. Without guilt, there isn’t anything to fuel my obsessive weight loss thoughts. That is…kind of awesome.

The list of positives continues to grow.

And I continue to be hopeful.

More later…sleepy time…