From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.support.diet
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous Inspiration
Date: 13 Nov 92 14:59:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <BxMpF8.1Au@wrs.com> jessica@wrs.com (Jessica Hart) writes:

>I don't mean to say it was Just That Easy. Or to be flip or belittle
>the effort that I know is involved. It did take years and years for
>this change to happen, but when it did, it seemed to happen all at
>once. Maybe some of the others here have felt something like it. It's
>nice to have a pint of Haagen-Dasz in the freezer and just leave it
>there for weeks. It doesn't interest me, normally. Now, occasionally
>it does interest me so I eat some. Not the whole thing, because I
>start to feel sick way before that now. I think this may be how
>"not fat" people eat. (I wouldn't know, having always eaten like
>a fat person.)

You know, I'm just starting to be able to do this, too.  It's truly
amazing.  For most of my adult life, having ice cream in the freezer and
cookies in the cupboard was impossible for longer than, say, two days. 
Now they just seem to sit there.  I, too, have always -- well, in my
adulthood -- eaten like a fat person.  It's just been the past three years
or so that I'm seeing something happening, something different.

>What is my point? I guess I'm only trying to say that the new way
>of eating itself can be a reward and a joy, all by itself. Whether
>you are changing the shape of your body or not. 

Yeah!  I think you've really hit on something there.  I just feel so much
healthier -- mentally and physically -- when I stop eating like a crazy
person.  It's only been as I've stopped focusing so exclusively on body
size that I've been able to do this.  

>I'm trying to share how you
>can get inspired just by the act of changing something in your life.
>This can help overcome the frustrating focus on goals met and pounds
>per week lost. I just try to experience, and truly feel, how wonderful
>it is to go to bed feeling just right instead of painfully stuffed.

Yup.  I truly can't remember the last time I felt this sane ... at least
in regard to food.  And unlike when I've been on diets in the past, I
don't wake up in the morning terrified that I'm going to lose control.  I
don't despair because I've gained a couple of pounds (I wouldn't know,
because I'm not weighing myself).  This is my life, it isn't a diet. 
There are no big weight goals anymore.  Most of the time, anyway.

>And maybe I don't look much different, but I FEEL like a thin person!
>A competent adult! Yes -- a sexpot!

Isn't that weird?  I know what you mean!  I feel _much_ more attractive
and sexy, even though my body size hasn't dramatically dropped.  It has
gotten smaller, though.

>Now here's a new question that just occurred to me: Maybe not all
>overweight people are as obsessed about food as I used to be. Maybe
>what I'm really talking about here is something unrelated to
>"losing weight" as such. It's really a mental thing. Is this making
>any sense? Anyone out there overweight but not particularly
>emotional about food? I mean, can you have
>JUST the physical side of it but NOT the mental side?

I think so.  I have a few friends who were disgusted with the whole
diet/binge merry-go-round and got off of it years ago.  None are pencil
thin, but none are grossly obese, either.  And they've all hit a point
of peace about their bodies.  They wear great clothes, they swim in
public, they wear shorts without batting an eye.  They don't diet, they
keep food they like around the house, and they don't binge.  Best of all,
their weight no longer fluctuates all over the place ... maybe 5 to 10
pounds.  Food just isn't an obsession anymore for them.  It's just a fun
part of a full life.

I have a lot to learn from these folks.

One thing I've noticed about only eating for hunger, though ... I've been
much more emotional, sometimes jittery.  This is the un-fun part.  Things
impact me much harder; life seems more difficult in some ways.  I guess
food "helped" me to face things more than I thought it did.  I'm trying to
find other ways to cope, ways that don't involve food.  But it's rough.


-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
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Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu