Posts by terry2fish

From one emotional eater to another I will tell you how I deal with uncomfortable situations now in my life. You have already taken the first step which is to recognize that you eat to cover your feelings. Now you need to learn how to respond differently to uncomfortable situations.

The situation will pass. If you respond differently to the situation than you have in the past that will also facilitate change. Whatever is going on around you, you can only control you and your responses to that situation. You are not a child anymore so though you are at home where you may be treated like a child you can respond as an adult. You are responsible to take care of yourself. That means sometimes sitting with uncomfortable feelings until they pass, which they will. The food you eat to cover up will stay with you much longer than the feelings you are responding to. That food will make you more uncomfortable than the feelings in the long run. The feelings can't really hurt you but that extra unneeded food can.

Evaluate your situation when you feel like bingeing. Is there anything you can do to change the situation at the present moment? Empower yourself with action like going for a short run to burn off your frustration if there is no other constructive action you can take to make the situation better. Remember again that you can only control yourself and your responses to the situation. When you change your responses to other people you break the pattern of communication that is expected. That forces the other person to respond differently to you as well. Sometimes the best response is no response at all. That is when it is good to go for a run or just remove yourself from the situation. You eliminate the need to binge when you are taking action. It is when you feel helpless to do anything that you want to binge. Empower yourself with actions, write a list of choices of action and put it on the refrig or the cookie jar so that you see the other choices available when you need to make the choice.

Hope this helps!

Terry2fish

tciherr, I am 5'6" also and I wear a size 4 or a 6 now depending on the maker.  

I have found appropriate clothes over the last year that I enjoy wearing and feel comfortable in.

The other thing that has been really wonderful in the last 15 months of maintenance is that much of my loose skin is now gone! Having surgery to correct it was never an option for me. I had resigned myself to having this ugly loose skin on my belly, arms and legs forever and never really feeling like I could be naked in front of my husband without feeling self conscious. Everything, except one article, said surgery was the only option to get rid of the sagging loose skin. Well I am here to tell you that continued exercise and healthy eating, even at age 56 pays off.  Now 75% of the sagging skin is gone. My body has absorbed it and tightened up my skin again. I do still have some loose skin but not as much as my mother does. She has never had a weight problem and only weighs 110 now at 74 years of age. So I think what loose skin I do have now is strictly from being older and thus a normal amount for my age. I no longer have 6 inches of wings hanging from my arms, no more skin hanging down from my belly that I needed to tuck into my pants like the tails on a shirt and no more gross looking legs with skin seemingly belonging to an elephant. I have a female body again with skin that looks a bit wrinkled and older than it did at 20 or even 25, but I don't look like an under-weight elephant anymore.

I hope this is encouraging to some of you! It is making me happy...my husband never complained or even mentioned it, he loves me...but I am sure some of you know that it still can feel uncomfortable to be naked even after reaching your goal weight! If you are suffering with loose skin, take heart! There is hope! Just stick with it and give your body time to recover!

All of us have different issues in life. For most of us here on this board we have issues with weight control. It sounds like your friends don't share this issue with you. If they do they may not need to count because their issue is different than yours. You might find that if you explain that you count calories and how it has helped you just like you did here on this board it might well change the opinion of your two friends. Don't underestimate your power to influence your friends like they have influenced you. If you explain and they still feel it is crazy well they are entitled to their opinions too. At least they most likely won't continue to make disparraging comments about the subject in front of you. If they do perhaps they are not the kind of friends you need right now.

Like you say you will wean yourself of counting when the time is right. It is a tool that is useful. When it is no longer useful it is easy to give up. Don't be hard on yourself. With most anything we do in life there will be critics. Know you are doing what you need to at this point to take care of yourself and let it be at that!

X17Star17X and bintzp ...Thank you both for the help! Ann Taylor Loft, TJMax and Ross are places that I have found things I like. TJMax is a bit further away so I can't go there regularly. I think I need to get clear in my head a more specific style that I am wanting for myself. I used to have trouble just finding clothes that fit. Now with so much that fits I have to learn to be more selective and actually define my own style. I just have to keep looking until I find the things that actually feel right to me! Your comments have been helpful as well as letting me know I am not alone in this. Losing weight and changing my life style has resulted in many more adventures than I could have anticipated. I feel now that there was so much more to life that I was missing out on and I am so grateful to be part of it all now!

Snow...I have lost many times and then gained back more...over the last 40 years it got really bad...now I am where I was in high school, svelt and healthy and very alive! I never had managed to lose and get to this weight before. I know I will not gain it back. It is a really good feeling! It is not will power as much as it is finally having grown and matured enough to be able to step outside my head and emotions long enough to hear the prattle of my brain and sort out what is valid and what is ego fears or past pain talking. I can now experience my emotions without becoming them and I can hear myself thinking and not get lost in my own thoughts.

All this makes managing maintenance so much less stressful...it makes all of life less stressful! I feel really clear headed now days and I think a great deal of that is healthy eating and regular exercise. I love my new life style and I don't want to go back to my old ways ever! I don't like feeling full and bloated anymore and I don't have the padding I once did on my back side so sitting for more than an hour is uncomfortable! It is hard to believe how far I have come!

Maintenance is really just about staying aware of myself each day. I know the scale and the counting are tools that help me stay on track. I don't feel obsessed with either one beyond knowing I still need to use them. There may come a time when I won't count calories, for longer periods of time than the six day maximum I have experienced so far, and I may go back to weighing in once a week again. I am not ready to do either of those now and it is really ok with me not to, since it still helps me and is not a burden. I know when I go to visit my daughter for a week this summer I won't weigh myself or count and I am confident it will be ok. I am pretty good and making good choices now even at restaurants.

How about you Snow?

Scary is an understatement! LOL...So far I have managed as many as six consecutive days without weighing or counting. They were times when I was traveling to my daughter's for a long weekend or taking care of my mother-in-law at her house without a scale or my computer to log my meals on. I did ok but the six days at my mother-in-laws was quite difficult. I did maintain but I felt more stressed than when I can keep track of my eating. I don't mind the counting because I have created a nice easy to use spreadsheet for it that has a database of all my favorite foods. I am learning to trust myself. I have learned an incredible amount about myself. I think I will always need to hold myself accountable. I just need to keep going and know that it is not something I will ever get to give up. I must accept that I have a propensity toward overeating and stay vigilant.

I have been on maintenance for a couple months now. I have only been able to not count for a weekend or two when I was traveling. I found that I still need to count to keep myself honest about my portions. I am still discovering the psychological issues behind my over-eating former self. Each foray into not counting has taught me a bit more about how I got obese to begin with.

For me weaning myself off counting will take a good while more. I need the accountability still while I continue to sort out my issues. I personally need to find a level of comfort with being thin. I did this to get healthy and I was successful at that. The bonus of looking better was not something I was ready for. I like looking in the mirror now but I am not comfortable in public with this body yet. It would be easy to sabotage myself at this point while I am exploring and learning and feeling scared a lot. I am trusting that when I am ready to stop counting calories and maintain this healthy weight it will come easily.

Perhaps you need to look at what is going on with you when you try to stop and find you are not doing well or even think you are not doing well. Our minds can be very tricky and we need to look and listen to what our minds are telling us. Sometimes we will hear things that are causing us to slip and fall that are really not valid anymore in our life.

Hope this helps you!

I am also lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant. I like thawing a cup of frozen blueberries adding 1/2 cup each of puffed brown rice and puffed millet(very inexpensive in large bags by Arrowhead Mills). To this I add 1 or 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed for fiber and omega 3-9 fatty acids. Then I top it with other fresh fruits such as half a banana, a cup of strawberries, fresh pineapple chunks or grapes. I moisten it all with fresh grapefruit juice, 1/2 cup. Sometimes I substitute Barbara's Puffin Honey Rice cereal for the puffed brown rice and millet. The Puffin Honey Rice cereal is a bit high in sugar content so it is a treat.

In the colder months I cook quinoa and millet in water like oatmeal. I mix in frozen blueberries at the end just to warm them. I top it with ground flax seed and a bit of maple syrup for flavor fun. This is warming and sticks with you for many hours into the day. The combination of the two grains makes for a nice nutty flavor combination with the berries. A touch of cinnamon adds some depth of flavor for a change as well.

On Sunday I make omelets with spinach, mushrooms, onions and a bit of turkey bacon. I saute some potato in the pan first for a country style breakfast. To minimize the calories if necessary I use olive oil spray for the potatoes and the omelet as opposed to a spoonful of olive oil, and use one whole egg and two egg whites for my three egg omelet instead of three whole eggs. If I am needing extra calories I add avocado slices to the omelet when they are in season and top it with salsa. I sometimes substitute refried beans for the potatoes. Just saute the beans up first then cook the omelet while the beans or the potatoes sit warming on your plate in the oven.

Thanks southcarolinaguy for the encouragement!

 I think we are basically on the same page!

The important part is that I totally agree that I must control my thoughts by acknowledging what they are saying in attempts to gain control and take me back down the road from where I came. I am not going there though because I have other things to do in life!

Maintenance here I come!

Terry

thea8, I do not get that growling in my stomach. I never have. I have fasted for 9 days drinking only water and never felt a growling in my stomach. I do get a sense of being hungry but it feels the same whether it is really a need for food or whether it is coming from an emotional need or some other psychological manifestation of hunger. That is what the problem is and why I started this thread. My body is not making the distinction.

I am able to sort it out somewhat by eating small meals often so that I know I am not really hungry because I need food. I eat only really healthy food now, no refined sugars, no refined grains, no artificial sweeteners, 30+ grams of fiber daily, lots of fresh fruits and veggies, very minimal saturated fats...etc. This has helped also because my blood sugar is pretty stable. I am within 7 pounds of my goal weight now. I have been working at this for three years. I have been counting calories for 10 months now. I seem to do alright with keeping a running total in my head for a couple days if I have to go away from home.

I think, as was suggested, I may have to just keep recording everything for a long time after I reach maintenance.

I was hoping someone would be able to say "Oh yes...I found out that being fed a particular brand of infant formula as a newborn deadens the nerves in the digestive tract causing a person to not sense hunger...the cure is to eat seaweed from BoraBora for three weeks and then you will sense hunger like everyone else."

I guess it just isn't that simple but I will keep hoping someone will have some more interesting suggestions. I will keep working on being more conscious of myself. I think this will probably help as well.

Terry

Hey all...Ladies and Gent!

Sorry I didn't get to check in yesterday. Thursday is my day to take care of my mother-in-law.

Welcome to our new people!

I enjoyed reading the new post since Wednesday afternoon. I did not know that much about sleep apnea. I thought my night sweats were my last hold over from menopause but perhaps it is sleep apnea since I do have some of the other symptoms. My hubby snores and then stops breathing regularly. He wakes me up when he starts twitching to wake up enough to breath again. He says I snore and wake him up. He says I twitch a lot also but he has not noticed that I ever stop breathing. Sounds like we both need to get checked out for sleep apnea.

I had a new experience last night with food. On the way home from my mother-in-laws I decided to stop at the market to get a treat for dinner. I had been thinking about it all afternoon. I wanted tortilla chips. Usually when I feel this urge I go to our local Mexican food restaurant and order burritos and get a bag of chips that they make there that are hot. They are free with the burritos. The problem is that first I know they don't use a good oil to cook them in though they taste yummy, and secondly I think the calorie count on them is much higher than for better tortilla chips I could get at the market that are made with a healthier oil, no trans fats, and I don't have to buy a burrito and eat it when I really only want the chips. I realized that I was splurging on this which counts as my once a week whatever I want meal and if I cut out the burrito and got store bought healthier chips and some refried beans with no fat, I could probably keep this within my calorie limit and save my free meal.

I got tortilla chips made with healthy oil, 5 gms of unsaturated fat per serving. I was able to have two servings and one serving of refried beans. It was within my calorie limit so I didn't waste my free meal. I was able to stop eating the chips with the two helpings when I realized that I could have them more often than three times a year if I did it this way!

When I would buy the burrito to get the chips I would eat a whole lot more chips and eat the burrito. It was my free meal and it alone was over 1500 calories for the one meal. It didn't however seem to slow my weight loss down because I didn't do it often. However, I did feel deprived because I felt that this was a food that I could only have for a free meal. Tortilla chips are one of my weak points and a food that I have had to keep out of my house for lack of control. I have most of a bag of chips left in the cupboard now. One good thing about getting the burrito and chips was that there was nothing left over. I could eat the whole bag of fresh hot chips with the burrito and then there was no more.

I am testing my strength and flexing my new muscles here as I approach maintenance. I need to be able to face the things I fear and know that I am bigger than a bag of chips! I may have to throw the bag of chips away if it starts pressing on me and calling me from the cupboard where I left it. I will keep you posted on the battle of the chips!

I lost two pounds the week before this and no weight this week. It is not unusual at this point for me to have weeks when I don't lose anything. I know I will get there and the last bit here can go slowly because I have to learn to motivate myself with new things other than the rush I get from seeing a new low on the scale. Once I reach goal I need to have learned enough skills to maintain and I am just figuring out what those skills are for me. Being able to have chips in the house and not fall off the wagon is a skill I need to develop.

I will say that for the past year I have not bought a bag of chips, a carton of ice cream, cookies, candy, pastries or any of the foods that got me to morbid obesity! I could not have them in my house. I had a hard enough time being in my mother-in-laws house where sweets and pastries are a staple in her diet. The thing that saved me there was knowing that she is wheel chair bound and requires constant help to even stand up and sit on the toilet. She is able to feed herself and her mind is good but she needs to be bathed and dressed and moved physically from one spot to another by her caregivers. She lives on medications, taking over 15 different meds a day. Much of her illness was preventable if she had eaten healthy and exercised.  Knowing her and watching her health go down hill over the years has been a major motivation on my journey to better health.

My point here, as I share my attempt to concur my fear of tortilla chips, is that I don't recommend trying this when you are starting out. I recommend cleaning your house out completely of all those foods that helped you into the unhealthy place you found yourself that brought you here.  I am sharing my experience so that I have some accountability as I venture into new territory. Hopefully it will help you later when you get closer to your goal.

It may be that I find I just can't eat tortilla chips and they become a food like wheat that I just leave out of my diet all together. Certainly if I can't control how many I eat they are not healthy for me. Then like my bodies intolerance for the gluten in wheat that causes me health problems I must give it up.

It is a beautiful sunny though chilly day here. My morning walk was extraordinary with blossoming trees all around! Spring is so life affirming!

Hugs to you all!

Terry

Thank you all! I am growing more confident in my ability to stay healthy. I have been looking back on my past "dieting" experiences and evaluating how and what caused me to gain the weight back. I feel that this time I have indeed changed my life style.  The truth is I think I changed my life style in some small way with each of my adventures in dieting. It has just taken 40 years of trying to finally get to a place where I had made enough changes to make it stick. Plus at this point in my life I don't feel like I have the luxury of abusing my body with out paying heavily for it. I have paid a price for the abuse I did in the past and I am working to pay that debt still. I can't afford to add anything more to the unhealthy side.

My husband eats what I eat and is quite happy with it. Since the kids are all grown and gone it makes it easier with just two in the household to consider. Since the rest of my siblings are all thin family events are not really an issue. My family eats healthy foods in small portions and they are supportive of what I have done. I allow for one meal a week to eat whatever my hubby and I would like so that we have room for things like pot roast or fried chicken with the skin on. This keeps us from feeling deprived so that we don't feel like we have to cheat.

My blood pressure is excellent now. It was high as was my cholesterol. They are both back in a normal range. My husband had dangerously high blood pressure which is another reason I started this. I wanted to get his blood pressure down enough to get him off the medication. It looks like we may have succeeded but the doctor wants him to stay on the medicine a while longer. He takes a reduced dose now though. Three more months until it is checked again. This helps keep my focus where it should be I think. I still have to be conscious about eating though and I don't think that will ever change.

I guess I am struggling with the deepened commitment that I am realizing as I reach maintenance. I am realizing that I can't turn back now and that I must continue down this road. It is an unending quest to maintain these physical bodies in a state of health! I think it is worth it when I consider the alternative of growing old with unhealthy eating habits and no fitness routine to support me. I don't want to be taking pills to lower my blood pressure and cholesterol, pills to fix this or that as things malfunction from abusive habits. My mother-in-law, bless her soul, lives on medication. She takes 15 different medications each day. She is wheel chair bound and on oxygen. Much of her plight could have been avoided if she had been willing to take better care of herself with healthy diet and exercise.

Well enough rambling from me...I do appreciate your encouragement and I will keep going and find my way down the trail here as the rest of you have done! It is easier knowing that I am not alone!

Terry

Good Morning All!

Marie I can relate to your love hate relationship with your mom. My mother is 5'4" and weighs in at 110. She is tiny and has always been that way. She plays tennis and golf. She can run me to the ground in a heart beat even now. I feel like now that I am exercising and have gotten healthier I can almost keep up with her as she is slowing down a bit! Hehehe...

I took her shopping yesterday for Baby Shower gifts for my new grandbaby and her great-grandchild, Bailey, that is due to arrive in June. Three hours of shopping and I am ready to call it a day. My mother is wanting to hit somemore stores. I was getting so hungry I had to pull out my snack reserves that I keep in my purse. I had an apple and two dates and managed to go a bit longer with her. By the time I got home at 2:30PM I was so starved for lunch I had to eat my crackers while I made the salads. I have to learn to take more snacks when I go out with her. Sometimes we go to lunch if there is a good place for a healthy salad. She eats everything and still is thin but not me! Her metabolism is that of a hummingbird and mine is like an elephant. I also have food sensitivities that make it harder to eat out. I am gluten intolerant which means no breads of the regular sort you find in restaurants.

Ok enough rambling on ...time to get on with my morning workout and then the gardening begins today!

Will check back later...Have a great day all...hope you are having lovely weather like we are here in California!

Terry

MCS,

I went to your page and there was no gallery to click on. Perhaps It didn't upload yet.

I read a great post on the forums today in a thread titled "What are your secret weight loss weapons?" This young lady said her secret weapon is that she never has to lose more than one pound. She said she has been successful over 65 times in succession now. She knows she is an all or nothing type person and having big goals that are too far out sets her up for failure. She falls down and can't get back up then. So she sets more easily attainable goals like one pound. Then she can focus on what she can to today to help make that goal. She doesn't worry about yesterday or tomorrow just what she has to do today. I added her to my friends list and will get her name so you can check out her journals. They are funny and inspiring I thought anyway! Her name is "snermy". I think this will be a very helpful tool for me now and into my maintenance that is so scary and foreign to me.

I must say that I am losing my fear and growing more confident each day in my ability to maintain my goal of healthy living at a healthy weight. Chatting with you ladies here and journaling is helping me realize my prior tendencies that caused me to fall into pot holes that I just kept slipping downward into.

Terry

Thanks Bev! I got the ticker into my bio! Yay! It was a bit tricky but I did it. It is amazing to me how I can be so savvy about so many things and then some tech stuff just throws me for a loop. I am usually pretty stubborn and refuse to ask for help. I am learning to ask for help sooner now and life is easier this way!

I was hoping to be able to do some gardening today. I wanted to pull some weeds from my flower bed and get my raised beds ready for spring planting. It will have to wait until the weather is more hospitable again. I too am quite anxious for spring this year. I have big hopes of being able to do a lot more this year than I have been able to manage in years past. I will see if my dreams are bigger than my muscles! I do love to garden!

Spring is coming ladies! Sun will shine on us all again soon!

Terry