My workbook came in the post last night, I haven't had much of a chance to go through it properly but it looks very good.
I'll report back on what I learn but my initial impression is positive.
In other news, the Beyond Chocolate board is buzzing. It was quite slow before, but i can hardly keep up with the volume of discussion, it's great.
I'm amused by the number of budding bellydancers that there seem to be. :-)
Hehe I'm quite pleased with myself.
We have a tuck box at work with lots of choccies and crisps. Since I've been doing my IE I've been trying to only buy snacks (20p) when I'm actually hungry and have a little sign on my desk saying 'do I want a break or a kit kat?'
Anyway, my colleague was surprised to discover that there's an entire box of echo bars (mint choc biscuits) that she bought for me as I like them that I haven't eaten although they've been in there for several weeks.
I suppose this shows I am making progress.
I also went out yesterday and spent £4.50 on liquorice torpedoes and put them in a big pint glass (they didn't have any pretty storage pots in Sainsburys). They are now sitting on our dresser looking rather pretty and I surprised myself by only wanting to eat two last night and feeling quite peaceful about the fact that there are so many just for me to eat whenever I want.
I have also taken a little pot to work with me today with dried mango and some Green & Black's ginger chocolate. My 'treats' are actually nicer than the tuck box chocs and I like them more.
Last night my ABC workout (by Astrid Longhurst who wrote Body Confidence) came from Amazon. I haven't tried it out yet as I was bellydancing last night instead but may have a go tomorrow as I have friends coming today.
Hello to Jo at http://sweetchocolatekisses.blogspot.com. It's really good to find yet another Beyond Chocolateer. We're a steadily growing group and it's great to read about other people's experiences, trials and tribulations. You somehow feel you're not alone with re-learning your eating habits.
I sat last night and re-watched Shrek. It is one of my favourite films. I love the fact that the Princess isn't perfect and that it reminds children that it's ok to have self-doubts and that you shouldn't judge by appearances.
I suppose it's something we all need to remember in life, that 'ugly' people often are lovely, and that even beautiful princesses aren't perfect. The other lesson has to be that when you love someone or are their friend you don't care if they're black, pink, brown or a great big ugly ogre.
Lisa Jane's post on http://alittlelisa.blogspot.com/ about binge eating really resonated with me. I have memories from around 11 years old of eating entire packets of chocolate biscuits and hiding the wrappers so my mum wouldn't know. I can't remember actually eating the biscuits, it would just be 'one more' and then I'd guzzle them down.
It never occurred to me that there was a reason other than greed behind my bingeing. As I got older, I was able to buy what I wanted but usually either ate in the car (secretly and without my OH knowing) or in the evenings when he wasn't around. I could eat an entire pack of pringles and still could. I'd even eat icing sugar or sugar directly from the packet, or ice cream from the freezer.
And always, as Lisa described I'd have a horrible sense of shame and disgust at myself. When I first went to uni I started to vomit but realised that bulimia wouldn't solve my problems and stopped doing that quite quickly.
Now I'd say that I overeat but don't binge very often. However, this weekend we bought hundreds and thousands (sugar threads) and other nice things that have always been the sort of food that I've binged on. I've eaten some of them but tried to stay present and put them on a plate. I really don't want to go down that route.
I'm currently waiting for Karen K. Koenig's new book 'The food & feelings workbook' to arrive from Amazon. I'm hoping it will have some advice that will help me. (I'll let you know what I think).
So much of the time I don't seem to have 'big' feelings. Yes, I get angry or happy or irritated, frustrated or miserable. But I find it hard to understand what feelings I'm ignoring and want to get in touch with them.
Anyway, I'll let you know what the book is like.
I've also been getting support from BC. I asked about how I can get the final pieces of the puzzle to 'fit' together in order to actually start losing weight (it's less of a priority than it used to be and I'm mostly happy with myself, but I do want to get slimmer for health reasons). The advice I got was that it'll happen and to trust the process.
I do seem to be making progress, I rarely overeat at mealtimes and question what I really want if I'm 'hungry' at other times. I find that this mouth hunger often happens at work and I'm working at understanding why. At the moment, this seems to be the one time I'm sabotaging myself and I find it quite frustrating.
The only other thing I feel I could change is to cut down on booze. I'm making some progress at this and believe that 'making babies' will really incentivise me to be very aware of my naughty wine habits. We'll see...
I haven't posted for a little while as I was down in London all last week and then had my adopted Auntie/Granny down from Scotland over the weekend.
I was at an exhibition in London which really made my feet hurt (I literally stood from 8.30am to 5pm), as we didn't have any chairs on the stand. My feet are still a bit sorry for themselves and are getting sore more quickly than normal.
I had some pleasant evenings, relaxing with my sister on the Tuesday, when we put the world to rights over too much wine and out to dinner with my mum, uncle and sister on the Wednesday evening.
What made me feel better is that my younger sister (an occupational psychologist and very smart) says that she is pretty sure that my brother was never sexually abused and it seems that some of my memories of difficult family relationships have been exaggerated in my head a bit. (I've blocked a lot out).
I had a wonderful weekend with my aunt who is one of the kindest ladies I know. We went shopping on Friday and then to see the Chinese state circus on the Friday evening (a wonderful evening). Then Saturday we went out to a National Trust mill (interesting), and home for a dinner of whole salmon cooked in our fish kettle. Sunday I spent making Empire biscuits (they were called German biscuits but the name changed during the wars, it's two pieces of shortbread with jam in the middle and then icing sugar and hundreds and thousands on the top), strawberry ice cream and irish soda bread with my auntie teaching me how to make each of these.
Last night I went bellydancing and also listened to some more exercises from Beyond Chocolate. I realised that I have the urge to binge when I feel that I'm not good enough and am comparing myself to others or worrying that I can't do a good enough job. Basically reflecting on two overeating occasions one was just before meeting my mum and sister when I worried that i'd be compared to my sister or my mum would make comments about my weight. The second was when I was worrying about under-performing at work. So my self-confidence and self-belief is obviously something i need to work on.
I'm not sure how...
