Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I saw this poster on Symphony of Awesomeness. It’s from an article on PostiveMed and it reminded me of how it felt to be so desperate.

Here are the 12 Tips:

1. Water: Drink lots of it. Before meals and between meals. Dehydration often masks itself as hunger.

2. Eat Your Calories: Don’t drink them, except for healthy smoothies. No sodas (even diet)or most juices. Eat your fruit when possible, the extra fiber helps you feel full.

3. Use Smaller Plates: And a bigger spoon or fork. Trick your body into thinking you are eating more food. If you see a plate filled with food your brain thinks, “Wow, I just ate a whole plate of food.”

4. Pile Up Your Food: Heap your food into a tall pile, same philosophy as above, a tall pile of veggies looks much bigger.

5. Veggies First: Put your vegetables on your plate first. They should cover about half of it.

6. Make It Look Bigger: If you eat half a chicken breast and save half for another meal, cut it the long way so it looks bigger.

7. Spice It Up! Spicy food fools your taste buds into being more satisfied with smaller amounts. Tip: Sprinkle popcorn with a spicy pepper blend, delicious!

8. No Fad Diets: Starvation mode freaks your body out so that it holds onto every fat cell for dear life. In case you need it later.

9. Love Yourself: If you don’t love yourself heavy, you won’t love yourself skinny either. It’s not a magic fix-all for problems, you did not get heavy overnight, you will not lose it overnight either.

10. Change Your Life: There is no magic cure, the ONLY way to lose weight and keep it off is to consistently burn more calories than you take in. It’s a life change, not a two week change.

11. Make It A Mantra: Today I will eat food that nourishes my body and makes me feel good I will do some gentle exercise to stretch my muscles because I deserve the best I can do for myself.

12. Keep Track of Inches: When you think you have hit a plateau in weight loss its your body exchanging fat for muscle. Muscle tissue is half the size of fat and burned calories more effortlessly.

These are all valid tips, but not ONE of them could help me when I was at my worst. Eating disorders don’t need tips. I could drink water and use small plates, but that didn’t stop me from bingeing. I didn’t need tips. I needed a complete overhaul of my spiritual and emotional life. Going through the steps with my sponsor gave me that and I work on it EVERY day now.

The funny thing is, when I take care of the emotional and spiritual side of my life, I don’t need to worry about the physical aspects. I don’t want to binge. I don’t need tips to shed pounds. They just came off because I didn’t feel the CONSTANT need to eat anymore.

Every time I see tips like this now, it’s just reminds me of how hopeless I felt before I found Overeater’s Anonymous.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.