This quote from Tom Hanks is pure genius:
It reads:
- Tom Hanks, Esquire, June 2006
It’s true. There is less joy when I let myself eat anything I want, especially since it devolves into depression and constant eating very quickly. Paradoxically, limiting my food makes me HAPPIER. It makes no sense, but it does work.
This postcard from PostSecret showed up during Eating Disorders Week.
It reads:
The worst thing about self-destructive behaviors is when no one notices.
Sometimes our eating behaviors can hide. I wasn’t able to hide mine, although I ate upwards of 5000 calories a day during my worst, so perhaps my exercise was hiding some of my eating problems. There are many people who suffer who don’t LOOK like they have a problem and it doesn’t help that our society prefers to look at people who are scarily thin.
If you have a problem with eating, get help. Just because your family and friends and maybe even your doctor hasn’t noticed, doesn’t mean that you aren’t in trouble. Get into Overeater’s Anonymous. We will welcome you with open arms because we understand.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
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.
I saw this quote on The Quotations Page today and it was inspiring to me:
It reads:
Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.
- Theodore Roosevelt
The full quote is from his address at the opening of the gubernatorial campaign, New York City, October 5, 1898:
For me, that means CONSISTENCY. I need to do a little bit of exercise EVERY DAY NO MATTER WHAT. I do twenty minutes of something every day. Sometimes that’s walking the dog or doing a yoga video. Sometimes that’s weight training or running. Sometimes that’s just riding my bike to the grocery store. It doesn’t need to be go hard or go home. It needs to be GO EVERY DAY.
The next time you’re thinking of skipping your workout, remember this quote. Let us live in the harness, striving mightily!
While walking around Daybreak, I found this in the Rio Tinto parking lot.
It says:
Park Here To Walk Farther and Be Healthier
It was on the outskirts of their employee parking lot and I thought it was genius. This is one of the MANY tips that are thrown out to help you lose weight that never worked for me. It wasn’t that I needed more exercise. It wasn’t that I was eating too many calories. Both of those things needed to change before I could lose weight, but they weren’t the problem.
The problem wasn’t the food. The problem was WHY I wanted to eat the food.
The problem wasn’t the lack of exercise. The problem was WHY I couldn’t get off the couch.
I had been to therapy to take care of my mind. I had been to Weight Watchers and the gym to take care of my body, but I was missing ONE important piece of the puzzle.
My spirit.
It’s mind, body AND spirit that makes a whole person. As Overeater’s Anonymous says it, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual. I needed meditation. I need spiritual experiences. I needed a daily dose of monoamine neurotransmitters to combat the desire to eat more food and lie on the couch like a slug. It wasn’t until that spiritual aspect of my program was added that I started to make progress.
When I meditate, eating healthy is easier. When I meditate, getting out to take the dog for a walk is easier. When I meditate, the thought of parking at the far end of the parking lot no longer sounds like a punishment.
I appreciate the sentiment on the Rio Tinto parking lot, but spray-painted admonishments never helped me. What helped me was sitting STILL and getting my brain to release those feel good chemicals for fifteen minutes every day. How ironic is that?
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.
I am so inspired by this guy! Matt Diaz has lost 270 pounds! He is self-conscious about his excess skin, but I am truly inspired by him! You lost weight, man! Be PROUD of your body! You EARNED it!
I, too, have excess skin under my arms and lying flaccidly over my flatter stomach. I will never have a six pack. I will never be one of those girls to wear a mid-riff baring shirt, but it’s not out of shame. Even if I had always been thin, I wouldn’t have worn one of those shirts. I was never that comfortable with showing off my body. That’s WHY I ended up gaining so much weight. To protect myself.
Now that I’m all grown up, I can protect myself. I don’t need a layer of fat to keep the guys away. I can just calmly and gracefully let them down easily. I am completely unaffected by that loose skin flapping on my body because I lost weight to save my life, not to look sexy.
This postcard from PostSecret broke my heart.
It reads:
I never gave anyone these because I thought I was fat.
When I saw these photos, I imagined the person who didn’t get them. There was SOMEONE in love with this girl. I don’t know who that person was, but they did not get the photo. That person wished that she would give them a photo. That person cried when the photos came out and didn’t get one because they believed that someone else got all the pictures instead of them hiding in a box somewhere.
If you think you’re fat, STOP DOING THIS! If you KNOW you’re fat, STOP DOING THIS! There is someone out there RIGHT NOW, who loves you. That person WANTS a photo of you in all your “fatness.” Whether your fatness is real or imagined, don’t let it stop you from getting the love you deserve. There is someone out there who wants to love you. Don’t disappoint them. Don’t push them away. Give them the photos.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
The only reason I know that this fruit stand was in a foreign country is because the newspaper the fruit is sitting on is in Spanish.
I believe I took this photo while we were on an excursion on a cruise. I vaguely remember eating fruit out of a plastic cup.
The funny thing is, when I remember all the cruises I’ve been on, I can hardly remember this glorious fruit stand. In fact, I remember very little of the food from the cruises. I ate constantly while I was on them, but the memories of the food are hazy and vague.
What I DO remember from the cruises was playing trivia and winning a trophy for it. I remember sitting on the balcony off our room, relaxing, reading and talking with my family. I remember swimming with manta rays in Cozumel.
I remember seeing whales in Cabo San Lucas.
I easily gained ten pounds on each cruise I went on, but I don’t remember the food at all. I’m going to learn from this. I’m going to remember ONE thing about eating on cruises: I’m not going to remember it, so I might as well eat as little as possible.
I was looking through some old photos and I found this one of myself.
I’ve talked about the Utah State Fair in the past here:
The only reason I ever went to the Utah State Fair is staring you in the face right now. I went to eat. I wasn’t attracted by the cross-stitch or the leather work. I didn’t go to pet the goats (okay, maybe a little). I didn’t go for the cheesy vendors. I went for the FOOD.
Last September when I wrote that entry, I had no desire to go to the State Fair. Even now, looking at that picture, doesn’t make me salivate at the thought of corn dipped into lemon pepper butter. All I can see was what I was and how different than it is from now.
I don’t have a current picture in a similar outfit to show an “after” shot, but I am better physically.
Most importantly, I have my life back. I’m not spending all day of every day thinking about food, getting food, planning what I’m going to eat, exercising off food or trying not to eat it. I have so much extra time that I feel an incredible joy and gratefulness to Overeater’s Anonymous.
If you find that there are some events that you only attend because of the food, like I did with the Utah State Fair, then you might have an eating problem and Overeater’s Anonymous might help you. It sure helped me.
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.
When I was doing the Color Run in Las Vegas last weekend, I ran right past it. “Glutton” the sign read:
I had no idea that they made a restaurant dedicated to my eating disorder. This is not a restaurant review and I’m sure they are a lovely restaurant with delicious food. That wasn’t the point.
The point was the sign. It said, “Glutton.”
Despite all my work in Overeater’s Anonymous, I still have the disease. I know this because I had been planning the binge I was going to go on after the run. I was literally thinking about which Las Vegas Buffet I was going to eat at when I saw that sign. Glutton? Why, yes. Yes, I am.
The truth of the matter is that whenever I do intense exercise like a 5K run, it makes me crave food. Intense exercise makes me want to binge. I know it’s good for me every once and a while, but I really think that I do better with walking, weight training and yoga. They just don’t seem to inspire fantasies about food the way an intense run does.
Am I still doing the Color Run in Salt Lake City? You betcha! Am I still training for it? Only once a week instead of 3-4 times a week. Am I going to eat at Glutton Restaurant? I don’t think I can. It just hits a little too close to home and the reality of my situation.
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.
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