I have failed to eat healthy so many times. I have failed at consistent exercise so many times. After reading this quote, it makes me feel better instead of ashamed. If I wasn’t trying, I wouldn’t be failing.
My biggest problem with those past failures is thinking that they are always around the corner. I have gotten very close to a healthy weight before. Now that I am nearing a healthy weight again, I have a fear that I will “lose it.” Fear is just as damaging as any other negative emotion, so the fear of gaining weight back can, ironically, make me gain weight back.
As long as I keep following the program and using the twelve steps as a guideline for everything in my life, I will be safe. So, the opposite of fear is faith, confidence and courage. I need to meditate on that today and find another compulsive eater to help.
The whole point of the entry is that exercise equipment hasn’t changed much in the last fifty years. For the last fifty years, our population has only been getting FATTER, so don’t bother buying any of those exercise machines that are available today because they won’t help you.
After I wrote that entry, I promptly spent the next hour researching stretchy fitness bands on Amazon and YouTube. I found the best resistance band exercises video. It’s short, simple and shows you the proper form for ten exercises.
I found an awesome printable poster for exercises for resistance bands from FitnessHealth.co.uk that you can just fold up and put in your traveling case.
I had JUST written an article about how simple exercises like yoga and walking have helped me way more than intense exercises like weight training and running. I had just written an article about not letting the health and fitness industry steal your money and here I was SERIOUSLY considering dropping the thirty bucks to get this resistance band set: BalanceFrom Heavy Duty Premium Resistance Band Kit with Improved Safe Door Anchor, Ankle Strap and Carrying Case at Amazon.com. Despite the fact that I ALREADY own a resistance band set!
I realize now that my disease took over a little bit at that point.
The sad truth of the matter is: my eating disorder loves to fantasize about exercising. Ever since the age of ten, I was told that if I just exercised that I wouldn’t be fat anymore. If I wasn’t so lazy, I wouldn’t be fat.
It was a lie I believed. It’s a lie that I still catch myself believing, even though I know what has helped me and what has hindered me.
After YEARS of research on my own body, here is what I KNOW for a fact:
Weight training makes me binge
Running makes me binge
Skipping meals makes me binge
Stuffing down my feelings, instead of dealing with them in a healthy manner, makes me binge.
Yet, I’m still tempted to weight train, run, skip meals to “save calories for later,” and just ignore my feelings. I keep catching myself thinking:
This time, I won’t train so hard
This time, I will only run a little bit
This time I will be able to keep my food under control
This time my feelings aren’t that big of a deal
“This time” isn’t going to be like “last time.” That is probably the biggest lie I say to myself: “This time, I’ll be able to do it.” Just like the alcoholic who tells himself that this time he will just have one drink.
My eating disorder loves to fantasize about exercise just as much as an alcoholic loves to fantasize about being able to drink moderately. It’s a fantasy that I need to discard and accept the fact that exercise will not make me thin. It will just make me binge.
I take off the ring that you gave me when I grow up. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t want to ruin it or because I know how disappointed you’d be.
I was never able to throw up to rid myself of my binges. I wished that I could, but I could never really do it. It’s just a different way my disease could have harmed me that never came to pass and I’m grateful.
The reason why we binge is because there is something wrong with our brains. The reason why we purge is because there is something wrong with our brains. Science hasn’t entirely figured it out yet, but there is hope. Get yourself to Overeater’s Anonymous and be entirely honest with yourself, your group and your sponsor. You don’t have to take off the ring anymore…
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.
Retrospace had a post about Argos Catalogues from Great Britain which was pretty much just about looking at half-naked women, but one page really caught my eye. It was the page from the Health and Fitness section of the catalogue.
There are some fairly typical things, like these weights and springs. The springs have been replaced by plastic stretchy cords in a variety of colors, but this equipment is still available today.
Even these body weight machines are still available today. Companies have slapped the word “Pilates” on the label, but other than that, they’re still the same. I talked about that here:
Even the stationary bicycles are still around. They look different, but they are still something that is recommended for losing weight.
The thing that bothers me is that we have been doing this for over fifty YEARS and we are just getting fatter. Don’t waste your money on the new versions of these products, they are just as silly as the old ones. Exercise can make you stronger. Exercise will help your heart, but I have never lost weight from exercising. In fact, it just made me hungrier. Don’t let them steal your money. Take a walk outside for twenty minutes a day and save yourself money and grief.
Every time I was tempted to have gastric bypass surgery, I remembered this. I could have a surgery to make my stomach tiny and if I don’t change my behavior, I will literally KILL myself by bingeing and tearing open my tiny stomach. No one can change my life for me: not a doctor, a pill, an exercise guru or even a magic exercise machine can change me.
My biggest problem is that I didn’t know HOW to change.
That’s where Overeater’s Anonymous and my sponsor helped me. Working through the twelve steps helped me to CHANGE. It gave me a whole new way of living. If you are feeling stuck, get yourself to Overeater’s Anonymous, get a sponsor and do everything they say. They can’t change your life, but they sure can show YOU how to change your life.
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’m hungry all the time. I think about food all the time.” I was lamenting to Mike, my husband, about why it’s so hard for me to follow my program for more than an hour or so.
“That’s because there is something the matter with your brain. For whatever reason, it tells you that you’re hungry all the time.” He was trying to help me, but his words were anything but consoling. “You’re like an anorexic, except backwards.”
How many times had I wished I could be anorexic? How many times had I wished I could be free of this desire to eat all the time?
Mike continued talking, “What would you do if you WERE anorexic?” I cried and laughed at the same time. “I’d be so damn happy and not eat for a year. I’d finally be skinny.”
He nodded and asked, “And then after you were skinny, what would you do? If you didn’t eat, you’d die, so what would you do?”
I knew EXACTLY what the treatment for anorexics was: refeeding. Food is introduced in small quantities at regular intervals. They have to eat when the timer goes off, even though it’s the last thing they want to do. I explained it to Mike and he nodded knowingly, “That’s EXACTLY what you need to do. You have the SAME problem as an anorexic. You need to eat a small meal every couple of hours whether you feel hungry or not. You need to NOT eat in between times. Your hunger mechanism is just as broken. You can’t trust it. You just need to set a schedule and eat when the schedule tells you to.”
That is EXACTLY what I have been doing for the last year and a half and I have LOST 65 pounds. By FORCING myself to eat about 200-300 calories 5-6 times a day (every two and a half hours), I have LOST weight. I eat those tiny meals whether I feel hungry or not. My hunger is just as broken as an anorexic and I can’t trust it.
I find it so ironic that I wished for so many times to be anorexic and the cure that they use for anorexics happened to be the cure I needed for my obesity and bingeing.
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.
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.
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.
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