Perspective Plus discussion

I recently read an article about a study done somewhere in Europe I believe that let people eat as many candies as they liked in a 5 minute period. One group had wrapped candies, with trash cans placed around the room. The other group had unwrapped candies. They found that the people who had to unwrap the candies ate less of them. Of course they did. Wrappers give you guilt. Try it sometime. Eat food with a wrapper and count the wrappers. You can see how much you ate and it can make you feel guilty.

It got me thinking about being a kid and how the rules were different for me and my parents when it came to food. For example, I was only allowed 2 cookies but my parents could have 6. I realized that this was not fair and that I was not happy about this idea of "do what I say,not do what I do" as was most of my childhood,and was the standard for a lot of us of our generation.

As I got older,and subsequently left on my own since I was mature enough and for short amounts of time, I found that I could sneak food. This opened up a whole new level of guilt for me as i felt I was wrong, but I didn't want to be right. I wanted those cookies,chips,candies or what have you that I was restricted from when I was being watched.

When we moved to where I live now,we moved withing walking distance of a shopping center. There was a nice deli that carried "exotic" foods like Ben and Jerry's ice cream which was only available in small stores at the time and a Revco drug store (remember those?). I could now walk to the store myself and buy what I wanted, so hello candy bars and Pringles chips that I would hide in my room to eat later. I learned to hide my trash and cover my tracks.

This would lead to later secret eating that would include fast food (I still ate meat then.) and other excursions that were not too far too walk. All of this stemmed from feeling like I had been denied what I wanted and had been treated unfairly. I do have a strong sense of fairness in other parts of my life that may have stemmed from this fairness about food. While my sense of fairness may not have been a bad thing, how I got there is. The food containers and wrappers built a wall of guilt about food that I still have a hard time with now.

When something is out in a bowl,like chips or jelly beans, you may take 1 or 2 each time you walk by them, but having to unwrap say a Starburst or a Starlight mint, you see how many you've had by how many wrappers you see in the trash and the guilt begins. I find that if I have to unwrap something, I will stop and think about it for a minute. I will think about why I do not need that particular item right now or at all. This was not always the case,and I am working on my old residual guilt about food and how I used to hide food and the evidence.

My feelings of unfairness led me to a path that was not good for me and I got away with it for so long,that it lead to eating 1/2 a dozen doughnuts at a time, or entire bags of Oreos in one sitting, or once, a whole pie from a bakery in one sitting, but ridding myself of the evidence so no one would know.

I knew and I still know how I felt. I ate to feel better, to assuage guilt and it did for a few moments, but it was a vicious circle. I don't know how I stopped, or when. I have my days when I don't eat well,but over eating on purpose has almost stopped. It could be now I feel full sooner now that my thyroid is in check, or because I have other areas to feel my sense of unfairness to be directed,I'm not sure. Perhaps the accumulated guilt over all of those wrappers finally got to me and I gave in.

I don't know. I do know that I am getting better everyday and that food is not holding as much sway over me as it once did, and that is a good thing. I still have my days, my moments of weakness, we all do, but I am getting better, and that is no secret.

I think that's fair.

Are you familiar with Health at Every Size? (I don't know if you've mentioned it before, I haven't had a chance to go through all the past topics) You might find the info on the blog useful ( http://healthateverysizeblog.org/ ).

If you are interested in enlisting the aid of a nutritionist, I totally recommend Michelle, The Fat Nutritionist ( http://www.fatnutritionist.com/ ). She's great and I think she also does group sessions that are more affordable than 1-on-1.

I am indeed aware of HAES and have talked about it several times. Thankfully I have a doctor who seems to agree with this school of thought. I have a tendency to blog about what pops into my head at any given time, and this idea came to me after reading the article on the candy. I am much better now than I was say, 9 years ago, and I am fine with food now that I have the pool 2x's a week. I have a LOT of stress right now, and I am not, I am proud to say, stress eating, which 9 years or more ago, I would have been eating a whole bag of Oreos and not thought about it.

I do feel that I do have things that I still have no say on in my life and that a lot of things are still unfair, but I now have a much better support system in place and a better grip on things now that my thryoid is at normal levels (which may have been some of my problems with food since my system was so far out of whack).

Oh that's great! It's so hard to find doctors that are open to it! I'm going to be looking for a doctor soon and I'm hoping it doesn't take forever to find one that is decent.

That's great you've come so far!
Eating gets so messed up when we are taught to fight our body! I used to "secret eat" too when I was younger. What I ate at meals was not necessarily restricted, but what I put on my plate (and in my mouth) was judged heavily. When I think back about it now, it seems ridiculous. I was a growing child, my siblings consumed more than I did at that age but since they are male it was acceptable. So I would end up hungry, and then sneak into the kitchen at night to eat more.

I love swimming too! I'm looking to join a gym that does water aerobics, I find it helps a great deal with anxiety for me.
There is one near my house, but I want to check out the class first. If the instructor is really focused on weight loss and "lets get rid of those rolls" kind of thing then the end result will NOT be a happy less-stressed me.

Try your local YMCA. They have aqua classes and 98% of the classes they offer are included in your membership (some are fee based like the spin classes). They offer membership deals frequently and they offer scholarships for those who need help with payments. My location has really nice patrons and employees who have been most supportive. I also found it to be a very welcoming atmosphere as opposed to a dating meat market style place or a "see be seen" place. I took an aqua Tai Chi class first which led to swimming. The class has been cancelled, but I still swim.

To me it is more about being healthy than it is about how much weight I "need" or "should" loose. I am more about setting a goal of doing 56 lengths each session or working on speed. That way I don't beat myself up as much if it takes me a while to get there.

As for finding a doctor, check our our resources section. There are sites that can guide you to a HAES doctor in your area. I lucked out that mine is understanding.