- Hello

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Great to read your posting.

I think you are right about your friend's body knowing it was time to stop

losing weight for a while. As you say, it is probably the 'right' weight for

her to be. As for feeling jealous of your friend - well, was it REALLY jealousy

or just a feeling of 'how will I ever get there'. And GREAT WORK on only having

one chocolate by the way !!! Do you intend/expect to spend the rest of your

life in a 'chocolate free zone'? I bet you don't. Chocolate won't go away so

the only way to learn to 'manage' it is to learn to live with it. There is

NOTHING wrong with chocolate. What IS wrong is the way we sometimes

react/respond to it. You managed to respond appropriately by having just one

(because you felt you needed it) then stopping. Now THAT is exactly what I

think we all need to learn - not how to banish or give up our 'problem foods'

because that causes us to feel deprived and we need to feel positive. We need

to discover how to eat our 'problem foods' sensibly and responsibly. That's

exactly what you did so HUGE hugs of congratulation.

As for yo-yo dieting - I have done that so often I've lost count. I have lost

huge amounts of weight twice and got to my goal weight only to gain it all back

when I stopped the 'diet'. This time it is different because I'm NOT dieting.

The very word diet implies 'short term' to me but this journey I am now on is a

lifelong one. Rather than following a plan, diet, restrictions etc I am working

on my attitude to food and the problems associated with obesity. I have planned

mini goals to work towards so that I will always have something positive in

mind. Even the term 'losing weight' is couched in negative terms and I am

concentrating on what am I GAINING - self esteem, health, new achievements (eg -

fitting into plane seat belts) etc.. This way I figure that I have success

'built in' to my plan because the whole thing is based on reaching positive

'milestones'. These milestones are not stated in terms of numbers on scales or

dates on the calendar as the timing of achieving a particular weight is out of

our hands. If I decide 'by date X I will weigh Y' and I don't achieve my goal

weight by that date I could feel depressed. On the other hand if my mini goal

is 'I want to be able to walk for 2 miles without feeling tired' it doesn't

matter how long it takes to achieve this goal so long as I work at it constantly

and feel regular improvements. As I can't 'fail' there is no sense of

disappointment. I have set my target in terms that I can control - NOT things

like definite dates or weights which are certainly out of my control.

Cheers for now,

Marie