New to the Group

[Guest guest]

Good Day!

I'm posting here with some trepidation... I'm new to intuitive eating,

although I'm not new to Yahoo! Groups. Right at the get-go, I cannot seem to

mask my old Yahoo! ID, which is based on my ex-husband's last name. I'm pretty

good with online id management, having spent a couple of years helping parents

in our schools with online safety, but Yahoo! has me in a swivet! Not enough of

a swivet to send me to the frig, tho'!

My name is Barbara; I'll be 56 in a week; I've a classic yo-yo dieter until I

read " Intuitive Eating " (Resch, Tribole) this past month. Yesterday, I recruited

my nutritionist to read it and help me implement the principles in my life. I'm

giving him the same three months to read it that I'm giving myself to journal

through all 10 principles and make them part of my life. I'm pretty far along in

implementing; a little less far along on the journal. My " fiendish plot " is that

I have put the principles in an email, and since I have access to my email

everywhere I go, I can drop and journal most any time what's on my mind on that

particular principle. I've gotten a lot of benefit out of this method in other

endeavors, and I like to write (can you tell?

When I was a kid, I looked roughly like a stick insect. I have photographic

proof! In my teens, I was tall, and I now realize, quite shapely, but my

mother's battle with her overweight spilled into my world, and I became

convinced I was fat and ugly (boy, did I resonate to that title on a recent post

here!). I also got a job in the bakery at college and put on the " freshman 25#. "

My first " visit " to Weight Watchers was senior year, and I was a howling success

- " You look like you've been sick! " was a most memorable " compliment. "

Off to work in the Big Apple, and put it all back on sitting next to the

coffee wagon. That was almost 35 years ago. I've married, had two beautiful

boys, divorced, remarried, had a hip replaced, revised, and dislocated thrice,

stayed at the same employer all that time, commuted longer and longer distances

as I've moved further and further from the City - 2 hrs each way now, 4 days a

week. And to top it all off, my lovely new husband is a disturbed sleeper, which

means I've added sleep deprivation to my " collection. "

I've been to WW now, I think it's 5 times, and the last time achieved

lifetime membership, a hollow honor now. I've done Suzanne Sommers, Weigh-in

(the origins of WW), Atkins, and a few original creations. Nothing works. Love

what my husband said the other day: " WW worked! You reached your goal! " Right!

But I didn't stay there!

When I read IE, I had that " what are they doing in my head? " reaction that

tells me I've found the right book. In a moment of ironic blessing, I chose

Thanksgiving as my starting point, and am working on the first through fourth

principles as my " phase 1. " The hardest thing is not getting on the scale. So I

did. And I regretted it. And my weight has gone up and down over the month since

I began my return to intuitive eating, where we all started as babies. The one

day I hopped on the scale and saw the highest number I've ever seen, it did ruin

my day. So I soothed myself all day with the kindest words I could muster, and

went back to the principles.

One " home field advantage " I think I have in this new phase of my " life with

IE " is that I am a Focuser, which is a method, if you don't know it, for

accessing my inner life and connecting it to my outer life. It's based on

relating to body sensations in a new way, and forming something called a felt

sense in the body, which is how the body is dealing with " something. " In terms

of IE, it's a fabulous way to assess hunger, and I've learned a great deal in a

short time by combining Focusing with assessing hunger, noticing emotional

reasons to eat, and relating to my insides with compassion and support, instead

of judgment and condemnation.

I hope something here feel familiar, makes a connection, let's you know a

little about me. My one fear is that I'll be more of a lurker on this list than

an active voice - life gets in the way, you know! But I'll give it my best shot,

and use that sense of where is right for me to respond that comes from Focusing.

Right now, where I live on the East Coast, it's storming outside - blustery,

rainy, trees swaying, like the nor'easter kept it's promise and came back

around, wet and wild. Yet, I feel content to embrace the day and do the things

I've planned as kindly toward myself and others as I can muster. Wishing you

kindness in your day, and perhaps just a bit of bluster!

Barbara