Passing on the Love!

These two awards were so kindly given to me by Green Stone Woman.












I would like to pass the "Atta Girl" award on to Lori-Ann at Amazon Runner because she really is making a difference with the Lakota Crafts project. This project is about providing the Lakota people with income from their own traditional crafts and thus working towards alleviating their poverty. You can read all about this project here and link from her site to the shop if you are tempted for a beautiful selection of unique handmade gifts for Christmas.

I would also like to pass the "Atta Girl" award onto Tammy at From Fat to Fab. She is a true inspiration dealing with large amounts of personal and family stress whilst battling food addiction. Her fortitude never ceases to amaze me. And even though she has so much already to cope with in life she is always generous with her time in helping other bloggers. Her presence in the blogosphere really does make a difference!

I also give this award to Diane at Fit to the Finish. I don't think there has ever been a greater inspiration than someone who has really suffered with her weight and then successfully dealt with it and maintained a healthy lifestyle for 12 years - despite a further 4 pregnancies. She is making a difference to so many people who are struggling to find a way out of their weight problems. Diane proves that it CAN be done and I am so happy that she chooses to share her experience of this whole journey with us.

The Deborah Award was created by Ces for her friend midlifepoet. The explanation of this award is here (I'm unable to copy it into blogger of course) and it really is quite beautiful. This award is for special (female) blogging friends who have stuck with you through your journey.

In Gratitude I would like to pass this award on to the following people who have all offered me friendship and support through the last few months, both on my blog and through email:

Chrissie at A healthy Mind and Healthy Body
Paula at paulawannacracker
Leslie at Something Brilliant is Brewing
Tammy at From Fat to Fab
Judith at The Art of Not Working
Cheryl at Wishing and Discovering
Lori-Ann at Amazon Runner
Natalie at My Kashi Diet
Amy at No to the Deuce
Losing Waist (Don't know if I'm allowed to give her name!)
Amy at The not so secret life of a not so super together mom
Jogging Auburn at Quest for a Mile
Lisa at In Weigh Over My Head
Letta at Jumping off the Binge Wagon
Diane at Fit to the Finish
Patsy at Musings on a 100lb+ Weight Loss Journey

All can be found on my blog list. And I'm sorry that these awards are only for the ladies because I can think of a couple of men I would have passed these onto as well. Sorry guys!

I have other awards to pass on but those will have to wait for the next post. In a way, this seems like an appropriate day to be thankful for all the friendship I've been shown in the blogging community, given that it is Thanksgiving in America today.

A bit ironic that on a holiday when Americans are being thankful for the abundant lives they have, so many people are so anxious about having too much food! I hope all those who are celebrating today have a wonderful day with lots of love and healthful eating.

Anyway, what about the diet? I am on day 12 of my diet and things are going surprisingly well. I was very anxious about it all the first week. So worried I would mess things up yet again. I was super careful. Making sure I only shopped when I wasn't at all hungry, making sure I didn't go into any convenience stores after my walks - the time when I felt most vulnerable. Making sure I only bought good things at the supermarket. I was so relieved to make it through that week! My eating was perfect and I got 4 good walks - I was actually rather annoyed at myself as I felt I could have done 5 if I had put my mind to it.

However, I was still not making it to bed at a reasonable time. This has been a problem for me all year and I am so tired of it - literally! So this week I have been working on it. I reframed *getting to bed on time* as an essential part of my weight loss efforts rather than just an add on. And thus have managed to make it into bed at or before 2am the last 3 nights. I feel SO MUCH BETTER for getting into bed 2 hours earlier. It is as Sean says, you have to make it your highest priority otherwise it won't get done.

I also feel ready to add another goal to the 3 already listed, which is to build up a routine of toning exercises. So far I am doing push ups and plank exercises, and I want to add stomach crunches and leg exercises.

I am still not feeling very confident about things. For me it is not about "stringing together good days" like Jack Sh*t. To do this thing I have to focus on the bigger picture, to think in terms of weeks and months. To be constantly thinking of where I want to be in 4 weeks, in 8 weeks, about the clothes I want to be wearing in the future - all the ones I have right now which I can't currently get into. Also I am not the type of person who loses weight day by day. My body tends to save it up - sometimes for weeks - and then I have a sudden big overnight loss. I always suffer this significant delay - which is agony! So what I'm doing today, or this week, is only going to show up in about 3 weeks time. If I didn't focus really hard on the future I'd be lost. I don't even get a big water loss in the first week - in fact my body's response to healthy eating is usually to retain even more water. Urrrgh! Luckily the water retention situation is starting to resolve now.

So far this week I have done 3 walks and I feel my speed is now picking up. The last couple of days I have barely even noticed that I was walking, apart from near the end. So my fitness has improved dramatically in a very short time.

I started my walking program 3 weeks before adjusting my food intake. I actually put on a bit more weight during that time as I was still eating too much. But I was able to build up my muscles and stamina - and I think maybe this is easier without the double whammy of calorie restriction at the same time. Why is it that we always put so much strain on our bodies all in one go?

Hope you are all having a great day, whether or not you are being thankful!

The binge that saved my ancestor

Introduction or disclaimer: I was in two minds about whether to put up this piece or not. It seems to be a complete contradiction to the last post, diametrically opposing the idea that there is no such thing as "natural fatness". That post was about being told I was fat when I was not and therefore spending my entire life feeling I was fat, even when I was, in reality, thin. In writing this post I was trying to deal with the very great shame I am carrying over my eating issues and the consequent damage to my appearance. It's unfortunate I got into using the word natural. What I was really trying to say was that EDs are an adaptive response; the interaction of natural biological and psychological responses to the behaviour of other people and the food available in our environment.

I thought about perhaps changing it all, completely rewriting it with the emphasis on adaptive responses. But what I am saying here is that eating behaviours are natural, normal and human, and only what is to be expected given the environment a person has grown up in and evolutionally potentiated biological preferences.

What I am not saying is that that means a large percentage of us should just accept being fat. This is not a fat acceptance piece. I want to be thin. I've wanted to be thin all my life. Maybe what I am saying is that the reasons a lot of us struggle with our weight are just the expected responses given our lives and circumstances, and therefore there is no need for shame. And also, that if we do understand the complex processes and interactions involved then we have more of a chance of changing them.

Am I deluded or confused? I'll leave you to decide.

***
The Binge That Saved My Ancestor

Shame. There's so much shame in our lives. If you are a binge eater or overeater then you know what I'm talking about. I read Pamela's post (see Uncovering Pamela, 3rd Sep) about her shame over a 30lb weight gain. My reaction and that of those who commented was that she shouldn't feel shame, that these things happen and she should not feel bad about herself for it. We can see how useless shame is, how negative it is, how it makes a person who is feeling bad already feel even worse about the situation. We want to take all that shame away from them and make them feel better.



Of course we can think all this when someone else feels shame about their weight; it's a whole different ball game when it's our own shame. When we feel the shame of having been "out of control", of having binged or eaten too much, of having visible weight gain - and especially if it comes after having lost a load of weight, then it's our dirty secret and we can never imagine being able to jettison that embarrassment over our behaviour and appearance.



It feels like our shame is a "natural" reaction to having done something terribly wrong. That being "out of control" around food means that we are "bad" in some way. That wanting to eat more than we "need" means we are behaving badly. That we are at fault.



But what if the bingeing and the overeating are the natural things, the natural responses to a particular set of circumstances in your life? No-one deliberately sets out to wilfully overeat or binge. It is a natural part of human existence.



Many women wish that they could eat "intuitively" and maintain a (UK) size 8 or 10 figure; they wish that it came "naturally" to them and that there is something inherently "wrong" with them that they can't do this. That struggling to maintain themselves at that size is a failure of sorts in itself. That this battle is unnatural.



But in fact the idea that intuitive eating means only eating small amounts of food and thus being thin is utterly unnatural. Do you think a cave man would turn down any food at all? Do you think a cave man would chose the lower fat option (assuming he had any options at all)? Do you think they would turn down a salty option? The sweet option? Humans are designed to seek out the fatty, salty, sweet options. Humans are designed to eat when there is food available. And if it's available in quantity they eat it in quantity. Because millions of years ago, thousands of years ago, even 100 years ago, that was the only way to stay alive. As Steven Pinker says, we are only evolved as far as the stone age.

And eating when you're feeling stressed, exhausted, depressed? Again entirely natural and entirely adaptive to the survival of the human race. When our ancestors were stressed it was generally because their very existence was in peril. Did they ever feel down? Well you know how bad it feels when you don't have very much to eat ... that feeling was designed to make sure that you do eat when food is available. Ditto the comforting feeling when you have eaten a good meal. And when you feel exhausted at work but just have to keep going? Eating snacks is the natural way to get your blood sugar back up.



So far from being natural, being thin in a society where food is overwhelmingly abundant, available in any quantity at any time of the day or night, in the sugariest, saltiest, fattiest combinations possible, is highly unnatural. To maintain a thin figure is to be battling your natural biology and psychology every step of the way.



And all this without even considering each individual's personal history of complex interactions with people and food. Each person will have formed their own adaption to the circumstances they have been presented with. Positive and negative connotations of different foods, acceptance or not of their own body and the different body shapes of other people, their family relationships, and the eating behaviours of their family and of society in general. A huge amount of information transmitted, neural pathways created and reinforced, interactions between biological imperatives and psychological processes; our resultant eating behaviour is not our fault. But that doesn't mean we can't change it. Change is possible. But I think understanding is necessary first.



You are a child of nature.

There is no need for shame.



****

In 1665 in a village in Derbyshire (UK Midlands) called Eyam, the Bubonic plague arrived in a flea infested sample of cloth sent from London. Quickly people became ill with the terrifying symptoms of black spots on the skin which actually rotted while they were still alive, vomiting and coughing blood, diarrhea, swelling, fever, pain. Whole families started to die. Instead of fleeing to safety, the villagers voluntarily agreed to quarantine themselves so as to stop the spread of this virulent disease. Food and other supplies were left for them at the edge of the village. By the time the plague burnt itself out less than a quarter of the villagers were still alive. Most of the survivors are thought to have been immune to the illness due to a particular gene mutation which is present throughout European populations. It was very rare to actually contract the disease and survive it.



But my ancestor did. She was wild with fever and in her delirium she consumed an entire piggin of bacon fat (a piggin is a large jug or pail as for collecting water). She survived. This mega pure fat binge probably gave her body the energy it needed to fight off the deadly plague. This "binge" was her body and mind's natural response. Yes, she was under the severe stress of illness and impending death, she was exhausted and despairing over the deaths of many people and the collapse of her entire world. Yes, she was "out of control".

Do you think she felt shame?