Eating Intuitively - & stuff

My eating disorders began when I was 12 years old. I've always been a very short person and weight never did spread fairly for me, or so I thought. At 12, I began noticing bulges - ridiculous I know. But they made me self-conscious. In 7th grade, I got a boyfriend and decided that I needed to get rid of my bulges so I stopped eating. I have no idea how much weight I lost but I did lose all of my bulges and remember feeling like I could look cute in anything because of my new and improved "size".  Through high school I dabbled more in anorexia and then the more trendier bulimia which never was my favorite but did allow me to eat more of what I wanted.  In my early twenties, the "low-fat" craze hit. I cut fat down to 12 grams per day and lost 30 lbs. in 2 months. I was ecstatic.  But I put it back in. I did Body for Life, Weight Watchers several times (am a Lifetime Member in fact), and have done practically every single fat diet available over the years. Then I had children.  After my last child, that's when things got really crazy. My weight began to be my identity and when my "identity" was failing, depression hit. Suffering from this for my whole life, I recognized clearly that it was a side-car symptom of my problems with my weight. My self-esteem was tangled up in my weight. Well, I had more important things to worry about than my depression...like my weight!  I participated in marathons, bike races, swim races all in efforts to control my size.  Then hCG became a hit. People were losing weight right and left and as soon as I was done nursing my last child, I started it. I was on it for about 4 months and lost 60 amazing lbs. I was my lightest since high school. I was wearing sizes 4 then 2 then 0 and felt amazing! I decided that others needed to use hCG too so I started selling it. I found a distributor that I could get a good price from and became a retailer. I had hCG at my disposal at all times, in ample supply.  If you know anything about hcG, you know the rigorous routine that must be maintained in order to lose weight let alone keep the weight off. Having such a steady supply meant that I had plenty of time to practice. I would go on hCG for 21 days then binge, go totally crazy with food and tell myself I'd just go back on hCG again. Needless to say, this didn't work. It worked for a few years during which time I felt my life spiraling completely out of control. My life was dominated by my weight, hCG and my binging. After several years, I finally decided to throw the hCG away, not sell it anymore and never go back on it again. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life because I knew I'd never be able to use it again to get down to my ideal weight. However my roller-coaster experience had proven that already anyway.  Back to the drawing board. My weight kept creeping up and up despite what I would do.  I exercised, not regularly but whenever I felt desperate enough. I did Weight Watchers again with only limited success but my paltry success was primarily due to this horrible habit I'd picked up during my hCG days. Binging.  I had learned that if I restricted myself enough, I'd lose weight. But inevitably I would fall off of my self-imposed wagon and the only thing waiting for me on the ground was another binge. This was why my weight increased. Binging one night thinking it was the very last night ever and I'd "be good again", then two days later another huge binge. At one point I confessed to my husband that I thought I was addicted to sugar. What I was addicted to was far worse - I was addicted to dieting. More binging, more years of depression and feeling out of control. Until the last night...my final real binge. It was in the Spring of 2017. It was about 1am and I had just eaten heaven knows what. Anything easy, without roots in my house and was quite enough not to wake everyone - all junk and I felt like hell.  I remember going in to bed and pulling out my tablet and performing this search: "How can I stop binging?"  I found several search results but the most promising thing that came out of that search was a pointer in the direction of the book, "Intuitive Eating." I'd owned the book for a couple of years. A friend of mine had told me about it and I had of course, instantly bought the book thinking it would be a quick fix way to lose weight. It wasn't. I wasn't ready for it at the time. This time however, I read it cover to cover. And before I was even finished reading, I was on board. Was I skeptical? Yes. They say "Intuitive Eating" works.  What exactly "works" about it though? Let me tell you.  It is not a diet book. It is not hear to help a person lose weight. It is not  program to follow that will get you back on track. It is a shift in your thought process that will help you overcome your eating disorders and help you return or in some cases, begin, eating like a normal person should. I have not had a true binge since the night I performed that Internet search. Did I gain weight? Yes. Was it overwhelming? At times. Did I gain so much that I feel horrible? No. 25 lbs about. I'm not sure. I haven't weighed myself since before all of this started. Do I care about the weight I've gained. Yes, of course I do and obviously would love to lose it. But when I start thinking about it, I think about the truly amazing place my emotional and mental health are now and that is worth every pound I have gained. My weight is finally secondary to my depression. I feel healthy in my head. I don't binge anymore. I don't feel guilty. I'm overcoming my emotional eating. I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. Do I still have miles to go? Yes, and this journey is one I feel is truly important for me to ever feel 100% healthy - emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually.  So is eating intuitively working for me?  Yes, yes it is. Even if I never lost this weight, I'm truly grateful that I don't hate myself and all of my decisions anymore.  This blog is about my journey, the good, the bad. I want to document my decisions, my challenges, my thoughts because when I started this, I needed more support than what I had. I needed to know others that had gone through Stage 1 or 2 or 3. Where were they with exercise? How did they manage vegetables?  Did they ever feel like food choices were out of whack? I want to be that for my readers.  Please contact me at any time with your questions and comments.