Welcome. I've struggled with emotional eating and overeating my entire life. At 61 years old I've realized I don't think about food like a normal person. I'm so fat I can't move. After a few years of being off my very strict diet and grueling workout routine I've gained a lot of weight. Add two years of working from home and isolating due to COVID and I'm now completely feral and a total hermit. I weight 300 lbs.. I'm too fat to fit into anything but a couple of pairs of yoga pants and my mobility is gradually decreasing. I've spent years yoyoing up and down between size 8 to size 26 and everything in between. I've dieted and exercised my entire life. I'm extremely successful at it - until I get off my diet. Then my weight blows back up to an even higher until I am even heavier than I was before. I know diets don't work. Since I'm becoming prediabetic due to my weight, my doctor is now recommending gastric bypass surgery to deal with it. He is also recommending diet and exercise as the solution.
So I am finally realizing that I don't think about food like a normal person does. Yes. I said normal. My thinking is very abnormal when it comes to food. Until I have a normal relationship with food and eat like a normal person I am extremely resistant to having surgery? Why?
Because I've had surgery. And I've never had a surgery which didn't result in some kick of nerve damage where they cut through tissue. I've also never had it result in anything that was as good as the original functioning, when it worked. My surgeries were required because something was damaged or failing. But my gastrointestinal system is normal and healthy. Why cut into it when it's my thinking that's the problem?
And the kicker? I'm a therapist. And I have a lot of shame around, "I'm a therapist. I should know how to do this." But I don't. I was raised this way. My entire family eats this way and thinks the same ways about food. And when I've sought out help I get the same response - diet and exercise. But this advice has never worked.
So I'm going to try Intuitive Eating. I'm struggling with depression and serious COVID brain so my journey may be slow. But I'm going to document it here just in case anyone else it walking this same path.
I'm hoping this online journal can help me stay motivated. If it has the ability to help anyone else that would be amazing.
So here we go...