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I don’t have some miracle story to share about transforming my crappy health into perfect health, but I do want to share how I’ve been able to overcome the mental agony and stress about food.
I’ve been reading Matty’s work, as well as researching the heck out of other things since 2011. I come from a 20+ year (forced to be on my 1st diet at 10, but have been emotionally eating since 8 from childhood trauma) disordered eating history. Food was the enemy, yet I thought I needed it to emotionally survive; not just physically.
I won’t write a novel or anything, but over the last 6 months or so I truly believe that I have finally been able to achieve “healthy eating” as Matt lays out in Diet Recovery 2 – “Healthy eating is an almost spontaneous result of achieving neutrality with all foods, putting them all on an even playing field”.
I still try to stay away from certain foods, i.e. PUFA’s or soy, but I’m not neurotic about anything and THAT kind of thinking is freeing…not sure what other word I can use. Not one food is considered ‘guilty’ or off limits. I no longer have that mentality of “if I eat this, then I need to workout this long”. I also believe this paradigm shift has allowed all cravings/thoughts of binging to disappear. I’m not 100% sure how it all happened, but I know it can happen. I’ve noticed that if there are sweets in the house, I don’t have to eat them in a day or two. They actually last a long time now.
Of course, this did not happen over night. I utilized other resources to help with emotionally eating, mainly being able to talk to my husband about things, reading books about it, praying, meditating, etc., but I also allow myself to eat anything if I am feeling sad, sometimes joking that I need to eat my feelings. I don’t know if that is a bad way of thinking, but it does not feel like the emotionally eating I used to do in my past.
I have a LONG way to go to achieve other health goals, but if having this freedom from the chains of food obsession is the 1st step, I’ll gladly take it!
I just wanted to share my 1st triumph. First of many, I hope!
That is awesome. I am dealing with a 10+ history of an eating disorder and it is so nice to hear positive stories of people who have triumphed after such a long period of living in the trenches. There aren’t many positive stories out there and most stories suggest that some sort of rigidity or control must still be exerted. I really want to believe that this can be done by legalizing foods because who wants to live in a world of deprivation?
Thank you for sharing your story.
Thanks for sharing! What a triumph! I, too, have finally achieved healthy eating as defined above. I literally cannot remember a time in my life that I didn’t carry guilt for eating certain foods. I don’t know how it’s happened now, either, but I’m sure glad that it has…and, I hope I can keep it this way forever. I’ll be VERY happy if my weight gain stops and I start to shed excess fat, but even if that doesn’t happen, I feel so much more freedom now that I think I can accept my body the way it is over time. Best wishes for continued success!!
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