a kid keeping it simple page 2

[Crabbcakes]

Berries and dark chocolate might help you get past your cravings. Dark chocolate has less sugar and tends to be richer and might be a good substitute.

Hello roden!

I don't really, truly binge, but I will take on just ANYBODY in the Sweet Tooth and Fat Craving departments, and I use dark chocolate and Larabars to help myself. After the initial sugar-weaning shock your tolerance for sweet does start to change, and now I am really, truly happy with dark chocolate. I am a bit of a wuss, at about 65% cocoa, but I regularly bite into bits of 85% and even 90% for some palate training. My current rave is Paul Newman 65% dark with orange essence. Honey, you won't be disappointed in this bar!!! I get mine at the health food store.

Good luck, and I will be following!

[roden]

Thanks for the suggestions, y'all. I absolutely love squares of 85%, and historically they've been a solid way for me to kill a craving. Honestly, I had let dark chocolate fall completely off my radar... living as a student, I have a tendency to automatically write off the more expensive items when I go grocery shopping. At the same time, I would consider the extra expense as an investment in this case, so fuck it.

Actually, I have a very astute boyfriend who happens to be stepping up his game to help me with all of this. He's always been supportive of my efforts to go primal, and when I was ranting to him about my crazy food craziness yesterday, one of the things he suggested was that I eat some dark chocolate on a regular basis to keep my happy levels (sanity levels) high. Obvious, right? I always make things too complicated, man.

He went even further than that, though, and offered to start planning and cooking my meals for me. This is huge, and not just because I work and go to class every day. If you've ever experienced disordered thinking, then you know what a weight is being lifted off my shoulders here. Everyone's different, of course, but for me, this just clicked. My biggest battle every day is waffling between counting and planning, and trying NOT to count or plan... and now I won't be doing either. He started this morning, and the difference was like night and day. Nothing works perfectly, and not everything works permanently. I'm okay with that. It got me through today, and it might get me through tomorrow, and that's just how I need to roll with this stuff. One day at a time, folks.

Oh, forgot to mention that I succeeded in my goal for the day!
Goals for tomorrow:
1. No food websites
2. Acquire some DC!

God I am neurotic.

[Bess58]

Congrats for avoiding the food websites! "One day at a time" is a great motto.

And I'm so glad to hear that your boyfriend is so helpful. Is he primal too? If not, he will be through the cooking for you. Dark chocolate is a great idea.

I don't think you are neurotic, it is just very difficult to break deeply ingrained habits and trains of thoughts. In my opinion that is the most difficult part in lifestyle changes, and Primal is one. At this point in your journey, I think it's even more important than what's on your plate. Good luck for today!

[Richardmac]

Welcome aboard, and well done so far. I have worked with people in the past who were trying to quite smoking etc, and thought going cold turkey would be the answer. It wasnt. As soon as they had one slip up they told themselves they had tried and failed and went back to how they were before. Like you said role with the punches. Plan a little, but with wiggle room, treat each success/slip up, good/bad day as lessons.

It took Thomas Edison 2,000 attempts to get the first light bulb to work. Afterwards he didn't look back with a heavy heart at all those failed attempts, instead he told himself he had discovered 1,999 ways to NOT make a lightbulb.

Richard

[Bess58]

roden,

are you still with us? How is the goal-setting going?

Wish you all the best, Bess

[lexie]

Just wanted to chime in that you're not alone with the all-or-nothing thinking. I'm the same - it's so easy to just chuck everything out the window because you've already screwed up anyway. Not sure how I ended up thinking like this, but I'm right there with you. And the wet dreams about cake.

[roden]

I think it's okay to be a little neurotic. Overcoming our own personal neuroses is a battle, but we get to know ourselves so well by figuring out how to push past them.

School and work are rendering me unable to be super verbose here, but some quick thoughts:

Thinking one day at a time makes everything easier. Trying to look any further ahead into the future, or dwelling on the past, just makes me crazy. In all aspects of life, too; not just with food.

Shaking the "all-or-nothing" mindset feels impossible... but I refuse to believe that we can't mold our own thought processes. Unfortunately, thinking in extremes makes it difficult to take small steps towards improvement, especially when the end goal is to quit thinking in extremes! It's hard to make gradual changes, but I'm trying. I'm taking a meditative approach. Fucking up a little, and then just sitting with it instead of letting it affect me.

New ritual: small amounts of wine and DC before bed. That's what the pros do, right?

Also, thanks to Richard and Lexie for the love <3

[roden]

Another entry, because it just occurred to me, and I think it's important.

When I first realized I had a real problem with binge eating, likely to the level of an eating disorder considering the magnitude of how it was derailing my life, the solution I came up with was to work on "willpower." I could eat 900 calories a day in cereal bars if I would just try hard enough, I thought. If I would just try hard enough, I would no longer binge.

Eventually I realized how wrong I was about that, and admitted that there were physiological factors at play as well, making the "willpower" argument basically moot, given dysfunctional enough conditions. I then decided to focus on preventative measures. If I can't stand up to a situation where it's tempting to eat like crap, then I just need to keep myself out of those situations. Easier said than done, and I was still binge eating.

I've known all along that black-and-white thinking with nothing in the middle was part of my problem, if not the entirety of it. But at some level, after so many years, I think the binge cycle simply became comforting.

The initial dopamine rush, the permission I give myself to fuck everything for the rest of the day, the heightened resolve to change my ways on the morning after, the renewed drive to be strict, the deceptively real-feeling hope when I tell myself I can avoid any and all mistakes and be perfect if I just stick to this next new strategy... this stuff is habitual for me. It makes me nuts and keeps me from reaching any sort of peace, but it's also unfailingly predictable at this point.

So maybe that's why I've tried every diet in the books, and learned everything there is to know about nutrition and exercise, but haven't once tried to tackle the most basic underlying mental process: thinking in extremes.

Lexie, when you said you weren't sure how you ended up with all-or-nothing thoughts, it really struck a chord with me... because I do know how I got here. I remember every step of the way, and the one consistent pattern I see in retrospect when I think about my binge eating is an inability (or simply a refusal) to confront this bipolarity. Hell, it didn't even require retrospect; I've always known it was there.

Maybe I'm delusional in thinking that if I can figure things out from a cognitive perspective, I'll be able to improve everything from the brain on down. At least I'm on the right track here. I'm not trying to eat 900 meticulously-measured cereal bar calories a day anymore. These days I'm eating mostly primal food, I've learned to forgive myself for bad days, and I've accepted that there truly is no quick path to health or happiness. I'm better than I was, mentally speaking.

Still, the fact remains that I've never actively tried to get rid of my all-or-nothing thinking, and while it's one of the scariest things ever, I think I'm ready to work on it. Lately I've been trying to cast aside other aspects of my dysfunction (like spending too much time on the internet reading about nutrition ), but maybe those would be easier to deal with if I dealt with the root of my problem first.

What do you all think? Is all-or-nothing thinking the foundation making my house shaky? Has anyone out there been able to ditch (or even partially ditch) those thought patterns? Did it help?

As for concrete goals... I can't remember the last time I ate something I deemed "bad" and didn't immediately feel like I might as well keep eating badly and binge it up. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Therefore, my goal is to eat something I "shouldn't"-- a few pieces of bread, a cookie, whatever-- and to let it go.

What makes me think I can do this, after five years of not doing it even once? (Not once!? Nope, not even once!)

Well, I did it today. Boyfriend had three beautiful meals planned out for me: eggs, sausage, veggie stir fry, almonds, good stuff everywhere. Guess what I did anyway? I discovered an old box of sugary cereal, poured myself a few cups, and ate it with cream on top. Huh. Normally, my automatic response would be to acquire a bunch of horrible food and make myself sick eating it all, because hell, my blood sugar is going to plummet soon, and god knows I've already ruined everything. But this time I didn't. I walked, I drank a bunch of tea, and I kept myself distracted with other things. I fantasized about eating more, and I sure as hell wanted to, make no mistake. But I didn't.

Why not? I dunno. But I'm pleased with it. I don't expect every day to be a success, but admitting to myself that I'm ready to tackle the real issue at hand got me through this day. That bowl of cereal could have sunk my ship, and instead I'm still afloat.

I'm going to bed now. Maybe I'll sail through tomorrow too.

[unsuperb]

I'm slowly starting to be able to partially ditch those thought patterns, or at least, exert more control over the "I EAT BAD, MUST EAT MOAR BAD" by trying to not label food as good or bad. But it's definitely a slow process and was exacerbated by switching to primal (EVEN MOAR BAD FOODS). Heck, I've been able to keep ice cream in the house and not eat it in one sitting. Good job on walking away!

[Adrigg8]

So comforting to read your story, seriously. We are about the same age and I struggle with not only binge eating but drinking as well... I will read on and follow your progress as I work through this too. I continue to feel guilty for things that I should let go of and that's exactly what keeps the vicious cycle going.