u/Anxious-Juice-8340

Ive been here before. And im feeling really great. I feel in control. I feel kind to myself about the long-term game im playing here, and so im not looking in the mirror expecting to look any different. Which may sound very obvious to you, but because in my mind I always had the "ideal" image of me. And so almost everyday, im impatient to get there.

Choosing conscious eating has been a good starter into dieting. Im slowly listening and more attuned to my hunger and full cues. I actually heard something from a colleague, about how when you eat, your body kinda sighs when its reaching that comfortable fullness. As a group we started listening to that more during lunchtime, and its quite a nice little high. Your body is happy its satiated, and it isn't feeling uncomfortable from overeating.

At the back of my mind, I am scared this will be short lived. The more days go by, the more I think ive achieved, and then im like ok I can indulge abit. Boom, back to zero.

Please, let this be it. Let this be the one that sticks.

We're getting to that point where im ooooing and aaaaing at my discipline, excited for the progress thats to come and i think crucial (to my downfall), thinking like ive already succeeded.

For 2/3 years, I haven't nurtured a habit that got to a full month. In fact, I struggle to think when I passed 20 days. Dieting, exercising, no drinking. They all start pretty much like how the last 5 days have gone. Lofty ambitions, strong start. But very quickly, I regress. And sometimes I cant even realise it until I look around and there i am ordering macdonals.

And why I think its because I feel like im winning the moment I cross the first few hurdles. I fill my mind up with this FALSE sense of achievement. 5 days is nothing, nothing compared to the marathon I have left to go. 5 DAYS IS NOTHING IF IT GOES BACK DOWN TO ZERO EACH TIME. Am I being too harsh? I think considering how kind ive been to myself, and how that kindness has turned to sabotage, I should.

I have a long way to go, and i haven't achieved anything yet.

Its no secret, a big part of why I overeat is the inability to regulate my emotions, even boredom. Actually, I thought in the last year ide managed to get a good handle on my emotions, having practiced more mindfulness and detachment from my thoughts.

And they worked for the most part. But there has been a not so secret not so obvious way that my feelings have been surfacing, through eating. My ego has found a chink in the armour, now that it has largely been stopped in its tracks through active detachment from my thoughts and watching them go by. So, it squeezes its way from the part of my brain that is happier, to the part of my brain that can't resist the instant gratification of something delicious to eat.

So now I have an added layer to my detachment practice, and its almost as similar as resisting to drink, smoke etc. I have to wait for the craving to pass. Sometimes its a minute sometimes its every minute. But if I can watch other feelings go by, I can certainly wave this one away.

As i examine the other parts of my life, I cant help but admit how much my weight, my body image and this general self loathing I have for my outward appearance has clouded so many wonderful things that have happened in my life.

Ive been putting in steps with my boyfriend of one year to build a foundationally stable relationship. We even called ourselves a couple only after a year, even though we were so madly infatuated with one another and were very much exclusive. Outside of words of commitment, we demonstrated it with intentional actions. Being kind and understanding of our differences, establishing boundaries with care, being invested in the self growth of the other. And yesterday, we told each other we loved each other. My relationship has been a wonderful garden that ive helped tend to, and im so proud of how far we've come.

I also very recently started a new job. One that is exciting, challenging and hopefully a great boost to my career growth. Before, I spent several years at a great but rather slow paced place. Felt like I was getting stale, and left me rather uninspired about life in general. When j started my job hunt, I felt renewed excitement for the future, and that trickled out into interests in pursuing projects for my self growth, like reading about a wide variety of topics, getting myself more technologically up to date with AI developments and capabilities and strengthening my faith and grounding inwards.

With all these wonderful things happening, its sad that so much of my daily mental space goes to food, my weight and how I may look to others. While I still do the things I do, being diet obsessed dulls the edges of excitement around the other things I have going on.

Let this be a gentle reminder to myself. Im more than this. Im more than what I eat. Im more than what I look like.

Of course, waking up with thoughts about food. Wanting to make food choices. Entertaining the idea of making my breakfast an "event". Wondering what my diet approach is now.

Keto. Ultra clean. Intermittent. Conscious eating.

These have been the diet guardrails ive been keeping myself to. The knights around my roundtable. And as I decide its time to have a hold on my eating habits, I find myself returning to these faithful servants. But I can't lie, I know im not cracking something because of how short lived my diet phases are getting. Shorter and shorter and shorter. So, my instinct is telling me to take a risk with the easiest, yet riskiest knight of mine. Conscious eating. Im not ready to go into overdrive with a low carb ultra clean diet. And I think conscious eating is the transition to a real calorie deficit approach.

How would I describe conscious eating? Its coming back to resetting my body to basic hunger cues, and nurturing that hunger for abit before eating. Right now, I could eat all the time. And I know I ive absolutely thrown my natural body clock to whack with this. So I feel this is essential step one, to come back down to that 2/3/4 times a day where you feel hungry NOT PECKISH and then have a meal. Now the meal, wont necessarily be a salad or chicken breast. Ill eat generally what I want or what is available. But, ill be mindful not to overeat. And then to WAIT until im truly hungry again before my next meal. But that meal can be rice, pasta, pizza. Chicken parm. Whatever.

I feel like once ive just reduced the frequency of eating..then targeting WHAT im eating during that hunger window can be addressed.

So we are going with

Tackling WHEN I eat

Then WHAT I eat

And as I do this, I come here to understand WHY I eat. Through writing and listening to the wonderfully comforting anecdotes and sharing from you guys.

My last year has been an endless cycle of bad vs good diet and exercise habits. If being "good" was Alt1 and "bad" was Alt2, we can go from Alt1 and Alt2 WITHIN a day. Everyday starts with well how is it gonna go food wise. And im so tired. Im so sick of knowing one day ill be thin, almost fooling myself at this stage. Because the day to day doesn't reflect this future I want for myself. And once I decide oh today we're in Alt2, I can have fun with food and I just eat FOR THE SAKE OF EATING. I feel so sick with myself. I haven't worn any jeans in months because I know they are tight and I wear jeans almost everyday.

Yesterday for the first time I wore jeans out and they were so so tight the whole night I was so conscious of them and I just wanted to go home. I dont wanna meet my friends until ive started getting into a groove of weight loss. Also, I love fashion and dressing up and Everyday now I just approach it with dread. Cause so many of my things dont fit and then I dont feel motivated to do much accessorising.

So ive decided, maybe I need to be accountable to someone other than myself. And in that very cliche way, maybe I need community and support. I wanna understand what food is to me, why its so hard to detach myself from thoughts around food.