Now then, who did I fool with my last entry? I hope nobody! If you have been fooled however, then perhaps it means that you are/were not convinced that IE is the ONLY way, just like I was not.
However, now, believe you me, I am ABSOLUTELY convinced that it is! It takes experiments like these to get to this point, but I’m all for them if they help us realise such important things in life.
First of all, I was intrigued that I had actually managed to lose a bit more weight, just before starting my ‘WW points-cum-IE experiment’. I thought about it quite often during my ‘little experiment’ and of course, it made me realise that of course, IE does work, since even before counting my points I had lost a bit of weight, something that hadn’t happened for literally months.
Second, after a few days of doing ‘WW points-cum-IE’, I realised that actually, when I manage not to think about points (but still count them) and do IE properly and normally, and I’m fine physically and mentally, oh surprise: I eat about 20-25 points, or sometimes less. And when I feel a bit down, or just ‘what is this feeling?-I don’t know but I feel like eating’, whether I’m ‘counting my points’ (aka ‘I’m on a diet’) or whether I’m doing IE, I still eat however much I need (which can be up to 50 points, I guess!).
Major conclusion: There is no point in doing WW or counting points or doing ‘WW points-cum-IE’; it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. (Of course, the difference with ‘the old days’ is that ‘in the old WW days’ I would prevent myself from eating even if I felt like it or even if I was hungry, whereas this time around, I’m completely unable to do that, so I would just eat as if I was just doing IE, going with the flow and just trying to be a bit objective and detached about what was happening [as an observer would be].)
Interesting, don’t you think? This means I’ve gone a loooonnnnng way and I’m an IE person, for better or for worse. Personally, I think it’s totally ‘for better’!
I have now stopped counting my points and am back to ‘the IE way’, with renewed confidence and happiness.
The best thing is: I completely trust my body. I can feel that we’re ONE now. It’s a weird feeling, but it’s a wonderful feeling too. I can trust it, I can say ‘Up to you, buddy, you’re in charge, I’ll just follow your orders, because I now know for sure that you know best’, and so I don’t have to think about food or my intake or exercise or anything. I can just get on with my life. I know that, just like my body lets me know when it’s thirsty or needs a wee, it will let me know when it needs refuelling, and it will tell me exactly what it needs, based on what it needs physiologically but also based on what will most probably satisfy my taste buds and my mind, i.e. what it needs psychologically. (Geneen Roth explains so well that satisfaction is both physical and mental. It’s so true! It’s thanks to her that I managed to completely ignore the points system and go back to IE so easily.)
The low point (ah! point! what a pun!) of my experiment was when I went to a very good friend’s wedding on Saturday 1 September. She was stunning, her dress was just gorgeous and fitted and suited her sooooo well. The point (again?!) is, as far as this blog entry is concerned, that she has lost 8 kg for her wedding, doing WW. So of course, I was even more tempted to carry on counting my points and do what she’d done. I regretted bitterly not having made that choice for my own wedding and resented myself for it all day on the Sunday. ‘I’m so stupid, what didn’t I lose weight like her? Worse: why did I put on 5 kg 2 months before my wedding?!’
But then on Monday, I had realised, for the second time this year (the first time being in January) how futile this all was, and especially how counter-productive. So I admitted that I was feeling a bit jealous, but mostly that I was attributing great things to ‘being thin’ which were not necessarily true. I reminded myself that being slim is not the be all and end all, and that I really must forget about it completely and get on with my life, trust my body and see where we would end up, the two of us, without deciding in advance. I decided that just being satisfied would do me – and being satisfied on all levels. It would be such an achievement, after so many years of being unsatisfied...
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3 comments:
I know what you mean - the temptations to rejoin the diet culture are always out there, even though we KNOW we are not suited to it. I'm glad you keep finding a way to remember what will work for you and ultimately make you happier, and you come back to IE. I'm hoping I can stick to it this time too, and not be tempted to go off on another dieting detour through fear of weight gain (or fear of never achieving that magic weight loss - something which I just have to accept, difficult as it sometimes is). Best wishes.
I feel very positive, uplifted and inspired by this post, thankyou for reminding me that being slim or thin or a certain weight or size is not going to magically make my life (or me) perfect.
A
xx
Thank you Sigigee and Alicetini. This is what I love about blogging - we can all help each other, we can all get something out of it. Writing helps us, reading helps us. Sigigee, I don't think it's a problem to be tempted, or even to give in to the temptation of going on a diet again. I think that no matter what we do, we learn anyway, and we learn even more when we make mistakes. So go on a diet - see how it makes you feel. VERY soon, you'll be back to IE and it will feel even sweeter than it did the first time you tried IE! That's how I'm feeling right now. It's fantastic! I trust my body and I don't think about food AT ALL! And when I sense that my brain wants to think about it and maybe start controlling my food intake again, I tell it to shut up and stop thinking about it. In the same breath, I tell my body that I trust it 100% and that I don't need to think about anything food-related since it's doing all the hard work for me. Then I thank it and I get on with my life. Truly fantastic!
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