Grateful Hearts Don’t Eat

When I get myself stuck in the overeating mode, my brain settles happily into a cove of negativity. It love — and I mean, really really loves — to focus and refocus on everything that stirs up negative thoughts.

I could and often did spend an entire night (sugary snacks in hand) roaming around my house of resentments and disappointments:

— Remember how much your father messed up your life by making you believe you were unlikeable? By showing so clearly how much he preferred your sister and thought you were too awkward and too smart? Telling people things like how he can’t imagine you ever getting married?

— Remember those girls in junior high who singled you out and teased and bullied you for months? And no teachers ever stepped in to help even though you had no idea what to do about it?

— Remember how when you got engaged, both you and your fiancé were in really bad places work-wise and finance-wise, so you never got an engagement ring? Everyone else you know who is married has a pretty diamond ring, but you don’t get to have one.

I’m really really good at finding things to get my brain all wound up with unhappiness and despair. Like, really good at it. And my mind loves to schmooze around in negativity.

I know, I know, it’s an evolutionary things and we’re probably hard-wired to pay attention to the negative. Wolf coming to your campfire? Better be prepared for it.

But of course, in today’s world, all that negative focus can be tremendously hurtful. If I ever hope to get myself out of my overeating, I have to got to get my brain to stop focusing so obsessively on the negative.

I believe the research that gratitudes are really useful in rewiring the brain. But gratitudes have become rote with me — lately I’ve just been jotting down “pretty trees,” “warm house,” “nice complement”.  I want to take more time with them and really soak up the gratitude daily. 

I know that’s the best way to get my mind out of its usual negative-nelly, “let’s review everything wrong with your life right now” mindset.

Gratitudes:

1. Trees and branches covered with a light dusting of snow are breathtakingly beautiful.

2. At the coldest time of winter, with real-feel temps at 15 below, I have a cozy house with a working furnace that keep me warm and comfortable. I am immensely fortunate to have a warm, safe, comfortable house.

3. Someone told me yesterday that I was so good a public speaker that I could read the phone book and people would come out to hear me. Complements make me very uncomfortable (putting this out here for all of you to read is making me cringe and worry that you’ll think I’m a big diva). But since my brain likes to focus way too much on what I do wrong in work than what I do right, I paid attention to accepting the complement with a grateful heart. I am deeply grateful for having found work that I genuinely enjoy and that I do well.

People in AA sometimes say that “grateful heart don’t drink.” It works just as well for over eaters. Grateful hearts don’t eat.

Why do I overeat when I'm stressed?

"Why do I overeat when I’m stressed? Even though I no longer binge eat, stressful events almost always lead to overeating. It’s frustrating because I want my eating to be stable, regardless of life's circumstances."

I read this question on the website of another person who blogs about overeating. That blogger had some great advice.

But that question has stuck with me. Because it's so so so true. I too inevitably seem to overeat when I'm stress. Why? And what can I do?

Here's what I'm starting to think:

Over many, many years, you probably regularly overate whenever you were stressed. And that's totally understandable -- eating works. It distracts you from whatever is stressing you out, it zaps your brain into a soft fog, and it gives you a little jolt of happiness to counteract the stress.

Except that over time, eating stops working. It becomes awful for your body's health and it starts to become uncontrollable. Your brain gradually decides that this is what you need and must have whenever stress hits. 

To borrow from Amy Johnson in The Little Book of Big Change, it's like you've set an alarm clock to go off whenever stress hits.

So when you try to stop overeating the alarm clock is still set. Your brain still sends out the signal: "Oh you feel stressed? Eat eat eat eat eat eat."

The only way to stop that signal? The only way to reset the alarm clock? 

By ignoring it. By not listening to it. 

You have to consciously tell yourself that this is just an old alarm clock setting. It's OK, there's no actual need for food, your brain is just sending out old neurological junk. This is an old habit that you don't need any more.

I am NOT saying that this is easy. It can be excruciatingly hard not to eat when your brain is outright demanding it. The urge to eat can feel like the same urge to breathe or sleep or go to the bathroom.

But it WILL fade. It does fade. The more often and the more consistently you don't eat when you're stressed, the more faint the voice will come. One of the great wonders of the human brain is that is can be retrained. You can retrain it to crave other things -- things that will genuinely relieve your stress, rather than just numb it out.

So try this.

Step 1: Tell yourself this is just old neurological junk your brain is spitting out. It's old information you don't need anymore. There's no need to act on it.

Step 2: Do something that is genuinely proven to relieve stress. Take a nap. Call a friend. Soak in a hot tub with the candles lit and soft music playing. Put on cozy PJs and snuggle with your dog.

If the urges continue, repeat steps one and two. Keep repeating them until your brain rewires.

What to say to yourself when you starting asking, "What is the Point? Why Bother?"

I was driving home yesterday from a gig that was 2.5-hours away. That's always danger time for me. Since my work requires a lot of driving, I tend to get easily restless and bored when I have too much time in the car. Audio books and podcasts help, but only so much. Eventually my mind starts to work itself up.

And if it's been a few hours since a meal, my mind really starts winding itself up. Yesterday, at about the 1.5-hour mark, my brain went off on a fairly typical rant having to do with my healthy eating. It went something like this:

Why am I even bothering? What is the point? Why am I doing this? Why bother?

It's a familiar refrain. Really kind of funny, when you think about it because rationally, I know the answer (eating poorly robs me of a healthy brain, is the road to heart disease and stroke and diabetes, just increases the cravings). There are a gazillion reasons why I'm not eating crap anymore or eating in an unhealthy way.

But of course my brain isn't asking this questions because it needs a rational answer. No one's brain really wants the reasoned, scientific answer.

When those thoughts pop up in your brain, there is usually only one reason why:

You're bored. You don't know what to do with yourself. Your brain has slipped into a crack (as it is soooooo good at doing) and is trying to exploit it.

In my experience, your brain asking "why bother?" is virtually always a sign that you're bored or restless or tired.

What it is definitely is NOT a sign of:

that you need to eat something. It means there is a trigger there which you used to respond to with food, but don't anymore. Your brain has noticed the trigger and is asking for food to fill it, because that's what used to happen when you hit that trigger.

So instead, I recommend doing something. Pick up a satisfying hobby. Take out a coloring book. Clean out your closet. Exercise. Make out your food plan for the week. Start planning your holiday gift shopping. Take a nap. Whatever. Find something absorbing to do and see if that doesn't take your brain off the ruminating.

In my case, I turned on the radio, cranked up some high-energy tunes and sang along as loudly as I could. Might have looked a bit odd to my fellow drivers, but it worked for me.

What does it take? It takes what it takes.

Had a HUGE win yesterday. It was a long day — two-hour drive to a gig, a long session afterwards with a dear friend who is coping with job loss and serious marriage crisis. Forgot my pre-packedj weighed and measured lunch at home. Then came home to find my dear little pug Blackie limping and yelping when I tried to pick him up.

Normally, these are the things that would cause me to eat sugar and flour. The voice in my head telling me to eat was SO LOUD. It was like my brain literally thought I was going to die if I didn’t eat right now. I spent an agonizing hour debating in my head.

Finally, a combination of things worked:

— I reminded myself that ANY “use” just increases the cravings for me. It doesn’t make the voice in my head stop. I need to hold fast to my belief that I only eat to nourish my body, not to cope with emotions.

— I reminded myself that I really really really want to keep up the gold stars on my calendar. I have some momentum and don’t want to lose it because it is so hard to get it back.

— I promised myself that I could order a dress I’ve been eyeing for a while IF I didn’t eat. I even

went online and put it in my checkout basket but wouldn’t pay for it until I made it through the night.

— Once I’d reassured myself that my little guy didn’t have a fracture and didn’t need to go to the emergency vet (that is, he’ll be all right to make a visit to the regular vet in the morning), I put him on my lap. So I literally couldn’t get up without potentially hurting him.

Blackie just before being lifted onto my lap

And it WORKED!! It worked.

In the light of morning, this sounds like a ridiculous amount of work just to keep from eating. Honestly, I have to tie myself down with a dog to keep from eating?

But the voice in my head can be ridiculously loud and insistent.

What does it take to keep off sugar and flour? The answer is, always, that it takes what it takes.

I am so happy to wake up today proud of myself, able to add a gold star to my calendar.

And I just ordered that dress!

Little Lies We Tell Ourselves: Part One

To kick sugar and flour, I have to get my mind in the right place. Too many people come up with a bazillion excuses to stay sick and addicted.

I've used them myself, over and over. The little lies that keep me fat, shackled, and depressed.

So I want to bring my lies out into the open. No more hiding in the dark recesses of my mind. And with them, I am going to write down the responses that blow them out of the water.

Here we go:

Little Lie Number One:

This will be hard.

My response to that:

It is much easier to focus on getting healthy and recovering than to stay sick/addicted/slowly degrading your brain. Yes, change is hard at first. Any major change is hard at first. The human brain hates changes. Hates, hates, hates it.

So of course it will resist change and try hard to do what it has always done. But with the right attitude, strong strategies, and a firm commitment, it can be hugely rewarding.

Lie number two coming tomorrow ….

[Thanks to Daniel Amen's Memory Rescue book for the inspiration for writing down the little lies I tell myself]

Day Seven: Tune Out the Food Chatter

I spent four and a half hours in the car yesterday, driving to a big city to pick up the new dogs my husband and I are adopting. My husband has a meeting he cannot miss, so I made the drive myself.

I love long drives because they provide lots of time to delve into a good book. For me, I decided to re-listen to a book called Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen (you can find a link to the book below). It’s one I’ve read before, not because I suffered from Binge Eating Disorder, but because I thought intuitive eating was the way to go for me.

At the time, it didn’t resonate much. Her journey, which she describes in poignant, honest detail, involves bouts with binging. But I wasn’t a binger. I didn’t tend to eat huge quantities of food at a time.

My problem wasn’t how to stop bingeing, it was how to stop compulsively overeating. So I didn’t know how to implement her ideas. What do I stop? I wasn’t getting accurate information from my body about what and how much to eat. I wasn’t sure what to do with her approach. book went onto the bookshelf.

This time, though, wow. What a difference. Now that I’ve got two years of trying to do Bright Line Eating, and I know what I need to stop doing (stop eating sugar and flour and stop eating between meals), this book suddenly clicked.

She advocates the idea that in an addiction, the ancient, reptile brain (the part that controls basic bodily functions like eating) comes to see the addictive behavior as a necessary life function. When an urge hits, it’s because the body believes it has to do that thing right now or it will die.

The prefrontal cortex, however, is the part of the brain that represents your truer self. It’s the brain that knows that binging (or smoking or drinking alcohol or whatever) is not right for you. It’s the part of you that wants to recover from your addictive brain.

The reptile brain has a critical role to play in your life because it produces life-sustaining urges. If it’s sending out an urge to breathe, that’s great. But when it thinks binging (or smoking or drinking) is vital and sends out that urge to binge (or drink or smoke or whatever), that’s false information. It’s just neurological junk. Your reptile brain doesn’t know the difference. It just thinks it needs that hit as vitally as it needs a breath of oxygen.

In Brain Over Binge she learned to separate herself from the false urges. When an urge to binge arose, she just told herself it was brain junk that should be ignored.

That is what hit me so powerfully. Maybe every urge I get to eat off my BLE plan is just false information my brain is sending me. Maybe the key to staying on plan is to start ignoring those urges.

Not everything in this book fits me. She decided not to eliminate certain food groups, but I find the idea of abstaining from sugar and flour compelling. And she did not feel emotional pressures tended to trigger her binges, but in my case they really do.

Still, I’m going to try this approach, setting aside what doens’t work for me.

Every time I get an urge to have a snack between meals, to eat a little bit extra than what I planned for, to eat some crackers or bread or other flour-based food, I’m going to tell myself:

“This isn’t my real brain. This is just brain junk my animal brain is sending me. I don’t need to pay attention to it. I can just observe it and let it go.”

This is fundamentally different from what I’ve been doing for two years. My usual approach when an urge hits is to hang on for dear life. I try to white knuckle through it. I try to distract myself from the food thoughts, wait 10 minutes for the urge to subside.

Those never work. The food thoughts don’t go away. And no wonder! My reptile brain thinks it needs its food hit to survive.

But viewing urges as false junk my brain is sending me, well that means I don’t need to fight it. I just need to notice it as junk info. And let it go.

This approach now seems both transformative and exciting. So I’m going to try it for the next few days.

If you’re interested in the book, you can see more information about it here: http://a.co/d/euz34Tv

Day Six: Remove the Temptation

I’m
 remembering how fragile the early days of a resume on my food plan is.

The voice in my head (the one that thinks I need to eat sugar and flour the way I need oxygen) is really really LOUD. It’s such a struggle to remind myself that that voice is not the real me. That’s just my addictive brain, thinking it’s doing what’s best for me.

I’m realizing that in these early days, the most important thing I can do is to remove temptation. And by “remove temptation,” I don’t mean just get things with sugar and flour out of the house. Although that’s important. My poor husband has no goodies for himself because I’ve been relentless in getting rid of them.

What I mean by “remove temptation” is to be ruthless. When it’s early and you’re fragile, you need to smooth the way before yourself. That means, yes, get rid of sugar and flour in the house. It also means:

— Don’t go out to restaurants for meals. Not forever, but for sure for now. Eating in restaurants takes extra work and has extra risks. There will be plenty of time to eat in restaurants when your plan is more solid.

— If at all possible, don’t go to events where food is the main focus. Your book club’s Like Water for Chocolate tasting event? That would be a no. But also your family’s trip to the baseball game, if baseball games used to be all about the food for you. Or whatever. Of course, some events you can’t skip, so for those make a really strong plan, commit to it, and leave early if you need to.

— Don’t make treats for your daughter’s soccer team meet or your nephew’s birthday. Ask someone else to pick up the dessert.

— Don’t read novels that are heavily food-focused

— Don’t decide to update your family cookbook, the one with your grandmother’s recipes for holiday treats. (Guilty).

For some unbeknownst reason, I decided that this week would be the perfect week to start typing recipes up for a revision to my family’s book of favorite recipes. It hasn’t been updated in 18 years, and two of my nieces just moved into places of their own, so the time is right. Doing it now (early September) means it’ll be done in time to be printed for Christmas.

But man, do recipes stir up emotions! I spent two hours yesterday typing up recipes for Granny’s Kolacky and my mother’s famous Thanksgiving turkey and my aunt’s wonderful lemon bars.

Not only did it steep me in happy memories of these wonderful women, who I miss so much. It also filled me with memories of these wonderful foods, prepared with such love and served at happy occasions. It reminded me of how I started using food to express love.

So no, not a good decision. But a good reminder that when you’re early in the game, you need to be vigilant about removing any and all temptation. No more cookbook updating for me until I’ve got a bit more momentum on this journey.

It’s not FAIR!

Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day that’s often associated with the last big summer feast. It’s a day for cook-outs and hot dogs and watermelon and s’mores.

These are the kinds of days when it’s easy to feel sorry for myself. So unfair! Why do other people get to eat as much as they want on holidays like this? Why can they eat potato chips and dip, or hamburgers on buns, or brownies, or any of a hundred thousand other goodies with sugar and flour in them — but I can’t? Unfair, unfair, unfair. Why did I have to develop this food thing that makes the only safe route for me not eating any of it??!!

I’m sure alcoholics feel similarly. Why do other people get to sit on the beach with a glass of wine to watch the sunset but I don’t? Why do other people get to celebrate at a wedding with champagne and I don’t? Why can’t I have a beer to unwind at the end of the day?

But as the brilliant Belle Robertson (of “Tired of Thinking About Drinking”) reminds us, it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t all sit around and say “why, why, why, do other people get to do heroin but I never do?” I don’t say, “Why do other people drive 110 miles an hour down the highway and I never do?” Or, “Why can’t I do cocaine before going to work?”

OK, that’s obviously an exaggeration. Still, the reality, when we get right down to it, is that no one has a good reason to put sugar and flour in their body, any more than anyone has a good reason to put ethanol or heroin or fertilizer in their body.

The idea that sugar and flour are required for a celebration is purely a made-up thing. There are a million ways to bring joy and celebration and happiness in your life that have nothing to do with putting chemicals in your body that aren’t good for it.

I need sleep, not food

Operation Resume day 13 completed. Treat for another bright squeaky clean day: Pedicure

It was a pretty normal work day for me yesterday. Usual driving, usual kind of work. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But oh my word. The food thoughts? Nuts. I was thinking about food just 2 hours after breakfast. All morning I was looking at the clock for lunch hour. When I finished a job at 3 p.m. and got in my car, all I could think about was eating.

The wolfie voice in my brain immediately jumped in, “You’re hungry, you should have a little something or you won’t make it till 5 p.m.” And then, “Maybe instead of eating your packed dinner, you should stop somewhere for a special dinner.”

Then the voice really got nasty: “Why don’t you just order some bread with dinner, how much can one piece of bread hurt?” “It’s been a hard day, you deserve a normal-sized meal. Don’t worry about measuring or even eye-balling.” “Hey, there’s an Italian place. Go there for dinner!”

Arrrrrrggggh. What in the world? Suddenly I was back in the world of food-thought madness, circling in my brain like a maniac. Every other thought was about what I was going to eat, how much, how soon. What was going on?

I stopped for a cup of decaf coffee and sat down to just gaze outthe window and watch my thoughts.

And gradually, it was clear. Crystal clear. I was tired. I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I finally just got up and went on with my day.

And now that sneaky little wolfie addictive brain was using my tiredness as an excuse to start playing all the old tapes in my brain, sending the same messages that have messed me up in the past.

But this time, I know better. I know that very time I give in to Wolfie, Wolfie gets stronger, while I lose my momentum, do a U-turn and have to go through the struggle-to-resume dance.

And I know that every time I stick to my plan, I get stronger. Every time I refuse to give in, I build resilience. I develop the tools I need and get more and more confidence that I can do this.

So I went to bed early last night. Another round to me, Wolfie. Ha! Take that.

Operation Resume Day Three: I’m renaming my saboteur

Day three treat: scented hand soap

I finished day three with squeaky clean bright lines. Three days of food sobriety. And it feels good.

And oh boy howdy, was my saboteur howling at night. After dinner, I was home (a rarity for me — more often than not, I have a presentation booked for after dinner). 

The whole night, this nagging, complaining, never-letting-up voice was telling me it had to eat. Right now. Arrrgh.

And that got me thinking. I never know what to call that voice in my head that tells me to eat. “Saboteur” feels elegant and fancy-schmancy French, and my voice is more evil than that. "Sabby" sounds cute. “Addictive voice” feels abstract and not quite real. 

That voice in my head is not elegant or French or cute or abstract. It’s loud and persistent and nagging.

So I’m renaming it, using a brilliant idea suggested on the sober blog tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.com. 

Belle Robertson, creator of that blog, calls her addictive voice ...  “Wolfie.” To me, that is perfect. Not only because it matches the nasty, loud side of that voice but because of the inspiring Cherokee legend that inspired it. 

Here’s a great version of the legend from the website of Dean Deyeong: 

“An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:

‘A fight is going on inside me,’ he said to the boy.

‘It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.’

He continued, ‘The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf will win?’

The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’”

[You can read Dean Deyeong’s version HERE ]

That’s exactly what my brain is when it’s in full food-addiction mode. It’s an angry, evil wolf. And it’s fighting the warm, nurturing side of me. I have to avoid feeding the angry wolfie — I have to avoid focusing on the thoughts it give me. I instead need to nurture and cherish the loving, kind, healthy, self-caring, non-addicitive wolf.

So I’m following Belle’s suggestion and calling my addictive brain “Wolfie.”

[You can find her blog at tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.com . You can even get one of her badass “FU Wolfie” bracelets. (I have no affiliation with her, just love her ideas).]

I've tried so many times and failed, why should I try again?

About 14 months into my fight to successfully resume Bright Line Eating, things got really depressing.

Every time I decided that this was IT, today would be the day I resumed, every time I printed out a new 100-day chart, posted a commitment in social media, joined with a friend to do a 60-day challenge, that annoying little voice in my head would begin:

"You’ve tried this so many times and failed, why do you think you’ll succeed now?"

"This will be just like the last time: a few days with squeaky-clean bright lines and then more bright lines broken."

"With all these failures, how can you trust yourself or this program anymore?"

Today I’m challenging myself to answer that voice. I want some ammunition to toss at that dang voice to make it shut up. Here goes:

n  Sure, I could fail again. But then again, I could succeed. I’ve failed at other things before I succeeded. Maybe this is just like that.

n  Don’t statistics show that people who quit smoking often make multiple attempts before succeeding? Maybe my food journey will be similar. (I wrote about this on another blog post HERE.)

n  Nothing really valuable in life comes easy. Remember going to college? Creating a strong marriage? Building a successful business? Giving up diet soda? Work, work, and more work. But in every case, the work was absolutely worth it, and I succeeded eventually. I've succeeded before, which shows I'm capable of succeeding.

n  I just need to figure out what will work for me in getting my lines bright. Trying again is exactly what I need to do to learn what’s needed to stay on track. If something in my BLE toolbox needs to change, I can change it.

n  I give in now, and decide I’m going to fail, that’s just what will happen. If I claim defeat, I’ll be defeated.

It might take you 5 or 8 or 25 failures – or more – but if you’re not willing to risk failure, you’ll never get to success.

Henry Ford said it really well: “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re always right.”

[Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.]

My addictive brain is a screaming toddler at night

On Day 10 of my current BLE streak, and I’ve noticed something.

First, evenings are the worst for me. Yeah, I know, like everyone. If I’m home at night, the hours between the end of dinner and bedtime are torture. It’s the “witching hour” for me.

My addictive brain goes ballistic. It just keeps nagging and nagging and nagging. Clearly, I’m not hungry, I just ate dinner and have no physical signs of hunger. But my brain keep saying, “eat, eat, eat.”

And I know why it happens. It happens because my addictive brain is a screaming toddler.

In my 18 months of relapsing and resuming, I have most often relapsed in the witching hour. That’s when I tend to give in.

It is only after going through this for months that I’ve realized — or learned, deep down in side — that my addictive brain is like a screaming toddler. Not just because it. Will. Not. Shut. Up. But because every time I give in, it gets worse.

It is just like if you are at a supermarket and your toddler wants a cookie. Doesn’t just want a cookie, but screams and cries for a cookie.

If you give in once, the crying will stop and you’ll have peace short-term, at that moment. But you better believe that from now on, whenever you are with your toddler near the cookie display, your toddler is going to scream and cry. In the long-term, you’re going to have a lot more screaming and crying. A lot more.

You have three options:

(1) Give in every time. This ensures your child will comes to adore cookies. Bad eating habits, health problems in the future, maybe obesity and obesity-related diseases.

(2) Give in occasionally. This ensures the screaming and crying will get worse and worse and worse. It ensures that the toddler will become obsessed with screaming and crying, in hopes that this will be a visit where you break down.

(3) Never give in. This means you’ll have to endure screaming and crying short-term but it WILL lessen. When your toddler realizes you never give in, the point of screaming and crying goes away. It doesn’t work. It never works. So there’s no real point. This is the hardest option but also the one that has the greatest potential to get you to your goal of a child with healthful eating habits and a healthy future.

Clearly, number 3 is the way to go. But it means enduring a lot of distress and upset and anger in the short term. That’s just how it works.

When it’s a half-hour after dinner and my addictive brain turns into a screaming toddler, I just have to take a deep breath and remind myself I have the same three options:

1) Give in and eat. This ensures I’ll struggle more to get to my weight and food goals.
2) Give in occasionally. This ensures my addictive brain will get louder, more annoying, more upsetting.
3) Never give in. This means I’ll have to put up with the addictive voice for a while, but WILL settle down and eventually go away for the most part, or at least, to a bearable extent.

Every single time I give in, I make the screaming get worse. Every single time I don’t give in, I’m one step closer to making the screaming stop.

Disclaimer: This site is not officially affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

7 Things You Should Never Say to a Bright Line Eater

I came across an article similar to this by a woman who doesn't drink, giving things you should never say to an alcoholic. So here's my version, revised for a non-sugar/non-flour eater:

1.    “Come on, live a little!” I am. I do. I love life and enjoy it all the time. Sugar isn’t the only way to enjoy life.

2.    “How about just a little piece?” Would you ask an alcoholic to have just a “little” whiskey? Or how about a heroin addict to just shoot up a “little”?

3.    “I tried that once and failed. We’ll see how long this lasts for you.” Sugar is a food, not a measure of moral superiority. I’m not thinking I’m better than you. I just don't want to eat.

4.    “Don’t you feel like you’re missing out?” If I felt like I was missing out, I’d have some. Plus, you tell me stories about how tired you are and how you can’t fit into your clothes and your doctor thinks you’re prediabetic. That doesn’t sound like much fun, so I’ll pass.

5.    “I don’t eat this much usually! Really!” You don’t have justify your eating to me just because I’m not.

6.    “But really, why don’t you have some? She made it special. Just to be kind.” You can keep asking but the answer will always be no. I’m just going to get annoyed if you keep asking. Kindness doesn’t necessitate breaking my bright lines.

7.    “But it’s a special occasion!” Just because I’m not eating doesn’t mean I'm not enjoying the occasion and feeling like it's special. I'm having a great time.

Disclaimer: This blog and I are not officially affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Tired of Thinking About Eating

I'm starting this blog because I'm tired. Tired of thinking about food and when and what I'm going to eat next. Tired of trying to stay on a food plan and failing daily because I'm thinking about food all the time. Tired of trying to resume my bright line eating plan.

I want to be free of the food chatter. I want my mind to focus on something other than food. I want to find a simple, permanent solution to my food struggles.

I'm tired of thinking about eating

[This blog is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bright Line Eating Solutions or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.]