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Ok, take two as the site ate my first attempt. Self-Compassion The Often Missing Ingredient In Healthy Eating I joined the Nerd Fitness Academy several years ago. At the time, I was in the middle of what I would later realize was some form of an eating disorder that sort of resembled orthorexia. I started removing food groups from my diet, and trying to eat a restrictive "clean" diet because of digestive problems that I was having (which I later realized were due to extreme amounts of stress due to a really unhealthy relationship). I would eat "clean" for a few months, and then I would fall off the wagon. I would go back to eating clean for a while and then fall off the wagon. I did more and more reading coming from several different clean eating camps, all of which predicted doom, gloom and death if I didn't eat cleanly. I developed more and more anxiety around food. I swung through cycles of being too exhausted to cook clean food, too poor to eat clean food, and fiercely dedicated to eating a diet free of sugar, processed foods, and grains. When I was eating clean, I felt good about myself. I was "good". My inner critic would be quiet. It didn't matter that I was so exhausted there were days I couldn't get out of bed, or walk up my stairs because my carbs were so low, and I wasn't capable of affording, or even eating, enough clean food. When I was "off the wagon", I was a total piece of crap. I had no will power. I didn't deserve to complain about being fat, or unhealthy because I was doing it to myself. I was "cheating". I was killing myself with every mouthful. My digestive problems only increased - and of course, it had to be from the devil food I was eating, not the fact that I was stressing myself out so much about fueling my body. Needless to say, after purchasing NFA, I never got around to the workouts. I was too tired, and too wrapped up in my food issues. Not only was I not able to stick to any health related goals, I had gotten to the point where I couldn't do anything. I was stuck to my couch, watching Supernatural for the fifth time. I wanted to be cleaning my apartment, doing my laundry, going to bed on time, taking better care of myself, learning how to play the piano I'd bought for myself. I wasn't doing any of those things, and as far as I was concerned, I was failing at being even a basic human being, let alone one who could actually achieve any sort of success doing anything else. Then I tripped over a concept called Demand Resistance, or Demand Sensitivity. The gist of both things is "You're not the boss of me." From the book Too Perfect, the definition is, "A chronic and automatic negative inner response to the perception of pressure, expectations, or demands, from within or without.” I am a perfectionist. However, I am the kind of perfectionist who becomes absolutely inert under the pressure to be perfect, or to live up to my own, absolutely unattainable, expectations. I had an Inner Rebel who was fighting me every step of the way every time I tried to motivate myself, because the only way I knew how to motivate myself was through shame and guilt and emotional abuse. It's how I was raised, it's how many people in authority in my life thought motivation should be done. No one ever said to me, "It's ok to fail. It doesn't mean you're a bad person." So whether it was my diet, fitness, showering regularly, or going to bed on time, it was either do it and feel the warm glow of moral "goodness", or don't do it and feel the constant berating of my inner drill sergeant, humiliating me and making me "evil." It had gotten to the point where my Inner Rebel would just stomp her foot and say, "You're not the boss of me!" with every "I should be..." "I ought to..." "I need to...." I didn't do things because I wanted to any more. I did things because deadlines were looming, or just to relieve the pressure of self-hatred. My Inner Rebel was trying to save me from myself. I wanted to make so many changes, but not because I wanted to be healthier, or more creative, I wanted to make them because I thought I was a piece of crap that needed improving. When I realized the tug of war that was going on between me and my Inner Rebel, especially around food, I dropped one end of the rope and decided to allow my Inner Rebel to just have her way for a while. The first time I went grocery shopping and set a goal to just, buy what I wanted to without weighing each item's healthfulness, and not count the "unhealthy/cheat" foods in my basket, it was a revelation. I started reading some materials on Intuitive Eating, some of which suggested just allowing yourself to eat what you want, to "refeed" essentially. They promised that if you had items that you had banned because you couldn't keep from eating all of them, if you just allowed yourself to have as much as you wanted, your cravings would essentially run their course. It was crazy. It was counter intuitive. It was terrifying for someone who had a long list of "not allowed in the house" foods, someone who absolutely didn't want to gain weight, someone who had become so afraid of food. It was an interesting theory though, one which I thought I could experiment with. I bought cereal. I bought Oreo's. I bought ice cream. All things on my "can't have it in the house" list. I let myself eat whatever I wanted. Interestingly, it wasn't the oreo's, cereal, or ice cream that I ended up bingeing on. Sour cream. Something that I hadn't really even restricted in the past. When I lifted all of my restrictions, and promised my Inner Rebel that she could have whatever she wanted, it was sour cream that she went crazy with. For a month or so, I put sour cream on everything. I ate those tiny little microwave burritos when I got home from work, with sour cream. There were some nights there was more sour cream on the plate than there was burrito. I stopped just short of sitting down with a pint of sour cream and a spoon. My body wanted All The Calories, and All The Fats. I had never thought of myself as a "yo-yo dieter" because I'd started on the health food journey because of actual health concerns, not to lose weight. And even though I'd go 10, 16, 19 hours without eating, I didn't think of myself as "fasting". My body had no idea when I was going to give it food, or whether or not it was going to get enough calories, or nutrients when I did. And just like the Intuitive Eating people said, after a while, it tapered off and I was no longer over indulging in anything. Maybe I ate an entire package of Oreo's a few times, or a whole box of cereal in a day or two. But now, two years later, I do not have a list of "can't bring it into the house" foods. I don't binge on things like that anymore. I still have issues around knowing when I'm full when it comes to actual meals, but snack foods, I have far less of a problem with now. My digestive issues, within the first two weeks of me dropping that tug of war rope, started to drastically improve. I've since learned just how much anxiety can affect the digestive system, and now I can see the connections between regular stress, and my 3 anxiety disorders, and my digestion. And all of my "adrenal fatigue" symptoms, which I'd literally spent thousands of dollars on trying to fix with different supplement protocols and hair testing, nearly harming myself with some very strange protocols, seemed to magically disappear. The exhaustion that I was feeling started to lift, my hair stopped falling out, my air hunger went away. I still have days when that stuff comes back, but I can always trace it back to having slacked off from eating mindfully and making sure that I eat consistently, and am getting enough calories. I still have some emotional and disordered issues around food that I'm trying to resolve but I'm no longer tearing myself apart for eating less healthful foods. I still have some health issues that I'm struggling with, and I gained a lot of weight over the last two years. However, I am happier. I'm also in a place now where I feel like I can start tentatively approaching food and fitness in a gentle, compassionate and mindful way that won't trigger me. Here are the things that I'm focusing on now: Food - I'm using the YouFood Android app to become more mindful of what I'm eating. I was really good last week about logging all my meals while I was at work. It allows you to just take a picture of what you ate, so it's a photographic log rather than calorie counting. I was never good at counting macros. It's not sustainable for me, and because of that, it's triggering. I want to work on more consistent logging/logging while I'm at home and on my days off. I'm not beating myself up when I don't log. I'm easing into drinking more water. I did replace my afternoon work soda with water. I'm still drinking giant soda's occasionally in the evenings with the Mr. I'm limiting it to a 32oz cup rather than the larger one. I'm not beating myself up when I'm drinking it. While I'm not counting calories, I'm looking at serving sizes on things, and taking note of the calories. I was shocked the other day when I saw that Tyson's frozen chicken nuggets, something that I'd been eating entire plate fulls of, have a serving size of 5. 5 chicken nuggets is the suggested serving size and one serving size has 280 calories. Mindful eating. I'm currently working on figuring out when I am actually hungry, and when I'm just bored, or emotionally eating. I'm just taking note of things for now. "Yes, I'm eating this unhealthy and expensive restaurant meal because I had an awful day." I'm not beating myself up for that. I'm not yet trying to change the behavior. I'm just taking note of it. Becoming mindful of my motivations. I'm also actively working on trying to figure out when I am full, and putting my fork down. I have had some real wins lately when it comes to this. I've stopped eating and either put the food away, or given the few last bites which I always have a hard time throwing away, to the dog. I'm still over eating. I'm not beating myself up about it. I'll go over physical stuff in a later post.