TURNING THE CORNER

Hello to anybody who may still be dropping by to see if I'm still on the face of this earth.

Yes I am and I have so much to write about that I think it'll take a few installments. In case you're yawning and ready to flick me off I urge you to stay tuned even if just for a few paragraphs as I believe I have some interesting stuff to report. Now less waffle and let me get on with it.

As you may remember from my earlier blog posts I had reached a point of total desperation and complete lack of belief in myself a couple of months ago. My binge eating was constant and I felt powerless to change it. I just repeated the same destructive behaviours over and over again, never seeing a way to break the cycle. So I bit the bullet and sought help in the form of a Sports Psyche (SP).

After my first visit I had some positive feelings and could start to see a way forward. I had a second visit just before going on holidays and I felt like we really made some inroads after some very frank discussion, realisations, analysis, advice and her just being bloody good at her job. I can honestly say that I left that session feeling different, thinking different and ready to act different. So I was quick to put my new approach to the test and that I did (I'll expand on it later) and by golly IT WORKED.

After my holiday (again I'll expand on it in another post) I went back for my 3rd session and reported on all I had done, not done, thought, felt and believed and it was obvious that I didnt need to see her anymore. I HAVE NOT BINGED FOR SEVERAL WEEKS AND I FEEL LIKE A NEW (AND IMPROVED) PERSON.

So what's different? Now I understand how some of my thoughts and beliefs were setting me up for repeated failure. I was giving myself no choice but to binge and continue my negative cycle. So I had to let go of some of those beliefs, remove some of my self-imposed rules and view things quite differently. I had this conviction that eating off plan or having "treat food" or similar was a disaster. If I ate off plan (which I did regularly), all good was undone and therefore I may as well have a complete free for all. The SP kept drumming it into me that food is just food and I needed to remove the emotion from certain foods. So if I ate a piece of cake I was not to view that as a disaster (which then gave me licence to keep eating cake cause well I'd blown it all anyway). So I ate some cake and was able to stop at one piece. AMAZING. So I did it again and again stopped at one piece. I ate cheese and crackers and stopped without feeling like I wanted to devour the whole lot. I was thinking differently so I could act differently. OMG IT WAS WORKING.

Thats a very simplified version of it all but I dont need to go back to the SP unless I hit a "hiccup" (her words) and I need to refocus. I'm doing ok. Over the last few weeks I've faced several situations which previously would have had me eating out of control, justifying that I deserved it, what-was-the-point-of-trying-to-eat-well, OMG-the-diet-will-start-on-Monday-so-I-better-eat-everything-bad-that-I-can-possibly-get-my-hands-on and I've hardly been tempted to revert to my old ways.

I'm still fat but I'm working on changing that. I have new skills and a new outlook that will help me achieve my goals instead of making it a bloody hard battle to fight. But the biggest difference is that I finally feel happy within and not just on the surface for show. It may sound corny but I honestly feel like a different person and I look to my health and fitness future with hope and happiness in my heart.

:-) Magda