1. dawny May 13, 2015 at 6:13 am

   Hiya friends..

   OH my I can’t count the many many ways this episode was SOOO Timely in my life and resonated with me on SO many levels!! the secret topic is 100% on my mind as of late…

   I love your cute car Laurie =-) I too struggle with ‘fret’ and I need to let it go.. it’s all the silly ‘frustrations’ I allow to be ‘frustrations’ that aren’t necessary and cause me anxiety and over-whelming angst and and and

   Thank you for this,
   BEFORE I even knew there was an episode, OR what it entailed I was trying to think in my brain how I was going to pose the question to you Laurie, as i KNOW you’ve been going to therapy and weeding your way thru the pasture of over-grown tumblweeds & thistles in your life, for you to share with me/us HOW to start digging.. without you devulging too much of your personal stuff, sharing how it works, how are you uncovering the ‘triggers’ the ‘feelings’ the ’emotions’ that you before would ‘eat’ as opposed to ‘feeling’

   I love our ‘family’ here, and Im so thankful to/for you Laurie making this such a priority, you are a busy girl.
   Glad you enjoyed your ‘old enough to drink anniversary’ and Im so excited for your upcoming weekend.. sounds GREAT fun! a voice acting seminar type event.. PERFECT for you!

   Ive got so much going on in my head, and I finally put my finger on it.. I have been doing so well with my eating, not over-eating, finding my way, then I had some good ‘weight loss’ weeks if you will, Ive changed some things up and feeling good feeling great, then this ‘feeding’ and/or ‘eating’ monster rears, the ‘over-thinking’ the feeling fit-ful, worrying, obsessing, it’s all coming back, and with a vengence.. Ive figured it out, I just needed some input and thinking it thru.. Im trying TOO HARD.. Im chasing too much.. when i relax, accept, live, enjoy, listen to my body and FEEL my feelings these things aren’t there, it’s when I TRY too hard, the resistance, the restriction, deprivation… er.. uh.. diet hell prison? comes out and it gets ugly! im so glad ive put my finger on this and figured it out, and thankful for the input that led me to here, now I have to figure out how to let it go again.. phew..

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   1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorMay 13, 2015 at 7:27 am

      Morning Dawny! Wow, sometimes I think you are FIRST in line to download and/or listen to the episodes. I so appreciate your comments and your enthusiastic listening and participating. The crux of today’s comment and question about therapy etc. I think comes down to this. How do I STOP the impulse to eat when I’m not hungry or when it isn’t an ‘on purpose delish or social’ reason where I’m enjoying my food. For me it has been, as you mentioned, a two-pronged process.

      1. My show. It is all about me sharing my feelings, so I started to identify, with practice, more and more of my feelings that triggered eating. Now usually, especially at the start, it was being a detective ‘After’ the Robot Aliens had paid a visit. Most of my overeating is emotionally based. Some is habit, but most is unconscious and tied to deep emotional feelings that may not even have been born in the moments prior to the actual current event, but triggered from life long beliefs or reactions built in me as far back as my childhood. But the show started me on the path to making the idea, “Hmmm what was I feeling, or what emotion might I have been covering up when I ate that bag of chips?” part of my eating process. That took quite awhile to become habit. But now I’ve been telling you all so long, that it is more and more natural for me to have emotions fly up to the surface during or after emotional eating. You can replicate this with some kind of journal, or recording your own voice, like on Alen’s app, Before I eat, a moment in the Zone. It’s getting used to tying the food impulse to the emotion.

      2. Therapy. Therapy works like you have a dedicated friend who sees everything about you, who is laser focused on what you say and how you feel and reflects back to you. They ALSO have training in some or more of family dynamics, mental conditions, eating disordered thinking etc. So when they reflect, they also have a broader context of where this behavior fits. So for example, I may come into my session complaining about something Mark did, that really was small potatoes, but was unconsciously reminding me of an old family dynamic that helped create some of my wrong ideas about myself and my snark with Mark is really pain over that wrong idea. In the past, this small potatoes event may have led me to the chips and I would feel out of control and crazy. But now, since I go to therapy we figure out what this event was reminding me of, and challenge, if my thoughts are still valid around this issue and come up with ways to deal better with Mark in the here and now with respect and still get my needs across. We take some of the old ghosts away. It is having those trained eyes seeing me from the broader view, AND building the safe relationship in therapy that helps me be more brave. I don’t run or isolate from therapy. I’ve struggled, disagreed, even been unhappy with my therapist, and learned how to deal with these feelings here.

      Hope this helps Dawny, in other words, inside reflection plus outside perspective and training myself to let the emotions come to my attention AND learning other ways to deal with them.

      To your point about relaxing your food focus, I find that helps me too. But it IS different than the “I’m not on a diet so I can eat everything” feeling. It is, I deal with my life and food is just food, so why build in times to eat it when I’m not hungry or it isn’t super calling to me for the food’s own taste? The big takeaway to the approach I’m using is that I am dismantling my food abuse self abuse, by learning how to actually cope with my life and building in non-food related coping skills. And again,it isn’t about distracting FROM food, but getting down to the actual life. Building and maintaining relationships. Saying no. Saying yes! Taking chances. Learning how to survive when chances don’t pan out. Learning it’s not all about me, failures and success. I can let go much of the pressure I have felt all of my life. There are good days and bad for everyone. No decision is set in stone. I’m not trapped, ever! It’s also been actually accepting my body as is. The more I do this for real, the less “feeling fat” pops up as a despair trigger. I still don’t have it all figured out, but I’m much further along than I was. And I think the progress shows, in how I relate and behave. I also think I may be dropping a very little bit of weight lately, but I don’t really pay too much attention. I find as time goes on and I do the work, I just don’t think about food as much. And if I DO and I’m not hungry or it isn’t the best dang cake in the world or it isn’t my birthday party, I’m starting to automatically take THAT as a trigger to figure myself out, or to bring the situation to therapy.

      Hugs to you dear Dawny, and I hope this helps answer your question. xoxoxoxox

      Reply ↓
      1. Dawny May 13, 2015 at 10:52 am

         Thanks!!! Wow. So much more than I’d even hoped for!! What a treat.

         It’s ironic today I Wog-a-bout-Ed at o’dark thirty. I’ve not been as of late… I just wanted to. N aha there was the podcast episode in I-tunes. I have several shows in my faves however I have FAVES in the faves that take priority/precedence even over episodes I may be half way thru and had to stop lol (that says a LOT cuz I’m kinda OCD lol)
         And today’s show was especially great. And as I said fantabulously timed I couldn’t wait to post. Lol

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2. Stéfanie May 14, 2015 at 4:38 pm

   Dear everyone,

   Welcome brave Shannon. I DO feel just like you. Sometimes we get so involved in our problem that it turns to obsession. And obsession always brings anxiety, which triggers binging. To tell you the truth, I don’t have any solution to offer – just pure empathy and the suthing thought that you are not alone. I find that solutions, for me, come and go and work great for a while before they don’t anymore. And you know what? That’s ok. I hope you take care

   Dave – for my day to feel purposeful and meaningful, I need to do those 6 things each day:
   – make or consume art. Glass art, painting, reading, mindfully listening to music.
   – do one non regular cleaning chore (that dirty fridge drawer, for example)
   – do one regular cleaning chore
   – done one administrative chore (my mom calls that domestic ingeneering)
   – do one exercise
   -fully prepare and cook one meal from scratch

   Maybe chores aren’t supposed to be on the list – but if I have done all of those things in a day, I will feel fufilled. And obviously, you can add caring for relashionships in there too 🙂

   Laurie – loved the answer to the topic, and lived to hear you sing too

   Dawny – hihi 🙂 your jokes always make me laugh. And they’re the best of kind of jokes – the short ones that I can remember

   Xxx

   Stéfanie 🙂

   Reply ↓
   1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorMay 16, 2015 at 8:55 am

      Hello Mon Amie! It’s great to see you posting your wisdom and thoughts around here. I hope the sun is starting to shine for you a bit more. ::::Hugs::::::

      Thanks for saying you liked to hear me sing. That was one decision I have been regretting, putting that bad practice into the show. But it was how I sounded that day on the mountain, and singing that darn song HAS helped my breath support. Part of it is nerves. I still get nervous singing, and am trying to learn to relax if I think someone may hear. I even sang for my Voice Acting coach, David, who is ALSO a singing teacher, and thought I was going to FAINT. Geez, and HE has proven over and over that he is not judgmental,but even so, I almost stopped breathing all together. I’m working on it.

      Thanks too for sending in your secret topic. I always love answering them, and from the feedback I receive, your voice and your topics are VERY popular.

      xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

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   2. Dave May 26, 2015 at 11:59 am

      Thank you Stefanie for your list. I love glass art also, last year my wife and I went to a glass blowing studio in Hood River OR and she made a glass pear I made a glass heart. When I find the photos I will post a link.

      We live in Kent Washington, which is just south of Seattle WA the home of Dale Chihuly
      http://www.chihuly.com/
      Dale Chihuly (born September 20, 1941), is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. His works are considered unique to the field of blown glass, “moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture,

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      1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorMay 27, 2015 at 6:34 am

         I’m stepping in for two reasons. 1. I used to live in Auburn and work in Kent when I was in college. So this brings back memories. 2. I grew up and went to school with a friend who became a lawyer, decided it wasn’t fulfilling, learned to blow glass, turned out to be GREAT at it, and she has worked with Chihuly for years now! Isn’t that inspiring? Who knew? I always think about these things. If we don’t try different outlets, might we never discover our talent and passion?

         Reply ↓

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