2011 Paul McKenna part two - our final diet

[whomovedmychocolate]

Welcome etc. blah blah. :)

I'm not 'living off' food like that. I eat fantastically well, never you fret! I just ate fantastically well and had that on top of what I had already eaten

And with the greatest of respect bran flakes is a hell of a lot better than the 4 bars of chocolate of old

I also love grapes at the moment but have really noticed that I don't want them so much when I am drinking enough water so I think maybe I want them when I am thirsty!

I absolutely knew it was not my body asking for that, it was entirely to change the way I felt but I coudn't seem to find another way to do that in the midst of what was going on. The upside of it is that I am genuinely not hungry for supper so have told DH he is catering for just himself and I have tidied up, read the DC's stories and cleaned the kitchen floor for the first time in months. I am going out in a minute (no food involved though!) and my NLP friend will be there. Maybe I should get her to sneak off with me and give me a top up!

I am struggling. I am feeling very negative about myself and I just don't get the time to do things properly. When I do do it properly I feel like there is a huge void in my life, and that upsets me, that my life is so thoroughly taken up with eating and/or berating myself.

Oh I wasn't meaning to upset you bloomingnora :( I eat fruit and fibre for breakfast myself. And yes bran flakes beats prawns chocolate any day.

Ursula - step back a minute you are not a product of your food intake, you are a human being - it's not about the food, it's about you. You sound like you are using food as a tool to stop thinking about things that upset you? Is that correct?

I wish I could reach out and hug you through the screen and make you feel better. :(

It's okay to objectively say 'I could be better at X or Y' but if you are at the point where you actually don't like yourself you need to change things, because until you start to like yourself, eating right is the least of your worries. Please talk about this, perhaps we can suggest something that might help?

I feel a bit stupid asking this but does this mean that we don't ever eat food for pleasure now?
I'm sat here thinking i really fancy a kitkat, then i'm thinking do i really want it because i'm hungry or for an emotional reason.

How can you ever truly say you are hungry for something nice, does anyone have a clue what i'm going on about?

You sound like you are using food as a tool to stop thinking about things that upset you? Is that correct?

Entirely. Un-MNetty hug gratefully accepted.

Ample, that's exactly it- I am worried in a way because it scared me some days how very little I probably need to eat, and therefore when do I get to do my pleasure eating, my compulsive eating has been like a friend to me and a bandage some days and I am worried about making myself be without it and then I will have to confront what it is that I am feeling.

I will have a big think tomorrow and try to focus properly, I'm at home with dd all day and will just try to listen to my body and chill the f*ck out :)

Okay, well let's be clear food can be pleasurable and ought to be so. If you want it and you are hungry, you go ahead and have your kitkat. But it's not going to be the stuff of dreams probably. You may find what you like changes as well, and that's okay. It's just fuel now, you aren't going to get that serotonin high by mainlining Green and Blacks. (Sorry) But hey, the rest of your life will probably be much better for it.

The uncertainty about hunger probably means you are not hungry. Remember real physiological hunger comes on gradually whereas emotional hunger is a sudden thing.

Ursula - you are feeling how I was last week - that you have the sudden reality that you don't have food as a cushion anymore and you are having to deal with your emotions instead. And it is hard. But it gets easier once you get used to it (I promise, I'm a week on and it is easier - if something upsets me, I get upset, I deal with it, I move on).

Listening to your body and chilling out sounds like a great plan though :)

WMMC - you didn't upset me, you daft bint. You'll really know about it if you do!

I have been to a pampered chef party this evening and have eaten a few things that I didn't need or particularly want but I am ok with it . Interestingly I noticed that I ate about half what the other people did.

I think that the key to this is to just keep on keeping on. If it doesn't go great, forgive yourself and move on. And maybe have a back up plan for when you have to deal with the emotions - I am going to write a list of alternative ways to feel better and try and include some I can do when the kids are around.

It starts like this:
Have a cup of tea/hot choc
Ring Mum/sister/brother/friend
Hug/tickle DCs - my favourite thing to cheer me up!
Long bath with a good book
Listen to PM
Do mirror exercise

etc etc

I don't want to get caught out again like I did this afternoon. I want to anticipate and have a plan.

Can I add dance around to cheesy music to that list.

Hope you had a good evening nora.

Blimey! you lot chat fast!
I'm not doing fantastically, but I've not eaten anything bad at all today (yesterday). I'm hungry right now, but don't want to eat at 2am. Will drink water and go to bed.
Hope to catch you all tomorrow. Good night.X

Morning all - kids are eating belgian waffles for breakfast which smell really nice but are not something I'd eat because they'd give me indigestion till next week.

Hope everyone has a fantastic day. Am going to feed the 'ucks (DS still can't say D sounds) today and to visit the rescue centre cat again (who we have to rename as he has the same name as DS). :)

Can you use the thumb/forefingers trigger for happiness/respect/bliss to lift your mood? Have you done the mirror exercise recently?

I did the havening thing just this morning - for no reason really other than I wanted to feel good about a few things I have to deal with today.

Perhaps you need to refocus again. Where are you trying to get to weightwise? What will that look like? How will it feel. Spend a few minutes visualising yourself at that weight and feel how good it feels to have achieved your goal.

And needless to say, one half hour out of control is not a disaster. It's not about willpower, it's about direction point your ship in the right direction and a few meanders off course will not matter one iota. :)

itsonlyajob - having done the same thing yesterday myself, I can really sympathise. I feel that lack of control and start to panic that I will always be out of control which is irrational as I don't assume that everything else I do will last forever eg had a glass of wine, therefore I am a terminal alcoholic/didn't do the washing up, therefore will never have a clean house again.

I think that saying out loud into the mirror, "I accept that you ate that yesterday and I forgive you" was very helpful. Although I felt like a massive twat bit of a wally.

As wmmc said, one half hour is not a disaster. Turn it on it's head - you were in charge of the food for 23.5 hours yesterday!

And, if you were previously eating meals and having binges between meals (like I was) and you are now eating much less at meals and enjoying it then that is brilliant! A huge improvement. Do you know why you binged? Was there a trigger?

I am starting to feel slightly freakoid that I am not finding this hard at all - it just feels natural to me to eat like this now and food has lost all it's emotional pull

So that's good for me. I do feel for you all though because I felt exactly like that last week and it's hard but it gets easier.

I was there! I was in row U - was anyone else?

HowTo, I was in row L and a few were in V iirc.

Tired is really hard to deal with. Just thought that if you could find the trigger it might make it easier to anticipate and head off next time. Inner rebel? Mine is bloody defiant.

I am struggling at this minute. DS1 is miserable today and we have had friends round this morning and their DS1 and my DS1 have argued constantly. Exhausted by it and we now apparently have to go round there for a bit. Raining and they've all got cabin fever... And I feel hungry. Am going to drink some water as I know I am not actually hungry at all. I just wish they would stop moaning and crying at each other. I would take them out in the rain myself but my friend won't. Grrrrrrrr.

I've listened! to the first cd twice now; once when I went to bed, but fell asleep and have no recollection of it and again this morning, but constantly interrupted by Dd, so not all went in.

Wondering if anyone else gets absolutely no further in their count down than about 285?

hello everyone!Sorry i haven,t been on here it seems like ages! i've missed you all! a special hello to nevergoogle who I met at the Apollo. It was a bit of a shithole wasn't it ? not the people though of course! My DD had been to see florence and the machine there she said it was just a mosh pit??

I was wearing my pom bear but didn't see anyone else. I have never been hypnotised and amazed myself that I was OUT each time like a light!! i'm still in london and my DH has just returnd from budapest with the compooter (hence i'm on it) and can post more than 4 frigging lines so sorry for going on !!! BTW P.M. is damn working!the weight is now dropping off me !!!!

Wow ppeatfruit - sounds like you are doing fantastically well! :)

Solo - I rarely get below 285 either. I think I could probably recite the entire thing now though!

I left a small amount on my plate last night and it wasn't a huge meal and had a small bowl of cornflakes for breakfast; didn't leave any, but there wasn't that much to begin with...no idea what is for tea tonight.

Weird that eh WMMC? I also find it far harder to count backwards from that high number than from 10 or even 20...maybe he's done that on purpose?!

Possibly - maybe it has to do with voice tone too as you count down your voice naturally goes lower in tone and that is more relaxing. I don't blinking know, he could be telling me to count sheep and it'd still probably work these days

300 sheep, 299 sheep, 298 sheep...