The FastDay Forum

So lovely to see you posting again and well done on your fantastic weight loss! You have given so much support to others on the forum so keep logging in and we will make sure we reciprocate and help you reach your ultimate goal!

[wildmissus]

@Hazelnut20, it's lovely to see you back. Whenever I see your name I always read your posts. I've been so busy recently and I haven't spent so much time on the forum or on me but if there is one thing that I do it is to log my weight on my tracker every Saturday and I think that is what is keeping me going. I've been fasting for almost 2 years and still haven't reached my target but that doesn't matter to me any more or certainly at the moment! What I am pleased with is that I have actually managed to keep off the weight I have lost. I still fast twice a week - some fasts are more successful than others! If I were to give you any advice it would be to maintain the weight you have lost until the new year and then get back into the swing of it. Don't put yourself under pressure to lose weight over the festive season. Good luck.

Oh my goodness, I am overwhelmed by you all!

A huge thank you to each & every one of you for your most thoughtful and helpful posts - I have read and re-read them all and so appreciate the trouble you have taken to support & help me, plus offer suggestions for the way forward.

Crikey, but you lot talk so much sense! I have certainly taken it all on board, but I wonder if I could ask a specific favour? I am not as good at introspection as I would like to be and I honestly don't know why I sabotaged myself by falling off the wagon. So can I pick your brains please? Not sure if there has been a "self-sabotage" thread or a "how do I stop comfort-eating?" thread before, but I would really appreciate any contributions you could make to either of these subjects. The "being kind to myself" bit is a whole other subject. I really appreciated @P-jk's helpful suggestion for a thread, though in all honesty, I am so far removed from that mentality at the moment, that I know I would be setting myself up for a fall. That's not to say that I am doing nothing about it, more that I am not keen to publicise my many issues........Hope that makes sense and doesn't sound ungrateful - it's not meant to be. The simple truth is that I have such a critical parent voice inside me that I never cut myself the slightest slack. I don't know how to rate myself positively as a person and I find it difficult to accept other people's rating of me because it's often far removed from my own assessment. I have spent so long reinforcing my false beliefs that they are now reality.....so will take some shifting. Call me a "work in progress" - because that's what I consider myself to be. All insights will be gratefully accepted therefore........

So, here are a couple of discussion points:-

I so enjoyed this summer - feeling great about myself (if I didn't look too closely), feeling confident, finding the whole world amusing, wearing smaller clothes and getting compliments. Why would I deliberately sabotage my efforts & go back to piling the weight back on? What's in it for me?

Why do I comfort eat when common sense dictates that only bad things can come from it (other than momentary pleasure of course)?

Many thanks in advance, you lovely people! Xx

Shoot me down in flames if I'm way off track here hazelnut but in all probability your lack of confidence in your attractiveness and low self esteem may be playing a bigger part than you realise in the self sabotaging stakes. Did people begin to comment on your weight loss and start paying you compliments and have you somehow managed to tell yourself that you don't 'deserve' to be admired and have re-gained because you felt more comfortable hiding beneath a 'shell' of extra poundage? Maybe working on self esteem issues may help more than you realise. Wishing you all the very best, Carol.

That is many a true word, @callyanna - thank you.

It's something I have heard in the past too. The difficulty I have is in setting time aside to get inside my own head, so to speak, in order to make sense of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Bit of a vicious circle really.....

Thanks for giving me food for thought....

[wildmissus]

Hazelnut, I am 47 and was brought up by parents who were proud to admit that they brought us kids up on fear! When I was about 40 things came to a head and my parents would not accept the person I was/am. They no longer have anything to do with my sister or me. I spent my first 40 years believing I was not good enough, then when things came to a head I was quiet troubled believing everything was my fault. I was fortunate enough to be able to do something about myself and saw a life coach/hypnotherapist. It has taken me a few years and I believe I will always be work in progress but I'm not a bad person and I am me and stuff what anyone else thinks (but I have plenty of friends, so I can't be all that bad).

What I learned from hynotherapy was that I overeat to 'protect' myself as I just can't cope with compliments and attention. It was and often still is easier to believe that I am 'not good' and therefore I can stay overweight and fade into the background and no one will notice me and I can be ignored. If that all makes sense.

As I've said before, I can fast twice a week but I still eat too much rubbish on non fast days which is what is preventing me getting to my target. I think I am in a comfort zone by being a 'failure'. It is so much easier believing these false beliefs because that is the norm, common sense doesn't seem to come into it. For me fasting has become a part of my life, a habit, but I still have non fast days which confirm that I might not be 'good enough' after all.

I don't think I've answered your questions but I hope that helps.

Oh bless you @wildmissus for that. I totally related to what you posted.

There are so many years of false beliefs to undo, aren't there? It's no wonder it won't magically come right overnight and we revert to what we know, rather than what is good for us, is it?

Do you spend much time reflecting on long held false beliefs, or have you now got them safely filed away somewhere? I think I know I've got to do the reflecting bit, but as it's uncomfortable, it's easier not to. Am a bit of a wallower for sure.....

So grateful for your contribution xx

A hand wave apology to those who've seen me quote this previously on the topic of habits (and self-sabotage, negative self-talk, negative beliefs about the self are mostly all habits rather than grounded in reality).

A good analogy I got from Gary De Rodriguez on conditioned behaviour was likening neural pathways to tracks in a forest. When choosing a path through a dense forest, it's generally your first response to take the pre-existing, well established clear path available rather than create a new path by smashing straight through the thick scrub into the unknown. The well worn path may not be the quickest or most direct route or even take you to where you want to go but when making a quick or unconscious decision it seems the obvious option - just go the way you've always gone. Changing where you go requires creating a new track which is not easy and even after you make a new path for the first time, the next time you come back, the old familiar well worn path still has its appeal compared to the skinny, faint little track you just hacked. The choice is still there to take the old track. Not only do you have to repeatedly keep taking the new route to make it become the most obvious option, you have to stop using the previous track to let it overgrow and fade back into the forest to where it appears like it was never there.

Sometimes, you've been doing really well on establishing a new path. But, a stressor starts directing you away from the new path, and the next thing you know, you've broken through the over-growth and you're back on the old, familiar way.

Reflecting on false beliefs can be helpful - and some people do that as a prelude to thinking: "I'm doing that weird thing again where I want to eat to distract myself from what I'm feeling". What is useful for some people is to observe yourself thinking that, to abstain from judging yourself for having that thought, or a desire to eat when you're not hungry, and to be aware that having that thought or drive doesn't necessarily mean that you are compelled to act upon it. And, the more frequently that you can have that thought or drive without acting on it, the more opportunity there is for the original habit/way to lose its attraction, and the practice there is at behaving differently or following the new track.

Gillian Riley has a good discussion about this - I'll see if I can locate some extracts if that might be helpful?

Great stuff @ssure - resonating loud & clear for me. I think the trick will be to read and re-read these posts. The forest paths analogy makes such sense. As does the observation of self. I had a brief foray into mindfulness a few years ago, but regret to say that I never got into the habit of practicing any of it (suspect that was due to seeing it as involving "me time" - which I don't feel worthy of in the first place).

Am very grateful for your insight and would welcome the Gillian Riley info if it's not too much trouble...

Many thanks

Welcome back and Happy Fastiversary Hazelnut. You were missed and its great to see your lovely smiling face and read your thoughtful comments. I think its a good idea to maintain till new year too while your mojo gets refuelled if that's what suits you. I had good losses last year (18 KGS in 9 months) then this year I lost 5 KGS put 3 back on and took it off again. That's taken all year! But I'm not hard on myself thinking I could be at goal by now if I kept up the same rate as last year. There's a good chance the next 12 KGS will take 1-2 years going by this years rate. But that's OK because IF is just my life now ongoing. I also know that my body has been really big at 21 then slimmed down with WW then again at ,28 then slimmed down then again at 38-44 years old. I was a yoyo. My body physiologically wants to refill those fat stores that are laying in wait. So if I just maintain this year then I win! That's the way I look at it anyway. I don't know if any of this helps but I'm sending you a hug.
Xxx julianna

Happy Fastiversary @Hazelnut20 - I'm hot on your heels and will be posting mine in the next couple of days!

Great advice from others - I wonder if there is some kind of self-help book with exercises you could maybe work through - I've seen similar for things like confidence etc........

Anyway - well done and just keep going - we will get there eventually!

Hi @Hazelnut20 ... what great posts/advice. Thanks to those who are able to personally relate to your journey and reach out. Means SO much. On the flip side, which I know you do VERY well... please come back at some point when you are ready to re-erect our happy tent. He is ready and waiting. Perhaps we can raise him again in the Xmas party tent
Lx

Hi @Hazelnut20 and congratulations on your weight loss, and this lovely thread.
I think perhaps we overestimate what losing weight can do for our happiness, and turn to comfort eating when the same old problems hang around despite our bodies looking different. Slim doesn't fix everything, that i know for sure. That's not to say being slim and healthy doesn't matter - it does. Well, for me anyway. But you sound like a beautiful soul regardless, so I hope you do find some more interesting ways to be kind to yourself. Having said that, you should see the rubbish I've consumed today ! But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it . We're only human. Take care.

Hi@Hazlenut20.
I'm glad that you are able to recognise the achievement which you have made, rather than to beat yourself up too much for what might have been.
You speak of rewarding yourself with food as you tend not to be kind to yourself in other ways. I think that lots of people learn to do that as a result of being given food treats from infancy onwards; that's one of my stories! I also know from experience that it is possible to learn to develop new habits. Taking care about wha,t and when, you eat can be one of the biggest ways of taking care of yourself; it demonstrates that you are worthy of such care. I have learnt that, and hope that it is something which I have internalised. I also hope that you can do it too.

I'm inclined to think that the biggest reason to get our weight in order is because we care about ourselves enough to be as healthy as we can, rather than how we'll look to others, or to ourselves in photographs. Certainly events can spur us on, but we need to learn to care enough about ourselves to do it for us. I'm not meaning to sound " preachy" in this, and I recognise myself in much of what you have said. Those of us who are emotional eaters need to develop other ways of caring for ourselves and managing our emotional lives. You appear to know that.

Anyway, lecture over . Many congratulations on what you have achieved. Give yourself an almighty pat on the back and get back up there and trot along

I've been abit AWOL from the forums but we have had some RL issues but I have tried not to go to the comfort eating. I have tried to read instead and so far seem to be sort of working.