Week 5 Weigh In, My 1st Cheat and Forgiving Myself

Yesterday (10/25/2010) was my week 5 weigh in and I was down another 3.4 lbs!  I am just loving this diet.  This is the longest that I have ever stayed on a diet before and I am seeing great results. I love being able to fit into old clothes and start to see some things getting too baggy.

The biggest change I have noticed this week has been mental and emotional changes.  I have noticed that my attitude about food really is starting to change.  Before going on Medifast, I tied my eating to my emotions a lot.  I would eat when I was bored.  Eat when I was sad.  Eat when I wanted to reward myself.  Eat because I thought I did something to deserve a "treat".  Since being on Medifast, I am detaching my food intake from my emotions much more. However I am now finding that I really need to stay away from my triggers, even if they are on plan.  I have never given triggers much thought before, but peanut butter is definitely a trigger for me.  A small amount of peanut butter is okay for a snack and I really like it, but I notice that if I make something with peanut butter in it, my craving is very high.  Even if I have a peanut butter crunch bar for a meal at work, I crave it all day.
 
Back in July & August, before changing jobs and in turn changing health insurance companies, I start working with a therapist that specialized in eating disorders.  I suspected that I had a compulsive or binge eating disorder and was finally ready to get help for it.  I had never been to a therapist before and it was very hard for me to start the process and I didn't want some kind of therapy that would take years to peel away all the layers of the onion.  I wanted help about why I overate and how I could stop having obsessive thoughts about food and such a strong desire to eat everything in the house.  I found out that I am very much "all or nothing". That is with food, relationships, projects at work, etc. I am either fully committed or complete disengaged. This led to a lot of binge eating episodes because I would have to eat all the cookies in the package, but if there were never any, it wouldn't even cross my mind.

The other big epiphany I had, is the fact that I couldn't accept that I am doing good at controlling my eating. As an example, I was tracking my calories on Sparkpeople.com and at the end of the day I would be fully within my ranges and be really proud of myself. Then I would get a strong compulsion to binge & mess up the whole day. It turns out that I have felt like a failure for so long about my food & weight issues, that "doing good" went against the core of who I thought I was and I would binge to reinforce my negative perception of myself.  So I had to work to change the perceptions of myself (in process) and accept that life isn't all or nothing - there is a middle.

Last night I had my first official cheat on Medifast.  I mixed a packet of Hot Cocoa with 3 TB of water and 1 TB of peanut butter and left it in the fridge to make fudge for today.  I got so obsessed about it last night and wanted to eat it that I ended up caving in and ate it even though I already had my 5th Medifast meal.  I really hope that it doesn't put me out of Ketosis, but I feel pretty good today so I think I should be fine.  I decided to forgive myself and not make peanut butter fudge again!  It just further drives home the emotional aspect that lead to me being overweight.  I haven't had the obsessive thoughts about food for several weeks, so that struck me off guard too.

I wish I could be blogging about how strong I was and resisted temptation, but instead I am blogging about how I had a weak moment, forgave myself and jumped right into my normal Medifast routine today like nothing happened.  I am not going to let 1 mistake drive me off a course that I have been so successful on for the past 5 weeks.   Things are not black and white and it is okay if I mess up.  What matters is what I do next and I always need to keep my eye on my goal, instead of beating myself up for a mistake.  I forgive myself and today is a new day!

Comments

JJ said…
Good for you - you know what they say about admitting it being the first step! Yeah, it was six MF meals instead of five, but it could have been worse - it could have been something much higher in calories, carbs, etc. Proud of your losses and also very proud of the responsibility you are taking for yourself, your health, and your mental well-being ~ it's a huge step you're taking and you're doing fantastically!
(Balam) :)
Britt said…
I am on my 8th week of Medifast and never craved Peanut Butter, but I find myself wanting it so bad on this diet. I have really struggled to keep my finger out of the peanut butter jar, cause I can't control myself! Thank you for sharing and being open about weak moments.
Anonymous said…
We all have a weak moment. You are human and have had a great success. Pat yourself on the back and move forward. Thanks for the time and effort and sharing all of this. You are wonderful ! Can't wait to try the portobello mushroom pizzas. Congrats on all the weight loss
Sharon said…
Nutrition support has recently stated that peanut butter is an OP snack... go check out the nutrition section on the discussion boards. Also, you could get some PB2 (powdered peanut butter) & use that in your recipes instead of peanut butter and get the richness of the PB taste & way less cal's & carbs! Good luck!

shaeshae...
Hi ShaeShae, Thanks for the tip about the peanut butter. I do want to try PB2 or FitNutz, I just need to get it ordered. Happy weight loss!

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