Trying to fill the void with junk food

[Blueberry]

Way to go wife#2! Don't forget to give yourself a pat on the back every time you make a change and when you continue with that change.

What has helped me is trying to fill the void with completely different things: like concentrating on more senses than just taste.
Wearing perfume or using scented whatever (soap, shower gel, scent diffuser in my home) or going out and smelling some flowers that can all help. Also doing something creative or artistic because that often involves colours.
Even some touch helps. A hug can be a good thing. But I also noticed when I put lipstick on after a meal, it's as if I'm sealing my lips and it's a message of: a) closed for the moment (doesn't stop me talking though) and b) get back in your sensible, rational Adult. It doesn't always work for me because wearing makeup is hard and can be triggering.

These examples are all about giving your body different impulses. Maybe you can find other ones more suitable for you.

[sanmagic7]

wowser, wife2!  way to go!  it really is life-affirming when we make those kinds of decisions.  so happy for you, and, if it's my place, so proud of you as well!!!  you go, girl!

that mind talk really makes a difference.  talking to my daughter this a.m., she was telling me about making herself take some down time, but how much it sucked.  i thought - whoa!  those two messages don't go together!  so  i mentioned that it's like a self-sabotage to do something good for yourself, but in your mind you're saying something bad about it.  i don't think she realized that before.

so, for you to talk about life-affirming changes, your mental messages are matching your physical messages, and i do believe that will get the job done.  it may be enough to focus on you right now, and show your son by example - put out those veggies at night for snacks.   i don't doubt he'll join you.

well done, my dear.  happy happy happy!  big hug!!!

[Candid]

I'm not one to make fancy meals

Me neither. Nobody would call me a good cook, or even a cook. When I lived alone, which has been most of my adult life, I used to fill my fridge with fruit and veg + cheese (I love cheeses of all kinds) and I'd have tins of fish, seeds, nuts, olives etc to hand. An hour or so after I got in from work I'd start chopping and dicing.

After eight months on MIL's 'traditional' evening meals I've gone over 11 stone and called a halt in desperation. I've had just two days back on salad stuffs and I feel better already.

I do think having simple meals and encouraging fruit or raw vegetable snacking in the evening could teach our children better habits AND improve our health along the way. I don't know how to break hubby out of this mindset that providing junk food is loving to our children. I can't do that on my own.

I thought I wouldn't be able to either. Now to persuade MIL to get more variety in the 'fresh' department.

I actually like raw broccoli and carrots and tomatoes!

Yeah, me too.

H and I have fresh fruit salad as breakfast. I got the idea from Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. They make a promise in the intro that you can drop 10lbs in 10 days, and that's exactly what happened for me just by having nothing but fruit before noon, as recommended. Oh okay, I had fags and cups of coffee as well, and it still worked.

I can choose to NOT eat the comfort foods (though I also love them).

I'll take a night off occasionally for a take-out pizza or a restaurant meal. I love eating out, and it frustrates me when H says why would we do that, it's cheaper to eat at home.

Eat healthier, move more, gain energy, eat even healthier, move even more, gain even more energy.

[Wife#2]

I am so grateful for your encouragement, everyone.

Hubby was willing to go to fish sticks for tonight's dinner - hey, baby steps in the right direction. Tonight, I'll remind him that I have salad fixings. We can have that with the oven baked fish sticks and it's healthier than the canned beef stew from the other night! Once a week, then twice a week, then maybe take over with healthy stuff - and the 'night off' to savor that comfort food once in a while.

I'm not sure what a stone is in weight (yup, 'dumb' American LOL), but I'm pretty sure we were in the same neighborhood - I haven't crossed 200 lbs yet, but it's mighty close. Then, I saw myself in the mirror last weekend. AACCKKK. Yes, more fruits/veggies/fish/healthy stuff is a health requirement!

[Candid]

A stone is 14 lbs.

I saw myself in a shop window recently and could no longer deny the struggle I have finding things in my wardrobe to wear. The answer is NOT bigger clothes.

[Blueskies]

Awesome that you are making healthy changes...well done! It will make such a difference. Good luck!

[Blueberry]

that mind talk really makes a difference.  talking to my daughter this a.m., she was telling me about making herself take some down time, but how much it sucked.  i thought - whoa!  those two messages don't go together!  so  i mentioned that it's like a self-sabotage to do something good for yourself, but in your mind you're saying something bad about it.  i don't think she realized that before.

I still have trouble with this, giving myself very mixed messages. In fact I've been told I tend to give myself messages like: "If you get up every day at your alarm, then you are not allowed to read books any more."  Punish yourself for making good steps. It's pretty deeply ingrained. Especially in the areas of eating and exercising.

[Wife#2]

I can definitely relate to this. Mine is exaggerating the resistance I'll get from hubby, because he usually does resist anything that changes the schedule he prefers - unless he's the one doing the changes. So, I catastrophise his response before I've even TOLD him what changes I'd like. He then sounds supportive. Granted, I will get PA resistance later (whining, complaining about being put out or excluded or lonely) if history predicts future. Still, I typically have sat on the sofa being the reliable lump of a woman - ready for their beck & call.

The idea of being as strong at home as I type here online daunts me. I know how it could look in our family if I just started DOING what I speak of here. I don't know where my courage disappears to so often.

Drifiting... forcing myself back to the act of typing so I can come back from that place I just wandered to. Hm..... Gonna go explore that a bit. No anger, just sadness and .... BACK WIfe2, BACK to the now! Too much to do to drift away now.

[Blueberry]

Got left in the lurch today and instead of resorting to filling the void, I had a normal breakfast, since it was time anyway, and I made myself two different types of tea. One is very healthy and the other quite delicious, but time-consuming to make. So bothering to make myself this delicious tea was a much better compensation than filling the void...

"Bothering to do something" good for me is hard. But I know why: FOO often didn't bother. F had depression himself and codependent/enabling and M had her reasons, albeit rather skewed and having nothing to do with me really. I think the only way through this is to keep on keeping on. Keep bothering myself to do good things for me.

Sometimes it's hard for me when there's been a change in plans. It's not as if there aren't 3000 things to do and it's not as if I don't have lists of these to look at, but it still seems difficult to change my plans and do something constructive in the time now left empty. So the time itself is a void; the void doesn't just refer to feelings.

[Wife#2]

Sometimes it's hard for me when there's been a change in plans. It's not as if there aren't 3000 things to do and it's not as if I don't have lists of these to look at, but it still seems difficult to change my plans and do something constructive in the time now left empty. So the time itself is a void; the void doesn't just refer to feelings.

Oh, how true, how true!!! Such wise words, my friend, Blueberry. 

[SE7]

I've had many moments like that, wanting EVERYTHING .. for me it comes from trying to gain back control of food since my narc. parents were (and still are) health nuts to the absolute extreme. I was often deprived in high school and developed an eating disorder (compulsive overeating) in college. I have been known to swing from all-out junk food to health food because of this. It's a battle I know very well.

I find it helps me now to cook for myself and prepare things in a way that pleases ME. Add nice spices & flavors, make dishes look appealing, etc.
I subscribed to Dashing Dish website to give me recipes which are amazing because they replicate a lot of favorites but in a healthy way. I also learned that deprivation doesn't get me anywhere. I try to have SOMETHING around that makes me feel happy, even if it's just some chocolate.

I also recently started taking Almased for weight loss. It helps diabetics which I'm not, but I have another condition that requires balanced eating so I think it will work for me. Shakes with protein powder, almond milk, vanilla flavorings, stevia, (sometimes fruit) and ice, coconut/olive oils, peanut butter help A LOT!

[sanmagic7]

talked with my daughter this morning, she said that her shoulder pain is beginning to change, move, and that's a good sign.  she told me that she's been changing her self-talk and grudgingly admits it might be making a difference.

there's an exercise i learned, very simple, very powerful.  have someone raise an arm to shoulder height and say to themselves, 'i can keep my arm up.'  when you push down on it at the wrist with 2 fingers, it's strong and won't budge.

same or different arm, raise it, but this time say to themselves 'i should keep my arm up'.  then, push down on their wrist with 2 fingers.  usually, there is no resistance at all, and the arm goes down immediately.

just that one word 'should' and the connotations behind it strip us of our power.  the mind is indeed mightier than the body.   this can be used with all sorts of words, like 'can't', 'i wish i could hold my arm up', etc.  the messages we tell ourselves make all the difference.

when i was working with cons, i really blew their minds with this exercise.  these guys were all pumped up, working out every day, and they couldn't believe that as much as they wanted to, as much as they believed they were strong enough to resist a 'girl', their arms would go down with no effort on my part at all.  this has only failed one time, and after the demonstration didn't work, the woman admitted that she had continued to say 'i can keep my arm up' to herself.  we did it again, and she was convinced.

so, mind over matter, over brain, over brainwashing, over erroneous thought processes that we were taught when we were too young to dodge them or shove them aside.  as we keep finding our own true voice of encouragement, support, and love, we will make more progress.  you are doing so good wife2.  as are you, candid and blueberry.  we can do this.  little steps, they all count.

and, se7, you were posting while i was writing.  i've had the same experience as you.  when i lived by myself, the food i made was delicious to me, healthier than ever.  funny how that can change when another person comes into the picture. 

[Blueberry]

my narc. parents were (and still are) health nuts to the absolute extreme. I was often deprived in high school and developed an eating disorder (compulsive overeating) in college. I have been known to swing from all-out junk food to health food because of this. 

I also learned that deprivation doesn't get me anywhere. I try to have SOMETHING around that makes me feel happy, even if it's just some chocolate.

I can relate to some of this. My parents, especially my M used to be a health nut, not any more though. It kind of backfired though, in my case. We weren't allowed all sorts of things so I ate sweet stuff on the sly, as a teenager. I developed quite a few strange and unhealthy eating habits, and there is of course 'healthy' junkfood, like raisins and honey etc, especially if you eat them/it by the handful/spoonful.   

Deprivation doesn't do me any good either.  On the other hand, having something around that makes me happy if it's edible is difficult for me at the moment. Sometimes perfume makes me happy, and if I'm in that kind of phase, it's good!

[Blueberry]

Today I feel longer and thinner. I'm not of course, no perceptible change really. It just shows me how messed up I am in regard to everything to do with eating and my body sense.

TRIGGER WARNING for people with eating disorders, possibly


15-25 years ago I was 'anorexic without significant weight loss', partly because if I went below a certain not-particularly-low weight, I got dizzy and couldn't function at all. Since at that time I was still active in normal life, being dizzy wasn't a good idea. So I thought and felt and even acted anorexic, but not really bad. I was just mostly really strict with myself, and of course I thought I was fat.

I know it can swing the other way, and it has in my case. I now eat too much, mostly, though sometimes I don't eat at all or drink water at all. I've lost the habit of being so strict with myself, and haven't yet managed to get back in a mindset where I can be a bit strict. That is probably partly because I haven't yet found a way to avoid setting my goals way too high. Something I notice in the area of physical fitness. I can't allow myself to just enjoy some form of exercise, there's usually some voice going on about losing weight or strengthening my muscles or taking the activity up once/twice a week, and then I get so exhausted that I can't. Or maybe I don't even want to.

FOO was always going on about me not being physically fit enough and not taking enough exercise, when I was growing up. And B1 who had way more say and input in the family than he deserved would mimic my body position or stance, and my parents were either not interested in encouraging me to do sport, or they'd tie it to food. You can have a cookie if you go for a run. OK, no cookie. So taking exercise doesn't exactly have good connotations in my life. I remember once M asked me if I wouldn't like to try out aerobics. I was about 12. I declined. She didn't ask why, but I remember. I thought I was too fat and unfit already.  I wasn't. But that's the state of mind FOO'd got me in already.

Looking back on it, when I wasn't in a major period of depression, I actually did take quite a lot of exercise, but it wasn't competitive sport. I was definitely better keeping going long distance rather than short speedy bursts. And I've just never been a super slim person, or angular. It wasn't till I was in therapy as a 30-odd year old that I was told that some women have rounded arms and others have angular arms, and it's just the way they are. Rounded arms doesn't mean they're fat. FOO used to even pinch me, even when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and say I was getting fatter, including once when I'd been away for a year, and came home. That was part of my welcome home.  I wasn't fat. I am now. But my body appearance bothers me far, far less than it did then. Partly because I realise that the way I feel in my body seems to have not much to do with the weight in numbers on the scale or the my clothing size.
With all these topics in the background, I'm not surprised that for the moment I'm not managing to stop my weight increasing.

[Wife#2]

**** Trigger warning: Bigoted attitudes about fat and food ****


My GC brother's wife is the type you describe. Nothing overtly said like *you're fat*, but every not-so-subtle indication that even chubbiness is to be fought against at every cost. I disagree with their message and their methods, but have always kept my mouth shut around them or their kids. They are the goldens. And I'm already on the outs - considering I've become fat.

I was very thin in high school and college, though I didn't work at it on purpose. I just was thin. Maybe even scrawny, now that I see pictures of those years. My father and stepmother fully expected me to put on the 'Freshman Fifteen'. When I didn't, Dad acted like that was a problem. The campus was hilly and I had been in the habit of walking everywhere anyway, so walking a mile to cross the full campus was no big deal. Walking the three miles out to the mall (because the dismal bus service never ran at convenient times) was just another way to kill an afternoon.

After college, during the poverty years, my relationship with food started to be strained. I was still very active, still walking everywhere, but money was very tight. And bad foods are cheaper than good foods. And choices had to be made.

** Now I have to also be brutally honest here. I was one of the ones making fun of our mother behind her back, just like Dad and my siblings. They all had comments about her weight. She was a little round at 30, chubby at 40, heavy at 50 and fat at 60. And, she had a thyroid condition diagnosed between 50 & 60. Now, her lifestyle was never one that was going to keep her in shape. Her diet plan stank. There was no plan, therefore every diet she tried, failed. My thyroid was diagnosed at 33 and the weight started climbing on board not long after. Suddenly, it occurred to me why I didn't hear the jokes about Mom's weight anymore (at 40). Because *I* was now as fat as Mom had been at 40! I was in the 'fat old lady' camp.  **

My husband and his children are overweight. If we're all honest, we're all morbidly obese. It's odd for me being the fattest in my FOO and the thinnest in my FOC (except for DS8). I know how I feel about weight comments from FOO. My stepkids feel them and feel the judgment even without a word from my relatives. I feel it, too, so I understand how judgment can happen without a word being spoken. It's the nervous cough from the GC brother when DSD or I request desert at a meal. It's the look down a nose at the soda I'm drinking, that can't see the beer below one's own nose. It's the raised eyebrow at the choice of food in the restaurant or in the fridge at home. It's a thousand silent communications shouting 'WHAT? ARE YOU SURE? WHAT ABOUT YOUR WEIGHT?'

So, I grew up surrounded by this 'ok to make fun of the fat kid' mentality in my family, never comfortable with that. Especially when it included one of our own (Mom). It's one of the few bigotries I can easily admit to - because it's still true to this day. People are judged by their weight in my FOO. And weight increases seem to be equated to IQ decreases by these active, thin people.

And my dealings with food are all wrapped up in self-image, defeating the IC voice that tells me I'm already fat and shouldn't have that <fill in blank>. It's shouting at me every time I go to the grocery store. And I know if I shop the way IC tells me to, my husband and sons will rise up in revolution. But, if I don't, I get a week of IC telling me why every purchase is wrong and I'm a bad person for allowing this junk in my house and to **** with what anyone else wants, you KNOW what is healthy and why not just buy it and tell them to eat or starve, their choice. Shoot, even Mom never tried that with me. True, when she was on a health kick, she'd just get a bunch of low calorie frozen dinners. Yes, I was already thin, but I liked the flavor of those meals, so often, dinner was just a selection from the freezer. There wasn't any bullying about that. I'm not about to bully myself or anyone else with enforced 'healthy or nothing' food choices.

OK, I'm going to stop writing now. My inner critic woke up and realized that I'm not going to listen about food, so IC is blasting me about my writing style. Nothing really bad. Just a habit I have that IC is trying to convince me to erase EVERYTHING I just wrote and re-write it better this time. Not to change a single idea, just to fit the 'perfect' format for everyone's reading enjoyment. IC is about to win. Later...