Been There, Done That

Let's start off by confessing I love beans. Beans are an awesome food... cheap, versatile, full of good starch, fiber, and protein. Bean soups and stews, beans over rice, hummus, bean salads -- you name it, and if it has beens, I probably like it. But... I've been having a lot of digestive issues the last few weeks. And I am wondering if it's the beans, and/or maybe the bread. Which totally sucks. So I am avoiding both for a few days; not quite an elimination diet, which technically can last several weeks before reintroducing foods, just a test to see if the symptoms dissipate a little. At the risk of sharing TMI, the symptoms I am feeling are stomach pain, gas (lots of gas, which is awful because I share an office space with two other people), extremely noisy stomach/gut sounds (gurgling, growling, etc.),  uncomfortable bloating, and so forth. In a few days time, I'll try some grains, like sourdough/sprouted bread -- I really want toast suddenly -- and soaked (ov...

From the book: If you’d been in a famine, how long do you think it would take to refeed yourself? A few months? A year? What feels right based on how long you had been restricting? And when would you know things were back to normal? This is a tough one. If I were in a real famine, one beyond my control, I would say at least a one to one recovery period...like a month for a month. But since my "famines" have all been self imposed, and I've always had open access to food (i.e. binges) between the moments of self-imposed famine, it's harder to say. I've actually been, at least mostly, in recovery for a little over a year now. I have been through three or four refeeding phases in that time, as I would occasionally dip back into diet mode for a day or two, or half a day. And then psychologically/emotionally, I would feel the need to refeed. I went through a refeeding process after my husband died. During those times, I was always hungry. Not always physically hu...

I thought perhaps I would provide some context today. WARNING: I do list some of my weights, crazy diet specifics, etc., in this post, so it could be triggering for some people. I am 46. I have an 18 year old son, and a 16 year old daughter. I was married for almost 24 years, though the marriage wasn't always easy! My husband was an alcoholic, and suffered from mental illness (depression, anger, quite possibly bipolar, none of which are made better by alcohol). He was never physically violent, but the last couple of years, he suffered from early onset dementia as well, which seemed to simply remove whatever filters he had. Despite all that, his sudden death just three months ago (cardiac arrest) blindsided us. But let's go back farther, and start at the beginning. I am the oldest of three, with four years between my brother and I, and six between my sister and I. I was a pretty normal kid. I ate when I was hungry. I don't remember any issues with food when I was little....

Might as well get going while I have a moment. So the first writing prompt has to do with weight neutrality. I'll put all the prompts in Courier so they can be spotted more easily... Make a list of at least 5 reasons it may not matter what you weigh. For example, ‘My aunt has always been fat, and she is everyone’s favorite and a famous painter.” “My health was better before I started dieting.” “My weight was not a question on the bar exam, so it must not affect my ability to do my job.” “The happiest relationship of my life was when I was fatter.” These are just examples. My aunt is not really a famous painter. You can take from your real life or from this book. Go for even more than five if you can. 1. My job, which I really love, does not depend on me being a certain weight. 2. I have a great relationship with both my teenagers, again despite my weight. 3. My health markers are all really good -- cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, cervical cancer screening,...

If it's a diet, chances are I have been on it. I started dieting at the ripe old age of 15, when I decided I weighed too much at 140 pounds on a 5'7" frame. Part of it was the general pressure of high school, part of it was that I developed early (I was 11 when I suddenly had  boobs ), and part of it was that my best friend was 6 feet tall and weighed twenty pounds less than me and was absolutely gorgeous. I guess I thought if I got smaller, a few things would happen. One, people would stop thinking I was 20. Two, I'd be gorgeous like my best friend. Three, I wouldn't get catcalled by pervy middle aged men. So I started basically with trying not to eat. But let me back up a little first. I grew up out in the country. We grew our own veggies, my mom baked her own bread, and my grandparents raised beef cattle just up the street. Sure, we ate white flour and white sugar, but everything was homemade, and I was an active kid. Always a tad on the stockier side, but ...