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Tuesday 31 August 2010

Beyond Chocolate- After



Things I have realised since "doing" Beyond Chocolate.

1. Food is not a substitute for sleep, an extra jumper, asthma drugs, company, approval, love or anything else. If I tune in to what I really need I sometimes find it is food but just as often I need a nap, or a blanket or to just get myself out of the house for a while, not to distract myself from hunger (that's diet talk my friend) but because that's what I really need.

2. When I can't stop thinking about a food there's no point in eating other things as substitutes; a low-fat chocolate drink is not a substitute for a piece of chocolate melting in your mouth and will not satisfy me. And I won't stop at the drink, I'll keep eating and drinking because I'm not satisfied. I want the chocolate, or cheese, or pasta, or mango, or big plate of vegetables. Oh, and the diet club leader who advised me to have a chocolate bubble-bath when I fancied chocolate was deluded.

Which brings me to...

3. Diet Club leaders do not know my body. The leader who told me that "steroids do not make you put weight on, eating makes you put weight on" has obviously never coped with prednisolone side-effects; the leader who told me to "feed a cold" hadn't understood the proverbs; the leader who boasted she'd lost weight whilst on an all-inclusive holiday but failed to mention the dysentery, who asked if we'd rather have "sod-it" night or another pound off a month was, quite frankly, dealing with an eating disorder. I will not apologise for using butter instead of low-cal spread and for eating a Mars Bar after a massive asthma attack.

4. My ex's issues with sex are nothing to do with me. When he told me I was,
"Too fat to fancy" (or worse) he was trying to hide any number of problems that he has and behaviours of which he is ashamed. Nothing, certainly not my weight, excuses the way he treated me. I will not allow him to blame me.

5. I do not have to finish every bit of food on my plate. Finishing every bite will not benefit the starving of China; it will not shorten the years of rationing this country went through; it will not make my dad love me more.

6. I did not fail at diets, diets failed me. The entire diet industry is not designed to benefit womankind; it's designed to make money. I am no longer prepared to be part of it.

7. Comparing myself to my sisters or other slim women is ridiculous. I am an attractive, sexy woman. Yes, I would like to be slimmer but I do not need to wait until I am slimmer to have nice clothes and to value my looks.

8. I need to value myself more.
I need to look after my body; I need to feed it wholesome, tasty, satisfying food (and some fun junk!), rest it, move it and tend to it with the right asthma and eczema drugs.
I need to remember that there are people who love me and value me for my many qualities and that the ways I was treated by the ex, his friends and his family should not, and will not, overwhelm that.

9. Sorting out my relationship with food has been far more valuable and lasting than all those times I lost all that weight.

2 comments:

  1. Hear, hear Dot - I'm with you all the way on this one. I think I shall print this off and stick to my fridge! As a fellow asthma sufferer I totally understand the need for a chocy bar after an attack. Oh, and just for the record - your ex sounds like a right a**ehole and you are well rid of him hun. Sue x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks so much Smiffy. I have the Beyond Chocolate Principles stuck to the boiler in the kitchen for inspiration.

    And the husband? Believe me, my life is a billion times better without him in it.

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