Happy Friday! Reminder this is a thread for us to talk about wellness as a holistic concept while rejecting diet culture. Not a weight loss/diet thread.
Please use @ if that content comes up but try to avoid it if possible!
This has been a WEEK. I am exhausted and need to spend some time on self care this weekend. I tried to get a pedicure on Wed night but both places I frequent were packed. I will try again soon. The Weight Watchers thing has been dominating my IG feed and my thoughts this week. Feeling a lot of anger, sadness, frustration, etc. But it has also really reignited my passion for speaking out against diet culture and staying focused on treating my own disordered eating. Big thanks to @angryharpy and others that chimed in on my FB posts earlier this week. I've had so many friends message me this week about their own eating disorder history and I am seeing more and more how common this stuff is and how we just DO NOT talk about it.
I go back to see my therapist next week for the first time since June. I've just been seeing my dietician since then. Not sure what we'll talk about but I'm sure something will come to the surface!
I'm ready for the weather to cool down soon so I can spend more time outdoors. I have yet to find a kind of movement I really enjoy but walking outside is about as close to enjoyment as I can get with it.
Post by eponinepontmercy on Aug 16, 2019 15:01:02 GMT -5
I read Intuitive Eating, and I really like the concept. I've been working on really picking foods I enjoy instead of focusing on what foods are "good" or "bad." For instance, I got rice in my poke bowl instead of convincing myself that salad greens are a good base when they are just not.
Besides an unfortunate portion incident with a pint of Ben and Jerry's, it was a good week. (It was a choice between eating too much or leaving a too-small portion in the container. I was eating for my sore throat instead of my heart.) LOL
@ DD wanted tacos last night, which I wasn't in the mood for, but I improvised. Instead of taco shells, I served the meat and some black beans over a sweet potato that I cooked in the instant pot. It was delicious and filling and satisfying.
eponinepontmercy. Would you walk me thru the IE book, please. Just a brief overview. I’m trying to see if it’s a good fit for me. I’m over diets, they just don’t work. Look at the stats. But I’m worried IE will just be a green light for me to say “yes I really want the chips”. I want to find a healthy balance.
eponinepontmercy . Would you walk me thru the IE book, please. Just a brief overview. I’m trying to see if it’s a good fit for me. I’m over diets, they just don’t work. Look at the stats. But I’m worried IE will just be a green light for me to say “yes I really want the chips”. I want to find a healthy balance.
IE will teach you to give yourself permission to eat whatever you want but within the framework of honoring your hunger and respecting your fullness First you dismantle the diet culture messages you have received and believe (even subconscioiusly). Later in the book you learn about gentle nutrition. It is NOT just a license to eat whatever you want. But by giving yourself permission and not restricting you will be able to stop eating an entire bag of chips or cookies because your body won't be fighting back against restriction.
My insomnia is back with a vengeance due to work-related issues. Being exhausted is impacting my exercise and overall feelings of well-being.
How do you decide what is something you just need to deal with/get over vs. bring in HR or other resources? By impacting my sleep it's impacting my health, but I'm afraid they'll just say I need a thicker skin.
Post by seeyalater52 on Aug 16, 2019 17:35:40 GMT -5
I made it to barre 3x this week and hit my eating goal for protein every day! Feeling accomplished for keeping this stuff on track even when everything else is a trash fire.
Had to get blood drawn today and my prolactin is randomly high, so that’s fucking delightful. Because I totally need more hormone trouble in my life. I have to do it again next week, fasting this time. I’m super nervous my SSRI is interacting with it since that happens occasionally and I’ve had this lab done probably 6 times in the past 2 years and it’s always been normal (I’ve only been on the SSRI since July.) Not taking the SSRI is very much not an option right now so if it does stay high next draw and we have to get it down I hope they’re amenable to medication treatment.
They’re also going to do fasting insulin and fasting glucose next week I think, because I’m paranoid but I’d really like to cross those off the list of things to eliminate.
I've only ever been before in response to an identifiable trauma. This time, it's like, I want to be better and feel better. Which is amorphous and weird. But I feel better. Scratch that. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted, but I can see that feeling better is a possibility.
Anyway, much like talking about trauma can make people feel less alone, I'm here to be like "therapy is awesome, try it."
Post by stategirl08 on Aug 16, 2019 17:58:16 GMT -5
New here, hope it’s ok if I reply.
I’m dealing with sub clinical hypothyroidism caused by hashimotos. My current endo doesn’t want to move forward with any treatment until my numbers stabilize. It’s very frustrating bc I’m still very much dealing with symptoms like joint and muscle pain, fatigue, anxiety and depression, and whatnot. There are lots of studies showing gluten can increase the immune response and worsen hashimotos and so I am cutting that out everywhere I can.
It’s also frustrating bc all of this means I can’t workout at the intensity I prefer. I did 40 minutes at a low resistance on the bike at the gym yesterday, and hurt all over today. I did yoga this afternoon and all my muscles hurt. I’m trying to tell myself and learn that even a half hour of yoga everyday is still very good for me even if it doesn’t burn as many calories. It’s just so hard to overcome this mindset of a workout should be a certain number of calories to count for something.
I've only ever been before in response to an identifiable trauma. This time, it's like, I want to be better and feel better. Which is amorphous and weird. But I feel better. Scratch that. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted, but I can see that feeling better is a possibility.
Anyway, much like talking about trauma can make people feel less alone, I'm here to be like "therapy is awesome, try it."
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Thank you for this reminder! I always found therapy so exhausting the day of but good/felt better after all. And this is a good push to look for a new therapist; my previous one retired and I'm not looking forward to finding someone new but know I need to.
eponinepontmercy . Would you walk me thru the IE book, please. Just a brief overview. I’m trying to see if it’s a good fit for me. I’m over diets, they just don’t work. Look at the stats. But I’m worried IE will just be a green light for me to say “yes I really want the chips”. I want to find a healthy balance.
IE will teach you to give yourself permission to eat whatever you want but within the framework of honoring your hunger and respecting your fullness First you dismantle the diet culture messages you have received and believe (even subconscioiusly). Later in the book you learn about gentle nutrition. It is NOT just a license to eat whatever you want. But by giving yourself permission and not restricting you will be able to stop eating an entire bag of chips or cookies because your body won't be fighting back against restriction.
I’m still working my way through Intuitive Eating. I will say that I put on maybe 10 pounds at the beginning of the summer. But even though I’m still working my way through the book and haven’t yet fully implemented all the principles, I really haven’t gained any weight since deciding to say fuck you to diet culture and let myself eat without guilt. I usually eat my whole dinner, largely because I really serve very appropriate portion sizes, but tonight I realized I was full when I still had several bites of potatoes left. Those potatoes were really good. But I was just like, nah, I’m fine. I’ll get to enjoy them again, but how is it enjoyable to feel gross just because they’re here?
Mostly I’m just struggling to find time/prioritize working out. Between work and kid and church and house stuff, it just always gets pushed off. But I did elliptical twice this week plus went for a nice walk one day. Tomorrow I’m going to the zoo and will walk around a lot. I really just need to work on getting that third workout in, and then I can work on upping the intensity because I want to feel stronger and have more stamina. I think three intense workouts, one good walk (I usually treat myself to poké one day per week and the restaurant is a mile from my office, so I get 2 miles in at my lunch break), plus one active weekend day seems like a good amount to me. Come winter, I’ll probably try to add in a couple more elliptical workouts since I won’t be doing tons of walking.
Oh, and that new WW app for kids stirred up a ton of shut for me this weekend. That plus reading IE and I am really realizing how dieting from a young age set me up for the problems I have. Because yep, each time I’ve lost weight, I’ve gained it all back and more. So as much as I want to lose weight (I know the weight I want to be, and it’s obese but not AS obese as I am now), I have to remind myself that if I eat well and exercise and never lose another pound, I’ll be healthier than if I lose a bunch of weight but gain it all back plus more.
Post by wanderlustmom on Aug 16, 2019 20:38:16 GMT -5
I also read the book Intuitive Eating and ditched my scale. I had been a daily weigher so it was a big change. Now I notice my friends talking about diets all the time and I feel so free. I eat what I want with no rules and have a consistent exercise plan because of stress relief. I feel healthy and myself and I wish I had never done my fitness pal or weight watchers.
Post by mrsukyankee on Aug 17, 2019 1:57:58 GMT -5
stategirl08, welcome to the group. Recognise that you'll keep having those thoughts but that you can now focus on health versus calories. And health is a much better reason to move one's body, regardless of how you do it. Honour your body and do what is good for it, and forgive your brain for sending you unhelpful messages. (I hope that everything works out for you!)
I am pretty sure I have the beginning of a stress fracture, but I haven't been to the doctor yet. So I took the week off from working out and have tried to rest my foot as much as possible so it doesn't actually turn into a fracture. I am practically crawling out of my skin without the workouts. I really depend on them to feel good about myself and burn off anxious energy. So of course now on day 7 I am starting to think I am fat, bloated, lazy etc. So I am really trying hard to shut that voice up.
I am going to go back tomorrow and try to take it easy. No running/jumping stuff. Just weights and HIIT activities that don't put a ton of stress on my foot.
I am pretty sure I have the beginning of a stress fracture, but I haven't been to the doctor yet. So I took the week off from working out and have tried to rest my foot as much as possible so it doesn't actually turn into a fracture. I am practically crawling out of my skin without the workouts. I really depend on them to feel good about myself and burn off anxious energy. So of course now on day 7 I am starting to think I am fat, bloated, lazy etc. So I am really trying hard to shut that voice up.
I am going to go back tomorrow and try to take it easy. No running/jumping stuff. Just weights and HIIT activities that don't put a ton of stress on my foot.
If you have ropes at your gym, doing different varieties of rope slams is a great cardio/HIIT interval to do that is also low impact for your legs.
Post by seeyalater52 on Aug 18, 2019 17:01:58 GMT -5
I’m so excited, I think we found a new couples therapist!!!
We have been seeing this truly awful therapist for couples therapy for about 6 months. Our relationship is fine, great even, but the past few years have been REALLY stressful and we are looking to make sure our relationship is on track as we deal with that stress and cope in our different ways. But the current therapist is a super bad fit and super blamey, especially toward me, and it makes both of us really uncomfortable.
Fast forward to last weekend, for fun we enrolled in this LGBTQ relationship study which is run by a couples therapist. The first session was really helpful and great and we clicked really well with the therapist. When we left we both looked at each other and were like, ummm? Can she be our therapist? We did some digging and since she is a student she doesn’t see clients right now, but we raised it today at our last study session and she is willing to set up a supervised thing with us for clinical hours and will charge an extraordinarily low rate and is jazzed about seeing us on the weekends!! Omg! We are so excited. Still some hoops for her to work through on her end, but we are optimistic it could work out. If so, I think it would be a good fit and she seemed to think so too. I’m so glad we said something and asked about this possibility!
Post by RoxMonster on Aug 18, 2019 17:17:33 GMT -5
It was my first week back to work (teacher), so my eating wasn't great and I was too wiped every night to exercise. I did get out for a nice long bike ride with DH today. My goal for this week is to pack healthy snacks for work and eat a healthy snack when I get home from work, starving. I'm giving myself one more week to get my body adjusted to the routine and then I'll try adding in a YouTube video workout for about 25 min when I get home, like I was doing in the summer.
eponinepontmercy, I agree with everything that pugz said about the IE book. I just wanted to add that it's really important to read the entire book to complete the bigger picture. I am an RD and I notice a lot of my clients don't finish it, and I think the final few principles about exercise and gentle nutrition are really important at helping tie everything together.
I turned in a big work project over the summer and treated myself to a new hybrid bike. I picked it up on Saturday. This was the first bike I've purchased that hasn't been used a commuter bike, so it has special meaning that I got to order exactly what I've wanted. I love cycling and it's my preferred form of body movement, so I'm pumped.
I started using grocery store pick-up on a weekly basis. I used to feel like the fee was a waste of money because we have time on the weekend to shop, but we realized we would rather be doing anything else over the weekend than being in the grocery. store. I paid the yearly membership fee over the weekend, lol.
Post by mrsukyankee on Aug 19, 2019 7:49:29 GMT -5
I am seriously struggling around sleep. I keep waking up early. This morning was some time around 4:45am. I tried to go back to sleep and it wouldn't work. Ugh. I think it might be a combo of stress and perimenopause. I need more sleep and have to figure out how to change this (b/c my usual methods are not working).
cuadrado totally busted, lol. I need to finish reading it. I stalled out about halfway through and need to set aside time to get back into it. Busy summer and I've kind of put it aside but need to recommit to it. I am a chronic book starter and not finisher.
cuadrado totally busted, lol. I need to finish reading it. I stalled out about halfway through and need to set aside time to get back into it. Busy summer and I've kind of put it aside but need to recommit to it. I am a chronic book starter and not finisher.
Haha! A lot of people, including myself, are chronic book starters. That's why I wanted to point it out. Although I'm sure by getting the 1-1 discussions with a dietitian that you guys have probably covered everything that the book discusses in the second half. I do think if you read the first half about breaking apart diet culture that it is easier to take away the 'eat whatever you want' message, and the second half really discusses more of how to eat to take care of yourself while also enjoying foods you like.
Post by Velar Fricative on Aug 19, 2019 10:14:34 GMT -5
My therapist has been on vacation since late July and my first session since then is tomorrow. She had given me the number of a colleague if I needed anything during that period of time. I've had a really lousy week so I'm very glad I meet with her again tomorrow. How do you know when "just" therapy isn't quite working? I'm going to ask her tomorrow but last week was the first time my anxiety impacted plans I made with a friend (as I was driving to meet her I had to turn back home because my mind was racing with awful scenarios), and now I feel like I'm not only back to square one, but in a worse place than I was at square one. To be clear, by "worse" I mean that I can't remove the anxious thoughts as easily with the tools I had been using, and I am not thinking about harming myself or others.
I am seriously struggling around sleep. I keep waking up early. This morning was some time around 4:45am. I tried to go back to sleep and it wouldn't work. Ugh. I think it might be a combo of stress and perimenopause. I need more sleep and have to figure out how to change this (b/c my usual methods are not working).
Do you wear a sleep mask? I wear one and it helps me sleep regardless of sunrise time. It seems to reduce stimuli that would normally wake me for whatever reason.
I am seriously struggling around sleep. I keep waking up early. This morning was some time around 4:45am. I tried to go back to sleep and it wouldn't work. Ugh. I think it might be a combo of stress and perimenopause. I need more sleep and have to figure out how to change this (b/c my usual methods are not working).
Do you wear a sleep mask? I wear one and it helps me sleep regardless of sunrise time. It seems to reduce stimuli that would normally wake me for whatever reason.
Yup, every night. It was dark in the room when I woke up this time. Ugh.
I have a really basic question. How do you know if you need therapy?
Not for anything specific, just generally.
If you are asking the question, probably. But I'm a therapist and think therapy would be a good thing for everyone, to learn skills to deal with stuff or to understand the "why's".
But in terms of need - I would say that if your worries or sadness or lack of energy/drive is getting in the way of you living a full life then it's a good time to get therapy. (example - I was closing myself off from meeting new people at university or only doing it with alcohol due to my social anxiety - it was a good time for therapy).
I’m dealing with sub clinical hypothyroidism caused by hashimotos. My current endo doesn’t want to move forward with any treatment until my numbers stabilize. It’s very frustrating bc I’m still very much dealing with symptoms like joint and muscle pain, fatigue, anxiety and depression, and whatnot. There are lots of studies showing gluten can increase the immune response and worsen hashimotos and so I am cutting that out everywhere I can.
It’s also frustrating bc all of this means I can’t workout at the intensity I prefer. I did 40 minutes at a low resistance on the bike at the gym yesterday, and hurt all over today. I did yoga this afternoon and all my muscles hurt. I’m trying to tell myself and learn that even a half hour of yoga everyday is still very good for me even if it doesn’t burn as many calories. It’s just so hard to overcome this mindset of a workout should be a certain number of calories to count for something.
If you are subclinical, have you looked at your vitamin d levels? If that's low (even within range but low), you might want to talk to your doctor about vitamin d supplements cause that can help with some of the symptoms you are describing.
I mentioned a week or so back I was having issues - I've got Hashimoto's and am being treated but thought my levels were off. I'm marathon training and I'm tired all the time. And I realize training means being tired, but this is different. My legs are sluggish, they hurt all the time and I can barely bring myself to train - I do it cause it's on the schedule and I try to hit all my paces but every day is a struggle. My muscle pain is not like...normal muscle soreness - it's flat out fatigue. My depression is also rearing it's ugly head. And my digestion is just wonky AF. So...I got my vitamin d tested and it's low - within range, but at the very bottom of the range. For me, it needs to be higher. So I've been supplementing and some of my issues are going away or at least getting better. I'm still checking in with my endocrinologist to see if we need to adjust my levothyroxine levels too.
Anyway, good luck. Thank you for sharing your story - it's helpful to hear what others are going through cause often I've thought a lot of this was in my head. I bring some of these symptoms up to doctors and they can't always help. Or even understand what it's like when you are pretty active and can't do what you used to do or what you think you can do.
I have a really basic question. How do you know if you need therapy?
Not for anything specific, just generally.
If you are asking the question, probably. But I'm a therapist and think therapy would be a good thing for everyone, to learn skills to deal with stuff or to understand the "why's".
But in terms of need - I would say that if your worries or sadness or lack of energy/drive is getting in the way of you living a full life then it's a good time to get therapy. (example - I was closing myself off from meeting new people at university or only doing it with alcohol due to my social anxiety - it was a good time for therapy).
I'm just really burned out. It was better the first week and a half after I got back from vacation but then came back with a vengeance.
My job is such that I truly don't have to think about it when I'm not there, and I don't, so it's not really interfering with my ability to enjoy life - but it's making me generally grumpy at work and in the surrounding hours.