Happy non-diet-versary to meeee!

Today is exactly one year since the start of my non-diet lifestyle and the end of my binge-eating. To celebrate I kidnapped my niece early this morning and we went to our favourite coffee shop for breakfast. Yes, I still like to celebrate with food but this time it was one pumpkin muffin, without a side order of biscuits, chocolate and custard square as would have been the case were I 'celebrating' anything a year ago ;)

I jotted down a few things that I've learned in the past year.

• The scale does not measure or evaluate any of the following:

- my worth as a person

- my attractiveness in general

- my willpower

- my ability to succeed

- my fitness

- my personality

- my right to have a fun day and feel good

- my right to eat and enjoy food

• Food is not the best response to boredom, stress, anger, frustration, feelings of failure, sadness, happiness, excitement… you know…feelings.
• Feelings do not need to be numbed down. Feelings should be felt and responded to appropriately. Some things don’t need an active response, they are just feelings. It’s ok to not feel good sometimes. Not every bad feeling needs to be ‘fixed’, sometimes life feels uncomfortable and that’s ok.
• It’s not about the food or my weight. If I’m obsessing about food or weight then that’s just a ‘red herring’ for whatever is really bothering me.
• It’s ok to express myself – to confront someone that’s annoying me, to deal directly with a situation, or to put myself first. I don’t need to always be polite either. Sometimes it’s necessary to ‘speak up’ rather than try to ‘stuff it down’ with food.
• Binge Eating is an attempt at self care. It’s an inappropriate response to a real situation that I haven’t found a better way to deal with. The trick is to find out what the real problem is and deal to it directly. Recovery is not about managing food and weight, it is about managing life.
• I am not perfect and probably will never be. This includes my eating habits. It is not a disaster if I occasionally overeat or skip training or have a slack day at work or whatever. Probably I will always have off moments and it’s not worth turning it into a big deal.
• If I focus on health, fitness, fun and living passionately then my body will respond by becoming fit and lean. The focus needs to be on lifestyle. Form follows function.
• Nothing needs to be put off for some mythical day in the future when my life and body are perfect. That’s just procrastination. If I want to do something, then I can get started right where I am now. Life can not be put ‘on hold’ just because I’m not quite into my skinny jeans yet!
• The lifestyle that gets me lean and the lifestyle that keeps me there are not very different to each other. It needs to be workable and enjoyable now. It takes a long time to lose fat properly and it’s just not an option to live in misery and exert an exhausting amount of so-called willpower for however long it takes. Better to take it a bit more slowly and enjoy the journey.