Persistence, Not Perfection. An Emotional Healing

While on Cambridge, we all hope for perfection. We strive to stick to our diet without any detours or derailments. Unfortunately, it's not realistic to think we can isolate ourselves throughout the entire process of losing our weight. Success with Cambridge is not about perfection. It's about persistence. "All or nothing" thinking gets many of us in to a never ending loop of starting and stopping our diets. It reinforces thoughts of failure which only makes us feel hopeless and we give up once again.

There's always going to be something that comes up that will involve food somehow. That's just life. For example, lets say you have friends or family come in to town unexpectedly and  the decision is made for everyone to go out to eat. You don't want to be "that" person that lessens everyone else's experience by staying home or just sitting there with a diet soda while the rest of the table eats uncomfortably around you. What do you do?  Do you just dive in and go for it, using this as the perfect excuse to eat yourself under the table? Or, do you practice some good eating choices? We only have a problem if we continue to use normal every day activities and events as an excuse to binge and indulge our food addictions. If you eat like a health minded person, then that is a success! It's progress of the best kind. You are reinforcing your new lifestyle choices and will be in the proper state of mind to resume your Cambridge without it triggering an emotionally charged binge.

Eating food is not the problem. The emotions we nurture when we eat food are! The bargaining and excuses and justifying...these are the problem. They stir the pot of compulsive behavior and pretty soon, it boils over.

When given the unavoidable opportunity to practice good eating choices, take it as part of your recovery and make a point of detaching emotions from the event. Use it to your benefit as a chance to prove to yourself that you can keep food in it's proper perspective. That's not easy in our food obsessed culture. What other time in our history has food played such a obsessive central roll in our every day lives? TV shows and entire networks are devoted to it. The once common job of cooking for a living has become celebrity status. Restaurants and even food trucks clamber for cult like followings. Even home cooks are now endlessly striving for show stopper meals they see displayed on Pinterest and other social media. It used to be we just had to try to compete with Martha Stewart. Now we're all supposed to BE Martha Stewart!

You want to be free. The goal should not only be about being a certain size, shape, or weight. It should not only be about looking better for an event or a deadline. We all want to be free from this thing that our lives currently revolve around...our eating disorders. We all need an emotional mental healing. Only then will our bodies be able to do the work to heal us physically. We can't observe this healing from viewing X-Rays or stitches or any other tangible evidence of recovery. We have to be tuned in to our thoughts at all times and be willing to abort those that do us harm. A peaceful co-existence between our mind and our body, one nurturing the other.

Temporary Weight Loss?

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 04/13/14:
It's interesting how we think about weight loss. We go on a diet. We lose weight. We reach our goal (hopefully). We return to regular eating. We gain the weight again. We blame the diet for only being a temporary fix. 

Because of this pattern we think it's the failing of the weight loss plan we choose. That would be like blaming the effect for the cause. It's not logical thinking and it's not how things work. The only way a person gains weight is by over eating and under moving. There is no mystery. If a person returns to the eating habits and lifestyle that put the original pounds on, it will again...of course!

Weight loss plans do not cure obesity. Even weight loss surgery does not cure obesity. Obesity is not a disease that needs curing. It is a physical symptom of an emotional malfunction. If the emotional component is ignored, no diet in the world will grant permanent weight loss. Rather then looking at obesity as a temporary condition of a body and mind out of sync as we should, we tend to think of restoring our body to a healthy weight as temporary and in peril of reversal at any moment! That is faulty thinking.

It's a true fact that most people that manage to lose weight will gain weight again. They won't gain "back" the same fat they lost before. It no longer exists. It's not out there floating around just waiting for an opportunity to jump back on! However, people are perfectly capable of accumulating new fat if they go back to living a lifestyle that supports it. We need to stop thinking of our obese selves as our normal selves. Our normal self is at a healthy weight and fitness level. Up until now, lifestyle has prevented this normal. Our bodies try every minute of every day to restore normal. It's how we're made. The excess fat on our bodies is the intruder and needs to be eliminated and denied reentry!

Weight loss is only permanent when we accept the fact that the reason we were fat was completely due to how we think and feel about food. Obesity happens because of us. It does not happen to us.

There are 2 absolute things I know and I can promise are true.

#1. If you stick to Cambridge 100% you have the iron clad ability to get to your normal healthy weight.

#2. If you go back to eating as you did before, you will once again gain weight and may end up right back where you started.

With these 2 simple facts we have all the information we need to make our post Cambridge weight our new permanent normal and the knowledge of what (not) to do to ensure we don't gain weight again.

It may take some time for your brain to catch up to your body. I know mine did. But the mind and body are very much connected and by rebooting your emotional connection to food, clearing out all the old thinking and programming, you can then welcome in your new and improved belief of self.

Recovery From Addiction, My Personal Experience

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 05/21/13:
Over the years I have had board members generously share their stories, their fears, their addictions and their successes. I appreciate their bravery and their courage to open up and put it here on the board so that they can begin the road to recovery. Honesty is one of the most important aspects of this challenge. As I've said before on here, you can be the most honest person in the world in all of your dealings, but when it comes to addictions and behaviors, lying, hiding and secrets are usually part of it. Coming here and not being afraid to tell your story is the first step to being free.

Food addictions and eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, but it boils down to self abuse and deception, even if that deception is to no one else but yourself. At times I felt like I was beating myself to death with food. The more I ate uncontrollably, the more I hated myself...and the more I ate. I hid food. I lied about food. I thought about it constantly and manipulated others to participate in my problem so I didn't have to feel guilty. My kids suffered from my choices. It can be a vicious cycle that seems completely hopeless when you are in its grip. I 100% believed that death by obesity was my destiny and nothing could convince me otherwise. I had watched my mother die from it. It was my identity. It was what all things in my life revolved around. I had fought this beast my entire life since the age of two.

Recovery is a process. It doesn't happen when the weight is gone. For years I was still an obese woman in a small body. The anxiety and fears of failure were there all the time. I knew I could gain it all back in a heartbeat. When I would go in to a store, bypassing the large size department and go in to the "regular" sizes, I felt like any minute someone would come to me and say, "There is nothing here for you. You don't belong here"...kind of like that scene from "Pretty Woman". It didn't help any that I felt like there was a constant spotlight on my head. Everywhere I went, people that knew me would freak out when they saw me. Others that had never given me the time of day would come to me like I was their long lost best friend and fawn all over me about my weight loss. Even weirder were the people who I'd known for years that didn't recognize me at all until I spoke to them. It's a strange place to be. I had a lot of emotions to sort through...a whole new life to build. I had not expected to live much past my 40's. I hadn't made any plans! Suddenly I was evidently going to have a future and I had no idea what to do with it. All this going on inside a person who only a few months previously had been the invisible fat woman in the room. Husbands flirted with me, wives glared at me, strangers talked to me, I had to learn how to be a whole person, present in my body and function in the world which for most of my adult life I had been on the outside peering in. People had expectation of me! I was very used to sliding by under the radar using my weight and my disabilities as my excuse to not function.

That picture seems bleak and I'm sorry for that, but it was my experience. Of course, there were just as many extraordinarily amazing things that happened. The first time my 9 year old son wrapped his arms around my waist and said "Look mom! I can grab my wrists!". Going out in to a world that I could now be a part of was like being out of prison. Not fearing abusive comments or stares or broken chairs or fitting in a booth or theater seat. Buying clothes because I liked them, not just because they fit... and then buying it in every color in case I couldn't find it again. Wearing colors, not just black or navy or brown. Feeling feminine again and no longer feeling like the "3rd sex". For years I had felt like there were men, women, and then there was me.

So back to the subject of recovery. I get asked all the time if there really is such as thing as recovery from obesity and all that goes with it. It's been 11 years since I lost my weight. it took about 3 years for me to get my brain caught up to my body. Things happened along the way. My beloved Aunt died not too long after I moved her in with me to care for her. It was devastating and I felt lost for about 6 months. Unknowingly I gained about 60 pounds. I woke up from my grieving and got things back under control, but it scared me to think I was still not free from this thing. All I wanted was to feel peace. I wanted my life to focus on seeking a peaceful and undramatic connection with food, to become almost indifferent to it. My life long cravings and behaviors that had enslaved me were still there, simmering under the surface.

Like any addiction, you have to work at your recovery. You have to know what you want first. You also have to believe in your ability to accomplish it. You have to replace old behaviors and thoughts with new ones. What do you want? What will you do to take yourself there? What is the ultimate goal? Short term, mid term, long term, don't be afraid to visualize all of them whether physical, emotional or spiritual. All the energy we have dedicated to negative and damaging thoughts and actions can now be devoted to positive changes that will free you and over time you will heal, you will recover. Never underestimate your ability to change. You have strength and power in your own life that you are probably not aware of. If you could open your head and scoop out all the negative messages there from others or yourself, what would that feel like? Poof! It's gone! What are you left with? That is your truth. Start from there and move forward. If you fall, pick yourself up and keep moving forward. Recovery is there. Freedom is there. Peace is there.



I can say with complete confidence that I am free from my past. I no longer crave food or hear it calling and taunting me. I can look at pretty much anything and feel complete ambivalence towards it. I don't feel deprived or sadness or anxiety when I am around foods that in the past would have driven me crazy. I have so much more in my life now that is real. The physical benefits of weight loss are obvious, but the emotional reward of overcoming addiction and all that goes with it is the most surprising and life changing.

Binge eating, emotional triggers and other thoughts

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 01/14/13:
People get obese for a variety of reasons and rarely does it have anything to do with hunger. We become obese for emotional reasons and over time we learn to attach food and feelings. Binge eating is emotionally driven and once triggered, it can seem impossible to stop. Have you already identified what your triggers are to binge eat or to eat the wrong foods? Is it stress? Loneliness? Boredom? Habit? Anger? Self abuse?  Perfectionism? We all have triggers that set the binge ball rolling. Pay attention to the thoughts you have before you open the fridge or grab your keys to hit the fast food drive-up. By listening to your internal dialog you can begin to change the behavior.

I was a stress eater. Unfortunately I was always under stress. I grew up with panic anxiety disorder. I had my first panic attack when I was 6 years old in a department store with my parents. I had no idea what was happening, only that the world suddenly was spinning, my heart was exploding and a rush of what I now know was adrenalin flooded my body. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced up until then and over time I had more and more attacks that ended up being attached to more and more surroundings and activities until I was almost paralyzed. I became agoraphobic by my teenage years. Because of that I missed out on a lot of the normal experiences a young person has. College? not possible. After I was married at the too young age of 19 and had my first baby 9 months later, it became nearly impossible for me to leave the house on my own, even to just get the mail. During that time food was an easy distraction to deal with my unhappiness

I had dealt with weight issues my whole life but had managed to keep it somewhat under control through Weight Watchers, the diet of the month or plain old starvation, but after another baby and a divorce, all bets were off. I went fully in to the worst years of compulsive binge eating that robbed me of my health and any chance at love or happiness. Anxiety, panic, depression, loneliness,self abuse and loathing...it was all there as I struggled with health crisis and single parenthood and poverty. The only thing that gave me any comfort or solace was food...I thought. In reality and hindsight it was the creator of my misery that pushed me in to a deep hole I did not know how to escape from.

One of my greatest challenges during my weight loss was dealing with the emotions that became raw and open without sedating with food. I had to force myself to face the lion's mouth and find other ways to cope. The first was to identify my triggers and the thoughts that immediately followed. I also had to experience the anxiety that would build and build as I resisted the compulsive urges to self medicate with food. I had no tools to work with so I learned as I went. I developing phrases and techniques to defuse the stress and get to the other side. When I faced temptation...the worst being pizza....I would tell myself, "The food will always be there. Anything I want so badly today will still be there tomorrow". It's kind of funny. I shared this phrase some 12 years ago on this board and now I read it all over the Internet. Hopefully it has helped others as it did me.

The goal is to calm the anxiety and find a peaceful place to operate from. Anything you can do to defuse the emotions and thoughts that lead to binging will eventually make you free from that negative cycle of stress/ obsess/ binge/ regret/ depression. Eating should never be emotionally driven. Never eat to pacify an emotion or to reward a craving. Just committing to those two things will stop most binges in their tracks.

Perfectionism was listed above as one of the possible triggers. You may question this, but most overweight people do suffer from it. We tend to be "all or nothing" thinkers. If we can't be perfect we degrade ourselves and use it as an excuse to quit or fail. How many diets have you started and not finished, assuming it was a proven weight loss method? What ended it? My guess is that you had a cookie or some little thing not on your plan and then the self flogging began and the food flood gates opened.

The ONLY reason Cambridge worked for me is because I didn't quit. No matter how many binges I had, no matter if it was just a soda cracker, (and frankly..the perfectionist in us sees a cracker the same as if we spent 2 hours at the buffet) I didn't quit. I pushed past all my old patterns and refused to find excuses to give up.

I have learned over the years that it doesn't matter where you come from, what your circumstances are or what your past contained... rich or poor, tall or short, male or female, loved or alone, young or old, famous or accomplished or just an average person getting through the day...obesity brings us all to the same place. We are equal in this. You can be dirt poor or have every opportunity at your fingertips, it levels the playing field because ultimately we are all the same. As human beings the internal struggle is.. as my country boy husband would say, "A one butt job". You are alone in your head. Only you can control your thoughts, your reactions, your perceptions and your behaviors. A victim thinks these things are controlled by outside influences. The truth is, we make our own destiny. Your past is not an indication of your future. The past is vapor. You can't change the direction of the road you already traveled, but you can change the direction of the road ahead.

Next time you feel the tension building and the urge to eat the feelings away comes over you, stop and listen to the dialog in your head. What are you telling yourself? Are you reacting to an outside stress and not acknowledging it? Are you bargaining or justifying something that you know ultimately will end in a binge or eating something that will make you feel out of control...even if it's just a cracker? Once you identify the emotion you can then change your course before you reinforce the behavior. It won't be comfortable at first, but this is not about being comfortable. It's about recovery and healing and learning. Replace the energy you would have devoted to food with something positive like walking, reading or call a friend.You can learn new ways to cope with life that actually bring you happiness and a sense of accomplishment and control.