Friday, March 12, 2010

super skinny me - I wish!


So I stumbled across a UK documentary last night titled “Super-Skinny Me: Race to size zero”.

I was frightening and also intriguing at the same time.

The interesting part was the effects of extreme dieting on the body and the mind that people may not realise.  The frightening part was how I was mentally taking notes and wondering if I could cope for a week the way they are eating/exercising. I also got a little frightened when I realised how I was slightly wishing I had that much “will power” (more like insanity) to be able to starve and force myself into extreme exercising.  My only concern was how extreme dieting could affect the band.

The show (which is a 4 part doc) made me realise how much more obsessed with food & weight I have become since the band and how I now compare & judge myself a whole lot more – e.g. if I normally lost 2kg in a month I would be happy – now that makes me cry. All I ever seem to think about it what I should or shouldn’t be eating, why am I eating, how much I should be exercising, how much I’m not exercising, number on scales, number I want to lose... its ridiculous.  Deep inside I think if I have the psych consult before the band there probably would have been a few red flags.  Oh well.

Does anyone else feel the band has made them a little more obsessive about weight/food/body? Or the opposite and they now don’t have to think about food and just eat for nutrition without the mental battle?

Have a great w.end everyone – I am relaxing after a long week of work & studying and minimal sleep. Ugh!

1 comments:

Catherine55 said...

Hey there!! I am just catching up on your last several posts. Thanks so much for listing me in your recent post. It really felt great to read that. :)

On the weight loss/self-criticism thing, one of the ways I've been able to stop constantly berating myself about my weight (which I did every single day before the band -- was a major source of unhappiness) was to acknowledge that I've been consistently losing since Bandster Hell. I look at my track record now and see that I've been losing slowly and steadily throughout the past 16 months.

If you can, try not to focus so much on how much you are losing in a month (BTW, 2KG is awesome and better than I did most months). Instead, look at the aggregate and try to measure your success from where you started. Just the fact that we aren't still packing on the weight is a huge NSV. It's really important to remember that and to acknowledge and count your NSVs as you go. That has sustained me through a lot of frustrating plateaus and the boing-boing-ing of my scale between each pound lost.

Also, it's good to remember that slow loss is good -- it gives your skin time to shrink up -- and that as long as you are losing (no matter how much), you are moving toward your goal all of the time. This is not a race and you don't have to do it quickly. It's OK to take your time to get there.

On the exercise front, it took me a LONG time to motivate. What did the trick was finding something I actually liked to do for a workout and could fit into my life. And. . it only took me 38 years to figure that one out. . LOL :)

Anyway, it's great that you're thinking about all of thse things and keeping up your blog. Sorry this is such a long comment! :)

Catherine

 
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