(no subject)

[serene]

1) When there's lots of good food around, I feel joy, not dread (not "oh, god, this is dangerous, having all this good food around!")

2) When there's lots of good food around, I eat and am happily satisfied, not painfully bloated.

3) When I think about going on a diet, I get a warning signal in my head and tell it to shut up, instead of starving myself for days and then bingeing until I'm ill.

4) When there's lots of junk food around, I eat as much as I want, and then I get a craving for green veggies, and then I eat as much of *that* as I want. This is the thing last night that made me think of this list, actually. I totally enjoyed the nachos, and then I realized what I really wanted was a salad, and then I totally enjoyed that. In the past, the nachos would have been the guilty pleasure, and the salad the punishment/atonement.

5) There's a candy dish of candy (kinds I like) that has been on my kitchen counter since before giftmas, and there's still candy there.

6) I throw food away when I don't like it. I don't save it in the fridge and then sneak-eat it later.

7) It's been years since I ate so much that I vomited (I wasn't that kind of bulimic -- I would just get so sick from overeating that I would get physically ill. My kind of bulimia was about fasting and bingeing.)

8) My occasional warning-signal diet thoughts are never about changing the shape of my body. I look at my body in the mirror, and I really really like what I see. (I have always thought my body was beautiful, but until about ten years ago, I would also overlay the societal opinions of my body on top of my own, and I don't seem to do that any more.)

I am so grateful for the people, books, and organizations in my life that have told me I'm beautiful and I can trust my body. They saved my life, and changed my worldview, and I wanna kiss 'em all right on the mouth. Even though books don't got mouths.

Comments

[jb98.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful to read. Sometimes it's very powerful to be able to look back and see just how far we've come. You're beautiful!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

*kisses* :-)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

You are utterly gorgeous. I'm glad you know it :).

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

I desperately wanted a salad last night after the nachos feast. And I had one when I got home.

Thank you for this post.

I see a lot of the same things in my life. For example, the cookies I made that once would have been a stressor and binge fodder now sit in a bag on the kitchen counter unnoticed by me until I want a cookie. No biggie. I can buy chips and they can stay in the house for months before we finish them and I often forget they are there. Untrue in the past. And I still have Christmas fudge in the fridge. And it is not about being "tempted" and "resisting." I just eat what I want when I want and food is not the enemy or a stressor to me. I no longer want to consume entire cakes because, well, that would make me sick.

Thanks again for the nachos :)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i have found out that while i do eat girl scout cookies one box at a time, it is apparently at a less than a box a year rate. because i didn't buy any this year because i still have, um, six or eight boxes left from last year.

[kneidlach.livejournal.com]

This is a great post to read! Even though as you can tell from my lj-cut posts I am trying to lose weight, more than anything my biggest weight-related goals in life are a healthy attitude towards food and towards my body, a reduction in my obsessive-compulsive behaviors around food, and supporting all my friends in loving their bodies.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

In the last one, it's also worth noting that you have that effect on other people too. They just started carrying my favourite chocolate bar (which is saying something, since I generally don't like chocolate bars enough to register them as favourites) at the convenience store at my work. I started telling a few people in IM that it was E V I L that they had it there now. And then I thought that it was weird that I would consider a store convenient to me selling something I like a bad thing. And I thought to myself that food isn't bad or good -- it just is. And mostly through that, I thought of things I'd heard you say about food before. And I stopped myself before it got any further than that.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Yup yup yup. Serene, you are part of my being more sane about my body too. Thank you!

[j00j.livejournal.com]

This is so cool to read.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I am glad to read this.

My solution for dealing with food I didn't like has been to give it to the dog. :-)

[markisafuckhead.livejournal.com]

(I have always thought my body was beautiful, but until about ten years ago, I would also overlay the societal opinions of my body on top of my own, and I don't seem to do that any more.)

This is wonderful! I'm definitely still finding myself occasionally doing that..."I know I find myself beautiful, I know my lovers find me beautiful, but I also know that most of our culture can't see my beauty, and many of them would find me gross and fat and completely unattractive."

But less and less. :)

In fact, I got such positive strokes (<grins @ her own pun>) at the fetish ball Saturday night, I am feeling amazingly good about my body right now. I might even get to model one of Nicole Moan (http://www.nicolemoan.com)'s ceramic corsets on Friday night!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I was really glad to read this. (I think probably just because I'm in a space where good news is way necessary.)

[sapphicprincess.livejournal.com]

What a joy to read! I'm at a point where I'm mostly okay with my body (except when I order from Victoria's Secret, where my size is the largest one they make and the cutest bras don't even come in my size). I'm still a little weird around food but I consider myself mostly recovered from my eating disorder. It feels so good when I can eat a meal and not feel compelled to keep going until I can't sit up anymore.