HAES
January 29, 2008 by zmama75
Still making crappy food choices. Not always but often enough. And I’m not feeling guilty because they are “bad” but because they make me feel tired and slow. I am somehow stuck here right now. I’d like to move beyond it. An occasional food/meal that makes me feel like yuck is one thing but not at this frequency.
I want to be that fat woman who works out regularly and eats healthy foods because they make me feel good. Although I am still struggling with body image at times I do feel more of an urge to feel better through food and exercise than to lose weight.
That’s new.
I’m trying to surround myself with HAES talk. I was already going to FA blogs but now I’m delving in a bit deeper. I do think how society looks at fat people is shameful and needs to be changed but my primary interest right now is how *I* look at myself. How *I* treat myself because I am a fat woman. I stopped visiting FA blogs for a bit a couple of months ago because I wasn’t sure where I fit in.
But now I see where I fit in - to learn from these activists, women, and men. So many of the bloggers and commenters practice HAES and I’d love to actively do that as well. I want to feel good about and in my body. Never mind that I want to set a good example for my daughter who will be watching me like a hawk the older she gets. Heck - I need to treat my body as well as I feed hers.
My health needs a little mothering.
I loved your last line about your health needing mothering. I think mothering is something we all need and something we can all do more of for ourselves. I went to an interesting workshop over the weekend on sugar — it was about cutting down on sugar not because of body size but just because it makes us feel so draggy. What the presenter said was to not try to cut sugar out, because that makes us feel punished and deprived, but to have it occasionally in something really special that makes us feel we are doing something special for ourselves — in other words, some dessert we really love a few times a week rather than junk everyday just to eat it. Anyway, I thought that was good advice.
Do you know why you’re choosing foods that make you feel kind of yuck? I think that’s probably what you need to pinpoint before you can figure out how to redirect some of your choices. For me, I find I rely on less-nutritionally-satisfying foods when I’m overstressed, overworked, just too, too busy. If feeding myself begins to feel like just another chore on the list, then I start just defaulting to Taco Bell and fistfuls of cookies, which in turn makes me feel more sluggish and more likely to rely on easy food.
So, do you really know why your choosing stuff that makes you feel bad? Because your to-do list is way too long and you can’t spare the time? Because you’re still testing the waters of forbidden food? Because you aren’t sure you’re worth taking care of right now?
Whatever it is, it’s beatable. You can figure it out and figure out how to work around. And give yourself credit for all the very hard work you’ve done so far. This learning to accept yourself isn’t easy, not at all, and we’re warriors for even trying. Be proud!
Thanks, ladies.
Megan, it’s pretty much the busy mom syndrome. But I also think it’s just me stuck in some sort of rut - grabbing foods that once upon a time I thought were fabulous but now I don’t like as much as I thought I did. I am flirting with the idea of making a list of foods that I like and that make me feel good but I’m nervous that will feel diety and I will rebel. But I am leaning toward doing it since I can always back away if it starts messing with my head.