When I started backing away from obsessive thoughts about diet and exercise, "Who am I without it?" was too big to ponder. I had nothing. If you've neglected other interests for years, it's not obvious. You can't tick off a list of other things you're excited about or invested in. A place to start is, "What am I curious about?" So, things you might like to learn more about or pursue. If that is still crickets, "What was I excited about as a child?" Reading a book about a new interest, taking a class, or volunteering can help to expand your horizons and give you something else to focus on and feel good about. Then you start to get a greater sense of who you are and what is important to you.
Eating as little as possible was a lame hobby, it turns out. Plenty of other pursuits are more fun and make us feel excited and connected instead of isolated and anxious.
It's so interesting reading everyone else's responses because it makes me realize that I'm not a total loss :-D
I read a lot of books and love listening to audio books as well as podcasts. I'm in an Isabel Foxen Duke kick lately so I'm searching for as many podcast interviews with her as possible. I also enjoy Fitness & Sushi as they focus a lot on healing your relationship with food, body image, and exercise. I love walking the dog and we tend to go for multiple shorter walks a day than one or two longer. That's usually when I listen to podcasts but other times I enjoy listening to the sounds of birds or my feet on the pavement.
IMy guilty pleasure of late has been the Netflix series, "Cheer." I don't really agree with how hard the girls are pushed but it's been interesting watching so many of them come from underprivileged backgrounds and find a niche that's given them a community, family, and a way to feel confident and positive about themselves. Still, it's mostly just guilty pleasure watching and because there was always a part of me that wished I could do a decent cartwheel.
I still have a puzzle I'd like to get started on and once I get the motivation to turn up all the pieces it'll rage on.
I guess a lot of my free time is spent reading or listening to recovery podcasts. My main goal right now is learning to love my body and treat it with kindness. That's not really a hobby, but I'm doing some work sheets and journaling that's helping me heal and those take up time.
I have found a lot of my past interests have come back since I have stopped dieting. For years my only interests were nutrition, food, and exercise. I wanted to go back to university to study nutrition. Time and finances were always a barrier though. Now my interests are learning to sew clothes, crochet (but that is a winter hobby), running (this was one exercise I never could do while I was restricting because it exhausted me so much), I want to make some art for my lounge room wall, I’ve been doing lots of work in my garden- trying to grow veggies again and planting lots of flowers. I also like true crime tv shows and podcasts.
I still have an interest in exercise and health as well, but I have also seen that it can change from something negative to something that’s only positive. I actually feel a very strong life fulfillment, purpose, something like that? in things related to using our bodies to enjoy movement, touch, physical pleasures, improving abilities, keeping in good health, etc. Somehow I’m able to follow that now only in ways that are life and happiness enhancing, rather than stressful or painful, and with a good dose of hedonism and fun as opposed to being all control and denial. I don’t feel like I have a huge supply of things to keep myself interested occupied. and I think that’s one of the reasons I turned to dieting and fitness obsession as a teen in the first place, but I find a way to fill the time. I read a book every day or two, both fiction and non-fiction psychology, religion, pop science, self-help types. I enjoy online tv series and whenever I have a break from work where I have enough time to sit and watch (like this month) I go on a binge-watching streak. I like continuing my language and translation studies to progress in my work, and I get into learning other languages occasionally too. I was just reminded by Skwigg’s comment that accidentally bought an insanely expensive year subscription to Duolingo so I should be using that more actually. I have a few podcasts I really enjoy listening to while I go for walks outside (Terrible, Thanks for Asking is my recent binge-listen). As much as I complain about my kids being stress and work I do enjoy the constant busyness and especially taking them outside to play in nature. Now that I’m free from food weirdness I genuinely love food and eating, as does my husband, so a lot of our everyday free time and money is spent cooking and eating together, learning recipes and shopping, finding and going to restaurants, and so on. I also recently bought several field guides to birds and plants/trees so I can try to identify local nature around, since that was something my mom has always been into and I’d like to pass that onto my kids too. In my future, when the kids are big enough to not destroy things and/or are out of the house more often, I love puzzles so I want to start doing more of those for fun, and I also hope we can get into doing more recreational sports and hiking again. Something to look forward to. I started that by saying I didn’t have many things to keep me interested, but I ended up with quite a list!
It may have been from your journal. I often repost my own forum comments as the start of new threads.
I'm currently on a 380-something day streak of learning Spanish with the Duolingo app, YouTube, and podcasts. I also like learning about dog behavior, training and rescue. I'm interested in finance and investment. I love Suze Orman's Women & Money podcast. I'm still very much interested in nutrition, health, and fitness. What has been fascinating is watching that shift from a fearful weight-control obsession, to a genuine desire to feel my best and enjoy life and food the most. I'm no longer looking for someone else to tell me what to eat or how to workout. I'm not driven by a desire to impress and please others, or to adhere to some new scheme at all costs. That's where I was before with nutrition and fitness. I wanted "the answer" that would solve all my problems. Every new workout program or diet book would give me a weird high. This may be it! What's funny, is it became that way with non-diet books, blogs, and YouTubers as well. Oooh! This one! This one finally is a perfect match, my new philosophy, the One True Way. Yeah, no. None of them are. My new philosophy is "How do I feel today? What do I need?" and then I do that. I'm still interested in learning about telomeres, gut health, heart health, neuroplasticity, longevity, all kinds of sciencey health and fitness topics, but not as a means of eating as little and exercising as much as possible. The more I trusted myself and prioritized joy, the less inclined I was to twist new information into some kind of fear-based control scheme. Also, the less I tangled it up with my appearance and identity.
I would love to hear what others think about this, where you are with it, and what you have experienced.
I know that early in the journey, I kept testing out dieting to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I also identified really strongly as a "fitness person." Letting go of my personal trainer certification helped with that. I was so damn concerned about looking the part and being taken seriously. Newsflash, not taking it seriously is far healthier. Then I can focus on my own wellbeing and not what I'm imagining everyone around me is thinking.
You may have written this exact paragraph in my journal a while ago, unless I read it here and just never responded. This is exactly where I feel stuck right now. Food, exercise, dieting - it's all been my "hobby" for so long that I don't know who or what I am without it. I don't remember being very curious or excited about a lot of things as a child, mostly because I was so fearful and insecure about things. I did love writing and for a while I wanted to be a novelist, then decided I'd "never make it" so I went in for journalism. That lasted about one semester in college. The problem is, my excitement and curiosity is always in the kinesiology, movement, nutrition area. Even before my eating disorder began I was interested in the way our bodies used food.
It's not a bad idea to look into taking a class or picking up some other hobby. Once I get a puzzle going I can sit there for a while and got lost in the pieces. The problem is that I hate starting them :-D