Thanks skwigg! It really is amazing and I can't wait to see how it all keeps unraveling for me. Yep! The old 'women need less food then men' garbage and all those articles about how women put on weight when they move in with their partners because they eat the same amount. Sigh! So much of this garbage clunking around in my brain unquestioned. And that's a really good point about how the chronic semi-starvation would also be affecting energy requirements, compared to someone who hadn't gone through that.

Love this so much! After discussing wanting to let go of restriction in my journal, listening to the advice you've given me skwigg, and devouring all the Tabitha Farrar resources, I've been allowing myself to eat more and (as best as I can in the moment) not judge it as being wrong. And guess what? Not only have I not put on additional weight I seem to have released a little. The idea that I could be underfed and restricting while over my natural set point has been a mind blowing concept to get my head around - but now I'm really beginning to see just how much restriction, including mental restriction, signals to my body to hold onto all the energy it can get. I'm moving into that place of fully understanding and experiencing how the mental restriction around snacking such as thinking to myself "I shouldn't be having this" while stuffing food into my face :) sends my whole system into fight/flight mode. I've taught it through repetition that when this happens restriction is coming, in the sneaky guise of what I've decided is normal eating, but is really the 'only eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full' diet. I can't even begin to say how much of a huge mental shift this is for me. However I am not perfect at it and it is not always easy. There's a lot of old ingrained diet culture beliefs I'm having to constantly ignore and challenge. One belief I noticed the other day was the idea that I should eat less then my husband. I caught myself in the moment and said to myself 'how does my husband's energy needs have absolutely anything to do with mine. We have completely different bodies' and all of a sudden it just seemed like the most ridiculous thing ever - and I've been intentionally dishing myself up a smaller serving than his for years like some diet-brain robot! There are plenty of times where I still judge snacking or eating more, but those thoughts are becoming less and less, as is the urgency to 'fix' my weight and food issues. The more intense horrible compulsive feeling and anxiety around food is slowly slipping away.

There's so much goodness in both of those posts skwigg. I also loved how you summed it up in your journal: instead of pursuing weight loss, pursue AWESOME. If you want to feel confident, happy, strong, fit, connected, loved, or peaceful, go at those directly. We use “goal weight” as a stand-in for everything we want in life, and it’s a flimsy worthless stand-in.

Thanks Skwigg! Totally relate to a lot of it coming from all of the books - I've read so much and have a head full of conflicting junk, which I wish I could just erase. That option to play around with having a little more, or a little less, is something I don't allow myself. The old black and white perfectionist thinking of 'I must get this right! I can't fail at this or I'll just put more weight on' gets in the way of that. I also haven't been giving myself permission to eat more later if I'm hungry, because eating more after dinner means I a overeating and therefore 'I'll just put more weight on'. Urgh! Fear and restriction drive so much of this. To be honest my body is a little bigger than I would like now, and I feel a bit uncomfortable, is it okay to want to be a little slimmer? And how would I approach this while trying to free myself of disordered eating? Or as the IE books say is it pretty much impossible to heal food issues while wanting to lose weight?

As long as I'm telling myself my eating is unacceptable and I need to fix it (mental restriction maybe?), food thoughts and urges to eat stay front and center. Yes! 100% this. This is exactly my experience. So do you just check in with your body every now and then while you eat to see if you're full yet before actually finishing a plate of food? More often than not I still let an empty plate dictate the end of my meal - occasionally I'll stop before eating everything because I feel full. I think I still have that fear that if someone gave me a never ending plate of food I would just keep eating and eating - that there'd be no off switch. Part of that is from past experiences when I've eaten when not hungry and therefore had no physical off switch. So as long as I'm legit hungry, and not attempting to restrict, then that signal is loud and clear Also, I find that I can be full after finishing my meal but I still get that urge to eat more. Do you think that urge in the absence of hunger is just a habitual/brain signal? Is it just a matter of Eat signal - not hungry - dismiss or Eat signal - hungry - eat ? Lol. I just realised how almost ridiculously simple that seems when I wrote it. I'm almost embarrassed to post it now, but this is how much I over complicate all of this. Thanks :)

Skwigg, do you believe it's possible for our bodies to become accustomed to larger portions of food before sending the full signal? I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I keep playing around with the idea that perhaps my urges to snack and eat more than my normal meals would go away if I ate larger meals - particularly breakfast. But the times when I've tried this (e.g. a second bowl of cereal) it seems my body just gets used to eating larger servings and still sends urges to eat more. I also have weight to loose so I'm not sure I can wrap my head around it being about my body needing more energy from extra food. Would love to hear your thoughts. Hope this has made sense.

I agree 100% about starchy carbs! I've needed to avoid rice and bread for the last year to help with a health issue, and am so happy that I have now been able to add them back into my diet. I recently went out for brunch and had eggs and sourdough toast, (with a good amount of butter) and it was so satisfying that I wasn't even able to finish it. And I usually finish my meals. After that all thoughts of food magically disappeared for quite a few hours. For me, bread has this lovely satisfying, grounding affect. Ahhhhh bread...how I've missed you :)

I've been struggling with permission to eat more. After having my usual porridge for breakfast this morning I still felt a little unsatisfied a couple of hours later. Cue conversation in my head about how 'I shouldn't be hungry coz I've already had my usual breakfast' blah, blah, blah. I struggle with the idea that my food needs change daily, and that needing to eat more on one day won't lead to eating more every single day after that. So I warmed up a pumpkin sage muffin, added some butter and enjoyed every bite. Now my stomach feels warm and satisfied. I have a habit of using hot drinks after breakfast to 'fill in the gaps' in my stomach in order to feel satisfied, when really I probably just need to eat a little more. I have drinks so I don't eat. I'll be interested to see how eating more can allow me to let go of this habit. I am proud of myself for honoring my need to eat a little more this morning, and not getting all bingey about it.

Thanks for this post skwigg. I actually experienced this today. I can't believe that after all this time I can still feel anxious when I feel too full. I reminded myself of your post and continued on with my day. Sure enough it didn't take very long for the full feeling to disappear. In the past I would have eaten more because of the anxiety which is just so crazy! I remember reading Josie Spinardi's 'How to have your cake and skinny jeans' book how she described it as 'eating coz you ate' - so true!

Yes to all of this!!! It's the judgement that causes so much pain. I'm working on learning that it really doesn't matter if I put on some weight, if my jeans get a little tight - it doesn't make me any less worthy, and therefore there's no perceived terrible outcome if I eat past fullness, or eat if I'm not hungry sometimes. Would these eating habits matter so much to me if they had absolutely no effect on my weight? Divorcing the cause and effect relationship between eating and weight is a big one for me. It's taking a lot of practice as the need to fix myself and all that is 'wrong' with me is very strong, thanks to years and years of repetitive thinking, and diet culture bs.