Belle's Journey

[bellefrogette]

/3

not bad at all, over the Xmas period, being in a new environment and even cooking and nibbling and some scrumptious egg nog ice cream,I put on 3 lbs, back to SS 100 % today.

Actually I am glad I gave myself a break, because i enjoyed myself and the best way to take things up again for me is from a perspective of feeling good about myself and my body. So happy new year me.

 

[bellefrogette]

/2



i woke and felt antsy, as if my body were angry ? If i were to put a finger on it, its bodily frustration at a lack of movement. This body wants to power walk, not sit and be still..and mentally I am off the boil a bit.

Bella

 

[bellefrogette]

Chapter 2: Ending the War

3. Geneen describes her struggle of gaining and losing 1,000 pounds, loathing herself and
becoming suicidal. She came to the realization that she had two choices—to stop dieting or to
kill herself. Ultimately, she writes, it’s about not fixing yourself. In Women, Food and God, she
urges readers to end the war with themselves and with food. How long have you been fighting
with yourself about your relationship with food? And…has fighting with yourself ever led to
truly changing yourself? Are you willing to stop the struggle? What do you think you’ll find?
How would giving up this fight make you feel?

part 1

Self loathing isn't a way of relating to myself that is natural to me. I can feel frustrated and confused but self loathing no. Even when I am around a woman who is expressing self loathing I become uncomfortable and want to get away...there was a time when I might try to talk her out of it, I don't do that now because I neither have the desire nor the skills, besides I know the roots of self loathing go deep so its not my place to get entangled in them

 

[bellefrogette]

Chapter 2: Ending the War


3. She came to the realization that she had two choices—to stop dieting or to
kill herself. Ultimately, she writes, it’s about not fixing yourself. In Women, Food and God, she
urges readers to end the war with themselves and with food. How long have you been fighting
with yourself about your relationship with food? And…has fighting with yourself ever led to
truly changing yourself? Are you willing to stop the struggle? What do you think you’ll find?
How would giving up this fight make you feel?

part 2


well GR sets up scenario and I have to ask myself is it true for me. Its not quite true. I neither need to stop dieting or kill myself and i certainly have more than two options though I do sense her reasons for the two extremes. Dieting is too loaded a word. It is charged with both failures and ignorance, heart ache and heart break, frustrations and pains, diets deal with the effect of the problem or challenge , not its core nor do diets encourage me to think deeper than the calories points of latest flavor of the VLCD, diets do not even really deal with health and fitness , i.e creating a stronger more vital body..diets say one thing- eat less. which is fair enough. The diet , any diet is not to blame its just that going on a diet is using the wrong solution to the wrong problem..in truth the problem has not been identified.,,because for certain it is going to be more complicated than a few milks shakes to solve,


the desire to lose weight is legitimate and is what drives the desire to diet..the desire to diet is not primary. the desire no longer to have to concern oneself with ones weight is also legitimate. so rather then say give up dieting the question becomes if I am ready to give or wanting and trying to lose weight and the answer to that is 'hell no' because I know I can do it.


suicidal thoughts and feelings that GR spoke of I feel have nothing to do with any diet, but it is a result of the frustration and pain of apply the wrong solution to the wrong problem, over and over again- crazy making . Likewise all the issues that lead to the eating and over eating remain in tact and untouched, so the forces that express through the eating simply grow and grow .

It might seem that the suicidal feelings apply to the diet but they do not,not really. I feel the suicidal thoughts are a response to a life out of control and a life that makes no sense.That I can understand.

 

[bellefrogette]

3. She came to the realization that she had two choices—to stop dieting or to
kill herself. Ultimately, she writes, it’s about not fixing yourself. In Women, Food and God, she
urges readers to end the war with themselves and with food. How long have you been fighting
with yourself about your relationship with food? And…has fighting with yourself ever led to
truly changing yourself? Are you willing to stop the struggle? What do you think you’ll find?
How would giving up this fight make you feel?






Part 3

GR uses such dramatic language that sometimes I get irritated.Sometimes I feel she is being overwhelmingly simplistic. Still, I promised myself i would address the workbook questions as best i could and so I shall.


It hasn't been a war or a fight, for me it has been a maelstrom of confusion. So my questions become I am willing to give up the confusion and the distractions and the conflicting ideologies and books and teachers and opinions and really listen deeply to the one person and one source that really know what the matter is and what the resolution is ?

Likewise given that I know I know where the questions can be answered and the exact solutions given, can I address why I have resisted this path for so long. Its not for me a 'turning it over to God'. GR is a religious gal regardless of what she says so for her God is the go-to guy. It makes perfect sense within a theist world view, within a new agey world view it would be going to ones higher self . But whatever of the myriad world views one adopts the underlying principle is 'turn within' or 'turn above' for something that is bigger then them selves; for others it a self that is greater than the self they know and 'higher' for others its something different, but certainly involves some relationship with a Self or force that has more energy, more insight, greater wisdom and I dare say more compassion.

Are you willing to stop the struggle? What do you think you’ll find?
How would giving up this fight make you feel?


Am I will to stop living in confusion and what do I think I will find, how would giving up the confusion make me feel?



I immediately think of Manjushri

 

[MinnieMel]

Hi Bel,

I am with you on the view that her weight is probably a symptom of deeper concerns -- and those need addressing.

I have not been to a US WW meetings in about 19 years. I think the next time I am in the US I will visit one. It sounds like they have made some interesting changes.

Are you back in the UK?

MinnieMel

 

[bellefrogette]

Hi Mel I am still in wet coldish Seattle, home from home. I'll be back in London next week sometime, lots to do and it won't do itself



Bella

 

[bellefrogette]

Chapter Ending the War

4. Do you believe that engaging in the endless loops of gaining and losing weight keeps you
connected to your friends and family, who are also engaged in the diet-binge cycle?

I feel this is a nonsensical question, of course it does. But maybe GR is asking about the value of the connectivity to friends and family who are also struggling? Actually my family are pretty slim. My over weight friends, since I became really serious about weight loss I do not hand out with in anything like the same way, some I have decided not to see till I hit goal, some maybe never again.

But I do feel connected say to folk in the minimins website and other places I go to and I do like the people I meet on the whole in these places. The only area I found it really difficult to connect was when I went to O/A, I could not get into the head space of those who said they were powerless, but even there I could see the potential for friendship but I was not ‘one of them’


However I have actually lost friends being in this loop or I have not opened myself to new friend because of feeling self conscious and I refused to be the fat friend. I have actually had at least 2 women in the past make strong gestures for friendship and I just smelt something wasn’t quite right, especially when they both had body issues..towards the anorexic side.


So if I were to apply this question more accurately to my life now it would be how many of my friends and I have a friendship based on things other than weight loss health and fitness and my only answer to that is ouch.


However everything in its season and I am comfortable with how things are now, though I do wish to extend into other areas, namely creativity.

 

[bellefrogette]

Step 1:

Bill Philips Transformation -The Base and Summit

Knowing your starting point and picturing your destination is the only way to measure progress. In this step, you'll define your current state and set your future goals.

Addressing the base or base camp, for me this would represent a 5 day detox, sauna, spa, art, meditation fest, and this might be core to what I need and key to getting to the summit or wherever it is I want to go. It would be a deep deep going within. I’d love to do this but I am such a nibbler…


But as Katie Byron would say

Is it true?

Can you absolutely know that it's true?

How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Who would you be without the thought?

 

[MinnieMel]

OA

Hi Bel,

OMG. Several years ago (when I was living in Germany -- and did not speak the language very well... who am I kidding, I still do not speak it well), and friend of mine and I decided to try and lose weight together. We joined the American OA group (on the AF Base) and were flabbergasted by their "oath". We went once a week for about a month and realized that none of these people were losing any weight and they were totally brow-beating themselves. So, we stopped going.

MM

"The only area I found it really difficult to connect was when I went to O/A, I could not get into the head space of those who said they were powerless, but even there I could see the potential for friendship but I was not ‘one of them’"

 

[bellefrogette]

went clothes shopping cos the two big blondes consignment store in Seattle is just brilliant..today I am going to buy some foxy babe wigs , if I can find the store and not get lost downtown...but being beautiful while not at goal is really emotional..its very hard..I know it makes no sense,cos I even watched a plus Size Miss America show last night, but it is hard..i want to 'weight' for it all to happen when I am 138...how limited is that, how hurtful to myself is that...how silly is that? But most of all where is the simple self respect in that kind of thinking about myself


[YOUTUBE]W74enrgyqOo[/YOUTUBE]

I know what I need

 

[MinnieMel]

Yes, we need to be the best us at every weight. I used to not buy clothes for myself for years, because I felt that I did not deserve them (and if I did it was admitting that I was the size I was). Now that I have regained a couple of stone and a bit... I had to buy bigger clothes or wear the same two pair of jeans I could barely squeeze into or sweatpants! So, I scoured the sales racks... bought a few things, and will be pleased when I can pass them on to a larger friend. In addition to doing CD, I am also trying to exercise and tone up, and am working on other personal appearance things.

MM

 

[bellefrogette]

Chapter 2: Ending the War

5. On page 29, Geneen mentions the UCLA study on the effectiveness of dieting. Among those
who were followed for fewer than two years, 83 percent gained back more weight than they
had lost. If you were ill and the doctor suggested a cure that would make you worse, would you
follow it nonetheless? How does it affect you to see that diets are not a cure?

diets are just instructions to deal with weight loss in a very basic fashion, of course the approach does not deal with the reason one eats, but diets are not meant to do that , that takes more work and more insight.. a diet is not a cure if over eating per se is simply the effect of an issue but not the root cause ..ok hoping to get to some less circular questions from the workbook soon, cos at the moment they are a bit simplistic.

 

[bellefrogette]

Yes, we need to be the best us at every weight. I used to not buy clothes for myself for years, because I felt that I did not deserve them (and if I did it was admitting that I was the size I was). Now that I have regained a couple of stone and a bit... I had to buy bigger clothes or wear the same two pair of jeans I could barely squeeze into or sweatpants! So, I scoured the sales racks... bought a few things, and will be pleased when I can pass them on to a larger friend. In addition to doing CD, I am also trying to execise and tone up, and am working on other personal appearance things.

MM

Hi there Mel , I was going through my purchases this morning and i will go back to the shop as i want more velvety elastic waist band pants, there is something to be said for loving myself now as I am going down, but what i was also aware of was how I had gone for sensual fabrics...my poor skin and all those cheap fabric larger clothes I have had. Yuck. i want my skin to be as smooth as a babies bottom with talc.

 

[MinnieMel]

Hi Bel,

That is so true about the poorer quality of larger clothes. I love 100% cotton and silk. I like natural fabrics -- not always easy to find. I hope you come home with a shedload of goodies.

MM

 

[bellefrogette]

Ok, I am back from the shop , I knew if I delayed I might go and the best things I got were shoes, some with quite thick springy rubber soles, they are not sexy and not Cinderella fashion statements but they are definitely an alternative to wearing trainers around town.

 

[MinnieMel]

Hi Bel,

I always thought it looked kind of trendy, even sexy to see those slim women in business suits speed walking the streets of Manhatten holding their briefcases in one hand and a bag with their heels in the other one! LOL I can envision you doing that in London.

If you get a chance -- upload some pics of your sensible shoes.

It is rainy and cold here in Cambridgeshire today... YUCK! We are going to London tomorrow. We have tickets to see a show. DD and I will have been married 24 years on Tuesday!!! Shock!!! In recent years, we have been seeing a show of some sort to celebrate. And, being more "family focused" we will take our youngest with us (she is only 11). Now, I wish I had bought the older one a ticket (he is being very lovely of late, but when I made the booking he was in his teenage "my parents are embarassing" mood.)

I hope the weather is better where you are.

MM

Fingers crossed that tomorrow is not wet and miserable.

Mel

 

[bellefrogette]

Hi Bel,

I always thought it looked kind of trendy, even sexy to see those slim women in business suits speed walking the streets of Manhatten holding their briefcases in one hand and a bag with their heels in the other one! LOL I can envision you doing that in London.


Mel

Hi Mel, The is a God/ess..that could be the fashion statement! honestly some of the shoes are really sensible but so ugly.

so you guys have been married like forever and you are still loved up, that is sooooooooooooo yummmy, what show are you going to see and what's for dessert .

Seattle is rainy and grey..which I like .


bella- who is seriously grumpy today

 

[MinnieMel]

Hi Bel,

We are going to see Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall.

I guess dessert will be a black coffee with sweetners --

We are taking our 11 year old with us... so, she may even want to sit between us. But, that's all good. We were married over 12 years when she was born. We were married 4 1/4 years before we had our older child (who is now an adult -- 19 years old).

I married my best friend -- and that hasn't changed. He is still my best friend and biggest fan. And, I, him.

Mel

 

[bellefrogette]

Hi Bel,

We are going to see Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall.

I guess dessert will be a black coffee with sweetners --

We are taking our 11 year old with us... so, she may even want to sit between us. But, that's all good. We were married over 12 years when she was born. We were married 4 1/4 years before we had our older child (who is now an adult -- 19 years old).

I married my best friend -- and that hasn't changed. He is still my best friend and biggest fan. And, I, him.

Mel

Oh what a delightful show you are both going to see, so much drama and elegance. i do wish you both well and I hope you have a splendid evening of it


Bella