YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I've made a commitment to myself to start getting myself in shape, but whenever I think about it my mind goes from "you can start by doing 5 sit-ups when you wake up" to "you can stop eating." And that worries me and it doesn't because I know I'm going to eat, no matter what, but I've also dabbled in ED when I was younger. That sounds weird and inappropriate, but it's the best possible word for this situation. Like, tried a few times to purge but couldn't throw up. Used to stop eating for Lent. The first time I went on a diet, it was a simple counting calories-type affair with a journal and everything and even though I was advised to limit my calorie consumption to between 1300-1500 calories a day (which is normal and safe), I was pushing for below 900 calories a day, to the point where I got visibly upset if I got over 1000 calories. I stopped when my mom saw my food journal at a party and she started asking what my regular intake was. It was like a month in or something.

Anyway.

It is completely within my capacity and while planning this I've gone back and forth on whether I should count calories again, if I do if I should have cheat days, if I should have cheat foods, if I should find a diet or go back to the doctor to talk to someone about it. And then I think about this time where I was financially incapable of eating more than two packets of Ramen a day (short version: poor college student) and how nice that hungry feeling felt. Like, that warmth and hollowness when you have nothing inside of you. That weird high you get when you can deny yourself something. Like extreme self-control. Pushing yourself past your boundaries, even if it might start to hurt you.

I am, like, a hundred pounds overweight and I need to do this, for myself and my sense of self. But I don't want to fall back into that bad way of thinking again.

Hi a_schoe, I can definitely relate to being 100 pounds overweight. Here are two things that I like to remember when I'm considering a weight loss plan:

1. Health is more important that weight - the goal should be to feel phsically comfortable and avoid common illnesses at the end of the day.
2. How you feel emotionally should ideally not affect what you eat - This is the hard one for me. Heck, I didn't even know how profound the connection was until I started therapy.

Before starting any diet I would definitely recommend at least skimming a little bit of the "Food And Feelings Workbook". It really blew my mind and helped me find a diet that I can live with that will (hopefully) not kill me before my kids graduate from high school.

Good luck with your physical and mental wellness!

a_schoe, bocephus, thanks for writing on food and feelings. I am struggling to keep my food and feeling separate, where I don't use food to manage my mood. All the best, cheers!

Hi bocephus! I've never really considered the emotional connection I've had with food. Like, not even when I was originally writing this topic. Probably because I was thinking of the absence of food rather than the food itself. Or how eating the food makes me feel. I'll look up the book you suggested! Thank you! I think I'll take this work-out/diet thing as it comes, start on getting the exercise routine, y'know, routinized and at the book and see if there's anything there that I can use and apply.

Hi manuel_moe_g! I hope your food/feeling struggle is going well. Thank you for the well-wishes.