I left Anna's and got to Kathy's and while I waited in the car I talked to Mark and I messed around with my phone before going in. I did have to wait on Kathy for a bit. She finally came and got me and we went into her office and she made the comment that it is so hard to see patients after they see their therapist and I started to cry again. We talked about my session with Anna and I told her that I wanted to binge. She of course started asking me questions...Will binging change my circumstances? Will binging really change my feelings for the long term or will it just calm them for the short term? How are you going to feel after the binge? Are you going to feel better? Worse? Wouldn't it be better to be kind to yourself by staying on course with your eating plan? By the time she asked me those questions I knew that a binge wasn't the answer and I was ready to move on.
She started looking over my Recovery Records and she said to me that she can tell by looking at my records that I had a tough emotional week. She said that she could see that we ate out more and I cooked less. She then asked me about Tuesday the day that I didn't eat all day. She wanted to know what was going on. I told her that I just wanted to go and tear into a bag of chips so I decided that it would be best to just stay out of the kitchen that day. She told me that was not the thing to do, that is a good set-up for a binge or a episode of overeating. She said to me that I should have eaten according to my schedule just figured out what I could eat without opening the pantry where I keep the chips. She said that I should be able to choose things to eat from the fridge if things in the pantry become a challenge and vice-verso. I never thought about that. I could see where that could have worked for breakfast but not for lunch. Then I thought about my fruit bowl. I could have had my sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch. I would have ran into a road block for a snack not being able to get to my crackers but then I now didn't know where my mind would have been if I had known to do these other things. Now I know. It also has made me think that I need to expand my choices to keep in the house!
We then talked about my evening meal that day. Mark brought home Panda Express and I recorded my meal before he got home. When I told him what I wanted I added crab puffs to my meal. He forgot to order them so they were recorded to my food record and once you record on recovery record it will not let you go back and edit anything. So I told Kathy what happened that the crab puffs were on my record but that I didn't eat them. We then talked about why did I think that I needed the crab puffs. I told her that I was hungry and because I hadn't eaten all day I thought that they would not hurt me. She then explained to me why it is important to stay on track and eat. She gave me another tip about my not wanted to eat because I wanted to eat a bag of chips. She told me that when that desire is there and it is time to fix a meal to go to a quiet place like my bedroom and go and regroup and think things through. She said that sometimes that will help. She said a lot of times asking myself questions about the chips and my motives will open the door to see that the chips can be controlled and that I could recover to go into the kitchen and handled serving myself my portion of chips. She said that sometimes it doesn't work. She said there will be times that the desire will be so strong that the best thing to do is do like she had said earlier and find something else to eat that would not take me to where the chips are kept. So there is two new things that I learned. Leave the room and to and try and re-focus and if that doesn't work then avoid going to the area that the chips are located until I can handled them again.
I am amazed at how many things that I'm learning from Kathy that is common sense! I guess the disease just takes over and we lose that ability to refocus and we just go for it in a mindless way. It is almost scary to see how the disease can take over the brain and you react and never think. The more and more I question myself and practice eating mindfully the better I am getting! Am I perfect yet? No! This week shows you that I have hings to learn. I am sure many things to learn as the circumstances come up and Kathy is able to teach me what to do under each circumstance. For now, I have to trust in the baby steps that are involved and to trust the process.
How am I doing not losing much weight? At first it really bothered me because that has really been my focus for years. I'm starting to see that yes with a diet I can lose weight. Will I be able to keep it off when he diet is over? No! Because the underlying cause of my eating hasn't been dealt with. I'm so thankful as time goes on to have found Kathy. Oh how I wish I could have found her a long time ago. I guess this is my season to learn how to manage my disease and to be able to recover from it. She says to me all the time "Laura, you will recover!"
Here are some thoughts from my Recovery Record:
I will feed myself and fight this illness, not feed this illness and fight myself!
and
It is not what happens to you, but how you react that matters!
also
Don't believe everything you think!
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