Keris Stainton continues her self-improvement quest...
Since we've already established that I'm neurotic about practically everything, no doubt you won't be surprised to hear that includes food. Yes, I've been overweight (or at least felt overweight) for most of my life. I've tried Weight Watchers, I've tried "being good" (I really hate that expression), I even tried Slimfast (for a morning), but nothing has worked.
I've learned recently that a lot of the same issues I have with money also apply to food. (In fact, the parallels are kind of startling - Julia Cameron coined the term "money anorexic" for those who can't spend/won't spend, need to always be in total control of their money, which of course has its opposite in "money bulimia" bingeing/shopping and purging/giving stuff away.) And the root is the same for both: not feeling like you're good enough.
I remembered recently that, back in '96, I was on a diet but I weighed 8.5 stone. Now, just having rumbled past 10 stone, I look back and wonder whatever I was thinking. A few months ago I won a course with The Food Philosophy and Sue, who came up with the course, said that until I deal with my emotions around food and the reasons I eat I'll always feel fat no matter what I weigh. Looking back at photos of myself on holiday aged 15, self-consciously tugging a long t-shirt down over slender and shapely legs, I know she's right.
But how do you go about doing that? Well, for me, the first thing I had to do was give up on any idea of dieting, being good, cutting down, even eating "healthily". As most of us already knew, but research has recently proved - diet's don't work. As for "being good" - who decides what's good and what's bad? It's those sorts of value judgements of food that cause the problem in the first place. (Women who say, "Oh, I shouldn't" when offered a cake drive me demented!) What I'm trying to do is not put any restrictions on food at all (which includes eating red meat if I want to, despite the fact that I hadn't eaten it for 18 years).
I did this during my pregnancy three years ago and found it incredibly easy. For once I was listening to my body and eating whatever it wanted. I hoped that even after my son Harry was born I could continue in the same vein, but the guilt came back almost as soon as my milk came in. The weight came off incredibly quickly though and fooled me into thinking I'd cracked the entire issue. Sadly, three years later and a couple of stone heavier ... not so much.
So if you're ready to give up dieting and fix your relationship with food, I would absolutely recommend The Food Philosophy. It's a totally different approach to weight loss and one I've found very emotional (emotional enough that I keep falling off the course and then making excuses not to go back - always a sign for me that something's working!). It teaches you "how to make changes on the inside that will automatically change you on the outside."
Beyond Chocolate by Audrey and Sophie Boss features a similar method to the one promoted by Paul McKenna: eat whatever you want, eat when you're hungry, pay attention and stop when you're full. It's an excellent, practical, encouraging and liberating book with an equally useful website.
And, yes, Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Thin. Some of his advice is contradictory - you can eat whatever you want, but hypnotise yourself out of eating chocolate by imagining it covered in hair. Um, why? Why not just, er, eat it and enjoy it? But his generally straightforward advice and supporting hypno-CDs really do seem to work.
So after struggling with my weight for more than half my life, losing it really isn't the most important thing to me anymore. As difficult as that is to keep in mind when I'm going to a friend's wedding this weekend and I have nothing that fits (or when my uncle calls me "bonny"), I'm concentrating on the long-term. What I'm working on is developing a healthier relationship with food. I'll let you know how I get on.
Keris co-edits Shiny Media’s fabulous women’s fiction blog, Trashionista and contributes to TV Scoop and The Bag Lady. She'll never be able to eat just one Tuc cracker.
