Can I think like a think person?

Hi, my name is Kara. I blog at Can I learn to think like a thin person?  Two years ago I hatched a plan to lose more than 100 pounds from twenty years of serial dieting and two food-fueled pregnancies.

The plan to lose weight was simple.

Step 1: Enlist the help of a cognitive behaviour therapist to eradicate obsessive food thoughts and insatiable need for cookies and ice cream. Once brain no longer lingers for junk food, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Join Weight Watchers, follow plan, eat mindfully, and exercise down to a reasonable and realistic dress size.

Unfortunately, simple plans are never that simple. For instance, what do you do when you learn that step 2 is the main reason for requiring step 1?

A)     Freak out

B)      Deny

C)      Embrace a sense of relief

D)     All of the above

I pick “D” all of the above.

I began working with a cognitive behaviour therapist to change my negative eating habits into positive eating behaviours; to break free from the constant, relentless cravings for baked goods, chocolate and ice cream. I wanted to have a normal relationship with food. I wanted to learn to think like a thin person.

The most significant revelation from therapy is that I eat (and overeat) to avoid feeling anxiety. You may be familiar with anxiety – it’s an uncomfortable feeling that washes over you when you try to ignore a craving; anxiety feels like hunger.  After twenty years of dieting, telling myself to eat “good” food and to not eat “bad” food, it’s not surprising that dieting makes me anxious.

Learning about anxiety helped me to understand why dieting had become increasingly difficult and why I always regained lost pounds. As I restricted what I ate and how much I ate on a diet, my anxiety level would increase; generating intolerable cravings and false hunger. To relieve the tension, I would eat extra helpings, unnecessary snacking, and unhealthy food choices.

So I had to rethink my two step plan. I had to figure out how to lose weight without being on a diet. The good news is that after a year of cognitive behaviour therapy there are no good foods or bad foods, I experience only minimal cravings and very few cravings triggers eating. I’ll choose to eat a salad over a McChicken combo and it’s no longer a struggle to get out of a grocery store, dollar store, and convenience store without buying junk food.  Plus, for the first time in my life, I can actually keep a box of ice cream in the freezer.

My blog is my way of documenting my CBT experience and sharing my discoveries. I also blog about my new journey to lose more than 100 pounds (without Weight Watchers), rant about weight related issues in the media and muse about life as an overweight, thirty something woman.

There are multiple roads to get to success; if you are dieting with Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or another structured weight loss program, by reading my blog you may find insight into your own eating habits. From my experience, I’ve learned that how you think about food is just as important as the food you actually eat.