Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Goodbye, calorie counting websites

I am working towards full recovery from my EDNOS. 

What does this mean for me?

Basically, I want a life that is centered around living, not around food+body+exercise thoughts.  In order to accomplish this, I'm taking steps towards it.

The first step was realizing that calorie counting and food planning/logging in general no longer seemed important to me.  One day, I realized that it had been several days since I had logged my food, and I was okay with it.

Also in this first step was realizing that I am not okay with exercising to eat more.  When I start a regular exercise routine again (hopefully soon), it will be because my leg and ankle are feeling better.  It will be to get my left leg back to normal.  And then, hopefully, it will be to train for a marathon.  But it won't be because I ate Pop Tarts this morning, or because I want to eat pizza tonight.

The second step was realizing that I cannot follow steps towards recovery anymore.  This entire process needs to be day by day, and intuitive.  Why?  Because every time that I have assigned steps to myself, I ended up failing, and giving up, and going back to what I know (dieting, tracking calories, exercising to burn calories, body hate, etc.).

One thing has become clear to me though:  I need to step completely away from all of those calorie-counting and dieting websites.

I am going to step away from those sites, which will hopefully help to discourage me from going back to my safety net of food logging.

If there was a site that allowed me to track my food but not any macronutrients, I would probably sign up, just to keep that security blanket for a bit longer, while I sort though my emotional eating issues.  Like a food log that tracked feelings instead of calories. 

A place to recover from emotional eating habits, and from disordered eating in general.  Perhaps I have just found a need and should start creating a site like this?  Hmmmm...  Or maybe I should start to keep a real paper journal again, with real feelings written down, along with an emotional eating journal for as long as I need one.

Anyway, I'm going to start by removing all of the links anywhere on this blog that are about anything "diet-y".  The next step will be to deactivate my multiple My Fitness Pal accounts (which is deserving of its own blog post, in my opinion, because that will be a huge step for me).  I'm planning to deactivate my MFP accounts (I have at least three) on Saturday.

I am also going to stop following any diet pages on Facebook (as myself.   I won't unfollow anyone as my blog page, because I hardly use FB exclusively from the page).  I will continue to follow the people who don't trigger me, but if your page makes me want to hop back on the diet bandwagon, then I'm sorry but we have to part ways for now.  I love you, I get it, and I am not saying that your page is bad or that you are doing anything wrong.  I'm just saying that I need to fully recover from my EDNOS and seeing posts about calorie burning exercise challenges and how only organic food is food, is not helpful to me right now.

Sorry for no pictures, but I'm posting from work (slow morning, thank goodness.  Monday and yesterday were CRAZY).  I may come back in here later and add some pics. 




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea, Leah! There is actually an app that many people use to track feelings and food; it's called Recovery Record. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard great things about it. No calories or diety stuff like that. :)

Kim said...

Very happy to have you as a personal friend on FB. I have pretty much kept my weight loss journey off FB so no worries there. Matter of fact, I rarely even post on FB at all lol. I thank you for all the support you have given me. You are a great friend. There are not many people that I would associate with outside of the MFP realm , but you are special!! Always here for you with whatever support you need. I wish you nothing but the best always!!❤️