How do you celebrate without food?

Diatonic12 wrote: »

@lgfrie I still have your post about alcohol up in the marquee lights. The wine sabotage. Cross-addiction or coaddiction, trading in food for alcohol or shopping or gambling or gasp, even exercise addiction or love addiction.

I have a theory about those old neural pathways, deep grooves in the brain. I know we can make new ones but I don't know if we can ever get rid of those old ones. They just lay back in the weeds and wait for their time to pounce like a predator for its' prey. Sneaky snakes.

When I ate it all back the first go-around, I had to dig down deep to the roots of what was really eating me. I was eating all my emotions away. Doing what we've always done will get us what we've always gotten. Mostly nothin'. After all, there's a reason they don't have any biggest loser reunion shows. They ate it all back.

This time, I'm doing everything differently. I can't eat it back this time. We can't depend on others to constantly prop us UP. It's too exhausting and they have their own life to live. I like hearing about you and the wife. How you're doing everything. It's sounds really fun.

Thanks for the kind words

We look at the brain stuff the same general way, for sure. I strongly believe that even if I get to some perfect and thinnish weight like 180 (I'm male, 5'11"), which will never happen but let's just say it did, that I would still be an obese person at heart. Those neural "FEED ME NOW" pathways will always be there. Every once in a while I have a ferocious binge and while I always regret it and wish it didn't happen, it's almost good in a way that it does, because it reminds me of what I am and what I need to control. There are people who just don't give a F about food, don't really want much of it, don't think about it a lot, don't need any calorie counting or logging because they just eat the right amount, and I am never, ever, ever going to be one of them. My neural pathways are cut in stone; they are never going to reorganize themselves just because I want them to.

I think they did have a biggest loser reunion show!! You might be able to find the vids on Youtube; I think I've seen a couple. Most did gain the weight back; a few didn't. Thinking about it, The Biggest Loser shows both sides of the diet challenge: It is very possible to lose a lot of weight, but exceedingly, painfully, immensely difficult to become a different person.

I'm currently on a diet break. I guess Covid-19 finally wore me down. Too much time on my hands and not a lot to do. I toughed it out for months and did pretty well diet wise, but we did start slipping and I gained a few pounds back. I saw the writing on the wall - it was going to be a binary thing, either try to push through with the calorie deficit and watch it all fall apart in late night binges, or back off and get into maintenance mode for a while. So far so good. Not losing, but not gaining either. I'll take it.

New nail polish. Or a new charm for a bracelet for every stone you lose