Hi Kim,

You asked for someone to throw you a little sanity regarding carbs and help to calm the diet-brain. I write this in hopes that it might help some others who are new here and have spoken about the stress of what other people think, how it is to eat around others, etc.

I'll just try to give the short version of how it has worked out for me since I first read Kathleen's books and started the program in September of 2007.

My highest weight was 204, and my normal daily MO was to have never less than a pound of chocolate and a two liter of diet pepsi with plenty of brownies (from scratch) and ice cream to boot. Did I mention the salty stuff? I ate one good meal and the rest was a carb fest I suppose you'd call it. I knew it was insanity.

Since detoxing in April of 2008, I haven't ever needed to return to my drugs of choice. In fact, the phone numbers of my favorite binge places were long ago removed from the quick-dial on my phones.

At 174 pounds now, I know some others might look at my body and think that I am still fat, but my friends and husband think I look adorable. (What, who, me?) and my doctor annually says to keep up the great work, whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

I use the carbs and protein that my body needs to fuel me so that I am equipped to do college, work, deal with unfathomable loss in the lives of family and friends, and to live filled with joy and hope no matter what.

Mother's Day, was a great indication of how far this program has brought me. There was a bake sale for my grandchildren's school group and my DIL invited me to come see the fantastic array of things she had made. She prefaced her invitation with "I know you don't eat this, but thought you might want to see it." And it was all very pretty and carefully/beautifully executed, but it was not food for me, that's for sure. Nor was it tempting.

I had eaten my breakfast of steel-cut oats, blackberries, and salmon, and for lunch on the spur of the moment my family found a place where mom could get a lovely HUGE baked sweet potato, salad, and salmon for lunch.(Yes, I know, salmon was a bit redundant, but it surely worked for me and hit the spot, mmm!)

As an aside, I had forgotten my journal at home, and was feeling a bit lost without it to help me journal the beautiful day. My seven year old granddaughter generously shared a page from her journal so that I could write about the songs they sang and the flowers they gave me and what I ate.

Dinner was paella prepared by an adult son, one version for others with white rice and tons of seasoning, and then mom's brown rice milder version. No drama, no angst, and a general agreement that the brown rice version had much better texture than the mushy white rice!

I know that there still may be people who think I could trade some of my peace and calm to lose some more pounds, but not me! I suspect that I'll keep losing weight as I keep moving forward, but you know what? I really don't care. What I care about is being the person I am supposed to be...not feeling fat or irritated or out of control.

When negative thoughts or feelings creep into my journal entries I know to look to food, and I figure out where I may have shorted myself and I adjust accordingly. No need to binge to fix anything, because my brain chmeistry has been healing. I think it took good food (enough and on time) to do it, and I am going to keep eating good food, enough and on time!

Okay, not so short after all, but that's my story.
I hope it's helpful to you Kim, and anyone else with doubts about the possibilities. ~smile~
Susan S

: Hi everyone,

: My name is Kim and I live in Western
: WA state. This is my second time
: back to the steps... I got to step
: 2 last year and allowed myself to
: be seduced again to a diet by the
: promise of weight loss.
: Which, of course, didn't happen.

: But this last diet go-round has left
: me with a particularly severe case
: of diet-brain and I would love
: some help trying to let go of this
: while I work on breakfast.

: See how far down the rabbit hole I
: went?

: I pulled out PnP last week and felt
: myself immediately calmed and
: understood, as I always do when
: reading Kathleen's writing. I
: *know* this is the healing path I
: want to be on, and the community
: of people I want to be a part of.

: If someone could just throw a little
: sanity my way about eating carbs,
: something to help calm the
: diet-brain, I would be so
: grateful!

: Kim