Going for a week to a yoga retreat. Every day a lot of yoga, meditation, no internet, no phone, no sugar, no coffee, no black tea, no meat. That all in an old monastery. 30 km to the next train station.

The hardest for me will be no internet and no coffee. Am really excited to see, what it will do to my mental state. And am super curious about the food.

Ever done one before? Read a book by a guy who did something similar and it sounded incredibly frustrating yet rewarding

Nope.

I foresee it to be challenging for me.

But I think it is kind of like in yoga itself: you basically exercise only with you own body. You have no machines or so and it forces you to focus on yourself. I hope that there also the reduction of input will leave my mind no other option than to calm down.

Good luck! When do you go?

This sounds awesome, minus the no coffee. I'll be eagerly awaiting the TR. have fun

It is from 16 Feb to 23 Feb. I already know, that at least first days I will go up the walls, thinking that I am going to miss something important in my mails.
But it is nothing there, that can't wait for a week. This "no input from outside" makes me already now anxious.

Sounds fun Lapka. Personally a week of no contact from outside sounds blissful.

food food food food.......

Mostly I am normal. But sometimes I have phases, like now. Phases where I seem not to be able to think about anything else than food. I am not hungry, I can't say that I am upset or need food now in some way to regulate my emotions. I just want FOOOOOD.

Today I had musli for breakfast, a bowl of veg soup for lunch and identical dinner. With soup I ate every time 1 slice of dark bread. Soup was cooked from scratch, so I am pretty sure that calorie wise I am below my maintenance threshold.

I am not hungry............ Meeehhhh.... will try to play poker, to work on my crafting project and go for a walk. Hopefully the whole thing ain't going to escalate to a binge.

It would be really interesting to understand, what exactly triggers such phases like now.

How was the retreat?

I am 100% going to repeat it for at least a month. Now since even few more days have past, I digested it a little bit better than in a quoted post. I think the best part is the combination of low input of new stress + basically no tools (overeating, gambling, get lost in the internet) to somehow bury the feelings and issues I have down. It freed some resources of the psyche to deal with it and basically forced me to face quite a few of my issues. + Yoga and cats (they had two) are a pretty good tool for emotional regulation.

Which role plays weight in all that?

I .... I don't really care about my weight in itself, but I care a lot about being able to deliver certain performance physically. I mean I never was super sporty, never even thought direction something pro, but I like to be able to run with certain velocity and I like to be able to do yoga and there are just weight limits below/higher which the physical performance takes a sharp drop. However for me this limits are pretty wide. I would say that for me it is between 55 kg and 70 kg. I am now at 59 kg and I don't know if I am fat or not. Sometimes I feel disgusting fat and sometimes pretty OK. I know that it will probably increase again to my normal that is somewhere between 62 and 65 kg. And I just try not to get obsessive about it. I try not to think about my body in terms "disgusting, ugly, fat, beautiful, sexy, thin", I try just not to go in my mind there. I know that that is a battle that can't be won. And it doesn't matter if it is positive or negative. I know that it is completely subjective and it is such way into unhappiness.

It never worked for me to have looks as motivation for eating good or working-out. But what did work, is that I know that having an hour yoga session on a full stomach just sucks.

I like to feel good and weight is somehow following the decisions I make to feel good. It just doesn't work for me to set weight as a worthy goal or to have my weight as a source of my happiness/unhappiness. And I still don't have a scale in my home, because I know that I would start obsess with a scale there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_hq7OVzHU

Like it. Can relate to basically everything she touched. Think that it is important to shift the emphasis from appearance to functional/health perceiving of the body. Completely agree that the appearance focus is powered by mass media/industry to make everyone consume more senseless stuff. Like the idea that we have to be mindful in the moments the advertising/mass media/peer pressure makes us feel bad and think in such moments what it is all about.

I agree with you. I stopped buying fashion magazines because I didn't approve of the photoshopping etc that went on in these magazines which ended up with women feeling bad about themselves and then more vulnerable to making consumer purchases in order to make themselves feel better. I mean it is ridiculous that women who are chosen as the top tier of attractiveness are then photoshopped. What sort of warped reality is this ending up in? Increased plastic surgery and eating disorders Don't even get me started on social media!

One big part of my activity is not having a car. I do go around mainly with my bicycle. Just way to my job and back that is every day 5 km. And from time to time I have trips like today to my doc of 16 km one direction. Shopping and everything adds up. And the best thing is that I don't even notice it. It is just part of my normal life. I don't have to make an effort for that.

I think sometimes how I ate in my childhood. I remember having a phase, where I ate just cookie sandwiches: you take a cookie put some butter in it and a second cookie to close it. Not really healthy and I have no idea how many calories are in it, but I know that it is a lot. But my activity level was so high that I remained stick thin.

I remember very well how actual problems with food started. I did ballet training from the age of 6 and I was thin, but there was always someone thinner and smaller and who was more liked by our trainer. That was first time that I actually thought about fat and thin and food. The peak of this was when a girl, who had birthday brought a cake for the whole ballet group and the trainer took my piece away from me with words: "lapka has problems with her kidneys, she can't eat cake". I was 8 or 9 y.o. That was for me so incredibly enraging, not that I didn't get cake, but that she denied me this cake under false pretense that I am somehow sick.

Things like that put the food from intuitively normal to something that has to obsessed about.

I try to act according to my value system. A part of it is that I think how society deals today with body/appearance/age is not healthy. What can I do to improve the situation?

Things I already do:
- I don't buy fashion magazines, don't watch TV, don't spend any money on certain products. I don't buy any crap that promises to make me look 20 years younger/lose 10 kg in 10 days/give me happy life.
- I still do use skin care, but preferably things made myself/bought in alternative green stores/brands without advertising.
- I boycott all brands about which I know that they discriminate against any kind of appearance.
- I try to focus myself on healthy and not on any kind of looks.

But I do still judge in my head. I want to step away from this judgmental thinking. And one thing I will do to achieve that: I won't comment on appearance. Neither in positive no in negative way and neither on celebrities no on people around me, no on myself. I can't control what I think, but I can control what I do and say.

I failed miserably to find out how can I post gifs the right way. Someone help?
If I try to post it like an image url it somehow doesn't work.

But it is just to cute to not post it:

https://gif3.mycdn.me/image?id=83690...ROCitXx7RJJvkk
https://gif3.mycdn.me/image?id=83690...qF_slM-DBR76Sw

I am just sitting and thinking about an ice cream......
That is exactly what I want to avoid. Not the ice cream but this obsessive thinking about it, thinking how many calories it will have, thinking if it is worth it or not. I don't really care if I weigh a kg more or less. But it is so deep in me: the f-ked up relationship with food. Food takes a lot more space in my life than I want it to have. But on the other hand I enjoy everything around food. I like to cook, I am keen when I can again go and pick some fresh strawberries myself. I like the experience of food, but somehow the whole thing got f-ked up somewhen in my youth. It is now a lot better than few years ago, but there are sometimes moments.....

Meeehhhh....... Going to eat this ice cream and so enjoy every single calorie in it. Going to fully focus on every bite and every lick of it and will have a coffee with it to make it perfect.

make sure to add some whipped cream

Have you ever sat down and thought....

What's the big deal if I eat one bowl of ice cream. Is life about the all time graph or the monthly snap shot?

Are you playing cards scratching an itch ignoring a demon or a lil bit of all?

Single decisions do form a habit. And the habits determines in big big way the health long term. I think that it is a balance act.

I want to achieve something that I would consider "normal" relationship with food. I want to have no regrets and not make myself crazy about food. I don't really care if I weigh 55 or 65 kg.

And with cards.....I think I know what you mean by "demon". I don't think that I am ignoring it. I am very mindful and listen and try to feel first signs of its appearance. I haven't seen it for long time.

Here is my ice cream. My topping of choice are sliced and roasted almonds.

I think you are doing great, this is really good stuff. I read a lot about eating disorders, and it sounds to me like you have one, but you are managing it in a healthy way. For many adults with eating disorders success is choosing to be a healthy person with the eating disorder, rather than beating it completely. In other words, you may never be able to stop those thoughts coming, but you can manage the situation with the sorts of techniques you describe above.

On the other hand, maybe you will be able to beat it completely - good luck!

I am a loser baby so why don't you kill me....
Crying, moaning and flailing my arms

Things with which I fail miserably:

Swimming. I am so slow and I don't do it enough. I have to bike 5 km to the swimming pool and that is a LOT bigger barrier than between me and my running shoes. My swimming technique is non existent. I am a total loser in swimming. MLYLT is better than me at swimming.

cry baby cry

Pull-ups. I never in my life could do even one. In this sense nothing changed. But since one week I am really really trying. I am doing all this loser exercises like reversed rows and assisted pull-ups, but I made zero progress. I mean.... I know which part of my body lacks the most in strength. That are my underarms and fingers. I mean my back and so they don't even feel this assisted pull-ups, but after just a few I plain loose the grip. But how do I train that. I mean.... I am doing that now for a week, every day until I can't no more.... I am not even sore! And I am not even a tiny bit better than on a day one! How can I improve if I don't get sore?!

Duuudes.......That all is frustrating...... I think I need at least few hours with a trainer. But that again sounds sooooo.... I mean, am I such a loser that I can't figure out with internet on my fingertips what do I have to do to make a certain movement? That can't be true.

Meeeeehh. Have some medical issues, so that my only work-outs now are hiking and gentle swimming. That is a little bit unnerving, because I rely on exercise for so much in my life. It is not only to regulate my weight, but also to regulate my emotions and it is plain a habit. And I am totally a creature of habits. It feels super uncomfortable to change any of them, bad as well as good.

On the good side: I managed to reduce my coffee to one cup a day. Am totally proud of it. It was soooo long for me on the "I should do it somehow" list. And things on this list tend to not be accomplished at all

Power of habit.

I have a habit to eat a piece of something from my local bakery on my way to work. Sometimes I can avoid it, sometimes I am perfectly fine with it, but today I feel the pull of this bakery and know that I will be pissed at myself if I have my croissant. I mean I am not hungry, I don't have cravings, it is solely habit that pulls me this direction. Hopefully this post will help me to make my way around this bakery. Will post the result in the evening.

Successfully avoided the bakery. The trick was writing it down here. It brought more into my mind, how I would feel, if I would eat something from the bakery today. I mean, I don't want avoid bread and so completely. I just want to feel good. And writing down often does the trick of making future consequences more present.