KimBoo’s Shangrila Diet Experience

Thursday, December 18, 2008

More on hunger

Filed under: Hunger, counseling — kimboosan @ 4:41 pm

Yesterday when I got home from work I was hungry, and today before lunch I was hungry too. I immediately started sorting out what was going wrong, why SLD might not be working, what I needed to change…and then I realized…

Hunger is GOOD.

Starving, not so much, I admit that freely. But hunger? It is natural. It is NORMAL. Hunger means your body has run through the energy supply it had on tap and needs more fuel. Hunger is much more natural state than a constant sense of fullness. I remember reading once that if you wake up NOT hungry, then you overate the night before (how scientific that statement is, I don’t know, but it makes sense to me). I am much more used to waking up not hungry — I am, in short, much more used to constantly eating too much.

I’ve never been a binge eater but I’ve also never been one to limit my portion sizes or stop a runaway sweet tooth. The nascent feeling of hunger pangs would often send me into a mild panic to eat something which usually ended up being unhealthy by dent of being readily availalbe (junk food, candy, etc.).

Nowadays, though, I’m not panicking. I’m eating LESS because of SLD and that makes me genuinely hungry in a healthy way; and because of some issues I’ve been addressing in therapy, I’m not panicking as much about being hungry. It’s a two-punch solution for me, but it would hardly count at all if I were not doing my SLD doses regularly.

Not to sound hokey but yeah, it really IS like the dawn of a new day.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

On Failure, and starting again

Filed under: I am mental — Tags: — kimboosan @ 4:03 pm

Is anyone still reading this? Whoa, I’m sorry!

The thing is, SLD works. It really, really WORKS. But it also takes work, at least a little. Yes, really.

You have to plan. There needs to be an apporximately three hour stretch at an optimal time of day for you to not eat or drink for an hour, drink your SLD dose, and then not eat or drink anything (other than water) again for another hour. This doesn’t sound hard, but I found out: it IS.

Sure, willpower counts. I salute everyone who can navigate their work/life environments without crumbling. Other factors can come into play, though, and for me, they hit like a Mack truck.

First, I’m the adult child of an alcoholic, and food is a huge trigger for me. Second, I suffer from a mild form of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and post-traumatic stress syndrom (PTSD). Why yes, my head is messed up, pleased to meet you! Fortunately, it is not necessary for me to be on perscription drugs to live my life, and I am not addicted to alcohol or any other substance. I’ve got a leg up, and believe me, I’m thankful.

I’ll spare you the long, drawn out story about the Year of Breaking Apart and get to the nitty gritty: I’m in therapy, I’m doing good, and I’m starting back on the SLD program again. Today was my third day and I’m keeping to the schedule. That was where I fell apart before, as my own issues led me to constantly undermining myself.

I’ll be going into more detail about that, but mainly I wanted to say: it is OKAY to start over. Life happens, whatever the issues might be. I feel foolish “failing” at something so simple as SLD, but I think that not going back to what I know works just because I’m embarassed would be a bigger failure.

More tomorrow. <3

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