Strategies I used to employ to stay thin

I'm in the process of writing a mini 'eBook' to offer on my site (for free, that is!), and am about half way through at the moment. However, I just thought I'd share a little part of it to get you all excited about its launch (hehe).

It seems hard to recall all the effort I put into controlling my weight (or trying to) in my dieting days, and I wrote down a list that soon brought it all back. This is what I write about, but I'd love to know if you have any of your own you can add, or whether any of my old tactics sound familiar to you:

These are some of the strategies I employed to stay thin, not every one of them all of the time, but usually a combination of a few sometimes:

*Wrote out my meals for the day and totalled how much fat they contained (then inevitability went ‘over’ and ended up in ‘debt’)

*Avoided some supermarket aisles because I was frightened I’d buy ‘fattening’ foods

*Checked every food item I bought for calorie or fat content

*Starved myself all day if I knew I was going for a meal that night

*Spent a fortune on tasteless ‘diet foods’ that I didn’t even enjoy

*Hovered like a hawk over my partner’s cooking to make sure he wasn’t using any ‘impermissible’ ingredients

*Refused white tea or coffee if the milk wasn’t skimmed, even though I hated it black

*Watched with glee if another woman ate something ‘fattening’ while I resisted the urge (what was that about?)

*‘Bulked up’ on salad and other low-fat, low-calorie, low-taste food rather than eat smaller amounts of things I enjoyed

*Pretend I was trying to be ‘healthy’ when really I was trying to be thin

Watch this space for the appearance of my eBook!

Comments

[Sarah]

Hey hun,

My weapon of choice over the last few years was Intermittent fasting (I believe that this is what helped lead to my ED)

24 on 24 off
1 meal a day
20 and 4 (20 hours fasting and a 4 hour 'window' to eat within)
Fasting every other day.
(Also see warrior diet)

Before these I also included
- portion sizes (see body for life!!)
- ABCDEF diet
- becoming vegetarian... (I joined VIVA to make sure I stuck with it)
- then becoming vegan (I joined Vegan Runner's to make sure I stuck with this one too?! - oh yeah, that was when I did trained for a half marathon to lose weight - and ended up gaining)
- skinny bitch diet
- paleo diet (the complete opposite of a veggi diet!!)
- juice fasts
- fruitarian diet (do not ask how long that one lasted!!!!)

Can't wait for the e-book. Any more ideas needed give me a shout ;-)

Sarah xx

[Andrea Wren]

Wow Sarah, there is a lot of pretty hard-going work you put in there, especially becoming vegan in an attempt to lose weight!

Thanks for sharing - I think you are making amazing progress in your recovery.