by roundcoconut » Tue Nov 22, 2016 9:05 pm
For what it's worth, it's been my experience that making something your new normal, requires a few months of very focused effort. I go on the assumption that it takes about three months of continually adjusting, continually reinforcing, & continually resetting your mindset.
Our old mindsets come back too reliably and too predictably, for us to think that three weeks of effort will do the trick. I don't think that gives the human brain a fair shot at this.
And of course I don't mean this as discouraging anyone, but actually the opposite -- I mean to encourage anyone who wants to do so, to set themselves up for success, by allocating much time and effort, over the course of three months or so.
For someone who has been acting from a place of using food in ways that you no longer wish to use food; and thinking about food in ways that you no longer wish to think about food; and being limited by beliefs that you no longer wish to be limited by -- please understand that you've been practicing the dysfunctional uses, thoughts and behaviors for 15 years or more. So it really doesn't seem excessive to give your new patterns an hour (or more) of attention each day, until your new patterns are firmly, firmly rooted. Watch videos. Come to the boards. Go to the gym. Prep your carrots and potatoes. Do stuff that deepens the patterns you want to entrench.
I am reminded of how alcoholics achieve sobriety, which is that they often do the 30-meetings-in-30-days approach. They attend a whole frigging AA meeting, every single day for a month, to give themselves the best possible chance of washing their brain clean of rationalizations, self-pity and thinking alcohol is their friend.
And I think it is true as well, that alcoholics are often told by their sponsor, "Your ONLY JOB for today, is to think in sober ways, believe in sober ways, and behave in sober ways. You don't have to take a shower. You don't have to do the dishes. You just have to DO sobriety."
And many people succeed at attaining years of sobriety, by ATTENDING to their sobriety. Attending heavily to at at first, and then attending moderately to it much later. But understanding that they must attend to their sobriety in order to GET it and to KEEP it.
This is how it plays out in my personal experience as well. I am happy to elaborate, but you probably get my point. Hopefully this can be of help -- if not now, then later -- if not you, then someone else.
Hope you attain your personal food sobriety, and are as happy with your way of eating, as I and others here are already! We WANT this for you, and will help in any ways we can.