Beth, that’s interesting, as I am not nearly as productive around the house (I’m a stay at home wife & mom) as I was before I became NT.  It used to be while dieting, I could get a lot accomplished in the morning, because I didn’t eat very much, and I ate basically the same food every day at each meal, so it didn’t require much thinking, and I had the cooking/prep procedure down pat.  Plus, I liked putting off eating in order to get stuff done.  I’d just medicate with Diet Mountain Dew until my next scheduled meal time. Now I’m only fooling myself if I think I can get a lot of tasks done every morning, or every day!  What I have to do now is eat when I first get up, read the newspaper and maybe throw in some laundry, (then 3-4 mornings I go to the Y) get bathed, do hair, & get dressed….. then eat again!  Then maybe I can get a task accomplished before EATING ONCE AGAIN, then I have the afternoon when I can really get into any work that requires several hours of time, or shopping & running errands.  Then comes another meal, usually smaller and simpler, then I have a few evening hours.  I’m glad I’m taking care of my body, but that leaves less time for anything else I’d like to do during the day. 

I’m having a big Easter dinner here tomorrow, and I knew to start planning way in advance because it takes so much more time than it used to, since I HAVE to eat now!

I have been experiencing the same problem recently, after 1.5 months, I have diet boredom symptoms already!  What a different concept from obsessing about eating!  Its nice to experience other feelings during the day besides planning what I am going to eat.  Also, I ate a salad last night, because it really sounded good!  Not because I had 200 calories allotted for dinner and that was all I could think to eat…what a change :)

The changes truly are strange.  And Swan, I’m so glad to hear your story about eating and getting things done, because I’ve discovered the same thing!  I used to be more of a “Type A” personality - go go go! - but since becoming a stay-at-home mom and learning to eat, my pace has slowed waaaaaaaay down.  I no longer list all my accomplishments each day, but I no longer list what I ate, either.  Life is peaceful, above all, and that is sweet.

Yes…boredom.  That’s what it is Amanda.  Maybe that’s all it is…food is just becoming food and not comfort.

Skip talks about this in the Naturally Thin class tapes I have from my local library.  She makes her students make a list of comforting activities that don’t have anything to do with food and tells some funny stories about people who tried to go back to food for comfort and it just wouldn’t work. 

:)

I am having a hard time getting things done as well.  I’m actually a little more productive at work lately, but at home, once I get through that door at night, I am DONE.  My house is not a disaster, but I"m not motivated to do anything I had planned to do (like vacuum or dust) when I left home in the morning.

Why is this?  I mean, I was never very motivated to dust to be honest.  I don’t like housework.  I like things to be tidy, and I’ve trained myself (slowly and sometimes sporadically) to be pretty tidy.  But sometimes I get home and just COLLAPSE.  And leave the dishes in the sink for two days at a time. 

Any thoughts?

You are expending a tremendous amount of emotional and intellectual energy learning this new way of eating, for one.  You might not be eating enough early in the day to provide your energy needs.  You might need to drink more water.  Housekeeping can be hard to love.  All these are possibilities.

(check out http://www.flylady.net for help learning to love housework)

Mostly I think the paradigm shift is winding you.  Big, huge changes are taking place in how you view yourself and how your body operates, and this can be exhausting.  Just do the best you can every day, get enough sleep and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  What needs to get done, will get done and the world will continue to turn even if your dishes are dirty.

: )

Wow - I’m having the completely the opposite experience - I thought I was the only one seeing changes!  Since I’m no longer eating when I’m not hungry, my most significant procrastination tool is gone.  I have no excuse not to do the laundry, the gardening, the cleaning.  Not only is my house clean, my laundry done, my garden coming up, but my taxes were done early, my files and bookshelves are sorted, and I have a freezer full of homemade power bars and barley soup.  I drop into bed at night completely wiped out because I can’t figure out when to stop - turns out eating was my ONLY procrastination tool.  I think I’m going to the library for one of those “stop procrastination now” books, and try to pick up some tips from the “before” chapters :-)

I don’t know about loving housework, (gotta check that flylady site!) but I listen to books on tape, copied or downloaded into my cheapie mp3 player. 

By the way - is there any way to get Skip’s tapes?  My library doesn’t have them.

Matty, I bet if you go clean Beth’s house she’ll let you borrow the tapes…

It’s a deal Matty.  I’m in Wisconsin.  When are you coming? :)

Durn it…I wish I knew (and had the equipment) to convert the tapes to an mp3 format.  Does anyone know how to do this in a non hi-tech manner?  I’d be so happy to share.  They’re so good.  I mean, a lot of it is the same info from the book, but she also has a lot of stories that are just plain helpful.  They’re from sometime in the ‘90’s.  I am a pretty auditory learner, so listening really helps me.  It’s hard to listen and do housework though, because the only tape player I have is this hand held jobby that you have to have headphones for, and it’s constantly coming unhooked from my jean’s pocket and falling on the floor. Ack! 

I also visit the Flylady site.  That’s what I’m talking about…I can’t even get myself to do 15 minutes after work!!  Maybe I should set my timer for 2 minutes and see if I can motivate myself to do that.  I’m sure Marla would approve.

I could do Wisconsin!  I’m in NJ, pretty close to the airport :-)

The only way I know of to convert tapes to mp3 is to play them close to a microphone and record on a laptop or computer.  Then you can make a cd or email the files to people.  I know there are cassette players that have electronic feeds so the sound goes straight from the player to the computer without hitting the air, maybe your player is one of those?  As for it falling on the ground - why is it clipped to your jeans in the first place?  What do you think bras are for?

My mp3 player cost $12 on ebay (reconditioned muvo tx), it’s about the size of a cigarette lighter - fits into my bra just fine.  I get the books on download or cd from my local library, they’ve got a great selection and the price is right :-)

Actually, all the cleaning sounds great, but to be honest it’s kinda manic and scary, and I’m not the manic type.  I’m hoping “this too shall pass”.

Hee…I had not thought of my bra.  It’s this sort of 4X5X3 inch box though…so it might be sort of awkward hooked to my bra.

I usually do listen to books on CD as I tool about town.  I also have a nano which friends gave me for my birthday (lovely friends!).  So I do the podcast thing and whatnot.  We need an NT podcast.  That would be helpful!

I’ll try the tape player to computer thing when I get back to Wisconsin.  I’ll have to ask Jean if it is okay to make the mp3’s available to all.  Not sure about the copyright thing.  I’m not sure how the quality will be either, but it’s worth a go.

Matty…fancy a trip to California?!  Wash my windows and I’ll take you to the beach!

Beth I’m so with you on the energy issue.  Starving turned me into a sloth toad.  I was a real poster-child for the adaptive decrease in “movement motivation”.  I relied on short bursts of energy I got from the morning starving high.  But of course used them to compulsively exercise NOT clean the house, lol.  When I first started NT the bursts of euphoric energy left!  I was eating SO MUCH food, sleeping/lying around more and not able to continue those morning workouts!  Scary times.  But I’m finally seeing big improvement energy-wise.  Definitely hoping for more too.  I try to remember that in Jean’s timeline for recovery “increased desire for physical activity” comes late in the process, much later than normalization of eating behaviors.  That helped me. 

On the topic of energy, I have a question for the NTs out there:  What’s the position on caffeine?  It suppresses appetite…does that mean we shouldn’t be having any?  I like a small cup of coffee in the morning.  Does that interfere with body signals? Or is it ok, as long as I’m not slugging down pots of the stuff and cases of diet coke?

“Sloth toad.”  Funny.

I’m not the one to ask about caffeine.  I drink a couple of Diet Dr Peppers and several glasses of iced tea a day (and some water).  Caffeine is my friend…

Caffeine is not my friend.  I’ve been on jags before where I’ve drank coffee and liked it, then I’d have an off day when I’d go without it and I’d get a terrible caffeine withdrawal headache.  It wasn’t worth it to be so rigid in having it every day in order to stave off withdrawal headaches, so I drink decaf coffee now and can really take it or leave it.  Maybe Jean could answer this one.  My book is not handy at the moment, is it listed in the real foods list in the book? If so, I would treat it as you would anything else—so long as your body is asking for it.  Just honor your body’s food desires with the best quality you can give it.

Hi Everybody,

I am so sorry but I have not been getting any notices about your wonderful posts.  We are correcting that but I am sorry I didn’t get a chance to chime in.  I LOVE reading your conversations!  Great questions and excellent answers.

My daughter Genevieve and I often complain that we have to eat again.  Not that we don’t appreciate the fact that we have plenty of food. It’s just that it interferes with life sometimes and it is boring!

Back on the wire,
Jean