for those of us who overate for emotional reasons and fret about the possibility of returning to those habits/strategies in the future:

Eating disorders author Geneen Roth's Appetites is about her own struggles after becoming slim and maintaining that, but realizing she wasn't yet fixed. I found parts of it illuminating. A couple excerpts:

"I knew how to diet. I knew how to binge. I knew how to beat myself up for gaining weight and congratulate myself for losing weight. I didn't know how to be, eat, define myself without hanging on to the raft of dieting."

"...we get thin, not because it feels good to be light, not because we enjoy eating particular foods, but to prevent ourselves from drowning in the...pain of being fat and dumb and unwanted. Then, since being thin does not change the image or make the pain go away, we gain back the weight so that we can pretend that when we lose it again, we will be happy."

Now there's food for thought.

Thanks raz...I found those passages amazingly insightful. I'll have to check out the library to see if I can find that book.

Lisa

Thanks Razzle,
That sounds like some worthwhile reading... will also check if my library has the book.

The "habit" part would especially interest me... as I have a lifetime habit of living off sweets. And even though I've been on maintenance for 4 months... I still have no control over my obsession with sweets! It's always got to be ALL OR NOTHING!! I can't have a little bit of anything if theres more within reach!
The only way I've been able to control this, is to indulge very infrequently.... and when I do, I only bake the amount of treat I can afford to eat or buy the amount of something I can afford to eat that day... NO EXTRA (cuz I will eat all that I have)

I know this doesn't sound like I have my sweets addiction under control, But so far this is the only way I find that I can keep it under control.

Thanks again!
Ellie