I got sick of looking at myself and decided to get serious about doing something about my weight, so I joined Noom. Because I am pre-diabetic, it was even covered by my insurance. Well, it’s been a week, and it wasn’t exactly easy, but it feels doable. I have even lost 5.5 pounds. I know it’s not healthy to continue losing at that pace, but it was nice to get a jump start. I actually really like the way it has me logging my food and exercise. The interface is simple and inputting things is easy. So far, so good.
I really needed a win in this department. My health, in general, is good. My body does everything I ask it to without complaint. But I hate the way I look. This feels like the one area of my life that is out of control.
The main thing Noom is doing for me is making me more mindful of my eating habits. Nothing is off limits, but I need to be aware of the source of my categories and make better choices. I resisted calorie counting and food logging for a long time, but this was the component I needed. I was exercising a lot, but eating whatever, while making some efforts at portion control. I was eating a lot of crap for no good reason, and not even noticing how much I was eating.
I have discovered that I am a combination storm/fog eater. Mostly I eat without noticing it, and sometimes (many times) I binge a lot all at once. I think one of my big eating triggers is boredom. While I watch TV, I tend to snack a lot. I understand why now. I am feeling understimulated in those moments and junk food provides a rush of dopamine. But this is not healthy, and has led me to a bad place, where I hate my body.
So, Noom is making me more mindful of my eating. This can only be a good thing. I have been steadily increasing my level of mindfulness in all areas since I started meditating a year and a half ago. Understanding what is going on in my head, and realizing that there is a ‘me’ that stands apart from my thoughts has been revelatory.
I used to feel like I was my thoughts, and since I really couldn’t exert much control over my thoughts, I couldn’t exert much control over myself. Mindfulness, along with therapy, has allowed me to unpack the cycles of disordered thinking I tend to get lost in. It has given me a self-concept of someone who is capable of wrangling the somewhat random patterns of my cognition and setting them in some semblance of order.
I needed this in my life. It’s helped me accomplish so much over the last couple of years. It guided me out of a pretty serious depression, and helped me bring order to my fractured mind.
I wish I had learned about these strategies years ago. They might have saved me from a great deal of misery. But I know them now, and use them now, and that’s all I can ask of myself.