And buying really bad (thankfully cheap) weight loss advice books. And even binge eating. That behavior had stopped. Or maybe it hadn’t.
Dammit – I KNOW what to do.
It’s about setting and respecting boundaries, not saying “oh what the hell”. It’s about self-respect vs self-medication. About working through the roadblocks, not using them as excuses. It’s about loving myself out of the quagmire of despair and denial I’ve slipped into for the past few years.
Loving myself doesn’t mean choosing to eat in a way that hurts my body. Loving myself doesn’t mean choosing to beat myself up about my food choices. Loving myself doesn’t mean hating my body.
And loving myself means understanding that I work better with a plan. Not a nebulous intuitive eating plan – though that is my ultimate goal. Instead, I have to make a plan for food and a plan for intentional movement. And I have to track my adherence to plan. My plan equals my boundaries.
I’m starting over and the difference this time is that I want each and every change to become my default position. That means baby steps.
Inspired By The Creek 
You are learning to live life without a diet, Learning to eat without a diet. It takes time and practice to learn a new behaviour and not being perfect from the get go is expected when one is learning something new. It may be helpful to frame it this way.
Thanks, Kara. This does help. I think I’ve confused intuitive eating with eating without boundaries or plans. Recognizing that I’m intrinsically a planner has helped me see I need to plan my food. Planning it does not necessarily mean weighing and measuring and getting obsessed with numbers. I need to plan on being physical hungry and being able satisfy that hunger is a healthful way. Thanks for the comment.