Ok, so I’ve pretty much had the worst day as I’ve mentioned in the check in so I wanted to write something positive today for myself but also this is something I’ve been wanting to share.

Last week, my husband bought me a box of chocolates as part of a gift. Ok, so that’s sweet but not particularly exciting. The exciting part is, its the first food gift where I haven’t felt anything negative.

I don’t feel ‘kind of annoyed’ at having extra ‘treat food’ around.

I don’t feel that I should try to strictly limit them to one per day.

I don’t feel that I should eat them quickly so they are out of the house and I can ‘get back on track’.

I don’t feel that I should take them to work so they don’t tempt me in the house.

I don’t feel worried about losing control and eating the whole thing.

I don’t feel like having them is going to ruin my progress.

I don’t feel like there’s no point working out if I’m just going to eat chocolate. Or that I should do more to make up for the chocolate.

I just feel like I have a delicious box of chocolates that I have unconditional permission to eat. So far, I’ve had them for a week. Some days I’ve had none, some days I’ve had one, the most I’ve had in a day is three. It’s amazing how much unconditional permission has changed what I used to perceive as cravings for specific foods. It’s been such hard work but it turns out restriction (even moderate restriction) was the problem all along.

I guess I’m just reflecting on how far I’ve come from being the person who would have felt all of those things above and behaved in all of those ways to someone who can be entirely at peace with having any type of food in the house. It may not seem like an achievement to some but it’s a massive victory for me 🎉