(23) Choosing To Change

In the comments after post (22) Jenny said this: If you could see me now. Zachary and my achievement day girls say I look pregnant. I do and I just continue to eat crappy and not exercise. For someone who seems to have had it together I just fail in this department (and my house is in utter chaos which I think is closely linked to all of this). I know I need to start but am having a very hard time starting.

Feeling overwhelmed and like you've been tossed into the water without knowing how to swim is very common when you start 0-5 eating. It still happens to me sometimes and I've been doing this for years now.
You may read this blog and think it sounds like a good idea but 0-5 will not work for you unless and until you choose to make it work. You wont be able to change the way you eat until you really want the change to happen. Maybe you're in a place where you psychologically need the binges just to cope with your life?
You can see from my pictures that I gained some serious weight with my 3rd pregnancy. At that time in my life I was dealing with some personal challenges that had a huge emotional impact on me. I felt that I didn't physically have the strength to face my emotions head on. The only way I could deal with my life was to hide from it by burying my emotions under food. Anything else just felt too painful. It took the whole pregnancy and four months afterward to finally get fed up with overeating. I became so sick and tired of stuffing myself every single time I ate, not fitting into any of my clothes, feeling bad about myself and my appearance, and being tired all the time from carrying the extra weight...
I had to make the choice to face my emotions, feel them and then let them go.
If you have a really busy life, like Jenny, 0-5 wont work for you until you make a place for it in your life. You have to be ready and willing to make the choice to change. You may feel like you need the binges to cope with your life, like I did for a time. Every day, every meal you can work toward trying for 0-5...if it doesn't happen, don't beat yourself up about it. Just tell yourself "It's okay, I must have needed this binge". Think about why you needed it. Is there anything you can do right now to change the circumstances that caused the need to binge or to change the way you feel about those circumstances? If it's possible, let yourself feel the emotions/feelings that you were trying to hide from and then let them go... If you just can't right now, it's okay, try again with your next meal. The key is learning to feel and deal with your overwhelming feelings and emotions without the crutch of a binge.
The decision to live 0-5 isn't made one time only and then everything is fine forever. You will always have to choose to wait until you're hungry to eat and to stop at a 5. It will eventually get easier but it will always be a choice you have to make.