It Are Mai Birfday June 15, 2010

It is my birthday.
And, yes, I’ll stop the LOLcat speak.

Like every other birthday, I had grand plans and goals that by this day, I’d be X. I’d have done Y. And Z would be my next goal on the horizon. And yet here we are, and I’m not even past A. Sigh.

I did not go back to Weight Watches on June 5. Or on June 12. But I think that my butt will be in the seat on June 19. It was working for me until I stopped working it. And how and why I stopped working it befuddles me. I got into a car accident, and I didn’t blow it. And, yet, somehow, I just…stopped. Like a fire just goes out. Or, rather, my Inner Fat Girl throws herself on it and smothers it out. Bitch.

I’m tired of setting goals that are never achieved.
I’m tired of saying Now! Is! The! Time! only to mea culpa a day/week/month/year/decade later.
I’m tired of being fat and in pain, yet seemingly incapable of making the choices that could free me from that suffering.

This birthday has been eye-opening in a lot of ways. It occurs to me how much I’ve just given up. I didn’t make a big deal out of the day. I put absolutely no effort into planning or thinking or dreaming of how I might want to spend the one day out of the year that’s supposed to be all-about-me. Couldn’t even think about or suggest any wish-list items to my gift-challenged husband (bless his soul, I don’t give him much to go on and yet he tries). I completely abdicated this day like I’ve done my life.

I wanted to come here and trumpet that today is my birthday and I started! it! by! going! to! the! gym! Only to wake up at 4am this morning with the worst cramp in my hip (I can’t even explain what that means, just know that my hitch is not gettin’ along) and I could barely get out of bed, let alone go swimming or get on an elliptical. Which, to be honest, would not have been what I’d consider a fun thing to do on my birthday, but I wanted to be “that girl” – which, in this case, is the girl who goes to the gym on her birthday.

And therein is my problem, methinks. The “that girl” I want to be seems so freakin’ different from the me that I am, I don’t know how to reconcile the two. Do I *really* want to be “that girl?” Because, don’t you think if I *did*, “this girl” would try harder? Or do I really just want to be the “this girl” that I am, and just get permission (from God knows who) to just be that way?

Like, “that girl” really wants to get outside, and build raised garden beds and grow vegetables and enjoy the sunshine and outdoors. But “this girl” is paler than a vampire, can’t be on her knees, hates the heat, is not a fan of getting dirty, and is an all-you-can-eat buffet for skeeters. “This girl” hardly wants to go outside to get the mail half the time. See my dilemma? I don’t want to be “this girl.” I want to be “that girl.” But I wonder, if I ever got to be “that girl” – she would be me, and would I then want something different, too?

Getting too deep for 10:40 in the morning.

Last year, I did an every-day-in-May exercise challenge, and I was rocking it. I weighed about 15 pounds less (I’m guessing because – anyone? anyone? – yes, I’ve not been on a scale in a while).

Two years ago, my husband and I traipsed through Zion National Park. I weighed 345 pounds. t wasn’t a cake-walk, but I managed.

I go to Hawaii in just a few months. I am in serious danger of going there fatter than I was the last time. I’m not even confident I’ll be able to walk any length of time on a beach, on a trail, etc.

I’m 41 today. Why do I feel that the 4 should really be a 9?

I want a better life.
I want better health.
I deserve a better life.
I deserve better health.

I deserve to be a me that I can stand behind.

Hi. May 31, 2010

It’s pretty sad when you’ve been away from your blog for so long that it doesn’t even show up in your browser history. That’s a long absence.

When I get into trouble – when things get hard – I disappear. And, well, I got into trouble and things got hard, and under my rock I climbed. It’s second-nature behavior for me. I’m good at recognizing it but haven’t yet succeeded in rethinking/reframing/rebehaving in a way that helps me through the challenges vs. just running away from them.

I’m reading a really great book by Geneen Roth called Women, Food and God. Because I’m a woman, obsessed with food, and utterly conflicted about God. So it’s a good fit, and a real eye opener.

When I read these “kinds” of books (and let’s face it, I’ve read a LOT of these kinds of books), I tend to underline passages that resonate with me. I’ve probably underlined 1/4th of it thus far and I’d *love* to post them but they’re so many I’m sure I’d get sued for copyright infringement.

What’s grabbing me the most, the thing that makes me tear up when I read it, is just how much I’ve used food as an escape. I have finally figured out that I’m not one of those people who says they “just love food.” I don’t love the food. Most of the time, I loathe the food (as I’m shoveling it down my gullet). What I love is what the food does for me. I love how the food makes me feel for the nanosecond I am eating it…before it’s gone.

There’s a line in the book where she writes (and I’m paraphrasing) that basically all the evils of the world would vanish when she’d eat a Hostess Sno-ball. In that moment, she became all that she didn’t believe she was at the moment. Until it was gone, of course.

When I eat, I am normal. And whole. And loved. When I eat, it’s a reward for putting in the extra hours (although, if I didn’t put in the extra hours, I wouldn’t be eating as poorly as I do). When I eat, it’s because I’m “treating” myself (even though 90% of time, the food is kinda crappy). When I eat, I am not the me I otherwise know myself to be (even if that “me” isn’t an accurate perception).

—-

So, yeah, there’s that.

I got into trouble not long after the “I think it’s gonna stick” post. Because, yeah, that was a smart idea – crowing to the universe about my newfound strength and resolve. Sigh. I found my eating habits getting a bit lax. I found my work life getting crazier. I found a seriously fantastic new way to distract myself from myself, and I fell off my wagon. HARD. And then I just abandoned everything I had been doing, and using every self-numbing tactic I knew. I found myself up 2 pounds on the home scale, and then skipped my Weight Watchers meeting. At the time I told myself it was okay. At the time I said that it was normal to have a gain after six great weeks. At the time I said no problem, I’ll shake it off and drop 4 pounds the next week.

And I haven’t been back since.
Nor have I gotten on any scale.
And I’m ashamed and embarrassed.

So here I am. Trying to grab hold and pull myself back from the brink. I’ve spent part of the day cleaning. Organizing my closet. Putting order to the chaos around me.

I’ve just thrown out my winter sweaters – my fall back clothes. They are so overworn (because nothing else fits and I hate shopping) that I couldn’t bear the sight of them anymore. Come next winter, I will have to buy new clothes, regardless of my size. I pray they will be smaller.

I’ve thrown out my folder of clippings. I’ve been clipping magazine articles about anything and everything for probably 10 years. Diet trends. Weight loss success stories. Exercise cards. “7 Ways to Feel Fearless!” kind of psychobabble. I’d look at my folder and always say to myself, “one day I’m going to work through that.” I would convince myself that my salvation would be found in the next story or sample menu. And, really, all I’ve ever done with it is schlep it from house to house, fiddle with it occasionally, and put it back wistfully because I wasn’t “ready” yet. Well, I’m never going to be ready. So it’s in the trash. I saved maybe 12 out of what is easily (no exaggeration) 200 pages. One page is a closet I covet (for my “next house”, of course). Another two pages are charts from when I was working with a trainer on free weights about, oh, 7 years ago? I’d like to get back to those numbers. I saved a group of pages from People’s “I Lost Half My Size” series because I look so much like their Before pictures – if they can do it, so can I. And I saved one article of a woman who started losing 150+ pounds after 40. Because 41 is ready to slap me upside the head in 2 weeks.

So, no, I don’t have any clue if *this* is going to stick. But I’d like it to be a tad sticky, at the very least. The fact that I’m posting today instead of deleting my entire blog (something I’ve done before), is a positive step in that direction – as is admitting how I’ve failed yet again.

I haven’t decided if I’ll be at my WW meeting on Saturday. As I think about it, I hear a friend’s voice in my ear asking me, “Why not just go?”

Perhaps.

This is Me. April 11, 2010

Ugh. I can’t believe I’m putting this out to the Interwebs. Oy.

So, if you’ve been with me for a while, you may recall my “traumatized” post about being filmed at a presentation class. And then watching the DVD.

It’s taken me this long to go back to it. And I’m no less horrified. That said, I wanted to capture it and put it out there. It’s important to really understand the scope of this journey – I need to see “me” as others see me. And I figured that you might want to see the Fat Girl I’m trying to exorcise.

This is me…”before” (and yes, I swirlied my face for a bit of privacy)

I’m not naked but I feel like I am. It’s hard. Be kind.

But here is the weirdest part for me. I do not identify with these images. I know these are my pictures but they don’t feel like me. When I was working to capture the screen shot from the video, I became somewhat detached. I tried to catch “her” front view or “that girl’s” side view. Disconnected. I don’t know if that’s good or bad?

Traumatized March 30, 2010

I am beyond traumatized.

By myself.

Today and tomorrow I have to take part in a class about giving presentations. Day 1 was daunting. I’ve never been comfortable in front of a crowd – I don’t even go to big GTGs – or public speaking, so this was a daunting enough exercise in and of itself. But to add insult to injury, we were filmed today. Three times.

Part of my homework tonight is to review the DVD and rate myself. It’s horrible. Horrible. And.I.Don’t.Even.Have.The.Sound.On. I don’t even care how I sound. I cannot bear to look at myself. I don’t think I got more than 30 seconds in to each presentations before I shut the laptop. Literally just slammed it shut and shoved it aside.

I’m bigger than I ever realized and I know I’m big. It’s horrible.

And I even wore something I felt was “flattering.” I wear my weight in so many ways I never realized. The way I walk…the way I carry myself…the compensations I make for my size and how I try to hide it. I waddle. I’ve never seen myself in that way before. Sure I look in the mirror everyday, but I’ve become so oblivious to myself that it doesn’t even resonate anymore. This was such a slap in the face. I want to just crawl in hole and hide.

Maybe someday I’ll look back at this day and see this as an “aha” moment or something like that but I can’t stop crying or feeling like crap. Intellectually I know that I have a really, really, really long way to go. I knew looking at that video would suck. But, damn, seeing that visually represented and understanding that person is *me* and having to confront that hurts way more than I ever thought it would. It makes me sad to see what I’ve done to myself – no one else to blame. Me. I did this. And it sucks to admit that and try to figure out why. Why? What the hell is wrong with me that I did this to myself?

Destination: Paradise Falls (SQUIRREL!) January 10, 2010

We finally saw “Up” last night and I’m having a hard time shaking it. Interesting how some movies make people feel so good and can make other people feel so sad.

It’s a delightfully cute movie in a lot of ways (SQUIRREL!) but, in pure Disney fashion, it really rips your heart right out of your body. I watched it with my usually stoic husband and he had as hard a time as I did, maybe even more so. We both sobbed in parts – it was so hard on me to see how deeply the movie affected him. I could not hold him long enough or tight enough to suit me.

My husband and I share a lot of dreams, and just like the movie, it seems like “life” always gets in the way. In our case “life” also means my infirmities. I feel like my weight and knee and tendon issues really hold us back from living a more adventurous life, or even a more “us” life. It crushed us both to watch Mr. Fredrickson lose his beloved Ellie. And I wondered if part of the reason my husband was so sad was the very real possibility that, due to my morbid obesity, I will pass on before he does, leaving him alone in a house that was built for both our dreams. It guts me to think that way.

I haven’t talked about weight loss much recently because I’ve really come to understand and believe that excess weight is a symptom of unhappiness rather than the other way around. Maybe it’s a chicken-and-egg thing where one would seem to naturally beget the other. If I were happier, I would be healthier. But if I were healthier, wouldn’t I also be happier? They must go hand-in-hand, right? Does one come before the other?

There are short-term dreams and ideals that I obviously want to lose weight and be healthier for – Hawaii, of course, is what first comes to mind. Not going through another “fat” summer, being more energetic in winter, etc. Feeling pretty and sexy and “normal.”

But, really, at the end of the day, it’s the long-term benefit I should really be focused on. To live as long and healthy and active life as I can with my beloved. To fulfill those pie-in-the-sky dreams we share. To float away in our house to Paradise Falls. TOGETHER. This is what I want. This is what I need. This is what I must do.

Non-Scale Victories #1 October 28, 2009

Non-Scale Victories (or NSVs) are the little things in life – aside from what shows up on teh scale – that prove you’re making progress. Changes in behavior, smaller measurements, doing things you didn’t think you do, etc.

Hopefully this post will be one of a series of NSV celebrations!

So this is Day 10 of healthy eating and I have to say that I am pretty stoked at some of the little things I’ve noticed and what I’m catching myself doing…

1. – I’ve drastically reduced my diet soda and alcohol consumption and have increased my daily water intake.

2. – I’ve noticed significantly less pain in my knee and my heel. Like, seriously. I’m so excited about this – it gives me hope.

3. – I am trying new things.

4. – I am being more mindful of what I eat, when and why I’m eating it, and how it makes me feel after.

5. – I am consciously seeking out additional fruits and veggies.

6. – I feel like I’m ready to try the pool again and I’m actually looking forward to seeing how that goes.

7. – I’ve been more consistent in my blogging/journaling/processing my feelings about being fat and changing my life.

4 Days In: Cautiously Optimistic October 22, 2009

For the first time in a very long time, I’m having a good food week. And for the first time in a very long time, I’m proud of myself. I’ve had 4 consecutive good food days.

I use Calorie King to track my calories and nutrients. My calorie goal is set at 1800. Per my BMR, this would be about a 500 calorie daily deficit – or enough to lose 1 pound a week just by diet. In the four days, I’ve averaged about 1520 calories, or a 730 calorie daily deficit.

(Oh…brief tangent…I’ve also decided that I’m not getting on a scale until November 1. I wanted to take some time to get into a groove and lose weight before I face that thing. Back to food…)

I won’t lie, I’ve been hungrier for sure. But I guess it’s a good kind of hungry. Not *SO* bad where I’m just giving up and eating what I can find, but enough so that it’s in my thoughts. Which is annoying. I hate the food obsession. I want to just be.

I’ve learned a couple of foodie things, though:

• honeycrisp apples are delicious
• one tablespoon of peanut butter is really a decent amount of peanut butter
• ditto for grated parmesan
• a slice of Ezekiel bread? kills hunger pains. probably because it takes me a month to chew it

Tomorrow will be an interesting food day. We make pizza every Friday night. And we drink wine. And it’s awesome. I’ll need to rejigger my morning and afternoon to accommodate for the awesomeness.

I’m a little concerned about the wine. I’ve only had 5 ounces of wine in the past four days. That’s great for me. And I’ll tell you – saying that out loud is a little embarrassing. We’re drinkers. I drink more than I should. I’m not going so far to say that I have a problem with alcohol, but I do have a problem with indulgence. The “why can’t I have X, I deserve it” philosophy is pretty much my motto when it comes to this kind of stuff. I thought long and hard about having a glass of wine tonight – because I had the calories available. Which is another common trap for me. I managed to talk myself into not having any because NOT having those extra calories just gets me closer to my goal.

My inner Fit Girl won that battle – shockingly. I think only because Fat Girl knows the weekend’s coming up. Oy.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. October 12, 2009

…until my 5th anniversary Hawaii trip.
Give or take.

It’s here. The one-year mark. How many one-year marks have I noted on my calendar in anticipation of some event where I was “destined” to be thin, er, I mean “healthy”? Um, a lot. Birthdays, graduations, new years, a wedding, a honeymoon, random anniversaries. Sigh.

And here I am…again. Four years ago I sat in a pool with my brand new husband and brand new wedding ring looking out at an ocean in front of me. I think I was about 315 pounds, give or take (I don’t think I weighed that week to avoid the resultant meltdown that would have occurred). I looked cute in the top-half of my suit (and my worse half was submerged underwater) so it was a good moment. But I was still wistful about not being a thin girl in Hawaii. Not wanting to go on steep hikes or riding in a helicopter (I pretended I was nervous about safety vs. admitting that I well beyond the 250-lb limit). I promised…I vowed…that we’d come back on our 5th wedding anniversary, and I would be that thin, fit and healthy girl.

And here I am. At the one year mark. At 350 pounds-ish (could be more, could be less, back to scale avoidance again). Knowing that if I don’t start doing this, I’ll be *lucky* if I go back to Hawaii at that same 315 pounds. And that I will still be that girl who can’t do the steep hikes (and, frankly, I don’t know if I could at 250 pounds. Or 200. Or even 150 given my knee situation), and who can’t put her fat ass on a helicopter. Or a zip line. Or something equally stupid, er, I mean thrilling.

And I’m back to doing the mental math. You know how that goes, right? “Okay, 52 weeks!! If I lose 1 pound a week, that would put me just under 300 pounds. Will I look cute at 299? Or, shall I say, cute enough? If I lose 1.25 pounds a week, that puts me at 285. I don’t remember my 285-days. If lose 1.5 pounds a week, that’s 272 pounds. I know what I’ve looked like at this weight, and it’s kinda cute. My face will be at goal if not my thighs. If I lose 1.75 pounds a week, that’s 91 pounds. That’s almost a hundred! That puts me at 259, just 7 pounds above the lowest adult weight I can remember (post-18 when martian death flu got me to 199 and the angels rejoiced). Of course, the holy grail here would be the magic 2-pounds-a-week that would get me to 246. Which would be awesome. I’d still be obese, mind you. Perhaps even still morbidly so. And I’d still be nearly 100 pounds over what the charts say I should weigh. And I’d still be at a weight where some people start (and are disgusted with themselves for being – I always love that). But 246 is helicopter weight – and even if I don’t go on the death chopper it will be because I *chose* not to, not that I *couldn’t* because I was too fat.”

Exhausting, right? Now I can look at that paragraph and shake my head and find it as ridiculous as you probably do. Yet another plan. Yet another self-improvement kick. Yet another let’s-plot-out-how-life-could-be-if-I-could-just-get-off-my-fat-ass kind of thing. Could I average -2 each week for a year? Entirely possible yes. Entirely possible no. The fact is, I won’t know what is possible until I really start doing and stop procrastinating.

It’s not lost on me that I had WAY more time to do this. I mean, shit, I had 4 years from then ‘til now. And dare I say I’ve had a few freakin’ DECADES to do this for myself before. And yet…didn’t. Didn’t do it for my 16th or 18th or 21st or 25th or 30th or 35th or 40th birthdays. Didn’t do it for graduation. Didn’t do it for, oh, 20+ new years, or my beautiful wedding, or my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th wedding anniversaries. Didn’t do it when my wedding ring got too tight to wear. Didn’t do it when my gallbladder was tricking me into thinking I was having a heart attack. Didn’t do it when I got an arthritis diagnosis.

I have exactly one year to make this work. To NOT sit in a pool and be wistful because I didn’t do something. To NOT have to wonder what IS worthy enough for me to do this for myself.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.

The clock is ticking.

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words… September 14, 2009

Then it’s awfully quiet over here.

I was futzing around on Facebook this weekend, looking at some of my friends’ pictures. There’s millions of them. Laughing and joking and cuddling and kissing and documenting their lives and adventures. It then occurred to me that I hardly have any with my husband after our wedding. Read: after I started putting the weight back on.

Going through our pics, we had a lot leading up to the wedding. I’d lost enough weight (not nearly enough, though) to be comfortable in front of a camera and we’d take pics all the time. My friends and I took pics. This is before I sort of lost my friends (at least the regular interaction) and before I trained my husband how to zoom in, crop, and review/delete every pic until I was satisfied it wasn’t awful.

And it’s not so much that I hate myself in the pics we’d take today – well, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t enjoy them much – but for some wacky reason I don’t want to know (or be reminded) of how others see me every day. I live in a fantasy world where the people I love don’t “see” me as fat. Or rather, significantly and morbidly obese. They don’t “see” my fat rolls, my multiple chins, or how my cheek flab makes my eyes look squinty when I smile now. But when I see the pics, that’s all *I* see so how can they not?

So…back to Facebook. I posted some pictures of our earlier days. And I love them. I really do. Even the ones I thought I’d hated back then, seem sooo much better than now. I covet that time. I looked and felt younger and happier and healthier. We’ve missed a few years of documented memories because of my vanity – which is ironic, really, “vanity” when you’re obese. It’s like so much stopped when I lost control of my body and my discipline.

I want our years to be filled with adventures and smiles and pictures. Life is too short. Soon we’ll be looking back on our lives and I won’t be able to recall how we’ve spent it. I don’t want that. I want to see where we’ve been, be it romantic or goofy or just as a record of our lives together. And I want to be able to look at those pictures with fondness…not contempt.

Every day I’m given a thousand little signs that TODAY should be the day I get my shit together. And each day I tell myself that TODAY will be the day. And each day I never quite succeed. Every moment I’m given, every choice I have, could help me down this path. Would if I could just take the little opportunities, and gain some traction, every day could be the day that I do this.

Post 2 of 2: I Am An Addict September 8, 2009

I feel like it’s taken me a long time to admit to something that I’ve always known. I am a food addict.

There are likely many reasons that I’m obese and need to lose weight. It’s not just that I love food. It’s that I love food for likely all the wrong reasons. That I *use* food for all the wrong reasons.

Food is my drug.
I am obsessive about food.
I am compulsive about food.
I fantasize and dream about food.
I sneak food.

If I were thin, my behaviors would be laughed off. I’d be called a “foodie.” When I look online at potential vacation destinations – I look at the dining part of the site. When I’m bored and surf the web, I’m looking at recipe sites. I subscribe to cooking magazines (but i rarely cook). When I’m driving to work on Tuesdays, and I remember that it’s free bagel day, I get a little happier.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT! It’s not healthy.

To me, it’s a problem like any other addiction. I hide my behaviors. I wait for my husband to leave the room and I sneak a piece of chocolate – because I don’t want to eat an extra portion in front of him and deal with the judgment (that is 99.9% in my own head and not from his mouth). I lie to him about what I had for lunch. Two hot dogs and fries becomes “a chicken sandwich”. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until it comes out of my mouth – but it’s convincing. I almost believe it myself.

I make plans around lunch dates. That makes them celebratory and gives me greater permission (from whom?) to indulge.

Today is a day off. I found myself yesterday getting a little excited that I was “free” to have whatever I wanted – as if i don’t already – because I would be alone. That is sick and twisted. To try and remedy that, I ate breakfast at home and am now tucked into a “quiet room” at the local library with my netbook, talking out my feelings vs. cruising drive-thrus.

I hate the way food rules my life, and yet comforts me at the same time. I know why I eat it. To soothe. What it is I’m soothing? That I do not know. And don’t think for one moment that these revelations come flippantly. I am acutely aware of how neurotic and pathetic I sound. How easy it would be to poke fun or mock me.

Am I wired differently? Am I fat because of my twisted relationship with food, or is my twisted relationship with food born out of being fat and my fat trying to preserve itself?

My husband uses food as fuel. He couldn’t care less what he eats – he looks on his plate and sees macronutrients not emotions. I’ve often wished I could be hypnotized into this mindset because I’ve not be able to do it on my own.