Thursday, June 25, 2009

Epiphannnnannies

I wrote this as a hopefully helpful post on another board, but it turned out to be really helpful writing it for ME, so it's a keeper!

"As you know, I've had a pretty bad year as regards my weight loss/fitness JOURNEE. I don't know whether it was a delayed reaction to all that went on last year, or I was just going through a phase, but gradually over a few months from basically March or so till just recently, the wheels have gradually been falling off to the point that lately all I've pretty much been doing besides work is going out of my way to eat really, really crappy food, not tracking calories, hardly ever going to the gym and basically sitting around the house feeling sorry for myself, watching TV with my butt stapled to my (admittedly lovely and comfy) new Ikea chaise couch. This saw me put on somewhere between 7 and 10kg (we'll see what the "somewhere" is on the 1st :$ ). Now, I have no idea how long that could have gone on. To be honest, I was starting to really scare myself. :sad3: I was starting to think I was going to go back up over 160kg and way, way beyond it this time, and there would be no going back at all, ever. (I'm such a positive person, aren't I? *rueful grin* )

Anyway, this is the important bit - there are two significant things I've done lately that's helped me start to really get things back on track. Firstly, I've been seeing a psychologist for a few months now, all paid for by Medicare. You can get up to 18 appointments in a year paid for if you have a demonstrable history of depression/anxiety (as I do). I honestly can't recommend it highly enough. Anyway, I was telling her the other day about how I'd been feeling dreadfully out of control and scared I was on the verge of giving it all up and getting so big I'll end up having to be removed from my house with a forklift, and how I needed some kind of visual reminder, when I'm right in the heat of the binge decision, of what I'm really choosing. Yes, on the surface you are just choosing to eat or not eat a food, but in reality you are choosing much more. If you choose to eat crap or too much, too often, basically you are choosing to make the things that you hate about being fat continue to affect you forever. You are choosing to risk your health and continued mobility. And that's just for starters. So the idea I had was to make something like those old school projects. You know when you used to get big pieces of cardboard and stick pictures and letters, etc, all over them? Well, that's what I've done (it was my idea, but the psychologist suggested it very strongly as homework). One piece of card is bright yellow and it has pics of healthy (not skinny) bodies, appetising healthy food, nice, white teeth (this is to help me break my Diet Coke habit...lol), and then it has pics of some of my future career aspirations that I'd like to explore and also a pic of a couple in lurve (yes, eventually I want that again too, once my poor heart has healed!). It also has bright flower stickers all over it. It's very pretty. :) The other card is black and has a picture of a table full of revolting junk food, a really scary teeth mouth, pics that represent sadness, isolation, etc, and other stuff meaningful to me. Now, when I feel like I want to binge, I have these cards right next to my desk. I am going to look at them and remind myself what I'm REALLY choosing. It should make it a no-brainer.

Wow, this is a novel and a half, and I'm not quite finished. To tie all this in, the other day I went out shopping and had one of those epiphany experiences we do every so often. It's really dumb what caused it, but I'm glad it happened. I was walking near Woolies and a bunch of three very stupid teenage tattooed girls were walking towards me, laughing at the top of their lungs at nothing. One veered away from the other two and headed towards me, butshe wasn't looking where she was going. Anyway, she almost ran into me before she saw me, and I swear to God, she SCREAMED with fright, like she'd just seen the Incredible Hulk or something. Now, in all likelihood she was just screaming because she got a shock, like you would if you nearly ran into a post or something. She may have been screaming because she's just an idiot. But on the day it happened, my confidence was so low and I was so down on myself that I got all paranoid about it and decided she'd done it because I'm so big and fat and frightening and I don't blend in any more like I was beginning to 10kg ago, etc, etc. I almost started to panic on the spot. I wanted to run out of the shops. I went and took a seat in front of Woolies and breathe, breathe, breathed until I got the feeling out of my head. Then a couple of hours later, when I was home again, I thought about what happened and it hit me like a tonne of bricks. A HUGE thing I'm risking by not eating healthily or exercising is my self-confidence and self-esteem. Now I'm not saying it's imposssible to have those when you weigh 160kg but, I've gotta tell you, I find it very hard to believe people who say they are totally happy at that weight are not somehow in denial. There are a lot more fat people around these days, it's true, but if you're really big you still stand out like a sore thumb and for all the wrong reasons. You have to be strong enough to stand up to a mountain of societal and social pressure if you're going to go down that road. And me? I'm not. I admit it. And the other day proves it. Now, I know that before this big stumble occurred, my confidence in myself was really starting to increase. I could go out and walk around shops and I was starting NOT to feel people staring at me and it felt good! And when I'm in control of my food and exercise, I can't explain it but it gives me confidence because I don't feel helpless, hopeless. I feel like I'm in the driver's seat and I have the power to make good choices. Without that extra confidence, I'll never find the courage to go make a new career for myself. I'll never be able to handle dating because you NEED to be confident enough to accept rejection. I'll never make any new friends because I'll always talk myself out of going out."

Oh, I do love a good epiphany! Ciao!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Reach for the stars

Hello again, blog of mine. My, you've been neglected lately. I cannot believe I haven't posted since May 25th - eek! Anyway, it's about time I checked in again.

And what's there to report? Well, sadly, there hasn't been a great deal of good news. Still have been throwing down the junk food like there's no tomorrow a lot of the time. Most of my clothes don't fit me and I'm a bit afraid to get on the scales. *blush* However, there is value in peeling back the layers and seeing what is really happening underneath the surface to make me want to do this, to write off all my hard work over the last few years and put myself back in a seemingly ever-deeper hole of misery from which, one day, I fear I will lose the ability to emergy. So thank God I have Dr B the psychologist, and I saw her again on Tuesday. It was a really useful chat this time. Basically, it's now time to stop talking about the past and focus on what I can do to make my present more enjoyable so I don't think bingeing on crap food is the only thing I can do to make me feel OK.

Number one problem - I hate my job and want to do something different, but don't know quite what. Dr B gave me some useful websites to look up re this, plus I'm going to go to a Gold Coast TAFE careers night thingy which is specifically for workforce newbs or those who are wanting to do something completely different. Right now, the options that really appeal are, of all things, vet nursing (or something else involving working with animals) or music therapy. One is a lot easier to achieve than the other and involves less study, but maybe there's something else I might like to do which hasn't even occurred to me yet. Looking forward to doing something different, anyway. I already feel a bit excited even having made that little a step towards my new future. :)

Number two problem - though I don't bear T any ill will and I don't want to expunge him from my life forever, he STILL has stuff in my and J's flat after 12 months and it really has to go. Now I've given him a deadline by which, if he hasn't organised himself to collect it, it's going into storage that he will be paying for. And the reason I'm able to pay for it is because his uni pay is STILL going into my bank account, as it has been all this semester, meaning I have to see him every fortnight to give it to him. Not any more. Either he gives me a bank account to transfer it into or he doesn't get it at all. There are reasons why he wants to keep our "system", but they are reasons which no longer concern or worry me. They are his problem to sort out and none of my affair. It's hard for me to take stands like this, and yet as soon as I decided I would do it, I started to feel just a little bit of that inner warrior I know is still there start to emerge just a little bit. I felt a tiny bit of my inner strength starting to stir.

Which brings me to my eating/food. *SIGH* There isn't much I haven't tried in the last six months re this, but the result clearly shows none of it has been working - I'm about 10kg heavier than I was most of last year, have burst out of most of my clothes and I do not feel good for it. But because, at the moment, I'm still not quite mentally strong enough to get really tough and stern on myself (because up until now, that's the only way I have been able to keep myself remotely on track), I've compromised. Right now, I have only one goal - not bingeing. Tonight I was out shopping and I bought a card of star stickers, you know, like the ones you put on kids' homework or star charts. The system is pretty simple - every day I get through without going out and buying junk food specifically to binge on in my house, out of sight of everyone, I put a star on my calendar. That way, when the urge is really strong and my brain is telling me all that crap about what terrible things might befall me if I don't give in to the urge, I can look at the calendar, see all those starred days and realise that if I got through those without bingeing, I can get through any day without bingeing. Nothing will happen to me except that I will break this extremely unhelpful habit I've developed lately. I'm not even trying to calorie count or anything serious - I'm just not bingeing. And seeing as some of my binges lately would have been easily 1,000 cals or more at a time, I figure it's got to be a good improvement to start with.

Anyway, that is all I have to say for now, but I'm feeling a little bit optimistic at the moment, something I haven't felt for a little while. I am going to try hard to make it stick!

Till next time... xx

Monday, May 25, 2009

There is nothing to fear but fear itself

So said Franklin D. Roosevelt once, and truer words were never spoken. I don't know how many times I've seen it demonstrated in my own life alone. The variation that rang truest for me today was that things so often never turn out as badly as we fear they might. Case in point - today I went to the gym. Might sound unremarkable for a reformed gym rat like me, right? Wrong! I haven't been near the place in five weeks, I don't think! Admittedly, yes, I have had an injury which is now healed, but that wasn't what was keeping me away. No, I wasn't going because of fear. I feared the reactions of others because I've gone from being a star pupil to a "failure" (in my own eyes, anyway). I feared people thinking stuff like, "Hmm, she's stacked on a bit of weight. She can't keep up with us any more." Now, two problems with that. Well, three, actually. A) One thing I know for sure is I have no more control over what others think than I have over the weather! B) I've never been very good at predicting what others will think or do anyway, because I always assume they'll be as hard on me as I am on myself. And C) Anybody who would judge me harshly for being human and falling down in my quest, well, that's not a person to whom I want to give any time or credence. So why on earth did I let that fear stop me? And then there was the other fear - that my fitness has gone backwards so far that I will actually be right back to square one, when I first started with HBC and started going to Jeff's gym. Now, this is also really ridiculous because for a start, I weighed at least 20kg more than I do now, so I couldn't possibly BE right back to square one. And the other thing is, as I now realise, I must have retained SOME fitness because today's class was tough, but I think I coped really well for the most part. So why the hell did I waste all that time worrying about it? *slaps forehead*

I'm really pleased this happened today and I've been able to sit right down and blog about it, because this is another milestone moment for me which is going to help me start to turn around these negative thought processes that keep me imprisoned in my messy spaghetti mind. I know if somebody else had come to me with this problem, I would have advised them to do exactly what I myself DIDN'T do, i.e. realise that all is not lost, people won't judge you, and if they do they're not worth bothering about, that you might surprise yourself how well you do, etc etc. I think in future I'm going to have to imagine my problems are somebody else's and advise myself accordingly!

Till next time.... xoxox

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Alive and kicking...just!

Wow, it's been a while again, hasn't it? I guess I haven't had much to say because Life 2.0 has been morphing back into Life 1.0 lately and that's not a good thing. Today is Monday and it's the start of a new week. This weekend just gone has seen some atrocious eating, even by my recent standards. :( I've been feeling terrible, huge, like a big blob. I haven't put on THAT much weight (by my admittedly low standards, anyway), but because what I've put on means most of my clothes don't fit me, it's terribly demoralising. I'm certainly not proud of where I'm at at the moment, that's for sure, and yet at times I've felt powerless to change things. I know I'm not powerless, that I have the right stuff within me to beat these demons. I just have to make the choice to stop being a victim of my own bad programming and fight harder. Because that's what it is - a fight. I wish it wasn't so, but it IS so. My "factory settings", to use another computer analogy, all revolve around eating crap, having my butt stapled to the couch most of the time and thinking nothing but negative, unhelpful thoughts that only make me feel so much worse about myself and my situation that all there is to do, really, is eat, because (ha!) it "makes me feel better". Very, very temporarily. Every time I think to myself that I am going to take away my food crutch, I feel sick to my stomach with fear as to how I will cope on my bad days, and yet I know I have no other option if I don't want to end up back where I was, or worse. And believe me, I DON'T want to. If my self-image is bad now, I can only imagine how awful it would be if I weighed over 160kg again. Oh, God, it doesn't bear thinking about. It's not happening - it's just not. Failure on that scale is just not an option. It's one thing to have put on 5kg or so. It's quite another to undo all that hard work and slog that it took to get even to this point!

So, this week is all about small negotiations. If I don't feel able to go at this thing full tilt, 100%, what CAN I commit to? And I've decided I can commit to doing some exercise on five or six days, even if it's only going to the little gym in my apartment complex and walking on the treadie/riding the bike. And this is to help me not feel so yuck inside that I want to eat crap to cheer myself up - the exercise endorphins are going to do that. I'm also going to do other stuff related to appearance - get a facial, get my eyebrows done, etc. When I'm in this headspace, feeling I look terrible as well as being too heavy doesn't do my confidence a lot of good. And I'm going to eat as well as I can and make better choices. That's about it, really. Oh, and I'm going to give up Diet Coke again for now. I need to drink more water and I know that stuff is so very bad for me and my teeth and everything. Today and tomorrow are going to be yuck and headachey, but that's OK - I'll be all right. I can cope with that for a couple of days.

Wish me luck! xoxox

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Triggers

Hello again, dear blog. Well, it's been after a week since my last horrified entry announcing that I'd managed to somehow get up to 123.5kg...EEEEK! I join you this week missing 3.5 of those kilos, which I'm very happy about, but I'm also dropping by to report I still have some work to do on my triggers, which are still tending to put me off track a bit.

1. Lack of routine. I had an absolutely fantastic week last week, but I've realised one of the main reasons was I had a huge amount of control over my routine and natural structure in my life because I was absolutely flat chat with work, so really all I was doing was sleeping, eating and working. I didn't really manage to fit in any proper exercise, something I need to fix EXERCISE FOR MENTAL HEALTH is a strong mantra of mine these days. But anyway, on Sunday I met up with Mum and we went to Ikea to go sofa shopping (and I'm now the proud owner of a cute PINK chaise - it looks like this http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/S89830702, but PINK!). Anyway, long story short, we were there a long time, lunchtime came around, and we sort of had to eat there cos I hadn't brought enough in the way of snacks, plus I wanted to shout her lunch as it was Mother's Day. I think I made a reasonably healthy choice, but I suspect it was more calorific than I'd have liked. Anyway, then in the afternoon we were talking about Annette Sym, and I made a slice out of one of the Sym books for Mum, and of course I just had to have a couple of pieces. And while they're a lot better than "normal" desserty type things, I still would have been better off with fruit or nuts or something. Then Mum was there the next day, and still the out of routine eating followed when the previous week I'd been following my own menu plan fairly carefully, hence the weight loss. So, I need to really be on my guard that a lack of routine in my life doesn't lead to an idea that I can eat whatever and whenever I like. I need to plan better.

2. Anxiety. Hmm, this is a biggie for me. I've lived with IT, the anxiety IT for about nine years now and it's so familiar in my life, it's part of my mental furniture. However, through seeing Dr B the psychologist, I've come to realise I've been in denial about how bad my anxiety can be at times. For instance, the amount of social avoidance I do is verging on what is called social anxiety. And I'm just generally a really stressed out, wired up person who finds relaxation almost impossible. And when I'm most anxious I ALWAYS want to eat because to me it makes me feel "normal", or what has been MY normal for most of my life. Obviously this is not ideal. So, in conjunction with learning new strategies for coping with my worst days (for most days I would say I am generally OK with it), I need to realise that anxiety is an eating trigger (well, let's be truthful - more of a bingeing trigger) and be aware of when I'm in that frame of mind.

3. Bad stuff happening. I read an article about this the other day (I think it was Craig Harper) and it's so true. What happens to you in life isn't what creates your reality - it's how you process it. And I process things REALLY, really badly. Take today, for instance. Now, I've recently started seeing a guy in a really low-key way (because I'm terrified of getting too serious too soon, of history repeating itself). Now, today I was wearing my other "career" hat as mystery shopper (a market research thing), and I asked Mr X to go along with me as it was a "couple" thing and I needed to have someone with me. The mystery shop was at a theme park. The shop started well, except it was near a certain part of the park where there are live shows with loud music, etc. Oh, and GUNS. We started talking to the bloke about the mystery shop thing and suddenly someone started firing an admittedly fake gun. But I HATE guns. In fact, I hate all sudden loud noises, including thunder and fireworks. :( So I made a complete git of myself by nearly jumping out of my skin every time the gun fired, cos it was so close, and then having to say to the mystery shop dude, "Look, I'm sorry, but I can't do this now - can I come back when the show is over?" And I was nearly in tears, shaking, etc, and very stressed out by this stage, so Mr X made what he thought was a very helpful suggestion - forget all my stresses by going on a ROLLER-COASTER. And guess what? Yep, I'm scared of them too. Bloody hell!

The point of all this is to tell you that all I've wanted to do since I came home was eat and eat and eat, so I did. But it's OK, because now I'm writing this down and I can see where I've gone wrong. I've processed it all wrong. I've been thinking what an idiot I was for being scared of a fake gun, for being too much of a wuss to go on a roller-coaster. I've been thinking that not only will Mr X think I'm a complete nutter, but so will every other man in the universe because essentially I am just too weird to be with and too much trouble. I've had a racing mind full of thoughts so anxious I couldn't even pin them down. So bad thoughts = anxiety = desire to binge-eat. It's all so clear - my thoughts are what makes me feel so bad about myself that I want to sabotage all my good work and almost make myself sick with food.

Now, if I were to process this event differently, it'd go like this. So I don't like loud noises and guns. Well, we are all frightened of something. I can get up and speak in public no worries at all. I can sing in front of a room of strangers. Those things don't scare me, and yet I know people who'd nearly pass out at the thought. It just is what it is. If I feel this fear is really affecting my life negatively, I will seek treatment for it. And so what if I'm scared of roller-coasters? Not everybody is a thrillseeker. I come from a family of timid stick-in-the-muds and it's probably genetic. :) And most importantly of all, anybody who would judge me for what I am - would I really want to seriously date them? Of course not. So, what's the problem?

The secret is to get to this thought process BEFORE I follow the other one right to the bitter end. And I know I'm going to learn how to do it! I just have to keep working on it.

Tomorrow will be a better day, I know it.

xox

Sunday, May 3, 2009

123.5!!!!!

123.5!!! Eeek! I knew things had not been going well weight wise for me lately, but that's worse than I expected. Still, the thing is, beating myself to a pulp over this is not going to achieve anything. I need to be positive, and I can be because I KNOW I can do this. OK, I gained some weight back. It's not great, but it's entirely fixable and I feel much better for having owned up to everybody about it but, more importantly, having owned up to myself. The psychologist has been really helpful to me in this last week. I keep reminding myself to think of situations like this as a "challenge", not a "problem". A challenge sounds like something you can really get into and take on, while the word "problem" immediately starts you thinking negative and self-defeating thoughts.

So this week is a brand-new week, a brand-new start. I have a fridge full of healthy food. I've planned out my daily menu. I know I've said a lot recently how I hate calorie counting and I don't want to have to do it forever, but I'm beginning to accept that for now, at least, this is my reality and if this is what it takes, this is what I'll do. I must say, knowing I have all the food I need and recipes, etc picked out removes a lot of the pressure. I just have to follow my very own plan and I can't really go wrong because the calorie counting is already done! I've just had a really yummy, healthy breakfast of rolled oats soaked in apple juice and natural Greek yoghurt overnight, then mixed with dried cranberries and a grated apple. Yummo! Really enjoyed it and I know it's a very healthy start to my day. I was definitely bored with all my old staple weight loss foods and I feel this menu plan is really going to help me a lot this week because I'm going to be learning how to cook new things as well, something I need to do as I'm not the best cook in the world!

Bring it ON!!!!!

xox

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Taking the road less travelled

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.

I'm not at all a religious person these days, though I was brought up to be one to an extent, but I have always felt that the above saying, cliched though it might be through overuse, is an extremely wise one. And after I saw Dr Nutcase today, it popped into my head, so it obviously had quite some associations for me in view of what we talked about. And I've only just got home now (I caught the bus and did over 7km of extra walking), but I feel it's really important to blog this out now.

I had a feeling she was going to tell me what she did tell me today, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. Well, more accurately, she only told me what I knew myself to be true. It's no secret to anybody that I've been feeling absolutely over it with regards to my weight loss and health. I'm as far off the track as I've been in absolutely ages. Not only have I fallen off the proverbial wagon, it's run over me several times and flattened me. And I've been asking myself why this is happening to me, of all people. Haven't I always said it was good my weight loss had taken a long time because it's enabled me to learn better habits, to start to undo around 40 years of bad thinking and a poor relationship with food? And yet lately, the last couple of months, it's been as though I know nothing about this stuff, like all the good I've done has been for nothing because I just haven't really, really learned a thing. This has been causing me great distress because I have felt so out of control again and I absolutely hate it, but I've equally been feeling quite powerless to stop it, like it's not me doing it.


And this is where the Serenity Prayer comes in - I need to learn acceptance. All this stuff I've been saying lately about not being the slightest bit interested in counting calories or weighing food, etc, lately? It's really a bit of a smokescreen. Truth is, I've just been really unhappy about lots of stuff in my life and have consquently rebelled against all forms of discipline in my life, and eating was the first one to go, really, because even though I'm not exercising quite as much, I still AM exercising. The shrink put it really well. In our mind there are sort of thought tracks. There are some that are like a huge, big freeway, perfectly surfaced, easy to drive on, easy to find. In my case, this is the destructive eating thought track (and probably used to be the gambling thought track). Then there's tracks that are like a dirt track up a mountainous road, full of rocks and not at all easy to find or drive on. In my case, this is pretty much any thought track that involves being kind to myself, being disciplined, being moderate and not extreme, etc. The thing is, I know the "easy" though track totally sucks. I know it does. Yet still, at times of stress it's where my brain always seems to want to go. And I have to acknowledge just how stressful the last nine months have been, and I think I'm only just starting to realise it now. It's almost like a delayed shock set in sometime after Christmas and all this has been the result of it. As she put it, though, the only way to make the goat track into a well-worn pathway is to use it more often until it gradually becomes wider and less impassable. And, yes, this is going to need work. I'm going to have to try. And I'm going to have to accept above all else, no matter how much I've been saying I hate the calorie-counting, discipline bit lately and I don't want to do it, that I want to be normal with food, the fact is that my relationship with food is a challenge - note, not a problem, but a challenge - and for this reason I need to apply the same discipline that has gotten me this far. Wishing I could have, overnight, a good, functional relationship with food is like wishing I had been born with raven black, wavy hair or that I was 6'1" tall. I just don't, and I'm not going to after nearly 40 years of fighting with it and obsessing about it. It just is. It's how things are with me. And I need to be OK with that, because in acceptance is peace. One thing is for sure - the "payoffs" from wholesale eating whatever crap I like whenever I feel like it are pretty bloody poor. I may get a smidgin of comfort or good feeling out of it that lasts 30 minutes, but really, it's not worth the overwhelming feeling of dread, despair and self-hatred that inevitably follows. It really isn't.

So here I am, dear blog, reporting that I'm ready to commit to disciplined, mindful eating. That's as much as I'm promising, because I refuse to put pressure on myself. I'm also committing to trying harder to distract myself away from binge behaviour using all the strategies I know (having a bath, calling a friend, painting my toenails, etc). I can do this. I CAN. I know I can.

And to finish, more words from a mind far wiser than mine - Robert Frost.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Shrink-wrapped

Well, it's shrink time again tomorrow, and I'm wondering what she'll make of my past fortnight? What might she say to me? For starters, I guess I've done some good things. While I still don't have my eating anywhere near under control, I've been better. Which does not sound much, but I figure at this point that I'll take any small improvements. I've been doing some exercise for my mental health. Not as much as I have been used to, but some, and I want to increase that because I need it. I have proved beyond a doubt that it makes me a happier, calmer Deb than I am when I don't do it. But I'm still gripped by my catastrophising fears that whatever got me this far in my weight loss is gone forever, that I no longer have any "mojo" and I'll end up being 300kg next time and needing to be forcibly removed from my house by a forklift. I do realise this is highly unlikely but, hey, everybody needs a hobby, and it would appear that worrying about things that will never actually happen is mine. *sigh*

I'm still in a most peculiar headspace and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I feel like I don't know what my place in the world is any more. Maybe it's part of being this age and not having kids. You are automatically excluded and on the outer with quite a lot of the female population because kids are a big part of anybody's life, which is as it should be. So you tend not to want to hang around "kid" people because you just can't relate on the same level and it's too hard sometimes. It was OK when I had Zoe because I could sort of be a kid person, even though she wasn't my child, but now it's back to how it used to be and it's made making new friends a bit more challenging.

As far as work goes, I know I don't want to do what I've been doing for much longer, but thanks to the shrink I've been coping OK with my job by thinking of it a bit differently i.e. means to an end, every day I do it is one less day I have to do it. I think what I really need her to help me with this time is what to say to myself at that crucial moment when I feel like I want to emotionally eat, because right now there is very little fighting going on. The sort of thoughts I have are, "What the hell? Who cares if you do it? You've got no partner/boyfriend, you could be the size of several small houses and still do your job in your little room. What is one more day like this going to matter?" And they're really not very compelling reasons to walk away from the car and not go to the shop. I can't really even use the, "But this is about your health" one right now because in all honesty, while I'm this unhappy and distcontent with my life, the thought of extending it for years and years is not exactly appealing, I hate to say. And then I get all guilty for feeling like that because I should be grateful for the gift of good health.

So, you see, dear blog, I'm still caught in a bit of an emotional maelstrom at the moment. I'm sure I'll eventually climb out, because I've been here before even in the last few years of my JOURNEEE!, but it is taking a little longer than I'd like at this point.

See you anon. xxx

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Small victories

Just stopping by, dear blog, to report that I've gone two whole days without extra junk food bingeing. Hey, it might not sound like much, but if those two days can turn into four, then six, then a week, then two weeks, that's how habits get changed. And I know this means I can do it again. :) It doesn't mean I've eaten perfectly for the past two days. I've done pretty well, though it's been a bit erratic and here and there. But my aim was not to get the extra crap, and I haven't, so that's a great start! Let's make it three tomorrow!

xox

p.s. I have to face my PT tomorrow. EEEEEP!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Hmmmmmmm....

My name is Debbie and I am a food addict.


There, I've said it.


Since I started this blog and made the decision to withdraw quite a lot from my cyber weight loss world, wow, has it been an interesting ride. I'm not going to say I've kicked goals in weight loss and done really well. Quite the opposite, in fact. Going to a dietician was (and is) a great idea in theory, as is learning to eat like a normal person going forwards so as to avoid having to calorie count, weigh food etc for the rest of my life. The execution so far, however, leaves a lot to be desired. See, I've developed this bad habit of every day, at a certain point, going out and getting crap food. Because nobody really knows about this, it's been quite confronting to come to the realisation that so much of what I do still revolves around people-pleasing. The other day I sent an email to my PT explaining I haven't been wanting to go to the gym lately because I feel ashamed and embarrassed that I've been stuck around the same weight for nearly a year now and I don't want people to be looking at me and wondering why I think it's OK to weigh 115kg for the rest of my life. Of course I don't think it's OK, and who knows - probably NOBODY thinks that and it's all in my head. But the end result is the same - I think that unless I'm at least making an attempt to lose weight, I'm not good enough, I'm not worth being round, I'm a bad person, etc. And while I know exactly where this thought pattern comes from, I'm not interested in rehashing the ancient history behind it all. It is what it is. I'm only interested in what will move me forward. And what that is is me losing weight FOR ME. Not so people on a bulletin board will approve of me and tell me nice things about myself because, let's face it, none of that matters if I think I'm a piece of crap, does it? Not so my PT and people at my gym will think I'm amazing to be able to do what I do at my weight. Not so my parents aren't on my back about my weight. I believe what I've done so far has been partly because I wanted to do it for me, and yet there is still that people-pleasing element to it that needs to be eradicated. And right now, with feeling so lonely and yucky and down on myself, I haven't had the stomach for a fight, so I haven't been fighting this urge to go get junk food cos it's the highlight of my day. That's just fricking sad if it's true. So as of today, I hereby state that I'm better than that and I CAN beat this. There is no reason for me to have this addiction. There surely must be other ways to cope with loneliness and boredom. Today, I'm not going to the shops for crap food. My God, it's going to be hard after so many weeks like this, but if I can beat gambling I can beat this. I'm going to be climbing the walls shortly and I'll get REALLY hungry, but I have to be honest - I've gained a few kilos in the past few weeks and I'm not liking the feeling of extra weight around my middle, the extra sluggishness creeping in. I'm just not going to go there. The junk food in the world will still be there - I'm just going to moderate my intake again like I have done for most of the past couple of years. It needs to return to its proper place in my life and not be a focus. I can do this. I am incredibly strong when I want to be. And I DO want to be.


Thanks for helping save my sanity, dear blog.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Riding along on a pushbike, honey!


Well, here it is - the new bike I'm going to buy, I decided today. It's a Malvern Star Atlantis hybrid. I've been looking at bikes on and off the last few weeks, sat on lots, kicked a few tyres, and nothing has felt as instantly right and comfortable and "me" as this one. It was love at first sight for me and my arse. :)

All this has come about because I'm not going to be able to keep the little red Repco for much longer. My friend wants it back, so next time I see her I need to return it. Meanwhile, my new bike is going to have the gear on it I want, such as a pannier and a simple trip computer. Since I'm never going to be a Lance Armstrong wannabe, and I haven't got the space (or the money!) to have one each of mountain, road and hybrid bikes, then a hybrid seems like the ideal compromise. I want to be able to use it for fitness AND for incidental exercise/riding to the shops for a coffee in the morning. I want to be able to carry a few groceries on it sometimes.

But the other reason I'm doing this is because I saw my new Dr Nutcase/psychologist the other day and the main thing I took away from it all was the need for thought reframing. My task for the next fortnight is to, rather than getting up in the morning and thinking, "Oh, crap, I've got to caption. God, I HATE THIS! I can't stand it for ONE MORE DAY!!!", which only leads to me feeling even worse about my situation, I need to think, "This is a means to an end while I improve my financial situation and make other positive changes to my social life." Or, "Every day I do this is one less day I have to do this." And the other thing is EFMH - Exercise For Mental Health. Exercise is also a means to an end. If it helps me get fitter and lose weight, those are side benefits, but the main reason I need to re-commit to it is because it makes me feel better about pretty much everything in my life. And I'm not going to do it because it wins me approval from others or because I'm trying to impress anyone, etc - I'm doing it because I must, because it's going to make day to day life easier for me. And there is no higher purpose than that for me at the moment. That is THE biggest thing.

But today I also decided to recommit to starting to put food back into the proper place in my life. At the very least, it's not to be used as a reward to get me through a day of work. There has to be other nice things I can do for myself that don't involve eating.

Till next time, dear blog...

Deb xox

Monday, March 16, 2009

I slashed a tyre

Hmm - OK, this is not good. Today's been a big challenge for me - that's no secret. I just read back over what I wrote earlier. But as far as meeting the challenge head-on and kicking it in the butt, ba-bow. I didn't succeed. :( This is how it went down. I have spent most of the day in a really bad mood. I wish I knew if it was PMT. It could well be, but I must be going through some kind of crazy pre-menopause thing because my cycle is up the creek (and this is on the Pill, mind you!) and I have no idea when I'm going to have a period next. Fairly sure I haven't had one for about six weeks now. Not pregnant, natch. Anyway, even if it's not PMT, I probably have more than enough stuff to put me in a bad mood anyway, what with the hating the job thing, because that's something that you're stuck with for quite a large proporition of your life. I was finishing off a program before, and there was THAT urge, the one I spoke of in the last entry. The one that was telling me, "This utterly sucks, and you've got four more days of it this week. Oh, God!" I looked deep inside my soul and I asked myself if there was any really good reason why I shouldn't just do what I have been doing lately and get some crap food. And I couldn't think of one. :( Maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe I just didn't know what to do instead. But I must find some sort of cure for this ongoing, day to day unhappiness, because at the moment it seems the best I can manage is damage control i.e. not gaining weight. It's not good enough. But then, maybe the point is I shouldn't say stuff like it's not good enough. Maybe I need to be a bit more accepting and realise it's only a couple of hours out of what could otherwise be a really good week. It's a mere speedbump, a small one. I read a really good analogy the other day about the "throw the baby out with the bathwater" mentality. It basically said, "If one tyre on your car is slashed, do you then go ahead and slash the other three just because the first one got slashed?" Of course you wouldn't - you'd work on fixing the intial tyre that got slashed. I really want a positive side to this, because the temptation to throw rocks at myself is really great right now.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

ARGGGGGGGHHHHH!

I guess the great thing about blogs is that they're wonderful tools for venting. It sometimes doesn't even matter if no-one reads it - it's just good to get whatever is stressing you out down on paper.

I've had an epiphany in the last couple of days. I've been using junk food to make myself feel better about my job. You know what made me realise it? Today I'm having one of those days where I could scream, I'm hating what I'm doing that much. The disclaimer, as always, is that I recognise I'm better off than lots of people, at least I HAVE a job, I should be grateful, blah blah, but please indulge me for a moment. I've been doing this home-working thing for nearly four years now, but it feels like 10. If I were to lose my job tomorrow, I'd be devastated, but only because I'd have to work out what the hell to do about my finances. Not captioning? That would be a piece of cake. I'm so over it. So, my pattern the last month or so - which, in the way of habit-breaking, has become very clear to me now I'm attempting not to do it - has been at a certain time every day, I leave the house to go get some crap food. Not usually such a huge amount, because I physically can't eat as much as I used to even if I try (and I sometimes do, with somewhat disastrous consequences at times), but enough. I'll either eat this before I start, or save some to eat while I'm working. There are days when it's all I have felt I have to look forward to. Man, that sounds tragic, doesn't it? It's been the only thing I can rely on that will make me feel a scintilla better about what I do.

So, now it's not available to me, I've really started hating my workdays again. I'm working so slowly today, I'm practically at a standstill. I've set myself a goal of three programs, but at this rate IF they get done at all, they'll be done by midnight. And the thing is, if I really sat down and concentrated they could be done in around 2.5 hours each. But I'm two days ahead in deadlines, so there isn't that urgency to force me to do them.

All this probably makes me sound like the world's worst employee, and there have been times in the last few months where I really haven't been a very good one precisely because I'm so depressed and sick of feeling trapped in this little room, sitting on my butt with no human contact. My work literally only contact me if I do something wrong or if they're sending me my work allocation. So, last year - I hate to admit this - I deliberately sent things back late so they'd be forced to acknowledge my existence in some way. That makes me sound like a 2-year-old having a tantrum but, honestly, would an occasional phone call to see if I haven't died be that hard to manage?

I'm bored out of my brain, I'm hungry, I'm hot and sticky and I do NOT want to be doing this. :( I wonder how much longer I'll have to? I guess the answer to that lies in my own hands only. But, Universe, if you're listening, I'm putting it out there - save me!!!!! Help me work out what the hell it is I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life. I know it isn't this. I just don't know what it IS.

If you'd read my first blog, it should be pretty clear why I eat now and why I need to work on this. Food is fuel. It isn't something you should use as a drug to make you feel better because you're unhappy. Yet, this is just what I keep lapsing back into. And round we go again.

*sigh* I'm still feeling positive, but this day feels like it's not going to end any time soon.

Deb xxx

Saturday, March 14, 2009

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it...

Well, my first foray back into the blogosphere hasn't gone so well! I just laboriously typed out a huge explanation as to why I'm back here, and the universe has seen fit to tell me I'm a bit too verbose and eaten it all up! Eeeeep! So, I guess I'd better summarise why I'm blogging again, what's brought me to this point, and what's up with the title.

I started a personal transformation at the beginning of 2006. It started off as being about losing weight, which I've done - I've got rid of about 44kg, give or take, of the 70+ I need to lose. However, my relationship of 8.5 years ended halfway through last year, and since then, I'll be honest, I've been a bit lost trying to come to terms with the huge change in my life. I haven't really felt like being too conscientious with diet and exercise, so I just haven't really done it with much enthusiasm. It's probably some sort of miracle I have managed to be around the same weight in the nine months since then, but I'm starting to feel again like the time for standing still is over and it's time to move forward. However, the moving forward is going to be a far different moving forward this time around, one which has my future happiness and completeness as a person as its centrepiece, not something I hope will just work itself out when I'm thinner. It would be nice if life really were like a weight loss ad, where you can fit into size 10 clothes and suddenly all your problems magically disappear and you skip off into the sunset a fulfilled, deliriously happy human being simply because you can wear a bikini on the beach. Well, pardon my French, but what a load of bullshit. Life isn't like that. It never was. Losing weight has no magical properties. It may help your confidence. It will, in all likelihood, make you feel better physically in terms of being less tired and less illness-prone. It might bring love into your life if you're single. But to me, the bottom line is that if you're not happy and things in your life are wrong, losing weight is so superficial that you are quite likely to get where you're going and think, "Well, doesn't this suck - I went to all this trouble, and I still think I'm a pretty worthless human being. I'm still trapped in a dead-end job that I hate. I still have no social life and no-one to love me. What was the point?" And there's nowhere to go from there, really, except back to slow death by chocolate or going out of my way to make my diseased gall bladder explode from eating foods I know I shouldn't. So, the upshot of all this realisation is that I've been neglecting the psychological side of my weight loss for a long time, and I can't do it any longer. I don't want to end up at goal weight and still think I'm a piece of primordial slime. I don't want to wonder why I bothered doing it, because good health is wasted on a person who hates their life and themselves. And there is no point in waiting until I'm a certain size to do things I want to do, or to go out and have fun, etc. Life truly is short, and I feel I've wasted far too much of mine already.

My new approach to things is extremely radical compared to how I've done things thus far, but it absolutely has to be this way. It's so true that if you keep doing what you've always done, you will keep getting the same results - I am living proof of it! So...

1. I'm not weighing myself any more - my dietician is going to do that for me. As far as I'm concerned, I have no scales. My clothes will tell me what I need to know. I need to do the right things and trust that I am and not obsess about it all. And for someone who tends to be a daily weigher, this is HUGE.
2. Though I've gotten this far by counting calories and weighing things obsessively (again - this is a recurring theme in my life), I'm not doing it any more. I am currently writing down what I'm eating and when in a paper diary because my dietician asked me to so that she can see how I manage the plan she gave me, but that's it. I'm not going to add up amounts, weigh bread and milk, etc - I'm going to trust whatever instincts I surely must have developed in the past three years. Again, the thought of this is incredibly scary for me, and yet, unless I want to spend the rest of my life weighing, measuring, counting, obsessing, this is how the way forward must be. Normal people who don't have weight problems - they DO NOT DO THIS! I don't want to do it either. There has to be a way to get back in touch with my physical body, to listen to it and have it tell me when it needs feeding. When you calorie-count rigorously, you tend to eat the same amount every day. When I think about this, it's nuts. There are days when the same amount of calories seems too much to eat. There are other days when I'm so hungry in bed that I can't sleep until I get up and eat something. To me, at least, it would make more sense to eat less when you feel you need less and eat more when you're genuinely hungry. So why don't I do it? Well, I'm going to do it.
3. I'm going to escape from my home work prison, somehow. I've applied for a second, casual job which will not only help me clear my debts, but add some badly-needed structure to my life. If I can't find a paying one in these difficult times, I'm happy to learn on the job in a voluntary capacity until I can find what I want/need.
4. I'm going to stop existing like a troll in cyberspace. OK, for now I'm stuck doing my home job for financial reasons, but that doesn't mean I have to spend the rest of my life on my butt staring at a screen cos I'm too frightened to leave the house and interact with actual human beings in real time. It's no way to live and it's slowly destroying me. When people ask me to go places, I'm just gonna go. I'm not going to let my fears dissuade me.
5. I'm going to see a psychologist as of next week and really, really work hard at fixing my broken brain and thought processes. So much of my self-sabotage and bingeing and destructive eating stems from really poor self-esteem and negativity. Since I don't want to take drugs for my own anxiety/depression issues, the only solution is to confront them head-on. But I'm not just going to talk about the past and my childhood, etc - the time for that is long past and nothing is going to be different no matter how much it's discussed. I'm going to get into meditation for my own inner peace and mental health. I have such a busy brain that gives me no peace because it's unstimulated. I'm going to stimulate it with a new career down the track, but I'm also going to give it some much-needed time out with relaxation, breathing, etc. I absolutely have to do this because, again, my anxiety/fear/depression are also major eating triggers and they don't need to be, at all.

Well, that's it for now. I just can't wait for Life 2.0 to truly begin. Life 1.0 was good in parts, but it really needed a major overhaul and upgrade. Life 2.0 - the better version, without a doubt. L'chaim!

Deb xoxo