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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!