I’ve been hard on myself lately in a lot of ways. I’ve been feeling a lot of shame about my eating habits and my lack of exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m exercising…but not enough. I’m dieting…but not enough. Nothing is ever enough. I’ve been talking to a few close friends lately and we’ve just realized we’ve spent so much of our lives worrying about our weight. We are completely obsessed with that number on the scale or that number on the tag of our pants. That has become more important than how we actually feel about ourselves. How sad is that? Why do we do this? Who are we trying to impress with those numbers? I’ve done a lot of reading other blogs recently as well as listening to podcasts. The overwhelming gist of what I’ve learned over the past few days is that getting skinny doesn’t make everyone magically happy. Your problems don’t disappear once your body is the size you want it to be. Your food issues don’t go away. You just struggle with them in a different way, in a constant fear of gaining weight back rather than a fear of not losing. I’m tired of the constant struggle and self-loathing. Maybe we can just try to be healthy without thinking about the numbers. I threw away my weight tracker. I’m going to stop tracking points. It’s time to stop obsessing about the calories and the scale and the sizes. I know that I feel good when I exercise and I feel like shit when I don’t. So I’m going to make every effort to exercise as much as possible. But I’m not putting an expectation on myself. I’m not going to look at a day without exercise as a failure. I know that I feel better physically AND mentally when I eat a healthy diet. So I’m going to make every effort to eat a healthy diet as much as possible. HOWEVER, I will no longer deprive myself. If I really want to eat something, I’m going to eat it. I realize how small my life has recently become in my efforts to not go out to eat, out to drink, out to socialize (which includes mostly eating and drinking). I avoid activities where I might be easily tempted. And I wonder why I sit at home with nothing to do. I’m not living! I sit at home and think. Thinking is my worst enemy. I am a loner and I relish my solitude, but I also slip into unhealthy thinking patterns quickly if I’m not distracted. I haven’t had anything to distract me in a long time. It’s time to take some of my life back and stop hating myself. It’s time to stop the punishment. The standards I’ve set for myself are my own. I have no one to blame for them but myself. So I’m going to fix them. My new standard is to love myself and be good to my body. To enjoy life. Try it with me. Put the scale away. Love yourself.
Failure to Launch
Some days are bad days. Sundays are bad days. Most of my bad days happen when I’m left alone to my own devices. My Lexapro, while it really works well to inhibit my anxiety, also works really well to inhibit ANY shred of motivation or energy that I might have otherwise had. I struggle all day to get off the couch, to pull myself out of my nap-state. When I finally do, I eat. ALL day. I snack here and there, convincing myself that I’ll make up for it with a TON of exercise because I’ve got so much free time. But I’m lucky if I can even bring myself to do a small workout or go for a walk on these days. Today I managed to get on my new elliptical and sweat it out for 20 minutes and plan to do another round before dinner. I had my usual To-Do list out and ready to get done all my household chores and Sunday tasks. As usual, I stared at my list, becoming paralyzed with indifference as to whether any of those things actually get done. Even this blog. I have had this on my To-Do list for the past few days and sadly have avoided writing because I’ve made it feel like a task instead of something enjoyable. I think about the things on that list CONSTANTLY. It’s almost like the anxiety is still there, hidden underneath somewhere but it’s not readily accessible. But I still feel it’s presence in some strange way. And then there’s the depression that comes along with the fact that I’m so tired all the time. And the fact that my anxiety has prevented me from doing SO much of what I’d hoped to accomplish in my life. Unfortunately, while the medicine really does take the edge off the anxiety, it also severely dampens my motivation to do much of anything. I’m in an almost constant state of apathy and lethargy. Is this preferable to my anxiety? My anxiety is daily and applies to ALL things. Things you’d never imagine someone being able to worry about. Trust me, I’ve found a way. It’s a life of constant “what ifs” and a total feeling of being out of control of all things (which, realistically, is accurate, I just can’t handle that truth while unmedicated). I went through life on Lexapro for awhile before I decided to wean off of it due to my excessive tiredness. All I wanted was sleep. Once weaned off (which was a bitch of a process), my anxiety began to take over again. The most notable place this affected me was at work. Monday mornings I’d be a nervous wreck, thinking of any reason possible that I could call out. I even considered a leave of absence at multiple points. Was my job REALLY that stressful? No. But I made it that way. What if I did something wrong? What if someone asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to? What if my boss asked me to do something that I didn’t know how to do? It was pure panic. Every day was a struggle to go to work. I knew I had to get back on my medicine if I was going to continue being employed. Next, I tried out Cymbalta. Let me tell you, starting out that medication was a WELCOME change. I was slightly nauseated for quite awhile, which sounds unpleasant, but I had absolutely NO appetite. If you know me, you know that’s a feat. I eat no matter what. Stressed, sad, angry, sick. My appetite was GONE and I lost about 10 pounds quickly. I also was BUZZING with energy. This should have been my first clue that this medication wasn’t going to be for me, but the beginning is always a strange adjustment. I was running around the house with more energy than I’ve ever had in my life! Cleaning everything in sight, plowing through my to-do lists! I was like superwoman. I could literally FEEL the blood in my veins. Eventually I evened out a bit but still maintained a lot of that energy. Soon enough, though, I realized that my anxiety was getting worse and I was also starting to feel depressed. I did a lot of research before weaning myself off of the Cymbalta and found that it can be a pretty nasty experience. And it was. I was miserable, irritable, dizzy, having “brain zaps” all day every day for months! And the ANGER! Oh my god I was SO ANGRY. It’s amazing what these drugs can do but it’s also pretty amazing what your body does once you deny it those drugs. It was a very long, painful process to come off Cymbalta. The sad thing is, at times like this, I think about how much energy I had and wonder if it might be worth trying again! Every day I wake up and say “This day is going to be different. I’m going to get up and get moving early and just not stop.” And most of the time it just doesn’t work that way. It just seems that my intentions are there, but when it comes time for my brain to initiate those intentions into action, I just have a failure to launch.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want your sympathy or pity (if anyone actually reads this). I write this out because it helps me. And because I know other people experience it. You’re not alone. It’s just like dieting. Every day you get a chance to re-start and try to make a change for the better. That’s all we can do, try to re-set and keep moving forward.
Daily Struggles
When I’m cooking up my store-bought “de-veined shrimp” and find half of them still “veined,” I kind of want to grab an envelope and mail them back to the shrimp company with a note requesting a refund. We pay extra for the luxury of having those “veins” removed. Also, who do they think they’re kidding with that word?
OK, bye.
Diary of a Loser
So let’s talk about my “journey.” I’m going to use the F word a lot here, so if you don’t like it, too bad. I’m not calling anyone else fat, just me. That’s what I was and I’m okay with that label. If YOU call me fat, then we have a problem.
I was overweight from early childhood. Like I said before, some people would attribute that to the fact that I didn’t have a father figure so I ate my feelings. I attribute it to the fact that my mom was awesome and spoiled me. So did my grandmother who cared for me while my mom worked full time. I was given what I wanted. Boo-hoo, right? My weight got out of control very early on and I know there was a point that I was over 200 pounds as a teenager. I yo-yo’d a lot over the years, but I was always overweight no matter what. I was probably my “skinniest” my last year of high school into my first year of college. I look back on photos of that time now and think, “OMG you were SO skinny then!” Although I distinctly remember feeling like a whale during that time in my life. Funny how our perspective changes over time, isn’t it? So I tried and failed multiple diets over the years and generally hated myself.
It wasn’t until I started at my current job in 2011 that I really discovered Weight Watchers. They had weekly meetings at work, which was pretty amazing. I’ve always had a LOT of social anxiety, so in order to force myself to make some friends there, I joined. And I gotta say, that shit worked. No bullshit. You follow the plan, it works. My starting weight was 185 and in 6 months I lost about 35 pounds and felt fabulous. This DID include a hefty amount of exercise on my part. My new “skinny” weight was 150-155. I was working out like crazy and eating SUPER healthy most of the time but still allowed myself my pizza and treats so I didn’t feel deprived. I hit goal, hit lifetime and stopped going to meetings because I knew what I was doing. I was NEVER going to gain that weight back again. I had a confidence that people noticed. I bought a new wardrobe. I had pants that were size 6!!! Seriously? ME? A SIZE 6?!?! I was happy. Side note: I was NEVER “skinny.” I was fit and strong and smooth. Skinny is not something my body will ever be, and I’m fine with that.
With my newfound confidence came a lot more socializing. Read: a lot more eating out and drinking. Because that’s what you do, right? What else do you people do with your friends? Seriously, I need ideas. So the weight slowly crept back on but I barely noticed. Then I met a man. An amazing man who cooks like an Iron Chef and feeds my face 6 nights a week. Add in a few extra pounds as a side effect of the antidepressant I take and here we are almost 5 years later and I’m at 175 again. Also purely exhausted at all times, another lovely side effect of that medication. Energy is not something I usually have. It’s a struggle to make myself do things. If I could, I would just sleep ALL DAY LONG. No joke. I love sleep almost as much as I love food. And here’s a tip: If you’re sleeping, you’re not eating! So sleep = weight loss!
So the past few years have been a constant battle for me. I didn’t want to go back to paying for Weight Watchers, especially since I already knew everything. I could totally just do that myself at home, right? I downloaded a free tracker that was similar to WW and used that….for like a few days. One thing about me is that I struggle to form habits. It’s like I’m just too lazy to do things. How long does it take to log food into a tracker? Not that long. But I managed to only do it for breakfast and lunch every day. Dinner went to shit. I have absolutely NOT followed any kind of plan in recent years. I tell myself I’m starting, then I let myself go for a few days and go back down the spiral of “I may as well just keep eating what I want since I already screwed up.” We all know that one. Or the “I know I just bought all this ice cream so let me finish it all now so it’s not in the house anymore.” Are we all familiar with these antics? Yeah. At this point, I’m fully depressed and disgusted with myself and committed to getting myself back on track. I remember how AMAZING I felt every day and I want it back. I paid for the WW online app and if I don’t seem to be getting results within the first month or so then I’ll commit to going back to meetings. I really hope I don’t have to, it’s just so peopley out there. I also just ordered an $800 elliptical (insert panic attack here) and hope that will kick my ass into gear. I DO exercise. I feel amazing after I exercise. But getting myself to START is like sawing off my leg with spoon. Mentally I’m just not where I was all those years ago. I need a goal to reach for. And although I’m not engaged quite yet, it’s on the horizon. So I’m using my wedding as a motivator. I don’t have a ton of weight to lose. Honestly, I’d be happy at between 160-165 even though WW says the top of my healthy range is 155. Sorry, there’s NO WAY I could maintain that with the dinners this man cooks for me. And to be quite honest, I’m not willing to give them up! You only live once! My main focus is to FEEL healthy and maybe get some of my energy back. WISH ME LUCK!
Misfire of the Prefrontal Cortex
Some days you’re on the elliptical at the gym (how about a round of applause for me getting there?) and you have all these fabulous ideas for your new blog just swirling around your head like a tornado. And you’re so amped to get home and start typing away to let it all out. You get home and pull up your page, open a new post and BAM! Nothing. Blank white screen, blank mind. Totally empty. Hello? Anyone there? Is it possible for all thoughts to just disappear in an instant? Sometimes I think I’ve got a large, unsymptomatic tumor wreaking havoc in my brain. Again, it’ll make for interesting study after I’m dead.
Everything You’re Doing is Wrong
Day 2
I did great yesterday! Hard boiled eggs, yogurt, salad, fruit! Then I felt deprived and angry about the fact that when I want a cookie, I shouldn’t let myself have a cookie. So I had a cookie, because F that! But I did good. It was a protein cookie. It was, however, enormous and 2 servings. I think it goes without saying how many servings I consumed. I’m sorry but you don’t make ONE cookie TWO servings. Everything about that is wrong. Then I decided for dinner I’d have one of my uber healthy protein shakes, which I did. But then I washed it down with a slice of leftover pizza. Because pizza. Do you see a trend here? Currently I’m blogging to keep myself from returning to the kitchen. Dear Medical Science: I would like a procedure to install a bypass from my esophagus that will allow me to eat, chew, and swallow as much food as I want without having it pass through my digestive system. Problem solved. I just have to carry around my food-ostomy bag. I’m totally okay with that. Sorry not sorry.
Diet re-start #1,987
Day 1
I’ve been here before. I’m not sure why I can’t make it stick. I must have a mental block of some kind. According to Jillian Michaels and all the weight loss podcasts I listen to, I must have had a traumatic childhood; some event that I’m blocking out but holding onto. And I’m comforting myself with food. As far as I can remember I had a pretty amazing life. I didn’t know my dad and some would immediately say that’s the root of my problem. One of my friends jokingly said recently that I’m “replacing the love I was missing from my father with food.” I guess that’s possible, but it doesn’t feel that way. I didn’t miss having a dad as far as I can remember. It was all biscuits and gravy growing up. Oh! There’s my problem right there! Mmmm…..biscuits. I do love the carbs. And the cheese. And the cookies. Shit. Hold on while I go get a cookie……
Seriously, though. I don’t feel like I must be battling some kind of demon. Food tastes good. I love it. Other people love it too. The things that taste the best are usually the worst things for us. And I want them in my mouth as often as possible, is that wrong? Then I don’t want to be right! That adds up to fat. It’s pretty simple math. A lack of self-control has always been my problem. I don’t like to say no to food. If it’s there I feel like it should be eaten! Don’t let it go to waste and certainly don’t let it spoil! I’m also a big proponent of, “I may as well eat it all right now and get it out of the house so I won’t have to be tempted by it later.” Even if that means eating 2 pints of halo top for dinner. Sometimes you gotta just take one for the team, right? I’m the team. Me and all my stomachs. Yes, I have multiple. There is one specifically reserved for pizza, one for sweets, and one for all other foods. I could fill my “other food” stomach to the brim but still have room for pizza and then brownies. It’s a feat of physics but I manage. Maybe after I die they can dissect me in the name of science.
Once Upon A Pound 