Waiting for the Start

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Mar 292010
 
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That’s the only way I can describe how I feel right now. I know there is only a tiny chance that I will get bad news at my appointment on Thursday – and yet I feel as though I’m walking towards a starting line and that things are going to be different on the other side.

The overall effect has been the need for super-strength willpower to avoid eating as though “rules don’t apply” this side of the line.

Happily, the husband is coming home from his week away and I’m going to ask him to help me with the willpower thing. He mentioned on the phone how much he’d like to be back in shape and we’re quite a team when we both decide to have the same goal.

One of the results of this “on the other side” phase of my life is that I’ve made several resolutions for when I get past that line and most of them are based on the promise to myself to be more assertive and less concerned that people like me. Among other things, I plan to:

  • get rid of about 100 or so facebook “friends” – people with whom I have little past or present.
  • get more proactive in my business and conquer my fear of appearing too demanding.  First goal is to draw a line under a proposal that has been stalled for too long. It’s time to move on.
  • make a practical plan for pursuing dreams NOW and not when we have more money.  It’s time for change and time for living.

There are more but those are the ones I keep coming back to.  Interesting that nowhere do I mention body/food sanity.  That’s because that goal is in process and will continue.

Off to work.

 Posted by Millie at 11:30 pm  Tagged with:

I Thought I Had It

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Mar 282010
 
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The answer.  I thought I had an answer to the question of “feeling fat” but it turns out I only had some disjointed thoughts that didn’t sound all that sensible once written down but I may try later.

Instead I’ll bore on about stress management.

Yesterday went quite well as far as stress relief and food went.

  • I walked and sorted out a few little niggling things.
  • I bought enough food for two days – food that I can look forward to and that requires some preparation.
  • I talked to the absent husband.
  • I let myself get hungry then enjoyed feeding my body rather than my feelings.
  • I did have a glass of wine but it was to go with dinner rather than to “relax”.
  • I made some decisions.
  • I snipped off a couple of dead branches in the garden.

Oh I hate reports of the “What I Did” variety – so here’s the incomplete thought about “feeling fat”.  I can’t trust what I see in the mirror, how my clothes fit, what the measuring tape says, the number on the scale.  When I’m determined to “feel fat”, the only thing I can do is ask myself which direction my behaviour with food is leading me.

Am I heading toward my goal of health and sanity or am I heading away from it?

Rather than putting any faith at all in “feelings” about these things, I am only going to assess how I’m acting.

  • Am I more sane or less sane than I was yesterday?
  • Am I more full or less full than I was yesterday?
  • Have I moved more or less than I did yesterday?

And there can only be one of two responses:  I can keep doing what I’m doing because it’s positive or I can change what I’m doing because it’s negative.

I don’t get to beat myself up or wallow in temporary satisfaction.  I  bang on about hating when other people attach being “good” and “bad” to talking about eating but I realise that I do it in my head all the time.

Little steps on a long journey.

 Posted by Millie at 3:34 am  Tagged with: ,

No Doubts

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Mar 272010
 
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Thanks to daily weighing, I can now safely say without a doubt that eating and drinking too much and moving too little lead to weight gain.

Yes,

I know,

D’UH.

But there are still weeks when I’d like to “get away with it”- defy nature, as Donna said.

Bizarrely, until I typed the words “defy nature”, I had forgotten what I’d written about just a few days ago. It must be something that I really need to process in order to get over this period/slump/quagmire.

On a positive note, I am certainly more body aware now than I was a couple of years ago.  A “slump” like this would last months or more and I wouldn’t step on the scale until my weight was into the 160s – or the 170s as in January 2008.

So I’m happy that I get this feeling at 146. I promised the women over at BCB that I wouldn’t weigh more than 145.8  by the time I got to my specialist’s appointment at the hospital next week.  Rather than set that as a distant boundary, I used it as a safe target so that I could give myself permission to eat and drink my stress away.  As of this moment, I no longer have that permission.

  • I have permission to walk off my stress.
  • I have permission to bubble bath my stress away.
  • I have permission to curl up with a good book – and there’s one by my bed.
  • I have permission to work.
  • I have permission to drink large mugs of tea if I need to feel warm and full.

I don’t have permission to bake and eat.

I don’t have permission to eat more than enough for one person.

I don’t have permission to open another bottle of wine.

And the reason I’m banishing those things is NOT because I want to live some joyless life, but because I simply need to cope with stress in other ways.  I know what the other ways are, but I never give them enough of a chance to become real tools in my life.  They are always food substitutes rather than real stress-relievers.  I want to get my mind to the point that I think of walking or reading when I feel stressed.  Right now I think of walking or reading or bubble bathing as something to combat the urge to eat – not something to calm the worry.

Well that was revealing so I’m going to say it again but louder:

Right now I think of walking or reading or bubble bathing as something to combat the urge to eat – not something to calm the worry.

I am going to find foodless drinkless tools for combatting stress.  Maybe I should crack that Beck book finally to see if I can make some permanent changes in my thinking.

Happy Weekend.

 Posted by Millie at 12:17 am  Tagged with: ,

Testing the waters…

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Mar 232010
 
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For the last few weeks, I’ve been testing myself with various trigger foods. Last week, I brought a jar of peanut butter into the house, and have been eating it in very small quantities (usually with a whole wheat English muffin in the morning).

After that, I scored some great dark chocolate (individually wrapped pieces) and allow myself one each evening. Sometimes I even open a bottle of wine, and drink 8 oz. worth after dinner. Strangely enough, the wine has been the hardest to withstand – it’s very tempting to go back for seconds.

Tonight I stopped at Trader Joe’s and bought a chunk of (gasp) real cheese – some Spanish sheep’s milk manchego, which is to die for (imo). For some reason, these little “tests” seem to be reinforcing my confidence in myself. In fact, I had a brainwave today – I was walking back to my car from the dentist’s office, and suddenly thought “This is it.This food plan working.” Yeah, it’s a somewhat vague epiphany, but for the first time in a very long time, I felt confident that my progress was going to continue. I’m not sure why I had this revelation in a parking lot, but I’ll take it wherever it comes. :)

My biggest fear is that no matter how much I “practice” eating and trying to conquer food, it will all come crashing down at a moment’s notice. I’m a little nervous about Katie and John’s upcoming visit, because I know I have a tendency to blow out when visiting or entertaining.

BUT on the other hand, maybe if I start indulging myself now, I’ll be content to continue the indulgences on the same small scale while they’re here, instead of going from famine to feast like I usually do. Hmmmm….something to think about.

 Posted by Mardee at 4:53 pm

Working on the Transmission

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Mar 222010
 
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After my last Aha! moment, I haven’t made much progress. Transmission is stuck between R and N. No forward progress yet. I know that I can have some things in the house and not eat them all right now. I don’t know what things will cause a problem, but I suspect that large open bags of stuff will be harder to deal with than single servings. Because let’s face it, a large open bag IS a single serving, if I’m being honest and realistic. And if I’m not going to be honest and realistic, what’s the point? Without those things, I will never get my transmission into drive and start leaving some of these pounds in the dust. And I really want to do that. I want to be thin and fit and healthy. I know that. I’ve been spending a lot of time in my head lately, and what’s up there, besides lots of numbers (helloooo, I’m an accounting geek), is a strong desire to do this. I don’t want to do it for anybody but myself this time. Not so I can date, or look for a new job, or please my mother. It’s just for me! I love classic muscle cars. If I’m going to stick with the car analogy, then I am a rusty, barely functional 69 Camaro SS, sitting in somebody’s backyard, just waiting to look great again. And let’s face it–while the new Camaro is cool, the panache of a perfectly restored 69 Camaro SS is over-the-top awesome. I want to be that vintage 69 Camaro SS.

 Posted by Gracie at 6:42 pm

When Indeed….

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Mar 212010
 
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Donna wrote this the other day and I’ve been saving it for a post:

We have such a strange relationship with food. We know that we can eat quite large amounts of ‘good food’ (veggies, fruits etc) and we can also eat small amounts of ‘bad food’ (chocolate, fast food, wine). Instead of being content with that, we throw a temper tantrum because we want to do the reverse, i.e. eat small amounts of the good food while consuming large amounts of the bad food, and then we’re surprised when we gain weight. Please note that when I say ‘we’ I really mean ‘I’. When am I going to make peace with reality and stop testing to see if the laws of nature have changed just because I want them to?

Can I ask that one again in two parts?

  • When am I going to make peace with reality?
  • When am I going to stop testing to see if the laws of nature have changed?

Making peace with reality:

Over the past couple of years I’ve made peace with a couple of food/body realities:

  • My shape is my shape and nothing is going to change that.  And it’s not a bad one.  As the husband says, “No matter how much you weigh, you HAVE a shape and that’s good.”
  • Clothes are not going to automatically look good despite a smaller body.  I no longer dream of wearing things that aren’t naturally going to suit my body shape. And that’s ok.
  • The “when I’m thin” fantasies of old are just that.  I’ve got a thinner 48 year old body – not the thinner 21 year old body that I somehow used to see when I thought about the future me.  I’m making peace with my belly because, though smaller, it’s here to stay.
  • My personality is such that I don’t always take the straightest, shortest route on any journey and that includes the one to food/body sanity.  I’m ok with lots of detours and a longer than necessary journey – though I am getting a bit fed up now that I’m down to the last few pounds and I seem to be rolling backwards.
  • I simply can’t sustain enthusiasm for any length of time but that doesn’t mean I have to be fat and out of shape. I’m tend to live a feast or famine life – with spurts of energy for things like cooking and exercise.  I just need to make sure that boring daily life involves getting off the sofa and filling my body with healthy food – even if it’s all done a bit lazily sometimes.  There will always come a time when I want to run again.

Well – more peace in this life than I thought!

And what about wanting to change the laws of nature?  Donna really pin-pointed an issue for me.  It’s not an everyday thing but it certainly affects me when I’m feeling stressed about the unknown.  No matter how many other things I seem to have got to grips with, when I want to relieve stress, I think about feeling full.  And I don’t stop to think about all the possible foods that could have that effect.  I instantly think of carbs and fat – rice and butter, bread and peanut butter,  cheese and crackers, oats/ sugar/butter in any combination.

I don’t think of a large salad with a tin of tuna and some balsamic dressing.  That would be filling and good and healthy but my dysfunctional brain can’t imagine it having the same comforting effect as oatmeal cookies or flapjack.

And when I’m feeling that no other food will do, I am completely oblivious to the laws of nature that state that, if I want to lose weight, I need to compensate for those calories somehow.  Maybe even thinking about that would somehow take away the soothing effect of the food.  It would break into that (very) temporary state of peace and ruin the whole point of the exercise.

To be honest, my inner stress eater scoffs at those people who suggest that a bath or a walk is as effective as food for stress relief even though I know it to be absolutely true.  A bubble bath with a magazine is a major de-stresser.  A run on a spring day has a huge mood improving effect.  But I still want cheese and crackers. And I still want to lose weight.

And so I keep thinking and writing and making daily/hourly/minutely decisions about how this process is going to go.

All advice welcome- though most of it will probably be ignored because I seem to need to learn the hard way.

 Posted by Millie at 2:37 am  Tagged with: ,

Shifting Gears Without Killing the Transmission

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Mar 172010
 
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Time for a change in thinking. I was buying something I know I’m better off without. And buying more than one, knowing that they’d all be gone before tomorrow. That’s when it hit me. WHY DO I NEED TO EAT THEM ALL TODAY??? Ta-daaaaa! Shift in thinking. So if I buy several of them, eat them all at once, feel guilty, then deprive myself for days and days, what happens? I do the same thing all over again. What if (hang onto your hats!!) I bought some, and only ate ONE now. What if I had them there for if I wanted them, but felt that I didn’t really need one right now? Could I leave it till when I really DID want it? Turns out that the answer is yes. I CAN do that. In fact, during the times I’ve been successful in losing weight, that’s what I did. I bought something that I would parcel out a few points-worth at a time, when I wanted it. Journal it, eat it, enjoy it, move on. So I will be “playing” with that concept for the next few days. Let’s see if I can make it work again. Because I will do ANYTHING to be successful at weight loss, including having the occasional treat! (Big sacrifice, I know…) Stay tuned!

 Posted by Gracie at 4:11 am

Stress and Hunger 2

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  2 Responses »
Mar 172010
 
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Here’s what happened yesterday:

I’m going to try to update this throughout the day.

Things that are stressing me:

  • planning a workshop in a vacuum – ie don’t know how many people or what they already know
  • need to call the bank – no reason at all that this should be stressful but it is
  • need to chase up a hospital appointment that I have already called about twice.  I hate being a pest.  I hate sounding like I think I should be treated any differently than anyone else – but I also need to plan my next three months.

It took ages to get dressed, help the husband with some i.t. stuff, eat breakfast and face the BLANK PAGE that will be a superb one hour workshop.

10 – hungry – porridge, blueberries, yogourt

10:30 – call bank and cancel gym direct debit.  I am now a runner rather than a rower.  Better make the most of this weather

10:45 – a little hungry (why?) and a lot stressed  – Make a mug of tea, move laptop into sunny kitchen, open French doors and breathe.

11:20 – suck it up and call hospital.  She hasn’t had a response to her email.  WE ALL KNOW THAT NO ONE RESPONDS TO EMAILS!  (I did not yell this – I was very polite and very calm)  “Oh yes”, she replies, “You’re the lady who wants to go on holiday.”  IF IT WAS A HOLIDAY I’D CHANGE IT! ( I did not yell that either – I said it with a smile in my voice in a vain attempt to elicit sympathy.) I think she’s emailing again with a  ! and we all know how ignorable those are.  I don’t hold out much hope. I still gushed my thanks for all her help even though I now feel like crying.

SO still stressed.  But not eating.  The cracker container is still closed.  I might have a banana.

11:30 very small banana

12:25 – got tired of waiting for squash to roast – 2 crackers with tiny weeny bit of butter.

12:45 – roast butternut squash

12:55 – not hungry but not full – 2 more crackers

Light Bulb Moment!  I’m not craving carbs but FAT.  Hence the butter on the crackers or peanut butter.  OK so I’m craving fat but I don’t actually want to eat any more fat.  What am I going to do?

I’m going to have another mug of tea and get on with my work.

2:00  Have worked a whole hour and not thought about food.  Still not hungry but antsy.  I would like to have a reason to go out for a walk.  Perhaps I will invent a reason.

2:30 Sociable cup of coffee with the husband – now  bit wired.

3:30 off to find food for dinner.  I’m thinking roast chicken.  We’ve got little potatoes and carrots.

Tuesday Morning

So I did go off to buy groceries but stopped by a clothes store first to do some therapeutic trying on.  My bottom half can wear skinny.  My top half cannot. Oh well.

Got home around 5 and…….fatal error- poured a glass of wine.

The food for the evening was ok but I’m noticing a very important dynamic in my family.  When both the husband and I are stressed, no one has the drive and discipline to make sure that we’re eating very well.  When we’re both on form, we plan, shop, prepare and clean up with energy and ease.  When we’re both stressed, we open a can of corn and call it “vegetable”.  We drink more than half a bottle of wine between us and the dishes are often sitting by the sink at bedtime.  Instead of him dragging me off for a walk, we both watch the most ridiculous television that we both hate.

Reminder:  All of these things are choices.  What am I going to choose today?

 Posted by Millie at 12:44 am  Tagged with:

As if to Prove the Point….

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Mar 142010
 
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Yesterday I wrote:

I’m going to Weight Watchers this morning – for the community as much as anything else. I don’t know what their scale will say and I’ve stopped taking the card for them to write my weight on, so it really doesn’t matter. I’ve always dreamt of a scale-free WW meeting and I’ve kind of got it.

So I trotted down to the meeting and stood on the scale.

147 (with clothes, post coffee – that’s just fine)

I was yammering away as I stepped off and thought the weigher hadn’t seen the number.  So I stepped back on.

146.5

Interesting.  Do you see why I don’t really care what the WW scales say?

When I took my seat with some friends, they had both put on half a pound. Or had they?  Maybe we should go back to weighing in whole pounds of balance scales? I wonder if those who weigh in kilos and half kilos are less prone to this craziness.   I wish I had the answer to scale insanity.  I think they should have a WW topic about The Big Picture.  It’s really about what happens over a month – or a season – or a year that counts.

When you’re 10 lbs lighter than you were 2 months ago, that’s weight loss.

When you’re .5 lighter than you were last week, maybe it’s a loss and maybe it isn’t.

Here’s the big issue.  We get so emotionally wrapped up in what that scale says that we let it rule the following week.  I’m pretty sure the women who had small gains are too sane to let half a pound influence their eating.  But then people used to think I was sane too – but I really really wasn’t.  Half a pound on could lead to another pound on which would inevitably lead to quitting WW and putting on 20 pounds.

So I’m going to keep up the daily weighing.  I knew it could take away the power of my home scale but I am absolutely over the moon that it has snuffed out the power of the WW scale too.

 Posted by Millie at 3:09 am  Tagged with: ,

March Madness

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Mar 132010
 
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Every year at about this time I remember that I feel low every year at about this time. And it seems – from various on-line friends – that everyone is feeling the weight of March Madness. I wonder what it is about March that makes us feel so down?

Maybe it’s the “almost but not quite spring” in the air. Or maybe it’s the end of a season of enforced indoors – and we’re just about ready to crack. Or maybe it’s just that the stress of Christmas has finally caught up and steam-rolled over us.

Regardless of the reason, I remember now so I’m going to take some remedying steps.

  • walk in the (chilly) sunshine
  • work in the garden
  • see a couple of friends
  • plan something good and tasty and healthy for dinner

I’m going to Weight Watchers this morning – for the community as much as anything else. I don’t know what their scale will say and I’ve stopped taking the card for them to write my weight on, so it really doesn’t matter. I’ve always dreamt of a scale-free WW meeting and I’ve kind of got it. I should probably do something constructive with my rebellious nature. It’s been a while since I dreamt up something new – envisioned a life where I was making a difference.

March may be depressing but it also produces little shoots of hope. I’m going to focus on them for a while.

Oh – the sun disappeared while I was typing. Isn’t that just like March?

(resists temptation to climb back under duvet……)

 Posted by Millie at 1:04 am  Tagged with:
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