Is this a stupid idea?

 Giving up, Keeping Going, Things to try  2 Responses »
Apr 112010
 
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Maybe it’s a sign of my desperation but I’m seriously considering attending a weight loss hypnosis seminar tomorrow. I’m struggling so badly with a lack of motivation and I need something to help me. I have tried rehearsing things in my head, reading motivational stories, I have the house food clean as much as possible etc. None of them are ‘taking’. If it’s not in the house I go out and get it. I’m binging on and off, pretty much whenever I get derailed and I’m getting derailed regularly. I don’t want to change from the Weight Watcher plan because I know it works and it’s practical for everyday life. I just need help on keeping me following it. I know that the meetings aren’t enough to work for me, so going back to meetings won’t help.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just throwing my money away. On the other hand, I quit smoking by using accupuncture, so I’m open to alternative therapies. I’ve done some ‘googling’ but of course there doesn’t seem to be any real consensus as to whether it works or not. I guess if it puts me into the frame of mind where I want to exercise and where I want to eliminate the starchy/sugar based foods then it might be worth the gamble.

 Posted by Donna at 10:24 am

Crazy Days

 Thoughts on the Process  5 Responses »
Apr 112010
 
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I’ve been thinking of various ways to describe a crazy person and my favourite by far is the beautifully British,

mad as a box of frogs.

Pretty descriptive of my past few days.  I’m only writing today because I seem to have found myself in a period of calm.  I’m glad that I have an iota of self-knowledge – mostly that worrying about anything makes that thing and everything else a hundred times worse.  If I don’t check that anxiety, I head right into mad frog box mode.

In saner times I assume that aches, pains and other weird symptoms are either hormonal or stress related – or both- and to be ignored till they go away, which they almost always do.  But on box of frog days, all aches, pains and weird symptoms are something to be noted, analysed for intensity and, much worse, Googled!  Oh dear.

So for today,  Google is banished and I am assuming that the new twinges and pangs are related to this most hormonal of weeks.

Meanwhile, the husband has declared it my birthday because the real one rolls around while I’m out of the country. The fake birthday comes complete with friends over for a special dinner and the cake of my choice – which is, of course, the only cake that the husband knows how to bake.  Luckily it’s the one I really want. I’m also not allowed to clean the house  – a treat that I frequently bestow on myself anyway, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Tomorrow I will give the specialist one last call before I fly away just to see if he’s made his mind up yet.  The more I talk to people about my current experience, the more I realise I’m just very unlucky with this particular doctor.

 Posted by Millie at 4:17 am

Happy Weight Gain

 Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Apr 092010
 
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OK – so I’ve eaten without really thinking for the past few days and my weight has come back up.  It’s very odd to find this a happy event but it is.  When I lost 2lbs in the course of all the Easter Feasting, I panicked a little that I was really sick.

In the absence of an answer, I have a tendency to fill in the blanks with bad news.  (I’m guessing most people do that.)

But today the sun is shining again and my weight is where it should be so I’m going to be positive on that basis alone.

I’ve also decided to believe what little information my specialist has given me.  After all, just because he’s not great with patients doesn’t mean he’s not a good doctor.  I’ll still get a second opinion but, in the mean time, unless I want to be properly crazy, I’ll believe that I’m not in any imminent danger.

So on with the show.  And today I’m going to eat carefully – mostly because my stressed out stomach doesn’t respond well to too much food.

 Posted by Millie at 12:58 am

Taking Control

 Health, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Apr 072010
 
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After four months of appointments, blood tests and scans of the expensive kind, I’m no closer to understanding what I’ve got than when my GP sent me my ultrasound report.  So on Tuesday I decided to take more control of my situation.   I wrote a letter with all my unanswered questions to the consultant and took a copy to my GP.

The GP thing was the best move ever as she was appalled that I didn’t have any answers to fairly straightforward questions.

Then the specialist phoned me at home to ask about the letter and STILL didn’t answer any of the questions. He really doesn’t get it and I think I’ve run into a huge cultural wall.  I’m just not sure which one.

Is it just that he’s a medical specialist and I’m a medical nothing?

Is it that he’s a man who doesn’t like to be questioned by women?

Is it more that he’s a man from a very male dominated Asian culture and I’m a woman?

At first I was blaming the “Canadian in Britain” thing but I’ve worked with a few specialists over the years and not one has been anything other than polite, respectful of my questions and informative.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had such a positive experience of all things NHS (National Health Service) that this has really stunned me.

Anyway, after having told me that my case would go to a committee of other specialists, it now seems that he’s going to have a chat with the radiologist.  Not good enough.

I’m off to Canada for a month but will be in touch with my GP and insist on seeing a real liver specialist when I get back.  I was almost ready to collapse into a depressed heap over this until the husband reminded me that I need to fight for my own health and peace of mind.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m also going to hold steady on the weight thing.  I’m still around 144lbs – pretty much where I wanted to be.  I don’t want weight loss confusing health issues right now.   I am, however, going to get as much fresh air as possible and just walk all I can in daily life until I’m back.

In the mean time, there’s SO MUCH to do before I go.

 Posted by Millie at 11:50 pm

Binge Eating

 Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Apr 052010
 
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I read an article recently on CNN that talked about how binge eating can be overcome by self-help techniques. The article discussed how a group of people used techniques in a book called Overcoming Binge Eating by Dr. Christopher G. Fairburn to help lose the weight they wanted and stop their bad eating habits.

So I figured, what the heck?  I bought it on Amazon and am now working my way through the book.  I’ll keep you all posted, but one segment caught my eye in the meantime.  It was a quote by a participant at the beginning of a section called “Why Change?”.

As I grow into middle age I realize with great sadness how much energy I have directed toward controlling my weight and eating and the misery of the regular and consequent binges. I could be doing something productive with my energy–building relationships, reading, writing. I don’t know what I might do, but I don’t want my epitaph to be “Jane wished she was thin.”  It was this, in the end, that made me decide to change.

Sad but true–I think we’ve all been there…

 Posted by Mardee at 4:29 pm

Living in Limbo

 Thoughts on the Process  1 Response »
Apr 052010
 
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So I went back to the specialist and it was the most frustrating appointment of my life.  He hadn’t yet read the results of my mri.  The appointment was for the sole purpose of getting the results of my mri.

He did a rather bad job of NOT telling me what they said as he read bits out loud and told me there was probably nothing too serious but he’d have to talk about it with his colleagues.  So we know for sure that the ultrasound was correct and there’s a complex cyst on my liver and there is also one more cyst though I don’t have any more information about that one.

We also know that I will need more appointments but I don’t know for what, with whom or when.  I will apparently know more next Monday after he has spoken to colleagues at a departmental panel.

After a couple of days I calmed down enough to write a comprehensive list of questions that I want answered.

And what effect has all this had on my eating?  Well I’ve just been eating and staying off the scale so I’m assuming that my weight will be up when I finally get around to it.  Of course, it’s also been a weekend of Easter feasting which has been lovely and full of laughs and sunshine – just what I’ve been needing.

I thought I was going to have a good post here but the more I type, the more I realise that I’m not in the right space to be doing this.  I’m going to have to think hard about what I’m going to do to keep the weight off through the next stage of this stuff.  Sigh.  I really really just wanted answers.

 Posted by Millie at 2:10 am

What if I Never Figure It Out?

 Thoughts on the Process  1 Response »
Apr 022010
 
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I recently read an article in O magazine about a book by Geneen Roth called Women, Food and God. The book talks about finding the reasons why we eat, not a particularly new concept. After all, practically every book about weight loss talks about finding the reason why we eat. Every time I read an article like this, I spend a few minutes thinking about myself and what my reasons are. This time, I spent more than a few minutes. What bothers me is that I cannot really figure it out. Do I eat because I’m bored? Well yes, of course I do, but not all the time and not to excess. Am I unhappy in my marriage? No, I can’t imagine my life without Rick. OK, so I am very unhappy with work these days, but this is a recent issue and it doesn’t explain all the years before. I also know that this is probably a temporary condition and eventually I’ll get back to enjoying it. Even so, I’ve never been someone who lived for my job and I don’t feel that my job defines who I am.

As I changed bedding this morning, I spent my time thinking about what it would take to ‘find my bliss’. You know what I mean, what would my best life look like? What would it take to resolve whatever underlying problems I have so I can make peace with food? The trouble is, I just couldn’t come up with something. Oh sure, I could fantasize about winning the lottery and having lots of money to travel and shop etc. But that’s not really the answer, is it? I pictured myself doing different things: working at different jobs, living by myself, taking up different hobbies, etc. None of them produced any kind of epiphany, none of them hit me as ‘hey, that’s what I’m missing in my life’.

So, this led me to wonder… what if I never figure out what my underlying issues are? If I don’t, am I doomed to never lose and keep off the weight? Or am in in denial? Is there something that I’m just not facing? How do I know?

I guess my only choice in the matter is to keep going through the motions and hope that eventually something comes to me.

 Posted by Donna at 10:59 am  Tagged with: ,

Better than the Scales

 Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Mar 302010
 
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Sometime last year I told this story:

I was looking for something to wear for a casual evening out and came across my tailored black wool trousers hanging in the wardrobe.  I wasn’t in the best of moods – feeling like you do when you can’t find something you want to wear.  I was “feeling fat” and not a happy bunny.  But the pants were a generous cut and I knew they should be a bit loose so I would be comfortable.

I pulled them on and, horrors, they were snug – not tight tight but certainly not comfortable enough to wear out for dinner. I was devastated.  I’d been working really hard and was sure that those pants should have been loose.

But the pants don’t lie.  So I tearfully chucked them back into the wardrobe.

Then I noticed another pair of black wool trousers folded on the bottom of the wardrobe – my tailored trousers. HOLD EVERYTHING! I grabbed the other pair.  They were my daughter’s old Warehouse UK size 12 (6/8 US) black wool trousers.  Ha.

HA ha ha ha a ha bloody ha.  As though scale insanity were not enough, I’d discovered Pants Insanity.

Well I got them out again this morning and I’m very happy to report that they fit for real now – not snug at all. I’m wearing them as I type this – sorry that I didn’t think of them sooner.

I really must remember that, while my mind has a ways to go in this battle, my body is doing ok.  I forget that some days.

 Posted by Millie at 2:38 am  Tagged with: ,

Waiting for the Start

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
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

 Things to try, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
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: ,
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