I need to write something here that sticks with me through the next 5 days.

• 3 days of motorways, hotels and lovely socialising.

Followed, without time for a breath, by

• 2 days of trains, long long work days and exhaustion.

Is what I’m doing right now taking me towards that feeling of being completely at ease in my body?

A post from 2010 – but I’ve been thinking a lot about this again since Twitter is delivering rather more positivity that I can take….

I’m descended, on my father’s side, from a long line of cynics. I’m pretty sure that somewhere I could find a family plaque with the motto, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

It’s not that I can’t see that the glass is half-full. I see it – I can even say it. But I’m secretly looking for the crack that going to leak out all that life-giving water. Let’s call it cynical optimism.

I truly love the research from last year that said positive thinking was bad for people with low self-esteem. However, I also know that, despite the fact that negative is funnier, I need to concentrate on the positive a little more – not because I believe in any wacky “law of attraction” (don’t get me started) but because I know that thinking positively about your achievable goals makes you more likely to achieve them.

In this case – I will never keep the weight off if I keep thinking that I’ll never keep the weight off. period.

So I’m going to get back to some good old fashioned positive thinking – and put away the “buts” for a while.
I’ve had a tough year. I will no doubt have another one. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be a healthy weight and continue to cultivate a good relationship with food and my body. It just means that I need to learn some new skills and to put away some old behaviours.

The positive thinking comes in here. I CAN put away old behaviours. I CAN develop new skills.
More positive: I AM putting away old behaviours. I AM developing new skills. (Not so hard…..)

OK – in reality – this kind of talk only works for me when it’s true. The above is true in a straight forward way and I don’t need to argue it out with myself. It will never work for me if I don’t believe it or if it’s too vague.

“I deserve to be happy and successful” begs WAY too many questions and theological discussions. (I lifted that from a real website called more self esteem or something.)

“A quick run will lift my mood” works just fine and it’s a great substitute for “I hate the gym”.

So here’s to a new day with my kind of positive thinking.

Later…..
OH! Wait! I’ve just found the best article on that research.  And, yes, it’s the best because I agree with her.

I don’t get something. All the so called experts on weight loss seem to agree that before you can be successful taking off and keeping off the pounds, you have to understand the reasons why you are eating. Not only what started you down the wrong road but what is happening right now that makes you run for the fridge. So how is it that I have figured out the origins of my eating issues and I also recognize what the current problems are that are triggering my ongoing battle, yet I’m not successful in losing weight? (oh boy, was that ever a sentence full of mangled grammar) I know what my stressors are, I know how I should be dealing with them, I know that eating won’t fix them, I know, I know, I know,,,, BUT knowing doesn’t seem to translate to success. All the insight in the world doesn’t seem to translate to success. How does one make the leap from knowing to doing?

The scale says I spent the weekend undoing all my previous hard work. I’m doubting that but it was a teeny poke in the ribs to wake up and do what I want to do.

Yesterday wasn’t superb as far as behaviour but I did haul my most unwilling body off the sofa and go for a 5 mile walk. I didn’t run at all and even my music was the stuff that I normally use for stretching and cooling down. I’m relieved to find that my new 5 mile route can be used for relaxing as well as killing my lungs.

But this morning I realised what has been missing for the past couple of days: I’ve been thinking about all the “shoulds” of this process but haven’t once thought about what it is that I really want. Not once.

So today I’m thinking about 139. That’s what I want. That’s what I want.

Here’s a London experience that shows how far I have to go with that.

The husband and I went to a pub where I settled on the patio and he went and asked for a glass of Merlot and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. They were surprisingly nice for pub wines. After dinner, I went to the bar and asked for exactly the same thing – only I came back with undrinkable swill. Honestly.

I furiously decided just to drink mine but the husband took his back and returned with a glass of the good stuff. It was a real crisis moment for me. I knew exactly what I wanted but I equally knew that I didn’t want to go through the hassle and embarrassment of getting it. I sat with the glass of wine for about half an hour before I finally got up the nerve. But I did it. I suffered the patronizing bartender (who had exchanged the man’s wine with an apology! grrrr) and I drank the whole glass even though I didn’t actually want it by then.

So this 139 project is a little part of a big thing in my life. I was raised by good people who were horrified by ambition of any kind and “getting what you want” just didn’t feature in life. Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t want to become selfish and this is all tempered for me with “God willing” and with a big concern for how my life impacts the lives of others. But not living up to your potential because you don’t want to look ambitious or successful is another kind of selfish.

So weight is big but what I’m working on has implications for the rest of my life too. 139 is a symbol for who I want to be.

A post-script thought which just hit me like a bolt from the blue:

For anyone inclined this way, have a look at Psalm 139. This is what draws the line between “realising potential” and “selfish ambition” and keeps 139 entirely in perspective.

The sad fact is that habits are what drive our lives for good or bad.  Most of the behaviour that makes me sigh or bang my head against the wall in this food/body struggle is the result of bad habits.

Like what?

• Like looking in the fridge to find the desire to make a phone call.

• Like eating a cracker or two to three so that a paragraph will write itself.

• Like sinking into the sofa to ease my stress.

I hate these behaviours; they always lead me to doing the things I don’t want to do which are to eat when I’m not hungry and avoid moving altogether.  But I have to own up to the fact that I’m solely responsible for their existence in my life.

Surprisingly, I”m not actually writing this to just whine about how I wish I could change.  I’ve actually made some steps towards replacing those habits with something more sane and healthy.

• Even though I love working in our bright and airy dining/kitchen, I’ve moved my computer back up to my cupboard sized office so crackers and fridges aren’t quite so handy.
• I’ve decided that I may not be running any time soon but I can go for a walk at any pace I choose and it’s still better than lying on the sofa with a glass of wine. I’m three for three (walks for days) since I made that decision.

And that last sentence reminds me that part of the reason I lose the will to fight is that I let myself fall into the habit of thinking that this has to be all or nothing – and nothing always wins.

• By choosing the above, I’ve chosen the habit of thinking that something is always better than nothing.

So here’s to days of more and more “something”.

Oh yeah  – 2 pounds have miraculously fallen off during this process.

I am learning that illness makes me not really care about losing weight.  Which is a drag because I had hopes of accomplishing something this week in that line – like maybe a pound off.  But my coughing (barking) and sore throat make me want to eat whatever’s easiest to prepare and swallow.

Last night I didn’t feel like cooking so we had a very rare Chinese takeaway. (see the result of the sodium on my daily weigh-in.)

And today I suggested we go out for lunch – where I struggled to find something that would suit taste buds, eating plan, stomach woes and sore throat.  I ended up getting a Beetroot Tart Tatin with a rocket, tomato and feta salad.  The tatin was almost like a dessert – except for warm beets instead of warm apples.  I ended up leaving most of the delicious crust because it was obviously mostly butter but the salad was lovely with a little balsamic vinegar. And a small glass of wine.  And coffee.  And some of the husband’s chips because this place makes the BEST chips in the United Kingdom.

We sat at a middle table – perfect for watching everyone coming and going. We read the paper and chatted and eavesdropped whenever possible.  Nice way to pass part of a Sunday afternoon.

I guess I’m going to have to reign things in a little for the rest of the week.  I’ve got dinner out tomorrow night in London and a hotel breakfast the next day.  After than I can eat lightly for the rest of the week.

The above is a FORCED conversation because I really just want to chuck it in for the week and eat whatever I want. I’m tired and stressed and sick and nervous about an important meeting on Tuesday.  The last thing I want to think about is how much I’m going to weigh next Saturday.

But I also don’t want to weigh more than I do right now – not because it would be the worst thing that could happen, but because I don’t want to go to the effort of re-losing weight that’s already gone.  Whatever my stresses of the moment, extra large helpings of carbs are not going to provide a long-term solution.

Sigh.  It’s only realistic that I’m going to have these attitude dips once in a while but they’re tiresome and make me feel so unbelievably bored with myself.

I’ll be offline for a couple of days but intend to come back here and tell you that I’ve made some good decisions.  And that I had a good meeting.  And that there was no traffic on the motorways.  And that I found parking at the hotel.  And that my cold is better.

OK. I need the whole world to stop associating Good and Bad with eating. Really. Just like I managed to banish “fall off the wagon“, I want to stop saying things like, “I had a good week” to mean that I ate in a way that would lead to weight loss. And especially to ban “I had a bad week” to mean that I ate in a way that wouldn’t lead to weight loss. People say they had a “bad week” when, actually, they ate in a way that left their weight exactly as it was the week before.  What’s so BAD about that?

Much much worse are the phrases, “I was bad” and “I was good”.   I actually bite my tongue when I hear them.  But this is  (at least partly) my blog and I can be rude, right?  If you kill a kitten, you are bad.  If you eat 10 Mars Bars, you are a person with disordered eating.  If you kill the kitten because you ate 10 Mars Bars, you are sick.

OK  – so what am I going to say instead of “had a good week”?  This week,when asked, I tried, “I worked hard and it paid off”.  Not bad…   It’s what I meant, but there’s more.

Sometimes you work hard and it doesn’t pay off.

Or sometimes it’s all quite easy and you lose weight.

So I figure I need three measures:

• How easy it is from the inside.  In other words, did I have the motivation to eat well and move? Or was it struggle from the moment I woke up to keep my hands out of the crackers?

• How easy was it from the outside? Did my schedule accommodate going for walks and calm, planned meals at home or did I actually have a social life?

It’s that last situation that makes me struggle with the good/bad thing.  It’s GOOD to eat out with friends.  It’s GOOD to celebrate around a meal.  But all that goodness makes losing weight harder – at least for that week.

• Given the above, how hard did I work to lose weight?

If I was going to make this a graph, I’d have two axes- the lines, not the chopping things.  One would chart the hard/easy side of life – an average of the first two questions above.  The second would chart my own effort – from working hard to slacking off completely.

But how do I boil all that down into a one sentence answer?

• Q: Did you have a good week?
• A: Yes thanks; it was hard to eat well on nights out and to find time to exercise but I worked hard and it paid off.

• Q: Did you have a good week?
• A: It was kind of boring but that made it easier to lose weight.

• Q: Did you have a good week?
• It was dreadful – my car/guinea pig/favourite shoes died.  I had no motivation at all to eat well or exercise and I gave into my emotions.

• Q: Did you have a good week?
• A: I had a fantastic week.  I had two dinners out and a short break in Paris.  I couldn’t get my head around eating well and had no time to exercise  so I didn’t lose weight – but it really was an amazing week.

• Q: Did you have a good week?
• A: Not really – it was boring.  I should have worked harder to take advantage of all the time I had but I just couldn’t find the will to work hard so I didn’t lose any weight.

OK.  Sorry for the excessive Qing and Aing but I needed to know for sure that, even though people are always going to use Good and Bad to talk about a diet – I can deflect and use other language.  At first it will be just language but, as with all things in this search for food/body sanity, it will eventually become how I think and how I act.

I just cannot have weight management define the quality of my life!

So here’s to a good couple of days in London.  I may not always be in control of where and when I eat, but I’m feeling motivated to make good choices and walk miles.

I’ve been thinking about this for days but Gracie’s post from yesterday has helped me get it into words.

In order to get weight off and keep it off, I need an element of enthusiasm for some aspect of the process but, over 30 years of dieting, something has happened to mine.

Basically I see enthusiasm as running along a continuum from Crippling Ennui to Dangerous Euphoria.

I’ll start with Euphoria – the degree of enthusiasm I fear the most.

It’s the dark side of enthusiasm which involves an addictive personality.  It causes things in life to become the sole focus – taking up way more energy and time than they should. It can be work or love or dieting or exercise.  In my experience it always leads to great failure and deep despair.

I sometimes crave the buzz and wish I could do a happy dance when I lose weight but I simply won’t let myself.  I refuse to be motivated by the feelings that losing weight and exercising give me.  When that’s my motivation, I end up cranky when life gets in the way of a diet plan or a run.  And it doesn’t take long for me to realise that I can’t sustain the degree of commitment required to get the same hit of euphoria.  The quest for euphoria is too exhausting and too short-term.

Euphoria is the unhealthy by-product of plain old Enthusiasm.  I like enthusiasm when it’s attached to action – but it’s rare to find enthusiasm that isn’t all talk.

Hmmmm – even as I write this I find that my cynical self is saying, “No you don’t. You hate enthusiasm in all its guises.” OK, it’s true, I hate enthusiasm – but I do know that this a weakness on my part.  I’m sometimes jealous of enthusiastic people – I covet their energy but my inner dialogue usually involves mutterances of the “just you wait” variety.

It’s this lack of love for enthusiasm that makes WW meetings hard to bear.  I really don’t want to clap for the obese woman who lost 8 pounds in her first week.  I’m not being petty and jealous; I just don’t want her to get her hopes up.

Hmmm again-  I understand that, no matter what positive thing is happening in my life, I see a shadow lurking around the corner.  In all honesty, life itself has taught me to think like that but, even so, it’s something I would do better without.  Perhaps I should embrace enthusiasm a little more. Just a bit.  Clap a little harder.  Mutter a little less. Let me think about it.

Sorry- nope – not going to happen…..just thinking about that makes me feel earnest and that would be deadly. Sorry. No.

Now I’m going to skip to the other end where Boredom meets Ennui.

Ennui is the flip-side of Euphoria.  If Euphoria is the dangerous daughter of Enthusiasm then Ennui is Boredom’s toxic son.  It goes beyond a lack of desire to do something positive and lands at a lack of desire to do anything at all which, for me, is depression.  I do everything in my power to avoid this extreme even if it means not losing weight while I get sorted.   When I say I fear Euphoria, it’s because this is what it leads to.

Good old fashioned Boredom, however, is just the standard place where many of us find ourselves after a lifetime of dieting.  We know the drill. We know what’s going to happen in weeks 1 and 2.  We know how many weeks in the gym it’s going to take to feel fitter.  We know which belt hole goes with which number on the scale.  Boredom is only a very bad thing when the thought of it prevents us from doing what we need to do.  I’m kind of there right now.  I need to get past that, shake up my routine a little and just do what needs to be done because I know that putting one foot in front of the other will take me to where I want to be.

So where do I want to be?  I’m going to call it Reality.  This is the stage where I can do what I need to do and truly enjoy the small rewards of eating well and liking what I see in the mirror.  It also involves accepting my flaws and celebrating my real self in the context of my whole life – not just a weight loss routine.

More introspection……  I’m the child of a man who loved us all deeply but couldn’t say it.  He didn’t know how to frame the words, “I’m proud of you”, whether we’d achieved a little or a lot.  I’m happy to report that the last words he ever said to me were out of pride and gratitude and I’m incredibly thankful that at the very end of his life he found a way to say it – out loud, in front of others.

However, the 48 years leading up to that moment involved some pretty hard work trying to get approval where none was forthcoming and that leaves its mark. At some point in my adult life I decided that I could no longer spend my days looking for affirmation.  I don’t remember it happening, but I find myself, today, not nearly so motivated by what people might say about me if I accomplish something.  I write because there are an awful lot of words that I need to express.  I work because I’ve got something to offer.  I have friendships with people who bounce back love and laughter and caring.

That doesn’t mean I reject positive comments.   I like to be affirmed.  No, I love to be affirmed.  But I don’t let the possibility of a compliment be the reason for getting out of bed in the morning.  Usually.

So that’s where I want to be: feet on the ground, success in small steps, encouragement without euphoria. I want to celebrate real success.  When I’ve been at my chosen weight for a whole year – that’s when you’ll hear the celebrations.  I might even allow myself a touch of euphoria.  And a small happy dance. Then I’ll get on with year two.

I’m feeling a bit depressed which is not the same as being a bit depressed.  I’m just feeling low and needing motivation and energy.  I’m getting through my days like a very slow pinball wandering from task to task doing a little at each place but lacking the focus to get down to anything for very long. So I’m giving into it and declaring it Pinball Day today.

One of the things I’ve been doing is reading through all the posts on here and I found this:

It’s not too often in life that we get to WANT something and simply go get it because it doesn’t involve negotiating with loved-ones, market conditions or budgets. This requires negotiating with my self, my history, my emotions and anxieties and so the Talking It Off continues.

I need to re-state that for today:

• It’s not often in life that we get to WANT something and simply Go GET IT.

• This thing we want doesn’t require negotiating with loved ones.

• It doesn’t require money.

• It does require negotiating with my self,
  • my history
  • my emotions
  • my anxieties
  • my everyday life

• So I’m going to keep on coming here to do just that.  Talking It Off.

So what do I want?
What are those things that I can go out and get just by negotiating with my self?

OK. Name them.  In no specific order:

~I want to step in the scale one morning in the next couple of months and weigh under 140 pounds.

~I want to stay around that weight for a whole year despite the ups and downs of my bizarre transcontinental life.

~I want to rejoice and be thankful no matter where I’m living.

~I want to improve my fitness.

~I want to live life lightly.

It’s a start.