Stuffed to the Gills

Affirmation: Do overs count - even on the road to health

Ugh! I am so full and stuffed and I can't believe that I have eaten so much. But amazingly it is far less than years past, so that is progress right? But I do not like the way that I feel right now. And the sad part of it - I could continue to eat more. That is what scares me. I don't want to loose all the ground that I have gained. Now this is only emotional ground and breaking habits, I haven't really lost any weight to speak of. But I am convinced that changing the habits, confronting the issues behind why I eat and how I use food will result in eventually making the kinds of decisions around food that will result in weight loss.

This month has been terrible in terms of trying to get up at 6. I am finding it very difficult to get to bed by 10. It is more comfortable to get to bed by 10:30 or 11. And getting up at 6:30 or 7. But that doesn't leave time for exercise or any of the other stuff I do in the mornings. Getting up at 6 is ok, but moving and exercising is just not in the cards. Sometimes you just have to accept the body clock you are given. I am disappointed and feel like I am giving up, but this exercising in the mornings I don't think will work. The good news is that I have backed out of some of the evening commitments that I have so I think that I can exercise in the evenings. I am going to try doing it while I watch one TV program. I am trying to give up on TV, it sucks me in and encourages me to be a couch potato. But if I make a deal with myself to only watch my one TV program a night if I do it while exercising it will work. Besides after feeling so icky this week after eating so much I am ready to start moving again. I really don't like the way that I feel. Heavy on my feet, achy, and dull.

A new year and 365 days full of possibility. My prayer is that this will be the last year that I have to deal with this issue. I am so ready to let go of it. I really like what Kerstin said in the comments from my last post about the difference between the goals of thin and heavy people being that the only goal being to loose weight. I think that is so true. Kerstin I may have to have the name of that book you are reading. (Please tell me that it isn't in German - my German is not that good anymore!) In fact as I have been thinking about my intentions for next year I had been thinking that it would be better to not put loosing weight on that list at all. To only put the things on the list that I want to live and achieve. This doesn't mean that I am giving up, just not putting it at the forefront and focus of my life. This past year has been all about that, and in many ways I have made a lot of progress, but in many ways I am still where I was when I started this journey last October. My weight is the same, I fight the same food/eating battles, I am back on my B/P med. Maybe it is about putting more effort and concentration on finding my way to a new career that brings fulfillment and the flexibility to do what I will soon have to do for my mom. Making more time to create art and taking the risk and next step of trying to sell it. To learn more about and to create more jewelry and sell it. To connect with people here in the city I live and create a social life. I have been so disconnected socially since moving back here I have lived almost a solitary life.

And all of this goes back to the quote Kerstin made about overweight people feeling that life doesn't start until after they loose weight. For me that has and hasn't been true. In the past I have had a social life, it has been harder to meet and connect with people since moving back here. But I have to say that energy level has made it so much easier to just stay home evenings after work. I don't have the energy or in some cases the physical strength to do things that I used to do. All this weight to lug around limits what I can do physically. It is kind of a vicious circle. The heavier you are the less you want to move the less you want to move the heavier you become. So break the cycle. Focus on other things.

At group this past week I said that I am so ready for food to not be the center point of my life, my thoughts, my time and energy. This past year it has; planning menus, shopping, cooking, exercising, reading about nutrition and food disorders, going to group, the message board, almost constantly thinking about food. And it has been good and necessary - to a point. Now I really do think that it is time to just live a normal life. To let go of all the focus being only on this issue of my life, to accept that the decisions on food, exercise, etc. must just become the fabric of my life, not the focus. It is time to create the rest of my life, for it to be healthy and balanced.

In light of this I am seriously contemplating how to change how I cook and eat. I have got to get out of the kitchen, and the grocery store. Eating healthy, using fresh produce, cooking nightly, shopping weekly (minimum) takes hours. There is no way around it. And I think that I have found and used every short cut that I can find and still do the healthy food bit. I don't know if I have answers yet. I have been looking at some of the newer healthier TV dinner choices. Some look ok, although they have a lot of unpronounceable ingredients. But to come home from work, put a frozen dinner in the oven or micro and make a salad and in 10 minutes have supper....not having to handle food. Sounds like heaven to me right now. I have also thought about keeping supper very simple. Good bread, a bit of cheese, fruit and a salad or soup. Lunches at work are a challenge. I don't do well in the mornings and I have to bring my lunch or do fast food drive through. Well all of this is just excuses. I could, and have just planned and fixed a whole weeks worth of lunches on Sunday so that all I did was grab out of the fridge as I rushed out the door. Well I am just rambling on and on...I know that when all is said and done I have the answers inside and just have to accept that I have admit that in the end discipline figures into it too.

Well off to bed to dream up solutions.

Merry Food-mas!!

Affirmation: Just get through the season of too much food with as little damage as possible!!

Ok...be gentle with yourself, I keep repeating this over and over. This too will pass. Too much food, to many temptations, and I am eating too much. Who's idea was it to have food brought into work every day the month of December?? Not I, she says, but partaking in the eat-fest anyway. Well I have to say that I haven't done as bad as I have in years past. I have, for the most part kept the eating to only eating when hungry and stopping when full...but with so many tastes, aromas, sights, I am not sure that I could trust my body enough to even know when it was hungry or full. On the day's when fruit and veggie platters were available I chose those, but most days it was full of cheese, sausage, candy, cookies, pie, cheesecakes, and a whole variety of various yummy dips for crackers, breads and potato chips. Sigh, it is almost over...she says waddling down the hall, wondering if her clothes will fit in a day or two!

Seriously though, I did learn something from all this. Seeing, smelling food is a huge trigger for me. And I am not using food during stress and comfort as much lately, but I am eating because I just like the taste of it all. So there you go...back to breaking habits. I am so sick of food I don't even want to be around it, cook, or eat for a while. I am looking at options in the new year to simplify my food prep/eating. I am seriously even looking at some of the new healthy frozen food options. I just don't want to spend my time in the kitchen around food, chopping, cooking, storing, eating, planning; everything is still about food, even though it is about choosing healthy options. I just want food to not be the center point of my life. And I can see that, in a way, it is getting to that. The more time I spend in the art studio, the more time I am involved with people at church, the closer I get to actually living the life I have dreamed of for most of my life, the less interested I am in food. I can see glimmers of the "I eat to live, not live to eat"...for brief seconds at a time.

It does work to deal with my inner demons to help battle my issues with food. Well, actually as I deal with how I use food to cope with those, and realize that it really doesn't work anyway and begin to deal with those little devils, food begins to hold less interest for me. And I find that freedom is within reach. Thank you God for the miracles you are working in my life. Here it is, it is yours, take it (again) and give me strength to fight this battle.

Bleeech...Holiday food fest at work

Affirmation: I go to bed at 10; I get up at 6

Oh the joys of office unity. Someone decided that every day between December 1 and the 24th someone should bring food to work. And what good food it has been. But I am miserable! I have been allowing myself to eat, but I have been attempting to wait until I am hungry and stop when I am full. Doing pretty well, and have been amazed at how fast full happens. Also am surprised that I feel find just tasting things and not eating a lot. But it has brought up all those "eat eat eat" feelings. I feel like I am in a food induced coma, but it has taken waaay less food to make that happen. But with all that said, I am still eating way to much. And it is making me feel icky (yes that is a word). This is a good thing I guess. Now if I can just use it to help not eat as much the rest of the month.

Getting out of bed in December at 6 am. Not doing so well. Weekends especially. But that is because I stayed up too late. I have about decided to start "going - moving in the direction of" bed around 9. I seem to not really be able to actual do toes up at 10 with out doing some reading and/or journaling. If I "go to bed" at 10 it is 11 before lights go out. But doing so at 9 makes me feel so much like I have no evening. Especially since I don't get off of work until 5:30. And on nights I have meetings it is worse. But I know that this is something I need to do so I will.

I have decided to try to give up TV watching this month. I have so much to do, and truth be told it is why I don't get to going to bed until 10...I am usually watching something that started at 9.

Monthly Progress Report:

• No inches lost
• 1 lb lost
• successfully eating when hungry/stopping when full
• generally successful food choices
• Successful at getting to bed by 10 - most nights.

Not much to celebrate in the weight loss, but until I get back to the exercise I know that it will be slow going. But changes are happening. And as Ms. Maatha says...That's a good thing

"Inch by Inch life's a cinch;Yard by yard life is hard"

Changes are Happening

Affirmation: I go to bed at 10; I wake up at 6 rested and renewed

Slowly changes are happening. I am beginning to see them. In the way that I am not thinking about food so much. In the way that I am feeling satisfied with eating less. In the way that I choose for something fast and nutritious rather than sweet and salty for meals. In the way that there is more plate than food these days. Small changes, almost unnoticable to me muchless those around me. But they are hallmarks for permanent changes I think. Slowly these changes are becoming habit, a part of my daily, unthinking lifestyle. Something I can live with without fear of falling off the band wagon. (or diet wagon)

I am really seeing the benefit, for me at least to taking one small unhealthy habit and taking a whole month to work on replacing it with a healthy positive habit. Taking the whole 30 days to create a new habit. Not trying to make sweeping changes all at once. As I have looked back on my life, even though I gained almost 75 lbs inside the first 3 or 4 months of moving back home, I have also realized that many of these habits were solidly in place for years. I had been lucky that a relative busy and active job helped keep the lbs at bay; or rather on a slow increase. Moving home and being unemployed and underactive for a year just allowed those unhealthy habits to allow the weight to come on at an alarming accelerated rate. So the habits are really longstanding. War must be waged to change them. But separating them out one by one, looking at them individually, and giving myself a whole month (30 days to create a habit?) to incorporate them into my life. It is manageable. It also has helped me to see the truth in "it is not about food" in this journey. It is about a whole lifestyle.

It also breaks it down into manageable bits that are not overwhelming. I can commit to getting to bed at 10 and getting up at 6 for 30 days. By the end of that time, I am accustomed to it, it is not an effort, in fact I am all but falling asleep on my feet by 10 now-days. But what is overwhelming and what I have repeatedly been unable to do over my adult lifetime is make sweeping changes all at once; change eating choices, habits, portion sizes; add 1-2 hours of exercise a day; silence the internal negative talk; work on the emotional issues surrounding eating; cut out all "illegal" foods for the rest of my life; and hundreds of other life changing things.

I think that this thought process began to float to the top for me when I read the book "Portion Savvy" by Carrie Latt Wiatt. While this is not like most other diets, it still runs along the diet mentality for me, although I think she would disagree. But the light bulb for me was that she took a whole month to create change in your eating habits. The first week you concentrated on changing your breakfast and adding a bit of exercise, the second week lunch, more exercise, etc until the 4th week you put it all together. She concentrated on portion size rather than counting calories/carbs/fat, although she encouraged you to be aware of these in the foods you ate. So again it was more diet than what I ultimately know will work for me, but she was the first that I had read that stressed lifestyle change, taking time to create that change, and that it is something that has to permeate the rest of your life. What I took away from this was that you have to change habits, not just food choices.

And of course underlying all of this is the soul work of understanding how I use food to meet emotional needs. That is the toughest and most elusive for me. Many times I eat because I just plain like the taste of the food in my mouth. But as I call myself on it, I am also seeing that there is also an emotional element. But lately I have been realizing that it is also a deep seated habit. I'm bored; eat. I'm happy; eat. I'm successful; celebrate by eating. I'm tired; eat. It is autonomic, like the beating of my heart, the breathing of my lungs, the circulation of my blood. I don't think about it; I do it.

Habit:
1. A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.
2. An established disposition of the mind or character.
3. Customary manner or practice: a person of ascetic habits.
4. An addiction, especially to a narcotic drug.

It is habit, pure and simple. What started as a response of coping has now been transferred into habit as well. As I learn new coping techniques, I must also change the habits or they will continue even though I am no longer using them as coping mechanism's.

How do you break a habit? If it is unconscious, has become unconscious through frequent repetition, then the only way to break it is to become conscious. To become conscious. Isn't that why we eat, use drugs, escape? To become unconscious? Time to wake up. Become conscious. Change the habits. Become alive again

I am so tired of being locked inside all this weight. I do not want to live another moment of my life unconscious. You know it hurts all the same; using food to cope or just plain facing the stresses, pain, or what ever else is driving me to use food to cope. So just cope with life to begin with eh? Easier said than done. Easier, but not impossible. I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel...or the possibility that there really are numbers below 100 on the scale! Hope! Faith! They seem intertwined and dependent on each other.

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

HOPE: To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.

FAITH: 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence

I have hope that this is not a live sentence for me; being fat. Somedays I have faith also, other days I am not so sure. But I do know that years of hoping and not seeing it happen has made my heart sick (actually both physically and metaphorically). I have faith that this is something that can change. But I am not sure that this has been true before. I am not sure that I really believed that I could ever loose weight. I still struggle with it even now. I know that I gave up on loosing weight. I even know the time that I did. It was after reading "Fat is a Feminist Issue" by Suzie Orbach. I gave up, I lost hope that dieting would ever work. I still believe that dieting; diets will not work. But I also gave up on the whole thing, now I know that working on the underlying issues brings hope and change. Diets don't. They only deal with the symptom of overeating, not the underlying motivations and emotional issues.

Slow but sure; change is a fact of life. It is my choice to make that change a positive one. I have to be willing to do the work though. Finally I am.

Dodging the Too Much Turkey Trap

Affirmation: I go to sleep at 10 I awake at 6 feeling rested

Well I made it through Turkey day easily this year mainly because we didn't have a big feast. My brother and sister-in-law usually have Thanksgiving at their house with enough food to feed a small country. But she was not feeling well so her sister-in-law had the meal at her house and my mom and I stayed at home. Had a very quiet day and decided that neither of us wanted to make any kind of meal. So that was easy. It was such a relief to not have to fight that battle at this point right now. Slowly I am finding myself becoming just sick of dealing with food, food issues, and everything that goes around it. I am just ready to be on with it. Create the habits that I need to - let go of the destructive ones. And in ways that I don't really understand that is happening, slowly. It seems that the more I dwell on it, think about it, the more of an issue food becomes. But as I just concentrate on living my life, dealing with the problems, letting go of what I can't change and working with the things I can, filling my life up with God, art, and looking to the future, the eating and exercising just becomes a natural part of my life. Well right now the eating...Exercising is still NOT a naturally part.

I found out that I didn't qualify for the private health insurance, probably because of my weight. This means that I will be without health insurance come Thursday. What can I say? Nothing right now will change anything, so fretting over it will only cause an eating binge. I am not sure what it is God has in mind for me, but I have to believe that He is still in control of things. I have another possibility that I can check out with the state of IL. Will be doing that. Also redouble my job search for a permanent job with benefits. This is your life God, I give it to you, HELP! Teach me to continue to trust...in spite of all around me that seems to say doubt!

On another front, I am still trying to train my body to get to bed at 10. This 4 day holiday showed me that it will be requiring a diligent fight...it is still way too easy to stay up past 10. It is a productive time for me. But I know now that having enough sleep is a real gift and I feel so much better and able to cope. I may be revising the getting to bed by 10 to 10:30 and getting up at 6:30. I will evaluate that in January when I add exercise to the equation. But on the good side, when I do get to bed by 10 I am awake waiting for the alarm at 6. So it seems that a solid 8 hours is what my body requires. I am still committed to making that happen. I am so amazed at the difference in how I feel getting enough sleep. Who would have known something this simple would make such a difference?

Lessons Learned - Get to Sleep on Time

Affirmation: I go to sleep at 10; I awake at 6 feeling rested and rejuvenate

OK. So, I have learned a little lesson this weekend. I succumbed to the temptation to stay up late on Friday - getting sucked into the creative process and doing art way to late. That made me want to sleep in - even though my alarm went off at 6. I was up and about by 7, well just barely about. But again I stayed up late Saturday night and found it even more difficult to get up at 6 on Sunday - slept till 8. So I was groggy and drug out most of the day yesterday, resisted taking a nap; knowing that if I did I would not be ready for bed at 10. I still was not ready so didn't get to sleep until 11:30 (even though I was in bed by 10). Today I am so sleepy and drug out. Unfortunately the days of living on 4-5 hours of sleep or even 6 are gone for now...getting older sucks! But I have discovered that I feel so much better and am much more productive when I do get to bed by 10 and up by 6. So this week I will try to be more diligent to that end and do so on the weekends as well. I have also discovered that I really do not eat as much when I am not so tired. Last week went pretty well in the eating arena. It feels so good to choose to not eat when I am not hungry. To learn to listen to my body not only in terms of if I am hungry, but what it is that I am hungry for. And I am finding, more often than not, that I am hungry for more healthy foods, less fast foods, less sweets, less meat, and less salty. Maybe there is an end to this, maybe you can change. Paul says to press onward to the prize. Now I know that in this context that prize is salvation, but I think it can apply also to the journey to health. He talks about our body as the temple of the Holy Spirit; taking care of your body is important, it is part of the discipline for living a healthy life, the prize to press onward to is health. For me the underlying reason is to be more active and able to do what God has called me to do in this life. Not be hindered by lack of health, energy, stamina or controlled by the desire to over-eat or use food to soothe.

Breaking Habits One at a Time

Affirmation: I go to sleep at 10, I awake at 6 feeling rested and rejuvenated

I have been thinking a lot about habits. More specifically breaking out of them. During most of September and all of October I concentrated on an affirmation (I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied). It made a huge difference for me in determining when and if I should eat. It transformed how and when and what I eat, particularly snacks. It has been much easier to say no, simply because I am telling myself the truth about hunger. If I am not hungry, and I felt like eating and asked myself the question "am I hungry?" it made the next logical step easier; "what is this wanting to eat really about". Am I perfect on this? No. I still eat sometimes when I am not hungry, but now I know why. And most of the time I counter it with dealing with what is going on instead of eating.

As I have been thinking about how this changed me, I have also been thinking about how it happened. Namely that I was persistent with this affirmation, changing my behavior until it has become second nature to ask myself these questions; Am I hungry? Am I satisfied? If I am not hungry, what is really going on? It took a little over a month to really become part of my automatic lifestyle.

So, most say that it takes 30 days to break a habit and/or create a new one. I have read a lot about how much easier it is to break a habit if you replace it with a new one. Not sure that is always a good thing, guess it would depend on what you replace the old one with. But I have also been thinking about why diets fail and when change succeeds. I think that, for me at least, all diets have failed because there is too much change too soon. Your body, mind and emotions can't handle all that change at once. You get discouraged, you quit. This past year has been about making small changes one at a time. The changes that I have concentrated on one at a time until they became part of my life have stayed with me. The times I have tried to make sweeping changes all at once didn't last. So I am wondering if it is more beneficial to think about making one change, concentrate on it until it becomes habit and then go on to another. All the while keeping each habit a part of my life until it really becomes ingrained in my very being.

So thinking about this, I have been thinking about the things in my life that are keeping me from successes in this journey to health. The first that was glaring has been that I have been extremely tired and fatigued for a very long time. Doc says that there is no medical reason. So I looked closely at my sleep habits. Doh!! I am a night person so find it annoying to go to bed, but I also work in an early morning world. I had been averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night, trying to get up early to exercise (failing miserably at it) and fighting sleep at work all day long. So at the beginning of November I decided to chuck everything around getting rest, exercise, pushing myself to get up early, etc and make a promise to get to bed by 10, set my alarm to go off at 6 and let myself wake up on it's own after that (by 7 at least to get to work on time). I also have given up Sunday as a day of rest and rejunivation. I do not do anything stressful, exercise, or work related on this day. If I feel like napping the day away I do. I try to make this a day of self-care and cocooning.

So far it has been amazing. It took about a week to get my body to stop at 10, but I still went to bed every night at that time. I am now able to fall asleep right away, sometimes even before if I am watching TV hehe. I sometimes am still having insomonia, waking in the middle of the night, but now I do not let myself get up and do things, I stay in bed. If I need to I listen to a relaxation tape. But that hasn't happened now for almost two weeks...I usually am able to do some deep breathing and get right back to sleep. Just this week I have been slowly waking up just before the alarm goes off and am usually out of bed by 6:15. And best of all I am feeling human and energized most of the day. I am no longer feeling like I am walking through mud, unless I do not get to bed before 10. I would never have believed that getting 8 hours of sleep would have made such a difference, I have always been able to function on 5-6 hours a night, even less. But I just can't believe the difference. I am finding that I don't feel like eating as much either. I think that I ate when I was sleepy in an effort to stay awake.

SO...I plan to finish off the month with concentrating on getting to bed at 10 and letting the alarm go off at 6 and getting out of bed when I feel awake, but by 7 for sure. Next month I will continue this, but get out of bed at 6. In January I plan to add exercise in the morning. I felt that before I added exercise I needed to create a healthy sleep pattern and make sure that I was rested. As it was, when I would exercise I would feel worse, more drug out than energized. Who would have thought something as simple as getting more sleep would change my whole world? And would anyone have thought that getting enough sleep would help you not eat? Well maybe some would, but I sure didn't.

I am going to continue this throughout the new year. I may even plan out the whole year from the beginning...but then again it may be better to take each month as it comes seeing what area needs to change. But I know that taking one step at a time fills me with hope and feels like it has taken a lot of pressure to change everything all at once. Maybe as some of the "biggies" of habits change I can do more than one a month, but I am not planning on it. I know that this means that the visual results (meaning actual poundage lost) may not be as fast as I would like, but I truly believe that the changes will be much more permanent.

I wonder once I get some of the big "physical changes" made into habits: (in no particular order)

1. eat when I am hungry; stop when I am full
2. get to be by 10 pm
3. get up and out of bed by 6 am
4. exercise 20 minutes 6 mornings a week
5. do evening yoga tape 6 evenings a week
6. keep a food log again for a whole year
7. eat only healthy choices (this may evolve into more specifics later)
8. stop junk food all together - including eating on the run
9. eat a healthy breakfast every morning (not MacD's)
10. add weight training into the mix
11. choose salads (ditch the extras that have NaCl & fat)for the nights of having to eat out
12. Pray and visualize and journal every day about this journey

I wonder if I can also work on some of the emotional aspects too. Replace them with healthy habits. This would be

1. affirmations,
2. replacing negative thinking with positive thinking (getting rid of the negative tapes)
3. doing the bible study on who I am in God...what God really thinks of me
4. a word study on food in the Bible
5. replacing self deprecation and criticism with positives
6. finally doing the time line of my life to see the weight issue in context and see the truths

Ok I am not sure what else needs to be on that list, but I am sure as I work through this year it will become apparent to me.

Feeling Emotions - Not Eating Them

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

In group Wednesday night we talked about core values. I shared a breakthrough I had the previous week that I talked about on one of my other blogs. In this entry I spoke about the revelation I had in the way that I sometimes use busy-ness and business to replace relationships, the breakthrough that related to food was just as mindboggling for me. That being that I allowed myself to feel the flood of emotions I felt when my friend had to cancel out on a meeting at the last minute, for the second time in a row. Normally I would just brush it off, stuff it down - and eat. This time, by making the choice to ask what the lesson was in this, it seemed to diffuse my emotions enough to not only see the lesson, but focus and feel the emotions - the actual emotions. Hurt feelings, rejection, fear, desire to withdraw and close myself off from people, pain, sadness. But feeling them brought me through them. Helped me to process the whole situation and see and believe that it wasn't about being rejected, it really was about her being busy.

When something like this happens, I immediately go to the place that I am being rejected; which brings up all kinds of emotions that I don't want to feel, but actually believe about myself, at least on some level. Inadequacy, less than, not good enough, outcast, different, unloveable, undeserving, difficult, talks too much, unlikable. Yes these are descriptive, but in a way they are also emotions. Well they bring out emotions like sadness, fear, self-hate, insecurity.

I have been avoiding feeling these emotions for years. Although I know they are there, feeling them is another story. Sometimes I fear that if I let the dam open and feel these emotions I will be destroyed in the rush of feeling them. But in actuality, I think that even if you don't allow yourself to feel them, your body still takes the toll and deals with them one way or another. For me that is eating. Stuffing down the emotion. I have often wondered why I can't stop when I am satisfied (although getting much better at that) instead of stopping when I am uncomfortably full. Could it be that the resulting too-full pain in my gut, my body distracts me from the pain in my heart? Exactly! (this is what I love about journaling...the answers are always within reach if you just take the time to ask and listen!) I no longer have to feel the emotion or think about that pain. I can feel a much safer and more familiar pain - that of a too full gut. While that is no less comfortable, it must be much less threatening for me.

So, in light of that little revelation in group, that processing emotion can circumvent a binnge or even just eating, that it is important to feel the emotions so that you can process them, I have been trying to feel the emotions coming up in my life the past few days. Can I say filled up and brimming over. Too much too soon but also like a watershed. I am feeling on the verge of tears most of the time and then on the verge of hysterical laughter. Now, I know that this sounds like I am manic/depressive, I am not. I am also in a good place with this, for the first time in a long time. Just allowing myself to feel, both joy and sadness, anger and everything that goes into a normal day for most people is bringing freedom in eating. When you begin to shield yourself from pain, I think that for some reason your body eventually also shields yourself from joy and laughter and the less painful emotions. So while I have been feeling sad to the point of tears, I have also been laughing a lot too - out loud - at the silliest things.

It feels good. I am not sure the people around me will survive this phase of my journey, but I think I am...and coming out the other side will be worth it.

Understanding Who I am

Affirmation: I am a treasured child of the most high God

Somewhere since last week I have sensed an inward shift. A slight loosening of the bonds that tie me to food. Last night while I was eating supper, I became full, got up and scraped the rest of my salad in the garbage and quit eating. My mom pointed out to me that I had been doing this more and more frequently...fixing more food than I can eat and throwing it out because I was full. Now I need to point out, I am making my normal portions. I hadn't noticed, but I am getting satisfied on less, and it is getting easier to throw out what is left over with out feeling guilt about being wasteful. And this has been unconscious on my part. Not till mom pointed it out to me did I notice. This is huge for me. All the earlier work about eating only when I am hungry, stopping when I am satisfied, the question asking each time I wanted to eat, the saying over and over of the affirmation: "I eat when I am hungry, I stop when I am satisfied". It is beginning to be a truth for me - finally. Now, do I think that there is magic in saying affirmation and answering question? Do I think it will work for everyone, or even anyone else? I don't know. What it did for me was to make me aware of hunger and satiety or satisfaction. I just looked up the word satiety and discovered that it means full beyond the point of satisfaction, unable to take any more. That is not what I thought it meant. So the word I am looking for is satisfaction/satisfied. Being full to the point of satisfaction, but not overly full. This has helped me identify when I was actually physicall hungry or when I was wanting to use food for another reason.

I am also finding that I am not thinking about food so much. I am finding it easier to change this lifestyle away from food obsession by not transferring it into an obsession about making healthy choices, planning meals, etc. As I have been living this lifestyle for over a year now, I am finding a stride in things like grocery shopping. I am finding that I buy the same things at the grocery, I actually eat similar things day after day. I love to cook, but I have found that the less time in the kitchen the better for me. And I have found that I don't miss the flurry of cooking everyday. I keep the saying: "Eat foods as close to the way God made them" close at hand as I choose my meals. Salads, soups, whole grains and cereals, fruit and vegs. Pretty much the same every week. I find that as I have done this I have begun to eat more seasonally too. More simply. Simplicity. Something I have been craving and battleing for in most areas of my life. I do scour the grocery for the few healthy "fast cook" options. Some of the Far East boxed foods, some of the canned soups, pre-washed and cut vegs for nibbling...many of the fast cook things are high in sodium so that is out for me, but I have discovered a way for some of the oriental noodley things to be incorporated. Make 2 meals out of one by adding frozen vegs while you cook the noodles. I usually add some black beans or soybeans to pump up the protien too. Makes a good fast lunch or dinner. I have realized that I need a few things around that are fast and microwaveable dinners. Some nights I don't feel like cooking and having fast available helps to not choose delivery options...Also some nights I just need to not be in the kitchen, even cooking a healthy meal will trigger overeating...those nights it is important to be in and out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. So creating a safe kitchen, with good options, ways to keep me from handling food too often...this seems to be helping.

I am feeling that I am changing the way that I am feeling and believing about myself as well. I have been studying about what God thinks of us, how he thinks of us. It is really rocking my world. There is so much more references in the Bible about how precious we are to God than there are references to his wrath and anger and condemnation. Begining to understand who I am to God has totally broken open my heart and has had a huge impact on this whole area of my life - well my whole life. I am not sure that I can put it into words yet exactly. But it has really begun to free me to love myself, accept myself, and revel in the freedom that brings. God loves me just as I am. He created me...he knew the battles I would face in this life because of the choices I make daily. But he loves me anyway. He totally accepts me, without reservation or condemnation. Not only that, but he has plans for me, plans for a hope and a future, plans to prosper me and not harm me. This is quite freeing and amazing to me

Breaking out of the Ruts

Affirmation: Change happens one choice at a time

There is this blog I read regularly; A Life in Whales. She has a picture on it that I just love. Her photography is amazing. When I saw this particular picture it mesmerized me. I seemed that this was a physical portrayal of the result of habits in my life; particularly around food. Now the "ruts" in this picture - or are they gorges or valleys? It's hard to tell scale from the picture. I choose to think of them as deep gorges. Anyway the ruts are cut deep, well worn over years of water runoff. There is even grass grown over them, not raw mud as if new. But time worn, grass, beautiful grass has grown over the ruts, softening the scaring of the earth by the water runoff. If you were walking in one of these ruts you would naturally just follow the course that the water had taken when it formed the rut. You wouldn't see much besides what was in the rut. You could see what is ahead, what was behind, and the walls of the rut, but it all looks pretty much the same. It also looks to me to be some slow going, lots of things to stumble over. Or you could choose to climb out of the rut. That would take some doing. Expend a lot of energy climbing out. You can't see what is outside of the rut, so you would be taking a chance that life would be any different outside the rut. But IF you took the chance, made the effort, look at what it above the rut! Expansive spaces, beautiful scenery, more choices, more directions to choose to go. And seems that the traveling might be a bit smoother, if not still uphill.

That is what I think breaking out of lifelong habits must be like. Stuck in a rut, stumbling, everything seems the same, feels like there is no choice to make but the one you made before. Climbing out of the habit, takes incredible work, perseverance, and determination. But the effort is so worth it, isn't it?

Candy, Candy, Everywhere!!

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

EVERYONE had leftover candy sitting around in the office today and yesterday!! I did pretty good pre-halloween, but yesterday and today not so much. And the worst part about it is that once I eat too much sugar, the craving starts all over again. But I have to say I have done better this year than any other year, so there is progress. I am posting a piece I did in my sketchbook for AEM - Art everyday Month created by Kat...you create a piece of art everyday for the month of November. Tonight the battle/journey I have been on came out in the piece I did for my art journal. The quote is by George Lucas; "You have to find something that you love enough to be abel to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you" I added at the bottom; "that something ahs to be me!"

It has been a long week, I am tired so I am going off to bed. Seems I do better with maintaining focus if I get enough sleep. But I so hate going to bed at night. Wish I could figure out how to live on no sleep...more time to create.

Renewing my Mind

Affirmation: Change happens one choice at a time

Last night I chose to have ribs. I haven't had ribs for many months. I was craving them. So I chose to have them for supper. Of course I over ate - waaay beyond saitey - waaay beyond full. I didn't care, I wanted my ribs. I knew that I wouldn't make that choice again for many more months. But I paid for it. I slept terrible last night. I still was overfull and uncomfortable at bedtime. Made for a restless night. All day I have felt heavy, bloated, and just plain yuckky. I want to remember this feeling. Now I don't necessarily feel guilty for eating the ribs, nor am I beating myself up, but I want to remember this feeling that is the result of the choice to not only eat ribs, but to eat waaaay too many of them. To think that I will go through my life never eating ribs again is ridiculous. But to get to the point where I can choose to have ribs for a meal, eat only until satisfied (not full) and stop. That is my goal here with my relationship with food. Eat when I am hungry; stop when I am satisified. So I want to remember the way that I feel right now, the way that I felt last night so that next time I can remind myself of the consequence of eating to overfull. I don't like this feeling of overfull. I want to be present to this feeling so that it will be easily called up next time I am thinking I want to eat beyond fullness. This feeling is not worth that choice.

In other news I had a Dr.'s apt. this afternoon. I lost 2.5 lbs this month...and my b/p is coming down. Not fast enough for his liking so I am back on a higher dose of the enalipril. But that will change as I continue to loose and continue to get back in the groove of exercizing.

I have been thinking all day about what I wrote this morning about now it is down to breaking the old habits. I keep remembering the verse in Romans 12:2 about renewing your mind.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Now I know that this verse is not specifically talking about weight loss or choosing to live and eat in a more healthy way. But it is talking about making changes in your life that are permenant. It talks about not conforming to patterns that you have previously been conformed to - changing your habits. The way to do that is to renew your mind...or change the way that you think. If it will work for your spiritual life, it will also work for other areas. What does renewing your mind mean? If that is how you change your habits, then how do you go about renewing your mind? To apply it to making the healthy choices in my life, I think that it is to be viligiant about how and what I am thinking about in relation to food and the choices I do or do not make for health. I think it means to activly guard your thought life...How much of my time do I spend thinking about food? Make the choice to change your thoughts.

re·new

v. re·newed, re·new·ing, re·news v. tr.
To make new or as if new again;
restore: renewed the antique chair.
To take up again; resume: renew an old friendship; renewed the argument.
To repeat so as to reaffirm: renew a promise.
To regain or restore the physical or mental vigor of; revive: I renewed my spirits in the country air.
To arrange for the extension of: renew a contract; renew a magazine subscription. To arrange to extend the loan of: renewed the library books before they were overdue.
To replenish: renewed the water in the humidifier.
To bring into being again; reestablish.
v. intr.
To become new again.
To start over.

The definition of renew. I like "To become new again" and "to start over". But I really love "to bring into being again" I think that we all, at one time knew how to make healthy choices in our lives. To go on this journey to health is to renew that knowledge. To consciously make the choices on a daily basis until my body begins to trust me again and I begin to trust my body to know when, how much, and what to eat. To know and want exercise and movement in my life again. Our bodies were made for movement. Remember how we were as children? How we moved, ran, jumped, twirled, walked, skiped? Our bodies love movement. It was created for movement. I just have to remind it of that by making new choices everyday to include movement in my life again.

To not conform to the patterns of life as I have known it in the past - to renew my mind, my thinking - actively choosing to think new thoughts and make new choices so that I may be transformed into a person who chooses health...life over death.

Light Bulb Moments

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

A frustrating week. This is going to be a post of rants and ramblings. Many thought swirling in my head and I just need to write to get them out. You are warned...cohesion, coherency, or shoot, can't think of another "c" word...anyway...this post may ramble.

My COBRA insurance is running out. I am temping. So I have to find private health insurance. Do you know what that is like for a 290 lb almost 50 year old female? Ya...I am tired of the insurance agents stumbling, mumbling that I can't get insured because of um well you know, your height and weight don't match. What...am I suppose to not KNOW I am fat??? Hey I have a mirror. You are not letting out the national secrets by saying I am denied because of excess weight. Ok, I know that many people are sensitive about the issue. But at some time do you ever think that the world will come to terms that most of the population (well at least in the US) are obese. It is only the women (and men to a lesser extent) in the mags or on the screens that are thin, no emaciated. Balance...what happened to balance??? Where is Ruben when you need him? But out of curiosity I asked the last insurance agent what my weight (for my height) would need to be to be insurable. He told me the range would be 130 - 140. Now this may be reasonable...but I haven't been there since high school. I am not sure I will ever be there again. The goal weight my doctor and I set is more like somewhere between 170 - 180. Well he said he would be happy with anything just under 200. According to him loosing the almost 100 lbs would be fantastic, get me off my b/p meds and make him a happy puppy. So by these standards I will never get insured. How is that fair when someone who is skinny, smoking one or two packs a day gets insured with out a problem? Ok...much of this post is in the vein of sarcasm, I know and to an extent understand the whole insurance guidelines thing...but it still just isn't right!

Phew! Now that that is off my chest, on to other things. This week has been one of enlightenment and lightbulb moments for me. The biggest one I wrote about earlier. That being of it being down to breaking old habits and creating new habits. Sometimes, after all the insight is seen and received all that is left is the work. Knowing the why is very important, but in the end, the work is still left. Only knowing why you use food will not automatically guarantee you becoming healthy and fit. BUT it will help you to understand and see the habits, and as they say, seeing is believing. Now if I can get this knowledge to motivate me to do the work. It still remains that the work of it is still as hard as the soul work, the emotional excavations...maybe harder...because all excuses are removed and you stand naked and transparent before yourself an excuse or reason to blameshift. If I choose not to exercise, or to eat ribs and fries smothered in bar-b-que sauce, or even binge on something healthy, I do it in full knowledge that it is me choosing to do this...with full knowledge that it may still be motivated by emotional baggage, but it is still my choice and choosing that choice allows me to remain in the prison of fat I am in now. So the question remains: Do I want to change more that I want to remain the same? Do I want health more than I want to use food as a crutch? What do I really want more? Of course I say I want change...but my actions belie that point.

I am not beating up on myself. I am trying to sort through all the thoughts, trying to see where I am at this point. It has been a year since I have begun this journey to health that has not been motivated by the diet mentality, but motivated to look at what lies beneath my actions and choices...to see how and why I use food. It has not been easy, certainly it has been enlightening. But I think that the biggest light bulb moment is that by doing this I have removed all excuses to remain this way. By "this way", I don't just mean fat. I mean using food to comfort, distract, soothe, celebrate, be companionship, all the things I have used food for. Now I know, I know 2 things: that I have been using food to meet needs beyond nutritional and that knowing this no longer gives me entre' the world of excuse making anymore. No longer can I say I am fat because...... Now I know I am fat because I am choosing to eat, make unhealthy choices, and choosing to not exercise. In a way this is freeing. In the past I have felt so out of control, I didn't really know or understand why I did the things I did. I most of the time felt like I didn't have control of my choices. Which was extremely disconcerting to me as in every other area of my life I did. In fact it is one of the creeds I live by...take responsibility for my choices. If things go wrong, don't blame others, look and learn from it, make better choices next time. But in the area of food and weight, not so much.

Another light bulb moment (well this was maybe a fluorescent light bulb...it has been flickering on in my brain for months now) is that I have to find a way to meld my seriously busy lifestyle with eating healthy foods fast. Much of the time I have to eat out or on the run. Eating out does not mean restaurant eating - too expensive and too much time - it means literally eating on the run, in the car, on the way from work to evening meetings. I don't have answers to this yet. I have not successfully figured out how to do this when I HATE packing lunches. I am never that organized in the mornings and usually too tired at night when I get home. Now the obvious would be to slow down. But I love what I am doing right now so that is not an option, although for a while it will be a bit slower than it has been the past 6 weeks. But my life has always been one of going 90 miles into the wind...don't think that will change much now. I know that there is an answer, I just need to take some time this weekend and realistically think about ways to do this. Again I think that it will need to be a mind shift about how much and what kind of food I need through the day. One of the habits I am seeing that I need to break is how much I need to eat. I am not eating all that I plan for each day. But if I don't plan and bring "enough" I get those fear feelings that I am going to starve by the end of the day. How annoying is that??? See feelings are not rational! But you have to get them out of the head to see that.

So I think that this weekend I will spend some time brainstorming. I may take a walk around the grocery store and see with new eyes what the healthy choices are that are also "fast foods" kinds of things. One thing comes to mind...you can get baby carrots individually packaged in serving sizes. Now I could do that myself with a whole big bag and zip lock snack size bags. But the truth is for me that I haven't. I don't want to take the time, but more important I have realized that handling food (ie cooking, food prep, etc) is an eating trigger for me. So I try not to do that as much as possible. I need to do what I can to choose healthy things that don't need a lot of prep or can be made once and last for a few days to be eaten over the span of a few days.

Gotta run...gotta start this day

Plans, Hope and a Future

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

It has been a year since CHIP. And phycially nothing has changed. I have gained back the weight I have lost...and I am back on my medication for my b/p as welll as another for my water retention. I know that I have spent the past year working on the deep issues, the inside work. And there has been progress there - Group has helped. But I am still frustrated that I am not seeing phyciacal evidence of it. Somehow the two have to meld and I have to start seeing changes in my willingness to change eating habits. I know that I am dealing with how and why I use food. But I am also coming to the conclusion that in many ways I am down to habit. I have a habit of eating too much. I like to eat, I like the taste of certain foods. I don't like to exercise. I am beginning to see that the next step is to begin to create new habits and let go of the old habits. They are not serving me anymore. Many of the old wounds are healed, long time ago. But I got used to feeling hurt, that I haven't really let go of the idea of the hurt. And in some wacked out way I think that some of the issues provide a backdoor for me in case I fail...i always have something besides my own choices to blame my failure on. It is just time to begin creating new choices. To begin to create a new history for me...a history of wholeness and healling...a history of good choices...a history of accepting that the way that I think about myself and see myself is so different from how God sees me. That even what I want for myself is nowhere near what God wants for me. Jeremiah 29:11 says:

"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a futrue."

This verse has been rumbling around in my heart and brain for a few months. I keep asking how does this apply to this journey to health and wholeness. God does not see me as broken and needing fixing. He sees the possibility and potential in me. Enough to have already made plans for my life. He has plans for a prosperous life. Money? maybe, but I think it goes deeper...prosperity of spirit. Prosperity of realising the successes I am able to have. Prosperity of doing what is so deep in my heart that I am afraid to speak it out loud? These are what produces hope in a soul doesn't it? For me, much of what is holding me back from doing what I really want to do, at least in my mind is my weight. The physicality of it. I get tired, I can't stand on my feet, I can't physically keep up with the life I would like to have. God knows this frustration. His plan is to give me hope and a future.

Pain in the Back

Affirmation: I exercise every morning

My back is still bothering me. Muscle spasms, what agony. And the hard part of it is that you just want to find that position where there is no pain and stay that way forever, but that only really makes things worse. You have to move, you have to stretch, you have to not give in to the pain. But this weekend I pretty much did. I had no choice. I have been going 90 miles into the wind for the past two weeks in spite of the pain. This weekend was a small window of nothingness so I took advantage of it. Our cable went out, which meant no internet access. So the whole weekend I had planned spending doing research on the internet sitting in a chair (oh so good for the back) didn't happen. I ended up getting a couple of videos and crawling into my flannel jammies and laying on a heating pad and watching movies. It was cold and rainy today and cool and windy yesterday so it felt good to just snuggle. Tonight my back is better. The best part of this is that I haven't had much of an appetite. I am going to try to get back on the bike tomorrow morning...Even if it is only for a few minutes. I have to keep moving.

On another note, I had my first comment posted to my blog! Thanks Sarah! Her blog has been both an inspiration and a motivation since I discovered it a few weeks ago. Check her out.

I did spend part of the time while watching the movies collecting the last of the quotes for my food journal book I am creating/writing. I also spent a few minutes at a time at the computer (as long as I could sit) plugging them into the spots where the needed to go in the proof version of the journal. I am almost finished with this project. I have a few more quotes and a final proof read to do. Time is running out, I need to finish it by the end of the week so I can show it to some printers and get estimates on printing costs. A. wants to use them in her next eating disorders group session and the CHIP sessions end at the end of the month. I am quite excited about getting this project printed. There is also a possibility that the bookstore at church may want to sell it as well. I am also toying with the idea of selling it on e-bay or at cafe-press. Not sure yet though. I would have to check out the copyright issues first.

I just recently finished this book "Passing for Thin Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self" by Frances Kuffel. Listen to this quote from the book:

""Because I'm afraid. I eat when I'm afraid..."

I heard this. It was the truest thing I had ever said. This was my heart and my guts talking, every blood cell in my body condensed into five words.

I heart but I didn't listen. I wasn't ready. It would be ten years before I listened and acted.

But I knew." (pg 19)

Well I am off to dreamland. Another week begins now, another chance to do it right!

Changing

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

So today has been crazy busy at work. I didn't get a chance to stop for lunch, so I scavenged leftovers that they had set out from a luncheon meeting (usually good food). Bar-b-q beef and baked beans. It tasted ok...Or rather I think I would have thought so a year ago, but I have so lost my taste for these kinds of things. It was too salty (me, who used to add salt to McD's fries, ms. Salt shaker will travel), and too greasy. Who would have "thunk it" that my tastes would truly change...So now I sit here at my desk smelling the awful smell of half a plate of beans and bar-b-q in my trash can. Remind me next time to dump the rejected food somewhere else...Like the break room one floor below me. Who would have thought that the smell of any food would nauseate me. Hmm maybe there is progress after all!

I find myself surprised by the small victories and changes I come across each day. Surely this is a sign that the deep soul work I have been working on is creating change, the areas of healings are taking place, and the mind shift and paradigm shift from a diet mentality is happening. The work is hard, painful even. But I am more and more convinced that without this work loosing weight on a diet is only a temporary measure and not taking care of the issues that got me here at almost 300 lbs. I am also convinced that as the deep work I have been doing and continues begins to create changes in the way I think, feel, and look and do life, the other elements will catch up and begin to happen in my life. You know; those things that look like a diet, exercising, weight loss, and yes even a more consistent way of eating. But I have gone far enough that I am beginning to see how these changes are beginning to transform my life and my thinking.

I am getting ready to do a study on how God sees us and feels about us/me...And how it relates to self-esteem. I am thinking that this is a crucial part of the puzzle for me. One that I haven't really known how to go about looking at. But it is stirring deep in my heart. For so many years when I have tried to talk about this seed of an idea people misunderstood what I was trying to explain. Many people believe that people really do love themselves as is shown by the fact that we eat, don't do harm (mostly) to our selves, etc. And on a certain level I suppose that is true. But on a deeper level, I am sure that many people who struggle with weight/eating disorder issues (at least the many I have had conversations with) also struggle with self contempt/low self esteem/self hatred. Yes we live life, care for the basic needs, even are successful, but deep down where even we don't want to look most of the times we do not like ourselves. We do not think we are worthy. And this is where I think that to understand how much God loves me (us) and esteems me (us) and is for me (us); that knowledge can transform lives.

Why Do I Not Do What I Want to Do?

Affirmation: I create the outcome by the choices I make

Why do I struggle so with exercise? Why can't I just choose to do it everyday? It is no secret that I hate doing it, but I also feel so much better after it is over. Shouldn't that be incentive enough? Apparently not! So what is at work here? Is it just a plain issue of discipline? Obediance? Or am I trying to sabotauge myself? Or do I not love myself to push myself in this last huge step to becoming healthy and creating a healthy life? Probably all the above. So what to do about it?

But I am having small victories. Today I had chinese food for lunch - been craving it for ages and decided that today was the day. I am full and satisfied and have only eaten about a 1/4 of a lunch portion. Not so long ago I would have eaten the whole portion plus an egg roll and soup. I even am able to throw it out because I don't want to eat it two days in a row, and it was easy to throw it out. Now I know that may sound like a crazy kind of thing to you, but wasting food, not eating it has been a difficult thing for me to overcome.

Another small victory...well this is actually a huge victory. I have really lost my taste for fast food. In my hectic pace I am finding myself continuing to check with my body to see if it is actually hungry and choosing to not eat when I am not - even if it is meal time and I am going into a meeting or something where food may not be available for a while. I am learning to live with the feeling of hunger with out getting too panicky. I do try to keep a bag of nuts, dried fruit and kashi mix or something in my purse for those times when the blood sugar drops and I get the shakes. But that is happening less and less lately as well. I suppose that my body is getting used to not being fed constantly and learning to keep a more balanced level for a longer period of time...don't know, but sounds good eh?

I love this having the conversation with your body to check if you are really hungry. I am learning to trust my body and it's responses and it is learning to trust me to feed it when it is really hungry and not over feed it 24/7.

Small victories. Today on the bike for 10 minutes this morning.

Struggling

Affirmation: I choose the outcome by the choices I make

Today I am struggling with keeping focused. Well not just today, but the past couple of weeks. My back is having muscle spasms. I am tired and draggy all day. No, I am not exercizing. One would think that based on how much better I feel when I exercise regularly it would be motivation enough to keep doing it, to make it a habit. But nooooooo, somehow I wonder if I like feeling icky and sluggish. One could assume that based on my choices of not exercising and not eating lately.

But I am not giving in, nor giving up hope. I am convinced that I am on to something here. My ladies in my group keep telling me that the work and changes are happening on the inside and are visible on the outside and soon my body, choices and actions will eventually catch up and truly become a lifestyle. I know this is true, but not today. Tomorrow maybe, but not at this moment in time. But I have hope.

I am feeling more and more convinced lately that the peice that is missing for me is the spiritual one. Specifically to understand and believe how God sees me. To see the extent of his love for me, the plans he has for me, and the future he desires for me. The group, not being based in spiritual things can only address spiritual issues in a general manner. I know that at the root of my "stuff" (and many women's issues related to weight and body image) is and unhealthy or lack of self-esteem - even a self-hatred. Many women struggle with this. For me, I know that I do not have a real understanding of how God sees me or the depth of his love for me. It is hard for me to personalise the love that is spoken about in the Bible. I know it is true, I believe it even, but not on a personal or gut level. More and more I am beginning to think about the ramifications in my life if I truly took God at his word about how much he loves me. It is not that I need proof of this love...how much more could he prove it than to die for my sins? It is that somehow I have not taken it into my system at the cellular level. I know he loves me, I believe he loves me, but it has not really impacted my life on the depest levels. Yes, His love has changed my life, but yet, there is this part of my life that is unaffected by it. Or perhaps it is that I don't feel worthy enough? Well of course I don't, that is the issue here. And of course none of us are worthy of his love or sacrifice...that is what makes it so awsome. But perhaps the secret of truly accepting myself and loving myself is to accept and understand the vast extent of His love for me.

To this end, I am beginning a study on looking at what God says about his love for us.

Finding New Ways to Be Successful

Affirmation: I can do this

I spent the weekend looking at the areas I am failing in and why. I have come up with a plan that I think may ease some of the pressure for me and bring more successes too.

As my life has heated up and become more busy (NOT a complaint, I am enjoying the involvement and social life that I have lacked since coming to Rockford) I have had less time to cook and pack lunches and fix breakfasts. Actually I have lost interest in cooking...which is a real supprise to me...but as I am trying to shift my focus from food and eating in my life, the time I was spending on cooking and planning and thinking about food has been replaced by other things. Sooooo here is my plan.

Breakfasts

• grab a piece of fruit,
• a carton of low sugar yogurt (btw...any recommendations for brands? I am devistated to realise that the new yoplait low fat chocolate whips has 20 grams of sugar per serving! they are SO good)
• a muffin from natural ovens

Lunches

• a salad from somewhere...McD's, Dairy Queen, Arby's and occasionally Taco Bell are my choices near where I work

Suppers
If I am home:

• probably a soup of some kind
• easy cook: pastas, baked potatoes, rices, grains with veggies
• side salads with veggies
• veggies and healthy dips (I love to dip and crunch. Dips: healthy humous, healthy guac., salsas, healthy onion dip, healthy sun-dried tomato dip or various healthy bean dips)
• tuna or salamon with crackers and vegies
• basically anything that can be quickly and easily cooked. Pantry meals.
  

If I go straight to a meeting after work:

• salad or a veggie wrap from Arbies or veggie sandwich from subway or from the church cafe
  

Snacks will be fruit or veggies and dips.

I am just resisting spending lots of time planning, shopping, cooking and thinking about foods. Having the things in the pantry to make fast quick dinners and giving myself permission to eat out rather than cook will help I think. I figure that I would spend about $20 a week eating out (4 lunches and 1 or 2 wraps for supper). I have been so busy that I probably have been throwing away at lest $20 of bad produce that I don't get eaten anyhow.

Doing this will also allow me to sleep in about a half hour in the morning too!! Gotta love that! I just can't seem to get it together at night to make the lunch at night.

How does this sound to you guys?

jackie

Exercise and Choices

Affirmation: I exercise

Exercise! Oh how I hate it! But Oh how I love how I feel when I do it. I did it. I went and purchased a recumbent bike and it was delivered on Friday. I had gotten out of the routine of going to the Y and with my new job and other new things in my life, I was finding it hard to make the time to get to the Y to exercise. I knew that I could do it in less time at home, but for now walking was a challenge with my knee pain so I decided to get a bike. I found a great deal and mom says that she will use it as well...we will see on that one! But this morning I got up and rode for a whole 5 minutes. How discouraging was that!!! I had been up to 40 minutes on the treadmill with 15 minutes on each end of that on the bike. Well it will take working up to that, but I will.

I am still without my journal and am seeing what a huge accountability tool it is for me. I am almost finished with the revisions and hope to have it ready to print by the end of the week. I am just about at the point in my recovery that I am thinking that I might be ok with setting some goals. Goal setting usually doesn't do anything but trigger my rebelliousness in me and I end up self defeating. I know that this is a core issue that I want to work on...rebelliousness. It goes back so far to my childhood...food was the only thing I felt that I could control about my life. But that isn't true anymore. I am in control of my life now, well as far as I choose to be. Of course I am submitted to God, but that is something different than feeling that others are in control of my life and my choices. But then again maybe not. If I truly believe that God is in control, even when I feel I am not in control of the choices others make for me, I can find comfort in the fact that God can make everything work for the good.

But being in control...knowing that I am in control of my choices makes me responsible for those choices I make. I have no one now to blame on my weight. I have made all the choices that have brought me to this point. I understand that there are circumstances, explainations, reasons, but ultimately I have chosen to be this way. It is interesting that as I have allowed the truth of that to sink into my core being, instead of feeling guilt, despair, or anger I have felt hope. An incrediable amount of hope. Because if I made the choices that resulted in my being obese, then I also have the ability to make the choices to stop makeing choices that make me obese. Ok that is a mouthful. Let me see if I can say it better. They were my choices...the end result is obesity. I have the same power of choice to decide to make choices that the end result is health. Healthy eating, healthy exercising, healthy weight level, healthy life. Now I know that it isn't really as simple as that, but it is as simple as that. It is choice. One choice at a time. I didn't start out to choose to become 100 lbs obese...I made the choice to have that extra helping, I made the choice to not exercise, I made the choice to eat when I wasn't hungry, I made the choice to soothe myself with food rather than deal with a problem. I have the same power to make different choices. I am beginning to realise that it isn't about looking at the totallity of what has to be accomplished, but to look at it broken down into the simplest form. Choice. Specifically one choice at a time.

That being said, I had a weekend of bad choices. Not one meal was a good choice. Why? I didn't feel like cooking, I didn't feel like eating healthy, I didn't feel like going to the grocery store. There are always reasons. But the simple matter is that it is all about choice. Do I make the choice for life or death? Simple eh?

Sans Jounal

Affirmation: I do not eat when I am bored

This week I am without my journal. The trial one that I created was only for one month and I do not have the new changes ready to print out the new one. I can tell the difference with out it. As much as I have resisted keeping a food journal - not having the time, not wanting the hassle of writing everything that goes into my mouth, what ever the excuses were - I am now convinced that it is really a great tool for healing and recovery. Aside from the obvious of keeping me honest about what and how much I actually eat - it helps to keep my focus, helps me to see patterns of when and why I eat, and to see the excuses I have for not moving more. And it is from these that I make decisions on what to focus on each week and create my affirmations.

The food journal has become a sort of saftey net for me this past month. I can see that I will need to continue using it for a while yet. I think that the most important thing that it helped me realize is that this is going to be a long term journey for me and that it is ok. It helps me to hold on to the long term goals, but keeps me focused on the day to day choices that will bring that long term success. That long term success seems so huge and so far away, the journal, breaking it down into as small blocks of time as I want help me to recognize and celebrate the smaller victories along the way, the marking of progress that gets lost when only focusing on the final long term goal. And really these daily, even choice by choice victories are, in many ways, more important because they are what will become the habits of my life that will sustain me in the permancy of recover and health. It helps me to remember that my focus is not just the final goal of loosing x-amount of weight, but of creating a new lifestyle that is centered on health and the permenacy of that change has to be made at the lowest level, the beginning, the minute by minute choice that I make each day about how I choose to live my life. I love this quote from Oprah:

"The commitment to do well and be well is a lifetime of choices that you make daily" --Oprah Winfrey

So, I have become convinced that a food journal is a valuable tool that not only keeps one honest about what one eats, but for me it helps to see, plan and facilitate change.

.

Affirmations

Affirmation: I do not eat when I am bored

Affirmations...now these are something I have reisited working with for almost two years. At first I wasn't sure if it just wasn't so much wishful thinking. But as I began to do some research, I discovered that even though they seem new, they have been around for ever. The Bible, particularly Psalms is full of them; my favorite is in Psalms 139:14, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made". As I have begun to work with them, I have seen that they can be a valuable tool. There is no secret or magical power in them. Picking ones that resonate in your spirit may make it easier to work with. But I am also convinced that using ones that you don't quite believe yet, particularly about yourself, especially if they are grounded in scripture as is the Ps. 139:14 one can be even more powerful and potentially life changeing. Why, well in my experience it is about telling yourself the truth over and over again; eventually you believe it and can use that truth to then begin to make the changes in your life to make it happen. Mabye it is the positive side of a negative self-fulllfilling prophesy. I don't know exactly. But I do know that they can be helpful tools

Last month I worked with the affirmation "I eat when I am hungry; I stop when I am satisfied". Along with that last month my focus was on only eating when I was hungry and stopping when I reached saiety. I said this affirmation numerous times a day. Everytime I reached out to eat I asked myself the question "where am I on the hunger scale?" At first it felt awkward and silly, but as the month wore on, I found that my thinking was changing. By the end of the month I now feel that I am choosing to eat rather than just eating when the thought strikes. When I think I want to eat the question comes automatically and it is getting easier and easier to know if hunger or something else is driving me to food. It has also helped me to believe that this is a truth in my life. This is how most the rest of the world live - eating only when hungry. I have also been able to see what many triggers to eat are as a result of this - because the next obvious question when no is the answer to the hunger question is that I am no hungry is "What is this really about then?" The various answers have given me insight on other affirmations to work with, areas to confront and find other coping tools than food, even ways to see how to change the day to day minutia of the way I live my life to facilitate this journey to recover and health

Weekend Roundup

Affirmation: I do not eat when I am bored.

This weekend has been pretty good. I got a lot of the major changes finished on the food journal I am working on to publish. I left a galley copy off for A. to look at, she is considering using them in the new groups that will start in the fall and I think with some of her other patients as well. It is exciting. I know that using this journal for the past month has really helped me see things that I haven't ever seen before.

Today has been a really "feel like normal" day for me. Really a first. I haven't thought about food most of the day, in fact I had breakfast and didn't eat again until supper - I just wasn't hungry. This reinforces that fact that I eat when I am bored. What this is tellling me is that I need to keep busy doing things I love to do, rather than sit around after work and veg and get bored and then think about eating. I have so many projects that should be no problem.

Although, this weekend has not been good as far as planing for the next week and getting lunches and stuff ready. I will have to be dilligent tomorrow night and make lunches and muffins for breakfast. It went so good the past few weeks to pre-bag raw veggies, fruit, and prep lunches for the whole week. Then all I have to do is throw everything in my lunch bag and it is done...no muss, no fuss. But I find that sometimes I am so resistant to that. Self-sabotage...a word that I have not been willing to explore...must do it soon though I think.

A note about the journal page I posted. This is from an old visual journal from Feb.2000. As much as most of my life has centered around getting a handle on this weight gain since moving back to my home town, not much has changed since then. Until now. This jounal entry was so much about picking up myself by my bootstraps and trying to convince myself that change could happen.; I don't think I believed that anything could change. It didn't, I didn't have the tools then, dieting didn't work, neither did any amount of trying to give myself pep talks either.

So what has changed? I am not sure that I can put that into words. Something has changed on a very deep spiritual level for me. For the first time I think I have truly understood how continuing to live this way dishonors God, and at the root of it all is lack of faith...I have put my love for food higher than my love for God, I made food an idol. I would go to food to solve problems, ease lonliness, ease boredom, comfort, what ever. The deeper my relationship with God has gone, the more I have understood how very much He loves me and how much He desires to be the touchstone and focus of my complete life; how He want's me to come to Him for all those kinds of things. What He thinks of me, desires for me are so completely different that what I believe about myself. Understanding who I am in Him brings such a different perspective into my life and the way that I see myself. Now, this doesn't mean that I don't have to do the work to change the way I relate to and use food. I have to face the issues behind why I use food, I have to take the steps to change...but the differnce this time is that there is a deep sadness in my heart for not understanding how destructive these choices I have made have been to me, on all levels, spiritually, physically, emotionally, metally, even socially. These are my choices, and I have the consequences of my choices to prove it; I no longer want to live in the consequences of those choices, I want to live a new and healthy life; a life that is within reach one decision at a time.

Breakthroughs & Celebrations

Affirmation: I eat when I am hungry; I stop when I am satisfied

Tonight at group I realized that the past month, working on this affirmation has created a real breakthrough for me. I am actually beginning to listen to my body and recognize real hunger and choose to only eat when I am actually hungry. I am getting better and better each day to stop eating when I reach saiety and not going past that to full or stuffed. And today I realized that my body is beginning to trust me again to feed it when I am truly hungry and that if I get hungry again, I will feed it, instead of starving it because of some diet. Today I wasn't even hungry enough to eat my snacks. I only ate at meals and actually I didn't think about food much today at all. Small progresses, but victories to celebrate!

I think it is about time that I begin to look for and celebrate the small victories. I am so quick to notice and point out my stumbles, mistakes, and falls from plan each day, but there are still many victories, both large AND small to celebrate too. It is so important to mark the positive milestones, something I don't do enough on this journey...in fact in most of my life.

So!! tonight it is about small victories. You Go Girlfriend! Today's small victory is not eating snacks because I wasn't hungry or just because I had packed them in my lunch bag. It was perfectly ok to tote them back home and put them in the fridge for tomorrow.

Random Musings

I am tired this morning. I woke up starving this morning so ate breakfast at 7 am. Usually I have such a hard time eating that early. My other vitamins came yesterday so I will get back on those. I also ordered some iron (my iron was waaaay low with this last blood screen) and a bottle of glucosamine. I am currious to see if that will help the knees and hips and the pain there. I am hoping that the iron is the reason I have been so fatigued and sleepy these past few months.

I have decided to go ahead and purchase a recumbant bike for home. I know I will exercise more at home than trying to fit time in to go to the Y...and mom says that she will use it too. I think that it will go in what will eventually be my bedroom, after we get all the rearranging finished. I am so anxious to get all the moving and shuffling around done so I can spend some quality time in the studio. A side benefit is that I don't eat or want to eat when I am in the studio working. All I have been able to do lately is the soul cards...which really aren't true soul cards in the way Seena Frost describes them and how to use them in her book Soul Collage. For me, they are a visual record of what is going on in my soul at the time I created them.

I am getting pretty much in the habit of recognizing hunger, eating when I am hungry (level 2-3) and stoping when I am satisfied (level 5-6). It is getting easier and easier to choose to wait until I am hungry, but I still am eating too fast to let my body catch up and recognize saiety. My additional goal this week has been to slow down eating. I am doing that by trying to only eat when I am eating (rather than read, surf the web, watch TV, etc) and eat at the table. I think that I may have to stop eating at my desk at work...I tend to find something in email or on the web to read.

Why do this - eating at the table, not doing anything else while eating? Well double tasking while eating contributes to a lot of things.

1. Not being in the moment and engaged in eating, tasting, and most important listening to my body
2. Begins to create the habit of doing something while eating, which that activity then will become a trigger for eating
3. Contributes to my not paying attention and then I tend to eat faster, which allows me to eat more; not be engaged

Hmmm most of them actually reflect not being engaged in the moment of eating...why do I do that, I wonder? I have reallized that it has not been exactly enjoyable for me to only eat while I am eating...I don't enjoy the process of eating nearly as much. So...what is that telling me about how I use food? Just the fact that I am resisting eating only when I am eating indicates that this is something to work on, to dig beneath.

At any rate I am celebrating that I am beginning to see my hunger/saiety come back into balance and that I am actually able to recognize and respond to them in a normal way.

Jackie

I eat when I am hungry, I stop when I am satisfied

Perseverance

per·se·ver·ance n. 1. Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness. 2. persistent determination. 3. the act of persisting or persevering; continuing or repeating behavior.

This is the word that I am working off today. Perseverance. Keeping on when I don't feel like keeping on. Doing it when I don't want to, when I am discouraged, when I am too tired to, when I forgot the reason I am doing this in the first place, and most of all doing it when it gets too hard and the old ways are calling and seem so much easier. What is the result of perseverance? Habit.

hab·it: noun 1 : bodily appearance or makeup especially as indicative of one's capacities and condition 2 : a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior 3 a : a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiological exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance b : an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary c : addiction 4 : characteristic mode of growth or occurrence

Habit is what I can fall back on when I "don't want to" Habit is what will take me through, will over-ride the thought processes of wanting to go backwards. Habit will take me through all the justifications and temptations...if I let it.

All my motivation and energies seemed drained today. My concentration levels are nill. It is so easy to go back into old habits. This is week 3, they say it takes 3 months (12 weeks) to create a habit (some say 21 days, but I find that is really not true for me)...that is a lot of perseverance. For me, week 3 of anything is always the make or break week, whether it is a new job, new art project, or trying to create change in my life. So this is make or break week for me, but I also have to remember that I have only 9 more weeks before the changes become habits. This makes me wonder how many things at a time to change. It feels that if I don't change everything at once then it will take years to get to my goals. But trying to change everything at once seems overwhelming when you put it into the light of trying to break old habits and create new ones. How many can I actually concentrate on at the same time and actually be successful at? Because so much of my eating is based also in emotional issues to the point of it being an eating disorder, I also find that I am needing to deal with the issues behind the eating as well. How much can one work on at the same time and actually not become overwhelmed to the point of giving up?

This is what Ellie Rogers over at Yahoo Health says about creating a habit of exercise
http://health.yahoo.com/ency/healthwise/ug1857

Making fitness a habit
Until physical activity becomes a habit for you, the effort to remain active may seem difficult.

• When you first start an exercise program, try to exercise at the same time every day.
• Consider your physical activity efforts a scheduled part of your day
• Do your physical activity regularly for at least 3 months.

Experts say that it takes about 3 months of repetition to form a habit. For some people, 3 months is not long enough to form the habit. Changing seasons and weather may interfere with establishing a habit. Keep it up until you don't think about it as an extra part of your day.I know that this is about exercise, but it is also about creating habit.

Of course I want to make exercise a habit in my life, bur right now I am concentrating on recognizing hunger and only eating when I am hungry. In essence I am retraining my body, mind and emotions, to create a new habit of only expecting food, thus wanting food only when I am hungry. I also, over the years have trained my body to expect food during certain activities, whether I am hungry or not. Like reading, watching TV, or when I am bored, lonely, unhappy, happy, angry, alive, awake, …you get it…anytime, except when I am hungry. But maybe that is because I have always put food in my body at a constant rate and have never actually felt the sensation of hunger…well at least not for many years.

Paige Waehner over at About.com also has some great things to say about creating the habit of exercise, which can be translated into other applications of forming new healthy habits.

Successful Weight LossFrom Paige Waehner,Your Guide to Exercise. http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/weightsuccess.htm

Ingredients for Success
Commitment
· Plan and Prepare
· Motivate
Yourself
· Hold Yourself Accountable.
· Remember Your Goals
Discipline
· Make Exercise a Habit
· Know the Consequences
· Get Some Help
· Make a Deal With Yourself
Honesty
· How much time will you really spend exercising?
· Are you willing to do what it takes to reach your goals
· Can you accept failure?
Flexibility
· Change your workouts when necessary
· Do shorter workouts
· Be creative
Consistency

I know all this, of course, but having to actually put this in action in my life has me seeing it all in a different way. I like Steven Covey's definition of habit:

Covey defines a “habit” as the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.
Knowledge is the what to do and why
Desire is the motivation
Skill is the how to do.
http://www.psychicsahar.com/artman/publish/article_59.shtml