Affirmation: Eat consciously

I have been using SparkPeople for two weeks now. Tracking calories/fat/carbs/protein I thought it would really send me spiraling into that diet mentality that has only meant failure for me. But it hasn’t. It has opened my eyes to some realities. While my portion sizes have become very normal in size, my food choices have still been amazing high caloric/high fat/high carb. I knew that I tended to be on the high carb side. I love my pasta and bread and eat more grains than animal proteins. It is ok with me – I choose whole grains and moderate both the portion and frequency during the course of a week. But I was blown away by the amount of calories I was consuming and fat was out of the ballpark, not to mention the silent things like sodium. I also have become aware at how much I don’t know about food nutritional values. Dedicated label reader that I am aside, I didn’t realize how much some foods had of some things and how low other counts were. I am amazed that I am way low on protein intake.

I think that I had suspended belief that if portion sizes were in a reasonable range so would the calories and everything else. Now I am not unaware that certain foods are really high in calories/fat/carbs…but I chose to believe that anything in moderation is ok. AND IT IS. But not everything is good as a steady diet. Breakfasts at McDonalds for instance…just a large English toffee cappuccino and an egg and cheese English muffin…ya right! It was easy, but I was horrified at the food counts in this breakfast…and they didn’t even list the cappuccino in their nutrition facts (wonder why?) No wonder I haven’t lost anything. Now I knew that these were high food count choices and low on the health-o-meter choice, but knowing HOW bad makes it easier to say no now. Ahhh ignorance is bliss isn’t it!

My eating habits, my emotional connection to food, and all the underlying emotional triggers, reasons, uses for food have really been looked at, acknowledged, and I think, healed, and are being brought into a more normal range. I am more aware of when, why, and how much I am eating. I am aware of physical hunger vs. emotional hunger and the difference between the two. I am learning ways to feed/deal/soothe the emotional hunger other than using food. And I am becoming consistent in recognizing and using these options rather than food…although I still slip into old habits more than I would like. I am doing better every day at eating only when hungry/stopping just before full. And yet I haven’t lost any weight. After almost two years of working through all this. No, I don’t think that the past two years were in vain. On the contrary, I think that it was essential to work on all this to come to the point of being able to look at counting food counts without spiraling into the black hole of “diet mentality”. I think that what has changed for me is that I am seeing this counting as just another tool to use to help along the way; to bring truth and accountability to the process. Just like mindful eating, eating when hungry/stopping just before full, food journaling (tracking when/where/why/portion size/what I eat), journaling, group, portion sizing, all the self talk/affirmations, facing the underlying issues, becoming aware have been tools too.

But I am realizing that there is still that aspect of physics: Energy in must be less than energy out if one wants to loose actually pounds. In the past, all the diets I have been on focused only on that equation. And they didn’t work…they actually made me fatter.

My group facilitator recently went to a conference on eating disorders and for the first time there were workshops on overeating/binge/compulsive eating. It is a new arena and as with all things new a vast differences of opinion on how to deal with this (because in reality, I think, no one really knows how to deal with it!). This comes as no surprise to me…I have known for most of my adult overweight life that the medical community, the counseling/psychiatric community/the religious community/society in general had no idea what to do with us, how to help us, or even what to say to us. For some loosing weight is truly just an issue of engaging your will and deciding to loose weight merely through self-control and self-discipline. But for those of us who are morbidly obese, compulsive, or binge eaters it is not just about making up your mind to loose weight and counting on discipline or self-control to work.

She indicated that there were two polar schools of thought: All acceptance all the time at any weight and the energy in/energy out equation control methods. It seemed that it was either or. I have been thinking about this a lot since hearing her talk about this. To try to decide which is right or which comes first is a lot like asking: “which comes first, the chicken or the egg”. I think both are true but not at the same time in recovery. I think that after years of warring with your body and mind, years of hearing those you love telling you, in what ever ways, that you would be “better” if you lost weight, years of you telling yourself that, years of hating how you look and finally coming to believe that how you looked reflected in some negative way on who you are at the most basic level you FIRST have to stop the war inside your brain and soul. You have to forgive yourself for getting to this place, learn to love yourself as you are at this point, to accept that you may always be this weight. You have to do all the hard work of understanding what is behind it all. And yes at the same time you begin to become conscious again about eating: portion sizes, tracking food – the what, when, where, why and how much- and learn to do it without judgment.

But the hard core of food counts, calories burned through exercise, planning and creating exercise programs, even changing and molding your life around workouts…those cannot come in the early phases of recovery, I believe. Why? Well I think you have to deal with root causes and issues first or it becomes about how I look, sticking to a diet, etc. Recover is about a lifestyle change…on all levels - emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational. And most important I think you need to come to the point of forgiveness and surrender. Forgiving yourself for getting to where you are, those forces/people in your life that conspired to help, even your genetic makeup that pre-disposed the possibility of becoming obese. You must also learn how to use forgiveness in a day-to-day way. Forgiving those who undermine you, including yourself. Forgiving yourself for each day’s failings. Forgiving the past, present, and future. Forgiving anything that gives you reason to remain in the state you are in. Surrender…your past, your present, and your future. Surrendering the idea that perfection is within reach. Surrendering that you will do this perfectly, or that you even have the right to judge whether you have done it perfectly. Surrendering those things that give you reason to remain in the state you are in. Oh and one more thing…acceptance. I think that before you can really go forward you have to come to terms with the limitations you have in your life…acknowledge them, accept them…even accept the possibility that recovery may not be that 125 or even the 150 weight goal. I don’t think you can really change until you acknowledge and accept the fact that these things are in and a part of your life.

Recovery is about health… the same emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational health that goes into lifestyle changes. I think that before you can move into using the traditional tools of tracking food counts, calories burned, etc you have to be more on the side of healthy on this continuum than not. That may be a different point for everyone…probably is. I also believe that knowing that point will be a very personal and individual decision fraught with trial and error / success and failure. Experimentation may be the key word…trying to use these tools while keeping close watch on the emotional reactions you will have for it. Having the courage, knowledge and probably also the accountability of a trusted group who will call you on it when you slip into that diet mentality that is so destructive to recovery. Leaning to know when to step away from focusing on these tools and going back to working with other tools because imbalance has been achieved.

This is hard for most people who prefer a nicely wrapped package to present to those seeking answers. But my experiences over the past 2 years in this journey…heck my whole lifetime really…has taught me that there are no easy answers wrapped up in pretty packages. If there were morbid obesity would not be a problem in our society today. Recovery is messy, fraught with successes and failures, wrong turns and going back over already learned lessons to relearn them. Covering new ground and capturing it only to find that you have somehow lost that ground and need to go back to the basics and cover that ground again and regain it. It is a bloody lonely battle that can only be won one bite at a time with the ammunition of forgiveness for failures, grace for the day, surrendering unhealthy thoughts, choices, and ideas. It is a life of trial and error. But I also think that it is a life of hope and health. Eventually you come to the point that making healthy choices are easier than making unhealthy choices. You want health more than anything else…ultimately you begin to choose life, but it doesn’t come in a nice pretty easily explained or obtained package.

Now…what have I learned in the past two weeks of tracking food counts at SparkPeople?

I have noticed that I am hungrier in the mornings than after lunch. I mean really hungry. In the past eating breakfast, even the thought of it, made my tummy queasy. Now that I am in the habit of eating in the mornings it seems that I am hungry all morning long. When I didn’t eat in the mornings it seemed I could go all day without eating.

Well anyway, what I am realizing is that I need to adjust my meal loads to accommodate this. I need to eat more substantial breakfasts heavier morning snack and smaller lunches and lighter dinners and a smaller more higher protein afternoon snack.

Normally I just eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich or some oatmeal or some yogurt and fruit for breakfast. I am very hungry an hour later, sometimes two hours. My morning snacks have just been a piece of fruit or some cheese and whole grain crackers.

I could eat a larger breakfast…but what? I can’t eat for 2 hours after I get up because of my thyroid medication. So I have to take my breakfast with me and eat while I work. It has to be easy and portable. I am not tied into breakfast food per se, so I can think outside the box. While the idea of bulk cooking on Sunday appeals to me on a practical level, in actuality I don’t want or like to spend that much time in the kitchen around food. I think that I may try to make a crock pot full of 7 grain cereal and pre-portion it out for the whole week…adding soy milk and fruit to it each morning and nuking it in the micro. I can also make my low fat healthy quiches in the large muffin tins too. Looking at the Yogurt breakfast I think I could increase it from ½ cup yogurt to a full cup and add more fruit (I usually only use about ¼ cup of berries)

Morning snacks: Need to look at low fat (cheese and crackers add too much fat to use on a daily basis) options. Need to add more protein in my diet all round. I like dips and spreads. Maybe add tofu to some of my favorite dips that adds quite a bit of protein. Also I could add some beans to some of the non-bean dips. Veggies add crunch and fiber. I am on a search for whole grain, low fat, low salt tasty crackers that aren’t extremely expensive. I could make them…they last for ever…the whole reason crackers were invented. I guess that I need to spend some time with my vast collection of cookbooks and see what I can adapt.

Lunches are pretty straightforward. I cook on Sunday and eat the same lunch all week. Usually I don’t mind it…I only have 4 days of lunches. In the winter when I do soups I can vary the soup and freeze some. But for summer I love to do cold salads/pasta salads kind of things for lunch…easy breezy to make and no fuss to pack.

Suppers for summer are usually cold – green salads with some protein. We will also do grilled fish, chicken, vegetables, etc. I have gotten into the habit of putting the animal protein in the salad rather than think about it as a main dish. This helps keep the portion size down and the crunch factor up.

So…this tracking food counts has been a map for me…a tool to look at how to make better choices…how to make food work for me not against me. I do know that a year ago this wouldn’t have worked for me (I tried at another similar site). It threw me into obsessive eating. I have a feeling that this is not something I will or can do for a prolonged period of time. I can see using it periodically as an accountability check…to see if I am actually eating what I think I am. Just like periodically I go back to measuring everything for a couple of days to check that my eyeballing portions are accurate. I don’t have the answer to the question of is this beneficial or not for everyone…not do I have the answer when to bring it into the mix of recovery tools. I think that is an individual question. But I think the question is not should I use this, but what will using this cause in my life? If it causes the mania that goes with “diet mentality” then it is not time. If you can use it as just another tool and leave it at that…then maybe it is a good tool to use. But it is not a tool to measure recovery: THAT I KNOW.

Neither is using the scale. But using the scale again has shown me the direct correlation between what I eat and my body’s reaction to it. Again I probably will not weigh myself as often as they suggest on SparkPeople…once or twice a month at most. But I could see directly that eating more conscious of food counts had a direct effect on weight loss. The secret is to hold that knowledge loosely and concentrate on healthy choices, not just the loss of poundage.

A Matter of Choice

Affirmation: Change is choice; choose change

A matter of choice. Sounds great. We all love choice. But I have been thinking a lot about choice as it relates to my state of health and eating. I give myself too many choices, mainly I think that I frequently give myself both the choice and the permission to fail, to make unhealthy choices, both with food and with lifestyle and exercise.

I was reading a blog by a woman who was talking about her training for a marathon and how she gave herself no choice in training…Not when getting up at 4:30 in the morning was a pain, not when an employee at work quit making her workload heavier requiring her to work more hours, not when her responsibilities as a mom and wife called. She just gave herself no choice but to train. Failure was not an option.

I have begun to realize that perhaps I have flirted with failure too much. Given myself too much choice in the matter. Do I really believe that it is even possible to make healthy eating a permanent part of my life, an unconscious choice every time I eat? Do I really believe that I can loose half my body weight to become healthy and eliminate my high B/P? Do I? Do I really believe that I can begin to choose to exercise every day…every day with out fail? Then I have to ask myself do I even want to? If I do, then why am I not choosing it?

Is it at all possible that I am going around this the wrong way? Honestly at this point in my life there really is no choice, well yes there is…it is a matter of choosing life or death. So why am I choosing death? I think that maybe a paradigm shift is needed here. I need, want to allow no choice but to succeed. I have no choice but to succeed. I have no choice. Failure is not an option. Why is this so hard? I worked off of this premise during Grad school when things got really tough. Failure was just not an option for me, I wanted that degree, I wanted what needed those professors to teach me, whether they wanted to or not. So how do I apprehend that to this part of my life? Well I think that removing the choice to fail is a start. To keep my eye on the prize of health. To live with the end in mind. This statement is something I live by in many other areas in my life…it is time to incorporate it into this area.

What is the end I have in mind?

• To be healthy (1 Cor. 6:18-20)
• To have the energy and strength to do the work God has called me to do.
• To not be ruled by food but by the Holy Spirit (Deut. 8:3; Matt 4:14)
  

This is not about looking good for me, although in the end it will be nice to wear fun comfortable clothes again. The is about living, feeling full of energy, having my life back.

Sunday's Planning and Cooking

Affirmation: Change is a choice, and planning facillitates change

Another Monday. I learned something again this weekend that seemed very profound the first time it occurred to me and reinforced it and convinced me of it this time around. Funny how you can learn something, and have to learn it all over again on another level later. What did I learn? That sometimes when I think I am hungry, all I am is thirsty. I was busy doing things on Saturday and didn’t get the amount of water in that I usually do and when I got home I was really hungry and thirsty. Or I thought I was hungry, in spite of the fact that I had a good breakfast before leaving the house and a large, healthy salad for lunch. As I looked around for what sounded good to eat, nothing really answered the question “Do I really want this to eat?” so I poured a new water jug of cold fresh water and gulped quite a bit down. Well I didn’t feel hungry anymore. No not in the way you try to convince yourself you aren’t hungry after you drink some water because you feel a fullness in your stomach from the water, but really still are hungry for food. I was just not hungry. So now I have a new question to ask myself when I am rambling around asking myself if I am really hungry….I will ask myself if I am hungry or if I am really thirsty…when was the last time I had water and how much had I had for the day. Try water first.

I decided to plan out breakfast and lunches this week and prepare ahead and pre-pack everything that I could so that I had lunches and breakfast ready each day. No choice means no wondering what I “feel” like eating. That usually leads to unhealthy choices. So this is what I made.

For breakfasts:

I made yogurt parfaits. Using the small ½ cup Glad Bowls I layered Mountain High organic plain no-fat vanilla yogurt with blueberries and raspberries drizzling just a touch of organic honey on the fruit.

Tonight (I ran out of time yesterday) I will make High Protein chocolate chip pumpkin loaf from Molly Katzen’s “Sunlight Café” cookbook. Here is an online version that uses bananas instead of pumpkin.

For lunch:

I adapted a Salad Nicoise from Bob Greene’s book “Get with the Program Guide to Good Eating”.

Salad Nicoise - my version
Basically roast some new potatoes – I cubed them up or you can just halve them. Sparingly sprinkle some EEOV and salt and pepper and paprika on them and put them on a cookie sheet covered with the non-stick aluminum foil (don’t need more oil if you use this). You can also dust with some cayenne pepper if you like heat

Steam some green beans until still crunchy and shock with ice water to stop the cooking.

Let these cool a bit and put in a large bowl and then add some (depends on how big a batch you are making) of Low Fat Italian dressing (I like Paul Newman’) use about half of the total amount you will ultimately use in the recipe. Adding it while the potatoes are still warm makes it all taste better.
Add a few nicoise black olives, pitted and chopped and some capers, rinsed and cherry or grape tomatoes. Use the cherry/grape and don't cut them so that the salad doesn't get soggy...which will happen if you use larger tomatoes and cut them up.

Boil a few eggs (depending on how many servings you make of the salad) (vegetarians leave these out; high cholestrol? just use the whites)

Have on hand either the tuna filets or salmon in the foil pouch that you can now get in the foil packets. Vegetarians could easily substitute a can of well rinsed beans (garbanzos would be terriffic) for the fish protein.

Now…for the week (yes I will be eating the same thing for all 4 days this week…don’t mind doing it this way) I used about 8 new potatoes and about a pound of green beans, 10 olives, a tablespoon or so of capers and 4 eggs…this made about 4 decent sized servings.

To pre-pack for lunches divide up the bean-potato salad mixture and put into a 2 cup glad bowl. Add the boiled egg and put the lid on. Have 4 packets of either the tuna or the salmon steak or both. Put a little of the Italian dressing in a small container to add at lunchtime. Pack this all in your lunch box and you have lunch for 4 days.

To assemble this you just peel your egg and crumble or slice it over your salad, put your tuna/salmon on top and add the rest of the dressing. Yummmm

Salad nicoise is usually what they call a composed salad…each ingredient is artfully arranged on a plate in pie shaped wedges. But this is impractical for brown bagging it. This “tossed” version isn’t as pretty, but tastes just as good.

For Morning snacks:
Small handful of cherries, 1 oz lower fat cheese, and a few whole grain lower fat crackers

For Afternoon snacks:
Raw veggies and a low fat ranch/yogurt dip. (I haven’t found any low fat ranch dressing I like yet so I use the full fat version of the Hidden Valley and thin it a bit with FF plain yogurt…it is ok. I like to dip things so I have a whole arsenal of healthy dip recipes that I use with raw veggies, whole grain toasted pita wedges (I toast them myself), baked whole grain corn chips, etc.

For suppers
I will either do pasta, salads, or roll-ups…or what ever else is on hand. Suppers aren’t as hard for me as I am not usually as hungry at supper as I am at breakfast and lunch. I am trying not to do evening snacks because I want to do yoga and the tape I use says that the last food should be 2 hours before doing the yoga…so that means no snacking in the evening as supper doesn’t happen until around 7.

Oh and a small note on a late (for us Americans) supper. Waiting until 7 or later for supper really has helped with the evening munchies. Think about it. If you don’t get to bed until 10 but you eat supper at 5…that is a loooong time until supper, much less breakfast. So I have pushed lunch until after 1 and supper until 7. This is where the morning and afternoon snacks help a lot.

Well I am off for now. Off to a good start on a good week.

For an excellent view on motivation go read Sara’s post on her blog.

Made it Through!

Affirmation: Change is a Choice

Well I made it through a holiday without going bonkers. Now, mind you I didn't do the party thing, no family picknic's this year, just a quiet 4 days off home puttering with mom. But many times being off work with nothing planned can mean a lot of snacking and munching. But I didn't. I ate pretty healthy even. Tomatoes are starting to trickle in from the south - real tomatoes. So I had my fill of all things tomato...I am sooo glad that they are so good for you!

I thought I would post a recipe that I have tweeked from I don't know where...it no longer looks like the original much and the original is long gone. I think the original had chicken or something in it. But I adapted it to make it a quick throw together rather than make all the stuff from scratch. I don't have a name for it, so I will make one up just for you all.

Poletna with Black Bean and Corn Salsa

For the salsa:

• 1 jar of your favorite fat free, low sodium salsa
• 1 can fat free low soduim black beans, rinsed well
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups frozen corn (to your taste)

Mix above together well. Chill. This is also good over a baked potatoe

For the Polenta

• Your favorite Polenta recipe (or if you really want fast, get the pre-prepared stuff from the market)
• Use soy milk instead of water (makes it creamier)
• some garlic (to your taste)
• cayene ground pepper (to your taste - if you are using a hot salsa you might skip this unless you love it hot!)
• a bay leaf
• Parmesean cheese (I make only 2 servings at a time so I use about 1/4 cup shreaded, less if it is ground)

Toast garlic in about a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the milk, cayene pepper and bay leaf and bring milk to boil. Add the amount of polenta grains called for in your recipe and stir constantly until thickens...about 5 minutes or more. Remove bay leave, take off heat and stir in parm cheese.

Now since this is a lunch bag standby I pour my polent into the little glad bowls (1 cup). Let cool and store in fridge for lunches. In another glad bowl put about a cup of salsa. Store in fridge for lunches. Warm up polenta and top with cold salsa. If you are serving it right away, pour the polenta into shallow bowl or pasta bowls. Top with about a cup of the salsa. MMM and so healthy for you. Easy breasy!

Polenta is quick and easy to make and really good for you. It stores pretty good in the fridge, so you can make up several servings ahead. It is good to lightly toast either in the oven or in a pan with a very small amount of olive oil (it sucks up the oil like a sponge) I also use a grill pan to toast them. When you make the polenta, pour it out on a cookie sheet and after it cools you can cut them into cute little triangles to toast. It makes a great base for putting other things over it. I will post some more recipes later. As you can see, making a pot of polenta is a great cook once morph into several meals food.

Eating and Food Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to Choose Health and Life

Eating and Food

Last winter I talked about how handling food for me was getting on my nerves and making me want to eat more. Also how I was just sick of all the preparations that seem to go along with healthy eating. In the past 6 months I have experimented with different solutions, some work, some not, some only to varying degrees. It still comes down to discipline. Oh how we hate that word don’t we? But for me to become disciplined it has to become easy. Complication doesn’t work for me. In this eating/exercise/road to health or in any other area of my life it seems.

So what didn’t work:

1. Eating the same thing all the time.
2. Easy and suprisingly as tasty as they are to just eat the TV dinners, they got old after a time.
3. Buying a bunch of fresh produce thinking I would make the time to clean, cut and such.
4. Going to the grocery every week. (Too much time and I tended to over buy and ended throwing out fresh produce that went bad)

What did work:

1. Taking breakfast to work to eat.
2. Using TV dinners for lunches.
3. Making big batches of salad for lunches and suppers and storing it in individual Glad containers for quick salad makings.
4. Spending a bit extra for pre-washed salad, pre shredded veggies, and those fruit and veggie party trays instead of thinking I will clean and chop veggies and melons.
5. Allowing myself the treat of eating lunch out a couple of times a month.
6. But most important was a deep cleansing of my kitchen to make it a “clean healthy” place. I got rid of all white flour and sugar, processed foods, high fat and sodium foods etc. To help it along I donated sealed and canned foods to a food pantry.

Over all, changing how I cook has helped tremendously. The important thing is to have stuff on hand for quick fixing. I have developed a list of regular things I have on hand to make quick meals that are healthy. I will try to post my pantry list later this week.

Update

Affirmation: To Exercise is to choose life and health

Well it has been quite some time since I have posted. This spring has been a whirlwind of activity and changes for me. I have been gently reminded (thanks Kirsten) that there are people who read my blog and have missed me. I find that surprising and am touched that people whom I don’t even know worry when I don’t show up for a while. Thank you so much for your concern and for reading my blog.

First, I am fine. I have been busy finishing up the last of my requirements for becoming a Life Purpose Coach and Life Plan Facilitator through Pathway to Purpose Ministries. I was in Laguna Beach, CA in March for the final leg of training. I love doing this. I am also teaching a small group book study on the book written by the founder of this Ministry. This has kept me busy and focused. I will write more about how this has impacted my journey to health in a later post.

Second I have had problems with back and knee problems. I was in quite a bit of pain most of March through May, unable to really walk or stand for any amount of time, even sitting at work all day proved to be a challenge to my stamina and patients. But thanks to a really great Chiropractor and many prayers I am almost back to normal.

I have learned a lot from this little experience of incapacitation. First I don’t make a good patient! Second I hate having to depend on others! Third I am a lot more self-conscious about my weight when I am unable to be as active and self-sufficient as usual. The last surprised me a lot (the first two I already pretty much knew or suspected about myself). I am not all that self-conscious about my weight. It is what it is and if someone doesn’t like it then that is their problem. I don’t like it, not as much because of the way I look, but because of the way I feel and the limitations it puts on living my life in the way that I need and want to.

I think that the most important lesson I have learned is the importance of exercise. I am fully convinced that much of this was brought on by inactivity and letting go of what exercise I did do. From about Thanksgiving on I quit exercising – no excuses, I just didn’t do it. The trainer I had been going to dropped his Saturday clients in early summer, I quit my membership at the Y (financial reasons), and purchased a great recumbent bike on sale. I thought that I had enough momentum going from working with a trainer and the training I had done for the ½ marathon I had planned to enter in the spring, but alas winter hit and I quit. I wish I had a more glamorous excuse, but no….just laziness and a dislike of exercising.

Everyone says that if you do it long enough you will love it and crave it. Well after a year of training, not loosing much weight, I still didn’t crave it. I dreaded every day going to the Y or the trainer. I will admit to liking, no loving how I felt while I was exercising…no not during the actual exercise, but in the day-to-day way that I felt overall. I do miss that and am craving that feeling. I liked how my body moved easily, how I felt less heavy (in a way not associated to actual poundage) and how much energy I had. You would think that would be incentive enough eh? Wrong!!

So now with summer here, I am still struggling with exercise. I have been trying to incorporate yoga into my day. I am using a great set of tapes from living arts: Yoga AM and Yoga PM. Both are about 15-20 minutes. I am also trying to get back into the routine of using the bike. Walking any constructive amount of time is still out of the question because of my back and knees. I know that will improve as I loose more weight.

Well I need to go get ready for work. More later…I promise.

Weekend Successes

Affirmation: I love my body and trust its wisdom

The weekend went pretty good for a change. Weekends can be my downfall. This is when I find myself eating out of boredom or stress, depending on mom's needs and moods. I know that I shouldn't allow someone else's moods and needs dictate my stress level, but I am still learning how to cope with the reversing of roles as my mother becomes progressively inactive and frustrated with her health.

This weekend I was gentle with myself and took many naps...I was tired. I love naps on cold wintery days. I also spent time in the studio. Creating helps to forget about food. I came up for air when I was aware that I was so hungry that I was shaking! I rarely forget about food and eating to get to that point. It was such a relief to come upstairs and choose quick/easy fix foods and not have to spend time cooking. It allowed me to just feed my true body hunger and get back to the studio and go on with my day. For the inquiring minds this is what I ate on Saturday:

Breakfast

LF cheese omelet

hash browns

2 slices whole grain toast

Lunch

Frozen Chinese stir fry

rice

Dinner

pizza

(it was mom's birthday, she wanted pizza)

Sunday

Breakfast

Slice of toast w/peanut butter

Lunch

Ummm I forgot, TV dinner I think

Dinner

cheese

pear

crusty sourdough bagette (indiv. serv. size)

dilly beans

ff veg. cream cheese

Snack

popcorn

This is so much different than how I usually snack my way through the weekend...even though the snacking is mostly healthy choices, I still eat out of boredom. It took less than 5 minutes to prepare the meals this weekend and it was such a joy to not have to have time eaten up (no pun intended) around the food prep/eat/thinking/etc. Somehow I feel such a liberation in this. Easy eating, calm eating, eating out of hunger and need for nourishment rather than an emotional response. For the most part the past 2 weeks have been like this. Last weekend I was so busy running around and not at home I didn't think it would be a good test of whether my paradigm shift would survive weekends. This weekend was a quiet weekend at home, and it did. Now, I did find myself thinking and wanting to munch in the evenings, but it was much easier to choose not to. Could it be that this truly is the breakthrough I have been struggling for, praying for, working for, almost have given up on? It is quite early to really say so, but in small and big ways I am finding that change in thought and actions are taking place.

I am finding it much easier to say no to the beginnings of hunger and wait until it gets to a true hunger, not just those little nudges from the hunger monster, you know the kind, hey...you haven't eaten for oh say 5 minutes!! whaddya trying to do...starve!!! To wait until I am well and truly hungry. I am getting more consistent in asking myself the questions too...am I really hungry or has something just triggered my old desire to use food for what ever reason. What is really going on here? And to talk myself through to a conscious answer - even if it is to eat, at least I am doing it consciously and with full knowledge of why.

I am also full of plans for the immediate future, my training and certification as a life purpose coach, creating art, looking for opportunities to sell it and designing and making jewelry...and thinking about selling it too.

Now...time to tackle the exercise demon!

Ready to Move On?

Affirmation: There is more to life than food; choose life.

Last night in group I commented that I just want food to not be the focus of my life. I was challenged that I sounded angry at food and perhaps I was not really wanting change because recovery takes a lot of thinking and focus on food. I understand what was being said, but it doesn't change the fact that I am ready for food to not be the center focus of my life anymore. I still feel that somehow all the focus I have put on food and eating issues that past year is no different, really than the previous years of over-eating. The focus of my life was still on food and eating. I don't think that I was able to explain my point so that anyone could understand what I was - am feeling...maybe because it is not completely clear to me either. But I keep thinking about this quote that was on Kerstin's blogg

"Naturally slim people have lots of goals and things going on in their lives that they focus on, e.g. their careers, family life, hobbies, faith etc. They eat because their bodies need the fuel, and because they enjoy eating. Overweight people on the other hand know only one goal: to lose weight. They think that their 'real' life only begins once they have dealt with that weight issue.." --Doris Wolf "Abnehmen und dabei geniessen"

This really explains what I am struggling with right now. I am ready to live life, to go back to the time when I was concentrating on living a life not centered around food; making goals, going after them, running hard after God, having a circle (tribe) of friends and food was something to be enjoyed, not obsessed over.

This past year has been about confronting the issues, both emotional and physical, surrounding this eating disorder. To learn about hunger, to feel hunger, to eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full. To learn other ways of coping with life than using food. To learn portion sizes and teach my eyes and body to believe that this amount of food will satisfy me. To reteach my tastebuds to desire whole and healthy food and not junk food, sugars, and soda. I haven't quite taught my body to love exercise yet! But hope springs eternal.

But I am ready to let go of that as a focus of my life. This is not to say that I am going to quit working on or monitoring my actions, choices, and thought life around food. But I do believe that recovery, for me, looks like being normal. Perhaps it is because of my in God and the scriptural promises he offers like "Those whom the Son has set free are free indeed" I believe that at some point, after doing the deep work, I can be free from this eating disorder.

It is vital to do the work, the emotional, the spiritual work, the deep work. To resolve the issues behind the reasons for an eating disorder, but does it really have to be the focal point of my life forever? I am convinced not. That speaks too much to the victim mentality to me, of being tied to this disorder for life; it controlling me rather than me being free of it. Perhaps I will always have to be on guard that it will not return to consume me again, I can live with that, even scripture speaks to this with the description of putting on the whole armor as means of resisting temptation and sin.

Perhaps I am asking too much too soon. But I also think that this anger, this readiness to move beyond all the focusing my life on this issue speaks to me of being ready to move on. And oh baby am I ready to move on. I am tired of food being the sole focus of my life.

I am particularly talking about all that surrounds the physical act of eating; planning, shopping, cooking, eating, thinking about what exactly to eat next. It is exhausting and taking time away from all the things I really want to do. (Of course this begs the question of whether I am using this as an excuse for not doing what I really want to do is a valid question and my whine-fest on my morning pages will attest to that.) What I am talking about is all the time and effort surrounding planning menus, looking through cook books, going shopping, making sure you have all the right things on hand, cooking and cooking and more cooking, thinking almost incessantly about food, when you will eat next, what you will be eating, if you will be able to choose the healthy choices and not eat too much, will I have enough food with me during a long day so that I will not get hungry - all of it. It is like only half my brain is focused on anything else at any given time during the day. I do not think that this the way recovery will look. I am ready to move into a different place...a more normal place.

For instance. I was in line at the grocery store behind a woman who only had 1 loaf of bread in her cart, exactly 7 TV dinners, 3 baked potatoes, some fresh fruit, some cheese, a bottle of wine, some chicken breasts and a box of crackers and a few other fresh veggies. We were talking and she said something like "I hate doing my big weekly shopping". I looked at my cart (for two weeks for two people) that was almost filled with healthy choices of food that would take hours of thought and preparation. It was a light bulb moment for me. Eating healthy was not synonymous with eating simply or normaly for me. But it could be. I started to watch what people were eating at work - normal people - and saw that even the men were eating simple things; sandwiches and a piece of fruit, a frozen dinner, a can of soup. They were eating to provide fuel for their body, not making it a major production. So I have been trying to incorporate this into my life. Eating foods that are easy and don't take a lot of prep time. Foods that taste good. Foods that are uncomplicated. It has liberated me and my life. Now this is only about 2 weeks old, but it has been a major paradigm shift for me. And I think it is going to revolutionize my life. It makes me nervous to not have a lot of food in the kitchen (just in case), but it is wonderful to not have to touch food, cook food, think about food so much. The frozen dinners are working for me. Perhaps I will one day become tired of them and be ready to go back to more conventional ways of cooking, but for now it is freeing me up from being chained to all that surrounds food for me.

Next frontier: exercise!

I'm Hungry - Really? Or am I Feeling?

Affirmation: I'm stressed: don't eat don't eat don't eat

Ok..I am at work, I am hating - no that is not even a strong enough word - what I am doing. I am hating it because I am terrible at it, I don't know what I am doing, and it is way outside of my comfort zone, not to mention that I plain don't really care about this particular bit of busy-ness. Help, I can only do left brain for so long. So...Now I am hungry, all I can think about is food. Well I am not that hungry, I can wait for 25 more minutes until lunch, but all I want to do is eat. So...I am bored, that triggers the eating monster (nods to Kerstin), but just this once I am determined to not give in to this beast! But the more I try to figure out this little assignment the more frustrated and bored I become and the more I want to eat. So I have gotten up and walked down the hall...I still want to eat; I have closed my eyes and breathed; that hasn't helped; I have drank almost a glass of water; no help; so now I am writing here.

Forgive my rant and rage. I know that this is just me throwing a temper tantrum. I don't want to be here at this job (any office job for that matter) doing this kind of thing. I want to be in my studio creating, and soon I want to be talking with clients helping them discover their purpose for their lives. But for now I have to wait, wait for god's timing in all of this, for the groundwork to be done. for the financial aspects to be finished with...Namely paying off my debts. It is not so much that I feel stuck and can't go forward. I feel mired in the day to day responsibilities and minutiae of my life and it detracts from what I really want to do and accomplish. and that makes me want to eat; to take away the stress, sadness, frustration, and all those other emotions that go along with this being stuck. But I also know that this is just for a season. Soon, probably sooner than I can imagine, I know this will change. There have been too many indicators of it, too many people praying, too many serendipity happening. So patience and not food is what I need right now.

don't sacrifice the long term for a short term moment of misguided stress relief

So why is it so important to not give into this? It is not about food. Why does not eating now, not using food to soothe myself become important to the rest of my life and obtaining my dreams. Because making the hard decisions impacts the rest of my life. Seeing that it is not food that will change my circumstances will help me to more clearly see what will. Removing the intoxicating and numbing effects that eating has will leave me with no option but to face what it is that is bringing up these emotions. Facing them, identifying them will help me to cope with them in healthy ways. Facing them and identifying them will help me to choose other options with my life that will be more beneficial and productive to doing what God has called me to do; life coaching and art.

wow this little brain dump and tirade has helped. And look at what I discovered, eating doesn't really help change things. I can decide to not eat, I can decide to change the way I feel by choosing to act not eat.

breathe! yes now breathing helps.

Answering the Hard Questions

Affirmation: YES! I CAN!!

Ok...so December was an utter failure. But don't ya just love the new year? It is so full of promise and hope. This year looks to promise a lot of change in my life; good changes in my life if not in my weight. I have to admit that I am a little discouraged in the lack of physical results in the last year. I have honestly put a lot of effort and done a lot of internal work on this. Yet at the same time I know that ultimately there is the physical equation of:

"calories in must be less than energy expended"

I eventually must begin to decrease the amount of calories I eat and increase the exercise I do. But that isn't happening right now. And the question is why? Why do I resist exercise? I don't have the answer for that yet, but I am continuing to ask and listen.

Last time in group I was complaining about not loosing any weight this last year. A asked the question of what would happen if you never lost the weight you wanted to? I have not liked to think about this question, even though it has been in the back of my mind for a while before she asked it and almost constantly the past two weeks. My first reaction was "then what is the use?" I mean, why work so hard to deal with the underlying issues, become aware of need vs. want, hunger levels, other calming/coping methods besides food, all the stuff that has occupied my mind this past year. Why deprive myself if I will never loose weight?

Then I became angry; at myself, at God, at food, at life, at anyone who happened to say hi to me....well almost! But as I continued to think about this, I realized that it still has to be about more than loosing weight. And that is the hard part. Because deep down it is still about how I look and the insecurity of being unacceptable at almost 300 lbs. Of still struggling to look at myself in the mirror with gentleness, love and kind thoughts. Of still struggling to find beauty in the person, yes even the physicality of that person standing there looking back at me. Of assuming (many times rightly so) that people don't take the time to see beyond the mass of body into who I am. And, really, am I doing any more? If I can't do it for myself, can I even expect anyone else to do it for me? Which shows me that this isn't about food.

It shows me that it is still about learning to loving myself enough to accept myself. Will I love myself any more if I am thin? I mean really? Will I really be any different, at the core of who I am, when I am thin? Of course not, I am who I am. Being fat has nothing to really do with who I am at my core, only the way that I feel about myself. And food is only a tool I use to numb the pain, distract me, entertain me, calm the nerves, celebrate, commiserate and compensate with. It is a reason to have a party in my mouth because I am not allowing myself to have a party in life! So back to the question about what I would do if I didn't loose any weight. Well I guess this little tirade has helped me see that I need to come to a place that I will continue this process irregardless of loosing weight, because it is more about how I choose to live my life than what I do or don't choose to eat. It is about how I continue to choose to believe a lie and how I choose to think and feel about myself rather than believing the truth about who God says I am. (A treasured child of the most high God! Psalms 139:1-18) That is a tough one, but I do want to get there.

I also have been thinking a lot about the quote Kerstin left in my comments (see sidebar at bottom for quote). I think that this capsulates where I want to go this year with this journey. I have done a lot of the soul and internal work this past year. This past year was all about focusing on the issues behind the food. I am ready to move on to other things in my life. I am ready to let go of food. Now I know that there will still be a lot of ups and downs, but I am ready to concentrate on the other areas of my life, the areas that will fill me up, rather than using food. This year looks to be a year of new opportunities and new beginnings. Tomorrow I will start training to be a PWTP life coach. I have been asked to become a group leader in women's ministry at our church. And can I tell you that our women's ministry leader rocks! This is not "church ladies" women's ministry! These woman rock! I also sense that my role as caretaker for mom may increase this year. As I watch her do less and less, she is able to do less and less. I don't know how much longer she can stay relatively immobile and retain her health. (But that is for a future blog I think). And there is my art. I want this year to be about making art, about making time to make art, and finally taking the risk to exhibit and sell my art...even if it is on eBay! And finally this year is going to be about de-cluttering, thinning out, lightening the load, simplifying - no celebrating simplicity, letting go if all my stuff both emotional and the physical - especially the physical! Not just the fat, but all the stuff I have collected and sits in boxes because I don't have anyplace to put it. When I finally am able to have my own home, will I even like any of that "stuff" anymore? hmmm I wonder if "lightening the load" of my stuff will have an effect on my emotional/bodily physical/emotional lightening the load journey? heheh