Controlled Binge

Affirmation: Creating new habits do work

hey ya all,
I was sitting here at my desk journaling about yesterday and thought maybe I would share with you all too. After my doc's apt I had to go grocery shopping. Now I consistently in the past year have made sure that I didn't go with out a list on paper or hungry. Neither of which happened yesterday. I thought I was just going to pick up some bags of salad on the way home from the doc to have for lunches.

I guess I didn't really realise how upset and frustrating it was for me to have to say yes to the cortisone shots. Anyway I went into the store and got the lettuce, added some bananas then some watermelon.. .so far so good. Then on the way to the check out counter I passed the deli....didn't want to make salad for lunch, got some of their (logli's) ham salad and potato salad - "mom likes this...ya and so do I...ah the lies we can convince ourselves of! Then that was it...I got potato chips and dip to have with the sandwich.

That in itself is not so bad, I very occasionally will have a small bag of chips - the individual serving bag size and a small carton of dip (and throw away what is left over after the bag of chips is gone. and only if I am particularly craving it and know it is not "comfort food" or "celebration food".

But yesterday it was comfort food...and I knew it and bought it anyway. And I bought the BIG carton and the BIG bag.

But here is the interesting thing that happened.

Without consciously thinking about it I ate only until I was full, but the stuff away and didn't get it out again until I was hungry again. I did this several times throughout the day. And late in the eventing I went to the kitchen to snack before bed and wandered around the kitchen and said to myself...I am not hungry now I will just go to bed...it will be there tomorrow if I still want it.

Now I didn't realise the importance of what happened until I started to journal, I was in a fog yesterday... .I was frustrated and I gave into the pain too and just allowed myself to live with sinking into the pain rather than trying to distract my mind and body from it (which has been really helpful in pain management for me). So this morning I decided to journal first thing rather than eat. the exciting thing is that the whole body awareness; the full/hungry thing happened unconsciously, almost I guess by habit. So I called it in my journal a "controlled binge". I realised that the past two or three years of practicing "eating when hungry/stopping when full" dialogueing with my self and asking myself and my body if I am hungry/full has finally turned into a habit...something that seems to be happening on a deeper level than before.

When I started it all felt so fake and contrived, but thanks to all your encouragement to keep going I can finally say that it works!

O and by the way, because of it I don't feel "hung over" from overeating or guilty. I found myself taking it for what it was...a moment of having a pity party for myself...and now it is today and I am OK, I have journaled and worked through the emotions and have refocused.
Sorry it was so long...has anyone else experienced anything like this?

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

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.