Sunday 19 February 2012

Thanks That Was Fun, Don't Forget, No Regrets

You know that moment when you're tired of being a lump? You feel exasperated with your recent behaviour and just have that moment of clarity that means things have got to change. I've had that moment several times. It's kind of a bi-product of re-committing yourself over and over again to weight loss. After every binge comes that moment. Some binges are short, some are sadly longer. But eventually that moment comes through where you're tired of choosing failure. Tired of feeling like food controls you, instead of the other way around.

The problem is that the other side of this, for me at least, is that I get tired of being obsessed. I get obsessed with planning and preparing to do the things to help me lose weight. I get consumed, where every breathe thinks about what I'm eating next, do I feel like working out tonight, do I deserve this treat, does that even matter. And during that time, I do in fact do well. But god it would be really nice to not have to think about food in any context, to just be.

I truly think I will be great at maintining my weight, whenever I get to that place. Indulge a bit, reign it all in for a few days, balance. But for now, I can't seem to stop sabatoging myself. I do well, get close to a goal, somewhat-subconsciously panic, pig out and stop going to the gym. Then start all over again, ultimately never actually progressing, but constantly in a battle with myself that no one is winning.

Nick's tired of the battle, and he just watches from the sidelines and listens to the endless commentary. But I have to live it every day, every moment, and it's exhausting. Is there actually an end to this war?

Saturday 18 February 2012

Till Now I Always Got By On My Own

From my SparkPeople blog:

I've been trying to lose weight for as long as I can remember. Literally. I distinctly remember the moment I became painfully aware that I was fat. It was hard to miss; a Grade 8 boy told my Grade 3 chubby body quite abruptly "You're fat." I didn't know that I was until that moment. But from then on, I was always aware of my size. And it hasn't improved since then. Of course my weight has changed, I've been heavier and I've been a bit smaller, but never have I been less than overweight. I don't know what I would look or feel like at a healthy weight.

At the moment, I still have about 40 lbs to lose to get to where I want to be. I've been 25 lbs heavier, and before Christmas I was almost 10 lbs lighter. I constantly go up and down. I have a great month, then I undo all I've done the next month. It takes a lot for me to really get ahead, but overall, I have stayed the same weight for over a year, despite painstaking efforts otherwise, surrounded by binge-eating.

I am obsessive. I know that. Until last month, I had spent one night a week at Weight Watchers, one night a week carefully meal-planning for the next 7 days, and every hour thinking about food, exercise, and any tactic I could use to help keep me motivated to lose weight. The result? A year of up and down on the scale to ultimately stay right where I was to begin with, $1000 gone to WW, and a husband who was now annoyed with the obsession with little result.

 Nick has always been supportive, but he's never struggled with weight and food issues, so he has a hard time truly understanding my woes. But for years he has listened to my new ideas, my promises to myself that fell flat, my speculations, my triumphs, my failures, my desperation, my despair, my vows to let this be the last time, my recipes, my news articles, my new gym schedules, and everything else in between. He has truly been wonderful. But I managed to coerce it out of him that he's kinda had enough of hearing about it. And I really don't blame him, I'm sick of it too. So while I'm not mad that he doesn't share my crazy obsession enthusiasm for healthy living, I suddenly feel bad for inundating him with the constant barage of information. And although he in no way asked me to stop sharing, I have decided to stop flooding him with it all. However, that leaves me alone in this.

I've never been good at making new friends. I'm shy and self-conscious, and I've always had trouble connecting with my peers. I've tried making friends at places like Toastmasters, church, and at work, but it's always with people not within my age group. And while that's ok, and they were all lovely people, I seemed to have a tough time truly connecting and sharing with someone who was just at a different stage in life than I am; I wanted a friend, not a parent figure, and that seemed to be what I ended up with. But people my own age intimidate me. I feel inadequate, that I don't have my life together, personally or professionally. Which means I don't want to share my needs or challenges because I will seem weak. I can't win. And thus I am alone.

I tried WW in hopes of getting that personal contact of people in the same boat. Again, everyone was friendly, but when the new PointsPlus debuted last year, tons of new people flooded in. With the meetings so busy, I let myself just fade into the background. No one really noticed or cared if I was there or not, myself included.

Maybe I will never be very good at making friends. But I feel like if I truly want to lose weight, I need to have someone I can talk to every day, someone who understands, who can offer help and ideas, who can sympathize and get me through the tough times and be proud of me for even the small things that are a big deal to me. And I want to be there to be the same thing for them. But I know this can't just be a random person, it has to be someone I connect with.

I joined a Biggest Loser challenge at work in hopes of having some accountability, figuring I would hate having to submit a weight gain, and thus avoid gaining. But since it was across the entire school board, I ended up on a team of strangers. We email in our weight results every Wednesday. There was no real personal connection there, so when I first ended up with a gain on the scale, I just didn't bother to email in my results. No one cared.

I've spent the morning looking for a Spark buddy, browsing teams and message boards, I feel like I'm starting to sound sad and desperate. But I truly am tired of not having the motivation to choose long-term success over instant gratification. It's like I go into a trance when it comes to eating junk food, and can't talk myself out of it. I need help. And I hope I find that help for the long term.

Sunday 5 February 2012

I Love You's Not Enough, I'm Lost For Words

I think I've decided to stick with my goal of running a half marathon.

I must be insane.

Am I setting myself up for failure? I mean it's 21.1 km... More than twice that of my race in September, and that was a challenge. But I'm being stubborn; I set the goal, and I don't see a suitable replacement. I had to change one of my goals; instead of becoming a Lifetime Member at Weight Watchers, I will now simply get to my goal weight. Same thing, except I won't have to keep paying $50 a month. I'm ok with that adjustment. But I've toiled over a comparable exchange for a half marathon, and nothing seems acceptable. I can't exchange it unless it's something close, and I don't know that there are many things quite like running a half marathon.

I'm scared. Truly. My training for the 10k last summer didn't exactly go through as planned. I think I started way too early and kinda waned in my training enthusiasm. I still finished the race though. But I don't think you can just push through 20+ km. You've gotta be well prepared for that. And I've been struggling this week, both with food and exercise, and I can't afford to do that if I'm going to sign up for the Toronto Habourfront race, October 14th. I am so scared...

But I'm also determined. And that's gotta come in handy sometime.

Saturday 4 February 2012

The Monster In The Closet, When The Lights Turned On Is Just A Jacket On A Hanger And The Fear Is Gone

I'm in the midst of a bender. Sort of. The last few days have not been great, I've over-eaten, had chips and chocolate, and generally not cared how much I snacked. And of course the scale has crept up a bit. But I don't care. Well, of course I do, but I'm having a tough time getting myself back on track. And I'm currently craving more, and I always wish after the fact that I could have stopped myself, but it always feels like I'm in some kinda of cugar/carb induced/craving daze that can't see logic or reason. So I managed to have a moment of clarity (which is waning) that urged me to stop and write before I committed any further eating sins.

I was just browsing the M&M Meats website looking for what dessert I wanted to indulge in for tonight. The buttercream brownies are to die for, but I really love nanimo bars, and the tiger brownies are pretty good, and the banana chocolate chips cake is super yummy, and then there are all kinds of fantastic sounding dishes that I've never even tried. I have been craving chocolate HUGE for the last week, every day. And I've been giving in pretty much every day. But it just won't go away. And I know, I am 100% certain, that if I bought any of those desserts, it would be entirely gone within a day or two. Oh I can easily polish of a tray of sweets in no time, sick to my stomach or not. Part me wants to stop that trend, wants me to not go to the store to give in to this needless emotional eating. But there's still that part of me that wants the chocolate. And even though that part of me knows that no good will come in pigging out on brownies, other than the brief moment of taste in my mouth, whereas I will feel and be much better off without them.... I still feel like the chocolate monster is going to win today. Maybe all I can take is the slight victory that I managed to stop myself enough to write. I was able to skip out of the daze long enough to open a tab to my blog and start writing. And maybe if I can do that again next time, maybe I will improve even more and not get the chocolate that time.