Clothing, priorities, ACT, and identifying the animal brain

I did some shopping yesterday for bras and walking shoes. I also bought a couple of tops. It’s always a painful experience. I’ve got tons of mental baggage in the clothing/appearance department and I’ve also got several undeniable cosmetic challenges—horrible skin and hair (hirsutism) problems being the tip of the iceberg. It makes me feel monstrous.

I have other challenges that are more run of the mill—finding stuff that is simultaneously age appropriate, modest, and aesthetically pleasing to me can be difficult. I require plus size pants that are petite length; I require wide shoes and will not torture myself with really high heels or with body shapers like Spanx; I don’t show cleavage and in fact cover as much skin as possible, yet I don’t want to dress like my grandmother, either. Most clothing, undergarments, and shoes do not work for me on one level or another, but hell, I know I’m not the only woman that feels this way.

Even though I don’t enjoy shopping, I’m trying to move beyond the sports bras, sloppy hoodies, and baggy jeans that I’ve been wearing the last few years. I’m trying to build a small workable wardrobe and wear jewelry again, something I used to love doing. When my fingers got too big for my wedding and engagement rings, I stopped wearing ALL jewelry. On some level, I think I didn’t feel like I deserved to wear jewelry anymore. I was so ashamed of myself. My rings still don’t fit and I’m still unhappy about that, but I think it’s time for me to move forward as best as I can.

I was planning to do a multi-part series on clothing, cosmetics, and beauty: all the challenges I face, my thoughts on the plus-size fashion industry, my thoughts on materialism, vanity, social class, and identity, where I’m actually shopping now, and so forth. Last night I wrote an outline for these posts.

Then I realized what a big distraction it all was. I can only devote so much of my time and energy to this issue and I’d be better off spending my time a.) actually shopping and finding what I need, even though that’s less fun than writing, and b.) working at normalizing my eating so I can lose weight, because the smaller I become, the easier it is to dress myself. As I go down the scale I have more options, things fit better, my feet are less swollen, “real” bras (meaning bras that are not sports bras) are less painful to find and wear, the inner thigh areas of my pants are less likely to disintegrate, I don’t have to pile on as many layers in an attempt to mask fat rolls, and I could go on.

It comes down to priorities, again and again. There’s a million things we could all potentially do, but which of them are the most important? Is taking pictures of my outfits for this blog the best use of my time? I don’t think so. What’s the endgame there, anyway? Do I want people to stroke my ego and tell me what great taste I have? Do I need people to pat me on the head? With much of what people do on their weight loss blogs, I’m not sure what the point is, what the underlying motivation is and whether it’s truly healthy…but I can definitely get sucked into doing what other people are doing in a mindless way if I’m not careful.

There is so much power in clarity, in knowing what's important to YOU. My thirtieth birthday is this summer and I’m getting clearer about what I’d like to accomplish by that milestone. My two objectives—my two true priorities—are earning money as a writer by age 30 and being further along in my eating disorder recovery and general mental health progress by age 30. That’s it.

The writing I hope to earn money from has nothing to do with this blog, so I won’t go into that now.

As far as general mental health goes, I will be continuing with meditation whilst bringing psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment to a close around my birthday. I’ve been with my current therapist for almost four years now and while it has been helpful, I do not think I can accomplish much more with her or through the psychodynamic model.

If I resume therapy in the future, which is entirely possible because depression tends to recur, I want to seek out someone that specializes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I’m ordering some books on ACT that will allow me to get started on my own now; when practiced without the guidance of a therapist, ACT is called Acceptance and Commitment Training. I’m really excited to learn more. ACT and Buddhism share many concepts and techniques, but because ACT is entirely secular, I think it might be easier for me to work with long-term.

ACT is also very much in line with the Brain Over Binge approach—so much so, I’m going to e-mail the author about it. She doesn’t mention it in her book, but I think she’d find it highly relevant.

General mental health and eating disorder recovery go hand in hand, but what should the next stage in my eating disorder recovery be? Well, I feel like a broken record: I want to feel confident that the binging is behind me. I want to know that I don’t fall for the antics of my animal brain anymore.

My classic binges are gone and what remains are behavioral episodes that could be considered overeating, but perhaps could also be considered a new, milder form of binging. No matter what you call it, the animal brain is getting its way in these episodes and I don’t want to reinforce such patterns. So I’m drawing an (admittedly arbitrary) line to gain some clarity, some certainty that the lower brain isn’t running the show: on an average day with no special social events, any urge to eat more than one sweet in a sane portion size will be viewed as neurological junk emanating from my lower brain. As both Kathryn Hansen has said on her blog and a helpful commenter has said on mine just the other day, it’s good to decide the portion size in advance, before you start eating. That way, if you eat more than you set out to, you know your animal brain has won that round. It’s important to face that reality when it happens.

Yesterday, I had a rich almond croissant for breakfast. In the afternoon, I had a candy bar. And at night, I had two little boxes of Nerds candy. With the new "line" in place, any urge to eat sweets after that croissant would have been viewed as silly mental chatter to be ignored. It was a regular Thursday, after all.

However, when I travel to visit my family for Easter in a couple weeks, I might have more than one dessert on a given day. Normal eaters do this sometimes during travel and during the holidays. I know many different people will be having us over for lunch and dinner and will be offering us baked goods and holiday candy. I just have to decide how much is reasonable before I start eating, and stick to that. It’s the mindless and compulsive shoveling of food that is the problem.

Note that I’m not making hard and fast rules, exactly. This is slightly different. I’m trying to establish definitions more than anything else: what behaviors do I define as normal and healthy and acceptable and coming from my higher brain, and what behaviors do I define as stemming from my lower brain’s tricks and antics? If I cave to the urges emanating from my animal brain, I need to figure out why it happened and how I can prevent it from happening again. This is not on-the-wagon-off-the-wagon stuff. I’m sick of crafting programs and systems with rules that are practically made to be broken. They make ME feel broken when I inevitably screw up, and it's too discouraging. I like to think that I'm not broken, but I am undergoing a re-wiring or re-programming of sorts so that I can function better.

The answer isn't out there

For years, I’ve tried to figure out the right way to have sweets—the foods I have historically overeaten and binged on. I wanted to know how could I eat them--or NOT eat them--without feeling tortured. I’ve written about this before. Sometimes I tried to come up with my own system, and sometimes I’ve looked to others for help.

I tried the no-S diet for some time, which says you should only have sugary treats on “S” days—Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Days, defined as major holidays and personal events like birthdays and anniversaries. (There were other components to the diet, which you can read about *here*.) The creator of this plan is a sensible guy and in no way condoned binging on S days, but I personally couldn’t stop binging and ultimately abandoned the plan.

Still thinking there was an answer somewhere “out there”, I went on to try Overeaters Anonymous for several months. My sponsor and the vast majority of people I met there advocated total abstention from desserts. My dislike of OA probably calls for its own series of posts at some point, but for now, it’s enough to note that a philosophy of total and lifelong abstention (even if viewed through the lens of “it’s not forever, it’s just one day at a time, tee hee!”) didn’t sit well with me.

(A classic OA’er response would be that I couldn’t handle total abstention because I’m incapable of honesty, or because I haven’t truly turned my problem over to a Higher Power, or because I’m too deep into my addiction, or whatever other thing they’ve heard parroted a million times in OA books and meetings. And my response to THAT would be: Sure, alright. Have fun attending meetings several nights a week for the rest of your life, and remaining obsessed with food and eating--albeit in a different way than you were before joining OA. Enjoy feeling that catastrophe is one missed meeting or Reese’s cup away. Enjoy not thinking for yourself. Enjoy the concept of powerlessness. Hey, is that sugar free Kool-Aid over there?)

Ugh. See?! On the topic of OA, I just can’t help myself.

So, more time passed. I started to read Mark’s Daily Apple and explore the paleo/primal philosophy and online community. I took some steps in that direction, but before long the whole thing struck me as too extreme and, perhaps ironically, too reminiscent of my days as a vegetarian. (Again, another post for another day.) Anyway, Paleo proponents tell you to kick sugar and wheat flour (and sometimes dairy, depending on the expert) to the curb, and Paleo dessert recipes sounded more like punishments than treats to me. So that wasn’t going to work much better than outright abstention.

When I wasn’t trying out someone else’s suggested plan or solution, I was asking myself questions like:

1. Should I stick only to gourmet and homemade treats? Maybe the cheap junky stuff I grew up with is the real problem because of the convenience factor and emotional ties I have to things like Little Debbie snack cakes.

2. Should I try having a tiny treat each day? Many people advocate that.

3. Or would it be better to have a normal or even large amount, but only have it once a week? Lots of people talk about weekly “cheat days” and it seems to work for them.

4. Should I modify no-S and keep sweets just for holidays and personal special days, which don’t occur weekly, and not have sweets on regular Saturdays and Sundays since that’s too much and I failed at regular no-S in the past?

5. Should I give myself permission to have one treat from each “category” of dessert, spread out over the course of the month? As in, choose one dairy-based thing, one baked good, one kind of candy, and one sweet drink to enjoy, once apiece, and that’s it for the month?

6. Should I not make any specific resolutions about the amount or type of dessert, and just let myself have anything I want during PMS week, since that’s when I crave crap the most? Maybe if I behaved the rest of the month, it would even out.

On and on this went--the musings of an obsessed person, desperate for answers. Desperate for something between binging and total, lifelong abstention.

These questions subsided for a short while after reading “Brain Over Binge.” Suddenly, it didn’t matter what the treat was, or how often I was having it, or for what occasions, as long as I wasn’t binging on it. I could have a little, or an average amount, or even a bit more than average, as long as it wasn’t a binge. What a relief!

Now, however, I’m a month into not binging, and the question of the “right” way to have sweets has resurfaced. The cessation of binging is the basic foundation I needed, no doubt about it. But I do have a significant amount of weight to lose as well as a problem with emotional eating, and how much/how often I eat sugary treats is going to affect my progress on those fronts. The author of “Brain Over Binge” doesn’t give specific dietary recommendations, so I can’t look to her for the answer on sweets. (The lack of such recommendations is only appropriate, given the focus of her book, the arguments she’s making about binge eating recovery, and her credentials. I respect her as much for what's in the book as I do for what she left out of it.)

Hmm, so if that author doesn’t have the answer…where to look next?

Then it dawned on me. The long-term answer regarding sweets is not “out there” somewhere. There is no magic pattern of specific days, specific intervals, specific treats, and/or specific amounts that will make everything easy for me. The answer lies in me and the development of my own self-control.

I know, I know. Facepalm in 3…2…1.

What I really want is to be able to trust myself in ANY scenario. It’s what I’ve wanted all along: the ability to make a rational decision that takes my normal human desire for pleasure, my desire for weight loss, and my other health concerns into account, backed up by the ability to stick to that decision. Whatever the situation, I don’t want to be swayed by my lower brain in the heat of the moment.

I want to be able to eat a little bit every day, or a little bit rather frequently, if I decide that’s appropriate. I want to be able to eat a normal-sized amount but then not have anything for awhile afterward, if that’s the rational choice I’ve made beforehand. I want to be able to completely abstain from dessert for as long as I deem necessary, if I deem it necessary. I want to know that whether it’s the cheapest shit out there or the most gourmet, I won’t lose control. That I can trust myself.

The ability to do all these things is important because I expect different approaches to be useful at different times. For example:

During the holidays, when there are social gatherings and rich foods at every turn, it would be good to have confidence in my ability to savor a small amount of something every day (or most days). I’d like to know I can enjoy 3-5 bites of something and stop there. The same thing applies to travel and vacations. People often gain weight when they go someplace new because they are eager to enjoy as many local specialties as possible. I want to try new things when I travel too, but eating a full serving (or multiple servings) of dessert every day for a week or two could very well result in weight gain. Daily sampling is a good compromise between total abstention and gorging. Believe me, I have gorged on gelato in Italy, stroopwafels in the Netherlands, chocolate in Switzerland, and pastries in Austria because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing out, and also couldn’t be satisfied with just a little. I understood my options to be EVERYTHING or NOTHING, because I wasn’t capable of anything in between at the time.

Different scenario now. Say my bloodwork comes back and I find out I’m prediabetic or diabetic. Or I get pregnant and develop gestational diabetes. Or I have a special event coming up and want to drop a few pounds to look as good as possible. Whatever the reason--if the route most aligned with my current concerns and goals is to completely abstain from desserts for awhile, I want to have confidence in my ability to do that…and in my ability to NOT go crazy when the period of abstention ends.

Or, say that I simply want to have an entire ice cream cone or a big piece of cake once in a while (not a few bites, but the whole thing, perhaps on my birthday?), yet I don’t want to gain weight or harm my health by initiating a downward spiral of overeating. I’d like to know I’m able to eat the whole serving and move on, skipping treats for some time afterwards in order to balance everything out.

As time goes on, my husband and I tend to go the homemade or gourmet route for our desserts. But when I’m with the rest of my immediate family, which happens a few times a year, I’m confronted by the Pop-tarts and Nutty Bars of my youth. And I want to trust myself around everything. Even within the category of homemade/gourmet, I currently have more confidence around baked goods and candy than I do around ice cream and other dairy treats. I ultimately want confidence around it all.

The only way to develop these abilities and this confidence is to practice. Practice periods of abstention, practice having a little bit many days in a row, practice having an average or even large-ish amount at more spaced out intervals. Practice with crème brulee, practice with Lucky Charms. So that’s what I’m going to start doing. I will write more about it as I'm doing it.

I wonder what other answers are staring me right in the face each time I look into the mirror?

The problem with my rewards system

There are several problems, actually.

First off, the rewards system I am referring to is the thing I was tracking in a "Rewards" tab at the top of this page (now removed, but you can see December 2011's record *here*). I was trying to indulge myself with something other than sugary foods in the hope that doing so would build a new perspective, a new habit, and ongoing motivation for rejecting junk food. On days that I skipped desserts, I bought myself a small reward, like some makeup or an inexpensive book. On days that I ate sweets, I wouldn't purchase anything.

I thought this was a good idea because I've heard this suggestion many times in the context of getting over binge eating: you have to learn to treat and reward yourself with something other than food. Food can't be your main source of fun, entertainment, or pleasure anymore, so look for new options. And I also thought my system was smart because I was rewarding myself for meeting a process/action goal (getting through the day without sweets) that would lead to the achievement of 2 important outcome goals (weight loss and the termination of binge eating disorder).

Even though some thought had gone into this system and there was good intent behind it, I no longer think it's a great idea. In fact, I think it might work against me. Here are the problems I see with it now:

It reflects the (mis)understanding that buying something nice for myself will get me to stop craving massive amounts of sugary food. But when the urge to binge hits, books and sweaters and eyeliner aren't going to do anything to take that urge away. There is much useful discussion in "Brain Over Binge" about this--why well-intentioned advice to take a bubble bath or call a friend or buy yourself a bouquet of flowers when you feel like binging doesn't help lots of people. Those things aren't what the animal brain wants, so they don't satisfy the urge. The urge to binge will remain so long as you fight it, run from it, identify with it, and/or obey it.

It causes me to internally label each day and myself as either "good" or "bad" based on what I ate. It also makes me see sweets in an oversimplified way. Whether I ate a couple of homemade cookies or an entire box of trans-fatty snack cakes, I failed to act properly because I used sugar.

It encourages binge eating because of "I blew the day" and "I want to make use of this day" thinking. This is related to the point above. Since I viewed each day as PASS/FAIL, I wanted my FAIL days to "count" in the sense that I wanted to pack in the pleasure before the clean slate of tomorrow arrived. Why stop with the handful of m&m's when my "grade" is going to be the same whether I eat a little or totally binge?

The worst binge I had this month (and incidentally, the last binge I had before reading "Brain Over Binge") was on a day in which I had 3 Oreos first thing in the morning and was so exasperated with myself for "blowing the day" right away that I thought screw it. Today's a write off. I'm having whatever the hell I want now, and I'll try again tomorrow. That was my decision...30 minutes after getting out of bed. To make a not-so-smart morning into a totally reckless day. I wrote about it and received this great comment from someone called rk23:

I'm working on that "I've already screwed up, may as well continue" mindset as well. I keep trying to tell myself that no food is off-limits entirely, so I don't *need* to 'make the most of' today and begin anything anew tomorrow. Whatever food is tempting me will still be available some other time. I don't need to eat it all now. But that's tough. I know that for me saying "I'll start (again) tomorrow" is always a bad thing. Tomorrow comes and I don't want to start then either. I have to conceptualize today and tomorrow and every day as just my life, with no sense of stopping or starting or resolving to change. And even though I've learned to manage some feelings with self-talk, I'm finding that the way out of a binge cycle for me is just to *stop* talking to myself and do the best I can here and now without regard for what I might've done yesterday or what I don't want to do tomorrow.

After I read "Brain Over Binge", rk23's comment made even more sense to me. (Thank you rk23, whoever you are!)

So I'm suspending this little rewards system until further notice. My intention now is to CELEBRATE each loss of five pounds with a purchase of some sort, and I'll probably share those purchases on the blog. When it comes to day-to-day motivation for meeting process/action goals, I'll just have to be satisfied with the immediate reward for exercising, not binging, etc., which is feeling more energetic, clear-headed, and hopeful about the future.

Separating my goals

Stop binge eating. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Lose weight.

Over time, I've made these individual goals into one big, formidable, jumbled, mountainous goal. I might as well state the goal as: do EVERYTHING differently, NOW!

It's almost to the point that I dislike the word "goal" and want to replace it with intent or plan or project or something else that's less loaded for me.

Anyway, I'm starting to separate all these worthy objectives in my mind. The cessation of binge eating is a different objective than "eat more nutritious foods, more often." Exercise doesn't depend on diet (which isn't to say that diet doesn't affect exercise performance). And losing weight is a goal that one can only pursue indirectly, via action goals like "eat better" and "eat less" and "exercise more".

(Um, asking myself what the point of this rambling is...I'm just trying to gather my thoughts, I guess.)

1. Stopping the binges is my most important objective.

2. "Eat healthier" is vague, so let me state my intention to eat at least one vegetable every day and to stop multi-tasking during meals so I can be more aware of portion sizes and satiety. (2 veggies and a fruit every day would be great; I would be proud of that.)

3. I'd like to do 2 cardio sessions, 2 strength training sessions, and 2 stretching (yoga and similar) sessions each week, and to work out at least 3 days per week. (I'd have to two 2 different things each day, like yoga+cardio or strength+yoga to get this all done in 3 days, which is why I think most weeks I'd need 4 or 5 days to get it all done.) I don't care whether it's at the gym, at home, or some combination thereof. I don't care which days of the week or what time of day. I'm done trying to figure out a perfect, foolproof, consistent workout routine in terms of days and activities. My life is too unstructured for that, so I'm going to try the approach of fitting in activity wherever I can manage while having an overall objective for the week.

4. I'd like to weigh 200 pounds again. Ultimately less, but for right now, that's what I want to accomplish. No longer binge eating would take me most of the way there, and a better diet and more exercise will take me the rest of the way. But I think it's important to separate these components in my mind so that a screw up in one area isn't used as a justification to slack off in the other areas. Skipping vegetables doesn't justify skipping exercise. Missing a couple workouts doesn't mean it's okay to binge. Overeating at brunch doesn't justify a lack of vegetables at dinner.

In other words, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition anymore.

I believe

I believe I can change my body and my life in 2012.

But I'm looking no further than January at the moment. What small changes can I realistically make this month to start moving forward?

Well, I'm taking part in a fitness challenge organized by Lyn during the first 14 weeks of the year. I'm going to start working my body again, slowly and respectfully and patiently.

I won't say I've got an eating plan written in stone, but I've got various experiments in mind that I want to conduct to find out what is going to work best for me over the long haul.

I'm going to take better care of my skin and my appearance in general, and try to get my sleep schedule back on track. I want to start meditating. I accept that this will not all fall into place simultaneously.

I want my year, my life, my schedule to be simpler than years past, so I can focus on getting really valuable things done.

Time is so, so precious. It's all we have. Here's to a wonderful 2012!

My struggle with basic functioning

This is hard to explain.

I have steady low-grade depression, with periods of major depression mixed in. I'm doing better than I have in a long time when it comes to thinking positively/neutrally, and not identifying with transient negative thoughts and feelings. I'm more mindful than I was a year or two ago.

But I'm not that much more functional. My sleep cycles are messed up, I have trouble getting stuff done, and I struggle with consistency and routine...for starters. What I'm writing about today sits at the intersection of these problems: I do not get up in the morning and get ready for the day (take a shower, get dressed, perhaps apply some makeup) like a normal person. I haven't done this with any regularity for a long time. It's insanely difficult for me. Ask me to do this for 30 consecutive days--or ask me to complete a major home improvement project in a month's time or write a book in a month's time, and I would find the latter two challenges easier.

This has consequences. I usually only get cleaned up and dressed in non-lounging clothes right before I have to go somewhere. This could be rather late in the day, or not at all. (If you are wondering about work, I currently write from home.) There are so many days where I don't have to be anywhere, so I wear the same thing I slept in the night before all day. Guess how motivated I am to attend a class at the gym when it means I have to shower and make myself presentable first? I would say sleeping in late and being too grungy to go out in public accounts for 75-85% of my pattern of skipping the gym despite good intentions the day before.

It's not just the gym, obviously. Everything is made more difficult by this; running errands, having an impromptu outing with my husband, answering the front door when someone rings!

This behavior was modeled to me by my mother. She and my sisters are still very much this way; it's not just me. But I'm an adult now and pointing fingers will get me nowhere. I want to change.

I'm not sure how I'm going to fix this. I need to sleep like a regular human being even though my body wants to go to bed at 3 a.m. and wake up in the early afternoon. Even though it resists all attempts at reform. I need to take care of my grooming in the morning and at night like everyone else does, and make full use of the day instead of letting it pass me by.

I'm going to start tracking some part of this puzzle in a tab above labeled "basic functioning." (Edit: tab has now been removed. I tracked my odd sleeping patterns and concluded I have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.) This is the direction I see my blog heading, by the way. I want to explore (and fix) the ways in which various areas of my life drive and sustain my eating and weight problem. It's all connected--my thoughts, habits, identity, binge eating, depression, family history, dietary choices, hobbies, physical activity, grooming, career, spirituality, home environment, relationships... It's a tangled web with each point connected to every other point.

I'm talking about everything in relation to weight as though weight loss is the central goal, but really I hope to improve it all. Besides, I don't think I can keep excess weight off for any length of time unless I become a different person in several ways. I really don't.

Does this body look cared for?

Monday, December 5 food log

pork chop with warm apple-cabbage slaw
an orange
homemade chicken tacos


Today was the easiest day I've had in awhile. Having solid leftovers (the pork and cabbage) helped tremendously. And I was looking forward to my taco dinner all afternoon, which helped me not graze mindlessly. I was good and hungry when I sat down to eat...and that's rarer than I care to admit.

One thing I was pleased with today is that I caught myself wolfing down my pork chop too quickly and decided to try taking a drink of water between every mouthful. It slowed me down and I found myself chewing everything more thoroughly. By the time I was finished, I was pleasantly full and the portion I had consumed seemed just right. I didn't want or need any more. Remember this technique, self! What's that thing "they" say about a twenty minute delay between your stomach being full and your brain registering the fullness?

***
Other things from today:

1. I was taking a long look at myself in the mirror after my shower today and feeling down about the alarming state my body is in. I have really abused myself, and though I know things can improve, there is no way to undo all the damage. Nevertheless, a thought occurred to me: what if, instead of assessing whether this or that part of me is attractive (my thighs, my stomach, my nails, my hair, whatever), I simply assess whether it looks cared for? Striving to look and feel genuinely cared for is probably better for my mental health than striving to look somehow "hotter." (Whatever that means. And hotter for whose benefit, by the way?) Today, I could see clearly that the body reflected in the mirror hasn't been tended to and cared for in a long time, and that was the saddest thing of all.

Declaring it now: I want to look, feel, and be cared for.

2. My gym activity has cooled off considerably. I keep telling myself that I only have to go three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Just show up and do whatever. But I'm resistant to it because deep down I think the only things worth going for are the classes, and I guess a part of me is lazy and another part of me resents having to plan my day's schedule around a BodyPump or yoga class.

Even though I had plenty of time to get a workout in today, I didn't. I didn't because I didn't want to go to the gym, so I decided not to exercise at all. Typical stupid, perfectionist, all-or-nothing thinking! I have stuff at home I can use, and nice places to walk near my house...and somehow I think it makes sense to not use these resources because I'm paying for a gym membership and should be using THAT resource. So illogical.

I'm thus dropping the pressure to go the gym three times a week. I expect myself to exercise three days a week, whether at the gym or at/near home, regardless of the weather. I'm going to give it a couple of months, and if I find that I don't use the gym often enough to justify the cost of membership, I will cancel it and continue to do whatever is working for me at home, in the local parks, or at another facility.

Enough of these silly games!

I've been here before

Sunday, December 4 food log:

2 scrambled eggs, mixed leafy greens, and an orange
pb & j on wheat
pork chop with warm apple-cabbage slaw
oatmeal
mug of tea
too much ciabatta bread with butter
bowl of cheerios

This evening I just couldn't get satisfied and kept reaching for the one thing that always eggs hunger and craving on further: carbs. Frustrating!

But I'm not going to get all down on myself. I've been in this place enough times before to recognize what's going on, and this time, I'm going to handle it differently.

When I stop binging on sugary foods, even for just a few days, I feel extra hungry and crave-y. I would estimate that eliminating the daily binge shaves off anywhere from 500-2000 calories that my body is used to having, typically late in the day. That's a big adjustment, and it's no surprise that I succumb to the bread and cold cereal when I'm only a few days into the change. There's a whole lot going on with sugar, insulin, and my brain chemistry, as well.

What has happened many times in the past is that I get mad at myself for replacing pints of ice cream with bowls of cereal, I don't give myself enough time to build new habits, and I have no patience for my body's desire to adjust to fewer calories gradually. I berate myself for my meal choices (there is always something to criticize!) and for not being a super dieter all-around. I expect too much too soon, and fail to live up to those expectations.

AND THEN I GIVE UP, AND GO BACK TO BINGING.

I don't want to do that this time! I want to love myself down the scale, not hate myself there. I'm in this for the long haul and I have a realistic goal set. I'd like to reach 200 by my 30th birthday at the end of next summer. And then I'd like to stay there awhile to give myself time to adjust and time to practice maintaining a stable weight.

There are so many aspects of my eating that need to be changed, but it can't all happen overnight. Cutting down on the desserts is a great first step. If I can prevent December from becoming a month-long binge on packaged holiday "treats", that itself is a vast improvement over every other December I can remember!

Keeping that in mind, some things that might help me going forward:

bigger meals (focused on protein and veg);
a fourth meal late at night;
or having the right kinds of snacks on hand, like boiled eggs and celery with no-sugar peanut butter;
more water

I want to weigh 200 pounds

Just typing that is a relief. It's also invigorating, because it seems attainable.

For a long time, I've been focusing on 175 as an initial goal and 150 as an eventual ideal. Those numbers have danced in my head for years now, and meanwhile I've gained weight or stayed stuck at the same high numbers. I was at my highest, 275, for a long time. I'm around 265 now, so I have my work cut out for me.

But losing 65 pounds doesn't seem as impossible as losing 110. Also, life wasn't easy at 200 pounds, but I can now say from experience that it's a hell of a lot easier than life at 265 or 275.

Frightening how numbers that used to horrify (200?! shit!!!) become something to aspire to after awhile, huh?

Numbers are useful, which is why I'm talking about them. But at the end of the day, what I want even more than a particular number is the security of knowing I'm no longer a binge eater. Knowing I can trust myself--that I'm an advocate for myself, instead of an enemy and saboteur. Knowing that I'm not a slave to certain foods and the companies that make them.

***

I didn't want to post my food for December 1st, because it seemed like so much. The whole point of the logging exercise is not about accountability to others and self-shaming to keep myself in line, though. (As I once thought.) It's about overcoming shame and secrecy, not feeling apologetic for being hungry or for eating, and no longer thinking I need to prove to anyone how hard I'm trying to be "good" (i.e., thinner, more ladylike).

It's still hard to do, though, especially on days like December 1st.

Anyway, this is what I ate between 3 a.m. on December 1st and 3 a.m. on December 2nd (my sleep is messed up right now):

a slice of gouda cheese with a slice of turkey
a bowl of bean soup; an apple with a bit of peanut butter
small amount of rice, seaweed salad, and roasted duck
curried paneer with spinach rice; a naan with a slice of cheddar
a bowl of Cheerios with honey and milk
3 Kind bars