Lost. And fat.

On Friday, March 1st, my baby turned 8 weeks old.  I weighed in at 260 that day.

So I've gained some weight, obviously. My sister stayed with me during a good chunk of February to help me with the baby. I loved having her here!  She's five months pregnant, though, and we indulged in pretty much anything we felt like.  Now she's gone, I feel more overwhelmed with childcare, and I'm fatter than before.

I feel totally lost at sea right now in terms of weight loss and behavioral change.  I'm a terribly inconsistent person; I lack follow-through.  I come up with an idea, a goal, a plan, and I fail to follow through the next day.  Sometimes the same day!  I can't really blame this on having an infant to care for because I've always been this way; however, having an infant does not make this any easier.

My mind slips into all-or-nothing thinking more than I care to admit.  I catch myself faster than I used to and can adjust the tone of my thoughts better than before...so that's something.  But even when I tell myself to simply pick ONE area to work on, ONE habit to change, I freak out and can't pick one.  Or stick with one.  That daily vegetable I mentioned in my last post?  Never happened.

I so want to be a good example to my girl.  I so want to spend this year at home not only bonding with her, but getting healthier month by month.  And more at ease in my skin!  It used to be that photographs were taken of me infrequently enough that I could internally wince when I saw the reality of my body size in pictures, but pretty much let it go, bury my head in the sand, and carry on unaffected.  It's a different story now.  You know how picture crazy new parents go, right?  And aunts and uncles and everyone else?  I have ended up in more pictures during the last 2 months--me holding the baby in all sorts of positions and angles--than in the past two years combined.  I've seen enough of myself that I just can't ignore how bad I look anymore.  I've reached that point where no nice/dressy clothes look good on me; every human body has a threshold past which clever layering, shapewear, and all the other tricks in the book can't really hide the truth anymore.  I've been there for some time, wearing baggy and practically unisex clothes so I don't have to deal with it.  But if I'm being honest, I long to wear lovely clothes that boost my confidence and celebrate the fact that I'm alive.

My mom didn't help me with clothes, bra shopping, makeup, any of that stuff.  Much of that was her own narcissism, but some of it (I have come to realize) was her own incompetence and lack of ease in this area.  I want to help my own daughter, but I won't be able to if I haven't figured it out for myself first.  The same could be said of cooking and healthy eating, of exercising, of so many things.

It feels good to write, even if it's all over the place and mostly a testament to me being lost and going in circles.

Frustrated with self

Between breastfeeding and a decrease in junk food consumption, I feel like I could/should be losing weight right now. But I'm not, and it's mostly because I'm disorganized. I'm grabbing whatever at random intervals; there's no planning or mindfulness so I overeat and eat the wrong things.

Out of nowhere, old diet-y thinking popped up a few days ago. I thought, "I want to lose 10 lbs by my next gyno appointment in 3 weeks. I'm sick of seeing 250 on the scale. And I want to lose 20 lbs by my sister's baby shower.
I want to hear that I'm looking good after giving birth."

What is this? Impatience and seeking external validation, and not much else. It's the sort of thing that never works, or ends up backfiring. I know this. So I dismissed these thoughts.

What I really need to do is establish some healthy, sustainable habits that can lead to fat loss over time. I need to be realistic; overhauling everything at once has never worked for me.

Maybe I can start with eating A vegetable every day? It doesn't sound like nearly enough. I want to add fasting after dinner, and exercise, and and and. But honestly, I don't even have a daily veggie nailed right now.

Honesty can be so depressing sometimes!

Bump in the road on the way to legalizing junk food

I believe that for me, long-term success in terms of weight stabilization and eating disorder recovery will involve the ability to have junk food in the house and not feel obsessive or compulsive around it. I'm getting there, but my legalization process has been thrown off a bit by new motherhood.

After I came home from the hospital, I started eating treats mindlessly again. The reason for this was fatigue and time constraints, moreso than emotional turmoil or a desire to return to old ways.

It takes time to eat a piece of cake mindfully. But when you are tired and the clock is speeding towards the next feeding or pumping session--and you'd also like to shower and squeeze a nap in there if you can--a 15 minute meditative eating experience with cake isn't going to happen. So what happens? You grab something and cram it in quickly, getting a quick hit of pleasure. Then you want another hit later, because you barely paid attention the first time...

Another thing that had me grabbing at pop tarts and trail mix several times a day was the lack of interest I have in cooking right now. I want pleasure and comfort and convenience, and I'm more focused on the baby than myself, so it's kind of a perfect storm for poor choices.

What to do? Well, I know if I make some sort of vow or plan (e.g. "keep all junk out of the house until blah blah blah") it will probably backfire. So I'm not doing that.

Basically, since I'm a little out of sorts right now and likely to make poor eating choices, I'm not going to go out of my way to acquire sweets in the near future. That is, I won't be stocking junk and immediately replacing it when things run out. Since I'm at home all the time and my husband is taking care of the grocery shopping for now, not much is coming my way unless I request it. If I really want something, I'll ask for it and try to find a quiet time to really savor it. (So far, I've only requested one treat from the store. But I didn't do so great with the savoring part!)

That's it, really. And I will re-asses the situation as needed. Later, I'll have longer stretches of time to myself (hopefully!) and I'll be grocery shopping again, and I expect to pick up where I left off before the birth.

New baby, short posts

I had a beautiful girl just over 2 weeks ago! And now I'm in the midst of the crazy newborn stage. I can tell it is going to be awhile before I can sit down and write proper posts again, so I installed the Blogger app on my phone. My blogging will consist of short notes whenever the mood strikes.

For the first time ever, I've been more obsessed with someone else's food and weight than my own. My baby lost too much weight after birth, was jaundiced, became slightly dehydrated, and had to be supplemented with formula (doctor's orders). Pretty much every waking moment since that bottle was introduced in the hospital has been devoted to trying to get her to breastfeed more frequently and effectively, pumping so that she drinks more milk than formula, and worrying about getting her up to birth weight.

A few days ago, she surpassed her birth weight. And I *think* feeding is going better. I'm still having to pump. Hope this all comes together soon; exclusively breastfeeding would be so much easier.
All in all, I'm grateful she's healthy and I'm doing okay too.

Home scale says 250-253.

More on legalizing junk food

Right after I wrote my last post about legalizing junk food, I discovered I had even more junk in the house than I had listed; I had forgotten about several items.  There were other cookies and a jar of chocolate-almond spread that had slipped my mind, and most of a cranberry-orange cake in the freezer that I didn't realize we had until my husband threw it in the yard for the birds yesterday.  It was several weeks old and neither one of us were interested in finishing it.

To have these things in the house and completely and utterly forget about them is new and amusing to me.  I typically know EXACTLY what I have, EXACTLY how much is left, and EXACTLY how badly I want to devour it all the moment I have a bit of privacy to do so.  I even forgot about a pint of Limited Edition Ben & Jerry's this week, and that speaks louder than me forgetting about cranberry-orange cake, believe me.  I opened my freezer and there it was in the door and I was all "Hey!  Forgot this was in here!"