Imaginary This

I have to stop with the long posts. They're killing me. I log onto my own blog and I'm like, "Ugh, it's too much work to mouse through all of this." I can only imagine what a reader would think. Good thing this blog's only visitor is me....

Today is awful. Kevin worked, but he was supposed to be off. After learning that he was going to work I decided I'd wake up when I wanted, go to the gym and spend the day dallying with the dog out in the sunshine.

This is what happened instead: I woke up just as Kevin was leaving for work. There is nothing more depressing than watching your spouse's back, with whom you had hoped to spend the day, disappear through the front door. Then I went onto the computer. And then I stayed there. For eight hours. I went from blog to blog and most of them were about weight loss surgery. Actually that's been happening a lot. I get on to the computer to check my e-mail and then spend two hours reading about protein shakes and hair loss and incision scars and googling the bariatric surgeon in my area, over and over again.

I even sent Kevin a sad, manipulative e-mail about how I hadn't eaten and wouldn't, until he came home. (I had eaten, but I was peckish when I wrote that e-mail). And I really was toying with the idea of not eating and letting him come home to a depressed, pajama-ed, starving and low blood sugar-crazy wife who demanded he soothe her with junk food.

But something stopped me. I ate a sandwich and some wasabi black beans and a peach and then I removed the chipped toenail polish that has been causing me to feel self-conscious and then I puttered while my food digested. And then I decided to break up my pity party pour mois and do something really jarring, really meaningful.

So I put my old tae bo dvd in and made my way through it. Last summer, when I started all of this health and fitnessing I did it a couple of times and it kicked my ass. I think I made it through 15 minutes a couple of times (read 1, maybe 2x) and after I was exhausted and my legs hurt for days. Once, I actually completed the whole thing with Kevin. But that was a year ago and I haven't been as consistent with my working out. So how would I do now?

I did okay. I had to get back to butterfly-ing during some of the cardio kicking sequences (I could usually handle the slow-mo version for the reps of kicking, but once we double-timed it I was like, nuh-uh Billy!). I made it through and it was difficult, but I'm not wrecked and ready to fall over. In fact, I could probably get on a bike for an hour if I wanted to. Though I'm sure I would be more tired if I could actually follow the moves. Maybe all this cockiness is due to the fact that I was mostly flapping around and then falling down with laughter during my favourite part, when Billy says, "Imaginary this, you gotta kick higher!" But still. I did it. I kicked higher-ish.

And it was just what I needed to purge the crazy right out of me.

Imaginary that?

Shame on Me Redux

Well, first let’s get down to shiny brass tacks: I am out of control around food. I just can’t seem to stop turning to it to ease my sense of general sense of discomfort. It’s like I have an itch under my skin, starting around 5:00 pm each day for the last week, and the only way to scratch it is with food. Large quantities of food.

I haven’t binged like this in a long time.

But if I were honest and prone to peeling away self-subterfuge I would probably say that’s not true, I might even recognize a pattern. I might shake my head and admit that the bingeing is increasing, slowly over a period of months, increasing in frequency and quantity, and as long as the progression is slow, I guess I feel comfortable sighing and saying in a voice of bewilderment, “I haven’t binged like this in a long time.”

But this week, this week takes the cake. A big cake, with icing and layers and pretty piping on the sides. This week I started bingeing to the point where I wake up stuffed from the night before, hung over from the vast quantities devoured.

Yesterday I went to work and I had stomach cramps from all the food I’d eaten the night before. It’s been a long time since I binged to the point of gastro-intestinal upset. This is bad. This is getting back to old, dangerous habits.

There was a time when I would intentionally-by-accident check out and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. Within two hours of a double date with Ben and Jerry, I was usually flushed and bent double, cursing myself for eating dairy when I know I have lactose intolerance. Severe lactose intolerance. Sometimes I would spend hours in the bathroom, shitting my brains out, in horrible pain, only to crawl into bed at two am so weak that my muscles shook.

But it’s been well over a year since I did anything that drastic. That self-destructive. But this week has seen me creeping towards binges of that magnitude. On Sunday night I ate a third of a cherry pie (what’s with me and cherries?), half of a container of 7 layer dip and half a bag of Tostitos to accompany said dip, and, an oyster sandwich (don’t ask). On Monday night I ate the rest of the chips and dip and another third of the pie- after I’d already eaten my dinner. And right now I want desperately to wander into the kitchen, throw the lid off of the cherry pie and eat the rest. That binge-y little kid inside me is whispering, “You have a fresh pot of coffee, what goes better with coffee than pie!” And I am seriously considering it….

But first, first, I should tell you a few things about me. About why this is so hard, about why I am willing to blow 30+ lbs lost for cherry pie and fresh coffee, but mostly for cherry pie.

I lost that 30 + lbs last August/September. Since then I have been trying in typical OCPD fashion to re-create every detail of those two months, with the (crazy) hope that if I do everything exactly as I did it then, I will restart my weight loss. But from October onwards, no matter how much I tried, how much I fiddled with my food, it didn’t work. I just stayed at my plateau. And when I tried to increase my exercise I ended up eating more because I was hungry like a mother fucker.

And now it’s July 24th. So close to August. I am secretly convinced that if I can recreate every detail from last August and September I will finally unlock the magical secret known as weight loss again and lose another 30+ lbs. Because, and this is key, it happened last August/September and those were the only two elements I have not been able to incorporate in my twelve month expedition of re-creation. (That and having two good friends at work who provided me with wonderful support, but they’ve moved on and even my OCPD brain has accepted they are not reproducible elements).

The pressure!

I can’t do it. I have tried. Every couple of weeks I step on the scale and it’s 266 at the low end, 268 at the high. (Though right now it’s hovering at 271). And then I stamp my foot and goddamnit I’m gonna do something about this. So I get a book from the library, You on a Diet, Fitness for Women. Or I revisit the South Beach Diet. Start the food diary again. Or I buy a fucking bike. Or I re-dedicate myself to the gym and eating at 10 am to keep my blood sugar low. And I try. I really fucking try to do everything right. On schedule, on time, just like last year. And no matter what I do, it gets fucked up. Because quite frankly, it is boring to eat bland salad in the winter what with the cardboard tomatoes and the flavourless cucumbers. And the cooking and the chopping and dicing and the clean up and the Tupperware back and forth to work and all the thinking and planning and doing that it takes…. It makes me exhausted and so I come home and I just say yes, yes, yes when Kevin asks if I’d rather just order pizza than make chicken breast. Again. And so I stay at 266-268, size 22.

And now August looms and the pressure is incredible. Irresistible. If only I could love cottage cheese again. And enjoy those stupid cheese sticks and stick to portion sizes and order salad, not fries. If I could do all of that and more, I could lose 30 + lbs this August/September.

But it’s not just that.

There is always something else. And this week has been tougher than most. And here’s why.

There is a new guy at work (he got the job I competed for but I don’t hold a grudge). He’s okay, a bit of a Cliff (I’ll explain one day, I’m sure), but okay. We work in public relations so he’s a writer, like I’m a writer. And so he googled me using my real name to see some of my articles.

I haven’t googled myself in a while because I haven’t published anything in a long while. And so I didn’t know that the first thing to pop up isn’t an article written by me, it’s an article about me.

So on his third day, new guy pops into my cubicle and says, “I need to talk to you.”

I’m all, “Okay, shoot!”

He sits down in the chair for guests (I mention this only because it’s a major status symbol where I work to have a cubicle big enough to have guests, and a chair designated for those guests is an even bigger status symbol. And, because I am uncomfortable talking about what happens next and I’m stalling…) New guy leans in and whispers, “I googled you to find some articles you'd written.”

Right away I put on my happy, breezy face and wonder what monstrosity of mine he could be referring to. All of the articles on the net by me, (last time I’d checked) had been amongst my earliest. “Oh God,” I said, “I can only imagine what kind of crap is up there. It’s always the shittiest stuff I wrote that lingers the longest.”

New guy says, “Well I just want you to know, I may say some things sometimes and I’m just kidding around. I would never mean anything by it. I’m not a violent person. But I could take something too far, in a joke. Without knowing… If I ever say anything that offends you, let me know. I don't want you to feel scared at all.” He looks serious and sad. He’s trying to convey that he’s a caring person. And my stomach drops.

What the fuck did he read about me? What’s on there?

I wave my hand dismissively, “I don’t know which article you mean…. But I worked with eating disorders for years and in that world, in the non-profit world, your life is an open book. Nothing to be ashamed of. So….” I smile. But inside, inside I am fretting, I am anxious. I am very upset. What article is he talking about and why did he feel the need to come and tell me he read something private, personal about me, and wants to reassure me? I add, “You get used to sharing pieces of your own life in that world because it makes it easier for students, clients—the people you’re working to help-- to relate to you. So they know that you know. So I’m used to it.”

Except, I’m not used to it at my corporate job. And I was creeped out.

New guy left my cube and I resisted the urge to google myself for about 20 seconds. When I did, I found the article he was talking about. It was the first to appear.

It was about a fundraising event I put together a couple of years ago for a women’s assault centre. In the article I talk about the sexual and physical abuse I lived through as a kid (which motivated me to get involved in women’s health issues) and incidentally the article also touched on my relationship with my mother (who did nothing when I told her about the abuse).

It was written a couple of years ago. So I didn’t remember much. I talked a lot back then. To a lot of people. I was in the healing phase where you tell your story, almost compulsively, you put it out there so you don’t have to own it so much anymore, so it’s not a secret, your dark secret.

I tried to read the article, but I felt queasy. I didn’t make it very far. In the second paragraph there’s a quote from me. “They basically used me as a human punching bag.” And I had to stop. I didn’t want to read and remember the rest of the article. The article he read. As he sat across from me. I didn’t want to read the rest of the article he was so horrified by/disgusted about/uncomfortable with that he felt the need to come into my cubicle and tell me he wasn’t a threat to my safety or wellbeing. I didn’t want to know what he knew. I had put that article, that time, behind me. Especially in this new, corporate world where efficiency and professionalism (or the appearance of it at least) are treasured above all else. Everything else. Where you have no past, not even a present, beyond the work you put out. You are a machine, not a person. Certainly not a person who was molested as a little girl, not once, but twice and who’s mother was so cowed by life, by the sheer weight of being a mother, that she did nothing, could do nothing to help you and sometimes even socialized with one of your abusers, her brother. I felt so tawdry and exposed. And so I have been eating, eating and eating all this week. Like I’m trying to rebuild a layer of the wall I had dismantled last August/September. To build up my reserves and shore up the fortification of me. To blot out that moment when I googled myself and saw what he saw and realized that the new guy knew my deepest, most personal details. And I had put it out there. And it wasn’t fair. I put it out there when I needed it out there, a long time ago, for people who would understand. And it’s still floating in the ether. Worse, it’s still floating around in my veins. Always there, inducing shame- injecting shame into everything. Even though I had years of counselling. Years of journaling. Years of talking about it, working with other women who have lived through it, raising funds so other women could access the help I got- I spent years in it- the shame is still here, like a scarlett letter. My shameful secret. And that shame eats away at me in a million different ways, at a million different times, but the source of the shame is always the same.

Me. The shame is on me.

Back on the wagon

Yipeee! I didn’t think I’d do it, but I did. I ended up exercising at the gym 4 x this week, and took 1 pilates class for about an hour a pop.

I got Kevin’s help to wake up early. I’ve never tried working out first thing in the morning before because waking up early usually causes me to want to punch people and I’m pretty sure my gym has a no punch policy. At least I hope it does.

But after I dragged myself out of bed (aided by the promise of imminent percolations of my coffeemaker) I really liked feeling like I was one of the only few awake in the world.

True to my word, I didn’t work myself like a demon possessed to make up for all that missed time, I actually took it pretty easy. On the efforting scale of 1-10 I’d say I stayed in the 5-7 category, to ease my way back in. And I liked it so much I think I will stay there for as long as I want. There’s really no need to flagellate myself with exercise as punishment.

And I swear, I am not just kidding myself here, but my muscle tone is returning pretty quickly. I thought all hope was lost, that all the work I’d done on my arms was as good as gone and that I wouldn’t see the outlines of muscles again until September. But, I already see some definition between the bicep and tricep. That was a huge relief. I guess I thought it would be like starting at 315 pounds again and the more I thought about going back to where my fitness level started, the less I felt like doing that again.

The end of the leash

On Thursday I was walking Runkie on Gorge. I was wearing cute Bermuda shorts from LB and a top from Pennington’s MXM line. {Normally, their tops are too long or too short. When they’re too long (tunic style) it looks like I’m wearing a cape to hide my stomach rolls. When they’re too short (because they’re cheap shit and they shrink like nothing I have ever seen before except Old Navy) they squeeze across my stomach and hit at the just the right height to show off the unavoidable flaring out of loose fabric at my crotch- not quite a camel toe, more like it’s slouchy cousin.} I had on my cute and super comfy aerosoles. And my hair was sassy. I felt hot.

And then the old guy with the stick started waving and smiling at us. I’m not sure if he’s homeless or just weird. He does have a shopping cart filled with things, but he also has the air of someone who is looked after a little bit…. Hard to say. He has waved at us before. Runkie doesn’t like him because he taps his metal stick on the ground a lot, so I generally avoid him. But I was feeling generous so I stopped for a minute to spend some quality time with the peeps in my hood.

I don’t know, maybe it’s because of my mother, or society in general, but I am hardwired to be uber polite. So when he started speaking rapidly in Mandarin or Cantonese I just kept smiling politely and murmured, “I’m sorry I don’t… I’m sorry I don’t speak Chinese….” I figured he just had to say what he had to say and it would only take a second or two and he’s homeless (maybe) and he’s harmless (maybe) and what does it matter if I stand there for a couple of seconds and listen to him talk in Chinese, anyway?

But he didn’t stop. And he got more agitated. And rather than walking away and thinking “Whatevah” I progressed to full on I don’t understand you gesticulation. And then he started to point to his thighs, indicating bigness. And then to his stomach, indicating bigness. And then to my thighs and my stomach, indicating bigness. He said something about my feet or my shoes (not sure which). And I got so flustered I stood there for the longest two minutes of my life while he pointed at his thighs and then my thighs, his stomach and then my stomach, and inexplicably, my feet.

And as he did so, he seemed crazier and crazier and for some bizarre reason, as much as I wanted to go, I was rooted there because this voice in my head kept sing-songing, “Is he saying I’m fat! Oh my god he thinks I’m fat! Oh my god! I must look so horrible, so fat, he feels the need to stop me in the street and tell me I’m fat... in Chinese!”

Finally, sense kicked in and I snapped to attention and realized I was standing there letting him insult me (I think, maybe he was just trying to tell me I look like a white version of Beyonce with my juicy thighs and that my shoes are really cute). I gave Runkie the lets get the hell out of here snap of the leash and the dog was off like a shot; though not before pausing to look at me like I was an idiot for stopping in the first place.

It’s really scary when your dog has better people sense than you do.

Glad Tidings

This blog has been a wee bit depressing of late.

First there was my job related angst. Then I blathered on about my rebellion against exercising and the guilt trip I was on because I couldn't/wouldn't get myself to the gym. I even managed to dig up some shame and talk about eating.

And now I am going to reverse the trend.

First up is the almost 1 year holiday of losing 40+ lbs. Granted I haven't lost anymore weight since October, but, I haven't gained any of the weight I started losing last July, either. Well, I was down to 263 and am now back at 268- but those heady days at 263 were few and far between anyway. With hindsight, I can now see that I hit a pleteau in October/November- and that all I really needed to do was to take a break without guilt. (Of course that makes it sound so easy, when really, it wasn't and I did take a break, but the guilt part just kind of happened). So if I cut out all of my "shoulds" and really look at the past year I lost 40 lbs and maintained that loss. Period. That's an accomplishment.

Second, I got back into counselling. I realized I was slipping into depression (or rather had slipped into depression) and that I needed an objective third party to help me out.

Third, I started to budget my money more carefully. There have been ups and downs aplenty. But I have been putting about $200.00 bucks a month into savings/investments accounts for about a year. So that's really good!

Fourth, I am gradually getting over the need to not work out. And I am also clear headed enough to see that doing it to lose weight isn't enough of a motivation to go three times, let alone five times a week. I am also clear headed enough to admit that I like exercise, I like the comfort in it, the sense of accomplishment and the overall feeling of wellbeing it produces. But, when I turn the focus to weight loss I just start to not care, I start to resent the commitment and the time and the effort and the whole kitandkaboodle. But if I do it for another reason, it brings back the joy and excitement and freshness of exercise. I just need to shut out the Boot KKKamp instuctors in my head and do it for reasons that would really burn them up like:

1. It helps me sleep really soundly
2. It helps me feel strong and capable
3. It helps me feel centred and on track- like I have a schedule and it's worth sticking to (I guess I like being highly regimented....)
4. It helps me feel long and loose
5. It helps me get out all my shitty feelings
6. It helps me try new things
7. It helps me feel pretty
8. It helps me feel like I'm part of the world- not just living in my head
9. It helps me feel safe- I can take care of myself
10. It helps me feel better physically- my feet feel better, my neck and shoulders feel soooo much better.

Solution Oriented

I think I may have a solution to my puzzling exercise conundrum, or at the very least I've decided to completely ignore the boot kkkampers....

I will wake up 5 days a week and get to the gym. 3x a week strength training. 2 times a week core and cardio. Pilates on Wednesday in the evening and walks or bike rides whenever.

Of course I figured this out last weekend and have yet to get myself up early enough to do it.

But I will turn off that negative voice in my head, the one that's saying I'm not a morning person and exercising at 6 am is doomed to fail, and I will just try.

I will try to try.

Shame on Me

I feel ashamed when I eat.

Even after years of counseling for binge eating.

The shame isn't just when I binge. It's every time I eat. It doens't matter if it's a hard boiled egg or a bag of cookies. The only difference is the amount of shame I feel.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel that way, and it wasn’t until the shame lessemed that I even realized it was always there.

And the shame isn't just limited to eating. A year ago I was driving to work, late. And I was trying to think of an acceptable cover story, something that would be ironclad but also mundane. I kept berating myself for letting it get so late, (10 minutes) and remembering all the times I'd ever been late to anything. But it's not as if I come in late all the time. In fact, I'm pretty punctual. So I pulled up to a light and wondered, what if I didn't lie, what if I just told them the truth or a version of the truth? Shame welled up at the thought of saying I was late because I had to re-wrap my foot correctly because of my plantar fascititis.

My cheeks even flamed red at the thought of admitting I had a physical problem (weakness) and took time to attend to it (selfishness).

I got pissed off.

Why does my life and all my stuff have to be a secret? Kevin is very secretive and he feels so much shame at having needs and wants and desires. And I always get on him for it, but really, I'm no better. I'm worse. Why did it feel like sharing my problem was like stripping open my soul for judgement and criticism?

And that's how I feel around food. I don't like to be the only one eating. I don't like to eat portions that would fill me. I'm ashamed to be so venal and so raw. I'm ashamed at how much food plays a role in my life but when I hear other people they sound as obsessed as me- only happily so. So why should I always feel so ashamed? Why should my appetite be a secret?