Work. 30 minutes until me and the rest of the government runs from the building for the stat holiday tomorrow.
First of all: UGH. Beside me, EW is regaling KW with some long convoluted story about something to do with literature. Usually the story ends uncomfortably. The two of them are always floundering for the right way to close thier conversations. EW lingers. KW doesn't particularly want him there, but EW strokes his ego and brings up topics he knows are of nterest to KW. It's awkward.
(Now they're talking poker, both of them suck at it, btw).
Second of all: glorious. Beautiful day. Nice breeze. Warm. I'm going to walk home. It's a long, long walk (wish I could helicopter Skittles in for it, would be very convienent because she could use a good walk every day of the week!!!). I am so looking forward to it. Why? Because I am not fitness walking home. I am strolling. I have given myself permission to amble. Which, I never do. I am always racing or trying to go as fast as possible. Today, it's all about enjoyment. I'm not watching the other walkers go by and trying to match thier pace and determination. Uh, unh. Nope. Today I am chillaxing the way home. All the way home!
Something about deciding to lose 100 + lbs last night was very liberating. Exactly what I needed. Why settle for 50, 70 or 80. What I want is to see what life is like if I live it to the fullest, so why hold back?
Of course if it doesn't happen, alright. I can't control the universe. But I will try to make this happen. I need a goal, something big to hang onto. And it's not about losing the weight. It's about something else that I can't define. Something to do with choosing life, as dumb as that sounds.
I just worry about
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Self Destructive Update #578,765,332,357,875,449
This blog could just as easily be called Mad's Self Destruction Tactics, as Big Girl on a Bike. It would be a lot more accurate. Since I haven't been riding much.
The surgery cannot come soon enough. I am scared of another month without it. I have an argument going back and forth in my head all the time. If I really wanted to lose weight and be successful, why am I overeating now before the surgery? Doesn't that indicate that I'll "fail"? And then I think well, I wouldn't be having the surgery if I didn't have this issue so of course I'm eating like crazy.
What I have been doing is not eating enough during the day and then I get home and I'm HUNGRRRRYYY. And I have a glass of wine. And it's all down hill from there. Wednesday was so bad I was about to collapse from hunger. Yesterday just a little, nothing like Wednesday. But yesterday I ate even more than I did on Wednesday. Four cinnamon sticks and most of a pizza. Actually, probably all of a pizza.
It was like I was on autopilot, just stuffing it in. More, more, more.
My friend and I were brainstorming options to help me to stop binge eating, especially with Kevin at night, after the surgery. It all sounds good in the moment. But when I'm faced with the opportunity to binge versus not, all those good intentions go out the door.
I don't know what to do to stem the tide before surgery in August. I do know that I don't want to be 280 lbs by the time I get to TJ. There's a pre-op diet to shrink the liver that I'll do- it's supposed to be 12 days before surgery. But maybe I should start in July. Things will be quiet at work by then and I could see it as a gentle reminder to take care of myself. I could also recommit to working out and biking to work.
Actually, I'll start the last week of June. Things will have died down by then.
But I am not doing the diet for weight loss. I need to make that dinstinction. I am doing the diet to shrink my liver, and, create an eating schedule and get used to eating smaller portions, more frequently. The diet is a selfcare diet. The diet is to help me workout and stop eating so much at night.
The surgery cannot come soon enough. I am scared of another month without it. I have an argument going back and forth in my head all the time. If I really wanted to lose weight and be successful, why am I overeating now before the surgery? Doesn't that indicate that I'll "fail"? And then I think well, I wouldn't be having the surgery if I didn't have this issue so of course I'm eating like crazy.
What I have been doing is not eating enough during the day and then I get home and I'm HUNGRRRRYYY. And I have a glass of wine. And it's all down hill from there. Wednesday was so bad I was about to collapse from hunger. Yesterday just a little, nothing like Wednesday. But yesterday I ate even more than I did on Wednesday. Four cinnamon sticks and most of a pizza. Actually, probably all of a pizza.
It was like I was on autopilot, just stuffing it in. More, more, more.
My friend and I were brainstorming options to help me to stop binge eating, especially with Kevin at night, after the surgery. It all sounds good in the moment. But when I'm faced with the opportunity to binge versus not, all those good intentions go out the door.
I don't know what to do to stem the tide before surgery in August. I do know that I don't want to be 280 lbs by the time I get to TJ. There's a pre-op diet to shrink the liver that I'll do- it's supposed to be 12 days before surgery. But maybe I should start in July. Things will be quiet at work by then and I could see it as a gentle reminder to take care of myself. I could also recommit to working out and biking to work.
Actually, I'll start the last week of June. Things will have died down by then.
But I am not doing the diet for weight loss. I need to make that dinstinction. I am doing the diet to shrink my liver, and, create an eating schedule and get used to eating smaller portions, more frequently. The diet is a selfcare diet. The diet is to help me workout and stop eating so much at night.
Monday, June 1, 2009
In the thick of it
I should have written sooner.
It wasn't a case of: why bother, things are good. It was more along the lines of: If I do blog I have to be aware of what I' feeling/doing and make sorting out my emotions a priority. And I wasn't ready to do that.
I'm still not. I'm just also not willing to be so destructive, or at least, I want to understand the impulse. In the first time for a while I can see my friends taking steps to be healthier or more "with it" and they're being successful, but I feel like I'm doing the opposite.
Although I actually resolved some big things that had been nagging at me. The electric bike got repaired and fiddled with and I rode it into work. That first ride resulted in some bruises when I had to get off to navigate a weird corner that joined two trails together and turned the throttle on. The rest of the ride was okay other than that, but that was just it. It was okay. I didn't necessarily need a shower, but I went really slowly and couldn't catch my own speed because of the upright nature of the bike. The second time I tried to ride it the chain came off and I was so mad and disappointed and frustrated I hopped on my regular bike and rode to work, hills be damned.
In all, I rode my bike to work 3x last week.
So that feels better.
One thing that helped take the pressure off was scheduling lap band surgery. It's official, booked and real now. On August 3rd I fly down to Mexico and have my surgery.
Whoa just writing that made my chest constrict. And then reading it made it constrict again.
Before I booked the surgery I spoke with a coordinator and she said people often gain weight before they have surgery in cases like mine where there's a 3 month wait. At first I thought, pah, why would I do that, that's just more weight to lose! But tell that to the compulsive eater side of me that's been noshing on all her favourite foods before she's forced to stop/die.
I say die, because I think that part of me really feels like this is a death- the end of an era, but certainly the end or death of a part of me. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings about this surgery (will it work, will I be one of those people unable to eat anything but who's still fat {actually those people don't exist but that's my worst fear, unable to enjoy food, but still fat} will I be okay, will I have any health problems due to this?). But despite those fears the reason why I am having the surgery is because I'm for it.
Mostly though, I want a physical barrier between me and my first instinct, which is to binge eat. I told Penny about it yesterday and she said, "Well, you really have tried everything else, including counselling."
And that about sums up my feelings, too. I tried counselling- made vast improvements in other areas but not weight loss. I tried exercise and that had some fits and starts but I now know a lot about fitness and actively work to be active most of the time and am successful with that (I should take a minute to acknowledge that- go me~!!!!!) I tried diet and exercise and lost a significant amount of weight. But like a spectre the compulsive eating was always hovering around, needing to be managed, dealt with, kept in check.
For all these years I have tried to deal with the compulsive eating directly (counselling) from the side (exercise) in a combined way (diet, exercise and counselling). And I have spent a lot of mental energy managing me. All those random thoughts on just this one topic, all that planning, guilt, shame, dreaming, hope... all that effort.
And I am still fat.
So for me, the lapband represents a freind. Someone or thing who will stand between me and impulse. I might really want to eat 3-6 slices of pizza. But it won't let me. And I think what will happen, knowing me and the process as I do, is that for the first while I will feel very thwarted and really miss the option to eat compulsively. But since the option won't be there my compulsive eating will steadily whither on the vine.
The thoughts and feelings won't go away from what I understand from my lapband support group, but the act of eating compulsively, will. It can't co-exist comfortably with the band.
I see it as a kind of death. Part of me is extremely glad to see it go and welcomes its demise. But another part is hanging on and scared and anxious and driving me to eat as much as I can before the "big day" because who knows when we'll have delicious food again? Never, that side of me whispers. It feels so final, like death. No more soft bready things. No more rare steak. No more carbonated drinks. And when I go back and re-read that list nothing on there is that bad. I can have toasted bread when I want it. A bite of cake here and there, well done steak and eventually even a carbonated drink every now and then.
It's not the loss of certain foods because as I've learned at the support groups, there are very few foods the band won't tolerate comepletely (though everyone's different) it's the loss of the ability to stuff my feelings at any time with the food of my choosing, in the amount of my choosing. After August 3rd, I won't be able to enjoy that familair, tried and true process anymore.
I know that the compulsive eating isn't good for me. I know that it doesn't even really work. It doesn't take away bad feelings/experiences it just delays them, smothers them and creates new ones. I know that what I seek from those experiences isn't food- I know that what I get from binge eating is a cycle of pain, release, shame that's as old as time for me.
But that cycle, pain, release, shame is my connection to my mother. To me as a child, to me as a person. It's how I interact with the world, how I cope with the demands of the world, of a typical day. It's everything.
Without it then, who am I?
How do I get through the world, how do I relate to myself. Do I become someone I don't even know?
And what do I instead to get my daily dose of shame- because that's what I am seeking when I binge eat. I feel bad- something is making me anxious or tense or sad. I don't like feeling that way because strong emotions are scary- they make me want to hurt myself. So, I eat. Not because I love the taste of 7 layer dip so much (though I do) but because I need to create a situation where I went wrong. Where I was out of control. The actual eating itself is mostly in autopilot. I do that because if I were to check in a voice would say "this is wrong, it takes us away from all our goals" so I don't check in and then when I'm done I look at all I ate and I do listen to that doomsday voice saying, "well, we're really fucked now" and then armed with all the evidence, I emotionally crucify myself.
It wasn't a case of: why bother, things are good. It was more along the lines of: If I do blog I have to be aware of what I' feeling/doing and make sorting out my emotions a priority. And I wasn't ready to do that.
I'm still not. I'm just also not willing to be so destructive, or at least, I want to understand the impulse. In the first time for a while I can see my friends taking steps to be healthier or more "with it" and they're being successful, but I feel like I'm doing the opposite.
Although I actually resolved some big things that had been nagging at me. The electric bike got repaired and fiddled with and I rode it into work. That first ride resulted in some bruises when I had to get off to navigate a weird corner that joined two trails together and turned the throttle on. The rest of the ride was okay other than that, but that was just it. It was okay. I didn't necessarily need a shower, but I went really slowly and couldn't catch my own speed because of the upright nature of the bike. The second time I tried to ride it the chain came off and I was so mad and disappointed and frustrated I hopped on my regular bike and rode to work, hills be damned.
In all, I rode my bike to work 3x last week.
So that feels better.
One thing that helped take the pressure off was scheduling lap band surgery. It's official, booked and real now. On August 3rd I fly down to Mexico and have my surgery.
Whoa just writing that made my chest constrict. And then reading it made it constrict again.
Before I booked the surgery I spoke with a coordinator and she said people often gain weight before they have surgery in cases like mine where there's a 3 month wait. At first I thought, pah, why would I do that, that's just more weight to lose! But tell that to the compulsive eater side of me that's been noshing on all her favourite foods before she's forced to stop/die.
I say die, because I think that part of me really feels like this is a death- the end of an era, but certainly the end or death of a part of me. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings about this surgery (will it work, will I be one of those people unable to eat anything but who's still fat {actually those people don't exist but that's my worst fear, unable to enjoy food, but still fat} will I be okay, will I have any health problems due to this?). But despite those fears the reason why I am having the surgery is because I'm for it.
Mostly though, I want a physical barrier between me and my first instinct, which is to binge eat. I told Penny about it yesterday and she said, "Well, you really have tried everything else, including counselling."
And that about sums up my feelings, too. I tried counselling- made vast improvements in other areas but not weight loss. I tried exercise and that had some fits and starts but I now know a lot about fitness and actively work to be active most of the time and am successful with that (I should take a minute to acknowledge that- go me~!!!!!) I tried diet and exercise and lost a significant amount of weight. But like a spectre the compulsive eating was always hovering around, needing to be managed, dealt with, kept in check.
For all these years I have tried to deal with the compulsive eating directly (counselling) from the side (exercise) in a combined way (diet, exercise and counselling). And I have spent a lot of mental energy managing me. All those random thoughts on just this one topic, all that planning, guilt, shame, dreaming, hope... all that effort.
And I am still fat.
So for me, the lapband represents a freind. Someone or thing who will stand between me and impulse. I might really want to eat 3-6 slices of pizza. But it won't let me. And I think what will happen, knowing me and the process as I do, is that for the first while I will feel very thwarted and really miss the option to eat compulsively. But since the option won't be there my compulsive eating will steadily whither on the vine.
The thoughts and feelings won't go away from what I understand from my lapband support group, but the act of eating compulsively, will. It can't co-exist comfortably with the band.
I see it as a kind of death. Part of me is extremely glad to see it go and welcomes its demise. But another part is hanging on and scared and anxious and driving me to eat as much as I can before the "big day" because who knows when we'll have delicious food again? Never, that side of me whispers. It feels so final, like death. No more soft bready things. No more rare steak. No more carbonated drinks. And when I go back and re-read that list nothing on there is that bad. I can have toasted bread when I want it. A bite of cake here and there, well done steak and eventually even a carbonated drink every now and then.
It's not the loss of certain foods because as I've learned at the support groups, there are very few foods the band won't tolerate comepletely (though everyone's different) it's the loss of the ability to stuff my feelings at any time with the food of my choosing, in the amount of my choosing. After August 3rd, I won't be able to enjoy that familair, tried and true process anymore.
I know that the compulsive eating isn't good for me. I know that it doesn't even really work. It doesn't take away bad feelings/experiences it just delays them, smothers them and creates new ones. I know that what I seek from those experiences isn't food- I know that what I get from binge eating is a cycle of pain, release, shame that's as old as time for me.
But that cycle, pain, release, shame is my connection to my mother. To me as a child, to me as a person. It's how I interact with the world, how I cope with the demands of the world, of a typical day. It's everything.
Without it then, who am I?
How do I get through the world, how do I relate to myself. Do I become someone I don't even know?
And what do I instead to get my daily dose of shame- because that's what I am seeking when I binge eat. I feel bad- something is making me anxious or tense or sad. I don't like feeling that way because strong emotions are scary- they make me want to hurt myself. So, I eat. Not because I love the taste of 7 layer dip so much (though I do) but because I need to create a situation where I went wrong. Where I was out of control. The actual eating itself is mostly in autopilot. I do that because if I were to check in a voice would say "this is wrong, it takes us away from all our goals" so I don't check in and then when I'm done I look at all I ate and I do listen to that doomsday voice saying, "well, we're really fucked now" and then armed with all the evidence, I emotionally crucify myself.
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