The midway dilema

Last night I stood in front of my closet trying to decide what to wear today to work. I am at the point of the weight less part of my journey that I am not fitting into my bigger clothes but I cannot wear my smaller clothes. And I am curious what I wore between those sizes as I was gaining weight? Well whatever I wore, it isn’t in my closet now. So I have to decide what I am going to do. Do I continue to wear my bigger clothes until I can fit into my smaller clothes or do I bite the bullet and buy more clothes? My hope is to get into my smaller clothes and stay there and not need the bigger and middle clothes again. There is a part of me that doesn’t want that safety net in my closet. Despite that little voice I am going to bite the bullet for a few reasons. First of all having clothes that fit me make me feel better. It makes me feel good about what I have accomplished so far. Why shouldn’t I look good too? It is all about finding that comfort in your body at every stage of your weight loss. I believe that in order to have success in maintaining a healthier lifestyle you have to have a healthy relationship with your body. No I don’t like that I have a belly and I have never had a belly before but my belly is smaller than it was two months ago and it may be even smaller two months from now. Secondly half way through any weight loss program the weight doesn’t come off as easily as it did in the beginning. I may be here for a while and having to wear clothes that are too big may not motivate me to move forward. It is easy to tell yourself well I might as well just give up if I am going to lose this little and have to work so hard. My bigger clothes are comfortable and they have been there for me. Seems silly I know but we all have those things that prevent us from success mine may be a talking pair of jeans. Thirdly it is my birthday month so buying a few new pair of pants and maybe SHOES is a gift to myself. I have put myself through the ringer physically and mentally over the years and trying to fix all the harm I have done is hard work. I should reward myself. Right? Lastly when you buy new clothes other people notice your weight loss progress. Let’s face it positive attention is a real motivator. Today I wore something I hadn’t in a long time, one of my co-workers grabbed me and told me I was looking really good, she said I looked healthy and happy. I had told her when I started this that it wasn’t just about losing weight it was about getting out of the habit of using food to motivate my feelings. She understood it and has been a great source of support so her kind words mean a great deal. So as I am only three pounds from the midway point of my weight loss goal and it is my birthday month. I am going shopping!Smaller pants here I come!

Me vs the bathing suit

It’s that time of the year again when the sun is letting us know that summer isn’t that far away. It’s time to start shaving your legs all the way up and think about bathing suit season. Well let me tell you what I think of bathing suit season! I have struggled with bathing suit love since I was a teenager. They are my least favorite articles of clothing I will ever own except the plaid gauchos I had in middle school, those were just evil. Every year whether I am heavy or thin I have the same battle with myself. I hate my body in any and all swimsuits even if I really love the bathing suit. For a long time I thought when I am older and feel more comfortable in my skin I won’t really care about putting on a bathing suit and wearing them in front of people. I mean there are people out there that have all the confidence in the world wearing suits they shouldn’t wear and yet I am the girl wearing shorts and a t-shirt over mine nine times out of ten. Here I am heavier then I have been in years facing summer. The thought of a swimsuit is pretty scary even after losing a little weight. I want to find the confidence that those other have to hold my head high and say,” here I am world in my bathing suit. I am a woman trying to find my healthier self. I may be holding a little more around the bottom and middle then I should but one day I won’t. One day I will be the woman that may turn your head, and make you say ‘boy she looks good for a woman her age, I wonder how she does it’. But for now I am me in a bathing suit trying to find my inner head turner.” I really don’t need to be a head turner. I just want to find peace with my own body while I make peace with my own mind. Every day since this journey has started I look in the mirror and I remind myself: You have had babies, you have had skin cancer, you have scars from accidents, your scars and your shape are part of the road map that you have been on so far. You can change your shape but you will never change where you have been only where you are going. I will be going to get a bathing suit for my body the way it is now. I will embrace the confidence of a man in a speedo to wear my swimsuit in public. I will not worry about what others think of me in my swimsuit because at the end of the day it is me vs my swimsuit and no one else.

Accountability - A healing plan

I met my friend Pam I hadn’t seen in a month for coffee early this morning. We made our usual pleasantries then sat down on the comfy couch at the back of the coffee shop and she turned to me and asked me what diet plan I was on to lose all the weight I have so far. I said I wasn’t on a plan really. I was just not eating my feelings anymore and started walking again. She didn’t believe me. “You must be doing something, a pill? Five workouts a day?” Obviously I wasn’t going to escape her I told her line of questioning. So I simply told her my healing plan was “Accountability”. “Healing Plan?” Yep. Accountability isn’t a new concept for people who are trying to lose weight or change their lifestyle. Most of the tried and true “diet plans” use accountability and this is why they are successful. For those of us with some degree of eating disorders accountability is even more important. It isn’t just about the food we eat or our workouts, it is about how we are feeling. “Well tracking seems like a hassle” Pam said shaking her head. It isn’t for everyone but for those of us who need a little more structure to stay on track it is the way to go. With so many great Aps out there now that can scan barcodes for food items and sync with fitness trackers it’s really not that difficult to use. And I see that ten minutes of daily tracking time as me time. Plus I was the kid in school that loved getting the gold stars on that chart on the wall, this is my big girl star chart. And then I told her that yesterday was a bad day for me, not a horrible day but a rough one in some ways. It would have been so easy to us the way I felt as an excuse to eat that second chili dog and blow off my walk. Instead I tracked my dinner and I made a note of how I was feeling. As I strapped on my shoes I decided that I would do an extra mile on my walk. I turned sadness into determination instead of a pity party on the couch with a bag of chips. When I got back home I tracked my walk. I burned enough calories for that second chili dog but I didn’t eat it. Instead I thought about what had happened to make me feel the way I did that day. I made myself accountable for my feelings and what I did to deal with them. The thing about my relationship with food is, I won’t get to stop being accountable when my pants all fit again. I will have to continue my daily process far beyond that so I don’t find myself back here again. It isn’t about weight loss, it is about healing. Healing needs the same maintenance process as weight loss. We said our good byes so we both could make meetings for work. I get back to work after my meeting and found an email from her. She read my blog and said she related to more than a few things I wrote about so far. Then she loaded the same Ap I have on her phone. She said “I think I am going to try your accountability healing plan.” Journeys are always better with friends. I am truly lucky to have so much support.

Getting past the voice in your head

Today was the day when I went to the closet and I put on a pair of pants that I haven’t been able to get into comfortably for six months. They not only fit but they were loose everywhere. A smile crept across my lips and tears rimmed my eyes. I was filled with pride at my success but there was still that nagging voice at the back of my head saying “You should have kept the weight off in the first place.” Oh that voice. We all listen to it because we are our own worst enemy. I let that voice defeat me many times. It was the same voice that told me “another piece of cake will be okay” “you can just sit around all day you deserve it” “you are fat and you are getting old” “no one cares what you look like anymore anyway”. That voice was my own justifying the actions I have taken the past two years. The sad thing is that I have good people in my life that told me the complete opposite of what I told myself and I couldn’t hear them over my own voice. They were the ones I should have listened to, they were the ones who were trying to walk me out of my own head. But sometimes you can’t get out of that space no matter how hard people try to help you. You tether yourself to the bad and let the good float away like a balloon. The good is still there floating but just out of your reach until you break free of yourself. Seven weeks ago I was tethered with a thick chain around the waist. I didn’t even think I could lift my arms to reach for what I wanted. The voice in my head was still loud. With every day and every reminder I make to myself that I do deserve better and I can be better that voice gets quitter and that chain lighter. Today that chain is more like an elastic band. I can touch the end of the string of the balloon, I just can’t pull it all the way towards me yet. And the voice is nearly a whisper. When the voice spoke today I felt I had to answer it. Yes I should have kept the weight off but I didn’t. All I can do now is move forward. And I am moving forward in smaller pants and a better understanding of how to manage that inner voice.

Its been a while since my last confession.

It has been a while since my last confession. As much as I wanted to stay faithful to my journaling life got in the way. Funny how that happens. I also confess that I cheated on my eating goals and still managed to lose 19 pounds since this journey began. I hadn’t really changed what I was eating just how I was eating it and I just started working out last week. So I was curious about how I lost so much in this time. One thing I gave up and didn’t really think about it much was negativity. Wouldn’t be funny to find out that ten pounds of my weight loss was negative energy? But I wouldn’t be surprised. Oh sure laugh about it but think of the way negativity feels, it feels like a hundred pounds on your back, on your heart and your soul. When I feel down, I reach for something that I thought made me happy and that was food. It worked for a while but happiness doesn’t come from the grocery store or a drive through. Week before last I found myself feeling a little down and instead of reaching for a bag of chips I went for a walk. On that walk I thought of all the things that made me happy. Family, friends, the dogs, my crafting, spring, really good bourbon, etc. Then I thought about the things that made me feel bad. And my job topped the list and job related themes were throughout said list. Well then I thought about when the majority of all my eating my feelings began to happen and all the alarms went off in my head. Since I have been here I have gained forty pounds. I have also been a person I don’t really want to be. I complain, I get bitter and I had started to stop caring about what I look like, I started to give up. Sure I was looking for other jobs and no one was calling and now I see why. I didn’t put forth the effort I needed to because I didn’t put forth the effort for myself. That was until the job I interviewed for last week. And that was when I realized that even if I don’t get that job, I set myself on a path that will lead to my success. I am better then I give myself credit for. I deserve better then what I have done for myself the past eighteen months. I admit I sound like one of those crazy self-help tapes but hey I am on the rebound from self-destruction, I’ll do what it takes! While I am still at my current job I am going to continue to do my best every day and take opportunities as that come. I am going to take advantage of tools I have to look for those new job opportunities. I will not let bumps in the road of my new job journey cause me to take a different route. I need to stay focused. My goal is not to wait three weeks until my next confession. BUT I am hoping that a new job will get in my way.

The first step is the hardest

Sorrow tastes like potato chips. Anger tastes like brownies. Happiness tastes like a bacon cheeseburger with French fries and a cold beer. To this point this has been my relationship with food only I didn’t see it until I started to really take a look at myself. I am and have always been an emotional eater. In the past twenty some years my weight has gone up and down like escalators in the mall. I could blame my weight gains on my love of cooking but it isn’t that at all. Many people cook and bake all the time and they put on the weight I did in a year. They have a healthy relationship with food, I do not. A week ago I knew that where I was physically was because of where I was emotionally in my life and it has to change. I tried to convince myself that one year changed my life but the truth is my life to this point changed my life. I have not dealt with things that I should have dealt with a long time ago. And this has had a profound effect on me and my family. Enough is enough. I am currently trying to find a therapist that understands my kind of sarcasm aka defense mechanism. The man I spoke with last week said I was a bit edgy and didn’t think we would get along. Not sure he is in the right profession but anyway. While I search for a therapist I am journaling my progress in hopes that those who read it can offer support or maybe someone in a similar situation will find support. I am starting this journey with three simple goals: 1. Repair myself 2. Repair my relationship with my family 3. Repair my relationship with food The first one may be the hardest to do. I pretend like I am not broken but I am and more than likely missing a few parts. I am as of today missing six pounds since last week. This is a small victory but a victory none the less and one I needed. Every day I will make steps to reach my goals and I know I still have a long journey. But it is a journey that is long overdue.