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Dec 26

Starting Off with a Bang and a Whimper

by Mary Stella

My family and I enjoyed a lovely holiday together.  Nephew number two arrived on the afternoon of Christmas Eve so we could all enjoy a gathering with friends at their home.  Nephew number one had to work that night so my brother and I got up early yesterday and drove to Brooklyn to get him.  It was great that all five of us managed to be together for Christmas.

A handful of posts ago, I wrote about things I can do better for my recovery and also about recommitting to my efforts after the holidays.  I feel determined and inspired, ready to start off with a bang and let the energy carry me on to victory!  I planned to enjoy the various, delectable foods available to me while up here on vacation — and I did — but I knew the whole time that I would be stricter with myself when the celebrations were complete.

Well, it’s December 26th and I started off with a bang all right, as well as with a whimper.  I woke up about 3 a.m. today with a severe bout of nausea that prompted several trips to the bathroom to expel whatever bile was in my stomach.  (No solid foods left at that point.)  Just to make it even more fun, I also experienced diarrhea.  (Sorry for the blunt talk.)  I s.

I finally stopped throwing up about 6:30 a.m. but still experienced the other issue.  I was so wiped out that I spent the entire morning in bed, which was upsetting because it stole the last morning of time I had to be with my nephews.  Both had to leave for their respective homes in neighboring states to work their jobs this afternoon.

Sadly, I don’t know the source of the illness.  It could be viral, but I’m recovering a little fast for that, unless it’s truly a 24 hour bug.  It could have been food poisoning, I guess, even though I’m the only one that suffered from it.  The only thing I consumed that nobody else did was a bagel and a cup of tea in Brooklyn.  I wonder if it all comes down to a great variety of richer food, eaten more frequently and in ultimately more quantity than normal.  Perhaps my system decided to illustrate matters by rebelling.  I can’t decide.

I started sipping water about 12:30 and kept it down.  About an hour later I braved a shower, which felt wonderful.  After I got dressed, I nibbled dry toast and sipped a weak cup of tea.  So far, so good!

Now I’m looking at the lesson in the experience.   Eat small amounts, slowly.  Don’t overtax my system with rich or quantities of unfamiliar foods.  Sip, sip, sip.  It’s not unlike the first several months after my weight loss surgery.  These are terrific reminders.  I’m going to keep them up as I move forward.

One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing that doesn’t work over and over but expecting different results.  I think it would be insane of me to not retrace my plan and efforts to what worked so phenomenally well for me from the get-go.  While I would not wish an extended period of gastrointestinal ailments on myself or anybody else, spending a little time in whimpering mode today may prove helpful in the long run!

Hope that everyone is enjoying the holiday week, whether you celebrate Christmas or other holidays!

Body Matters General Musings My Progress

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Dec 24

Holiday Cheer

by Mary Stella

 

 

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No matter what holiday you celebrate, or even if you don’t celebrate any of them, I wish you happiness, serenity, and the fulfillment of your heart’s desires.

May you love and be loved, receive and offer kindness, and celebrate not only the wonderfulness of others but the wonderfulness of you.

Thanks for visiting this blog.  Whether you comment or not, you bring your energy here to share and I appreciate you.

Love,

Mary

General Musings

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Dec 23

The Ones Who Really Understand

by Mary Stella

I am very fortunate that the great majority of my family and friends understand me and my eating disorder struggles.  They are incredibly supportive of my efforts and recovery.  Not everyone is this fortunate.

I also count myself extremely lucky that I have some good friends who have also had weight loss surgery.  There are aspects to this journey that they also know and experience so the depth of their understanding is, understandably, greater.  They can and do offer insights that I can’t expect others to have and share.

During this annual round of holiday visits, I get to see a couple of my weight loss surgery sisters-in-arms.  I spent some time and a couple of meals with one yesterday.  We talked a bit about how it feels to struggle some after an extended period of success.  We also achieve a strong level of no-bullshit in which we can acknowledge to each other where we can and need to do better in our efforts.  We talked about recommitting to long term goals.  Near the end of the evening she said we should check in with each other every day.  We live in separate states but we have the internet and our cell phones.  January 1, let the daily text messages of support, encouragement and, when necessary, strong reminders, begin!

In a little while I’m meeting another friend.  Of all of my friends, she is the one who has long term time in OA and the one with whom I can best talk about the craziness of this eating disease.  We aren’t really crazy in the clinical sense.  (Non-politically correct terminology aside.)  There are simply some aspects, behaviors, and attitudes that make me feel a little nutty sometimes because, you know, “normal” people would do/think/act this way with food.

The timing couldn’t be better for me to get together with these ladies.  As I set up to knuckle down after the holidays, I can reconnect with what I need to know and do to be successful.  Hopefully, speaking to me will help them with things they need too.

General Musings

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Dec 21

Judging My Food

by Mary Stella

One feeling I cannot seem to shake is that when I’m around other people, they constantly look at what I’m eating and judge.  Maybe they’re assessing how much, or how little, I’m eating.  Perhaps they’re looking to see what actual food choices I’ve made.  I imagine them frowning inside if I eat a cookie, or if my plate has too many carbs.  Oh no, she’s eating something fried, I picture them thinking in their heads.

Let me state unequivocally that I have no evidence that anyone actually does any of the judging that I imagine.  They probably aren’t, or maybe some are and some aren’t.  I don’t know because if they are, they aren’t expressing their judgments to me.  Nobody says, “Wow, are you supposed to be eating that?” or “I can’t believe you’re eating that.”

However, the feelings that they are remain real to me and create a self-induced stress on me all of the time when I eat with friends or family.  This state makes me want to launch right back into sneak eating.  Sneak eating is a behavior that creates a whole messy pile of other negative emotions and unhealthy eating habits.  When I sneak eat from stress I tend to eat more in quantity – even if I spread it out over sneak sessions – and usually choose foods that would be okay as a single tasty treat but become unhealthy choices when consumed in that quantity.  That’s not self-judging.  It’s fact.  It’s okay for me to have a single cookie as a treat.  It isn’t good for me to eat half a dozen.

The whole “being judged” thing comes up for me a lot right now because I’m on my annual holiday trip and constantly spending time with different groups of friends and family.  I’m fighting the urge to obtain a secret stash of food so that I can sneak eat it.  That’s part of the insidiousness of this aspect of my eating disorder.  I stress over being judged to the point where I have to prepare my stress release eating of junk.  Totally doesn’t make sense.  It is also much more problematic because in escaping the behavior that stresses me out, I do something that makes me feel really bad emotionally and, ultimately, physically.

I seek a healthier alternative and am working to reshape the situation with more positive behavior.  I remind myself that what I eat, what I put on my plate, etc., is my business and nobody else’s.  If someone is going to judge my choices that’s on them.  I do not need to feel bad about my choices, nor should I project that they are viewing me with negative eyes and thoughts.

Above all, sneak eating is not a positive stress release.  I have other things I can do instead.  I could do a few moves of Tai Chi, meditate instead of eating, pick up a book instead of another food item.  Banish the negative thoughts.  Take a walk.  In short, there are numerous other options.

Writing about it in this post has relieved some of the stress.  It’s like adjusting a valve and letting some built up steam and pressure escape.  I don’t have to give in to old patterns.  I can, and need, to deal with it in healthier ways.

General Musings

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Dec 17

Positive Powerlessness

by Mary Stella

There are a lot of aspects of being a food addict or having any addictive disorder that are inherently contradictory.  One of the big ones is that many addicts are control freaks or at least have some strong control issues.  Yet, we can’t control ourselves around our addictive substances.  Put us up against the drug of choice or the destructive behavior and we lose.  We truly are powerless.

That is such, such, a hard thing to accept and accepting it is the first step to recovery.  Admitting we are powerless over food/alcohol/drugs/fill in the blank and that our lives have become unmanageable. Turning over our will, giving up control, whew, those are tough steps.  In fact, they aren’t only steps that we have to take, they are big ole leaps of faith.

I struggle with turning over my disease all of the time.  I keep taking it back and then having to give it up again.

There’s the other contradiction.  Admitting my own powerlessness, giving over that struggle — these are not signs of weakness.  They are actions that require strength and determination.  But trying telling my conscious mind that when I’m busy engaging in the fruitless struggle.

Honestly, I feel my weakest when I’m struggling.  It’s when I tend to get the most down on myself too.  It’s hard to make room to feel the strength in powerlessness, to have faith that recovery requires giving up control.

Then sometimes I just laugh at myself for wasting my time trying to hold on so tightly to my control when it should be obvious that it’s an illusion any way.  Like I said, I have no control, so why do I sometimes fight so hard to hold onto something that doesn’t work?

I apologize if this all sounds like irrational program babble.  Bear with me while I process through the stuff running through my head.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to think of it in the context of understanding and accepting that my way of doing things doesn’t work.  I can’t wave a magic wand and make food less addictive to me.  I can’t pretend that I can control myself and my eating disorder on my own.  Control freaks aren’t good about sharing our control.  We like to do things on our own or like thinking that we can do it.  I honestly try to be cognizant of the fact that when something doesn’t work for me, I should stop doing it.  I mean, really, if it hurts to beat your head against a wall, wouldn’t you stop?

So, for today, I’m accepting my powerlessness again and turning over my will and life.  I want my recovery more than I want to retain a control that nets me nothing.

General Musings

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Dec 14

What I Can Do Better

by Mary Stella

We were involved in a Leadership and Management training program with our corporate coach on Friday.  The coach is an amazing, inspiring, fireball with fantastic suggestions.  I always leave one of these programs with information, techniques and tools that I can use not only at work, but also in my personal life.

Personal growth is important.  I think it’s not only good, but absolutely vital, to assess our own behavior and our very lives to see where we are, what we want, and how we can get to those goals.  The session on Friday opened with us taking a look at our own lives and seeing if we’re in balance or if we’re devoting too little time and attention to key areas.  She asked us to identify an area or two that we think we’d like to develop or grow in and then name some concrete things that we can to to achieve this.

I of course knew right away that I want to gear up and focus more on my recovery.  That was easy.  But in doing the exercise, I realized that the social part of my life is underperforming.  (Hah.  How corporate does that sound?)  Anyway, I’ve sort of gotten into a bit of a rut.  I’m a social person who isn’t living a very social lifestyle.  Most nights I come home from work, walk the dogs, eat, watch television, and go to bed.  I go to Tai Chi class one night a week and that’s sort of social, but it’s not the same thing as getting together with friends and doing something – even if it’s as simple as dinner out or dinner and a movie.  So, I’ve decided to reach out more often and connect with friends.  I’ll suggest outings and opportunities for us to get together.

I also think I need to pick a new “society-based” involvement and be active.  That will also get me out a little more and may broaden my circle of friends with whom to do things.

In terms to gearing up more on my recovery, I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut here too.  Although I’m doing well, I think I can do more — or at least do even better.  I’m sort of resistant to joining a gym, but I was recently inspired to talk with a friend who’s also had weight loss surgery.  She’s started working with a personal trainer and is gaining great benefits.  They aren’t just physical either.  I could see and feel her increased energy and lift to her spirit that making this effort achieves for her.

Today I went to a wellness fair put on by the local health food store.  There’s a new workout place in town that’s sort of a gym but not a traditional one.  The principal trainers hold X number of sessions each morning and each afternoon with training programs that work the various parts of the body and also include cardio.  Each session is 30 minutes, plus the warm-up and cool down, so it’s more like 45 minutes.  When I return from my vacation, I’m going to go in for an introductory session.  The trainer explained that she also has modified ways of doing certain exercises if a client has physical issues.  I talked about my knee and the fact that, while I can do squats, I can’t comfortably do a lunge.  No problem, she assured me.

Since having weight loss surgery, I’ve done an excellent job at regaining physical fitness.  Largely, I’ve done it on my own with my walking, bike riding, and in home exercise DVDs.  Zumba and water aerobics classes were great — when I could do them.  Tai Chi continues to be a wonderful part of my physical conditioning and stress release, and also brings me other benefits.  I just think that I’m at the point where I can do more and do it better — and it feels right to have some trained help guiding me in the effort – rather than one on the DVD.

On the emotional/mental aspect of my recovery, I am really feeling the lack of being able to speak and interact with others who also struggle with eating disorders and/or those who continue to work on issues and recovery after weight loss surgery.  I’ve whined a little about it here that we have no OA meetings in the Keys that I can attend.  The monthly bariatric patient support group with the hospital where I had the surgery would be great if it wasn’t almost 2 1/2 hours away and at night.

Last week I had a thought.  If there isn’t a support group or meeting currently nearby, why can’t I investigate beginning one?  I have some contacts with two of the three hospitals in the Keys.  One of those is affiliated with the hospital where I had surgery.  They no doubt have several other patients in our island chain.  Maybe they could host a support group once a month.  I won’t drive two and a half hours, but I’d go 45 minutes.  There’s another hospital much closer to my house.  Perhaps they’d like to host a general support group for eating disorders.  It never hurts to ask and suggest, right?

So, I’ve come up with some concrete things that I can do to enhance the areas of my life that need more attention and create some additional balance and recovery in my life.  I’m not doing bad, but I know I can do better.

Body Matters General Musings

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Dec 11

Happiness is a Gift

by Mary Stella

There are moments when I stop in the middle of whatever I’m doing and feel happiness wash through me.  Every time that happens I am profoundly grateful.  Happiness is a gift.  It’s precious and I don’t ever want to react with anything less than full appreciation for its presence.  I feel so blessed that  happiness is abundant in my life.

It wasn’t always this way.  There were times when I was downright miserable and could barely connect with the smallest shred of happy.  I have always felt things deeply.  My emotions run strong.  When I mourned my parents after their deaths, the pain and sadness consumed me.  I’d put on a happy face, or at least a less grief-stricken demeanor as much as I could, but the pretense exhausted me.

Even in the many non-grief years (That’s a horrible categorization but I can’t come up with a better one right at this moment.) I know now that I carried sadness with me.  It was part and parcel of my eating disorder and my obesity.  I truly don’t believe that it’s possible to be fat and jolly — at least it wasn’t for me, although I often played the role.

Now, I won’t pretend that my weight was the only reason for me not fully experiencing happiness.  There were other factors, but I always strove to achieve happiness.  I wanted it and I became willing to go to any lengths for it.

There have been things that I’ve had to come to terms with in order to realize this gift.  I’ve learned that I can be happy even though I’m not in a love relationship.  I’ll never have kids of my own and I’ve become okay with that too.  I truly believe that this developed because of a willingness to embrace acceptance as a path to serenity and joy.  By accepting what is, what I have, what is possible and not focusing on what isn’t, what I don’t have, what isn’t possible, I’m at peace with my life.  In that peace, happiness grows.

I love how sometimes I just sit in this state and smile.  It’s so much healthier than stewing in my own discontent.  I feel lighter in spirit, rather than sucked down into a quicksand of sorrow.

I also realize that I’m fortunate.  I don’t battle the disease of depression.  Some people I know are struggling.  I wish with all my heart that they will prevail.  I hope they continue to get help and that  their treatments are successful.

Their battles remind me again of the gift I’m given.  I need to nurture and protect my happiness.  That means continue to work on myself.  If I go back to old eating and laziness habits and regain weight, more than my physical recovery will be affected.  My happiness will be at risk.

I am not going to let anything take away my precious gift.

General Musings

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Dec 6

Shedding Things That No Longer Have Value

by Mary Stella

After several months of off and on remodeling, 99.9% of the work is finished.  This weekend I’m focused on deep cleaning, rehanging artwork and photographs, once more displaying items that I love and, since it’s the season, decorating for the holidays.

Although I got a start on it all today, I didn’t make quite as much progress as I’d planned.  I got sidetracked when pulling everything out of the room of doom storage room.  First it all needed a good dusting, and cleaning.  During the process, I found myself carefully considering each piece.  Was it something I wanted to display again? Did I like it as much as I once did?  Was it just something that I’d accumulated at some point and its importance had diminished over the years, or did it still hold value in my life?

As I progressed, I realized that I was making thoughtful decisions about what to keep and what to discard.  My choices weren’t based solely on beauty or monetary assessment.  The things I keep have value to me.  They please my eyes, cause me to smile, bring to mind a good memory, or show me the smiling faces of people I love.  Some are pieces familiar to me since childhood.  Some are mementos of more recent experiences.  They all have a place in my home and in my life.

The whole process is sort of a metaphor.  There are old habits, ways of thinking, ways of behaving, and even attitudes that hold no value for me.  They must have once had purpose, but ultimately they contributed to an unhealthy eating disorder and super obesity.  I’ve worked hard on shedding them in the last almost three years.   Like the excessive pounds that I carried on my body, I’ve needed to work them away.

Like today’s activities were all about putting my house in order, my efforts on my eating disorder, my weight loss, my physical fitness, are about putting myself in order.  I’m determined to keep only the behaviors, habits, thoughts and attitudes that are valuable to me.

General Musings

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Dec 3

Enjoying Good Food

by Mary Stella

Every two weeks I get an order of fresh organic produce delivered at work.  Several of us are part of an organic buying club, which is kind of cool.  The club offers a greater, fresher variety than is currently carried by our local supermarket.

In the last almost-three years, I’ve deliberately tried a number of foods that I didn’t previously eat, or at least didn’t prepare for myself.  I’ve also taught myself to cook different foods and experimented with recipes, flavor combinations and the like.  In produce alone I’ve grown to love making brussels sprouts and beets.  I’ve tried slow-roasting or grilling veggies.  I’ve even experimented with making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes and will continue trying different recipes in that arena.

The goal of all these and other efforts was to increase my appreciation and enjoyment of eating healthier foods and foods prepared in healthier ways.  Today, for example, I really enjoyed a salad at lunch that I’d put together of crisp romaine lettuce, roasted beets, toasted walnuts and a few small chunks of goat cheese, lightly dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  The flavors and textures were so enjoyable from the sweetness of the beets to the tangy cheese to the crunchy nuts.  It all simply tasted so good!

This week’s organics share included parsnips.  By coincidence, I ran across a recipe on the internet for parsnip, apple and peanut butter soup.  I believe I’m going to try making that this weekend.

What I have discovered over the months of cultivating more appreciation for better quality foods, is that I have progressively lost my taste for other, junkier foods.  Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that I will always like the occasional serving of salty, fatty, crunchy potato chips or a piece of fried chicken – but those cravings don’t come to me with any great frequency.

I have completely lost my desire for fast food burgers, fries, and milkshakes.  In years past, when driving by one of the big chain burger restaurants, if I caught a whiff of the aromas, I’d feel instant desire to pull into the drive-through lane.  During the worst years of my binge eating, I could easily order enough food for two people.  In fact, I’d order two sodas so that the counter people would actually think I was ordering for two people.  Now, the aromas make me a little queasy and definitely don’t lure me in to get any of the food.

Unfortunately, although I’ve tried, I’m yet to succeed at training my taste buds to like any seafood.  That might never happen.  However, my food choices are so much more healthy than they used to be, and that’s a tremendous plus!

 

General Musings NSVs The Past is the Past

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Dec 1

Good Food Days

by Mary Stella

Everyone recovered from the holiday food coma?  If you put on a few pounds over the weekend, don’t panic!  It’s the body’s normal reaction to probably eating differently than you normally do.   If your body’s like mine, I can suck on four pounds of bloat without blinking.  Thankfully, I can get rid of it quickly too.

On the phone tonight with a friend  I shared that I had a good food day.  Then I realized I probably needed to explain what I meant.  Good food day could be interpreted different ways.  It could be a day when one eats lots of good food.  That was certainly true, but more importantly, it’s the way that I went through the day.  I was not besieged by compulsion.  I didn’t constantly think about food, nor did I suffer constant cravings.  I didn’t wish I could dive face first into an open bag of junk snack food.

All I did was mix up a nutritional, tasty smoothie for breakfast.  I planned, prepared, and packed two snacks and my lunch.  When I got home after work and a stop at the supermarket, I cooked the meal that I’d also planned and ate it in a relaxed, easy way.  (Grilled skirt steak with a salad of grilled romaine, roasted beets, a sprinkle of toasted walnuts, and some goat cheese crumbles.)  A short time ago, I had my evening snack and a cup of tea.

I’m satisfied.  I’m not craving more or wondering if it would hurt if I had a spoonful or two of (fill in the blank).

Translated, I am not white-knuckling and battling my eating disorder.  Any day when I am not regularly beset with food thoughts to the point where my compulsive desire to eat is fueled is one that goes in the Good Food Day category.  So, booyah for me!

Since I had a pretty good weekend food-wise, I feel strong and serene.  I decided not to do the full three day detox.  Instead, I went two days and then ate a small, healthy lunch and dinner yesterday.  I also got out for a few good walks and a long bike ride over the weekend.  Overall, I felt like I took really good care of myself.

Good food days, good program days, are important.  I can only do this recovery one day at a time and every day matters.

Body Matters General Musings My Progress

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