Weighty Matters

I was so proud of myself the other day for deciding to make my own snack mix.  I’ve bought the pre-mixed containers of nuts and fruit, but then decided that I could do better myself, particularly if I bought stuff from the health food store.

So, I brought home the ingredients and dumped everything into a large, re-sealable bag.  Today, I filled a smaller container with some of the mix to take and keep at work for one of the snacks that I eat a day.  Remember that I eat something every couple of hours so that means I need a mid-morning snack, something for lunch, and then a mid-afternoon snack while I’m at work.

All of this was a supremely excellent plan in theory.  In practice, however, I forgot one elemental thing about how my eating disorder manifests.  If I get into picking mode, I don’t instinctively stop.  I’ll keep going back time and again.   Even if I only eat a very small amount each time, those small amounts add up until, pretty soon, I’ve overeaten.  I don’t need to be hungry.  I can all too easily lock into a pattern and keep repeating when the snack food is so easily available — like in my desk drawer.

The thing about this compulsive pattern that’s even worse is that once I’m in the zone, it is very, very difficult for me to break the behavior.  Even when I recognize what I’m doing and consciously discuss it with myself, I may still continue.  The compulsion doesn’t give a good damn about rational, conscious thought.  It laughs in its face and continues on its happy, munching way.

Suffice it to say that I’ve had far too many nuts and craisins today.  My stomach feels like I’ve consumed pebbles.  My head’s just saying, “You idiot.  You know better.”

That kind of accusatory thinking does me no good, so instead I’m trying to decide on a workable plan of action.  I can pick up the rest of the large re-sealable bag and empty it into the outside garbage can.  However, not only do I not want to waste the stuff, but it’s basically a good, healthy snack.   I think in the long run it is more helpful and healing for me to have a strategy that allows me to have this mix in my orbit without sliding into eating it compulsively.

I don’t think that it’s the actual food item that triggers the behavior.  Unlike pizza, over which I have no control and will always binge on it if left alone with it in my house, I can live with snack mix in my pantry cabinet.  There seemed to be something about having a full container in the close proximity of my desk drawer that made it easy to reach for snack after snack while I was working.

So, here’s the solution I’ve worked up.  I’m not taking a container to work with me again.  Instead, when I’m planning my other food choices for the day, I’ll put only a single snack’s worth of mix into a small bag and bring that to work.  I can’t eat what I don’t have, right?  If I really want to control the behavior, I’ll keep the snack bag in the fridge with my other food for the workday.  The distance between my office and the kitchen makes it more difficult to give into picking and picking as a compulsion.  I have more time to interrupt the pattern before I jam another handful into my mouth.

If I do these things, I should be okay.

What food or behavior challenges you?  What have you done, or can you do, in order to meet the challenge?

I don’t want to obsess too much here about clothing, but it’s really in the forefront of my mind.   It takes adjustment, let me tell you.

When I was a kid, I absolutely hated to go clothes shopping.  It was torture.  There are so many more companies that have clothing for plus sized women today than there were when I was a kid.  In our little town, one forward thinking woman opened up a specialty store for overweight kids that was actually called The Chubbette Shop, or something like that.  I remember she talked my mother into talking me into modeling for her in a fashion show once.  But I digress.

The same woman also had a boutique for adult women with lots of large clothing.  She was pretty fashion forward and the clothes were perfect for more mature adults but they weren’t hip or cool or great for my age when I was a teen or in my 20s.   the other choice was pretty much Lane Bryant.  I think for most of my life, I wore clothes that were “too old” for me and never really felt all that stylish.

It hasn’t been so awful in the last 20 or so years.  Like I said before, as time went on, more stores opened which meant more choices.

But, and this is a big but, (not butt), that was nothing to the veritable vista that’s opening up before me now.  I am so not used to getting a random catalog that is not from a company that primarily targets plus-sized women, opening it and finding clothes in my current size, along with the full range of smaller sizes too.  Really lovely garments in different designs and styles that aren’t meant to hide and cover like sacks.  I saw at least a dozen things I would love to order and try on.  I wanted to play with the clothes like I never thought possible… like I’ve always seen smaller, more “normal” women do.

Yeah, I hate that word normal, too.  Normal is the setting on a washing machine and should not be used in any way that makes anyone feel bad about themselves — including if that anyone is me.

Back to that point.  I wish that this company could just send me one of anything to that I could experiment.   I need to discover what my style is going to be from here on out.   Tailored and/or preppy, free flowing, romantic, edgy, retro?  I have no idea.  Maybe it will be a combination.  I want to find out what suits my newly evolving body, what fashions I like, and what fits my heart and spirit.   What will I choose for casual wear and what for professional outings?

I know that I’m not in my “final” stage yet, so I’ve decided that I will just play here and there and, more importantly, be willing to try out new and different looks.  I’ve done that already with the little black dress that I bought and the dress with the banded waist that I ordered in the smaller size.  I think I just need to keep moving in that direction and dare to at least try designs that I never chose before because of my largeness.

When I finally reach goal weight I’m going to do one of the things that’s on my Promise List.  I’m going to a major department store and make an appointment with a personal shopper.  I think that experience will help me learn and assist me in developing a new eye and attitude for styling.  At the very least it will be an entertaining venture.

I’ve been absent from the blog for a couple of days.  I didn’t want to post and be a downer but today I remembered that this blog isn’t about me being all sunshine, rainbows and bright lights all of the time.  It’s about being honest and authentic as I continue on this journey.  So, here I am tonight, warts and all.  I’m struggling with my food plan and have absolutely no idea why.

I’ve been doing well and don’t know what rock on this road tripped me up.  I haven’t had a major crisis.  Nothing in the universe reached out to smack me.  There isn’t anything big to trigger me screwing up my plan.

When I thought about the journey being a rocky road I remembered something that I learned a long time ago.  Sometimes it isn’t the big rocks that throw you off stride.   It’s the small pebble beneath the rock that makes it unstable and out of balance.  I haven’t identified the pebble yet either, but in the end, the why of it doesn’t matter as much as what I do because of it.  More to the point, it’s what I don’t do that really matters, as in not going off track.

Once I stumble, life can be a treacherous, slippery slope.  Going off of my food plan slows my progress which adds to my emotional upset and frustration.  Then I start feeling bad, get angry with myself for not keeping in control and that makes me want to eat more.  All of that is crap and totally unnecessary.  Really, I can save myself a lot of aggravation and upset if I don’t tumble down that slope, but it’s hard not to fall in with what is so very familiar.   Destructive or not, addictive eating is very familiar.

That, too, is crap.  Everything about this journey involves changing old behaviors and staying far, far away from the way I used to act and the poor choices that I made.

I reached out to a long time, dear friend of mine who is on the same journey.  She also has a lot of years in program.  I simply shared that I’m struggling and could use some good thoughts, energy and prayers.  I received what is easily the longest single text message I’ve ever gotten.  It was loaded with shared understanding, support and excellent reminders.

The best reminders are simple.  One day at a time.  Stay in the present.  Remember that the pain of food is greater than any imaginary soothing.

Tomorrow is a new day.  When I wake up, the day is an opportunity to start fresh without addictive eating, negative feelings, frustration or sorrow.  I’m going to promise this to myself that it will be a good day on my food plan.  I’m not thinking ahead to whether I’ll lose weight in a day, or have gained it because of yesterday and today.  I’m not planning what will happen on Thursday.   All that matters is that tomorrow, Wednesday, be a good day on my food plan.  I’ll stay in the present and do it one day at a time.

You all know that I’m single and in my 50s.  I have numerous friends, but a lot of the local ones are younger and married and there are many more who live a few hours away.  So, it isn’t always easy for me to call someone up and make spontaneous plans for an evening out.

Over the years I’ve learned how to venture out solo if there’s something that I want to do and don’t have a friend to do it with.  When you’re a single woman, this is a valuable asset.  Otherwise, you spend a lot of time sitting home, often resentful because you really want to be out… there…doing…something…fun.

I will admit that when I got to my way high weight, I ventured out solo less often and avoided some activities unless they were ones with which I was very familiar, like to a local movie theater.  Funny how the whole solo thing can become more of an issue at night, right?  I’ve never thought twice about it when a day time event like a festival or a craft fair is involved.  Fat or thinner, I won’t eat alone in restaurants around my home area, but I don’t have an issue with it if I’m traveling.  Another odd aspect of the whole venturing solo deal.

Anyway, back to today.  I’m venturing out alone tonight.  Some people I recently got to know through a business-connected program are involved in a fundraising event up the Keys.  The organization is raising money for scholarships for kids to teach them fishing, marine conservation and the like.  The party is a casino night.  I love casino nights, particularly those that take place in actual casinos with real money, but, hey, black jack is black jack whether the chips you cash in result in actual cash or in prize points.  When the announcement/invitation was issued, I decided to accept.  I asked a couple of friends if they wanted to go but the ticket price was a little more than they wanted to spend.  I refused to let absence of a companion get in my way.

The theme is country western.  I even dug through my closet and found my boots.  I haven’t worn them in about 10 years.  At some point my feet got a little too big to maneuver through the boot shaft.  I tried them on yesterday and, ta da, they fit again!  My jeans fit me well so all I need to do is decide what top to wear and I’m set.

Even more than the outfit, I have my attitude in place.  I refuse to feel uncomfortable or awkward because I’m flying solo.  I have no problem socializing with people I know or introducing myself to people I don’t.  Sitting at a card table without a partner is not as obvious as a dining table at, say, a wedding.  I am 100% open to the feeling that this will be a fun night.

Whether the cards go my way doesn’t matter.  I already feel like a winner!

There’s long been a myth that fat people are jolly.  You see happy obese people in books, movies, television shows.  It’s almost a stereotype.  However, logical, reasonable people realize that being overweight does not create an abundance of happiness.  I’m not saying that all of us who are or were overweight are miserable all of the time, but we’re not Ho, Ho, Hoing all over the place a disproportionate amount of our lives.

We’re happy sometimes.  We’re sad sometimes.  We can be jolly and upbeat and the opposites also hold true.

Just like with other people.

Now, there are no doubt many overweight people who put on the show of being smiley, happy, full of joie de vivre and perennially upbeat, regardless of whether we’re actually feeling those things.  I spent years going out of my way to do whatever I could so that people would like me.  I was convinced I had to work harder at this.  I had to put out this shining, everything’s great, whatever you want I’ll go along with it demeanor.  That’s how positive I was that being fat literally and figuratively outweighed my perfectly fine, loveable qualities.  Yes, that was all the bloom of that stinkwood known as lousy self-esteem.

To the friends who knew me and stuck with me in those years, loving me for me no matter what, you have my love and my gratitude.  I wish I’d understood myself better and been able to accept myself the way that you always did and continue to do today.

This is not the real root of this post.  It’s just something that came to mind while I was processing some other emotional stuff that’s been going on for me this week so I thought I’d put it out there.  I don’t actually have a conclusion or anything wise to say about the fat and jolly myth, but it’s better that I put the bleckidy blurk blurk out in the post than keep it inside.

Anyway, the last two days have been fairly crappy for me emotionally.  I even had a mini-meltdown about it yesterday.  In retrospect, I can laugh.  When some people have meltdowns, it’s like emotional lava spewing up and then running down the sides, destroying everything in its path.  When I was much younger, if I’d stuffed anger for too long and then something triggered the eruption, it was ugly.  When I finally expressed that I was really, really mad, everybody around me knew it.  Hell, everyone in a three block radius probably heard it.

Now, with, *cough* maturity, I’m much more contained.  This is not the same as repressed.  It’s just that I don’t keep a lid on things until the steam pressure builds and explodes.  I’ll vent appropriately to a friend.  If the situation has reached the point where I feel overwhelmed or overcome, I shut the door and have a nice, private cry.

So, it’s been that kind of two days.  While the emotional stew has bubbled I have, naturally, wanted to eat everything in sight.  I’ve been good about resisting the food urges for the most part.

I’m glad it’s the weekend.  I’m really glad that I have an evening where I can take my tea and my dogs out onto my porch and just chill out.  I’m also going to be honest with myself and say that, overall, I’m grumpy as all get out.  Seriously irritable and prickly, and it’s obvious.   I went to get a polish change on my nails.  While the polish dried, I was enjoying some relaxation in the massaging pedicure chair, just sort of zoning.  Someone in the salon walked over and just sort of proclaimed, “Wow, you look tired, Mary.”

I really hate when someone says that to me.  Nice Mary would have given her a small smile and a polite, “It’s been a long week” response.  Tonight, I instead gave her a somewhat, “I can’t believe you said that” look and a moderately sarcastic, “Gee, thanks.”

A few moments later when I was leaving, a perfectly nice woman who just saw me a few days ago said, again loudly despite the fact that there were many customers in the salon, “You’ve lost even more weight, Mary!”   Well, the truth is that I haven’t since she saw me a few days ago.  I could, and probably should, have let the comment lie with only a polite, “Thank you”.  But instead I said, “No, not really.”  At least when the other woman then said, “Oh, but you look wonderful anyway”, I was able to find a scrap of my normal graciousness and thank her for the compliment.

I thought about this and the last couple of days while I ran into the supermarket, when I got home, as I ate and tried to figure out what is bothering me the most.

Then I read Jenny Crusie’s Good Wolf Lunch post on Reinventing Fabulous.  I realized that my Bad Wolf is telling me that I was a bitch and haven’t been playing nice with others.  The Bad Wolf wants me to think I’m wrong for being pissed off about some stuff that happened this week because, after all, fat people aren’t supposed to be pissy.  We’re supposed to always be jolly.  The Bad Wolf says, “You know better.  Suck it up.”

The Good Wolf says, “Nobody on the planet is required to be in a good mood all of the time. ”  The Good Wolf reminds me that I’m perfectly allowed to be cranky sometimes and to respond with authenticity even if authentic at that moment does not mean sunshine and roses.

So, tonight I give myself permission to just be however I want, to feel my feelings whether negative or positive, and to not feel badly about myself for any reason.  That’s how tonight I will live in reality instead of myth.

I don’t guide my life by my astrology charts, but I have to admit that I think there is some strange cosmic validity to Mercury in retrograde and the way that things get messed up during those times of the year.  I think of it as planetary Murphy’s Law.  Communications, paperwork and stuff that should just be simple to accomplish all go screwy.

A week ago on Friday, my iPhone blinked and when it returned, my phone contacts had vanished.  I didn’t have my main laptop with me on my weekend jaunt to Miami so I had to wait until I returned home on Sunday in order to resynch my phone.  Even then, because I am truly bad about remembering to back up my phone, I lost any numbers that I’d added since last June.

My brother recommended that I activate “The Cloud” to make a backup accessible from wherever.  I truly meant to do that last week but I was formidably busy both at work and in the evenings.  I thought I’d be fine and went about getting in touch with some colleagues and asking them to resend their phone numbers to I could replace the numbers that were still missing.  In the meantime, the wind blew up around the Keys and, for reasons I am yet to figure out, that messed up my home Internet service.  I couldn’t stay online for more than a few minutes at a time before the service would go out, reset, come back, go out, resent, come back, lather, rinse and repeat.

The long and short of this tale of woe is that yesterday, at almost the exact time as the previous week, when one factors in that we leapt forward an hour, my phone blinked again and my contacts once more disappeared.  I called AT&T and then spoke with Apple.  The only thing Apple could suggest was that I restore my phone as if new.

Last night was a long, drawn-out affair of  resynching, then uploading to the Cloud (three hours!), then restoring the phone which also involved upgrading to the latest operating system and then synching back my contacts, apps, calendar, etc. etc. etc, blah, blah blah.

I persevered and everything appears to be fine.  Let’s see if it remains so after 9:00 a.m. eastern time next Friday.

So what does all of this complaining have to do with my weighty matters?  I had a really good food week last week with a steady weight loss, as you know.  Then, beginning last night and continuing through to today I’ve had a consistent urge to snack.  I also wanted more carbs and chocolate.

I do not think this is coincidental.  It just goes to show that no matter how far I come and how much success I achieve in this journey, I still need to battle compulsive eating.   As important is that I need to battle the things that trip my trigger.  Stress is one of those trip wires.

When I think about it, it’s honestly ridiculous to let phone and communication challenges throw me off track.  I’ve definitely been offline.  Time to reboot, restore and resynch myself.

I’m not going to punish myself with stinking thinking, castigating myself for being human and fallible.  I went to the supermarket tonight and bought “healthy” goods that are on my good plan.  I’m already planning out the next few days of meals.  Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day.  I’m not planning to indulge in wild partying, although I am going to a local St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  Actually, I’m walking in it.  I’m on the Board of Directors for the organization that runs the local animal shelter.  The executive director asked a few days ago for volunteers who were willing to come and walk some of the shelter dogs in the parade.  The weather’s supposed to be really nice and I know this is a great opportunity to show off some of the animals that need to be adopted into new “furever” homes.  I’ll walk my own pups in the morning for our mutual exercise, and then enjoy the parade stroll.

After, I’ll stop by one of the local restaurants for a quick bite of some corned beef and cabbage, but avoid the beer.

While my Irish friends and those who want to be Irish for the day connect with the holiday, I’ll reconnect with my journey and goals.

In a conversation with some friends the other day, we talked about how each of us has experienced toxic people, places or situations in our lives at some point in time.  Some of the poison is created by other people and they then transport it with them into our lives like one might bring a virus germs.  Their condition then infects us and takes over.  Unfortunately, sometimes we infect ourselves.  We let toxic thoughts take hold and replicate until they mess us up mind, body and spirit.

Toxicity sucks.

There.  How’s that for a powerful and enlightening assessment?  🙂

Okay, seriously now, I’ve thought about this a lot and cannot for the life of me come up with one good reason why any of us either create a toxic soup for ourselves or permit others to be toxic or bring theirs with them into our lives.  Really, who want their life to be a Superfund site?

There are various depths and manifestations of this emotional waste.  We have people who are always negative.  That’s their go-to place.  Everything’s bad or hard or doomed.  Nothing good happens.  Everyone treats them horribly.  Life sucks no matter what.   Those lemons can’t be made into lemonade because they where rotten when they got them, damn it!  I’m miserable just describing negative people.

Don’t we all know people who live in a place of constant drama and, boy oh boy, don’t they always cast themselves in the lead role?  The older that I get, the more exhausted I am by the mere thought of conjuring up that much sturm un drang.

When I’m surrounded by negativity or drama, I feel its effects.  It drags on my spirit.  Stress results and impacts my body.  Mentally, it wears me out.

Granted, life isn’t always going to be sunshine and sweet smelling flowers.  It would be horribly naive of me to expect that as a perpetual state.  However, I firmly believe that we can counteract the crap that sometimes falls.  We don’t have to wallow.  We also can choice to what extent we permit toxic people into our lives.  While it might be our nature to be empathetic and supportive, we need to set the boundaries, too.  It goes back to the airplane analogy that I’ve used before.  If you’re traveling with someone who might need assistance, put the mask over your own face first.  Note that this means you pick up your mask and put it over your own face.  It does not mean that you give up your mask to the other person.  It doesn’t mean that you suck in your air and then feed it to the other person.  Sometimes the best thing that we can do for someone else is not take over their problems or drama but to instead give them the space to deal on their own.  If you assist them in putting on their mask, it’s then their responsibility to breathe on their own.

One of my personal goals this year is to be aware of other people’s toxicity and avoid getting mired in the emotional sludge.  I can also refuse to play any role in someone else’s drama.  I want to surround myself with upbeat, grounded, healthy people, places and situations, to experience positive energy, and to continue to experience and take part in life with a healthy, positive attitude.

If this means that I need to choose to expell toxicity and reduce my exposure or connection with the people who revel in it, then I need to be strong enough to do so.  In the end, I’ll be better off.

I don’t like seeing gray in my hair.  I’ve had gray hair for years which means, of course, that I’ve colored my hair for years.  Each year there are more and more of the silver strands clumping up into my dark brown hair.  Blech.  The most obvious areas are the roots around my face and, obviously, down the part.

My hair grows fast so I go every four or five weeks for a color and shaping.  Since late last fall-early winter, I’ve embraced a completely different look for me.  For a few years I was going with a very straight hair look, including keratin protein treatments which reallllly straightened it out.  I have coarse, thick hair and it tends to frizz in the Florida humidity.  Now I’m embracing my natural waves and curls.  Actually, I’m doing stuff that enhances the curliness.  Much to my surprise, I’m loving it and so is pretty much everybody else.  I’ve had people ask me if I had a perm.  That’s how curly my hair can get.  A bonus to this style is that it is so easy to maintain.

When I straightened my hair I had to blow it dry whenever I washed it and then reinforce the straightening with a flat iron.  That all adds up to too much time.  I don’t love fussing with my hair at all.  With this style, I wash my hair, towel dry it, brush it and then scrunch in some foam meant for curls.  I can scrunch it as little or as much as I want to encourage the curls and waves.  Whatever the case, five minutes and I’m done.  I l-o-v-e the efficiency and results.

Tonight I had an appointment with my stylist   She applied the gray-covering color and, because the hairs around my temples are particularly stubborn, pressed rectangles of foil on top to strengthen the dye’s power.  For good measure, she sat me under heat lamps too.  I looked at myself in the mirror and burst out laughing.  My hair stuck out like Einstein’s, then I had the foil stuck on me and the heat lamps behind me made it look like antennae were growing from my head.  I looked like an alien.

Oh hell.  I have no pride.  Here.  See for yourself.

Seriously, is there no end to how ridiculous we’ll allow ourselves to look in the name of vanity as we hike our way down the path to pretty?  I don’t know how anyone keeps a straight face, let alone carries on a conversation with someone when they look like they’re auditioning for the remake of My Favorite Martian. After the color processing and washing, Angelina, aka stylist extraordinaire, assessed the state of my style.  She snipped a little here and there, texturized a few areas and then worked in the styling foam.  A little bit of blowdrying and, voila, my ‘do was done.  We relocated to the waxing chair for some brow shaping, etc. before I left.  I can tell you that nothing makes me feel prettier than when I leave the salon after a hair appointment or my monthly mani-pedi indulgence.  One of these times, I should make plans to go out afterward instead of just heading home.  I was feeling particularly sassy and, at the same time, couldn’t stop laughing every time I thought about the “before” picture.  I honestly didn’t intend to post the picture on the blog.  Seriously, how many women want to put up a photo where they look ridiculous?  🙂  Just goes to show how comfortable I am with all of you.  In fairness to myself, however, once I decided to put up that picture, I thought I owed it to myself to also post an “after” picture.  Unfortunately, I just took it.  This means that it’s not only after the hair cut, but also after I’ve removed my contact lenses and my makeup.  Oh well.  At least my hair looks cute and curly, sans alien antennae.