Weighty Matters

The news continues to worsen on my cousin’s condition unfortunately.  The sadness weighs heavy on my heart and spirit.

It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve managed to not overeat or eat inappropriately, despite the upset.  I know this is a very good thing, and I’m acknowledging the success.  It’s just that celebrating anything at this point is impossible, given the situation.

I’ve also experienced a good deal of clarity about everything.  I’m really aware of what I’m feeling and how it feels to be feeling these things — if that makes any sense.  I’ve also seen that I need to be super conscious of how I speak and act and how I respond to other people and situations.  I’m upset, sad, and heartsick — but even though I have a right to feel those emotions, I do not have the right to take them out on others.

I was reminded of something that happened decades ago with a guy friend who was heavily into drugs.  Normally a nice guy whether straight or stoned, he inexplicably and unjustifiably took my head off about something one night.  I don’t remember what, but I knew that I in no way deserved his reaction and I told him so.  “Give me a #&*@& break, I need a hit,” he replied, as if being strung out was a reasonable excuse.

A couple of times this week, I’ve run up against some aggravating or stressful situations.  I’m grateful that I had the clarity to feel how tense I was in those cases and that I realized that my reactions this week are definitely impacted by the underlying upset over my cousin’s accident.  Each time, I stopped myself from going with my first instinct — to snap out or snap back at the other person.  Instead, I mentally stepped back from the situation, took a deep breath to assess, and then responded more calmly than I felt inside.  In the end, it was more important to not escalate the drama than it was to be right.  This helped me prevent a negative interaction from getting even worse.

In one instance, I gave myself a mental talking to, internally saying, “Mary, just because this person is acting like a jackass doesn’t mean you have to be one too.”

By coincidence, one of my friends posted a photo of a poster on her wall this week.  It suggested that we T.H.I.N.K. before we speak, asking ourselves these things about what we’re about to say:

T – Is it True?

H – Is it Helpful?

I – Is it Inspiring?

N – Is it Necessary?

K – Is it Kind?

I found this extremely helpful this week.  I’m going to print it up to hang on my desk at work.  I think it’s a guideline that will continue to provide assistance, even when I’m not in the middle of a devastating, emotional, family crisis.

I’ve always thought of myself as more of a night owl than a morning person.  I’m not even talking about my 20s and 30s when I’d go out to clubs with friends until 2, 3, 4 in the morning and then catch a few hours of sleep before getting up to go to work.  Even 15 years ago when I was in my late 30s, I’d stay up until 1 in the morning every night playing on the computer, surfing the ‘net, chatting with friends, etc.

I loved the days when I was a freelance writer and didn’t have to get up early to arrive at an office by 8:30 or 9 a.m.  I could make my own hours and sleep-in whenever I wanted.

In recent years, I’ve found that I get sleepy earlier than way back when.  Still, it’s usually between 11:30 p.m. and midnight before I shut off the light in my bedroom and fall asleep.  Every weekday, my alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m. so I can get to work before 9.  On weekends, I’m thrilled if I can sleep in — although making it until 8 a.m. constitutes “sleeping in” these days.  If I can’t sleep in, or even if I can, I love curling up on my recliner on a weekend afternoon for a short nap.

I’ve heard a lot over the last few years about the importance of getting enough sleep.  Too little sleep can affect our blood pressure, our hearts, how much weight we lose and a number of other things.  Seven or eight hours a night are the minimum recommendation.  I’ve been trying to pay attention to the guidelines.  I don’t really need to watch the 11 p.m. news, knowing I’ll catch up to anything truly important in the morning.  I can get through my evening routine more efficiently and still have time to read a bit before shutting out the light.

I honestly feel better when I hit between seven and eight hours instead of only six or six and a half.  I’m more focused at work and have more energy.  So, it’s a goal for me to sleep enough hours on more nights than less.

Then there’s nights like tonight when it’s around 9:15 and I’m ready to take the dogs out for their last potty trip, haul the recyclables to the curb, wash my face, brush my teeth and go to bed.   So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

If eight hours are great, then nine hours of sleep tonight should be terrific!

First off, so many thanks again to all of you for your prayers for my cousin and for your understanding and support for me.  You getting where I’m coming from and what I’m feeling really helps.  It’s tough to cope with all of this emotion without food when I’m used to overeating as a coping mechanism.  I had trouble focusing today but I’ve made it through and I’m equalling out now — all without a binge or diving into inappropriate foods in vast quantities.

Tonight I want to talk about food in a friendly way.   After all, food itself isn’t really my enemy.  The way that I used to eat the food caused the problems.  In changing my life, I also want to change my relationship with food.  I am learning that I can not only be satisfied physically and nutritionally with small portions, but I can also please the senses that so enjoy really, really good food.

A friend and I went out to lunch today.  Instead of ordering a hamburger that would have come in a big basket with a bun and fries, I opted for a cup — not a bowl — of chili.  Easy to consume beef in a tomato-y sauce with peppers and onions and a great combination of spices.  Because of the sauciness, this was physically easy to eat.  (Sometimes solid meat, even if I eat tiny bites and chew a lot wants to get stuck.)  Bonus, the layers of flavor were delicious.  I had the best of all eating worlds — easy to consume, tasty, and a small portion.   I ate what I wanted, stopped when I ate enough, and felt satisfied instead of deprived.

Over the weekend, I watched a cooking show called “Best Thing I Ever Made – Italian”.  I heart chef/restauranteur Scott Conant.  (Scarpetta Restaurants.)  On this show he talked about making Gnudi and explained that it’s like the filling of good ravioli without the pasta pocket.  I’m half-Italian, but had never heard of gnudi.  However, if a chef of Conant’s caliber describes a dish as the best Italian food he’s ever made, I’m going to pay attention.  I watched his demonstration carefully, after discounting the mushroom puree he also made.  (I don’t like mushrooms.  The gnudi themselves looked fairly easy — combining ricotta cheese, sauteed chopped spinach, egg yolks, a few tablespoons of panko breadcrumbs and flour and some seasonings.  After mixing, one forms the mixture into balls and slides them into boiling water to cook for a couple of minutes.  Then you shock them in ice water to make sure they hold together and reheat them when ready to serve.

Protein from cheese and egg, without the extra carb of pasta.  Granted, not something I would make and eat every day but certainly something that would make a tasty treat for dinner one night, served with some simple marinara sauce.

I made them tonight and, let me tell you, the results were scrumptious.  I love gnudi!  I only ate one and a half and enjoyed every creamy, delicious bite of the small portion.

Last year, I had people over for a boat parade party.  (We have a holiday boat parade in town and it sails right past my house.)  I’d seen a recipe for Mini-Buffalo Chicken meatballs.  Again, super easy to prepare with the ground chicken and buffalo hot sauce mixed together with some minced celery and a couple of other ingredients, then baked in the oven.  I think I should make those again.  They are a lower fat, yummy protein source for sure.

This is one of my goals for my new eating life — to explore small bite recipes that provide my protein with fewer carb grams and lower fat count but still have lots of flavor.

When one can only eat a little, it’s good to get the most out of ever small bite.

Anybody have any suggestions on small bite recipes that they’d like to share?  I don’t think it matters whether you’ve also had weight loss surgery, and you don’t even need to be overweight to appreciate great taste in small portions.

We had some sad news at work today.  A man we cared about died.  Even though it was expected and we were prepared, there is no way that it doesn’t suck and make us feel sad.

Sadness is one of my trigger emotions.  Okay.  Almost any intense emotion can trigger a mental desire to eat, but sadness is a really strong one.  I know in the past that I would eat almost anything in big quantities in order to comfort or numb myself.  It’s how I very easily put back on 100 plus pounds after my Dad died.  I used food to cope with my mother’s illness and death.  Gained a great deal of weight back then, too, and then some.

So, here I am today, feeling the weight of sadness and overeating is not an option.   It’s been twice as challenging to focus on tasks, to even motivate myself to do things I should be doing.   My heart was filled with mourning and my head was filled with thoughts of food.

Despite it all, I think I’ve done okay.  I learned of the death shortly before lunch, but stuck to the plan of part of a Lean Cuisine dish.  A co-worker had baked really scrumptious looking chocolate chunk cookies.  I thought about it and decided that a single cookie was not going to derail me.  Let me tell you, I savored that treat and ate it realllly slowly.  For dinner I stuck to my small portion of a meaty tomato sauce with a couple of pieces of ziti.   I just had a Weight Watchers small ice cream bar as an evening snack.

Is this a perfect food plan?  No.  Did I overeat?  Not at all.  I guess I could have kept finding more food to stuff into my stomach and eaten it until I threw it back up.  But I didn’t.  That’s a truly important development and a significant improvement over the ways that I used to deal with my emotions.  So, I’m giving myself a check mark in the positive column for the day.

There’s a saying I learned in OA that the feelings won’t kill me but the food might.  I’m grateful that today I was able to sit with the feelings and not let them kick me into gorging on bad food choices.

That would only have made me feel worse.

I know I still need to get some pictures up and I promise that’s one of my goals for this weekend.  I have some fun ones from the RT Convention.  I am finally, finally, really seeing the weight loss in myself.  Friends and family who haven’t seen me since the surgery can really notice the difference, too.

Obviously, I’m thrilled with the positive progress.  At the same time, I’ve reached the point where the loss is beginning to get a lot of attention.  To an extent, too much attention makes me uncomfortable.  There’s a fine line to walk.  The positive reinforcement is helpful, but when someone goes too far overboard with their enthusiasm, I cringe inside because I feel like the reaction focuses everyone’s attention on me — even people I don’t know but who happen to be around at the time.

I’ve tried to gently draw some guidelines and boundaries.  My friends at work know that I’ve designated Friday as the day when I’ll report how much weight I’ve lost.  So, they don’t ask me all of the time and that’s really helpful.   I’ve tried to gently explain to one person that I appreciate her exuberance and joy for me, but could she please not express it in front of a large group of strangers.  Unfortunately, she forgets and has been known to call out, “You’re just melting away” from a distance of ten feet when she sees me.

It’s hard because I really, really, really do appreciate how terrific everyone is toward me.  I don’t want to be rude or ungracious.

I need to accept that this might be something that I can never change and instead work on why I cringe and get uncomfortable.  This could be more negative effect from my rotten body image.  See, although I’m 65 pounds lighter, I’m still obese.  I can’t help but imagine strangers looking at me and wondering why people are complimenting me for looking good.  If that’s truly the root of the reaction, then it should improve as I lose more and more weight, right?  Eventually, even I’ll agree that I look good instead of always qualifying it in my head as, “I look better than I did, but I still have a long way to go”.

In the meantime, I guess I can try again to establish what type of support is most helpful, but if someone doesn’t get it, I just need to work on smiling and saying “Thank you”.

My bags are almost packed.  The friends with whom I shared a room have left.  I just finished my morning protein shake and caught up on some email, etc.  I feel a little reflective about my first big convention/conference post-surgery.  I learned a lot about what I need to do to succeed in this environment and how easy it still is to mess myself up sometimes.

All in all, I think I did really, really well.  Like I said before, preparing in certain ways was key and I would not have done so well without the planning.  I had milk in the fridge in the room so I could make those protein shakes most mornings.  The cheese wedges and peanut butter cups meant that I could get something protein-based into me every few hours.  My friends were terrific at understanding if I said, “I need to get something to eat” and were usually happy to go with me if we hit a restaurant.

Gotta give props to the Hyatt Regency-O’Hare.  Even with so many people, their food service in the bar and the grill was quick!  The fridge in the room also meant that I could bring leftovers back and have them to eat at other times.  I did that twice, since no matter what I order, whether entree or appetizer or salad, the portions are more than I can or should put in my stomach.  However, we’ve already established that I need to eat every few hours so the leftovers were great additions to my food plan.

I ran into trouble with staying hydrated on Thursday.  Very busy day and, foolishly, I did not keep a water bottle with me so I wasn’t sipping throughout the day.  I ended up feeling lousy and drained and even needed to rest in the room in the evening.  I rallied for the dinner event and drank several glasses of water at the meal after eating some chicken.  Lesson learned.  I keep a bottle with me at all times on Friday and Saturday and refilled it from pitchers often.  No further problems ensued.

I was also reminded that “once a compulsive eater, always a compulsive eater”.  I have little restraint against small, individually wrapped chocolates.  I didn’t overeat, but if they were around, I’d occasionally grab one just because I love chocolate.  Not good to give into the impulse, but I’ll give myself some props for not gorging on them.  I was also quite proud of myself for only tasting two small bites of the incredibly rich, yummy chocolate cheesecake dessert at dinner one night.  After my second bite, I relocated the plate to the center of the table where I could not easily reach it again.  Victory!

I love how much more energy and ease of movement I had this year over years past.  Instead of dreading making the hike back to the ballroom or the meeting rooms, my get-up-and-go stayed with me and I trucked around without pain and with very little stiffness in my knee.

Yesterday morning doesn’t count.  The evening before I enthusiastically participated in the dancing and might have stomped just a little too emphatically during the Cha-Cha slide.  Some Motrin took care of the problem.

When I get home, I’ll figure out how to post some photos and also dig out one from last year for comparison.  Right now, I’m going to hang out for a few more hours with what friends are still here before I head for the airport.

It was a great time with lots of terrific affirmation and successes on which to build!  I’m dying to see what I weigh.  If I held even, I’ll be happy.  If I managed to lose more, even with the different meals and foods, I’ll be even happier!