Weighty Matters

. . . always a food addict.

That reminder’s been bouncing around in my head over the weekend.  It’s really important that I remember.  Forgetting or pretending otherwise leads to relapse.

Just because I’ve been doing so well is no reason to get cocky and think I have this disease of compulsive overeating under control.  I had a lot of time to think about it while driving up and back to the mainland this weekend.  (Two hours plus each way.)  I evaluated my eating choices over the last few weeks with the intent of performing a brutally honest inventory on myself.

Here’s what I decided.  I’ve been slacking sometimes on the food plan.  Not a lot, mind you, but enough.  I started eyeballing portions instead of measuring.   There were a few too many carbs, sometimes.  Too frequent an inclination to indulge in sweets if they were present at the office, even if my new definition of indluging means a tiny slice.  The snacks I kept at the office, like nuts, were on the plan, but I ate them compulsively instead of measuring or only eating at the time that I planned.

I got a little lazy tracking my food on my handy little food app on my phone, too.  Not listing it in digital black and white was a way of skating around my own accountability.

You might ask yourself why these things are bad or risky.  I mean, how much damage can I do to myself with 30% stomach capacity.  Plenty.  I’m told that it’s possible to keep pushing the boundaries and eventually stretch the stomach.

That would suck.

I can prevent that from ever happening.  I will prevent it.  My inventory examination showed me what steps I need to take to get back on track.  It really isn’t difficult and it’s all stuff that I know works for me.  Even though it concerns the food that I eat, the focus is on my behavior and how I eat as much as what I eat and how much of it.

Measure out the foods I plan to eat. 60 to 80 grams of protein daily.   I can include some fruit and veggies but the protein goal is the most important.  Limit carbs like bread, potatoes and rice.  Eat only the three meals and three snacks.  No compulsively reaching for food that happens to be around.  Stay hydrated with at least 60 ounces of water a day.  Those are the basic steps to success.

I also need to do better about eating every meal and snack slowly, thoughtfully, and with lots of chewing.

It’s pretty simple, really, particularly when one is willing.  I’m willing.

Hell, if I wasn’t willing I wouldn’t have had the surgery in the first place.

This is not me beating myself up, by the way.  It’s me supporting myself and my recovery.  Continuing to take personal inventory is an important step.  I don’t need to only do this now or three weeks or three months.  I need to support my own recovery with the steps that I know make me successful all of the time — whether I’m in the losing stage or at goal weight and have transitioned to maintenance.  Even if I look in the mirror and a healthy-weight person looks back at me, I will still need to support my recovery.

Because I’ll still be a food addict and compulsive overeater.  Once a food addict, always a food addict.

It’s that simple.

Now that I’ve lost 100 pounds, I think I’m about half way there, give or take a couple of pounds.  I do not expect to lose as rapidly as I did in the first six months.  Instead, I’m trying to set realistic goals.  It’s hard.  My heart dreams of hitting goal weight by the one year anniversary of my surgery.

My head says, “You’re not even sure what you want to set as a goal weight.   Don’t forget that you were on a liquid diet for a month after the operation and that knocked off a big chunk of pounds right at the start.”

My emotions sometimes side with my heart, telling me, “Sure.  You can keep averaging 12 to 15 pounds a month.  Get on that scale every morning and remind yourself how much you want this.  Go! Go! Go!”

When the emotions support the head, I hear, “Do not torture yourself.  When you set yourself up with unrealistic goals and don’t meet them, you feel bad.  Maintain your objectivity.”

After batting around these different thoughts like psychological ping pong for awhile, I decided to cut through my own b.s. and decide what is a smart goal.  That’s smart as in Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Time-bound.  (Note:  I put in realistic instead of relevant because for me, losing weight is always relevant, but for these goals I need realistic.)

I think I can reasonably expect to lose another 50 pounds by the end of this year.  That’s specific — 50 pounds.  With a good scale it’s measurable.  I believe that I can lose weight at this rate which makes it both attainable and realistic.  The end of the year is a time designation.  Okay, I’m not exactly time-bound to it.  If I’ve lost “only” 48 pounds by December 31st or it takes me until January 8th to lose 50, I’m not going to wail and gnash teeth that I failed to make my goal.

There are other goals within this overall one that I’ve set.  Some of those are more emotional as in, “No torturing myself.  No obsessing over the number on the scale every day.  No beating myself up if I really, really need a treat on occasion.”   Other goals have to do with my physical exercise.  I’ve done great the last few weeks.  I need to build on what I’ve been doing and maintain consistency.  I won’t always be able to do Zumba twice a week, but I will go twice on the weeks that I can.  The bottom line is cardio exercise four times a week.  My Tai Chi is good for  leg strength, balance, and stretching, so in coming weeks I want to add some additional strength training, focusing on my arms.  I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I will.

All of this planning can be a little dizzying and it’s really important that I don’t overwhelm my own brain.  Long term goals are important as I look ahead on this journey, but I can’t lose sight of the fact that I still have to get there one day at a time.

I’m still musing over developing a new system or definition of reward now that I’m not using food to reward myself.  I went to the jeweler to pick up my repaired neck chain.  While there I browsed the earrings, but no pair stood out and made me say, “Oooooh.  Pretty.  Please let me see those.”  Next to the jeweler is a florist.  Happy to say that their weekly $5 special was a pretty mixture of pale yellow Asian lilies and deep yellow roses edged in red.  I bought the bouquet and brought it home.

Still, I wasn’t satisfied.  Difficult of me, some would say.  I might agree with those some.

I did another Zumba class on Thursday and today I had Tai Chi practice.  Both of these activities involve a lot of pivots and turns.  I usually do Tai Chi in a pair of Isotoner suede-bottomed slippers and I’ve been doing Zumba in the Nike walking shoes I bought a few weeks ago.  I noticed that the traction on the Nikes does not permit me to easily swivel and pivot on the wood floor.  The Isotoners don’t give me any arch support.  I decided that I was entitled to research other options.

Loving the Internet, I came home and googled Zumba shoes.  Zumba.com has numerous shoe styles for women in cute colors.  Unfortunately, my extra-wide feet will not fit into those cute female shoes.  I looked at the men’s selection.  One pair.  In black with phosphorescent lime-lemon accents.  Lime-lemon is not in my color palette.

I looked at the soles and saw what make these styles good for Zumbaing.  Armed with the knowledge I started googling dance shoes for men, dance trainers, wide-width dance shoes, etc. etc. blah blah blah.  I found some sites that suggested certain makes and styles and then took all that knowledge with me to Zappos.  I now have two possibilities winging their way to me.  Please keep your fingers crossed that one of these pairs of shoes will fit my wide feet with their fallen arches.  If this happens, then I will consider myself duly rewarded.  For now anyway.

More importantly, I realized that in the process I’m doing something more important than rewarding milestones.  I’m outfitting myself with the tools that I need for progress every day.  I’m on a journey toward better health.  Getting better shoes for my exercise is not just a reward.   These shoes will not only improve my efforts in class, but they’ll also help me keep from hurting my joints.   Now that I’m on a roll and willingly exercising, it would totally suck to get injured.

This is one more way to assist my own efforts and optimize my success.  Other ways are for me to keep the right foods in the house, pack my lunches for work, take a cooler with appropriate snacks on road trips, etc., etc.  Writing this blog and being scrupulously honest about everything is part of it too.

When you live with an eating disorder, it’s incredibly easy to sabotage yourself.  Doesn’t take any more time than randomly grabbing a handful of off-plan food or an extra portion and shoving it into your mouth.   I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I consciously said, “I want to screw up today and here’s how I’ll do it.”  Often I’d already eaten the food before my thought process kicked in and I realized what I was doing.  At my absolutely worst times, I went through periods where I would wake up in the middle of the night and semi sleep-walk to the kitchen and eat.  I’d wake up amid wrappers and not remember getting out of bed.  Scary shit, let me tell you.  I always feared one day dying like Mama Cass Elliot, choking to death on something.

It is more difficult to stay clean and to do the work that keeps me moving forward healthily, free from compulsive eating, and staying on plan.  I refuse to be lazy about my recovery.   I had a crappy night’s sleep and was super tired when my alarm went off this morning.  I made myself get out of bed rather than opting to skip Tai Chi practice this morning.   I promised myself that sometime today I’ll try out the new gizmo I bought that’s intended to let me swim in place in my pool.  (My pool’s not big enough to do laps and the installer never quite got the concept that I wanted jets installed.)  I’m determined that when I finish this post I’m going to tackle the household chores I set for myself today and then I’m going into the pool with that gizmo.  If I choose to take a nap later, that’s okay, but I’m not giving into the comfortable, familiar tendency toward being sedentary.

For today, I’m going to look at the different ways that I’m assisting myself.  I’m going to acknowledge and celebrate these things and not take them for granted.

English clergyman/poet George Herbet said that living well is the best revenge.  I’m going to borrow that for today and change it to something more fitting and positive.  Living well is the best reward.

Reward yourselves this weekend.  However you define it, go out and live well!

***************************** Edited to Add Photos *******************************

I promised some pictures and today figured out how to work the self-timer on my camera.   I hope you know that it takes a lot for me to put up less than flattering photos of myself, but I promised.  I say they’re unflattering because I’m sort of frozen there waiting for the timer to go off.  I’m also wearing a t-shirt and the new workout shorts I bought.  My hair’s mussed, etc. etc.    Okay, here goes.

The photo of me in the light blue shirt is from June 19th, a little more than a month ago.  The other photo is from today.  The changes are subtle.  Less roll in the spare tire around my waist and a bit smaller overall in the midsection.  If I’d shown my arms in the June photo you’d see that they’re thinner now.  My face and neck are thinner.  Not bad.  Although, good Lord, I look like I’m grimacing in today’s shot.  I also look a lot taller.  I do think I’ve gotten back some of my height since my spine is less compressed, but I have to double-check.  Mostly I look taller in this photo because the camera is sitting on a window sill so it’s perspective is a little skewed.

I don’t think I’m going to do another comparison photo until I lose another 50 pounds.  I like seeing drastic differences, like this:

I used my phone to show the side detail of my new glasses.  Cute dolphins!

I still haven’t decided what nice thing I’m going to do for myself as reward and recognition for my 100 pound/six month milestone.   I’ve been considering the matter on and off all day.  You all had some good suggestions, but some of them I already do pretty regularly.  I get a manicure every two weeks, a pedicure every month, and facials several times a year.  That’s not to say that I can’t retreat myself with more spa services and that option is definitely under consideration.

I’ve also bought fresh flowers every couple of weeks.  I love them and they make me happy.  Right now I have the last two blooms from some truly glorious stargazer lillies open in front of me, perfuming the air.

The nail treatments and facials are rewarding, but I also consider them essential treatments.  Seriously.  When you live in a hot climate and wear sandals 355 days of the year, it’s really important to keep your feet in good shape and also looking nice.  Right?  As for the facials, well, I have pretty good skin and since I’m soon going to transition from my early 50s to my upper 50s, I’d like to keep it in good condition for as long as possible.  😉

So, I’m pondering other reward options.

This is a somewhat unfamiliar experience for me because, not surprisingly, I have a long history of rewarding myself with food.   A memory flashed into my head earlier today of the last time I lost 100 pounds when I was on a medically supervised diet.  For pretty much a full year, I lived on 9 ounces of protein — mostly chicken and turkey — and a cup of salad a day.   I think I eat more spread out over a day now, even with my tiny stomach, than I did on that highly restrictive plan.  I do not know how I managed to sustain that effort for as long as I did!  Anyway, I had to go to the weight loss center three times a week for weighing and monitoring.  Today I remembered that after the successful Friday weigh-in, I would reward myself with a bagel!

On past diets, I’d pick certain success points and when I reached them, I’d celebrate by allowing myself a cheat.  They were often huge cheats — like a milkshake or an ice cream sundae.  Usually some super high calorie, super rich food.  Afterward, if I was lucky, I’d get back on the diet wagon.  Often, I’d just bomb out completely and eventually put the weight back on.  In the end what was intended to be a reward ended up leading to self-sabotage.

It’s past time to improve my mindset and find different, effective rewards.

I suppose the argument could be made that sticking to my healthy lifestyle of eating should be a reward in and of itself.  It is.  Living well is a terrific reward, and so are all of the wonderful changes I’ve experienced.  However, I don’t see anything wrong with truly celebrating a big milestone.  It’s not like I’m looking for the grand gesture every five pounds.

I don’t need to justify positively reinforcing myself.  I just want to do it in a way that doesn’t involve eating off of my plan.  Instead, I’m leaning toward a little splurge — like some new earrings perhaps.  Nothing wildly expensive, just a pair that I find pretty and will enjoy wearing.

As it happens, I need to visit my favorite local jeweler to pick up the chain they repaired for me.   Perhaps when I casually peruse their display cases, I’ll find the perfect reward.  Wish me luck!