I’ve been away from home a couple of days for the completion of a leadership program. Last night was our graduation dinner which was the reason for my purchase of the black dress and panty hose.
I’m pretty darned happy with the results!
Picking
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?
Like Nobody’s Watching
I always hated feeling like people were watching me and judging me on my appearance and weight. It’s one thing if you’re a performer of some sort and you’re out in the public eye because you want all eyes on you. That’s okay. In the course of your day to day normal life, when you’re obese, it’s easy to become incredibly self-conscious.
Depending on the degree or intensity of the self-consciousness, you can learn to live small. It’s a protection and a safeguard. If you don’t put yourself out so that people notice, they won’t have the opportunity to judge, to make inappropriate, if well-meaning comments, to give you those looks that you immediately interpret to mean, “Oh, she’d be (fill in the blank). What a shame she’s so fat.”
Marianne Williamson reminds us that playing small doesn’t serve the world. It doesn’t serve us either. I work in public relations/marketing/media. I can’t do my job if I play small. Honestly, I’m naturally an extravert. For much of my life I’ve been able to put myself out there externally, even if I wanted to shrink and tremble emotionally.
I also know that my weight didn’t only effect me. It couldn’t help but have an impact on the family and friends who love me. I regret the years of upset, pain and worry. I can’t do anything to restore the time to them. The only thing that I can do is move forward with my healthier lifestyle and choices and know that I’m not creating hurt and concern for them anymore.
I know how fortunate I am. In my job, I sometimes need to represent our organization on camera. I don’t remember how my boss and I got caught up in a particular conversation — it didn’t start out to be about me — but it gave me an opportunity to acknowledge my gratitude for the support of my work family. Through the years, they never said, “We can’t have her doing interviews, she’s too fat or she doesn’t look right.” That is just not who we are as an organization. However, I am still grateful and I’m glad that I got the chance to express this. In the same conversation, I also had a chance to acknowledge and honor the concern that they had for me through the years as well as the phenomenal support they gave me when I made the decision to have the surgery.
They continue to support and encourage me now, while they cheer my progress and recovery.
I’m rambling a little, so let me get back on point. I’ve been thinking about how much better it feels to now have my internal emotions in synch with my external activity. It’s not that I’m more confident, but that I’m so much more relaxed and at ease. I no longer worry about what people are secretly thinking about me when we meet or when they see me. I’m much more free to simply be.
In a few weeks I’ll reunite with many friends at a fun conference that includes several dance parties. I’ve always loved to dance and have usually managed to block out the worry over what other people thought about my big body moving around on the dance floor. I did my best to dance like nobody was watching and just have fun.
I think this is going to be easier now too. I’m living my life without worrying what people are thinking or how they’re reacting. If I’m not dancing like nobody’s watching, at least I’m dancing as if I don’t care that they are.
Stylin’
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.
If It Doesn’t Fit, Ship!
It’s really been an up and down week, hasn’t it? Sadness and turmoil in the beginning, finding balance mid-week, now finishing up on good, happy notes. For someone who tends to eat over emotions, getting myself on track and not continuing with that behavior was a challenge, but ultimately, I feel successful now.
Wearing size 18W capris is nothing short of amazing to me. I had another clothing NSV too. I’d ordered two dresses in what I was sure was my new smaller size. They arrived yesterday and I absolutely love one of them, except it’s too big! Too big as in I can’t even fake it through wearing it this coming weekend and then getting it taken in. (I tried talking myself into doing just that but a friend talked me out of wearing it at all in this size.)
I really do need the even smaller size. I thought about just taking this one to the seamstress and having it altered, figuring that would be cheaper than shipping it back and paying for shipping for the new garment, but now I’ve decided to just start fresh. If I didn’t like the dress so much, I wouldn’t bother, but it will look really nice when I wear it to a conference in the beginning of May.
I’m discovering more than new sizes and am venturing into brave, newer territory on style and design. I have to say that this requires me to expand the boundaries of my comfort zone. I’m used to decades of trying to hide my weight, not that I ever really could, but I believed that at least I dressed size-appropriate and looked as good as I could manage. I covered up the flaws as best I could. I didn’t wear blouses that were so small the buttons strained to keep the garment closed and gaps showed anyway. My pants weren’t too tight and dresses hopefully masked the worst bulges and bumps.
Maybe this all worked and maybe it didn’t, but at least I believed that it did and that helped.
Now it’s time to rediscover style and try new things to find out what flatters me at this current size. The dress that I’m going to order in a smaller size has a banded waist so, it actually shows my waist. Some of the new blouses I bought are more fitted in the midsection too. The dress that I bought a couple of weeks ago, which I will now definitely wear next weekend at the event, came with a wide, stretchy belt that again, accentuated the waistline. I actually have a waistline now. Who’d a thunk? I hate the belt, but not because it’s wide and stretchy. It’s a bright limey-yellowy green which is one of my least favorite colors and definitely not in my color palette. If it was neon blue, purple, turquoise, cherry red or something else that I liked, I’d be set. I’ve searched for other wide, stretchy belts but no luck.
I found a belt that has cute bedazzling on cream colored grosgrain but was concerned that it wasn’t wide enough. I tried on the ensemble for a friend last night. She and I decided that this belt will honestly look pretty. I don’t want to tie it in back so she’s going to help me measure off what fits and then I’ll sew in some snaps.
The only part on which we disagree is whether I need to wear panty hose. Down here in the Keys, you can get away with wearing pretty much anything and not adding stockings. However, this dress is not only fitted at the waist, but the length is also above the knee. The good news about my weight loss is, well, that I’ve lost so much. The bad news is that I am beginning to see some skin sag and wrinkling in areas of my body. When I had the dress on last night, I immediately saw the wrinklyness (made up word) of my skin between the hem and my knee. My friend thinks nobody else will notice, but I know it exists. Because I know it’s there, I’m going to be self-conscious about it. So, as much as I dislike pantyhose, I think I will be much more comfortable putting on a pair for this event.
What’s the point of wearing a great, new, sassy dress that makes me feel good about my weight loss and fitness efforts if my pleasure will be tainted by worry about saggy skin? I know myself well enough to know that I’ll obsess about it all week and all of that night. Far better to make the hosiery decision now and be done!
I have to say that it’s a fun adventure to consider clothes in styles that I would never have dreamed of wearing when I was heavier, if indeed they were even available in large enough sizes. If requires some self-trust, too. I need to be confident that I’ll know whether I honestly look good in something I’ve put on. I also have to fight the old tendency to go for looser, roomier garments and remind myself that even the prettiest dress won’t look good on me if it’s too big. That’s what I had to learn and accept yesterday and what will help me as I move forward into the future.
Step by Step, Day by Day
Three good days under my belt, each accomplished one day at a time. It’s amazing how much more balanced I feel in my head and emotions. The scale is much more balanced, too, as the bloat/water weight has come off. The only thing that’s lacking a little this week is my exercise. Zumba class was cancelled and we hit some cruddy weather that reduced the opportunity to walk as often as I like. Still, I made Tai Chi class on Wednesday, practiced a few times on other days, and got the dogs out for walks when I could. So, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I can make up more exercise time tomorrow and Sunday.
I’m really proud of myself for getting back on track with my food. What’s that proverb that it isn’t important how often we’re knocked down, but how often we get up? That’s how I feel. So far, whenever I hit rough patches, I’ve managed to pull myself together.
Going back to basics helps. Remembering powerful tools like one day at a time, give me a useable method. I chanted it like a mantra in my head and it got me past some temptation. I looked at foods that aren’t on my plan and said, “No, not this time. Not today.”
I didn’t whine about it. I didn’t resent having to say no to certain foods. I cultivated an attitude of, “What’s more important at this moment, today?” That is always an easy answer. I am important. My recovery remains more important than food.
I’m not going to gain back all of my weight. I’m not going to stay at my current number. I’m going to continue to lose and get to my goal.
After three good days, I experienced a tremendous NSV. A friend has been staying with me for a couple of weeks. She’s also losing weight. We’re at about the same number but with different body types. She’s a few inches taller than I am so if we way about the same, the weight distributes differently on each of us. I got home from work today and said that my size 20W denim capris are starting to feel a little loose. She went to her room and brought out a pair of denim capris in 18W and suggested that I try them on. “Oh, I’m not ready for this small a size yet,” I said, but I tried them anyway.
They fit! Even more so, they’re comfortable and look great! Do you know how long it’s been since I could wear an 18W? You don’t? Well, I don’t either, but it was a helluva long time ago.
Because of the differences in our shapes, the 18Ws are too big for her and she can fit into a straight 18. Guess who now has a new pair of cute denim capris? Yes, she gave them to me on the spot.
This positive reinforcement strengthens my determination to have another strong day tomorrow. Step by step, day by day, I can keep building a successful life.
One Day at a Time
Checking in to say that I had a good day yesterday food wise. This morning I’m geared up for another one. Thank you again for your support and encouragement.
One day at a time is a basic but effective approach to dealing with addiction. It reduces the enormity of a future into simpler more manageable steps. I don’t have to dwell on how to keep this up for months or how much weight I’ll lose and how fast. I only need to concentrate on what and how I eat today.
Day by day by day I can establish a string of successful days. The rest of the issue will then fall into line.
Rocky Road
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.
Venturing Out Solo
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!
Weighty Matters 