Black Friday kind of summed up how I felt yesterday. My mood was black, hence why no post yesterday. (sorry) I chose not to put my feelings “out there”, because I didn’t want them to take shape, or to spread. I’ve spent today coming to terms with why I felt so bad, and if those feelings were warranted. Because sometimes feelings are not warranted, ya know. Sometimes you have to just let them “Be” and not act on them, not encourage them, not enable them to become more than a feeling. Don’t let them take shape and become an idea or god forbid, a Belief.
My mood was the summation of knowing that my week was a bad week on my weight loss journey. When I looked back on it, it was the accumulation of events and choices that added up to my gain of 1.6 pounds today at Weigh-In. It started with My Caity’s birthday last Saturday, and about 6 cupcakes. Moved on to the movies and a medium movie theater popcorn with peanut M&Ms. And culminated in Thanksgiving, stuffing, biscuits, cheese and crackers and pumpkin pie. As I examine myself and strive to reach Balance about the week, I have to add into this equation that I ran 15 miles, took multiple walks with the dogs, and raked leaves. So I was active also. And I tracked. I tracked everything. I was in the red about 89 points this week! WOW….at one point I was trying to earn more Activity Points to reduce it, but it wasn’t gonna be enough. During my darkest moments on Black Friday, I even considered eating only Fruit and Coffee all day until my Saturday morning weigh-in. BAD idea! Game playing is ALWAYS a bad idea. I called it off about 10:30a, when I followed my early morning cup of coffee and banana, with an egg white omelet full of veg and a little turkey. So I chose to spend Friday getting back on track, and to clear my mind, straighten out my thinking and pick-up my mood out of the gutter.
Fact: I Ate Too Much This Week.
Result: I Gained 1.6 pounds.
Conclusion (the New Me): So what, it’s just food. You will do better this week. Make better choices. Try to learn why.
Old Conclusion, the old me, would have been a negative thinker, and thrown so many derogatory terms at myself. Loser, Failure, Fat-So, Unloveable. (GASP!) Yeah, that last one is the sharpest, worst thought I carried about myself for a long long time. I told myself I was unloveable because I was fat. I think it’s a big part of why I stayed Fat for so long. If you Believe you are Unloveable, you need to protect yourself against the pain that comes from trying to love and then losing; protect yourself from the pain that comes when people leave you, or come to realize, “Hey, You are Fat!”, and leave you. Foolish, ridiculous thoughts, I know. But I think I ate myself into my fat suit to protect myself from those feelings of being Unloveable, and then all those feelings of being Unloveable kept me Fat, which confirmed my Beliefs of being Unloveable, which made me eat more to Protect myself from ,,,,,,,,’round and round it goes — Oh, even I’m lost trying to make sense out if it. But feeling Unloveable is at the core of my weight problem. This I know.
I stayed after the Weight Watchers meeting to talk to Denise, my WW leader, about my problem of overeating when I attempt to Treat Myself. Denise asked me what I feel when I eat something tempting. How do I feel when I start eating it? I had to think about it for a few minutes, and I blurted out, “I Just Love It”. Love. Peculiar that word popped out, huh?
So I’ve been having a love affair with Food all my life, because food can’t tell me I’m Unloveable and go away. Food is always there, close to me, ever-present. But like most affairs, it came with other baggage. This love affair had me eating as fast as I could, so I could get a rush of that Love feeling and then eating more and more and more to sustain the feeling. I would eat until that Unloveable feeling went away because I don’t like feeling like that. So if I can use food to make that feeling go away……hey, what a great idea, right? W-R-O-N-G! Because the feelings that came after I had eaten myself OVER-FULL were worse, and more sustained — the feelings of SHAME and GUILT and UNLOVEABLE times 10.
My first marriage lasted for 8 years, and was a lonely, painful 8 years. My two daughters are my greatest treasures from that period in my life. I was strong enough to save myself and got divorced in December 1999. For many years leading up to that marriage, and during and after, I felt Unloveable. I’m lucky to have found a real honest, loving, wonderful life partner in Peter. We are in our 8th year of marriage now, and for the first time in my life, I am able to come to terms with knowing I am Loveable — can Give Love and Receive Love — and this has helped me begin to reprogram myself in terms of how I have used and abused food all these years. I still carry beliefs about myself that would surprise people to know. I’ve moved on from thinking I am UnLoveable (because Peter beats it into my brain that those are crazy thoughts) — to believing I am Unlikable. (LMAO, sadly I’m not kidding). Yeah, I’m crazy. I worry, I WORRY SOOO MUCH that people may not (will not) like me. I Worry every time I open my mouth. So, I’m working on these feelings — trying to break them down — trying to chip away at them — so they can no longer take shape — can no longer form these Beliefs. It’s a work in progress….but it’s work worth doing. Because I’m worth doing this for.
So, this week I’m going to focus on learning to Treat Myself without Triggering Bingeing. I’m going to Try and Give myself treats that I Love, without letting myself fall into the trap of trying to fill myself up with these treats like there is some empty hole that needs filling. Because I already know the Love I really want in life comes from Peter, and Caity and Erin, and from all my friends that I have met along the way in life — people who seem to like me OK, just as I am. So I’m going to work to Disconnect the association that my Love for a Treat goes together with my old need for the feeling of “being loved”. I’m going to try to have a treat. 1 treat. One. and Let that Be Enough. Let Myself be Enough, and Stop Trying to Fill Myself Like I’m Empty Somehow. Because the Fact of My LIfe is This —- I am Already So Full…..My Cup Runneth Over.
Ciao for now…..and thank you for loving me. Diane