Gettin’ Fine in 2009

As I drove home from work tonight, it occurred to me that I should remember how very TIGHT the elastic waistband on my black (as usual) pants was today.  They’re size 18W, a LARGE 18W (because I have other 18Ws I can’t even think about wearing right now), and the 1.5-inch wide elastic was just binding into my waist so hard that there was a mark all the way around, and I couldn’t wait to get home and get them off.

My waist measurement as of today is 41″, and my abdomen is an unbelievable 51.5″.

I wanted to record this so that someday when these measurements are better, I can come back and celebrate how far I’ve come.

I also want to remember the day when Size 18W pants with a stretch waist nearly cut me in half, to remind me when I get smaller that I do NOT want to ever get to this place again!

I just posted this in a forum on a website I belong to.  It seemed I might as well post it here, too, to have a record of how [crappy] I’m feeling/doing today.

I feel extremely negative today. I can’t seem to get hold of myself.

My husband weighs 140 lbs; I weigh close to 220. Even though he rarely says anything about my weight, unless I ask him outright how he feels about something, I feel like my weight is causing distance between us. That feeling of guilt (which I realize is a completely useless, destructive emotion) makes me feel every day like there’s tremendous pressure on me to lose, in addition to all the normal stresses of life, such as a difficult job and elderly parents–and thus, I eat.

I just realized what a “sneak eater” I’ve become. Two nights ago, I got out of bed after my husband went to sleep and got the half-gallon of Rocky Road out of the freezer. I took it and a spoon INTO MY BED and finished it (it was about 2/3 gone, but still …), then threw the container away in my bedroom wastebasket.

Then today I got up thinking ok, today I will “start” again … and after my husband left for church, I made a box of those Jiffy Mix corn muffins and ate all 6 of them, heavily buttered. Worse, though, I made sure the egg shell was under all the other trash in the wastebasket, so he wouldn’t know I’d cooked, and I did all my dishes and swept up the crumbs to get rid of all the evidence!

I don’t understand this behavior on my own part. I’m not fooling anyone, especially myself. It’s not like my husband can’t see that I’m still fat. I guess I feel like eating this stuff in front of him is like a slap in his face, so maybe that’s why I hide. (Oh — and one morning this week I was in Dunkin Donuts ordering TWO muffins and TWO donuts, just for breakfast, and who walked up behind me? — my husband!! He was there to get coffee. Thank God my order had already been bagged so he didn’t see how much I got. He’s so kind/trusting that he didn’t even ask, or mention it, or make any comment about me being there — he just reminded me not to leave my purse on the seat in the car where people can see it.

I’m not sure what my point is. I just feel SO hopeless and so afraid that I won’t be able to find it within myself to “start” again. I’ve started over SO many times… I always make great progress for about two weeks, and then it becomes just too hard, and I abandon my efforts.

I’m sure there are many people out there who feel the exact same way.

If you’re someone who “started” many times before you actually made it all the way to where you wanted to be, can you tell me what your turning point was? How did you FINALLY get yourself to be consistent long enough to reach your goals? What changed the last time around?

Joaney’s recent comment reminded me that I haven’t blogged much lately, so here I am, even though I have nothing great to report.

I did start out all gung-ho at the new gym 3 weeks ago.  I did four good hard (HARD!) workouts, then this past week, which would have been my 5th and 6th workouts — I canceled both of them.  I just didn’t have it in me.  My knees have been hurting this past week, and I felt so tired … I think it is a combination of stress and not eating right and the feelings guilt associated with that.

Last Saturday was my sister’s 50th birthday, and we had a party for her.  I ate too much that day and that was the start of another whole unhealthy week.  You know — potato salad, macaroni salad, chips, cake, M&M’s … sigh.  I ate it all, then asked myself why.

Then during the week I found out that my mom, with whom I am extremely close, has a spot on her kidney that could be cancer.  And my job changed, from a nice comfy programming job where I could just sit alone in my cube all day and get stuff done, to project-managing all my company’s legacy products while the rest of the team starts rewriting everything on a new platform.  This means doing all the stuff I dread — going to meetings, making schedules, overseeing “offshore” developers’ work, answering customer complaints, etc.  I actually almost panicked in the meeting when my manager gave me this news — my eyes started to well up.  They seem to think I can do it, and I probably can, but I do NOT enjoy this type of work, so it’s all just additional stress.

One day this week, somebody said “angel hair”, and after that, that’s all I could think of.  So off to the grocery store I went, to get a box of angel hair pasta and a nice bag of sweet dinner rolls to go with it.  I made my pasta and had one normal plate.  Then, I went back again — and again.  Three plates, and not small ones, along with 6 of the rolls.  ALL IN ONE NIGHT.  No wonder I canceled my gym appointment the next day!!  And the next night, I finished off the rest of the angel hair and the other 6 rolls.

It gets so old after awhile, telling you all this — people must get sick of reading it.  It occurs to me that my eating patterns are the very definition of insanity, according to 12-step groups:  “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  I get so angry with myself that I can’t be more disciplined, and then the cycle begins again.  Will TODAY be the day I can get hold of myself?  Or will the fridge/fast food joints win out again?

I weighed 213.5 this morning.  At least that’s lower than the 219 where I started the month, but it barely feels like movement, since I’ve lost that same 5-6 pounds several hundred times.  I have lots to do today, all physical labor (like scrubbing floors and stacking hay), and it’s going to be 90 degrees out, so maybe I’ll be too hot to eat.  (Yeah, right — like that’s ever happened.  It just makes me feel justified in eating ice cream.)

I’m sorry I’m not very inspirational.  I guess the fact that I’m still here and still hopeful in spite of myself is something I should give myself a little credit for.

The year’s not over — we still have time to make progress toward gettin’ fine, right?