It’s been a LOOOOOONNNGGG time since I’ve posted. The big news is that I had a small stroke about 2 months ago. Yes, a mini-stroke. One that killed some brain cells - and anyone as spacey as I can’t afford to lose any; the remaining three will be so lonely.
The consequences of morbid obesity suddenly became very real to me. I could end up disabled and sick at a relatively young age, just like my older brother. He’s a skinny guy like Dad, so the precipitating factor for his stroke problems wasn’t obesity. Perhaps bad genes and abusing alcohol and various other substances, but not fat.
About a month to the day before the stroke I had an appointment with my ob-gyn for an annual physical. While my primary care doc and neurologist haven’t once mentioned my weight, even while coming to see me every day in the hospital, but the ob-gyn almost always mentions it. And on her way out the door after the exam, she brought it up again, warning me: “Your youth has been protecting you.”
And a month to the day later I was at the ER, then in the hospital for two days while the neurologist tried to sort out the stroke-like symptoms I was having. Apparently, my youth had been overwhelmed and surrendered the fight.
An MRI on Day 2 in Club Med confirmed that my symptoms were indeed a mini stroke. And the three unexplained but similar episodes I’d had over the past 4-5 years were most likely TIAs. Warning shots announcing that a Big One was on the way.
And I realized that I had better get it in gear and lose the 100+ extra pounds that I’m carrying. The baby aspirin and cholesterol medicine that neurologist and PCP prescribed can only do so much. Even though they’ve never once mentioned my weight, it was quite apparent that being obese was taking its toll.
So, I’ve been back to calorie counting and jogging on the treadmill. As of today, I’m down 20 pounds since the end of May.
100 to go.
It feels different this time around because I have a tangible motivator, something more critical than fitting into smaller, cuter clothing. I have a different mindset - the acceptance that eating healthier and exercising regularly have to become habits, a way of life forever, if I want to remain relatively healthy, not just things I engage in until I lose X pounds or shrink down to X size.
Posted on July 23rd, 2011 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Hopped on the scale this morning expecting a loss … and YES! there was one, at long last, after being stuck for a couple of months.
5 pounds gone!
Elation! Happy dance! Then, the thought: What “magic” trick, stroke of luck or fluke made this happen - and how do I conjure that up again?
Not, Yea! *I* did it! All *my* hard work paid off!
The result - weight loss - seemed somehow disconnected from my efforts. Why can’t I take credit for doing well? My head can’t connect the dots between my work and the results.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve regained the weight I’ve lost (probably 250 pounds over the course of my lifetime) every time. Because I didn’t feel responsible for losing it, I conversely felt like I wasn’t responsible either when I began regaining it.
Each time, I’d quit exercising, became a couch potato again and resume my fat eating habits (portion control out the window, snarfing down whatever I wanted in the moment, baking and eating and eating). But as the scale crept upward again, I lived in denial about what I was doing; it felt like some mysterious process out of my control that was plumping me up again. I quit weighing myself; quit looking at myself in the mirror below the neck; ignored the red flags as clothing progressed from loose to unbearably tight to unwearable.
Dismay. Despair. How did this happen to me again? I felt like I was helpless to stop it, instead of seeing the connection between my spiraling weight, my eating habits and my lack of exercise.
News flash, Sugar Queen: There is no magic to weight loss and weight gain. There is just *you* making good choices or bad choices consistently and deciding to live consciously or in denial.
The magic is my…
- more often than not making good food choices that are healthier and lower in calories. when I did have a treat, I accounted for it in the day’s calories, and I went for the smallest size that would satisfy me instead of the largest size available
- getting back on track immediately, instead of letting the big Sunday dinner or the unplanned treat turn into a daylong, weekslong, monthslong binge
- exercising regularly, pushing myself to run instead of walk, to go a little longer, a little faster, a little farther every week
- it was saying “I will” instead of “I can’t!“, “It’s too hard“, “It’s not fair!”, “But I don’t feel like it” and “What if I look ridiculous and people stare or snicker?”
- it was my not living in denial - looking at my whole body in the mirror, not just from the neck down; resisting the urge to load the shopping cart with junk foods and baking ingredients - while pretending that I wasn’t preparing for a binge; tallying up the calories even when I felt like I’d wrecked my entire day (and always finding that I had not - yet - if I just resisted the urge to let the one cookie become the appetizer for half a bag of chips, a sack of candy and handfuls of granola)
- persevering when the scale seemed stuck; resisting the urge to abandon the calorie counting and exercise for another plan, hoping there was a quick fix someplace else
- listening to my own wisdom and experience and being willing to keep trying alternatives (higher protein, more calories, fewer calories, more intense exercise) until it worked
- looking for alternative activities to boredom/emotional eating and recreational baking and eating
Weight loss is all about mastering these life lessons - patience, perseverance, taking pride in your accomplishments and taking responsibility when you mess up, about living consciously instead of hiding in denial and resorting to “magical thinking.”
That’s what makes it so damned hard sometimes.
Posted on June 24th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized, shame | 1 Comment »
So frustrated… the scale is still stuck. However, I think I’ve figured out what may be the problem… medication.
The neurologist has me taking a blood pressure medication to reduce migraines. And it seems that this medication is notorious for causing minor weight gain - or making it impossible to LOSE weight.
As does the other medication I take to control pain, help me sleep, etc.
Between the two of them, little wonder I can’t lose any weight, despite all the activity and calorie counting. All of the calorie/activity calculators I’ve run my stats through indicate that I should be losing 2 pounds or so a week on the calories I’m consuming and the activity I’m getting.
Yet, I don’t.
My clothes are noticeably looser. When I was at this weight last year, I couldn’t fit into the jeans I’m wearing and couldn’t wear them until I’d lost another 15-20 pounds. Now they’re plenty comfortable, thanks to the jogging and weight machines.
Which makes it all the more frustrating that I’m not losing. I’m not doing all this work to stay morbidly obese. Hell, no.
But, wait, there’s more!
During my research I was also upset to discover that the bp med is known to cause insulin resistance and increase one’s risk for diabetes up to 30%. Whoa, now. Say what?
I must admit it is helping reduce the frequency of the migraines. And when I do get one it’s generally milder and shorter in duration - a few hours of discomfort instead of days of mind-numbing pain.
It’s great to look at the weather forecasts every day and not be apprehensive, thinking: Oh, no, a rainstorm - or snow or high heat and humidity - is coming - that means my head will be imploding soon. Do I have enough drugs to make it through?
I can be like regular folk and try to remember to pack the umbrella rather than obsess about making sure I’m not leaving home w/out my arsenal of trusty painkillers. Or worry about stretching my painkiller supply until the stingy health plan will spring for what they laughingly call another 30-day supply.
That heightened risk of diabetes/insulin resistance REALLY REALLY bothers me, however. If I’m already at higher risk because I’m fat, how much does the med multiply that? Especially if I can’t lose the weight?
I’ve seen up close the ravages of diabetes - blindness, early death - in family members and know I don’t want to go there. My parents’ neighbor, who has been obese as long as I’ve known her, recently learned that she’s pre-diabetic, too.
So the Queen made an executive decision: She’s cutting the bp med dosage in half, cutting the calories back to 1200-1300, and hoping that will be enough to overcome her slowed metabolism and get the scale moving. Hopefully, that will also diminish some of the med’s nastier side effects (fatigue, nightmares that wake her up screaming, sugar cravings, wheezing attacks where she can’t catch her breath during her low-speed jogs).
If it’s not, then there’s another weighty decision to make: Do I want to stay on the wonder drug knowing it’s possibly tipping me toward diabetes, and continue dealing with the unpleasant side effects and resign myself to a life sentence of morbid obesity?
Or do I call the doc and tell him I want to wean off it and have the migraines resume? Or maybe explore other meds to replace it?
Posted on June 22nd, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: HMR, Uncategorized, fat day, skinny day | 2 Comments »
Went to the gym yesterday and noticed (again) how many overweight women were there working out. Used to be, over the two years we’ve been going there, that I was the ONLY one amidst all these skinnies. Yesterday, and the time before, there were easily 8-10, including me.
I don’t know why the sudden increase in our number, but it’s nice to have some women like me there.
Funny story… Awhile back the husband was working out in the free weight area next to two young studly guys. The two young guys were competing against each other to see who could dead-lift the most weight.
The first guy loads up the weight bar with a bunch of weight disks and strains and struggles but finally gets the bar in the air. He drops it to the floor and says something to the effect: Let’s see you do it, pussy.
So the second guy grabs the bar and strains, and STRAINS and REALLY STRAINS to get the bar up to his chest. Then as he strains to get it above his head, he strains SO HARD that he farts LOUDLY and shits his pants.
As if that’s not enough, he’s wearing white sweat pants - which now have a large telltale brown stain spreading across the seat.
Of course, this is too much for his pal, who about falls down laughing, while “Arnold Shit-zeneger” waddles quickly to the men’s locker room with a steaming load in his pants.
Guys, a word of advice: It doesn’t matter how much weight you can lift if you deliver a hot lunch doing it - you are not cool.
Posted on June 16th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Sugar Queen is cranky. Being a woman is so unfair.
The Queen religiously counts calories every day, exercises nearly every day, runs several miles a week, uses the weight machines 2-3 times a week, and strives for portion control… and all that effort results in a weight loss this week of two *2* measly pounds.
Oh, she’s glad for the 2 pounds, until…
The Sugar Queen’s husband - who easily eats at least twice as much food, has no concept of portion control or “lowfat” or calorie counts, and exercises FAR FAR less than she (meaning ZIPPO most days) — loses 12 pounds just like that. Yes, 12.
GRRR….
Posted on June 12th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Hopped on the scale this morning optimistically expecting a loss. After all, I’ve been jogging for a few weeks, walking and working out with the weight machines in between, thwarting urges to binge, and counting calories, so shouldn’t I be rewarded by losing at least a couple of pounds?
Evidently not. The needle on the scale has not budged at all.
Irritated and cranky that all my efforts yielded zippo results, my immediate impulse was to binge. Well, screw it! Might as well eat whatever I want since it doesn’t matter anyway, snarled the voice in my head.
I stuck to my eating plan all day, but when afternoon rolled around, the voice was whispering, Skip the exercise today. It’s a waste of time, and you don’t really feel like it anyway. But I coached myself into changing into walking clothes, harnessed up my furry walking buddy, doused myself liberally in insect repellent and went anyway… but it felt like I was dragging tons of mental/emotional weight behind me.
What IS that voice and why do I yield to it, when I know it’s irrational, it’s sabotaging my efforts and is antithetical to goals that I really want — i.e., shrinking my morbidly obese body to a weight I look and feel good at, that will make me healthier and put me farther from an early grave?
Why do I stay stuck in the same patterns when I KNOW - after countless diets and regains, tallying millions of calories then throwing it all to the wind with binges and inactivity - what the result will be?
Self-loathing. Shame. Self protection.
There’s a desperate, needy, sad child inside me clamoring for comfort, acceptance, recognition and a voice. She can’t articulate what she wants/needs and thinks she doesn’t deserve to have her needs met anyway.
So she eats. And eats. And secretly eats some more. Gets angry at herself when she wakes up and realizes what she’s done, feels like a failure, vows to do better, and struggles to get back on track.
The backlog of her unexpressed, unmet emotional needs is so vast it’s overwhelming. It feels like it can never be satisfied. It feels like it will sweep over me like a tidal wave and drown me unless I hold it back, but I can’t. It’s too strong. So I check out emotionally, run away from it by eating until my mind is numbed, the voice silenced by a pleasant chemical haze of sugar, salt and fat.
What would she say if I let her speak?
“I’m lonely.”
“I’m bored.”
“I’m depressed.”
“I’m scared of everybody. I need a buffer of fat between me and them so they can’t see me.”
“I feel like an ugly, stupid, socially and physically awkward freak that nobody likes.”
“I feel like I don’t matter.”
“I feel stuck in a monotonous life — but don’t know what to do to change it.”
“I’m tired of my husband’s temper tantrums about every stupid little mishap and inconvenience.”
“I resent being the designated adult while he shirks responsibility.”
“I resent his pushing me to do things that I’ve told him clearly I don’t want to do.”
“I resent my brother and cousin who bullied me when I was a kid–and destroyed my self esteem. I resent my mother for not censuring him and not comforting me when my brother said hateful things to me in front of her.”
When my pets want something - petted, fed, let out, comforted, to play - they have no qualms about “speaking up” in their own ways, and they have every expectation that their needs are important and that I will fulfill them.
Yet, I think so little of myself that I can’t do the same. That’s a really sobering thought.
Posted on June 10th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
I should be done eating - I’m full after dinner and fruit for dessert - yet I’m struggling with obsessive thoughts about binge-eating. I am having these insane cravings for sugar and fat.
Obsessing about grabbing the jar of peanut butter and sitting down with a spoon and wolfing down hundreds of calories I don’t need.
Wishing I’d grabbed a bag of coconut M&Ms when I was in the grocery store earlier. Is there chocolate anywhere else in the house? No, damn!
Thinking Hey, I could mix up some cookie dough! Meaning: I’ll eat about 1/3 of the dough while I’m baking and maybe 2-3 cookies after they’re baked, then snarf down another half dozen or so in the morning after I drag myself out of bed.
What is eating me?
I’m bored. I’m a little depressed at the thought of another work week ahead. I’m a little lonely.
And eating half a jar of peanut butter, half a bag of chips and anything else I can cram in my face isn’t going to make me feel any better about that. Really, deep down, I know that, yet I keep obsessing.
No matter how much I want to throw myself into all that food like it’s the last life raft leaving the Titanic, it’s not the solution to feeling crappy.
I felt very good earlier: I jogged 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym. I felt a little self-conscious doing it in front of a roomful of people. This is only the third or fourth time I’ve jogged in public instead of on my home treadmill or on the secluded bike/walking path near my house.
I’m an awkward, lumbering 245-lb. woman “shuffle jogging” along at a pace that most people walk faster than, dripping sweat like crazy, beet red in the face and huffing and puffing.
I had to keep reminding myself: I’m here to exercise just like the 20-something, 120 lb. Malibu Barbie on the treadmill next to me. If I don’t look as cute doing it, well, tough shit, Barbie.
And the first 15 minutes or so of a run are always a little tough; Despite stretching and a warmup 20-minute walk, my calves still hurt like crazy from minutes 5-15 until the endorphins or something kicks in and the pain ebbs away.
So why do I want to blow all that effort and the feeling good about myself away with a binge?
When that urge to binge is building like a gathering thunderstorm, eating as much as I can is all that seems to matter. In the moment.
It doesn’t matter that I’m outgrowing the jeans that were so loose about 20 pounds ago. It doesn’t matter that binge-eating will make me gain even more weight, give me another half dozen zits I don’t need, make me hate myself for being out of control AGAIN, and possibly tip me toward cancer or some other nasty illness.
No, when I’m wrestling with that urge all that matters is stuffing food - sugary, salty, fatty food - in my mouth as fast and as long as I can.
That gaping emptiness inside gets filled, albeit temporarily.
But the aftermath - being disappointed with myself, feeling out of control and like a food addict, struggling to continue to fit into my ever-shrinking jeans, seeing the needle on the scale go up another pound or two or 10 - is horrible.
No, I don’t want to put myself in that emotional space tonight. I will shut down the computer, go get in bed - the farthest point in the house away from the kitchen - and read, maybe do a Word Search. Something that doesn’t involve food and binging and self hatred.
That is the nicest thing I can do for myself.
Posted on June 8th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
It feels like the whole world is watching you fail.” - Kirstie Alley about regaining lost weight under public scrutiny.
Having lost and regained 116 pounds a few years ago, and having lost - and having regained - a combined total of more than 200 pounds throughout my lifetime, I feel her pain.
Every extra pound is a flashing neon sign that signals “failure!” or “fuckup!” to every relative, friend, co-worker and Weight Watchers colleague who once saw me thin, or at least significantly less fat than I am now.
There’s nowhere to hide the evidence of my mindless and disordered eating. Can’t hide it under the couch or stuff it in a closet. Can’t leave home without it.
After months of deliberation, I went out and bought a bike over the weekend. Last night was its maiden voyage; tonight I hefted my sore buttocks back in the saddle and rode again.
I don’t even know how many years it’s been since I last was on a bike. Probably 20 years or more and 100+ pounds ago. While in junior high, I got a 10-speed, and put oodles of miles on it.
There’s something so freeing about sailing through the quiet countryside with your wheels humming on the pavement.
But, with 100+ extra pounds in tow, it was much more difficult than I remembered from my youth. It was hard just getting on the bike, even a women’s model with the low center bar, because I can’t swing my leg up and over the saddle. I have to tilt the bike and step over the bar–with difficulty.
There are lots of little hills in the forest preserve where I ride. You don’t notice all those little hills much when you’re in your car, or even walking, but when you’re struggling to pedal your ass up those hills, you notice them, believe me, you notice them.
Got terribly winded and had to stop to catch my breath several times. And every time I had to stop, huffing and gasping for air, I felt like the whole world was watching with a critical eye. Look at the ridiculous fat woman on the bike! Can’t even pedal it up that little bitty hill!
My size made me feel really self-conscious and apprehensive about riding, even though I’d been thinking about taking that ride all day long.
And, horrors, tonight I ran into some people I knew. I rounded a curve and there they were — my neighbors cruising slowly through the park in their car. I waved and kept going as if it didn’t bother me.
It’s a sobering thought: how many people my size or larger just hide in their homes and don’t exercise - are afraid to take a walk, swim, go to the gym - just because they’re afraid the rest of the world will snicker or jeer and ridicule them while they’re trying to do the right thing for themselves? Imprisoned by their shame and fear.
How many activities and social opportunities have I passed up because of shame and fear? Many. Too many.
Last year, my main activity was extended walks with my hyper little Yorkie pal. But this spring, I’m bored with walking. I need a new activity to get me motivated - and out of the gloom of the house and into the sun.
It was great to be zipping down the bike paths, which snake through the woods and along the lake, the breeze in my hair, late afternoon sun warm on my skin and sunlight glittering like diamonds across the lake.
I didn’t think it would be nearly as much of a workout as it was. My heart rate shot way up, and I also worked up way more of a sweat than I do walking outdoors or on the treadmill or with workout videos.
“It will get easier every time I go out,” I’m telling myself. “Each time, I’ll push myself a little harder, a little farther, and one day I’ll be able to take on all those little hills and cruise through the entire preserve without stopping. And so what if I have to stop to catch my breath? I’m just beginning, and the important thing is — I’m out there exercising, participating in something that’s good for my mental as well as my physical health.” (Repeat several times a day, as needed).
Oh, and BTW, the neighbors came back from their car ride toting a pizza, while I returned from my bike ride pleasantly tired, glad that I went, and whipped up a veggie-laden Asian dish for dinner.
Mission accomplished.
Posted on March 23rd, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
The Sugar Queen has been AWOL from her calorie-counting kingdom for a few months now. And WE KNOW what happens when she abdicates:
- she starts eating without restraint - binging and overeating in general, making bad choices such as having regular soda instead of diet, and finding excuses to bake (and eat and eat and eat), and
- she avoids the scale and
- her clothes start to “shrink.”
She has regained 12 pounds. She hates so much to confess that. The shame. The shame. The self-loathing. The self-reproach: How could you — AGAIN?!! and the Why did you?? and the When will you ever learn? and the What is WRONG with you? After you worked so hard to lose it?
Quite simply: I made the choice to bury my head in the food and try to hide from my problems: anxiety over my dad’s recent illness, anxiety over work (possible job loss or departmental reorganization on top of a pay cut already enacted), marital friction, boredom, lingering seasonal affective disorder, yadda yadda yadda. There are always excuses to self-medicate with sugar.
It is so discouraging to be in this place again. It is so much harder to get back on track once I’ve strayed far away than it is to stay on course to begin with.
But there was an epiphany at the end of the trail. I realized WHY it is so hard to get back on track: Because as long as I live in denial about my eating, about my climbing weight, I don’t have to hold myself responsible and I don’t feel obligated to change what I’m doing. So I just keep eating and denying, eating and denying. However, it takes an emotional toll because I KNOW that I’m lying to myself. I hate myself for my lack of integrity while I continue to engage in the behaviors that I lie to myself about.
And exacerbating the whole problem (I think) is the depo provera that the ob-gyn gave me a month ago to try and slow down the spread of endometriosis. It’s notorious for causing weight gain and for causing depression. The past few weeks, since I got the shot, my anxiety/depression/irritability has escalated DRAMATICALLY. It’s been like having raging PMS week after week without the relief of a period to restore hormonal balance. So I began binging like a fiend.
Things that I could take in stride normally - people stepping in my way in the grocery store, the husband doing dumbass man things - send me spiraling into RAGE, disproportionate to the offenses.
I wish that I could blame the depo for all the weight gain, but, sadly there’ve been too many manic binges, too many handsful of Honey Nut Cheerios shoved in my mouth on the sly; too much candy, cookies and cake; too many glasses of milk and mega-calorie frappes.
The good news: no more shots. Saw the doc today and she agreed with me that the depo is not going to work for me. Now I just have to wait for it to wear off (for god’s sake, HURRY! while I still have a marriage and a job).
More good news: Altho I’ve strayed and regained weight, I’ve chosen to “wake up” and take responsibility. I have started tracking my food and exercising again. NOW, not in another 5, 10 or 15 regained pounds.
So that is progress of a sort. Deep sigh.
And the Sugar Queen packs up the tattered remains of her self-esteem, wipes the chocolate smudges off her tarnished crown and trudges to the Betty Crocker Center for sugar rehab.
I’m travelin’ down the road and I’m flirtin’ with disaster
I’ve got the pedal to the floor and my life is running faster
I’m outta money outta hope it looks like self destruction
Well how much more can we take with all of this corruption
-Molly Hatchett, “Flirtin’ with Disaster”
Posted on March 16th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
I am stuck in one of those binge-eating/overeating cycles that makes me crazy but that I feel helpless to stop.
Every day, I make resolutions to stop binging – to do ½ hour of exercise – and every day I fail. Or maybe I don’t fail because I just don’t try. I forfeit rather than get off the bench and play.
I hate this feeling of being out of control, knowing that looming ahead is massive weight gain, growing out of my clothes, feeling fat and ugly. Some of my jeans that i was so ecstatic to start wearing again a few months ago are growing uncomfortably tight and hard to fasten.
But when I reach that crucial moment when I’m feeling compelled to eat and eat NOW, equivocating about whether to eat, what to eat and how much, I shush that voice of reason that whispers, You don’t want to do this. You’re not hungry. Eating this just means feeding your fat.
Then I start eating and eating and eating. Feeling that if I stop for an instant that panic is going to pull me under and drown me.
When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is, What can I eat? What do I have stashed around that has lots of sugar in it?
What’s eating me? Anxiety about my job performance, anxiety about possible layoffs and pay cuts next fiscal year, anxiety about possible departmental reorganizations and eliminations, anxiety about finances, anxiety about marital discord, about the things on my to-do list – taxes, etc. – that I really want to keep procrastinating on, anxiety about my clothes becoming tighter and regaining the weight I worked so hard to lose, anxiety about father’s illness(es), anxiety that my mother seems to be headed toward some sort of breakdown or dementia, anxiety about my own health problems – and how they’ll proliferate if I don’t lose the weight and start exercising and eating better, depression because of this endless string of dreary cold days limping toward spring.
And perhaps it’s all exacerbated by the depo provera shot I had 2 months ago to help slow the progression of the endometriosis. I’ve read Web page after Web page about the hormones fucking with people who have depression and anxiety.
This out-of-control eating and emotional baggage feels like the cloud that follows in Pigpen’s wake in the Charlie Brown cartoons – a grey mass trailing after me everywhere I go.
I want to be back in control of my eating. Feeling out of control is to wallow in shame, despair and self-loathing. I want to feel that I’m living with integrity and purpose, and to continually binge and overeat is antithetical to that. It erodes my fragile self respect to live in denial, to lie to myself about my eating, when deep down I *know* the truth.
I eat but try to pretend that I didn’t eat or that I didn’t eat AS MUCH as I did. I think: Maybe I’ll be able to slip under the radar and not gain weight this time. If I don’t step on the scale, then I don’t have to face up to my weight gain. I can pretend I’m staying the same size, clothing be damned.
Why is it so hard to get back on track when I swerve out of control? When I’m in control, I still get those urges to binge and overeat, but I quash them, knowing that to act on those urges is a downward spiral that makes me feel BAD about myself, and it’s so much harder to get back in control than it is to stay the course.
Perhaps what makes it difficult to regain control is the knowing that when I do, I must face the consequences. As long as I keep my head firmly buried in the boxes and bags, I don’t have to face up to my weight, acknowledge that I’m obese or feel compelled to do anything about it.
Sometimes I feel like such a loser to still be struggling with these same issues for nearly 40 years. Yes, nearly half a century now (it all sprang up around age 8-10). Despite therapy, medication, dozens of self-help books, a retreat with Geneen Roth, I still flounder and flail.
Deep sigh.
Posted on March 9th, 2010 by shihtzux2
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »