Am I enough?

I overate yesterday.  I sat down with the nut jar and ate all the almonds I could find.  Of course, I was not looking at them - I did it by the Braille method.  Today, I woke up with that same old overwhelming sadness on me.  I also know I listened to my process in bed last night but when the dog woke me up at 5:45, I couldn't find the MP3 player.  It was already in the living room and I don't remember bringing it out here.  Apparently I did that when the dog went out around 3 or so.

I am feeling like this is both not working and I am not working it.  Like I am waiting for my Elliptical to come before I can keep going.  But I do fine my food choices better.  I can't say I am obsessing any less, though.  When I was doing WW or MF, I always had a support group to share with, ask questions of, etc.  This time, I'm on my own.  I will ask at the center this weekend if they know of any closed FB groups or message boards around for PCH.  But then, maybe I really don't want it.  I don't want to read the negative remarks people make.  This is the last program I am going to do.  If I learn nothing, if I have tossed away $3,000, then it is on me and I am done.  I hope at least that I will learn enough to not be on Intervention or My 600 lb Life.  I don't want to live my life from a position of fear. I want to live it from a position of joy. 

I have felt for some time that I need to eat what my body says it needs, that my mind knows what that is, that the Sue plan is a perfectly acceptable plan.  I know this.  Every program I have been on, I eventually rewrite.  The WW Core program is a great program but the low fat/fat free aspect of it is not good.  Fat doesn't make you fat - sugar does.  Medifast is in a category of its own - it caused me to binge and binge badly.  The 100 plan is more like my natural way of eating but fruit is bad, any sort of wheat/bread is bad, any carb source other than nuts and vegetables is bad.  I am tired of vilifying whole food groups.  I agree with eating things I recognize and avoiding chemicals in my food.  I am starting to tap into my own mind/body rule for eating.  I don't avoid fat, but I don't eat cheese wrapped in bacon and deep fried.  I like brightly colored food, I love cilantro in anything.  I can get along with some cheese but I don't need to make pizza dough out of a whole package of cheese and then eat the whole thing.  My mind is saying that this is not what I need.  But I also don't feel like I need to avoid things.  If I want to eat cake, I want to make the choice to eat it, put the slice on a plate and acknowledge that i am eating it - not cut a teeny slice and shove it in my mouth before I notice it.  As my last hypnotist put it - I want to eat cake, but on my terms not on its.

He did say that there are 4 stages to this process.  And that many people find themselves agitated and resistant in the second stage, which is where I am now.  And if I stop and look at it realistically, I see that there are many changes taking place.  I also know that it isn't all going to happen in one month which is why this is a 9 month program and the processes make reference to completing the whole program.  I will remind myself that what I think and feel do not necessarily reflect reality.  And what my mind thinks, my body hears.

In the meantime, my freezer and fridge are packed again.  I have more things on order.  So this is another piece of my obsession that has popped out because my binging is not happening so much.  So I will listen to my processes and give myself permission to have peace.  To know that I am enough, that I am complete.  That I do not need to fill myself up from the outside.

One month of changes

Again, I am reminded that this journey toward weighlessness has so little to do with the number on the scale. This is simply an outward manifestation of an internal process.  Which means that I can't fight the fight externally - I have to do it internally.  Even though I sometimes think that this just isn't working, this is the process I need to take whether or not the weight comes off.  I have so many years of relying on food and drink for my entertainment and companionship, so many years of being terrified that I won't have enough food or wine that it will take more than a month to rewire my mind.  But there are some positive changes.

I am still more or less free of the oppressive cloud of depression and sadness that  I have carried on my shoulder for the past year.

I am finding that my body reacts better to some things and not so well with others, even if they are considered "healthy".  For instance, I see no problem in my body from using aspartame, but an apple does my in.  If I wasn't hungry when I ate it, I will be chewing on my arm in 15 minutes.  Eating eggs for breakfast is like eating nothing.  A hard boiled egg just feels like eating air.  Also, as much as I love my morning coffee, drinking it makes me hungry all day.   Even though it is half caf now, I am going to add another layer of decaf to the mix so that I can still drink my morning coffee without reacting to it all day.

I am thinking of certain foods that I used to consider a staple and just not wanting to eat them.  These include the copious amounts of cheese and butter I ate as a low carber.  My body seems to be telling me that this is just too much and I don't want to eat them.

Last night, on my way home from work to start my 5 day vacation, my knee jerk reaction was to crack open a bottle of wine but then I asked myself "Is this going to serve me? In what way will it serve me?".  It is not just the manic reaction to the drinking of the wine, but there is also the depressive reaction for the next few days.  Is this serving me?  My "lizard brain" of course want the wine.  It is wired to seek the pleasure.  But my responsible side needs to look at the next day or two when I will be lying on the couch recovering.  And thinking "why did I do that?". 

So I am confident that as I change my inside, my outside will reflect the changes.  Actually, someone has already noticed - she said I looked more vibrant somehow.  I first thought it much be my new complexion brush, or my makeup, or my different shade of lipstick. But I think it is simply the outward manifestation of some inner changes.

Positive changes, healthy beginnings.

I am 3 weeks into this 9 month program.  I have made some realizations, had a few AHA moments and seen some changes that can only be termed Positive Changes.

I don't feel that overwhelming cloud of sadness sitting on my everywhere I go

Yes, I'm moving more, enjoying the feel of my body again and eating better.  But that isn't this week's big deal.  This week, there were 2 of them.

1. For many months now, every Monday and Friday I would stop by Bigelow Gulp for my 32 oz quad shot sugar free latte made with unsweetened almond milk.  No sugar, true.  No dairy either.  But lately I had been noticing that it seemed like too much caffeine in my blood so it some days too 2 days to drink it.  Last Monday, I decided I didn't really want it and that I would just wait until Friday.  Also, I decided to trim it down to a venti triple shot.  Well, Friday came and I got to the corner where I would turn right to go to the coffee shop or turn left and go to work.  I realized I really didn't want the latte at all.  I turned left and went to work, never really feeling like I had missed out on anything.

2. I had changed my wine over-drinking day to Saturday instead of Friday since I read that the only people who can't be hypnotized are those who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  And since my sessions are almost always on Saturday, I change my "day" to Saturday. And then decided that I would change my bottle from 1.5 liters to 750 ml.  Last night was "my day".  I had dinner with my brother and SIL and didn't get home until 8:30.  And I completely forgot to drink my bottle of wine.  That didn't occur to me until this morning but, again, I don't feel like I missed out on anything.  Actually, last weekend, I got a bit of a hint that this was coming.  I was very aware of how bad my stomach felt on Sunday and I didn't like it or feel like it was acceptable any more

I am finding myself seeing that side of myself - the addictive one, the binge eater, the binge drinker, the one who uses men like Kleenex - as a child energy that spent 60 years trying to be filled.  I can look at her with profound love and my adult energy can mother her and heal her now. At this point in my life, she doesn't need to be filled.  She doesn't need to be afraid.  She doesn't need to be numb in order to feel safe.

I used to have a vision of myself as a balloon floating around the air always looking for a tree to tie myself to.  And, at some point, I realized that I was becoming a tree myself.  But while I have been that tree for many years now, the balloon was still floating around out there.  Still looking for a place to land.  Still looking for a place to be safe.  "There's no place safe and no safe place to lay my head". Still afraid.  I am now merging this part of myself into the adult "tree like" part of myself.  She did the best she could to feel safe with what she knew at the time. But this no longer serves me or my current goals of health, vitality and peace. Keeping me safe is no longer her job, her responsibility.  It is mine.

These things that are changing in my life are so much more than mere weight.  Weight is a symptom of the same thing that the drinking, sex, shopping and obsessing about food are.  A means of trying to feel safe.  Finally.  Trying to feel grounded rather than adrift.

 After Dad's death, I was suddenly adrift again without a higher purpose and without a rudder. This is what this part of my journe is all about.  The weight will follow in it's own time.

It's been a long time

It's been nearly a year since my last post.  So many things have changed since then.  It has been a year of extreme transition, heartache and survival.

A year ago, my Dad died.  After his death, just when I figured I was going to be able to live in his house, I was informed that the house would go on the market in the Fall.  I had to find a place to land.  My sister started sending me real estate listings.  I started looking at mobiles.  She said she would cosign a mortgage for me.  Well, that part didn't happen.  But we found a place that works, and works well.  We each put up $15k and she loaned me the other $35k at no interest.  The house actually is a mobile but it's called a "detitled mobile", meaning that the wheels have been removed and it has been tied down to a foundation and retitled as real property so when I bought the house, I bought the lot too.  It is small - 1100 sq ft - but has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  My sister has a room here that she uses when she is in town with or without her husband.  And dog.

 I moved in August along with my 17 year old cat and Dad's dog.  I was there for 1 week before I started work in a call center for the Washington health exchange.  I like the job but more than anything, I like having the structure of a job.  However, since Fall, I have been fighting serious depression.  I started back on Medifast in September after gaining 50 lbs over the past year.  I lost 20 but just couldn't stand it this time.  I stopped and went low carb. I gained 10 lbs.  So now I was up 40 lbs.  Funny, I never maintain my losses, but I also don't go back where I started.  But I could see it coming.  Physically, I am not the 300 lb person I was in 2007, but mentally I am very close.

On March 28, I decided to try Positive Changes Hypnosis.  Yes, it is expensive - $2727 up front.  But I spent more than that the year I was on Medifast.  I know how to eat properly. What I need is to want to.

So I will blog about this part of my journey for now.  This journey has been a lot longer and more convoluted than I ever expected when I started it 8 years ago.  My life has taken a lot of turns I didn't see coming, too.  But here I am - still fighting for life, still trying to find a way to get through it, still too stubborn to lie down and quit. I thought I had it all together with Weight Watchers.  And I did.  Until I didn't.  Medifast worked for me but caused me to binge.  Well, the program didn't.  The "all or nothingness" of it did.  My issue, not Medifast.  But I am sooooo tired of thinking about food.  So tired of counting, measuring, worrying, obsessing.  I need a break from it all - but a break that will not leave me 300 lbs.  This is what I am doing.

And I have to say, the hypnosis is actually amazing.  I am calmer, I slept 6 hours straight 2 days last week (can't remember the last time THAT happened), I feel lighter, I don't think about food as much, I have lost some weight and best of all - the depression is lifting.  I occasionally recognize something that passes for joy.  This is my life and I am claiming it.  It does not honor my parents or the job that we did if I fall apart.  A year of trying to find my feet is enough.

So this is the next part of my journey.  The last part.  The final part.  My house is beginning to feel like home.  I like my job.  It doesn't pay what I used to make, but I can live on it fine.  The dog and cat are in relatively good health.  My health is just fine.  And I am rediscovering my place in the world.  I am proud of what I have done, what I have been through, what I have survived. And it will go on.

The sun will come out

Yesterday, I was having a pity party.  It was rainy and cold, gray outside. It was one of those days when I wanted to just stay in my cave, so to speak.  But I had to go out.  I had a lunch date with a friend (who also happens to be my pastor).

During lunch, I told him that, since Dad died, I just don't belong anywhere anymore; I just am not needed anywhere anymore.  He looked at me and said "I understand what you are saying, Sue.  But you do realize that this isn't actually true, right?"  This sort of stopped me short.  He then asked me what I needed to make me feel better.  I said "Sun".

This reminded me of a couple of things that I had misplaced in my mind lately.  First, that what I feel does not necessarily reflect the reality of a situation. How many times have I thought "I'm fat!" when I am at a weight that I was proud to be at several points in my life.  I sure didn't feel fat then!  My feeling unconnected and unnecessary also did not reflect the reality of my life.  It was a valid feeling, but not true.

Also, I was reminded that I need sunshine. I get gray inside when it is gray and cold outside.  But the sun will come out - if not tomorrow, then eventually.  And I will feel better.  Eventually. 

So I came home with a few different ideas in my head.  I can't say that I stopped the pity part.  I didn't.  But I knew that these feelings, like any feelings, were temporary.  Transitory.  And valid.  I could probably have found something in the house to eat that would numb these feelings, but knowing that they were valid made that unnecessary.  And knowing that I'm doing OK on my grief journey comforted me. 

As I sneak up on some answers to the question "Now what?", I need to keep these things in mind.  That my emotions, while valid, are not always believable.  And that the sun will come out eventually.  To reference a book my friend was reading, those who have never known "down" cannot appreciate "up". 

I was wrong

On May 9, I wrote that it was ME time.  Apparently, I was wrong.  Since Dad died on April 17, I have pretty much spent the whole time sitting on the couch and eating.  Granted, I was sick for a week during that time.  But the other 5 weeks?  Nope, just eating.

Today, I read a blog about a woman who lost a crap load of weight.  Her methods sound very much like Medifast, but the method was not the AHA part of the message.  What was the point of the blog?  Sugar addiction in its many forms.  Once again, I was understanding how sugar addiction affects my life.  Whether it is in the form of sugar or wine, it has my by the throat.  Argh.

So, once again, I am on the sugar free, low carb band wagon.  Actually, I never really left it - I have known for some time that my body works best eating by low carb, no sugar, no dairy and no gluten. But getting there is a struggle sometimes. 

I do fine until noon.  I get up, read the paper while drinking my black coffee, do my crossword puzzles, make breakfast at 9, take a shower around 10 and walk the dog.  At 12 I eat lunch.  But this is where I fall down.  Sometimes I eat lunch (my bagged salads that I have in the fridge).  Sometimes, I don't.  Sometime early afternoon my son gets up and either stays or leaves.  Either way, it confuses me.  If he stays home, he wants to control the tv and I cook some dinner.  If he leaves, then I am left alone, lonely, and lost.  No matter what HE does, I have a problem in the afternoons.  I always plan to make a sensible dinner (God how I HATE that word!), but by the time it is time for dinner, I have snacked my way into oblivion.  So I don't eat.  But by this time, my belly hurts and I continue on my quest to try to "fill the hole" or to make my body hurt as much as my heart does.

Looking back on this, I see sugar's ugly head lurking around the corner.  Sure, the sesame seed crisps and veggie straws have no gluten.  But they DO have sugar.  And I have several bottles of wine that might need drinking as well.  And once I start on either one of these, I don't stop until I run out or pass out. 

Well, it is June 1.  Seems like a good time to start taking care of myself.  I won't die from the anxiety of not eating sugar or drinking wine.  I won't die from anxiety at all.  Next week, I will begin to start making a plan.  It's time.  I need to start looking for a job or finding out what I need to do in order to do this.  I will make an appointment tomorrow at the college to go look at what I need to do to update my skills to a marketable level. 

But I can't sit and eat for the rest of my life.  My journey, so far, has been to embrace a program and lose a bunch of weight.  Then gain exactly half of it back.  Then embrace a new concept and lose a bunch. Then gain half of THAT back.  True, if you look at the math involved, I am always ahead of the game.  But it's not good for my body or my spirit.

This time, I'm really not so much looking at the weight loss aspect as much as I am looking at the health aspect of it all.  I need to learn to use food as fuel primarily and comfort myself in other ways.  I keep thinking I have learned these things and then POW the sugar thing hits me in the face and I'm on a tear again.  This is where I am.  But I am 30 lbs up from where I was, and walking the dog today I was winded and tired.  And my new fat pants are too tight.  So it's time.  Again.  Time to get rid of these particular inflammatory substances and make my body a machine again.  And to feel like actually DOING something. 

It's just freaking time. 

I guess it is ME time

After 4 years of taking care of my parents, I am now unemployed.  My father passed away on April 17.  We were determined to keep him at home until the end so that every time he opened his eyes he saw someone who loved him.  And we did exactly that.  He passed in his own room, holding my son's hands, with the rest of us there.  And immediately, his dog started to cry.

So this week, we buried this incredible man.  He was loved by everyone who knew him.  He was kind, funny, smart and humble.  And his legacy is vastly remembered.  He was buried with military honors and, as requested by him, we had a party afterwards. It all went well - we walked in to his service to the theme song from Lawrence Welk and walked out to In the Mood by Glenn Miller.  We shared remembrances, food, laughs and beer, and we toasted a life well lived.

Unfortunately, we also laid to rest my cousin this week - he was 55 and died suddenly and completely unexpectedly last week while trying to call 911.  He,too, was a wonderful man and will be greatly missed.

So it is now all over.  And now, after 4 years of having a specific, well defined purpose, I have to figure out what my next step is.  My first step, the very first thing I need to do, is take care of myself.  I am currently so far past the end of my rope that I'm not sure where it went.  I have eaten badly all day, every day, for 3 weeks now.  I am up 35 lbs since last September, 15 in the past 3 weeks.  I need to get my body back to feeling good. I need rest, healthy food, and a lack of drama.  I need to keep the anxiety to a minimum and let myself recover.  The last week of Dad's life, at the same time that it was emotionally excruciating, it was also physically challenging.  Getting him from his chair to the bathroom meant we had to physically lift him from the chair into the wheelchair and go from there.  It suddenly took 2 people at a time to care for him.

We are starting the process of cleaning out the house, sorting through the minutiae of their lives, finding a new place to live and deciding what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I am, however, confident that when this part of my life is completed, the next step will be revealed.   In the meantime, I will peek into doors to see what ones open. I will treat my body in the manner that it deserves.  And I will rest.