So . . .

Hey!  Do remember back in the day?  When I had a blog?  That I updated regularly?  Yeah, me too.  Man, those were the days, right?  Good times, I tell ya.  I can FEEL the nostalgia.

. . .

Huh?  Sorry, I was marinating in the nostalgia.  Where was I?

OH, RIGHT.  That BLOG I USED TO UPDATE.  Back before Florida New Year’s Christmas.  Yeeeeeeah.

I think that I think too much.  (Yes, I’m aware of the irony.  Be quiet.)  I came to this conclusion (again – I’ve come to this conclusion before) while standing in the bookstore, leafing through some of Jillian Michaels’ books.  (With a copy of a Williams-Sonoma cookbook tucked under my arm.  Three guesses what book I left the store with, and the first 2 don’t count.)  I was sort of bizarrely fascinated by the fact that she has 3 books out – AND THEY’RE ALL THE SAME DAMN BOOK.  I kept flipping back and forth between them.  Seriously – they’re ALL THE SAME. 

After I got done marveling at the fact that anyone could write 3 books that all contained the EXACT SAME INFORMATION (don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just The Jillian who had multiple copies of a book with different titles – she just was displayed the most prominently), something else occurred to me.  Do you know why it’s possible to write multiple books like that?  Because people don’t listen the first time.  Honestly, all the books pretty much say the same things and after you’ve read a few, you start to know the words by heart.  Stop eating so much crap (although “crap” is defined differently in different books), and get some exercise.  The best books don’t even promise weight-loss, just that you’ll be healthier.  Eat less crap, exercise more.  Bottom line.

And I started thinking about that: about how they all say the same things, with MINOR variations and about how there’s this huge market for all these books that say the same thing.  Now make no mistake: I’m no different than the other bazillion people who buy the same book over and over.  I flip through them, sort of hoping that I’ll stumble on the Magic Secret That Will Allow Me to Lose Weight Without! Even! Trying!  Yeah, I’ll own it.  I know better, but I kind of hope I’m wrong about the knowing better.

And THAT got me thinking.  (Always dangerous, you know.)  Honestly, if I spent half the time eating well and exercising that I spend rationalizing why it’s ok “just this once” or rationalizing why “that” plan won’t work, I swear to God I’d have lost all my weight 10 years ago.  If I spent as much time working out as I spend tracking calories, fat, Points, carbs, protein, whatever, I’d be in the gym a LOT, ok?

And I have a million reasons (or “reasons”) why I haven’t lost weight: I’m afraid of failure, I’m afraid I won’t have anything to blame my unhappiness on, I’m afraid that there ISN’T a thin person inside me, I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid.  But I think I’m most afraid of losing my hiding place.  I overeat and I drink because I’m hiding. 

And (I have GOT to stop starting every paragraph with that word.  Eventually.) I was thinking back to college, before I lived on Tootsie Pops (over 100 licks, by the way, is the answer) and Diet Coke.  You know what?  Even accounting for the Crazy, even BEFORE the Tootsie Pop and Diet Coke Diet started to seem like a good idea, I was losing weight.  I was losing it consistently, and pretty quickly, too (just not quickly ENOUGH, hence the advent of the Crazy Diet).  It was actually the only time in my life that I lost a fair amount of weight in a healthy manner. 

Nowadays I count calories, track my intake, measure my heart rate to account for calories burned, fret about not lifting enough weights, wonder if I’m eating too much fat/protein/carbs.  But in college, pre-crazy, I didn’t do any of those things.  I got some cardio and did some light weights every day, but I didn’t stress about it (in retrospect I could have stood to lift heavier weights, but at the time the conventional wisdom was “light weights, 5,000 reps”).  I didn’t count calories; instead I left mayo off of everything, skipped cheese, didn’t eat a lot of pasta.  Instead I ate whole grains, smoothies for lunch (even those sherbet monstrosities from Jamba Juice), single portions at dinner of whatever was being served (and it was NOT low-cal).  I wasn’t a big snacker, although I had a steady stream of coffee and/or water in my system.  I never got on a scale, instead relying on a tape measure and the fit of some jeans I wanted to fit back into.  I didn’t journal my food, I didn’t track my exercise, I didn’t do any of that.  And I lost weight.  And I haven’t lost more than about 10 pounds successfully since then, with all the counting and calculating and obssessing.

Interesting, no?

So I stopped counting calories the other day.  I’m still keeping a journal of WHAT I ate because *part* of the reason I didn’t overeat during that pre-crazy time was because I lived with other people and I was embarrassed to keep eating just for the taste.  Now I live alone, so I don’t have that impediment anymore.  So I keep a journal so that I know how many servings I’ve had. 

I’m going to make a return to pre-crazy eating and see what happens.  I’m going to keep reading the Beck book and working on that, and I’ll keep a “what I ate” sort of food journal (instead of a “tracking” journal), but other than that, I’m going to try and eat more like I did in the early days of my college weight-loss.  If I find myself going off the deep end, I’ll dial it back, but you know . . . I don’t think I will go off the deep end.  I can’t help feeling pre-emptively RELIEVED, actually.  It would be nice not to have to spend an hour or two every night figuring out how many calories I’ve burned/eaten, and how many I’ll burn/eat tomorrow.  It would be nice to not think about what I can and can’t eat.  It would be nice not to freak out about fat or carbs or protein.  It would be nice not to think about ANY of it SO FREAKIN’ MUCH. 

You know.  Like it used to be.  Back before it wasn’t like that anymore.

I Did It!

I started a weight-loss blog:  One Body for Life. 

In all honesty, this blog will probably be more interesting – that blog is really what I think of as the “facts and figures” blog, and this one is the “what the hell is going on in my head and why the hell is it going on at all?” blog. 

But because I know I have at least a few readers who have EDs, I really didn’t want to post facts and figures here.  But I am cross-posting the first entry from over there, and I’ll cross-post (both ways) from time to time.  I just won’t post weights and food lists here.  🙂

This is another variation on “My Story,” but a little more comprehesive.  Feel free to skip or skim, as you like.  😉

Cross-posted:

I was a normal kid, with a normal body weight. 

Well, let me amend that: I was always heavier than I looked, but multiple doctors have looked at me, looked at my chart, looked at me again and pronounced, “Well, I was going to tell you to lose weight, but you’re not fat!”  So clearly, my body weight wasn’t really an issue.  (I have always, ALWAYS carried a lot more muscle than the average person.  I’m a classic mesomorph.)  (Does anyone still use the somatotypes?  I don’t even know.)

I took a lot of ballet though, and it didn’t take long for me to get super-conscious of my weight.  And although I always wanted to lose 10 more pounds, I didn’t engage in anything more extreme than standard “dieting.”

I didn’t start dieting like a maniac until I went to art school for acting, and their prescribed curriculum (we didn’t get to choose our own classes) included NO dancing at all.  Between the lack of exercise (I went from dancing about 30 hours a week to no exercise AT ALL) and living on a diet of Pasta-Roni (no kitchens in the dorms), I gained the classic Freshman 15.  (It’s a miracle it wasn’t more.)

By the time I transferrred out of there the following year, I was COMPLETELY freaked out about my weight gain.  So I started eating chicken and broccoli.  Which would be healthy, but . . . I ate it every night.  Every. Night.  And pretty soon I started skipping breakfast.  Coffee was enough, right?  I was still eating lunch though, so I figured I was FINE.  JUST FINE. 

Did I mention that I started working out during that time?  An hour a day.  EVERY day.  And if (God forbid) I missed a day, I’d make it up the next day by working out for 2 hours.  Still living on “normal” lunches and dinners of poached chicken and steamed broccoli.  (I still can’t eat chicken and broccoli together.  Separately, sure, but not together.  *shudder*)

I lost weight that school year.  And gained it all back over the summer.

When I went back to school for my last year, I moved in with my best friend’s parents.  (My best friend was still at the aforementioned art school.)  My friend had been an extremely anorexic ballerina some years before, and her mother still thought of those years as her daughter’s “glory years.”  It was a very pro-starving-yourself household.  That house had full-length mirrors on all the closets.  (That will be important later.)

I lost a LOT of weight that year, more through food restriction than through exercise, which maxed out around an hour and a half a day.  I did not lose enough weight to qualify as “anorexic,” but today I would be diagnosed with ED-NOS.  I obssessed about food, about my weight.  I stood in front of those mirrored closet doors every morning, memorizing my flaws so that when I was hungry I would suck on a hard candy instead of eating “real” food.

And then I blew out my knee from too much exercise (probably done improperly, too).  Without the exercise, I wasn’t restricting enough to avoid a weight gain (however slight it may have been), and a switch flipped.  Instead of starving, I started bingeing.  I didn’t see the point in starving myself if I could never be thin enough, so I ate EVERYTHING.

And I gained a lot of weight.  Over the next 3 years I would gain more than 50 pounds by bingeing (and once I started tending bar, drinking).  It’s been 11 years since that switch flipped, and I still don’t have a handle on the bingeing and the drinking (later punctuated by intermittent periods of starvation), although I’m better now than I was then.

But I recently bought my first condo, which has full-length mirrors on the closets.  I have deliberately not had full-length mirrors in any place I’ve lived in the last decade.  I find myself staring at my reflection, listing my flaws like Pavlov’s dog, wondering how many calories I could burn at the gym today.  I keep trying to reset my brain, to repeat all the things that are good about me.  But that old voice in my head overrides it all.  I find myself seriously considering just drinking coffee for breakfast, thinking that if I go to bed early enough, I can just skip dinner, dreading social occasions that involve food.

I refuse to go down that path again.  I. REFUSE.  But I also know that I’m standing at the head of the path, and that right now I’m not strong enough to withstand it completely: I’m not strong enough to accept myself as I am, and to take care of myself just because I’m worth it.

So I’m losing weight.  And I’m blogging it because I need some accountability.  I need to not be COMPLETELY insane about it, and if I have to confess that I’m eating lettuce 3 meals a day, then I can’t deny the insanity of that.  (Whereas if I tell no one, then I can always delude myself into thinking that I’m just “not that hungry now” and “I’ll eat later.”  And “later” of course never comes – although the binge eventually will.)

So this is the beginning.  I chose to title the blog “One Body for Life” because I’ve read a lot of diet blogs with self-hating names, and I couldn’t help thinking, “But what about when the weight is lost?”  I don’t want to feel like I’m running from something for the rest of my life.  This is it.  This is the only body I get.  I’ve fucked it over more times than I can count (at one point I even had a doctor tell me I’d shot my metabolism all to hell, and that when it finally reset, he had no idea what my set point would be), and I have to start taking care of it.  Not starving it, not stuffing it, just treating it WELL.  Because I don’t get a second one, and I can’t send this one back for an exchange.

One body (and mind) for life.  Time to start taking care of them both.

Bear With Me, Here . . .

I’ve got a lot of stuff knocking around in my brain.

I’m still thinking about the separate blog thing.  I definitely don’t want to run a weight-loss blog from here; I like the opportunity to do some serious navel-gazing self-reflection that I have here.  And there are some pros and cons to running something like that at all.

On the one hand, I feel like if I have to write things down, it makes everything a little more real.  It’s harder to ignore what I’m eating (and WHY I’m eating it) when I have to commit it to “paper.”  So that’s good.  And if I’m really going to commit to changing some things, well, writing things down also helps me spot the Crazy a lot faster.  (It’s harder to delude myself that a diet consisting entirely of lettuce and Jolly Ranchers is normal when I see it in print.  If I don’t write it down, I keep thinking, “Well, I’m just not hungry now.  I’ll eat later . . . ” but “later” never really comes.)  So those are both the pros in favor of a new blog.

I wouldn’t keep it all here, because I like having a place for dealing with more emotional shit, but also because I know I have at least a couple of readers with eating disorders of their own, and the last thing they need is to see calorie counts, weights, etc.  I’m not out to make anyone crazy(ier).  And honestly, I don’t want to be in the position of putting trigger warnings on everything.  I just don’t want to think about it that closely.

On the other hand, I realized today that many years ago, I was on a Kind-of-Not-Crazy Diet (at a different time than my previous Not-Crazy Diet), and then I moved.  I moved into a house with FULL-LENGTH MIRRORS ON THE CLOSETS.  Just like now.  And that’s when I went into full-on, batshit-crazy-diet mode, complete with lettuce and coffee and Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Pops. 

What’s that?  Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it?  Yeah, yeah.  (I think Winston Churchill said that, although I’m pretty sure George Santayana said it before him . . . well, not the “yeah, yeah” part.  That was probably the Beatles.  . . .  What?)

ANYWAY.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I can look at those mirrors and NOT aggressively pursue weight-loss, and I don’t have the money to have the doors replaced right now (yeah, I actually thought about doing that).  So I’m back to the idea that if I had to show the world what I was doing (even if no one read it), I’d be too embarrassed to ACTUALLY be as disordered as I would probably wind up otherwise.  (And no, I wouldn’t just lie.  I don’t know why I feel like that would be EVEN WORSE – especially since I’ve lied about my eating habits in real life – but I do.)

And I’ve already been messing with the Not-Crazy Diet: keeping the criteria and adding calorie counts back in, that sort of thing.  I’d like to not go overboard with that, especially without realizing it.

I’m kind of coming out in favor of a diet blog, here.

So I’ve been looking around at some diet blogs though, and SERIOUSLY WTF is up with some of these names?  There are SO, SO many that are honestly just horrible.  Names like “Fight the Fat” and “Escape the Weight” and “Running from the Muffin Top.”  (All those names are made up, btw.  I didn’t want to link to anyone in a derogatory manner.)  But honestly, I can’t help looking at those names and thinking, “but what about when you’ve lost the weight, and you’re stuck with a blog name that is so negative and self-hating?” 

Yes, I’m aware of the irony surrounding someone like me trashing on self-hate.  Shut up already.

It just kind of makes me sad that so often people are framing weight loss as a fight or an escape from something or as running from something.  What about running TO something?  Or resolving to take care of yourself just because it’s your body and YOU ONLY GET ONE?

(Again.  Yes.  I see the irony here, since my aggressive weight-loss efforts are TOTALLY motivated by the fact that I currently hate my body and yes I know it’s disordered and all that.  I KNOW.  But – and this is key – that doesn’t mean I have to REINFORCE that belief, you know?)

Um.  I forgot where I was going with that.  My brain, it is not all here today.  Soooo . . . I guess that is all.  For now.

Goals, Visualizations and Other Fun Stuff

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals; about who I want to be.  And as I’ve been doing that, it’s been interesting to stay a little detached from my brain; to actively watch for the things that send me spiraling into obssession and self-destruction, for the things that make me feel bad about myself, for the things that I only want because I believe they’ll magically make me a whole different person.

I’ve noticed how often my goals have been about the way that I LOOKED, as opposed to what I could DO.  (And by “often,” I mean “always.”)  I won’t say that wanting to look different doesn’t still motivate me.  There is definitely some straight-up vanity involved – and it IS vanity – it doesn’t have anything to do with being healthier.  I want people to notice me when I walk down the street.  But at the same time, I’m trying really, REALLY hard not to let that be the number one focus of my motivation.  I’m trying really hard to build what I think of as “capability” goals: to do 10 (or 100) pushups (first I have to do ONE “real” one – sigh), to do a pull-up (or 10), to get back into the splits, etc. 

Along those same lines, I have to remember that if/when I visualize myself in a thinner body, it WON’T MAGICALLY MAKE ME SOMEONE ELSE.  (Go read “The Fantasy of Being Thin” over in the blogroll, under the section on Posts I Re-Read.)  So every once in a while, when my jeans feel tight, or I’m tired or cranky or depressed, I close my eyes and imagine myself thinner, feeling EXACTLY THE WAY I FEEL NOW.  I remind myself that I will still have days when I feel bloated or tired.  I will still have days when I’d rather crawl back to bed than go to work.  I will still have days at the gym where for some unknown reason I can’t go as fast, as far, as long.  I will STILL HAVE THOSE DAYS. 

It’s been an interesting exercise, actually.  It’s kept me grounded in my body.  It’s kept me connected to my body in a way that I haven’t always been in the past.  In the past, I couldn’t wait to get out of “this body,” as though there was another one waiting for me.  This time around, I’m finding myself gently feeling around the idea that this IS my body: fat or thin, energetic or lethargic, healthy or unhealthy.  This is it.  It might change (it certainly will, whether on purpose or not), but I will never get a “whole new body.”  I’ve become more aware that the way I feel in this body, right now, even on my bad days, is the way I will ALWAYS feel in it, no matter what number is on the tag in my pants.  It’s been eye-opening to think in those terms, because when we’re losing weight (culturally speaking), we’re encouraged to believe that we’ll become a Whole! New! Person! when in reality, that’s a load of crap.  It’s interesting, terryifying, exhilarating and oddly comforting all at the same time, to know that the way I feel in my body now – good days, bad days, capable days, days when I’m too bloated from Chinese food to button my favorite jeans – all those things will remain exactly the same.  I can’t carve away parts of my life the way I used to dream about carving away parts of my body, heedless of the blood and the damage, just to make the fatty tissue GO. AWAY.  (Yes, I used to dream that.  Both awake, as a wish, and asleep as a dream.  And it wasn’t a nightmare, either; it was a dream.  I think that freaks me out even more.)  I can’t do it.  And then again, even if I COULD do it, if I could carve away the external parts of me, the internal would still be there.  My insides would be exactly the same, so I might as well make peace with them.

I will always have days when my jeans are tight and uncomfortable, no matter what I weigh.  (Hell, let’s be honest: I’ll have those days at least once a month!)  Huh.  Who knew?

In other news, I did finally meet a goal today.  I ran a mile without stopping.  It nearly KILLED me, but I did it, LOL.  See, even when I was in good shape, I wasn’t ever able to run a mile.  All my conditioning was anaerobic, so running was WAY hard.  (Dancing is EXTREMELY anaerobic: you go all-out for 3-5 minutes in a dance, then step aside and wait while someone else does their piece.  Then you go all-out for another 3-5 minutes, and step aside again.  I can do that a million times and not get tired, but ask me to go more than 5 or 6 minutes – 7 or 8 when I was in really good shape – even at a slow pace, and my body is like, “Wha???”)  So I did it.  I’ve never in my LIFE been able to run a mile, but I did it today.  Granted, it was probably the SLOWEST mile ever run, but what the hell.  I’m celebrating anyway.  😉

What Are You Getting Out of Your Situation?

Some years ago I heard a speaker say that whatever situation you were in, if you weren’t changing it, you were getting something from it.  If you’re not losing weight, you’re getting some sort of positive reinforcement for not losing.  If you’re exercising too much, you’re getting something out of it.  If you’re drinking, if you’re stuck in a bad relationship, if your house is a mess, WHATEVER, you’re getting something out of it.  Because humans, she remarked, are not biologically hardwired to do things we get no benefit from.

I remember thinking that she was dead wrong.  I remember walking off in a bit of a huff, thinking to myself, “I don’t get ANYTHING out of being overweight!  It’s horrible!  I’d change it in a heartbeat if I could!  And I’d do it without being compulsive about it!”

But I think she was right.

See, after I stomped off (metaphorically, anyway), I really started thinking about it.  Not in a positive way, mind you, but rather in an “I’ll prove HER wrong!” sort of way.  So I started wracking my brain to come up with ways that I benefitted from staying right where I was.  At first, I couldn’t think of anything.  And then I started thinking of reasons why SOMEONE might benefit, but not me, no sir.  And then some of those reasons, as they floated up to the surface of my brain, hit closer and closer to home. 

Do you ever have those moments where you recognize something about yourself, or in yourself, that you haven’t wanted to see?  Have you ever had a moment where a statement came out of your mouth or a thought flew through your brain, and you were straight-up HORRIFIED to realize that it was in there, buried in your psyche, but at the same time, you KNOW there’s a part of you that really feels that way?  It was kind of like that.

If I don’t lose weight, I don’t have to deal with any of my other problems.  I don’t have to deal with the day-to-day stresses of life, or the disappointments or the hurt.  I don’t have to deal with any leftover issues from childhood or any leftover issues from adulthood.  Because everything can be attributed to hating my body: I’d be happier if I were thinner, I’d be less stressed, more athletic (THAT’S a joke, right there), more liked, more loved, more perfect.  And I know from this place in my head that if I were perfect physically, that my life would automatically be perfect, too.  I’d never get hurt, get betrayed, feel depressed.  I’d never be lonely or sad or angry again.  I’d be the perfect person, with the perfect life, riding happy shiny unicorns into the end of the rainbow.

The irony of course, is that I’ve BEEN thin, so I know first-hand that no matter what my outsides look like, my insides are still the same.  I’ll never be inherently athletic, I’ll still have bad days, I’ll get angry and sad and lonely sometimes (and sometimes a LOT of times).  I KNOW all that.  But the memory is a funny thing.  Even though I remember being thin and unhappy (unhappy in a different, ED way maybe, but still unhappy), some part of my brain REFUSES to acknowledge it.  That part of my brain believes with all its might that THIS time will be different, that last time shouldn’t be an indicator of the future, that THIS time I will be PERFECT, GODDAMMIT.

And as long as I don’t lose the weight, I don’t have to deal with the reality that I still won’t be perfect.  As long as I don’t lose the weight, I can hang on to my fantasy.  As long as I hang on to the bingeing, I’m safe in my self-hatred.  I don’t have to change.  I don’t have to do any self-examination.  I don’t have to do ANY of that, because I can just believe that my only problem is the number on the scale (or on the measuring tape, or on the tag in my pants).  It’s a convenient scapegoat, a brilliant dodge. 

Not only that, but if I don’t lose the weight, I blend in.  I can dodge male attention if I want to (no, I was never assaulted and my dad never touched me – I have no idea where that particular issue comes from), I can blend into the background, I can avoid calling attention to myself.  I don’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions about How I Did It (TM), or listen to people tell me how much BETTER I look (which always makes me want to go cry in the bathroom) now that I’m So Much Thinner.  I don’t have to deal with the women who either badger me relentlessly for my “secret” (which in the past was, “stop eating and exercise 2 hours a day” – big fucking secret there), nor do I have to deal with the jealous women who have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight making catty, backhanded compliments (that result in more bathroom crying – I’ve gotta work on that).  I don’t have to listen to people tell me how Good I’m being in an effort to have me reassure them that they too, are Good (and of course, they always deny that – what kind of fucked-up games do we play in our heads??).

All of those scenarios call up all kinds of anxieties and painful emotions, and if I don’t lose weight, I don’t have to go there.  I don’t have to learn how to deal with it.  I can just hide from those emotions and not have to confront them.

That same speaker said that until you figure out what you’re getting from your situation or behavior, you can’t figure out if you REALLY want to change.  You have to know what you’re giving up in order to make an informed decision, because otherwise the setbacks you encounter will just unhinge your progress altogether. 

I really want to change.  But when I drag all that shit out into the light, the waves just rise up against the black sky and crash down over me, sending me spinning under the water. 

Guess I better learn to swim in the dark.  (But I really, really hate the dark.)

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

(Apologies to Judith Viorst.)

Sooooo, yeah.  That whole Secretaries’ Day thing?  Bad.  Scene. 

Our bosses sent all the secretaries to lunch at the country club today.  And the food issues were fine.  I ate what I felt good about, and what sounded good, and there were no issues – thank you to everyone who commented with recommendations about bringing extra snacks and stuff for later, just in case there wasn’t anything there I felt ok eating.

It was the company that sent me over the edge.

Someone will have to explain to me why it is that when groups of women get together, the conversation has to center around dieting and weight: how fat we are (because no one EVER thinks they’re just fine the way they are, REGARDLESS of what they weigh), what diets we’ve tried, how fat our family members are, how “good” or “bad” we’re being at whatever meal we’re eating.  On second thought, never mind.  I know all the reasons.  I took all the women’s studies classes in college.  😉

I did not take my own car.  That was my mistake, and I thought about it before I left, but dismissed the idea.  I’ve DEFINITELY learned my lesson. 

I was doing ok for the most part, although I was starting to struggle with people commenting on how “good” I was being.  Mostly I just didn’t want to feel sick all afternoon from eating too much (or from eating foods that give me a stomachache no matter how little I eat), so the constant fawning and comparing (“Oh, you’re so good, and I’m being so bad!!”) was REALLY starting to get to me.  (I did finally point out the stomachache issue and that aversion therapy is a powerful thing.)

But the constant diet talk was wearing, and toward the end of the lunch one lady (who is actually a very nice lady, bless her heart: the stereotypical Italian mom) started talking about her daughter and how her daughter needed to lose weight.  I was gritting my teeth and trying to shut up (I’d made a couple of comments trying to a) turn the conversation to something else, and b) pointing out that if the daughter wasn’t concerned about it, maybe Mom shouldn’t be either – I was nicer than that, though) , but then she said for the SECOND TIME that her daughter had told her to lay off (specifically, “Mom, you are more worried about this than I am; I’m happy the way I am”), but that she (mom) still told her daughter that she had to be careful and not “let herself go.”

And I flipped.  I mean I really flipped.  This was about 20 minutes into her tirade, and I looked at the woman and said, “You know, it seems to me that if she doesn’t feel bad about herself, then good for her, since most women hate their bodies.  I mean, she could just stop eating.  She could just stop eating altogether and starve herself down to a size that you’d find acceptable and end up in the hospital with an eating disorder!  Some of us do that!  But hey, she wouldn’t be letting herself go, then, right?  She’d be thin!  Frankly, it seems to me that if the WORST thing you can say about your daughter is that you don’t like the way she LOOKS, then you’re a lucky woman! ” 

“Oh, I know.  I know.  But if she’d just -”

“STOP.  Just STOP.  I don’t want to hear it anymore.  You’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes complaining about your daughter.  And I guarantee you every time you start in on her, you’re hurting her.  JUST!  STOP!”

Yeah.  Bad manners and too much personal information, all in one convenient package!  Go, me!  And I wish I could say  I was less dramatic than that, but no.  Drama is in my nature, apparently.  *SIGH*  Next year, I will either take my own car, or (better yet) just take the day off and dodge the whole gauntlet.  Because nothing is worth crying in the bathroom later and then having to blame allergies for a red face.  (And even as I write this, I can guarantee there will be more crying later.  I feel like SHIT about myself right now – because you know, someone else’s stuff is ALWAYS ABOUT ME.  At least I can see the lunacy of it.)

(I did apologize later for causing a scene.  I’ve had the Miss Manners drill.  But secretly?  I’m not sorry.  Embarrassed, yes – but not sorry.  Not really.)

Gone to Ground

I seem to have gone to ground the last several days (not to mention the week that I was gone).  I’m not 100% sure why, although I know some of it.  For a while I was really struggling not to just sabotage myself completely, struggling not to binge and starve and sleep.  I’m not sure what triggered it, but I’d guess part of it was the stress of the last month or so (ShoWest is ALWAYS stressful – so is ShowEast, for that matter), and part of it was feeling like I’d fallen off the workout wagon AGAIN and that made me a bad person.

All that kind of self-indulgent crap.

But I’ve noticed that the “down” periods between the “normal” periods are becoming shorter.  It takes me less time to recover from them, to pull myself up by my fingernails, set my jaw and decide that I will not be beaten.  And my productive periods are longer, too.  I can go longer before the crash, longer between the periods of depression and rage.  I *think* that’s a good sign.  Maybe after a while they’ll just slowly stop showing up altogether.  That would be really nice.

I’m tired of being this person.  I wasn’t always; for a while (at least a year or two in elementary school ;)) I was pretty normal.  There have been extended periods of self-discipline in my life.  I’m not sure where that person went, but I want her back.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “building a better mousetrap,” only in this case, it’s more about “building a better me.” 

I did that in college: spent the better part of a year thinking about what I wanted, and then just . . . CHANGING somehow to get it.  Created a whole new me, out of my head.  And it wasn’t a facade – or rather, it wasn’t after a while.  It was like vines growing up around a tree, until they actually embed themselves in the tree and become part of it.  (Well, some kinds of vines do that.  Other kinds kill the tree.  But let’s not go there.)  I’d put on this suit of vines, and after a while it was just PART of me. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.  About who I want to be – not in the abstract, but in the very minutely specific.  Do I want to be someone who gets out of bed at 7:00am or 8:00am?  Do I want to be someone who works out every day or just a few days a week?  Do I want to be someone more active than I’ve been in the past?  If so, how?  Do I want to hike? Dance? Go back to martial arts?  If I want a skill, how good do I want to be?  Do I want to dance semi-professionally?  Do I want a black belt? 

But even more than that, if I imagine myself as I would want to be, does THAT person have a black belt? Does she work out every day? What does she eat?  Does she like sports?  What kind of job does she have?  Does she stay in or go out? How often? How many friends does she have? From where?

And I’ve slowly, slowly been starting to sort out that person.  Just in the last few days I’ve had the internal conversations about not wanting to do something, and then the comeback thought – I’m going to build a better me.  Like a robot or a doll, only less creepy, LOL.   I’m building a whole new personality, a new body, a new mind, a new way of dealing with the world.  Obviously to a certain extent I’ll always be the same person, but I’m tired of this specific person.  I’m tired of the maladaptive coping mechanisms and the low self-esteem.  I’m tired of feeling like I can’t accomplish anything.  I’m tired of feeling like I’m not enough.

I’m not sure that putting on a new suit of . . . of “personality” I guess, is the best way to do it, but it’s worked for me in the past.  I like to know what I’m evolving toward, LOL.  I wonder who I’ll be this time next year.  I’m pretty sure I won’t be me anymore.

Please, Please Check This Out

If you’ve never been over to Rachel’s FANTASTIC eating disorder and body acceptance blog, The F-Word, go check it out now.  Specifically, she has a post up titled, “AED Releases Awesome New Guidelines for Childhood Obesity Programs.”

From her blog (links disabled, but they’ll work on her site):

Finally! A group that actually *gets* it! The Academy for Eating Disorders has issued new guidelines for childhood obesity prevention programs that take into consideration the harmful effects such programs can potentially have on children’s physical, social and emotional health, not to mention disordered relationships with food and body. As regular readers know, this is an issue I’ve been writing about for some time now — read here and here. Some of the group’s recommendations include (emphasis mine):

• Interventions should focus on health, not weight, so as to not contribute to the overvaluation of weight and shape and negative attitudes about fatness that are common among children and have harmful effects on their physical, social and psychological well-being.
• The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Consistent with this definition, interventions aimed at addressing weight concerns should be constructed from a holistic perspective, where equal consideration is given to social, emotional and physical aspects of children’s health.
• Interventions should focus not only on providing opportunities for appropriate levels of physical activity and healthy eating, but also promote self-esteem, body satisfaction, and respect for body size diversity. [C]onstructing a social environment where all children are supported in feeling good about their bodies is essential to promoting health in youth.
• Weight is not a behavior and therefore not an appropriate target for behavior modification. Children across the weight spectrum benefit from limiting time spent watching television and eating a healthy diet. Interventions should be weight-neutral, i.e. not have specific goals for weight change but aim to increase healthy living at any size.

 . . .

I personally think this should be required reading for anyone with a kid (or 2 or 3 or . . . YOU know).  I’m so glad to see an organization finally, FINALLY trying to address the (very real and frightening problem) of how a focus on “fat” can fuck up our kids.  (Sorry for the language, but COME. ON.)

Go now!  Read more at The F-Word!

Tinkering. Panicking. Paradigm Shifting. Part 1

So after reading The Metabolic Diet and hearing pretty much the EXACT SAME THING from my doctor, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it work for me.  (That in itself is sort of hilarious, in my opinion.  Leave it to someone with control issues to decide that I can’t just eat what I’m supposed to eat – I have to “make it work.”)

I’ve also been reading The New Rules of Lifting for Women (reviewed by MizFit here), and really enjoying it.  It helps that it actually fits EXACTLY in with what my metabolic diet (MD) and my doctor’s diet (DD) are, too.

I’m trying really hard to make peace with my body.  I’m finally really understanding (not just intellectually, because I’ve known that for a long time, but EMOTIONALLY for the first time) that no matter what I do or don’t do, no matter what I eat or don’t eat (or how much), I will NEVER have a ballerina’s body.  I will never look like Charlize Theron or Julia Roberts or the models in the catalogs.  My body is not built to look like that.

When I really started to understand that, I started actively looking for someone who looked like ME.  Someone with my body type, even if they were in better shape, because at least that way I had a (slightly) more realistic idea of what I could do if I committed myself.  I have a body like Jessica Biel (if she had boobs) or Britney Spears (which I find sort of annoying because I don’t particularly LIKE her, but I’ll admit that when she’s touring, she looks DAMN good).  I have a body that puts on muscle like crazy, that gets definition without TOO much work, and that has more propulsive power than inertial power (meaning that when I danced, I was a “jumper” as opposed to say, a “turner” or a “balancer”).

See, I have this habit of collecting information and then not doing anything with it, because I find it overwhelming.  But over the last month or two (as my blog has been quiet, except for the occasional “percolating” post), I’ve been  . . . well, percolating. I’m just realizing that all the reading/watching/navel-gazing I’ve been doing for the last couple of months really DID have a purpose.  I’ve been sifting through things, looking for answers, looking – REALLY looking – for what would work for ME.  I haven’t been posting about it because it’s never a conscious process for me.  It’s not like I read something and think, “well, this might work, but this part of it is a problem.”  It’s more like I read things and think, “hmmm . . . interesting,” and file it away in my head.  Eventually there’s enough info in the files for my subconscious to start putting various pieces together.  (I worked this way even as a kid.  I call it the “macro-puzzle” phenomenon.  It’s the same part of me that could look at a math problem beyond my grade level and get the right answer – but I couldn’t show my work, because I didn’t know HOW I’d gotten that answer.  The puzzling all happened unconsciously.  My teachers LOVED that.  *rolls eyes*)

So I’m realizing now that I’ve been macro-puzzling for the last two months or so.  My brain is finally starting to toss out possible things, and (as always) it’s like a revelation in my head: “oh, what I read in THAT book fits HERE, and what I heard from THAT person fits HERE, and they kind of both work with THAT thing I read on someone’s blog THERE.”  See what I mean?

ANYWAY.  I have a point, I swear.  But I’m (unintentionally) writing this post in the same macro-puzzle way that I think: disparate pieces of info that will eventually come together.  I swear I’ll get there.  😉

One of the food-based things I keep running into is how to keep track of my food without making myself totally freakin’ insane.  I have to admit that in some ways, WW is good for that: the Points system is small numbers, straightforward (once you get the hang of it) and easy to use.  It also leads to a nutrition plan that is TOTALLY WRONG for me.  See, as you lose weight, you get fewer Points.  Points are affected by the amount of calories, fat and fiber in a food.  Fat and calories raise Points, fiber lowers them.  Can you start to see where that might lead to a diet that’s not exactly high-protein?  If I eat the way I’m supposed to eat according to my doctor and the M. Diet, I go OFF THE CHARTS for the Points.  If I eat within my Points and follow the WW program, it’s flat-out not enough food.  I’m hungry and cranky all the time.  (And of course, being hungry leads to its own ED problems.)  Not only that, but the lowest my weight has ever been on WW was 175.  I’ve never been able to get it any lower using that plan, though I’ve been (healthily) lower than that at other times – mostly through crazy amounts of exercise, but still.  So on the one hand, the plan is easy to follow, and it’s familiar (which makes me want to cling to it like a child with a blanket), but on the other (more important) hand, I already know that it doesn’t work for me.  If I continue to follow it, I’m just beating my head against a brick wall.

But I like journaling, so I have to figure out what else to journal.   I’ve tried to track calories, fat, protein and carbs, but that’s so much info that I get overwhelmed and obssessive about it.  But if I don’t journal at all, I forget how many “just this once” moments I have, and I derail myself. 

Normally, this is where I throw in the towel, and say “Fuck it.  I don’t care.”  But I’m tired of not caring.  I’m tired of not feeling well in the morning.  I’m tired of being hungry or bloated or feeling hungover (even without alcohol).  I have to find SOMETHING.

But this is getting LONG, even for me.  I’ll post the second half tomorrow.

My, This Soapbox is High

Ok, I have to preface this by saying that I know I’m in the minority, feeling the way I do.  I know.  I know that the rant I’m gearing up for doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people.  But it is to me.

I’ve lost a little weight.  Not a lot, maybe 10 pounds or so, and I really lost that before Christmas; I haven’t lost more than a pound or two since then.  And I’m ok with that; I have mixed feelings about losing weight solely for vanity reasons, anyway.  But it’s enough to show.  It’s enough that when I’m wearing jeans and t-shirts that it’s noticeable (not so much in office clothes).

So yesterday I had some friends over.  And a couple of them asked me if I’d lost weight.  The first was from the first person to arrive, so I didn’t have to deal with it in front of others.  The second person asked me in the kitchen, and when I said, “Yeah, some.  My jeans fit differently, so I must have,” (more on that response in a minute) she responded with “Good for you!”

And I was PISSED.

I didn’t say anything to her, because she was really just mindlessly participating in a cultural exchange: weight loss good, weight gain bad.  But I was really upset.  First and foremost because, even if we assume that weight loss is really the panacea the media would have you believe, that sort of depends on HOW you lost the weight, doesn’t it?  Whole foods and going to the gym = good, but skipping meals and working out excessively = bad, right?  We have NO IDEA how someone lost their weight.  Are they eating enough?  Are they subsisting totally on packaged, processed, “diet” food?  Because I can lose weight eating frozen diet dinners 3 meals a day, but I’m not HEALTHY.  In fact, I’m less healthy doing that than I am at a higher weight, eating “real” food.  And if I stop eating altogether, I can lose a LOT of weight.  Am I healthy?  NO.  Beef broth and Club crackers (my most recent – that is to say, within the last 3 years or so – preferred starvation diet) do not make a healthy diet.  Hell, for all she knows, I was diagnosed with some horrible wasting disease.  People who go through chemo often lose weight because they can’t keep food down.  THERE’S NO WAY TO KNOW HOW I DID IT, so congratulating me on it . . . it’s weird.  I don’t like the message it sends: weight loss is good AT ANY COST.  That bothers me a LOT.

So there’s that. 

There’s also the fact that weight-loss, even attempted in a healthy manner, does not NECESSARILY make you healthier.  It might, but it’s not a given.  There’s a whole page on this site marked “Links to Studies,” so I’m not going to post a bunch of stuff about it here.  You can go check out some of that stuff if you’re so inclined.  But suffice it to say that EVERY BODY IS DIFFERENT.  And that includes levels of health.  Just as it’s possible for some people to be quite thin and healthy, it’s also possible to be quite fat and healthy (and the reverse is true for other people).  And there’s no way to know by looking at someone how healthy they are.  My “fat” weight might be your healthy weight, or my “thin” weight might be your “overweight” weight.  Even if we’re similar heights.

ALSO.

Why is my body up for public comment at all?  AT ALL?  It’s not like I brought the subject up, you know?  It would have been one thing to solicit the comment: “Hey, I dont know if I like my new haircut.  What do you think?”  But it’s another thing altogether when its unsolicited.  Would you walk up to a work colleague and tell them, “Thank god you changed your hair cut.  That last cut was hideous?”  Probably not.  And don’t tell me that’s not the same, because I phrased that differently.  It’s THE SAME because I phrased it differently.  Because when someone compliments your haircut, there is NO IMPLICATION that the previous haircut was bad.  But when was the last time you heard a normal-weight person complimented on their weight-gain?  Society says that fat is bad, unhealthy, ugly, and a host of other things.  No, you only get compliments when your weight goes DOWN.  When it goes up, people studiously avoid saying anything.  (Then again, if someone said, “You got a new haircut!  Good for you!” wouldn’t you feel the tiniest bit patronized?  It’s weird, right?  My body is no different, thanks.)

(And I think it’s probably just the opposite for those who are underweight due to EDs.  Based on what I’ve seen and heard, those folks would also like people to stop commenting on their weight gain.  Different mental issues maybe, but still a foundation of IT’S MY BODY.  WHY IS IT UP FOR PUBLIC DISCUSSION?  Especially since I’ve watched people in recovery interpret “you look great” as “you fat cow,” and immediately go back to starving themselves.  It’s NOT helpful.)

And I know, I KNOW it’s a cultural thing.  I KNOW that she meant well.  I KNOW that she was doing her best to be encouraging and congratulatory.  But the implicit comment in any comment like that is that you weren’t good enough BEFORE.  That “good for you” because you’re not “settling” for being a fat cow.  That you’re somehow doing BETTER, that you’re DEDICATED, that you’re IMPROVING YOURSELF. 

And all that brings me back to, but what if I’m not?  NO ONE KNOWS how I lost that weight.  At least, no one who comments on the loss.  What if I starved it off?  What if (as is really the case) I was just about 10 pounds higher than where my body likes to be, and now I’ve evened out?  What if?

And and and.  I know this is a huge issue for me that most people think I’m off my rocker about.  I know.  I’ve read too many feminist books.  Whatever.  And a lot of this has to do with my own internal struggle: with being uncomfortable with the principle of weight-loss for vanity, while engaging in it at the same time.  I haven’t resolved that paradox for myself yet.  I DO know that when I’m losing weight for vanity (I want to make the “vanity” part clear, because my health is fine), I make some choices that are better, and some that are worse.  I go to the gym and get stronger (good), but sometimes I get Crazy Brain and go to bed hungry (bad).  I eat less sugar and drink less wine (good), but eat more processed “diet” frozen dinners ( bad – I LOVE them, but let’s not lie about the nutritional value there.)  Am I really coming out ahead?

For now, I think so.  I feel better when I go to the gym and eat less sugar and fewer refined carbs in general.  But also because if I’m “dieting” it FORCES me to deal with Crazy Brain instead of just ignoring it.  It FORCES me to face things like going to bed hungry, which I KNOW is bad for me.  It FORCES me to recognize just how deeply entrenched this mindset is in my head: deeply enough to consider going to bed hungry in pursuit of vanity.  It forces me to see that in myself, to recognize that I DON’T LIKE IT, and then to have to figure it out.  It forces me to recognize that I’m so deeply ambivalent about it and what it represents that rather than say, “Yes, I lost 10 pounds because I tried” to my friend in the kitchen, I say, “Oh, yeah, I think I might possibly have lost some – I really don’t know.”  It forces me to get to know myself better, even the parts of myself I don’t like.  So at the moment, I’m flirting with dieting.  Some days I do, some days I don’t.  It’s a relatively half-hearted effort, frankly.  But right now, it’s enough.  And the weight-loss, although it was the motivating factor and initial catalyst, is becoming less and less the primary reason.  Mostly I’m getting to where I really want to clean out my head, and this brings up a lot of issues for me, so that I can deal with them.  (Among those issues is that same paradox: I LOVE the vanity “high” and LOATHE what it represents.  Make sense?)

But that still doesn’t mean that my body is an object for public comment.  Now I just have to figure out a way to convey that message to well-meaning commenters without being an asshole about it.