Mar 16: One of the best falafels OF ALL TIME

What up, groupies?

It's been a long time since I blog and rolled. Its been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

Yes it has.

Sorry about that. You will be pleased and perhaps surprised (I shall take no offense) to hear that I am still "OP"* as they say at the dieting trade shows and online fora. I had a week where I lost nothing, then two weeks in a row where I missed my DubDub meeting (last week for JURY DUTY! Quel excite! Except, turns out, not.) Found out today I lost 2 pounds. That's for three weeks, plus the week before that I didn't lose, just maintained. So, yeah, a little irritating. But whatever, it's still down, so that's awesome. Also, Moammar has been advancing on the freedom-from-fat-fighters who want me to exercise regularly, quashing the revolution. I need to institute a No Green Couch Zone or something. I know, this metaphor is beyond bizarre. This is what happens when you run out of decent blogging material and just start letting the consciousness stream forth.

So while I was on jury duty, I started reading Breaking Free From Emotional Eating, the Geneen Roth book I mentioned awhile back. Some interesting notions. She advocates eschewing the notion of "diet" forever, which sounds pretty awesome, I'm sure you'll all agree. She also suggests eating WHATEVER YOU WANT, which is equal parts tantalizing and terrifying. The big proviso is that you learn to eat when you are hungry, not when you are lonely, or bored, or because it's the habitual time you normally eat, or all the zillions of reasons we eat that have nothing to do with hunger. The idea is that if you learn to listen to your body, to recognize real hunger and feed yourself accordingly, you will come to trust it. And the same goes for eating what you want, and what you need. When she first decided to give up dieting and eat only when she was hungry and to eat what she wanted, she ate chocolate chip cookies for every meal for two weeks. She gained weight initially, but eventually she ended up losing 30 pounds over the next couple years. And she kicked the chocolate chip cookie yen.

It was interesting, reading this book at a time when I was mentally free (from work or the TV or most any distractions) to contemplate it. I had to buy my lunch every day, and reading this book that is urging me to allow myself to eat without guilt, to eat what I wanted, to the point of satiety, kinda messed with my head. Not necessarily in a bad way, just... it's a different way to think about food and eating. It's not an easy fix – there is a lot of heavy duty emotional work that has to happen. I'm not ready for it yet. But I did let myself eat what I wanted one day on lunch. I had a falafel, which is not something I normally crave. I was very hungry by the time I ate it. I sat down to eat, and did not have any distractions, like a book or the TV or a computer or even a conversation. I looked out the window at the hustle-bustle of Dundas Street West and just savoured that falafel. My god, what a falafel. It was incredible. I enjoyed it so, SO much. At the end of the day I went home and looked it up and found DubDub says 13 points for a falafel. A bit steep (lunch for me is typically a 6 point Lean Cuisine or similar). But I didn't crave anything more after that, did not snack or anything, so it worked out fine.

I am trying this approach on a little bit at a time, to see if it fits. I have this counter-intuitive notion that I want to lose the weight first, and then adopt this no-more-dieting approach. Sigh. I'm sure I'm not the first to think that way. Ah well, soldier on.

PS holy geez, just found the falafel image for this post; looking at it full size and reliving my falafel experience. It is a fond memory, but I am happy to report that I am not obsessing over the desire to go out an replicate it immediately. But some day.

* "On Program"

Jan 14: TRIUMPHANT RETURN!!!

Okay, not so much triumphant as peeking around stealthily and sneaking in when I figure nobody's looking. If only I didn't have this EXTRA 25 POUNDS TO HIDE.

I am serious, yo. It pains me to admit it, but it's best for me to admit it. Somehow, during the fall, I gained back all the weight I had lost plus another 10. I mean, not "some" how - I know how, but even so, it was shocking when I finally mustered the courage to get on the scale again last week. I am the heaviest I have ever been. Nothing fits. I had to buy new, size XL underwear even. I had to buy new jeans. (I went to Old Navy and grabbed a pair of size 16 jeans, did not even try them on, and dejectedly headed back to my foodcave. Luckily/unluckily, they fit.) This was in December. Pre-Christmas, even! GAH.

Yeah, so. Nothing new under the sun as Shakes the Clown once said. I've been writing this blog for two years, on and off. Taken as a whole, it paints a pretty good picture of the life of a yo-yo dieter. Feel free to send all your fat, forlorn friends here, who may need to understand they are not alone.

Wha happen???

So I gave up on JC around mid-summer, I think. In the fall, I kept trying to get back in the groove, and made several arrested attempts to address my ever-burgeoning belly. Nothing was working for me and it was as if I was watching myself get bigger and bigger and bigger, feeling helpless and almost even resigned to it. Terrible feeling.

At Christmas, I included Geneen Roth's Breaking Free from Emotional Eating in a bulk shopping order, for myself. I've been carrying it around from room to room. Last weekend I even read a couple pages. We are getting to know each other first, before committing to anything serious. Conquering this stuff is a marathon, not a sprint. Okay, that's two different metaphors in one paragraph.

My fear about committing to reading the book is silly, but here it is: I feel like, you're supposed to eschew all notions of dieting if you want to get over the compulsive eating thing. But I don't want to be this fat! I want to get thin and THEN get over my compulsive eating. Which I know is counter-intuitive. You don't need to tell me! It's okay. I am living with the fear, making friends with it, disarming it with my charm. (Maybe that's why it's taking so long?) When I'm ready to go there, I will.

Meantime... Weight Watchers!

I decided to give it yet another go. This time, I am going to meetings, not just tracking online. I don't know if I'll stick around at the actual meetings - I tend to look for support through the online communities I am a part of, including this outlet (hint, hint) - but I find it helps me to stay on track if I am accountable to a Scale Nazi.

The new program rocks. FRUIT IS FREE! It's still about points, but the points are calculated differently, with more emphasis on foods that are protein and fibre rich. Foods with a lot of carbs have more points than they used to. Ironically, this no longer applies to the complex carbs found in fruits. It's fantastic.

I lost 6.8 pounds in the first week, which was very encouraging. Of course I feel the need to add the proviso that I always lose big in the first week. We shall see how it goes moving forward. One thing I will say is that I am going to make a concerted effort to avoid the "party on the weekend" mentality that was slowing my progress down in the past. Used to be I got weighed on Saturday mid-morning and then ate everything in sight the rest of the day. Bad idea jeans. I suspect it was affecting my metabolism.

Anyway.

I'm back!

Jun 21: "Birthday Week"

Stumblers upon,

First things first, I will relieve you of your hopping crossed-leg feeling of anxiety and assure you that I lost a pound this week and have now crossed from one meaningless family of numbers to another. Weight: 149.4; total lost: 21.6 pounds. Good on me.

Saturday I came back from the weigh-in to surprise pizza and wings. In the afternoon! Insane. Saturdays are a day of gluttony and indulgence in my household. It's kinda disgusting but it is one of life's small pleasures.

Anyway, Sunday I got back on the horse, until I came home from the shopping mall and felt like eating ice cream and such. Then take out Thai for dinner, followed by macademia nut cookies and All Dressed. Yiiiiikes. Food coma. Two nights in a row of this crap is a punishment. The Miaouw reassures me: "It's Birthday Week!" The Miaouw loves a good week of totally insane eating and gluttony as much as the next guy. More than most guys, actually. Last year we had TWO cakes on my birthday. Cake is one of my all-time favourite things to binge on, but even so, that was an embarrassing amount of cake. I am going to put my foot down this year with the Miaouw, though. One king size cake only.

It is interesting, though, going through a night of bingeing and watching myself from my Samantha-from-Bewitched perch at the top of the room. You can't read a book about eating awareness and then engage in compulsive eating without some degree of cringeing/shoulder shrugging. I tell myself it is okay to do anything that I want to do as long as I choose to do it with awareness. Sometimes awareness is something I fight against, I think. Tricky stuff.

Anyway, off to do booty-busting penance tonight.

Jun 9: Distortion

Fwiends, Womans, Countwymen!

How's everybody? I am a little bit shy, after posting my gearing up for change blog last week. Feels like, okay, I put it out there, so now I have to do it. Which... not really. Since posting it, I have retreated in a most typical fashion, resisting my own throw-down to self. That's okay. I recognize it as part of my process. Haven't picked up the Geneen Roth book since, either. I could get all mean and bully myself over it, but instead I find myself laughing gently as a parent does toward a child (or as a human companion does toward a cat). Oh, Lindsay! You silly girl! I say it to myself affectionately. Practicing kindness as best I can.

Meantime, for those who only pretend to be highly evolved and really want to know the numbers sitch, I have now lost 20.6 pounds. Last week I went in to JC all set to gain access to the long lost land of the 140s. Of course my body defied me and I lost .6, which put me at exactly 150. Fine, if that's the way you want to be about it, body... uh, okay. Next week. Or, the week after. Whatever. I'm highly evolved and don't care one whit.

On Monday I went to my first session of Booty Camp Fitness. I had my last [sniffle!!] session with Derek on Friday, so it was perfect timing. Booty Camp is for the ladeez only. It's twice a week in an outdoor setting and it seems designed to rip your quad muscles into shreds. Two days later, they are sore to the touch. I do know from the last time I did it that the soreness goes away after a couple of sessions. It is a brutal workout. They make Derek look like Roseanne. Anyway, that's the fitness update.

Okay, on to subject heading: today's blog is about uncertainty regarding body image. For as long as I can remember, I have not been able to pass a reflective surface of any kind without glancing over for reassurance and/or self-flagellation. It's humiliating to admit one's extreme vanity, but there it is. The thing is, I just can't tell. Sometimes I'm walking outside and I look in a darkened window and I'm like, hunh, not bad. Okay, you can pass for average. Next thing you know I am punished severely for my hubris by the bathroom mirror at work.

I know my measurements, and when I watch shows like Bulging Brides and The Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp, I see these women who have similar measurements to mine in their "before" stage, and to me they look pretty average. But I am so conditioned to think of myself as "the fat girl" that I don't trust what I see in the mirror (unless it's the distorted fat-view). And of course, I always factor in my height (5'2"). I might have similar measurements to the women on the shows I mentioned above, but if that's the case, I usually assume I'm 5 inches shorter than them. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But when it comes to assessing where I sit on the spectrum of body types, I really honestly just do not know. I think that I must be fooling myself when I see a reflection that looks okay (if not fantastic).

I always used to say that my goal in wanting to lose weight is not to be super-skinny - I don't even entertain the notion anymore. I just want to be able to walk down the street and feel like I am average. "Not fat." Like, if someone were to casually glance at me, they would not mentally classify me as overweight. (Spoken like a person who does this to everyone else she passes on the street. Urgh.)

At the first session of Booty Boot Camp two nights ago, I scanned the group of about 30 women, vainly searching for someone with lumps and imperfections. (Most of the women there were about 15-20 years younger than me and looked the way I'd hope to look in my "after" picture.) I was relieved to spot a few, and even more relieved that, actually, I didn't really care all that much. I'm out there, challenging myself, working just as hard as any of the other women. Some of us may have a little futher to go. Some of us may never reach the "destination". I think part of "getting ready to get ready" is letting go of this false destination, and re-setting my sights on a more fulfilling goal. I suspect if I ever find a way to absorb the Geneen Roth message, it won't matter. I will accept my body.

Not there yet. Not even close. But... closer than I used to be. And that's good enough for now.

Jun 1: Getting ready to get ready

Two or three lifetimes ago, I confided to a new friend that I was unhappy in my marriage and that I didn't know what I was going to do about it. She gave me some very simple and compassionate advice that I have always remembered: "Give yourself permission to do nothing about it, except get ready for change." At the time, I was young (24) and it hadn't occurred to me that I could just sit with my feelings, be aware that I had a problem but do nothing to solve it. Her advice came as such a huge relief to me. "When you're ready to do something, you will." She was right.

Well I've been giving myself permission to not deal with my dieting and eating addictions for about 10 years now. Not that this has only been a problem for 10 years. But 10 years ago was when I started seeing a therapist after successfully dieting down to 120 pounds. Despite the fact I preened in front of every mirror I passed, I was utterly miserable. My job was stressful, I was over worked and under appreciated. I was engaged to a guy I loved dearly but was not in love with. I hungered, but I did not know for what. I got into the habit of binge eating for 2-3 days after getting weighed in, and then exercising furiously and eating frugally for the rest of the week in a desperate bid to hold on to my new thin body.

I told my new therapist about my diet/binge cycle and she said if I really wanted to get to the core of the problem, I needed to stop dieting all together. "Eat whatever you want," she told me, even if it was cake for dinner. Music to my ears! I gained 20 pounds in the space of a couple of months. (Hmmmm, my inner Marge Simpson thought.) She also suggested that I try "eating in awareness". That is, don't watch TV, don't read, don't do anything else while you are eating. Stay in the moment and pay attention to what happens when you eat. I tried it a few times and I gotta admit, it freaked me out. I found the exercise too challenging. It made me afraid.

I'm not sure what I was afraid of, but I can tell you that the fear has never left me. It is at times paralyzing, debilitating, and probably contributes greatly to my cycling depression in the past few years. I know that I'm afraid that "there is no cure" for what ails me. I've tried to just accept that binge eating is "what I do", and tried to control it with a balance of eating well and exercising in between. But I know there's a lot more to it, and that I've been afraid of the hard emotional work I need to do to get to the bottom of it.

Some time later, after I'd quit my stressful job, broken up with my fiancé, gained 10 more pounds and stopped seeing this therapist, I realized that I wasn't ready to deal with the core issues behind my eating disorder. In the interim years since then, I've yo-yo'd up and down the scale, been officially diagnosed with binge eating disorder, sought treatment that I wasn't ready for, and started to believe that there is no hope for me, that I will always look to food as my best friend and worst enemy, recognize it as hollow and superficial but keep running back to it, seeking the validation I desperately crave. All along, in the back of my mind, I know that diets don't work, that I am substituting food for... something, that I am avoiding dealing with some fundamental core issues. When I have those conscious moments of awareness, I soothe myself by saying, "give yourself permission to do nothing, until you are ready". I think sometimes it just takes as long as it takes, and the best thing we can do for ourselves is forgive ourselves for needing and taking comfort where we know we can find it, even if it is fleeting.

In my blog from last month, Coping with success, my beloved friend Joy commented that she'd been reading Geneen Roth's latest book, Women, Food and God. Joy said Geneen Roth has been around a long time writing about "food stuff", but I had never heard of her. I did a bit of googling and decided to check out some of her writing. So I went out one restless Saturday night and picked up one of her first books, Feeding the Hungry Heart. On the way back from the bookstore, I bought a huge bag of chocolate from the bulk candy store. Heh.

It took me a couple of weeks to start reading it. And I am reading it in small bits, taking time to absorb the message. But as soon as I opened the book and read the introduction, I realized I had found someone who understands. It gave me hope. My intuition had told me this would be my experience, before I even opened the book. (Hence the pit stop for chocolate en route home, avoiding the book for a couple of weeks, etc.... I knew reading it would, or could, lead to facing some powerful demons.)

I have not given up dieting (have lost 20 pounds, FYI), and I have not given up bingeing on weigh in day. But I am getting ready to make a change, to face the real hunger within. It feels like the right time, at last.

I'll keep you posted!