I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday night. It happened. Four hours from being able to log my fifth day of abstinence, I binged. It came on slowly, starting while I was reformatting my computer (ugh, don't ask!), insinuating itself into my conscious mind so that I almost didn't notice it until it was there and ready to fight. Pictures of curling up on the couch with one of my new $4.99 DVD purchases (don't laugh, one of them was "His Girl Friday" with Rosalind Russell, which I love...they're at Fry's Electronics, if you're interested) and a huge pile of food starting wafting across my thoughts, even as I struggled to get things straightened away with the computer. I fought it off, ate my dinner, and was feeling righteously smug when it came back and just wouldn't go away. I tried lying down and it didn't work. I tried taking a drive and that didn't work, either. Eventually, I decided that it wasn't going away and I gave in.
It was one of my old favorites - all I can gorge drive through Mexican food. Even as I was carrying the bag in, I thought to myself, "You don't have to eat it. You could still throw it away and maintain your abstinence." Even as I said it, I knew that wasn't going to happen. I was going to sit down and eat, even though I'd just eaten an hour ago, even though I wasn't hungry, and even though I knew it was going to undo four and three-quarters days of hard work for me.
So, now that it's passed, what next? Well, I did stop myself before I got really full, which is a good thing. There is food left in the bag upstairs (which is headed for the trash bin outside) and that never happened in the old days. I think that I need to do two things now. First, I need to lighten up my abstinence plan to allow for eating out occasionally as long as I don't eat beyond being full. By telling myself that I can't, I'm just creating an obsessive situation with really bad odds for me. Next, I need to start getting out and moving. I was going to wait until the food was more entrenched, but I think that I need the activity to help me get in the "healthy mindset" that will turn my thoughts toward nourishing my body rather than losing weight per se.
Anyway, sorry if I've disappointed anyone, but this is what "progress, not perfection" looks like. Sometimes I will have slip ups, but until I stop trying, I have not failed.
Days of abstinence: Starting over Days left until May 1: 6
Friday morning. It's so beautiful here today. Robin's Egg blue sky, not a single cloud, a gentle breeze coming off the ocean, and the bright, lime green of the tree directly outside my office window all combining to make Denise a happy girl. I am blessed and I know it.
Let's all welcome Zanitta to the Immediate Challenge. ("Hi Zanitta!") New participants are always welcomed with open arms and happy smiles, so join us if you're so inclined.
You know, it always amazes me how much easier this whole "no more binges" thing gets once I'm past the initial discomfort. I'm not saying that it's Easy, but it's easy-er, and that's encouraging.
Once the challenge is over (next Friday), I'm going to try adding moderate exercise to the mix. I'm thinking about Curves 3x a week. We shall see how that goes, then add more, very gradually, as I'm able. The perfectionist person inside me wanted to add two cardio sessions to the initial prescription, too, but the wiser, more moderate (can you believe it???) person gently stepped in and suggested that starting out slow would probably give me a better chance of being successful. Success, even on a small scale, will help keep me motivated, and that will help me get where I eventually want to be.
Thursday evening. It's a bonafide phenomenon, folks! Yvonne's determination has motivated three more people to take on her challenge - Shannin, Taylore, and me. I'll keep updating here with my progress. So far, so good. I'm less than three hours away from putting another day on the books and that will make three days of abstinence (from overeating) for me. It's amazing how putting my eating back together makes me feel better in almost every area of my life. My outlook on Life in general is improved, as is my self esteem. Someone remind me why I don't do this all the time?
Another long, fascinating day at work. Not so many meetings but those that were on the schedule were doozies. I know it's all part of my job, but I wish that someone would declare a moratorium on meetings for a day or even a week. Heck, after a week of increased productivity, perhaps we'd never have another one ever! A girl can dream, right?
Wednesday evening. What a surprise (to me) to find that I didn't post yesterday. The only excuse I can offer is that yesterday was Meeting Day here at VLSCI with a whopping seven meetings in eight hours. Today wasn't much better, with five in eight, but it still felt like a huge relief after yesterday. Tomorrow, I will be a lady of leisure with only two meetings for work and one outside of work.
I also had to do one of those things that managers really don't look forward to yesterday. Not the really big thing that we don't like, but one of the little things that could, potentially lead to the bigger thing. Not fun.
What is fun, however, is that I have a whole day of abstinence from compulsive eating behind me and I'm four hours from having a second one on the books, too. My definition of abstinence is eating three nutritious meals a day plus a non fat, decaf latte, and not allowing myself to ever eat to the point of feeling sick. I'm not putting a calorie count on it, rather, I'm allowing myself the freedom to eat as much as I want as long as it's healthy and I don't feel completely full after eating. I'm not worrying about exercise right now, or my water (although I'm trying to get 64 ounces every day); I'll add those things to the mix once the food is more second nature. I'm not looking ahead to the probably very long road I've got to travel, I'm concentrating solely on today, this minute, this second, and not eating inappropriately. I have to tell you - it feels good.
With that said, however, I am going to try to join Yvonne on her Immediate Challenge. My/our goal is to get to May without going off the rails. I know that Yvonne is capable of this and I know that I am, too, with a little help. I'm actually looking forward to this, can you imagine?
Monday afternoon. Well, yesterday was successful in a limited kind of way. I managed to get five or six loads of laundry done as well as cleaning two rooms (downstairs bathroom and kitchen) completely, so I'm putting that down as a productive day. Yes, there were several other things on the list, but I just didn't feel like doing them, so I did not.
I think I've made a few breakthroughs about my eating.
I've come to an acceptance of the fact that I am powerless over food. This was not an easy realization for me because I like to cling to the fantasy that I have control over everything, that, if only I tried hard enough, I could make everything in my life absolutely perfect. That is simply not true. Food is something I do not have control over, although I am sometimes able to stick to a food plan for months at a time, eventually my willpower will not be enough and I will turn to food for companionship, comfort, whatever once again. My life has become a never-ending cycle of binge-remorse-anger (at myself)-strict eating plan-binge and is completely unmanageable. I need help and I'm going to get it.
I've also identified one of the things that keeps me using food to medicate myself - I'm afraid that, if I don't have food to eat, I won't have anything at all to do. I know, this sounds ridiculous to most of you, but there are some of you out there that are nodding your heads and recognize that fear, too. Eating isn't just a normal function of life for me, it's entertainment, it's friendship (false friendship, but still), it's a constant that's always been there for me, and, to give it up, I'm going to have to find lots of other activities to fill my time.
Finally, I've realized that having friends feels a lot better than eating does. I know that friendship and eating are not mutually exclusive for most, but, as I described on Saturday, I have some social anxiety because of my weight and my looks, so the more that I eat, the less likely I am to be able to make friends. I isolate myself with my eating and then my isolation makes me want to eat. Lookeee there, it's another vicious cycle!
I'm not going to try to be perfect or solve all of my problems overnight, I just want to try, just for today, to put other things in front of food in my life and see what happens. If I don't do it today, then I'll pick myself up and try again tomorrow. The way I look at it, as long as I keep trying and getting stronger with each attempt, that's not failure, that's growth.
In which our heroine details her exciting Sunday plans!!!
Sunday morning. Let's see, I need to:
* Take my recycleable stuff to the recycling center * Get about 10 loads of laundry done * Clean every room in my house (although I'm only committing to the kitchen and dining room for now) * Plant the new hydrangeas (sp?) I bought from QVC * Drop a bunch of stuff at the drycleaners * Get to (yet another) Target to look for another placemat - I've only been able to find three and I need four
I'm going to get started on the first thing on the list first (right after I put the first load in the washer) and we'll see how much further down the list I get. The plants have to get in the ground today, though, so that cannot be procrastinated any further. Must do!
