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 morning. My Lighter Way class starts in one minute and I'm sitting here at home. I am in such total opposition to my poor body right now that I can't even imagine walking and then doing yoga. I don't want to touch it, see it, think about it, or nourish it...much less do the work needed to learn to love it. Even the pain I felt earlier this week didn't bring me back - I just tried to ignore it, push through it, wait it out until I could go back to my numbness and neglect.
I just want a world that doesn't revolve around weight loss, around hating my body or trying not to hate my body, around what to put in my mouth and how to move my body. Can that ever happen for me???
And the award for Most Compulsive Person goes to...
Wednesday afternoon. My mom asked me if I could send her my rent money a couple of weeks early because they've got property taxes plus the IRS to worry about next month. (Note, my parents and I bought the condo together way back when but my credit was so awful that, when they decided to re-fi, I had to quick claim off, so now I pay them rent.) I told her I'd look and, knowing that I've got several thousand in pad in my account, see what I could send and when. Um, imagine my shock when I looked at my available balance online and saw "$0.00". (Thankfully not a number with a negative sign in front of it, but still.) Holy crapitola, how did I get there??? Oh yes, that would be through compulsive overbuying and paying for healthy, prepared meals that go to waste while I eat out or in the cafeteria at work each day. I have seriously blown through at least a thousand dollars in just stupid little obsessive purchases. Does this sound familiar? It certainly should!
Yes, just as I eat compulsively and regain weight while I'm at it, I buy compulsively and run up my debt while I'm at it. It's all bitter fruit from the same tree. Lord, how am I ever going to plug all of the holes in this dam of psychological junk? If I get the weight thing going, the spending goes out of control. When spending gets tight (like now), I want to eat through it. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I'm going to survive until pay day next Friday and the first thing I worry about is food. Dearie, the last thing you should be worrying about is food!!!
Then I had this realization (as I was driving through an awesome Mexican place for dinner a few nights ago - GAH!) that Alcott and Junior League are really just things I'm using to keep from having to deal with all of my junk. I grant you that I'm doing good things for others while I'm doing it, but they really are padding for me. I was so alone before they came along and, even though I was losing weight like a champion (or even because of that), I couldn't stand to be with my own thoughts for fear of...whatever. So I found a couple of things that keep me incredibly busy and I don't have to think about why I might be so compulsive about things that make me feel numb temporarily.
What am I so afraid of anyway? I don't remember anything hugely traumatic from my childhood. I mean, yes, my dad was really mean to me and made me cry and then left when I was five, but surely that can't be it? I mean, that's totally nothing and certainly nothing that ought to have such power over me. Everyone always has some deep, dark thing from their childhood that charts their difficult path, but I had a really great childhood after my parents divorced and I got my fabulous Daddy/stepdad. I've been to a therapist and we didn't uncover anything wretched or shocking...what is so wrong, Denise???
Tuesday night. I had this crazy thought as I was getting ready to leave for work this morning: If I just eat the healthy, prepared meals every meal and walk 60 minutes at a comfortable speed every day for the rest of my life, I could be healthy and happy. Susan's balances all of the correct nutrients in the right amounts - not too much sodium or cholesterol or too little fruit or veggies or carbs or protein - and 60 minutes of moderate walking will keep me active enough to ward off most of the chronic diseases (other than diabetes, which I already have and can control with diet and exercise when I do both). So simple. So little effort required. If only...if only.
Tuesday morning. Sometime in the middle of the night, my shoulder and lower back/hip started hurting tremendously. Not sure about the lower back part of the equation, but this shoulder usually has issues during my busy season at work when I'm working too many hours and really stressed out.
Hmmm...it's not what anyone else considers busy season right now but it sure is for me and I'm so stressed I can't even tell anyone why I'm stressed because it would take too long and I'd have to stop and get it all down on paper. (Honestly, it's probably worth it just to get it all down on paper, but that's another story.)
Stressed, depressed, and pretty much non-stop bingeing - I've hit the Trifecta!!!
In all seriousness, what am I to do about this? First things first, I've got to do something about the physical pain. Since I seem resistent to the tough kind of yoga I should be doing to prepare for my Lighter Way class (it is seriously both cardio and strength training...none of that "relax and renew" stuff), perhaps I should look into just some stretching or at least a gentler form of yoga. I need something that will help my flexibility at the same time it's helping to relax me. I'm sure you've heard the saying that "stress kills"? Well, in my case, I don't think it's an exaggeration.
Some may wonder when I'm going to get back to trying to lose weight. If you ask, I'll tell you that I've never stopped but that the road I'm travelling this time around isn't the straight and narrow one. This time there will be no "turn off your mind, restrict your food, and exercise as much as you can stand". This time the weight will come off for good, slowly, as I learn more about myself and more about what my mind and body need from me. It may not seem as though I'm making a lot of progress, but patience is one of the first things I need to work on, so this is a good exercise.
Now I'm off to go and listen to one of my stress relief MP3s in hope that my shoulder and back can be persuaded to play nicely together again.
