FullaBella's Journal, 13 March 2014

Thursday Morning - March 13th. Yesterday I woke to find, horrors, my internet was down (and did not restore until mid afternoon, gah). So - spoiler alert - it’s been a tough couple of days with mindful eating and unconditional self love. The following is longer than usual. Read, don’t read, your choice entirely.

The overeating Monday initiated because of poor body image. I’m usually quite fine sitting and sipping coffee while someone else eats if I’m not hungry. I definitely wasn’t hungry at the pub when I ordered the hummus and chips. But I’d just caught a glimpse of my reflection in their window and I looked really FAT. Sloppy. Pudgy. Not the image I'd held of myself lately esp walking and enjoying the sun. Hate, hate, hated myself. So what did I do? I ordered food. Then I had that midnight madness for french fries but ate chili and a biscuit. Dumb.

Tuesday, after journaling, I had better resolve. ‘Today I may not be perfect, but I shall do better.’ Yet either the self hatred from Monday was lingering or who knows what else because while ATF calorically was ‘not that bad’ …. I fought the urge to eat all day. I couldn’t figure out where from where it was coming and did continual ‘gut checks’ for ‘what’s eating at me that I want to do the same.’ I was so relieved to ride to bed still center wagon plus even more pleased I did not trot back into the kitchen for a fourth repeated of midnight munching madness.

But despite that - I woke to insane hypocrisy Wednesday morning when the scale showed me a 10lb jump over night. As much as I argued ‘water weight, impossible, just a fluke’ I found myself wallowing in doubt and … sadness. Anger. Frustration. Especially when my snuggest jeans ‘did’ button but not attractively. I had the Marie Callendar of muffin-tops going on and hated it, myself and everything in my head. Spoiler alert - the scale dropped back this morning though I’ve not yet done the snug-jean test.

Historically, this next six months is the most critical for me; it’s when I start slipping little by little until first one size doesn’t fit, then the next, and then I’m back at my max weight again. I’ve reflected several times ‘what if it’s just my body chemistry and no matter what I eat, how much, etc., I merely exist in this cycle and lose, gain, lose again and regain despite my best focus? What is it in my chemistry and biology that refuses to allow me to obtain a healthy weight and maintain it for the rest of my life? Just like the tip of my thumb that regrows no matter how many times I slice it off cooking… what if I’m just MEANT to swing between 150lbs to 300lbs and maintaining a truly healthy weight for the rest of my life is just … an impossible dream. Life’s little joke on me.

One of the conversations going on in my head as I pushed bottle after bottle of water through my body hoping to flush out any residual sodium based scale demons was wondering if it was emotional baggage weight from Tuesday. What if I was really hungry, was my body really asking for food, and I was fighting it by denying it? Was the overnight gain my body shielding itself because I wasn’t taking care?

An image of my Mother haunted me. She’s passed now but she was .. you know, I don’t really know ‘what’ she was. It’s easy to label she was an alcoholic but sometimes I just think she was an obsessive compulsive, like me. We had an estranged relationship so I never broached this topic with her. Alcohol was just her ‘go to drug’ where I have managed to elevate my obsessive behavior into a wider range of choices that can get out of hand: food, shopping, gambling, work, etc.

Regardless, when she was ‘trying to be sober’ she was the icon of ‘dry drunk’ - the person trying to not drink but not wanting to do the work to try to heal. Clenched jaw matching clenched fists and a look in her eyes that read ‘I’m 5 seconds away from complete madness’. That’s the way I felt Tuesday. Like a ‘dry drunk’.

And when I saw that scale Wednesday I thought ‘WWSD?” (What would she do?) Well, of course, she’d drink. Justifying it with ‘what’s the point?’ So I did the same. I drank. About a gallon. Of water. (psych!)

I even decided to track my food a while. Another way of facing the truth. I compare this to how she’d say “I only had a couple of drinks” and that consisted of, sure, a couple of ‘drinks’. It’s all in the measurement. A fifth of whiskey drank in ‘two drinks’. No wonder I’m the queen of rationalization; I learned it from her. That’s like me saying, “I only had a scoop of ice cream and one slice of cake ” but failing to qualify I used a garden shovel and a hacksaw for utensils.

I realize tracking my food may reawaken some bad obsessions - like extreme math trying to justify the weight loss with a negative CICO number and being frustrated. But I’m not ready to give up and drink the milkshakes just yet. I’m revisiting some of the older tools as I continue to check my structure for weaknesses.

And that’s probably why I’ve approached this time, this journey, with the constant mantra of ‘one day, one bite, one breath at a time’. I was ‘the dry drunk’ in my past weight losses. Recalling the memory of me during the weight loss in my 40’s, standing in the kitchen, heart racing from the phenteramine plus every other caffeine laden ‘green tea pill, fat burner, dexawhatever’ I could buy OTC to enhance the RX, my own fists clenched and arms wrapped so tight around myself all I could hear was my heart racing and the roar of blood pumping in my head. I know from the outside I looked off the charts insane because eventually Cutty’s voice would cut through that ‘raging roar’ in my head asking, ‘are you okay?’

This may seem old hat, a repeat of so many things I’ve written in the past but reinforcing ‘good habits’ for me takes just as much work, if not more, than than breaking old bad habits. This journaling has been my path to seeing my own ‘insanity’ in print and breaking down the weaker links.

I remember a monologue from the movie ‘28 days’ I'd get that feeling and you all know what that feeling is; when your skin is screaming and your hands are shaking and your stomach feels like it wants to jump through your throat. And you know that if anyone had a clue how wrong it felt to be sober, they wouldn't dream of asking you to stay that way. That’s how I felt Tuesday. And Wednesday I felt as if I were whistling in the dark as the mental image of myself seemed back at 300lbs. I felt like this was all some court appointed attendance at a process I didn't trust.

Although I’ve had my past experiences with too much drinking (how much is too much?) I don’t feel I have an issue with it anymore. I can take it or leave it but with FOOD I still have fist gripping days that follow the old line of ‘one would be too any and a thousand wouldn’t be enough’.

I remember my Mother said she went to AA once and it made her want to drink more than ever, hence why she didn’t return. I can watch movies about drug and alcohol addiction and they inspire me to think about compulsions, learn the lingo (enabling, codependent, etc) and translate the tools and serenity to food. But let me watch a movie about obesity and I am reaching for anything I can shove in my mouth. Hide the dog. They don’t serve that ‘after school special’ of reinforcement; I find myself wanting to grab a sleeping bag and camp in front of the fridge.

What is that about?? What happened to me that ‘bulimia’ seemed stronger than ‘moderation?’ I knock wood, my head, whatever is available that I’ve not used that disorder, nor the drugs, RX or OTC, nor any disordered eating this time. And most days I feel very good, happy, and confident about the choices I make

But if one freaky day on the scale can shake my faith … it also shakes my confidence. I felt like every fiber of my philosophy and WOE was a house of cards.

Is it that the exploration of very thing I struggle with the most just gets too close for comfort? Has all this the past year been just another distraction? Am I doomed to fall off the wagon back into the grease pit and regain the excess weight with french fries? What the hell is going on?

So, that’s what’s going on with me the past few days in relation to ATF. Borrowing every tool I can from all of my friends here. And praying one moment, one bite at a time to continue to make good choices and have good results returned.

Bella

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1155 kcal

Fat: 78.00g | Prot: 74.77g | Carb: 40.51g.   Breakfast: Spectrum Organic Virgin Coconut Oil, Coffee-Mate Sugar Free Hazelnut Liquid Coffee Creamer. Dinner: Chicken Thigh, Iceberg Lettuce (Includes Crisphead Types), Tomatoes, Cucumber (with Peel), Chopped Celery, Radishes, Balsamic Vinegar. more...

1800 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Sleeping - 24 hours. more...