ChocolateBunny's Journal, 24 October 2009

All things considered, for falling completely and totally off the wagon for as long as I did, coming back with a five pound gain really isn't that bad. I by no means am trying to justify the madness, but I think I need to put things in perspective.

I have these things called "shadow numbers" and "romance numbers". A shadow number is a rather high number on the scale that's usually the result of eating a ton of food, or retaining water, or any number of issues. Chances are, it isn't your actual weight and the extra pounds is due to some other extenuating factor.

A romance number is when you hop on the scale perhaps after a day of fasting, or doing something strenuous where you burned more calories than your normally would. The number is low, it feels good, but you know the minute you put clothes on, or eat breakfast, your "true weight" is going to show itself.

I decided to share this in this entry, because in these months of neglecting myself physically and nutritionally, I've had my fair share of ups and downs, my fair share of shadow and romance moments with my scale. Earlier this week I stepped on the scale before I went to bed, and after a particularly sickening binge session that involved brownies and m&ms, and it told me I was 278.5. I suppose it was enough to scare me, because the next day, I fasted, and the day after that (today) I went grocery shopping, bought all healthy things, and I cleaned my fridge and cupboards out of all unhealthy things I had accumulated through these months, and officially recommitted myself to this journey of weight loss and self discovery.

I use the term self discovery because as most fat people know, sometimes it seriously feels like you're trapped inside of a body that doesn't actually belong to you. This body prevents you from doing the things that you know, that if you had a little bit more energy, you may just be extremely good at. For some people it's running around at the park with their kids without huffing and puffing. For others, it's being able to walk into a room and pause a few conversations. For me, it's finally having the ability to display this incredible fashion sense I have lurking inside of me, that is constantly satiated with discount fashions from " big girl " stores.

Okay, maybe I'm being superficial and humorous to deflect from what's really going on. But can't I just have a second to shake off the shame? True, I am doing this because I want to be more (more because I don't consider myself to be a plain person) stylish, but it's mostly because I believe that without the weight, and with the confidence that being healthier will bring, I will finally be able to see my dreams come into fruition. I have so many thoughts, and plans, and so many things that I want to do. Not to say that I CAN'T do them because I'm overweight, but I just have a feeling that I would enjoy them so much more if I was wearing a size eight in jeans.

I've come to many realizations lately about my weight, and my eating habits. I can finally admit that being overweight is not a product of being ignorant about making healthy choices, or being one of those people who grew up in a family that was centered around food. Or being in a relationship with an enabler (read: fat boyfriend). My eating habits have little to do with a love of food, or the way it tastes, or it being how I connect with my family. I straight up, in all honesty, am mentally sick, and that sickness manifests itself in binge eating.

I have been so out of alignment with God, with my spirit, with the positive energy supplied by the universe that is constantly encircling us as human beings, and unfortunately, the only way I can deal with the stress, anxiety, depression of this fact is to eat all kinds of cookies and cakes ( shoutouts to my sissy).

My eating hasn't been bad because I don't know how to eat properly to lose weight, or because I have been invited to too many dinners, and went on too many dates, and had too many study nights with pizza ordering. All of it has been greedy and hoarding, in the comfort of my own home or most especially in my car. I have been eating to cope, eating for that comfortably numb and thoughtless state I get in when I start. I have been eating because like my good friend Ryan once said, "Look, it's either I cry, or I eat. And I don't feel like crying."

So, like a snowball effect, my depression has been making me binge eat, and my binge eating has been making me depressed. It's was all fine honestly, because so long as I stayed below 275, I felt like no amount of self destructive behavior could take that accomplishment from me. But to see 278.5 on the scale, after all that I've done, after all I have gone through. I could not do it.

So I'm here, again, for the third ( or is it fourth? who's keeping track.) time. Making promises I don't know if I can keep, but at the same time clinging to the hope that I can do this. Once and for all.

274.5 lb Lost so far: 36.5 lb.    Still to go: 114.5 lb.    Diet followed reasonably well.

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936 kcal

Fat: 21.84g | Prot: 27.16g | Carb: 168.28g.   Breakfast: green beans with almonds, grapes, jello pudding, orange, white rice, Hard Boiled Egg. Snacks/Other: quaker rice cakes. more...