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The past few weeks have been a struggle. After the incident this summer, which many of you know about, I was doing really well with my weight loss. I felt that I was doing it for myself, not for my ex. But then I reached a plateau, and suddenly realized that without his stamp of approval, it just didn't feel as gratifying. I unintentionally fell back into compulsions from years ago when I was bulimic (as a result of the way a man I loved called me fat all the time). The past 2-3 weeks, I was struggling after every evening meal and some daytime meals on weekends. I stopped counting calories and stopped recording my exercise, even though I know those things usually keep me on track. I found a therapist, but left the first meeting feeling worse than when I went in. I went home that night to binging and self-harm. I called the agency and asked to be paired with someone else. Monday I got to the gym after work and realized I'd forgotten my gym pants and had a complete meltdown in the car. That night I met with a new therapist - an amazing woman who challenged me to not only eat dinner but also not get on the scale the next morning. I thought the practice was about self-control, but she told me Tuesday night (we met again to continue the conversation) that the practice was more about not having expectations. If you can't get on the scale, your expectations (of gaining or losing weight) can't be confirmed or challenged, so you release yourself from the disappointment of having created expectations. At this point, I still feel it was more about self-control, but I'm beginning to see why she used that as a starting example and perhaps how I can apply it to my life. I've always lived off of expectations because I feel like if I anticipate the worst case scenario then I can't be thrown off course by anything less. However, she gave me insight to realize that if I expect the worst case scenario and something completely different happens, I'm still thrown off balance because I'm not getting what I expected. Does anybody have any experience with this? Well, this all leads up to the fact that this morning, my scale read 184.6. That's the first time I've been below 185 in 5 years. But somehow it felt empty. I realized it felt empty because again I thought I was doing it for myself, but I wanted to share it with my best friend (my ex) and hear him say how proud he is of me. How can I work on being proud of myself? I mean that question literally. I've tried positive affirmations and progress pictures and even making lists of good things I've done in life. But I just want to be proud of me. Please help if you have any good strategies. Love you all. xoxoxo
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