FullaBella's Journal, 01 April 2013

I think if I had to come up with a title for this journal it would be toss up between 'Why is Everything in Moderation not applicable to Emotions' or 'Why Does Maturity and Dignity have to be Synonymous with IceQueen?'

Yesterday I experienced a small disappointment - I'd asked someone to do a tiny little errand that would have taken them a block and ten minutes out of their intended direction. No one died, it wasn't a kidney or oxygen to continue living. It was a nothing little thing and the specifics are silly and embarrassing yet the more I worked through the pep talk in my head the more my anger grew.

As I silently stomped and internally ranted through the rest of my evening to the point I sent myself to bed early I realized my emotions were because of the very fact that I was ignoring MY needs.

"Act your Age.."
"Grow up, Will Ya?"
"Don't cry in Public"
"Keep your emotions like poker hands, close to your vest."
"Never let 'em see you sweat."
"Don't sweat the small stuff.. and ... it's all small stuff..."
"If you're gonna work with men, act like a man, and real men don't cry."
"Stop being a silly emotional woman."

And on and on and on.

Robin Williams played a twisted psycho in a really weird movie a few years ago, "One Hour Photo". Most of the plot was fingernail scraping on a chalkboard tedious but one comment in particular that touched and stayed with me was 'If you were to look at a person's photo album, you'd think their entire life was happy. No one ever takes a photo of someone sad.'

He left out 'network news' that seems intent on shoving cameras and microphones into the grieving victims faces, but you get the point. On the average, it's all smiling faces, cakes and balloons.

The emotions we show are guarded and scripted. No wonder we've reached a place in history where violence and anger seems rampant. It has been within my lifetime that the phrase 'going postal' was originated.

So what does this have to do with weight loss and eating? Well, heck, a lot! And I know it's not just me. I constantly read journals that explain how emotional eating got the best of them.

But then I read other journals where people act like feeling their emotions is 'a pity party' and that commentary ran through my mind last night too as I admonished myself to get out of the pool. It was that very comparison that sent me into the deep end ala 'I know in the scheme of things this little tiny unimportant disappointment is silly but by golly, it's my emotion and I'm going to feel it!'

What's the answer? I don't know. I realize I can't display every single emotion outwardly. I guess for those moments, there's my FS journal. But inwardly, I'm going to give myself a break. Cut myself some slack. Feel what I want to feel and explore that rather than stamping my emotions into a tight little ball of anxiety until I just explode. I'm going to stop making myself feel worse when I feel bad. If I need to linger in a pity pool for a while, I'll take a life raft.

Enough of that.

As for specific eating and weight loss - today's weigh in was fake; I entered my 3/25 weight merely to make that silly red font 'weigh in now' link to go away for now as I've moved to a monthly weighing while I concentrate on the rest of the things in my life. The only way I'm going to let a needle be responsible for how I feel about my life is if there's a bag of morphine attached.

I'm continuing to eat well. Friday night at the Grandson's baseball game I even tried a small bag of Cheetos (crunchy) just to reinforce to myself I prefer non-junk food; about a 1/4 of the way into the bag the gross processed orange coating on my fingertips and tongue led to giving the bag away; it only took one sip of that 20oz diet coke to reach the same conclusion. This was a good and successful test for me - not feeling as if I'm missing out on something 'great' anymore.

A business gathering Saturday yielded three 'wow, look at you!' comments about the weight loss. That was nice. And, in keeping with the balance mentioned above, there were 'I wouldn't pay you a compliment if I were on fire and you were holding the only extinguisher' glares from two women. Ahh well. A bit interesting because a year ago one of the women had lost a noticeable amount of weight and I complimented the heck out of her. She's regained the weight so ... I get it.

My rationalization for them, though (besides resentment) is focus and misdirection. I think we all focus on different things in our lives so maybe they didn't notice, period. I was still wearing my 'big old bulky denim shirt' over my 'big black bulky turtleneck' and jeans. My suit of armor tends to still cast a fairly large shadow despite the thinning body beneath it. Unless you look really close the loss is only really noticeable if you ever paid attention to my face, I think.

And ironically, that's okay. I've had the 'wow look at you' moments many times in the past only to have to endure the silent judgement when I regained it. I don't plan to pull off the suit of armor and don the 'hey, look at me' attire for at least two years after steady maintenance. I feel I have a fairly good grip on this thing this time but I've always felt that way in the past too. It's a new day, a new approach, and I just have to keep going one day at a time.

Thank you for reading,

Bella

194.0 lb Lost so far: 91.0 lb.    Still to go: 14.0 lb.    Diet followed reasonably well.

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1619 kcal

Fat: 83.68g | Prot: 107.19g | Carb: 121.61g.   Breakfast: Bob's Red Mill Old Country Style Muesli, Spectrum Cold Milled Ground Premium Flaxseed with Mixed Berries, Nostimo 0% Plain Greek Yogurt, Spectrum Chia Seeds. Lunch: Libby's Crispy Sauerkraut, StarKist Foods Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water. Dinner: Spectrum Chia Seeds, Dried Chia Seeds, Nature's Way Efagold Coconut Oil, Gouda or Edam Cheese, Onions, Baby Spinach, Deli Sliced Ham, Singleton 's Stripey Jack Cheese, Turkey Breast Meat, Chocolate Glazed Eclairs (Custard Filled). more...

1996 kcal

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