Struggling

166.8 today.

I'm struggling.

I'm out of the crazy eating stage (which I'll call The Crazy), and for that I am thankful and grateful. But I'm not mended yet.

During The Crazy, when I was up to 177 (gasp!), I would just eat terrible foods all day long, then binge almost every night. Some of my daily food intake was just incredible, not necessarily for volume, but for the lack of health. Almost no fruits or vegetables, and very little (if any) water.

During The Crazy, my life was out of control on the inside, but probably looked okay on the outside. I had trouble sleeping, and I was starting to have painful reflux issues. I never told my husband that part, since it was (and still is) pretty embarrassing. Once, I was at a restaurant with my sons and I began eating some fatty food -- deep fried sesame chicken or some such-- and I had to leave the table to throw up because the reflux was so bad. It's kind of a wake up call to be in a puking in a bathroom stall with my kids watching me, scared.

I'm in a much, much healthier eating pattern. I have not had reflux symptoms since I started this program of health and weight loss, but I am still refusing to let go of some sneaky habits.

I am surrounded by food all day long. It seems like everywhere I go, someone has a dish of candy or cake or chocolate out on their desk, or even at the boys' preschool. I have been eating one or two lately, telling myself that "it's just one or two, and I am doing really well".

Tonight I even left the house with the excuse of returning a blouse, but I was following an old pattern of going to the mall for and stopping by the candy store to binge on chocolate. I didn't end up going to the chocolate store tonight, but I did end up spending 3x as much money as I originally planned on clothes. Three times as much money. Let that sink in.

Those new clothes are hanging in my closet now, just 50 feet away, as I type this.

I know exactly what I did. I knew I was doing it when I did it, but I did it anyway. My husband will be pretty damn annoyed with the $150 bill, and I know that, and yet I still did it. And here's another confession: that is the second time this week that I have had a shopping binge, and the second time this week I have spent close to $200. I head to the mall, following an old pattern to get chocolate, then I remind myself that I don't want chocolate, but then I buy clothes. It's as if my brain is going to get what it wants, whether it be food or new clothes - whatever the "high" is - however it can get it. It is so frustrating to have this issue. This addiction.

I do great with eating and with other people all day. I'm a much more whole person at work, I'm happier and my new job is working out really well. My problem is still the evenings. I am still vexed with how to spend that time in a way that feels rewarding to me. Chasing two boys around, getting them fed and bathed, dealing with temper tantrums, trying to be a good parent ... I'm just going to say it right here: this does not do it for me. But what else can I do? They are great kids and of course they are my first priority, and they need to be loved and cared for. I'm considering spending some of the evenings at the local pool. This way, I can get some exercise and the kids will have fun and burn off some energy. Beyond this, I don't know what to do with The Hours. They are the time when I crave sugar foods the most.

I keep re-reading steps 2 and 3 of OA, which say that you literally have to turn yourself over to your higher power to help, that you can. not. do. this. alone. The book says that there are many of us who do not believe that God can really help us with food issues. Deep down, that's true. I have never given over control to God in a complete way ever before. They say to use the program and the people, and turn your cravings over to God when they happen. That just sounds so silly to me, as if God really cares about that chocolate cupcake sitting on a plate, baiting me. But they say God loves us in our totality, and can help. I don't know how to do that. I'm going to start trying, I guess. What other choice do I have? Everything else I have tried to do with regard to eating healthier and not binge-eating has failed. Everything.

I have managed not to binge on sugar foods tonight, but last night I had an ice cream. Tonight, I binge-shopped and instead of over-eating sugar foods, I overate broccoli. I ate almost an entire bag, and I wasn't even hungry. That's not normal eating.

I'm all over the place tonight. Maybe I'll be more centered tomorrow.

Thanks for listening. This confession has been very cleansing.

Has it really been 20 days since I updated? I bet you thought I jumped off the wagon, right? You'd be wrong.

Weighing in at 166.4 this morning, which means I'm down 2.5 pounds down in 20 days. Not fast weight loss by any stretch of the imagination, but slow and steady wins the race.

I'll post more substance soon, I promise. I'm still going to OA meetings and am trying to incorporate this way of life into my own busy life. I'm happier and more grounded than I've been in a long time, but I still struggle with cravings every day. I thought it would be done by now, that by this point in the program I'd have "gotten it", but the change that this program instigates is so deep and so fundamental that it takes a long time for a person to really absorb in her bones.

The new job is going well. I am trying to live a slower, more authentic life, and be grateful and present in every minute. I'm out of my fat jeans and comfortably into a size 12 again. I'm a little amazed that I've been my own hero for this long already.

Oprah & Me

168.8 today. Still downward-trending, despite my unfortunate run-in with more than a handful of Halloween candy.

In other personal news, I officially took the *other* job, the one that affords me a vibrant personal life instead of a vibrant, personal headache.

Sometimes I imagine that Oprah is interviewing me a year from now. There's a big "before & after" photo of me on the back wall of the set. Note that in my fantasy my "before" photo isn't terrible and my "after" photo is pretty hot.

The interview goes something like this:

Oprah: Hello! You look fabulous! Have a seat! ... So, our producers read your blog. What a harrowing journey to weight loss!

Me: Yes, it was. It was more like a full soul makeover. The 20 pound weight loss was more like a nice side effect.

Oprah: Ooh, I like that, "a full soul makeover". (Audience claps) So, what made you start this journey? When did you know you were in trouble?

Me: I knew I was in trouble when the scale tipped a certain number - 177, and the old ways of dieting and weight loss were not working anymore. I simply could not "just not eat as much". I would start to eat a few crackers or candies and suddenly I was trying to lick every last crumb in the bottom of the bag. And forget exercise. With two kids and a job, I no longer had the time or the kind of energy I used to have to aim all my energy at the problem.

Oprah: Oh, well we've all been there, haven't we? (audience laughs). So what did you do?

Me: I had started to see a therapist a few months before to figure out what to do about the empty feeling I had about my life and career. Things went very well for about 3 months. I was growing in other areas, and I got back in touch with my creative side. Then one day, during a session, a confession about all of my bad eating habits and binge behaviors just came tumbling out of my mouth. My therapist and I both realized that *eating* was where I was hiding all of the stress, anger and sadness which normally didn't come out during our sessions. So I did some research and found Overeaters Anonymous.

Oprah: So how long had you been hiding your eating habits?

Me: About 8 years. I've always had unnatural behaviors around food, sweets in particular, but I could generally control my weight with periods of hyper-dieting and exercising. When I turned 40, none of that worked anymore. Then, a lot of stressful life events just started piling on.

Oprah: Like what things?

Me: My grandmother died. That was very difficult, because she offered me unconditional love. Then, I had a baby. As all new moms know, this is wonderful but it's an earthquake to both your body and your lifestyle. I felt stressed to be a perfect parent. Then, my husband and I made a big move, mostly for the sake of my career, and that move was stressful in many, many ways. I kept thinking that the babies and the career moves with "fix" everything, but they didn't. My job was high stress, and the stress I put on myself to be a perfect mother was just too much. I just ate the stress away, mostly at night after everyone was in bed.

Oprah: Oh yes. With me, it was shopping, too. Sometimes I just shop to make myself feel better.

Me: Me too!

Oprah: Cute shoes, by the way!

Me: Thank you! Yours, too!

Oprah: Thank you. So, if people are listening who feel stuck in the way that you were, what do you want everyone to know?

Me: Theyy might benefit from an honest examination of their eating habits. If you're hiding food or wrappers, or if you make specific trip to get specific foods, or if you eat to the point of feeling numb, your issue is probably not something that diet and exercise can address long-term. If, on a regular basis, you treat food as something other than nourishment for your body, then give yourself the gift of a potentially life-changing insight and consider an inner fix to food problems, instead of failing at dieting once again. Failing a dieting just makes the cycle worse.

Oprah: And you are living proof of that change, aren't you?

Me: It's still a struggle, some days are better than others, but over all I am calmer, happier, and I live in the moment more often. And I live in the moment in my skinny jeans, which is nice.

Oprah: Well thank you for joining us today. We want to tell everyone that if this sounds like your life, you might consider joining Overeaters Anonymous. They have phone meetings if you just don't want to go somewhere and see someone, and they have online meetings, too.

Me: My pleasure.

Oprah: We also want to thank you for coming on the show by giving you your very own pair of these shoes (points to her shoes), just for you, as a gift for coming on the show. Also, Sting is here to congratulate you in person.

Me: Squee!

Okay. Now I've done my Oprah interview, and least in my imagination. I think I can move on now. :-)

-Overeater

PS: Also, my ex boyfriend is watching the show, except that his television doesn't get the "before" picture transmitted on his screen.

Job dilemma

(from yesterday)

169.8 Walked a 5 mile trail this morning and made a big decision on the way.

I'm grateful and fortunate enough to have 2 job opportunities at the moment. One is a high-paced, high visibility job with a team of people. The other is a research-oriented job with no glory and no team. This is a no brainer for a non-recovering me: obviously I will take the high paced, high visibility job. That is what I have done, that is what I will do, that is what got me this far. The old me would take that job and make it a success.

But the question is: at what price? The price of not living a 3-dimensional life. The price of binge eating to relieve the stress at night, and putting on more weight. The price of hurrying my boys from place to place all the time so I can make this meeting or that one. The price of staying up till one or two in the morning to make my work perfect.

So for the first time in my personal history, I will not take the career-enhancing path. I'm going to lay low for a while and take the research role. The cons of this are that maybe I don't get promoted. I am okay with that; I am paid fairly for what I do and I already feel professionally successful. I have nothing more to prove in the "title and money" regard. It's just that I'm not used to laying low in a job. I don't know whether I am capable of not putting everything I have into such a job. I'll have to turn this over to a higher power.

There are moments when I can't believe I'm not going to take that other job. It's just so not me. And I'm still waffling, truth be known. But the way I am living now isn't working for anyone but my employer. It's not working for me, or for my husband and sons. I think that life could be better, easier, fuller. So, regardless of this free-falling fear I have about the consequences of this decision, I'm going to do it.