The Sweet Witch

Whenever we go over to my inlaws, my mother-in-law makes enough food to feed an army. No, that's not a metaphor.

She's already cooked enough and packaged it up in Ziploc and Glad containers to feed an army for a week and put it into the fridge. That's for us to take home. That doesn't include the food she sets out on the table. It's always some sort of meat, usually red - prime rib, steak, ribs - plus at least one meat side dish, usually sausage. And there's always shrimp as an appetizer. Harley's a big meat eater, and it's clear she's cooking for him.

But there's plenty of carbs, too, don't get me wrong. Baked beans, cheesy potatoes, macaroni and cheese. Occasionally there's a vegetable - green bean casserole (the kind with fried onions on the top) or buttered carrots. Once in a while, a salad.


We went to my in-laws for my birthday yesterday. My mother-in-law likes to find reasons for us to come over at least once a month. My birthday is a good reason in January. We came home loaded down with food. Going there, for a food addict, is like asking an alcoholic to go to a New Year's Eve party at Cheers.


Of course, if you're going to meetings and doing what you need to do, it wouldn't matter if someone set a drink in front of you, right? You'd say no.

Me, I'm not so good at the "saying no" part. I clearly haven't gotten there yet. So my lunch today consisted of cheesy potatoes and baked beans. No protein in sight. And then there was leftover birthday cake. And she sent home two boxes of cookies. And a bag full of candy. And a gallon of ice cream, packed in ice. Of course she did.

Harley often likens her to the witch in the candy house in Hansel and Gretel. Sometimes I think he's right. And sometimes, when I'm lying in a stupid migraine-inducing sugar/carb coma after a trip to the in-laws, I wish we wouldn't keep leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that lead right back there again.

Queen Bee - Weigh In

276

That was the number on the scale.

The last time we did low-carb the weight literally melted off without any effort. And I was eating cream cheese and salami and pork rinds and deviled eggs... and I still managed to lose forty-ish pounds.

We'll see what happens this time. I haven't been 100% on "plan" so to speak. There was that chocolate. And that box of macaroni and cheese. And birthday cake.

One day at a time, one bite at a time, I suppose. I haven't been perfect. Which usually means, it's time to give up and grab for the Doritos. But instead, I've just been picking myself up and trying again.

I suppose the scale is reflecting that. I'm a pound lighter than when I started out (and the scale started going in the wrong direction!)

Progress, not perfection. Isn't that what they say?

Thursday Thirteen #3: 13 Funny Diet Tips

13 Funny Diet Tips

1. If you eat something, but no one else sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled by the diet soda.

3. Foods use for medicinal purposes NEVER count. e.g. hot chocolate, brandy, toast, Sara Lee Cheesecake

4. Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. e.g. milk duds, buttered popcorn, junior mints and Tootsie Rolls.

5. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage.

6. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.

7. If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons have no calories. e.g. peanut butter on a knife, ice cream on a spoon.

8. Food of the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate.

9. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other color.

10. 100 laughs a day is equal to 10 minutes of exercise!

11. Go to the paint store. You can get thinner there.

12. Relish today. Catchup tomorrow.

13. Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.

5 Sticky Notes On My Computer That I Want To Have Made Into Refrigerator Magnets

1. Life is hard.

2. I am not that important.

3. My life is not about me.

4. I am not in control.

5. You are going to die.

These strike me as true in my heart. They come from a man named Richard Rohr. He didn't invent them. They are timeless truths.

They sound harsh to many people when I tell them they are a code by which I strive to live. I don't know if they're harsh. If anyone would like to know how I understand them, how they apply to my challenges with food, eating, body, and addiction, please comment and ask. I would be glad to offer my 2 cents.

King Harley

Thursday Thirteen #2: 13 Refrigerator Magnets About Fat

13 Refrigerator Magnets About Fat

1. If we really are what we eat, I'm fast, cheap and easy.

2. I'm out of chocolate and I have a gun.

3. Eat, drink and be merry - for tomorrow they may cancel your Visa.

4. Everyone who diets gains in the end.

5. I am not fat, I am calorically gifted.

6. Life is unsure, so always eat your dessert first.

7. You are overweight if you are living beyond your seams.

8. Diet and exercise to fight hazardous waists.

9. The Joy of Not Cooking.

10. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

11. I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

12. I'm not overweight, I'm just undertall.

13. On a scale of 1 to 10......We'd weigh a lot less!

Check out Thursday Thirteen!

Thursday Thirteen #1: 13 Annoying Euphemisms for Fat

13 Annoying Euphemisms for Fat

1. Fluffy
2. Big-boned
3. "Such a pretty face!"
4. BBW
5. Well Rounded
6. Rubenesque
7. Curvy
8. Large and In Charge
9. "Bear"
10. More to Love
11. Thick
12. Chubby
13. Cuddly

See More Thursday Thirteen Lists HERE.

Melting

I'm melting! MEEEEEEEEELLLLTING!

Okay, not me personally. (I wish! ha) But our huge snowstorm is melting into a gooey puddle of water and mud in a freak January thaw. Sixty degrees today. 6-0!

And we're still debating whether global warming is real?

Come on! I like to live my life in denial, but even I can't pretend I'm 5'8" and 110 lbs... which, seems to me, is pretty analogous.

And, as with global warming, my denial and wishful thinking instead of taking action is actually quite harmful.

Ouch. I hate it when I take my analogies all the way to their logical conclusion.

Ignorance really is bliss, isn't it?

Stuck

Watched Fried Green Tomatoes this morning while the kids went out to play in the snow that will disappear in a great flood this afternoon and tomorrow.

Great movie.

Kathy Bates character's sobbing into a handkerchief after some young kid called her a fat cow, and Jessica Tandy is patting her on the back and comforting her.

"I just wish I could get it over with and get really fat! I'm too young to be old and I'm too old to be young."

I hear ya, sister. I hear ya. (Has it really been fifteen years since this movie was released? God, I am getting old!) It takes courage to really eat your way toward death. Or to stop. I feel so caught in the middle, afraid to go forward, afraid to go back.

"One candy bar won't hurt ya," Tandy says.

"One, no. But ten or eleven?"

Yep, I hear ya.

I could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tastes wayyyyy better than Lean Cuisine. (I'm watching the latest commercial - one woman eating a rice cake, the other drinking some frothy, scary-looking diet drink... and I'm supposed to believe the mouse-sized portion of chicken parts and freeze dried veggies tastes better? Feh!)

What is wrong with me?

I wish I knew. *sigh*

There's Always Room for Cello

Two hundred and eighty pounds.

Which means, I haven't lost anything (didn't expect to) but I didn't gain anything either.

The problem is, I feel crappy.

I am so unhealthy. It wasn't always this way. I was fat, yes, but I could still DO stuff. I could do yoga! Warrior I, II and III, for pete's sake! I could walk a mile on a treadmill, swim twenty laps. I could do a whole aerobics class at the gym.

Now... I can't walk up stairs without panting like a Siberian Husky pulling a sled in Mexico. I can't walk to the corner and back without feeling as tired as a narceleptic on heroin or sweating like a Coke bottle on a picnic table in August.

I'm so out of shape. Unless you count a rather squishy circle as a shape. Harley just said, "More like an ellipse... or like a cello."

The truth is, Yo-Yo Ma gets more exercise than I do just pulling a bow. I've elevated the role of couch potato beyond reason - like a deep fried Oreo Cookie - I'm redundantly sedentary. And the truth is, I so don't want to move. Newton's Law, wasn't it? An object in motion stays in motion... an object at rest stays at rest.

Gotta figure out a way to get myself moving again. I've got Nike sayings running through my head. "Just Do It!" Seems easier said than done, though...

Expert Advice

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, but I did make a commitment to blog for the next 365 days.

What was I thinking!?

I did tell myself I wasn't going to give up. I wasn't going to abandon this blog, no matter what, even if I didn't find a way through the maze of my food and eating issues. My struggle and thoughts had to be useful, even if I failed... to me, to someone, somewhere.

As I'm writing this, the 2008 Nutrisystem ad is on TV: "I went from a size twelve to a size two!"

Feh. Lady, I'd love to be a size twelve. But I don't want to do it eating Nutrisystem food. Yuk.

Over the holidays, my sister said her new goal was to be 120 pounds by next Christmas. She's not that heavy - she has, perhaps, twenty pounds to lose. But that launched a discussion of weight, and eating, and diet (all while we were shoveling in dessert). She's been doing Weight Watchers - but not the meetings. Just counting her points.

"It's a great way to keep track of your food!" she claimed. "I know, now, that I have 2 points left for twelve candy corn."

Harley raised an eyebrow and snorted. "Now that's a waste of two points."

Points shmoints. But then she pulled out the Dr. Phil book, telling us Dr. Phil had really helped her understand what "type" of person she was when it came to eating and diets. There was a little test inside. Both she and Harley turned out to be perfectionists. Me, I was in the middle - feeling helpless, powerless, as if I have no control.

But do I?

This morning I heard a doctor on a show talking about childhood obesity, saying our bodies are programmed to crave and like salt, sugar and fat.

Well, hell. Isn't there a reason for that? Because I know that's exactly what my body craves. Especially the sugar. Do I have control over that? I don't feel as if I do. Every time I try to stop, something, something drives me back to the white stuff. I gotta have my fix.

On the same show where the doctor was talking about what we crave was a twelve year old obese boy who said, "Food is comfort. It's always the same. It makes me feel good when I eat it. It doesn't make fun of me or hurt me."

Damn. If I'd had that insight at twelve? Where would I be today? I barely have that insight now. I don't even know what the feelings are underneath the food. I'm so out of touch with them... I can't even identify what they are. That's scary to me. No wonder I tested as feeling hopeless, helpless, powerless. I feel caught. Can't go forward, can't go back.

So Dr. Phil had a show yesterday I happened to catch about New Year's resolutions. I don't usually watch him - his "Just say No!" worldview makes me insane. And this show wasn't any different. There was a 400 pound fast food addict eating McDonalds three times a day, like some real life "Supersize Me," and Dr. Phil is saying, "You just need to stop eating so much and exercise more."

This is the answer??

This is the answer.

Damn.

It hit me. That really IS the answer.

And then Dr. Phil said something that made me really sit up and take notice. "Your lifestyle is set up to support what you do. If you had a different lifestyle, things would be different."

He's not wrong. It really made sense, all of a sudden.

Harley and I keep talking about how, come spring, we want to raise chickens (for eggs) and grow our own organic garden. Ultimately, we'd like to be living off the grid somewhere in a sustainable community, but it's baby steps, for now. A garden and some chickens. Which means Harley needs to build a coop and plow a field. I need to plant and hoe and weed and water. And then we need to reap what we sow.

Change your lifestyle, change your life. That makes sense. I think I see a glimmer of hope sparkling somewhere in the distance that doesn't have to do with diets or denial. It has to do with moving our lives into a different space, a different place. For me, it's always seemed like a strange, impossible step, as if we were trying to find the way into another dimension. But now... it feels real. It feels possible.

That's exciting. Maybe I WILL have something to blog about this year.

Promise Land?

There's a post on Chewing The Fatz today titled Diets Don't Work - Or Do They? It illustrates an interesting point about the blogosphere that I'm discovering as I take this journey - it's fairly polarized along the "diet" and "nondiet" lines. There are those who insist that "Diets Don't Work!" - those are in the Fat Acceptance crowd. And then there are those who are trying the diet thing, whether it's Weight Watchers (who lately claim they aren't a diet) or South Beach or Dr. Phil or even getting weight loss surgery, and blogging about their success (or failure.) And some are succeeding (or have succeeded.)

The latter pretty much proves the point, doesn't it? Diets work. Eat less, exercise more, and you lose weight. Maybe not as much as you want to, as fast as you want to, but it does eventually work. Create a calorie deficit, and your body mass goes down. Which seems to imply that the problem doesn't lie in the question "Do diets work or not?" - it goes much deeper than that.

At the risk of alienating one side or the other (and that there are lines drawn between them at all seems silly to me to begin with) I'm going to speak up about this. It seems to me that the root of dieting and the root of giving up on diets altogether is actually the same. There's really no difference between actively dieting or actively "not dieting." Seems strange, but stay with me... it's true. The root of both of these is fear.

Dieting is the fear of being fat, getting fatter, not being accepted - ultimately, it's the fear of dying. Actively NOT dieting on the other hand is simply a denial, and it's the fear of failure and rejection (accept me as I am!) Ultimately it's the fear of the self, of finding who is underneath it all, of discovering what's hidden. (Which is ironic, since the fat acceptance movement is all about loving "what is." Really, it's nothing but loving the denial...)

Okay, I know that sounds harsh. It probably is. But both camps seem to be missing something, don't they? They're at extremes. Which is a famous marker of those who are addicts. Addicts love extremes. Are you a dieter? Then you're going to diet, you may lose weight, but ultimately, you're going to fail. Because diets don't deal with the root cause of your addiction (your fear). It will return once you've stopped "dieting." Are you a non-dieter? Someone who insists diets don't work, I'll never be thin, I'm genetically pre-disposed to be like this, and you should accept me as I am? Then you've simply stuck dug heels in, turned your head, and are denying what's coming. It doesn't make you any less afraid, underneath. It doesn't make death any less imminent.

Nothing does.

And that's the truth that both extremes seem to miss. Neither path leads anywhere different. They're both going to the same place. Different paths, same destination. Which makes them both look sort of silly. Restricting your calories to the point of pain, spending hours on an exercise bike, becoming obsessive about the numbers on the scale... What sense does it make? Or the opposite, living in denial acceptance... how different is that than a heroin addict saying, "I can't change who I am, I can't stop what I'm doing, so you're going to just have to make heroin legal and accept my addiction... until I'm dead."

What kind of life do either of those make? The pain and suffering remain. Maybe those who follow the fat acceptance belief are a little happier than the constant dieters, if they can come to some sort of self-acceptance. Maybe. But on the surface, it's still a denial, and underneath, the pain and the addiction still exist. It doesn't go away simply because you say you don't want to see it anymore.

There has to be a way to live life in between these two extremes, where weight loss and a healthy body image is possible, where activity doesn't have to mean mindless hours on some machine, where food doesn't have to be a constant battleground or a complete denial. That's what I long for. A life that isn't about "diet," but that doesn't exist in denial either. Not the Weight Watchers version of a lifestyle change, where you count food points and exercise points, and not the fat acceptance journey which seems simply deny the pain of addiction.

I want a life that's about living... not one that's a denial or fear of death. I want a life that is joyous, moment to moment. I don't expect pain to disappear, but I'm tired of covering it up, stuffing it, hiding it, swallowing it. I'm tired of swallowing all of my emotion or drowning it in food instead of feeling it, painful or not. And yes, I'm still afraid of what's under there, too. It's big, it's lurking, and it's been buried under carbs for the past thirty-something years. And I think it's mad.

But there comes a point... there has to come a point. As Anais Nin once said, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." I'm praying to come to that point. I'm not there yet, I know, and it's frustrating and painful to feel it, to want it, and not be able to access or reach it. But it is good to know that place exists... that there is a solution that doesn't involve surgery or diets or denial.

Shrunk

My new jeans shrank.

Dryers are evil.

I don't want to entertain the thought that I've gained any weight. I've decided I'm not stepping on a scale until after the New Year. That's my Merry Christmas gift to me. Not a denial, not an avoidance... just a break from the stress of the numbers.

Of course, my jeans have decided to remind me anyway. Grr.

Denim sucks.

Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

This whole "diet" thing is messing with my head. Not that it hasn't been messing with my head for years. Since before I can remember, really. Has it become such a complete part of my psyche that I'm never going to be able to get rid of it? I hope not... but I can't seem to get the mentality out of my mind, no matter what I do.

Diets are based on scarcity, restriction, and deprivation. They talk about accountability to some authority that isn't your own. They want you to spend your life counting, recording, writing it all down. It's all about the numbers, the scales, weighing and measuring, counting steps, counting calories, counting the minutes until you die...

Is this really the way I want to live?

I seem to exist in two states: dieting and waiting to diet. Dieting doesn't last very long, I admit. A few weeks. Months at most. I certainly haven't ever done it long enough to call it a "way of life" or a "lifestyle." Most of my time has been spent dreading the upcoming diet, shoving all those "forbidden" foods into my mouth I know I can't have when I'm dieting, and hoping that I'll get some fabled call from the governor at the last moment, saving me from the electric chair Monday - diet day.

I've done all sorts of "diets." I've paid lots of money to be weighed and measured, to weigh and measure my food, to listen to skinny folks who used to be fat talk about how they did it, one celery stick at a time. I've eaten loads of processed crap that didn't taste much better than the box they came in. Eventually, even Twiggy would get sick of miniature portions of freeze dried broccoli and salisbury steak.

I know what a "diet" is, I know what it feels like, I know what it looks like. I know what waiting to diet feels like - the sense of impending doom, the voracious journey toward restriction, the guilt and denial and avoidance. Is there a middle ground somewhere, or am I looking for the fairy tale? Is there a yellow brick road I'm missing?

This morning I watched Valerie Bertinelli get all choked up on my television and tell me that for the first time, she was going to wake up on New Year's day and not make a resolution to lose weight - because she already had. "That could be you next year!" she tearfully insisted. "So call now!" (And while you're at it, will someone please drop a house on Jenny Craig?) I thought, hmmm... I wonder if Valerie's going to be fat again next January, or if she's going to keep up with the whole "diet" thing? Is she going to still be eating red boxes full of fake food next year? And come to think of it... why is it we never see Jenny Craig? Is it because she got fat again, I wonder, after years of depriving herself?

Not to pick on Jenny. She doesn't corner the market on diets or anything - (not that she doesn't want to.) She's got lots of competition from Florine, Suzanne Somers (and whatever happened to poor Susan Powter who wanted us to all stop the insanity by signing on to her version of it? Did she get fat again? No, wait, I wiki-ed her... she's still around!) Jillian Michaels, and Denise Austin. And not to be outdone by the women, there are endless rows of doctors - from Atkins to Ornish - out there pimping their programs, too. And let's not forget Ho-prah's protege, Bob Greene, doing his thang. And poor Richard Simmons - one of the few I think who are truly sincere. And don't forget all those programs not necessarily associated with a face, like Medifast, Nutrisystem, Slimfast, South Beach, the Cavemen... etc. etc. etc.

A diet is a diet is a diet is a diet...

Unless it claims it isn't?

Ha. Right.

That rationalization works... until you fall off the wagon and you're not doing the program anymore. I was reading Cranky Fitness yesterday, who referred to Sarah and Weetabix at Elastic Waist debating about Weight Watchers' new claim that they're "not a diet."

Huh?

I'm sorry, that must be my bad ear, what did you say?

Weight Watchers isn't a diet?

Feh! Right.

And George Bush isn't an idiot...

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck - it's a big, fat duck.

Do you know how many people I know who have joined Weight Watchers and lost weight... and then gone off it and gained it back... and joined again and lost weight... and gone off it and gained it back...? Lather, rinse, repeat. This isn't a permanent solution any more than the others. It's designed to do one thing, and one thing only: make a profit. That's the bottom line with any of these diets. In fact, I'd venture to say WW makes a majority of its profit from re-joiners, not first time members. I could be wrong - but I bet I'm not.

I'm tired of diets... even those that claim they aren't what they really are. I don't want to buy or eat another box of crappy, overpriced, processed food. Why should I trust some outer authority to tell me what to do, how to do it, and what quantities I'm allowed to do it in? How is that any different than the rest of the sheeple yo-yo-ing up and down the diet scale and paying big bucks for the privilege?

I want to wipe the slate completely clean and start from scratch. Is there a deprogramming program for the diet programs we've been fed over the years? How do I get out of this maze of dead ends? Can I click my heels together and say "There's no place like home?"

Have I had the power all along, Dorothy?

Because when you let go of the idea of relying on someone else's authority... you have nothing but your own. Now that's some serious responsibility. And some serious independence.

Pink Elephants

I like to pretend pink elephants don't exist. I'm quite good at it, actually. I seem to have a knack for conveniently "forgetting" things, behavior, patterns. Ask Harley about my movie watching. I will "forget" a plot of a movie, so I can watch it over and over with nearly the same amount of enjoyment. If it's something I've only seen once and haven't seen for years, I will only vaguely remember the details.

When I was married to my ex, he had affair after affair. He was one of those guys who could convince you (or at least, me) that he was invisible even though he was standing right in front of you. I spent a lot of time second guessing myself in that marriage, thinking I was insane. Finally, I wised up. It took me years, of course, but eventually, the evidence piled up so high that I couldn't ignore it anymore.

But a pink elephant has to be pretty big, bright neon, and make quite a mess before I'll notice. I'm pretty sure I know why. It's easier for me to live in denial and ignore something than it is to confront someone about it and deal with it. I'd rather not know. Ignorance might be bliss, but denial keeps the peace.

I still haven't learned my lesson since divorcing my ex. Harley has faults, of course, but at least he's a grown up and is willing to look at them. That's all I ask, really. My ex insisted on staying a child, lying to avoid confrontation. Sadly, he keeps reminding me, year after year, that I made the right choice when I left. Harley, on the other hand, while he moves in what I call "glacier time" actually does make changes. Sloooooooooooooooooooooowly.

I know that the eating and food stuff isn't the "problem." It's actually been my solution. And it's been very effective, if I do say so myself. It's the thing I've been using to keep myself from seeing all my pink elephants. And it's turned me into some strange, twisted version of said elephant, so that when I look into a mirror, I don't even see myself. Who I really am. I don't know who that woman is in the mirror. I don't know if I ever did.

I'm afraid of all the things I've denied over the years. I'm afraid to open that box and look at them. That's the truth. I know stopping the food means the pain is going to come up. You can't ignore 100 pink elephants for thirty-seven years and expect them not to stomp you when you finally decide to pay attention to them again. I know I'm gonna get crushed.

I'm so not looking forward to that part.

Emotional Bypass

I am a walking couch-potato cliche, I know - a fat woman sitting in my living room watching Oprah and eating chocolate. The show? "Suddenly Skinny." How could I not tune in, right?

Gastric bypass - the thing I've been fantasizing about as a magic bullet - apparently bypasses the stomach, but it doesn't bypass the reason you were eating to the point of morbid obesity in the first place. If you can't eat your feelings anymore, what do you do? I've often thought weight loss surgery must act as some sort of catalyst, speeding up the process of dealing with the pain and fear and anxiety the compulsive eating tries to cover. Makes sense, right?

It had occurred to me, too, that perhaps you might find something else to be addicted to, if you couldn't use food to cope. But that's not the fantasy in my head. The fantasy is that being thin makes people happy - that it would make me happy. It's supposed to make everything okay again. Thinness is the "answer." Isn't it?

I didn't know, though, that it's really happening to real people out there. The reality of gastric bypass can mean the transfer of one addiction to another. From compulsive overeating to alcholism. From compulsive overeating to gambling or sex addiction. Just something else to fill the hole.

Carnie Wilson, the poster girl for gastric bypass, became an alcholic. It's seven years since her surgery, and she's been sober for two years, now. Yay her.

She said, "I can find addiction anywhere in my life. I was a born addict."

I listened to her, and I heard myself. I know I'm addict - but food feels like a "safe" addiction. It's legal. No one is going to take my license or put me in jail if I eat and drive. I need food to live, so I can rationalize a food addiction much easier than I can any other. Plus, I have a fat family, and can point to "bad genes" when it comes to my appearance.

But if I lost the weight, if I did something drastic like gastric bypass - what would happen to my addiction? Would I transfer it to something else? I'm totally not a drinker, I hate the taste of alcohol. But if I didn't have food - what would I turn to? Because I know I'd turn to something. I'd have to. What would I end up addicted to? Vicodin? Booze? What?

I said jokingly the other day that I'd rather be addicted to heroin. But... would I really rather be a heroin addict? Would I REALLY?

Carnie said, after her surgery, she started drinking, and when it got really bad, she woke up every day not knowing how she was going to stop.

But that's how I feel about food. I wake up every day not knowing how to end this. I have all the information. I know all the hows. My favorite saying by Maya Angelou, "When you know better, you do better," just doesn't seem to apply in this situation. I know better. But I can't seem to do any better. Why not?

The belief, when you go in for weight loss surgery, is that if you decrease the weight, you'll decrease the emotional pain. The reality is that when you shrink your weight without dealing with all those feelings, your pain increases. That's a paraphrase of the psychologist on Oprah today.


That's the stark reality.

And that's what I'm afraid of. That's the honest truth. I'm afraid of the pain I've buried under the food. I'm terrified of collapsing into an emotional wreck. The food is keeping me emotionally functioning (if rather numb.) Without it? I feel as if I'll end up a quivering, sobbing mass of jelly that they're going to have to pour into a straight-jacket and lock in a padded room for the rest of my life.

And I don't even know what the pain is - its source or its origin. And the truth is, I don't want to know. Losing the weight means not using the food to cover it anymore. Losing the weight means leaving myself exposed and vulnerable. Losing the weight feels like death - even though the opposite is also true as well. If I keep eating this way, I'm going to die. It's quite a difficult place to be.

Diet Girl's Scavenger Hunt Entry!

Okay, here are our entries for Dietgirl's Scavenger Hunt!

We couldn't agree - go figure! So we have two entries for each item on the list.

THE LIST

Queen B's Bicycle entry



Harley's bicycle... reference... entry...



Queen B's Bald Man Entry



Harley's Bald Man Entry



Queen B's Elvis Entry


Harley's Elvis Entry


Queen B's Greek yogurt entry



Harley's Greek Yogurt entry



Queen B's wedding dress entry



Harley's Wedding Dress Entry


Queen B's Letter D Entry



Harley's Letter D Entry



Queen B's Letter G Entry



Harley's Letter G Entry



Did we win, did we win? :)

Eliminating the Options

Harley got the job.

Can everyone say hallelujah?

Yep. Amen.

It's more money, the benefits are less than half of what we're paying now, and we're currently only managing to cover Harley and me. The insurance with the new job will cover everyone (including the kiddos) for half the price. Can you say WOOT!!? Yeah. That's what I said, too.

The only thing is the deductible. I hate deductibles. It's $1000 for a family, so that means $1000 out of pocket. January is going to majorly suck. The other thing is it will not, under any circumstances, cover weight loss surgery. The insurance we have now will cover it, but only gastric bypass (no lap bands), and only when you've "failed" a 12 month weight loss program.

Which means, it eliminates the possibility, at least while Harley's working this job. In the back of my mind, I've kind of been entertaining the thought, ever since the doctor mentioned it. It feels like such a quick fix, an easy out. A way to get thin without having to do any of the work. It's quite a carrot to dangle... or in my case, a donut.

But not only do I now have to erase it from the "improbable solutions" column, I now have to cross it off the "possible solutions" list, too. Which leaves me with either....

a.) entire lifestyle change or b.) suicide.

There I go, back to extremes again! :)

Okay, so all kidding aside, this gives me no option, however small, of an easy out. I'm going to have to actually do this whole lifestyle change thing without any medical reinforcement, at least in terms of drastic surgery. Or die trying.

And that's, unfortunately, not too far into the extreme realm... that's more the truth than not.

It's either do this thing or die trying.

Going to Extremes

Harley pointed out last night that we do a lot of "starting" and not a lot of "continuing" with this whole "diet" thing. And he also said we tend to begin going gangbusters and then sort of... peter out. Or conveniently "forget"... oh that's right, we were supposed to be eating low-carb weren't we? Oh, well, let's just order pizza... we won't eat the crust. Yeah. Right.

It's both good and bad having someone doing this thing with you. It's great support, but it can also be much easier to sabotage. So the current plan is to not go gung-ho jumping off the diet cliff this time, cleaning out the cupboards and going out to spend $500 on food like whey protein and almond flour that I'll never use anyway...

I'm tired of thinking and saying, "This time it's going to be different." This time is the same time. The only time. It's a long, continuous process of trying to figure it out and find something that works. No more "this time's" no more "No more's" either. Extremes have been, as Harley pointed out, part of the problem. I don't know that they can be part of the solution. I could "never" and "always" myself right to death - literally. What good is it really doing me?

I've always said I wished I was addicted to something I could quit. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Crack. Heroin. Anything but food. Something you could just cut out altogether and never have to deal with again. THAT I could do. But, of course, I didn't get those addictions. I got this one. I have to walk some sort of ambiguous line, and I've been doing it rather rebelliously and/or ambivilently over the years. I need food to live - but every time I make a choice about what to put in my mouth, I have to deal with the addiction. Either I give in to it, or I don't. So far, the addiction's winning. Way ahead.

And of course, having something I could just "quit" would be yet another extreme. That's part of it, too. I'm either perfect or I'm the worst at everything. I'm either eating the whole cake, or depriving myself completely. It's that pendulum swing between one and the other that I clearly have to learn to deal with. It's finding that middle way, not going to extremes, that seems to be the point.

Extreme-shmeme. :P I'd still rather be addicted to heroin.

Whoever Said Life Was Fair?

Harley and I are so different when it comes to food.

Before we lost our friend, D, to breast cancer, we all used to sit around and talk for hours about - well, everything. But one of the things we remarked on was how similar our psychology was around food, and yet how differently it manifested in the world. D was bulemic and had been since she was thirteen. She had also been anorexic at one point. And had ballooned up to 180 pounds and then the bulemia "fixed" her weight problem. That's where she got stuck.

Harley and I - we're compulsive overeaters. I wouldn't vomit by choice even if you offered me a million dollars and promised me a lifetime's supply of chocolate. Harley thinks vomiting is ridiculously stupid - why would you waste the food you just ate? He doesn't "get" anorexics and bulemics. I do. I get the inclination, anyway - I'm just not in for the actual acting it out.

But even though we have the same issue, Harley and I, we eat totally different things to get where we are. Me, I'm a sweets/carbs eater. Harley's philosophy about food? Meat+Heat=Eat. And the 2nd part of the equation is optional. He just eats vast quantities of whatever it is he's eating. I cook enough for two families most nights. He eats for one of them. Me and the kids eat the other meal.

Me, I will forgo a meal to eat a candy bar. In fact, if I could live on candy bars, Doritos, and various nefarious junk foods, I would. I mean, if the guilt didn't get to me that I'm not eating "healthy" food. So I force myself to sit at the dinner table and eat a few bites of the "real" food so I can later gorge myself on cake. WTH? I know, it's all very twisted. Welcome to the world of a food addict.

But the underlying emotional stuff? That's the same. Different, of course, in its particulars (kind of like the food!) but at the core, it's the same. We hide how we feel. Me, I'm so disconnected, I don't even know most of the time what I'm feeling. And I don't want to know - so I bury it in the food. It's truly no different than any addict.

And I know what I'm addicted to. It's the sugar. Like any white powdered substance - cocaine, heroin. No difference. I know my body is actually, physically, addicted to the stuff, because I did go off it once. The only diet I was truly successful at for an extended period (about nine months) was a low-carb diet that cut out all refined sugar and carbs. Harley and I did the Protein Power Life Plan and we both lost weight. Those size 22's in my closet? I was considering actually going shopping for a size lower because they were getting loose.

The withdrawal from sugar was evil. I was sick, lethargic, nauseaous. I should have been in a detox center somewhere, it was so awful. But after a week or so of that, I felt fantastic. And suddenly food that had previously been nowhere near sweet enough (blueberries or a cantaloupe, for example) were bursting in my mouth with sweet flavor.

Harley wants to do the low-carb thing again. I have to make all sorts of mind-leaps when I'm doing it. I can eat bacon? Heavy cream? Cream cheese? Butter? Steak? But I can't have a cracker? Or a baked potato? Or spaghetti? Hmmmm... But it actually works. I know, because I've done it. Part of me just doesn't like it. Or think it's fair.

It's true... there's a little kid in me stamping her foot and whining, "But it's NOT FAIR!" Harley gets to eat what he LOVES - meat. Me, I have to cut out everything I love and eat the stuff I hate. *whine* How come? Why me? What kind of plan or system is that, who thought it up, and where can I set up a meeting with them so I can punch them in the face? Huh?

And secretly I believe that if I have to suffer during this diet thing, then Harley should have to suffer too, right? It's only FAIR!

I know. How twisted is that?

Logically, I know it's the right thing to do. I feel better, I lose weight without even thinking about it. And I'm not eating all the junk food that I intellectually know is not good for my (or anyone's) body. Emotionally, however, I'm dealing with a huge internal protest, and I know I'm going to have to dig deep and locate my adult-self to set some boundaries and put that little one in time-out for her temper tantrums. *sigh*

And, of course, I'm not looking forward to the sugar withdrawal. *shudder*

Can't we start Monday? No? What do you mean there's no time like the present? But I have all this sugar and flour in the house, and... and... and... *sigh* Time to clean out the pantry again, I guess. Last time we did this, I gave away probably $200 worth of carbs. Wonder how much I'll end up donating this time?

Alright, alright. I'm going already.

King Harley's Monthly Photo: December 2007

Before photo, front: December 2007

Before photo, side: December 2007