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?

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

Fad Diets

I was watching a show last week about the dangers of various fad diets. Harley and I seem drawn like moths to a flame to all the shows about weight on the tube (wow, that's an inaccurate metaphor isn't it... there really aren't tubes inside televisions anymore, huh?) Whether it's shows about losing weight, anorexia, bulemia, obesity, it doesn't matter.

I was amazed at how many of the "diets" listed that I've tried over the years. I've highlighted in red the ones that the program mentioned that I've given the old college try:

Liquid diet

Atkins

Suzanne somers

Weight Watchers

Jenny Craig

Medical Weight Loss

Metabolife

Detox

Colonics

Juicing

Raw foods

Maple Syrup Diet

Astrology Diet

Blood Type Diet

Cookie Diet

Tapeworm

The cookie diet sounds good, but they're not talking real cookies. They're talking fake "whole meal" cookies. *sigh* If it sounds too good to be true...

Note that I have NOT tried using a tapeworm. Although, I remember when I was a teenager, learning about tapeworms, and thinking, "Hey! That would be a perfect solution!" Eat all you want... and still lose weight!?

Eek!

It's amazing the lengths we'll go to, isn't it? I once considered ingesting a parasite in order to make myself thin... wow. What's wrong with this picture?

"Fast" Food

We had Arby's last night.

We rarely eat out, because 1) it's expensive 2) we're far away from places to eat out and 3) we know it's not good for us.

But we do, every once and a while, and somehow I always think fast food is going to taste better than it does. I remember it better, or something. I've learned that's true about places like McDonald and Burger King and I just avoid going there altogether, even when we decide to splurge. But Arby's sounds "better" to me for some reason. I thought it would taste good. It sounded good.

It wasn't good.

*sigh*

I don't know why I can't keep that in my head all the time. In fact, it gave me a migraine. Probably some sort of artificial something I ended up eating. Yuk.

We're going grocery shopping today. I was very organized this time - I planned the menus, I created the list, and I'm sending Harley and the teenager. Two masculine folks should be able to go into the store and just buy what's on the list right? As opposed to me... I wander, I put things in the cart that "look good" or "sound good"... so NOT good. So they're going to go into the grocery store and grab some REAL "fast" food.

We're heading back to doing lower carb, no refined sugars or bad carbs. Plus lower, unsaturated fats. So the Twix I had the day before yesterday was probably the last chocolate for a long time. If that had occurred to me at the time, I would have savored it more. *sigh*

I really can't wait until summer, when we can start growing our own veggies and fruits and can collect our own eggs from our own Omega-3-fed chickens... I'm even considering raising bees!

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?

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.

Time For a Cat Nap

Okay, are we all so enamored with the bio-medical model of the universe that we really believe this crap?

Honestly, if I could sleep my way to thinness… I’d be ninety-nine pounds by now! I sleep ten hours a night. And can sleep twelve if I want to. And could STILL take a nap mid-afternoon - no problem. Harley says I’m part cat. And considering my general aloofness, dislike of water, and sharp claws, I tend to think he’s right.

Meow.

Well I’m off to make a Banana Split cake. And a Nieman Marcus cake. And Jello. And our Christmas cookies for Santa.

Then, I think, I’ll take a nap!

Lazy Is As Lazy Does?

Lot's of talk and thinking and feeling and heartfelt intention, but no action.

Hell, you'd think I was lazy and undisciplined, like a good fat man is supposed to be.

Yet, while it's true that I got away with murder in just about every facet of my life because everything has been easy for me to either excel at, or to simply get by with a "C" average when I'm uninterested, I do have a couple of post grad degrees, I get up and go to work everyday, etc... I know I'm not actually lazy and undisciplined...well, maybe a little undisciplined, but only because I rely on my ability to intuitively understand and respond to whatever comes up without much effort.

I want my intuitive understanding to be enough when it comes to food, eating and being healthy. This seems to be the only thing in life that I'm continually thwarted by in such a big way.

I suppose it points to the thing that is deisgned to wake me up and show me I'm not really in control, the particular cosmic 2x4 that keeps hitting me over the head until I get it...until I get that the universe doesn't revolve around me. I dunno.

It seems so simple. Eat less - exercise more. It's impossible to deny the basic truth of that.

Why can't I simply do that? Maybe it's why "won't" I simply do that. Maybe I need to ask for help. But I have and I didn't really do what was suggested. So, what am I afraid of facing? Or, do I even need to figure out what I'm afraid of facing before I face it?

I tell others to stop the problem behavior and then face the emotional and psychological pain that comes up. I don't take my own advice in the area of food and eating.

Here's what it comes down to...at least what I'm feeling in this moment: no one cares.

Which means I really want someone to care. And I'm not even sure what that means.

Here's where this goes for me: I deeply care about others, but I feel I'm invisible (ironic, considering the size of my body), particularly, emotionally invisible. I'm not even certain what the pain is that I'm eating and staying fat in order to avoid (feeling invisible?), but I feel that my feeling and my heart matters less than everyone else's feelings and heart.

Is that it, the fear of being ignored, abandoned, rejected, that keeps me from taking action?

Queenie's parent's visited today and we talked about wieght, eating, food, etc... as her father has had serious health problems due to obesity, and he also had a very controlling mother when he was a boy, just as I did. Talk then turned to my 5-yr-old son and his wilfullness, stubborness and determination. I'm grateful for those qualities in my son, and while I will certainly wrestle with him and engage in a power struggle with him now and again, I'm very aware of the power I and Queenie have to crush and smother his sense of self-direction, volition and inner authority. It enrages me and nearly brings me to tears when I allow the memories to come up of how my own inner authority and sense of self-direction was crushed and smothered by the food that was very nearly literally shoved down my throat in vast quantities as a boy.

I'm getting a sense that I'm not lazy, but that I'm simply defiant out of fear of being crushed and smothered and fed into oblivion. I would rather keep up the illusion of control and keep doing what is comfortable, safe and predictable, even if it's literally killing me, than risk changing my behavior and taking action.

It's not laziness. It takes me a helluva lot of time, energy, focus and attention to to try and control reality so that I can keep the fear of being crushed and smothered inside, in the form of fat and unlived life.

I guess I'm the one who is crushing and smothering me. I'm keeping myself cut off and alone out fear of being cut off and alone.

That's fucked up.

I feel like I could really use a friend who could help me with this, but I probably wouldn't allow a friend in for fear of being given the message, yet again, that it's either them or me.

The King has left the building.

Codependents R Us

Harley and I met on the Internet, back when AOL was charging by the hour and people ran up $1200 Internet bills. Me included. When I met Harley, I was in a disintegrating marriage, and he was a psychologist with a lot of knowledge about relationships. He tried to help me fix my marriage. Can you imagine? I think he's glad he failed. :)

After my marriage fell apart and Harley and I started noticing each other in a more-than-friendship sort of way, we did what any self-respecting fat person on the Internet does in this culture. We lied. I was a 5'5" redhead... and that's where the truth stopped. I was a svelte 120 pounds, long of leg and rather busty. Well, the latter is true, but I can thank overly developed adipose tissue for it rather than a propensity toward a D-cup. Harley claimed he was a 180 lb backpacker, hiker and camper. Welcome to the Internet World of Wishful Thinking.

We never thought it would go any further than a little Internet fling. We felt safe pretending to be who we weren't. Neither of us could have fathomed that we, in fact, lived only half an hour away from one another. Neither of us could have imagined that the other was dealing with the same issue, the same pain, the same fear of discovery and rejection. When Harley wrote me a long letter telling me why he couldn't ever meet me face to face -- because he was a 400 pound obese man who had lied to me -- I felt nothing but relief... and a great deal of love.

Long story short, we met, we married, we had two children together. We also fed each other's addiction and created a safe cocoon of codependence. My ex was one of those naturally skinny guys. The one time he wanted to lose a little weight, he cut out drinking regular Coke and switched to Diet. He lost ten pounds like he was just breathing room air. Easy peasy. He never understood the concept or idea of food as anything other than fuel.

But it isn't any easier living with a fellow addict. It may even be harder - because, while he understands and sees much more about me than a non-addict would - he also has the same or similar issues and problems he doesn't want to face any more than I do. We've both been very good at dissolving our boundaries, so much so that it becomes dangerous for both of us. I sabotage him, he sabotages me, and we slide back into the comfortable place we've always rested together.

I love Harley, and I'm blessed to have such an amazing man in my life. But sometimes I wish we weren't so much alike. I don't know how it's all going to work out - I wish a had a crystal ball. Are we meant to do this together? Is one of us meant to lead the other? Are we supposed to be buoyed up by community, by the universe, like two beached whales waiting for rescue, not sure how to find open water again? Ugh, how's that for a self-deprecating metaphor? I should quit while I'm ahead.

Some days I'd say being with Harley is what makes my life worth living. Some days, I wish for someone who wouldn't tolerate my addiction, who would call me out, force me to quit killing myself and hurting everyone around me with my pain. I know there's a middle ground between those two extremes. Story of my life. Getting there. It's painfully slow.

Joy to the World

I'm tired, but I can't sleep. Insomnia is a very strange phenomenon. And a recent one, for me. I could always sleep. Like a rock. Through a nuclear explosion. No problem. But not anymore, apparently.

Now I'm up in the wee hours, pecking away at my laptop while Harley snores beside me. I always fell asleep before Harley even started to snore. At least I know he doesn't have sleep apnea. There's looking at the glass half full, right?

The wind is blowing hard outside, whistling past the windows, and I'm thinking all of those wee-hour thoughts. Like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, wondering if everyone's life would have been better if I'd never been born? I don't have any icy rivers around here to jump into... which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure I don't have a Clarence waiting to jump in after me, either.

I got a Christmas card - first one of the season - opened it up today to the message: "May the new year bring you great joy." Joy. Wow. What in the hell is that? I think I understand the concept... I vaguely remember having that euphoric feeling a few times, maybe. The births of my children. My wedding day.

No pressure or anything, but the new year should bring me JOY? Can we aim a little lower? How about just the feeling of actually wanting to get out of bed every morning? I'd settle for that. But JOY? That feels quite foreign to me. Very out of reach. Looming in the realm of the impossible.

How often do we humans really experience joy? I mean, aside from maybe Buddha or the Dali Lama or Amma or something... those few people who seem to have been lit from the inside out... how many of us get to experience that particular emotion? Is every day a joy? One thing a week? One a month? One a year? Realistically, how often should I expect JOY to show up on my plate? (Ah there's a metaphor... slipped right in there, didn't it?)

I'd like to say I'd settle for happy. But what I really want is... joy. Euphoria. Pleasure, with a capital P. And I want it every single day. Every single moment of every single day. What? Unrealistic expectations? No one promised me a rose garden? Yeah. Right. I got it.

So the food keeps going in, the highs keep coming, and I keep longing for... more. It's never enough. Even at one in the morning, when I can't sleep and the night winds howl, and I could be outside instead of in, I could be nonexistent like George Bailey, life could always be worse, always... still, it's never enough.

This hole is bottomless. Nothing could fill it.

Intuitive Eating

I read Geneen Roth years ago. Had a wonderful therapist for a while who was all about "Making Peace with Food." And now Tribole and Resch have brought the idea of intuitive eating into more mainstream thinking. It certainly makes sense to me - although I have a problem trusting that it will work. Go figure.

I know I'm passing a lot of the "food rules" on to my kids that I was taught as a child. We were never allowed to open anything. Especially the peanut butter. But that rule went for anything - bags of chips, pop, whatever. We were never allowed to take the first or last of anything. We weren't allowed to eat anything without asking first. We weren't allowed to eat anything too close to dinner. You had to eat your dinner in order to get "dessert." You had to take at least one bite of everything on your plate, even if you knew you didn't like it. You had to sit at the table with everyone else to eat dinner. There was no food allowed in our rooms. My god, the rules about food were endless...

And they're still endless, here in my own house. I'm doing the exact same thing, I know it, to my kids, as my parents did to me. It's all the same rules, because it's all I've ever known. Granted, my kids are skinny - now. But I was skinny, too, until I hit puberty, got more freedom, and started doing what I wanted (and was told I couldn't) when it came to food.

When I read about intuitive eating, I break out into a cold sweat. I'm supposed to trust MYSELF when it comes to food? I'm supposed to trust my children to know what they want, to know when they're hungry and when they're full, and let them eat what they want, when they want? Even if they want to eat a bag of M&M's an hour before dinner? Really?

That works? That creates people who have a healthy relationship to their bodies and food? I have such a hard time trusting that's the truth.

Although logically, I know the opposite is true. Growing up with a compulsive eater (my father) who had a million rules and regulations when it came to food certainly created a person (me) who has a very UNhealthy relationship to my body and to food. So if that's true... does logic dictate the inverse is true? Is there some scientific law out there that proves that somehow?

I've been reading a lot of fat acceptance blogs lately. My favorite so far is Shapely Prose, but I've also been enjoying Unapologetically Fat, Fear & Loathing in the Kitchen and First, Do No Harm. The truth is, the idea of fat acceptance has always been anathema to me. Accept my weight? Accept my body as it is? Are you kidding me? I'd rather dream about being thin and sexy and beat myself up because I'm not those things...

and how twisted is that?

Where has it gotten me so far? Hating myself because I'm fat hasn't made me thin, that's for sure. It hasn't solved any problems, it certainly hasn't made me change my wicked, bingeing ways. Hating myself because I'm fat has just made me... hate myself. That's all. No solutions there. Just more pain, perpetuated.

I don't have an answer. Do I want to be thin? Hell yes. Will I ever be? I don't know. Can I accept that? Ugh. I don't want to. But it is what it is. Whether I can change it or not, I'm a fat woman. I can certainly say that. But can I say, I'm a fat woman, and I love myself as I am?

Damn, that's tough. How do you turn around nearly four decades of self-loathing?

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? :)

Playing Games

When I was in school, there were only a few "fat kids." I didn't get heavy until I hit puberty, but after that I was one of the fat girls. In our entire high school of 2,500, there were probably only 5 or 6 of us. That's a pretty small percentage. I stood out like a purple cow in a herd of black and whites.

Today? The statistics say 15% of adolescents ages 13-19 are overweight. So in the 80's it was about 2%. Twenty years later? 15%. And it seems to be increasing exponentially.

What's wrong with this picture?

I know there's been a lot of attention focused on this topic. Every other television or radio show talks about the obesity epidemic. Kids are getting diabetes and have high cholesterol and all sorts of ailments doctors didn't see starting until mid-life. There have been lots and lots of theories about why we're getting fatter, as an entire culture. Most of them, I think, hit the tree, but miss the target. And I think most of them miss the target intentionally - because they're afraid of what it might mean in terms of changing our world, if we really looked at the underlying cause.

Queen B's theory on why we're so fat, so young?

Obesity is the direct result and cost of consumerism.

As the gap keeps growing between the poorest and richest in the Western world... so does the gap between fattest and thinnest. Why? Because it's all about quantity rather than quality, from our houses to our consumer goods to our food. We're outsourcing labor to places like India and China - because they can produce large quantities of goods at cheaper prices. We're growing food on industrialized "farms" - big agri-business it's called - and turning most of it into processed foods full of artificial flavors, chemicals, fats and sugar. Those foods we don't process, we breed to produce bigger fruits and veggies that are full of harsh pesticides and chemicals, and the meat that's sold which isn't processed is full of antiobiotics and hormones.

And we wonder why we're fat?

According to the statistics, "The world’s underfed population has declined slightly since 1980 to 1.1 billion, the number of overweight people has surged to 1.1 billion."*

Just the other day, I was wondering about my tendency to go to extremes. But it clearly isn't just me. It's a whole culture. While I was one of the only fat kids in my class at one time, I'm actually not the only fat girl anymore. Lots of people are walking around like I am - wondering what the hell happened? There's no moderation anymore. We have a nation going to extremes - either ballooning up to morbid obesity or depriving themselves to starvation. Both of them are the direct result of consumerism.

Because some part of me believes that my consumption - in this case, of food - is going to make me happy. We've been sold - literally sold - on the idea that it is the consumption of goods, food, services - those are the things that make us happy. We only give lip service to the notion of "You can't buy happiness" - but we don't really believe it, and we especially don't live it.

I saw an interview with an actor this morning who spent time on the streets with the homeless as an exercise for a role he was playing. He said something that opened my eyes. "People seem to think that life ends when you lose all your stuff - but that isn't true. Life isn't stuff. Life is life. And it goes on. People continue to be hungry, people continue to feel, to fall in love. Life still happens, no matter what."

No matter what. Whether I can walk into a store, like I did today, and afford to buy two bags of salt and vinegar potato chips and a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Or whether I'm living in a van down by the river and eating out of garbage cans and going to soup kitchens every morning. Life goes on. Until it doesn't anymore - at least, for me. It will go on long after me, too - god willing.

The one with the most toys when they die - doesn't win. In fact, winning doesn't have anything to do with the stuff, with the food, with the consumption of anything at all. The only way to win this game - if you want to use that metaphor at all - is not to play. Because playing the consumerism game is nothing but a race against death, and it ironically gives you the life of the living-dead instead of the life of someone who is truly alive. You become a consumer zombie. It means burying yourself, your feelings, your entire life, under the stuff, the food, whatever your consumer-good of choice might be.

Remember that 80's movie, War Games, with Matthew Broderick? They're trying to teach the computer why nuclear war is a game you can't win, and to do that, they make it play tic-tac-toe over and over all by itself, until finally, finally the logic and light dawns. "The only winning move is not to play."

I'm really getting tired of this game. Aren't you?

*

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.