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.

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?