Self-Preservation

Harley and I both have issues with scarcity - they just manifest in different ways. Harley prepares for the apocalpyse. He wants to be prepared for the End of Days, no two ways about it, and if that means making sure we have an alternate power source and canned food to last until 2080, so be it. A few months ago, we heard a town siren go off (we live in a very little town now) and didn't know what it was. We later discovered it was just a fire call (for the local volunteer fire department.) But Harley took it as a sign that we needed flashlights and a crank emergency radio and all sorts of various and sundry things.

Not that I wasn't grateful to have them when the power went out at 2 am a few weeks ago. But, of course, by the time he got them all powered up and ready and we listened to the weather, the power was back on again... and I could have been sleeping from two until four, instead of cranking the radio.

Harley's a planner. Me, I'm a worrier. He's preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I'm worrying about the worst and putting my head in the sand in the meantime. I have to admit, his way it a bit more logical - and proactive.

When it comes to food, I'm a hoarder. Whatever I buy, I want to keep. Forever. Preserved so I know it's there when I want it. And I can't stand to see it disappear. Which is why junk food is so appealing to me. Twinkies have a shelf life of, what, a million years? Twinkies and a couple cockroaches, that's what would be around if we survived a nuclear blast. (And if Harley had anything to say about it, we certainly would!)

When it comes to produce, though, I freak out when it starts going bad. And produce, damnit, goes bad fast! So people have to eat it. Right away. And I can't hide it in my dresser drawers or in my secret cubbyhole hiding places. All week, I've been thinking about having my special strawberry-pecan salad. I love this salad, and I totally came to associate it with low-carbing, because it's deliciously sweet and yummy - and still low-carb, yay!

And all week long, my family has been eating strawberries. Like they grow on vines or something! :x So today, I finally made my salad, using the last of the strawberries - and it is, admittedly, just as good as I remembered it. Quite delicious. I'll give you the recipe.

But that's not my point.

The point is, I can't hoard low-carb food like I do junk food. I can't "save" it. The minute it comes out of the ground, it's on it's way to a sure death, either on my plate, or in the compost pile. If I try to "save" it, it will surely be the latter. And that seems like such a waste, especially considering the price of strawberries at the market this time of year!

But there's something to this idea that's hovering right at the edge of my awareness for the first time. I always knew I had a scarcity consciousness. But it never occurred to me that one of the great appeals of "junk" foods were that they were already preserved. I could save a box of Ho-Ho's for practically forever, and all the while carry around the secret knowledge that they were there for me. That seems important somehow.

I wonder if it will make a difference, when we're growing our own food, that I'll be able to go out and pick a quart of strawberries anytime I want? I won't have to worry about the price of fruit, whether California was having unusually cold weather this year, or whether or not Harley and the kids were going to eat them all before I get to make my yummy salad.

Anyway, here's the recipe... and if you have any more insights, I'd be glad to hear them! Sometimes we're so close to something, we can't really see what in the heck it really is...

Strawberry-Pecan Salad

1/2 head of Romaine lettuce, chopped

1/2 quart of strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Dressing: 2 TBSP lemon juice, 2 TBSP red wine vinegar, 1 TBSP sweetener (I prefer Splenda)

Drizzle 1 TBSP oil over salad, mix dressing, and pour over lettuce, strawberries, and pecans.

Easy peasy, and oh so yummy!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Off to See the Wizard

I'm a smart girl. I've got a bachelors in mumblemumble and a Masters in blahblah. I know quite a lot about nutrition, actually. I know the basics, of course: eat less, exercise more. But I also know all the other stuff, about transfat and omega 3's and 6's and good carbs and bad carbs and mixing up your exercise and... well, all that stuff. I'm not stupid. I listen, I pay attention, I'm teachable. I learn. I've managed to pull a near 4.0 in a college degree program and write a Masters thesis.

So why is it that, when I decide to change my eating habits for the better, because all the logical signs point to doing so, I start out with the best of intentions, and end up with this:

What is this, you ask?

It's a plate that used to hold the rest of my fourteen-year-old son's birthday cake. I ate the rest of the cake last night. After my best-laid plans changed, and we ended up taking the fourteen year old out to dinner (to celebrate his report card - all A's and B's for the first time since kindergarten!) where I tried to be "good" but ended up eating fries and a burger. Then, we picked up the seventeen-year-old and went out for "dessert" at McDonald's, so she could hang out and play with the Prince and Princess in the playplace. I didn't intend to get anything. But somehow ended up with a Reese's McFlurry in my hands.

Then, when we got home, I felt sick. So what did I do? I followed my inner Marie Antoinette all the way to the kitchen and decided to eat cake. Except "decided" isn't really the word. It's more like I was possessed. Like the girl in the Exorcist. I wasn't myself. Ask Harley - my head was spinning, and I looked like I could spew pea soup at any minute. Really. So what happened was, my inner Linda Blair followed my inner Marie Antoinette and they had a little celebrity pig-out party at my expense...

And this morning, I'm feeling sick and guilty and ashamed and disappointed and defeated. Again. Again. Again. How does this keep happening? How can I be so smart and so stupid all at the same time? Logic seems to say, if I was a normal person, I could do this. I could set goals and accomplish them. That I can't seem to do something so incredibly simple makes me wonder. Is it me? Is it something else? Is something in me just... broken?

I know I'm a food addict. And "addiction" has a huge relapse rate, no matter what the substance. In fact, relapse seems to be part of the process of what they call "recovery." I tried doing OA (Overeaters Anonymous) for a while. You know - meetings, the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, getting a sponsor. The whole kit and kaboodle. I threw myself into it as hard as I ever did at Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or Medical Weight Loss or the Cabbage Diet. I lost (like I always do!) 10-20 pounds. And then I started "cheating." And gaining again.

But something from that particular program stuck with me. The first three steps of the twelve. (That was as far as I got... step three!)

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Now, I have to tell you... I struggled with these three steps. I struggled with the concept that these three steps even existed in a world of medical and biological "cures" to our every ailment. But something else in me, something deeper than my inner Marie Antoinette and Linda Blair - something in me said, "Hey, stupid! Pay attention!"

I could argue with these steps from now until the cows come home (or until I die, 500 lbs and still eating cake, of a heart attack.) I've even given it a shot. The first step makes me wince. What do you mean I'm 'powerless' over food? I can stop any time I want! )Why does that sound so familiar? Hmmm) It goes straight to the heart of willpower and control. Of which, I clearly have none. My will has gotten me absolutely nowhere. Or, more to the point, it's gotten me straight into the cookie jar.

Step two introduces the concept of a "higher power." Eek! I've never been a big "God" person. I have sisters who are extremely, fundamentally religious, and the concept has always been shoved down my throat strongly proselytized in my family. However, over the years, I've come slowly to my own version of spirituality. It doesn't involve a big, scary parental God, but it does acknowledge something greater than myself. So step 2 finally became do-able for me.

Step three, on the other hand. *sigh* I get rather stuck there, I admit. Turn my life over... to someone else? Ack! Where's that cake?

Back to step one. Admit you have a problem. Okay, it's true. I'm a food addict. I seem to have no control over that. I have no control over food, and my life has become almost three hundred pounds high cholesterol thyroid disease very unmanageable. I need help. If I'm not going to resort to weight loss surgery, I'm going to have to go even higher. Hello, God, Are You Out There, It's Me, Queen B!

Now it's just the matter of turning my will over... How does a control freak let go of control? *sigh* Good question. Anyone have an answer? I told myself I was going to keep blogging, even if I slipped. Even if I was ashamed, even if I f---ed up failed. I was going to keep blogging. I read all sorts of blogs about people doing it, succeeding, and I desperately want to be one of them... but I know I have to find my way. This process has to be useful to someone. Somehow.

It's a matter of life and death for me. I have to find a way. Maybe the answer really is to stop looking for a way and let go. Surrender my "will" to something greater than myself. Because my will seems to get me into nothing but trouble. Stop trying to lead and just follow. Follow the yellow brick road. Follow, follow, follow.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Here we go again.

Fat Phobic

There are a lot of things that being fat keeps me from doing. I won't be scuba diving any time soon, or riding roller coasters, or even riding a bike (those seats are killer on my behind!) And I know there's a lot of judgment about overweight people. I've been subject to it enough in my life to know.

But somehow, there's something wrong with denying someone the right to adopt a child - their own blood relative - because of their weight. An adoption agency thought it would be a good idea to disrupt the life of this baby and place it with another family for adoption based on someone's appearance!? This family was clearly committed. The 550 pound man underwent gastric bypass and has dropped 200 pounds. But should he have had to?

I just don't think so. Are they going to deny a baby to a diabetic? Someone in a wheelchair? Someone who's blind? Deaf? Black? White? When does it cross the line into discrimination?

As far as I'm concerned, this just goes too far.

Shopping

I went shopping yesterday. I went shopping because I now have only one pair of pants that fits. One. My thighs have destroyed all of my others. I think I could power most of the Eastern seaboard with the friction caused between my thighs rubbing together when I walk. :)

I hate clothes shopping. I hate the thought of spending outrageous amounts of money on clothes made overseas by people making pennies a day. I hate that the clothes fall apart withing months. I also hate not being able to go into secondhand stores with the hopes of finding anything that might fit me. Not an option.

Because, as I discovered yesterday in the Plus side of Fashion Bug, I'm now a 28W. I have never been a 28. The highest I've been was a 26. The lowest, at least in adulthood, was an 18. I miss 18. But 28? There's just no higher to go. Yes, there's the elusive 30/32, whatever that is. I hardly ever glance at that size, thinking, "Oh, that's not me."

But it could be. It's just the next size up. Another twenty pounds or so. Three more candy bars and four cokes a day. That's nothing. Easy.

I also spent a while looking longingly at 14/16's on the clearance rack. It's always those left at the end. Because, really, why would you be in a Plus size store if you're a 14? You'd shop in a regular store. Or, at least, I would, if I could. But I haven't been in a regular clothing store since I was a teenager. Even then, nothing in TJ Maxx fit me anyway.

I remember my ex husband's mother once saying, on the occasion of her friend seeing her Lane Bryant charge card in her wallet, "Oh I don't shop there for myself. I use it to buy clothes for my daughter-in-law." She didn't want anything to think she shopped at a fat person's store - god forbid!

I don't even think about the "other side" of the store anymore, honestly. When I was younger, I spent the whole time wishing I could shop on that side, where all the cute clothes were. The fashionable, trendy little dresses, the tiny panties. Who fits in those? Barbie? I can't even imagine being that girl, the one who could fit into a 10, an 8... a 6? Feh! Are you kidding?

I remember being in a mall when I was a kid, shopping with a girlfriend who went into the 5, 7, 9 store. It was the first time I had ever seen a size "0." It was like baby clothes to me. Bizarre, strange, completely out of reach.

I don't know if there's a thin person in me trying to get out. I really don't know.

Well, that's not completely true. There IS a thin person in there who wants to wear a size six and be able to fit in airplane seats without the seatbelt extension and movie theater seats without wedging myself in. Sure. I just don't know if I can find her under all the candy bar wrappers and cheesecake boxes. It seems like an overwhelming task, when you look at it from a distance, like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Is she in there? I think so.

My secret truth is... I hope so.

And most importantly... I really do hope I get to meet her some day.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

Welcome to my part of our weight-loss, health, diet, eating blog.

This may be a little unorthodox. Just a warning, not an apology.

I'm an addict, but I'm also a lot more than an addict. I deeply feel that each one of us is truly a particularly formed and miraculous manifestation of god, of the source from which we came, to which we will ultimately return, and which we are a unique expression of in this present moment.

I wish I treated myself as if that were true.

I'm very smart, yet I don't fully grasp how it is that I treat myself as less of a person than I treat others most of the time. My calling in life, and my current occupation, is to help others really feel the truth of who they are, their divine source and nature, their unity as part of all that was, is and will ever be. I do this with other addicts whose substances of "choice" are drugs and alcohol, and with people dealing with various forms of mental illness, from the severe to the amusingly neurotic. I feel hypocritical about this sometimes, but, the thing is, I'm very good at it, I help people on a deep level to make change in their lives.

I'm also quite cocky in some ways (if you didn't notice) despite my shortcomings...as a matter of fact, I have a secret part of myself that feels I'm so special that I'm both worse and better than other people. I've got both ends of the spectrum covered! That part of me isn't in charge as often as it used to be, but one minute with that arrogant prick at the helm can wreak enough havok for 100 years. I've hurt a lot of people that I love, including myslef. That part of me is actually the little boy part I will speak of in a moment or two pretending to be a mature man.

I'm resentful about having this particular problem in life....obesity, compulsive overeating, an unconscious alcoholic, sexually and physically abused, sadistic and passively abusive mother who raised me and shoved food down my throat so she would feel she existed, was loved, in control of everything and wouldn't have to deal with her own feelings.

I realize that, even if my Hansel-and-Gretel Witch of a mother was to blame for making me morbidly obese, I am 100% fully responsible for my mind, body, soul, spirit and heart in this and every moment. No one can attend to me but me. I also realize I am not that little boy anymore, and that my mother is a whole person and the Devouring Witch is only part of who she is, the part she needed to pretend she was in order to make herself feel safe and in control. I also realize that the people-pleasing, love-seeking, spoiled and stubborn boy was what I became in order to survive the emotional and physical abuse that my mother unconsciously passed onto me.

My father is a dependent and physically small man (5'3" and only slightly overweight when he ran the ice cream parlor on the aircraft carrier on which he served in the navy, just at the end of the Korean war) and wasn't willing to challenge my mother's over-feeding of me for fear she would be angry at him. My father's father died when my father was very young, and my father was raised by a stepfather. His stepfather was a good man, but I know that men who didn't know their fathers are left with a hole inside that is hard to heal and they feel as if they are lost, incompetent and don't have what it takes to live their best lives. That's my dad...he is a good man, but didn't psychologically leave his mother and grow up, so now my mother is his mother.

I think every ounce of unnecessary fat is an ounce of sadness, anger, hurt and unlived life.

I think I'm using more resources in the world than I'm giving.

My life is ruled by the message that I have to choose between myself and others, and only one of us gets to exist. I have to manipulate, steal, cheat and lie in order to get any love for myself, which I have done ad nauseum. I know that my obesity and compulsive overeating in large part (pun intended) is an unconscious assertion of my right to exist and take up space in the world.

That's right, in my heart, there is a part of me behind the curtain that feels like I have no right to exist, so I keep getting and staying large as a way to say Fuck You! to a world that rejects and doesn't want me for anything but a garbage can.

Here's some history:

I'm an almost-40-yr-old caucasian male, married, with children. I'm 390 pounds and 5'11". I've been diagnosed as an insulin dependent Type 1 diabetic since age 20 (I have poor blood sugar control).

I was born fat and have just kept getting fatter since then. Although, I seem to have plateaued at about 390.

Maybe I'll insert more of my childhood history in the future.

I played sports my entire childhood and was very good at them, despite being 215 pounds by the end of high school. Being exceptionally good at everything I did...hockey, wrestling, baseball, academics, art, socializing...blah blah blah...helped me stay in denial of my addiction and health problems until pretty recently, when my life began to unravel and fall apart in many ways (perhaps to be discussed in more detail later). Don't let anyone ever tell you that hitting bottom is about losing things in life...it's about waking up from denial.

I consider my addiction a battle in which the only way of winning is to surrender, and the only enemy is denial, not food, eating, or my body. As long as I live with the belief that I have one iota of control in life I am at risk of allowing my addiction to run my life.

My mother was morbidly obese by the time she was a teenager, and then she lost wieght through diet and exercise, achieved a "normalish" weight, and hasn't really been obese since then. My maternal grandmother, Nanna, was morbidly obese, diabetic, and died of a heart attack due to diabetes. My mother's side of the family has serious obesity, as well as alcoholism, various and sundry kinds of abuse, and paranoid schizophrenia.

My father's side has diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, a little bit of cancer, and a massive heaping helping of downright evil codependency.

That's enough for now. I have this strange paradox of working very hard and yet not doing enough. I'm tired and Queenie is nudging me from our bed.

That's another thing...life really is beautiful and amazing, and I have an amazing wife and children. I'm deeply grateful for what the universe has given me...yet, I'm also deeply unsatisfied with the resevoir of unlived life I've hoarded.

What do you call two MD's standing next to each other?

A paradox...get it...a pair-a-docs!

If I can only learn to use my powers for good instead of e-ville!