Wow - I think we all had a tough week or something because every single journal referenced a TGIF. No exception here.
The good news is Mushy and I both slept thru the night, finally. So this is how the 'Non' Walking Dead feel? Hmm.. Feels a little hungover.
If you're wondering, no, I didn't have wine last night. I think this is the lingering effects of a food coma. I think the depleted energy wiped out my resolve and I fell face down into fried chicken, potato logs, potato salad, two cookies and an entire pan (5) grands cinnamon rolls with creme cheese frosting. Yeah. An. Entire. Pan.
The only proud thing I have to report about that is I don't have to restart the clock on my past 'binge & purge' habit. I did the binge but I sat with it. Slept with it. While that doesn't help my weight loss.. at least I feel a little better knowing I'm not giving into my old bad eating disorder habits.
And ironic, as I know that 1550 calories in one setting (pan of rolls) was too much to eat in calories it didn't make my stomach hurt, feel overly full, none of that.
I'll confess... that part.. alarmed me. So much so that I began considering the semantics of this whole thing.
I recall there is post out there about the 'thin me vs fat me' and some people used 'healthy me vs unhealthy me' in their answers and others even wrote 'new me vs old me'.
Thinking about that.. I feel I may be RIGHTONTHEEDGE of breaking thru this phase of my weight loss that has been my downfall over and over again in the past.
So the following is the conversation I had in my head this morning and am now going to work thru in my journal. The questions are rhetorical.. just my exercise process.
New me vs Old me. When does the new me BECOME the OLD me and now I want to do something new, different, etc., and that leads to going in the opposite direction??
Because, I Can't eat LESS..on a good day that is, of course. YES, I have to eat less than I did yesterday, no argument.
I read over and over here about people dropping their caloric intake to less and less to get off that last 10 pounds. I know that won't work for me. History.
Why of all things, of all reasons, did I do that? I can't undo it. All I can do, as one of my lesson's this week instructed, is examine the mistake and learn from it.
WHY am I now thinking the 'old' me was the healthy one and the 'new' me is the one that picks up fried chicken at the grocery deli? Is this how I stretch... LOL... both emotionally AND physically?
Okay, I remember this. Back in the B&P phase of my weight loss.. when I'd get so hungry I'd go OUT in public and EAT like.. a triple cheese burger, fries, a whole pizza, etc., and have people wonder about how I ate that much and was still So THIN ... or at least.. I HOPED that's what they thought... while I slipped off to the bathroom and puked my guts out.. that was my maintenance.
I can't do that again. I don't WANT to do that again. But I wonder if that's what my 'other brain' was testing me last night?
Then again.. I've been HERE too. This part where as the weight came back I'd joke 'I'm bulimic.. I'm just not very good at it...' Sick joke. But eating disorders are a sickness like any other alcoholism, gambling, etc., so I I qualify. And like any other person in recovery, I have earned the right to laugh at myself.
So... spinning the history wheel.. feels like wheel of fortune and I'm clapping 'big breakthru, big breakthru'... where am I going to end up?
Old me? New me? Healthy? Overweight? Happy? Disappointed?
Where will I find my spark?
I will NOT set my eating rules on FEAR of gaining weight... that is definitely a recipe for disaster.
I nearly climbed on the treadmill this morning in punishment for the rolls. 'Well, B... you did the crime, now do the time.' But I am so TRYING to find the JOY in movement, not the obligation of it.
I know, this is long. It's rambling. But I feel I am on the edge of breaking thru my trap, my prison that has held me for four decades. Gain and lose. Binge and purge. Gain and health suffers. Lose and maintain my health. Where's the answer?
I read. Listen. Real people here...journals.. advice. I soak up every ounce of inspiration I can find.
It has to come from me. This is the phase that I am most dangerous. I KNOW THIS.
It's really SAD for me that losing weight has always been so easy. IT's keeping it OFF that I fail.
A dear friend here recently shared an experience wherein someone shared with her that ' there is nothing harder than for a narcissistic woman to age. People who are outwardly beautiful have to work extremely hard not to be a face and a body and nothing more. You have to spend your life learning to be a person and not to use your beauty. It has to become your handicap, your disability, or you will use it like a crutch'.
Ok. Translate beauty to narcissism about weight loss. I've always been able to drop 100lbs w/in a few months. It makes me the center of attention to be such a big loser. But it has become my crutch.
I need to be something more than the woman who lost all that weight. That's my inspiration.
I need to become 'that woman who lost that weight, regained her health, and maintained it thru everything else.'
Weight... can't be my crutch.
Or .. my armor.
I have been struggling in another way this week.. and I am going to stop hiding from it by putting it out here to the universe.
I felt pressure. Pressure from someone who's implying they want intimacy. I'm not ready for it. But I've never been the person to say that. A victim since childhood.... I've never been skilled at saying 'NO MEANS NO'.
I've been indirect. I've been using words like 'honor' and 'integrity'. I've said 'I'm still grieving despite my positive exterior'. Now I just have to say it. Outloud. No means No.
And I'm really pretty freaking angry at being put in that position. Of not being heard. Of having to be so blunt at a time when I prefer to be polite.
So.. the 'new/old' me.. the struggle.. the uneasiness of my body .. .and I had the perfect storm.
STILL.. not one to be dealt with using food. No. Where were the paints? The flowers? Anything but food.
Oh, yeah.. the new me used all those up. The new me became the old me and needed a new go to.
I feel refreshed with this journal. I feel clearer because I do not have a therapist to say these things outloud although sometimes I agree, it would probably help.
And as another dear friend here implied.. I am a nervous person who cherishes the anonymity offered here. I get it out and don't have to see that person who heard all of this .. at the grocery.
Then again, maybe I do. I don't know where all of you are. And maybe I need to remember that.
Once a secret is out.. the pressure is off. Maybe I'll just take out a front page ad in the local paper.. say 'I need HELP' .. and let the chips fall where they may. After all .. all these secrets haven't helped in the past.
The new me. Who will she be today?
Thank you.
Bella
