Eating

Ok, so with my big birthday I managed to let myself celebrate without being conscious of my eating. Meaning? I pretty much didn't watch a thing. Ah...this is hard, but really....what has to happen to make changes? I don't want to have a heart attack like my grandfather and pass away in my fourties (that date is getting closer and closer), or a silent heart attack like my grandmother, or a mini stroke like my mom before she passed. Or to be on several meds to avoid these.

Why do we celebrate our lives with bad food...stuff that could significantly shorten our lives? I know life is too short to eat yucky food, but I don't want it to be shorter because I want to eat the bad foods either. Ok, so I think I need to stock my fridge with better food. Fruit that I like (yummy mango, or blue berries, or tomatos...mmmm, mouth is watering just thinking of it). And, I need plans of action BEFORE going to restaurants so that I don't buckle. Not just "don't eat french fries"....something more.

I just realized that, in the beginning, I will need to plan out every meal and every day. At least until I get this a little more under control. Plan of action: when I go out for lunch today, I will chose a salad with vinegarette dressing, grilled chicken and veggies. Tonight? I will have a salad, pan seared talapia and some corn. maybe an orange for desert. No chips and salsa, no ice cream, etc. And I will take the dog for 3 tours around the apartment complex when I get home. Because I want to live to retirement age. I want to fight for my future. I want to torture my husband for as long as I can :)

Birthdays

I may be taking a weekend break from blogging. My husband's birthdy is Friday, mine is Monday. To add further significance, I'm turning 30. The big 3-0. Therefore, my father is driving down from upper Michigan (U.P., not Traverse City area) to celebrate :) I'm excited, but I have a lot of work to finish up so that I can spend some good time with him and some friends. I will let y'all know how I do this weekend (I'm thinking not steller, but I think I can still make some good choices!).

New Plans of Action

So....instead of focusing on the things I haven't been doing (and being the big W...whiner that is:)....I figure I should get a plan of action! Not having a plan wasn't working....so why not make one? I joined the Healthy You Challange (notice the button on the right). Not that it will make me work, but hoepfully the added support will help encourage. Isn't that what this is all about?

Eating...I still want to work on just eating normally and not binging, but I think I'm going to try to steer clear of fried foods first. I love french fries. No, let me restate it: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE french fries!!! So, I guess I'll try this for 3 weeks before moving to the next thing. But, it's not forbidden...I just want to try to eat much less of it (no guilt if I have some, but conscious effort to chang it).

Exercise. This is more iffy. I think the best plan for me is making small changes now. Use the stairs at school/work (my office is on the 4th floor), park farther away (most parking is @ 5 blocks away), taking the dog for the morning walks, etc.

I don't want to be scale fixated, so let's say that with every size I go down I will buy myself one outifit until I'm at my goal. One outfit won't do, but I think I have enough smaller clothes to last me.

Mind: Read the compulsive eating book to try to get my mind better.

My goal is to make these small changes now and have it stick more so that I can make big changes. Successive approximations and rewards? Why not make Psychology work for me!

Progress

Ok, so things aren't going exactly as good as I had hoped. I am doing (for the most part) better than I had before, but the progress is not that great. We had friends over this past weekend...movies, pizza, malts (as in shakes with malt mix). I'm a little bummed, but I'm still hopeful...just not as much as last time I posed. It's just hard to kick this obsession with food and eating. I have a long family history of comfort food. With the last year and a half (losing my mother aka my best friend till my hubby, my advisor at school meaning that I am now on my third line of research just in my PhD program alone, my aunt, my pregnancy, etc.)...it's been the most difficult time in my life. This doesn' t even include the people we love that have gotten sick, or lost babies, money issues, quiting smoking, etc. I don't want to use this as an excuse, but I'm just having a hard time lately.

I have a couple of books that may be able to help with the eating things. It's how to eat like a skinny girl (although this doesn't help disordered thinking), but also a book about compulsive eating and thought excersises and stories to help stopit. My issue? I start the book but have a hard time getting past the first few chapters. It's the same I've always had. I'm usually ok with the first few weeks (losing weight, feeling good, etc.), but lose it after that. This time, I'm having a hard time even starting. I think it may be like smoking. The first time, it was easy to quite. Every time afterwards, it becomes more painful and much harder. I kicked the habbit this past time, but by avoiding smoking and related activities. Eating? Much harder.

Everyone is trying to help. Have you thought of eating prepared meals? Have you thought of planning out your food? Have you thought of wearing a string around your wrist to remind you? The problem? money, and having an eating disorder. If I don't change my thoughts, then I have a feeling that any plan will end up the same. Prepared and planning = restriction = more thoughts about the problem foods than I'd like = falling off of a 50 foot wagon. A string? I think will remind me of what I'm missing, not just what I need to work on. So, I'm thinking a visit with a psychologist is in order. Although, I guess it'll have to be next month. This month money says no!

wagon, wagon, where are you?

So, I was doing well until Thursday afternoon. Then things went to/in/into (?) the pot. I had more than I should have. Posted too soon I suppose. Today? I just need to try to make better decisions. It's weird. Usually I'd be giving up around now saying: "I'm such a loser, I might as well eat what I want since I don't have the will power to stick with being healthier. What's the point?"

It's not that I wasn't tempted by the "crazed" talking. Do you know that talk? Where your head screws with you and tells you that you want to gorge. It's like cartoons: the devil is on your shoulder and man, does he sound good. This morning the nachos and quesadilla stuff was calling my name. I figure, though, that even if I do give in it really isn't life shattering. It's not sinful, or the devil's work (I don't even believe in that anyway). It's better for me than going out to eat and WAY better than I was eating before. If I want to lose 20 pounds (or even the first 10), it doens't have to be with big changes and it's not life shattering if I fall off the wagon when I don't have one in the first place. Kind of freeing. So, this morning? I had eggs with cheese and bacon. Diet food? Hell no. Better than I was eating? Hell yes!!! So, this morning started off good.

You know what's the weirdest thing? I mean besides that I need to have these dialogs with myself!! Thinking like this takes all the guilt off. I had a little guilt last night when I was talking to my hubby, but we both agreed that it wasn't a big deal and maybe we could go for a walk today together (with the doggie...she's been missing it the last couple days). I had good food, but if I want to I can make better choices today without stipulations. It sounds stupid, but it feels freeing. The big thing: the quesadilla will be there for lunch. And it'll be good. I don't need to eat it all now.

Attaining my goals

So, I've been working (relatively) hard to gain back the control with food. I'm not eating like a skinny (healthy) girl would yet, but I'm making progress. For example, I'm having 2 eggs with cheese for breakfast (instead of a sausage McMuffin meal) and a more normal portion of tortilini with pesto and an orange for lunch (instead of a7" meatball sub with enough fries for 3 people), and then a quesadilla with cheese, beans, jalepenos & light sour cream (instead of nachos, cheese, jalepenos and regular sour cream, then dinner of 1/2 frozen pizza a few hours later) and cereal for a snack (instead of ice cream made for 2). The cereal is the down fall, but I'm doing better. I figure, at this point, that I'm doing better and that's all that matters. If I try to restrict myself too much right now I'll burn out quick. Now, the parenthases accounts for what I remember, but if I was honest with myself I probably had a lot more (like the 10 olives I ate, and the juice I drank, and you see how that goes). I'm a compulsive eater...it'll happen that way.



When I look at my long term goals, it seems really overwhelming. But, when I looked at my goals on the side bar ==>, I realized that my goals are not that far off. It helps that I'm being realistic with my weight. I have large bones and hips (hence being 220 and only a size 18). I call them my big momma birthing hips (ironic since me and my husband think we only want 1 kid max, if it happens at all...what a waist of big hips, huh?) with a large span from hip bone to hip bone, not just that I'm bottom heavy like a lot of women. I will never be a size 2 if I'm healthy and living. But, 160 still seemed far away until I broke it down. In just 6 small goals or 3 larger yet still small (20 pound) goals I will be where I want. 20 pounds isn't that far away. If you hear that someone is 20 pounds over weight, don't you think...hey, they don't have to change too much to get there. I do! So, I only have 3 "not so big changes" to go before I hit the big goal :) Piece of cake....er, piece of apple? lol

exercise

I realized a couple days ago that our beloved dog doesn't know the word "walk". How sad is that when a dog doesn't know the word that brings joy to all doggies? So, now she's learning it! Every morning we go at least once around our apartment complex, twice if I'm not running late. It's not a big complex (takes @10-15 minutes to go around), it gives me extra motivation to add just a little more movement in my day. And, it's a start. Any improvement is good improvement :)

So, I've been inspired to start a new excercise routine that's more structured, but fun (thanks lasserday). I've been reminded that it should be fun. Who knew :) So, I'm going to shake my jiggly butt and do something dance like...maybe belly dancing. Ok, so shaking more than the jiggly butt....but, hey. Hopefully I can get a good laugh out of it and enjoy myself while exercising.

Howdy

Hi everyone. I know there won't be a lot of people reading of the bat, but I'm hoping to get a good support group going.

But, back to basices. Ah...the first post...there's just no way for me to be clever about this. Besides, I think clever about weight issues and emotional stuff comes after spilling your guts. So, here it goes. I don't plan on posting photos. At least not at this time. I started this blog to have some anonymity so that I can be completely honest with myself.


First off, hello. My name is Diana, and I'm a compulsive eater. I eat when I'm hungry, when I'm not, when I'm bored, when I'm upset, when I'm not. It's all the time. I'm only recently becoming aware of how bad I can get, and part of the problem is that there are issues that I'm not dealing with. This blog is to help keep me on track. Not by restricting my diet or insane exercise. This would really keep the power with food. My goal is to eat like a normal person. Whatever I want. Wouldn't this be freeing? :)

My stats. I just turned 30, I'm 5'7", of larger bone structure, and 220 lbs. This makes me at a minimum of 60 pounds over weight. I'm not worried about weight. I'm worried about what it represents and all the things my family has that I'm at risk for. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, heart attack, etc. My husband said last night that he worries, if I continue, that I'll die early on him. It is a concern of mine as well, so this is why I'm working on it. Plus, at a size 18 I'm in between all the fun clothes (too large for "normal" sizes and too small for the pretty plus sizes). It'd be awesome to shop anywhere and pick clothes based on look and still have a lot of options.

Another of the larger issues? I feel bad about myself. A tv show clued me into just how much I associate my weight with who I am. In case you're wondering, I watched "I can make you thin" from Discovery health. The last week (this past Sunday), Paul McKenna (spelling may be off, but he was the "host" and expert) asked people to close their eyes and see themselves through someone elses eyes. Someone who loves you. See the good qualitites they see. Try it now. Can you do it? Does it get a different reaction out of you than you expected? I realized that I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of one person who could look at me and not see me for the fat body parts I don't like. Sounds crazy? Yes. But, that's the joy of an eating disorder...things don't always make sense. By the way, this includes my husband of 1.2 years and my mother (who has passed...part of the problem), friends, dad, etc. After bawling on the couch for 15 minutes, I realized that if I couldn't think of a person, I'd see myself through my puppy's eyes. Funny, but she doesn't give a rats ass if I am 300 pounds as long as I cuddle with her (ok ,there's feeding, watering and going potty too).

Anyway, if you have these problems too...or just want to join in the discussions than come on board. I'm happy to share....and thanks for letting me :)