Exhausted

We're leaving on our trip in a little while & I'm trying to get everything done at once. It's exhausting. And it doesn't help that I'm back on carbs for a bit. I told myself that my plan was to get myself used to eating a bit more normally so I could go on this vacation and not get sick. HA - I'm back on carbs because I'm stressed out & want to eat them. On the other hand I don't feel as well now that I'm eating again. I'm staying off sugar, but even tortillas with dinner gives me heartburn. Amazing! And a bit depressing. I find it depressing that if I want to feel well I need to stay off wheat. I have never been off wheat before, so I knew staying off sugar made me feel better but wheat also - BUMMER. Not that it makes me sick, just more tired. Anyway, I'm doing a day on a few days off so my weight is staying stable. My ankles are swelling and I'm feeling beat up. How nice I am to myself, huh? Okay, so tomorrow is a day on - plus I'm with people that will watch everything that I put in my mouth, so that will be motivation. My poor daughter and husband definitely don't like watching me eat carbs. I can see the terror in their eyes - "uh oh - she's eating!!!" Really, this is temporary - I'm ready to be back on plan and feel better. I'm also ready to start losing again - staying static is a bit depressing.

Dr.'s Visit

Good news to report this week. I got a physical last week and it was the best in quite a while. Here were the highlights - blood pressure super good (usually is), fasting blood sugar - 88 (WAY better than usual), cholesterol 174 (better than when I was 20) and they actually were able to take my blood from the normal area in the arm instead of in my forearm (less fat I suppose). So very encouraging. It was one of the first doctor visits that I didn't expect them to talk down to me or act like I was about to die. I ended up going to Sherwood Medical Clinic and I was impressed by their operation - very high tech, didn't keep me waiting - and I like that they have lots of specialists that collaborate & you can mix & match treatment. Yeah for losing 75+ lbs!! My body thanks me.

Come to Terms

I thought a lot this week about my using food as entertainment while watching the boys and I decided to quit beating myself up about it. I'm frustrated that I'm doing it, I'm frustrated that it slows my weight loss, but I need to accept where I am and move on. The truth is, it's one of the few things that we both like to do and it kills an hour or more. When I had Emily we hung at a friends house - I also didn't have to work very much, I also had a mom that would take her a bunch, I also could afford to put her in classes each week. With the boys it's different. We don't have all those luxuries so I'm always trying to figure out a way to get us out of the house. But then it struck me that every 4 months life changes, so go with the flow and know that this is just now - summer comes and things change again - Sept comes and the boys start kindergarten - things keep changing so don't sweat the NOW! What I would like to do is plan for the days we're going to eat out, instead of having it come as a surprise. That way it's planned and expected & I feel good about it. So that's where I've been for a few days & so far, so good. I ate out yesterday for lunch with the boys & Kurt & ate on plan the rest of the day (instead of eating a full dinner as well). So move on & accept the NOW!

If you have a baby . . .

There is a quote in the movie Overboard that totally rings true with me - Edith Mintz: "But darling, if you have a baby, you won't be the baby anymore."

This is my problem - I knew it from before I had children - I want to be the baby. I want to be nurtured and cared for and babied. There, I admit it - I know I'm not alone, I just think most don't like to admit they are high maintenance. I'm not high maintenance to most of my friends, but I knew going into marriage that I wanted to be well taken care of & I'm happy to say - I AM! This morning my mom was going on to Kurt how he makes my coffee and serves it to me. To many women of her age, it's unheard of that I'm so well taken care of by my husband, but to me this was going to be a necessary evil for the poor man I would marry. Not to say I don't take care of him, just in totally different ways. In fact, Kurt & I have always had a backwards marriage. Think of most traditional marriages, the man is in control of the remote, wants to be served, does the finances, taxes, insurance arrangements, is ambiguous about having kids and ends up being a tad jealous once they do arrive. "Traditionally" the wife doesn't care too much about the finances, wants to have kids, talks a bunch, waits on the husband and likes to cuddle. Okay, reverse those roles & you have Kurt & me. LOL!!

So I actually have unresolved feelings about how the kids interfere with my/our life. Not that I don't love them - you know what I mean - I just want to be the baby too - I want Kurt to pay attention to me at the end of the day. I can't fault him for not being able to, but in the end, I usually turn to food in the evening because it's my way of nurturing myself. It's one of those things that you can logically know is crazy but that doesn't make it go away. I want to go for a drive, I want to go out to a calm, decent dinner, I want to go out to my friends' homes for adult conversation, I want to go to bed early and not be awoken 50 times in a night. These are the costs of having kids, I know - but like many parents, I sometimes have issues with it all.

So I think this has been part of my latest breakdown - how to nurture myself without food. How to be okay with not having a partner because his time is being taken by more important things. How to go out to take care of myself & not feel guilty that I'm leaving my kids & husband (barely happens anyway - but when it does).

Never a Good Time for a Breakdown!

Why is it never a good time to have a nervous breakdown? I mean, why can't we have built into life a "time out" when we need to just "have a moment". Well, today is one of those moments. Total sobbing breakdown. And the most fun part - for no apparent reason. So that's always fun for the spouse. Here's what I do know - I've been extremely frustrated with my lack of determination with losing weight or sticking to the plan, whatever you want to call it. I have felt for months that I'm just making life hard on myself and I need to "pee or get off the pot". So yesterday I really spent the whole day with what is going on. I'm not sure that I know what's going on yet, but by last night I was pretty depressed and this morning I woke up & had a breakdown - so I must be getting close. The good part of all of this is that I know from experience that when emotions bubble up, it means the need to use food for comfort will decrease dramatically - so that will be the bright spot to hang on to.

But now, to figure out what's going on. Here's what I found interesting in my breakdown this morning - since I was a young child I had an immense, profound sadness. I can't remember when I first felt it but I pretty much remember feeling it most of my adolescent life. I know I felt horribly lonely as a child. I also felt spied on by my family. I thought the pictures on my wall were where they would watch me. I slept crammed against the wall so someone looking in my window wouldn't be able to see me. I dressed behind doors and furniture. And when I entered my tweens I really went downhill. I became horribly depressed and suicidal. I can't say horribly because I was functional, but I cried every day for about 2 years. From an outside perspective one would say, "Yeah, normal behavior for the age" and it really was, I guess. I think what wasn't normal was the profound sadness that I always had. I think it came from so many sources - not feeling part of my family, not having a brother that cared if I lived or died, having a father that travelled so wasn't home much, having a mom that was task oriented and not a nurturer, feeling horribly misunderstood - I really didn't & still don't fit in with my family. I'm extremely different than them and needed so much more than they were capable of giving. I'm sure it also stemmed from the fact that I'm pretty sure I was molested as a young person. I had certain behaviors growing up because of my experience which made me feel like an outsider - I knew it wasn't normal to behave the way I would but I had no one to talk to about it. It wasn't until I was married a few years that Kurt said to one of our many counselors, "I want to know why Wendy sleeps with satin every night." The counselor whipped out a form about recognizing abuse & began going through the questions - one of which was actually, "Do you wet the bed or sleep with a "blankie" or feel satin/silk at night?" I couldn't believe that was actually on the form. And may I say, I'm grateful my symptom of being molested is satin & not wetting the bed!!! So THERE! - there is a reason so hand it over & shut up.

So I would go through these spells of profound sadness & I remember thinking, "when will this end?" As I've gotten older it comes further and further apart - these spells of sadness. I describe it as a hole I fall into that seems to have no way out. This is where the thoughts of suicide come from - it seems hopeless - it seems impossible to climb out in my own strength. Which also is where my total reliance on God has come from. I give God all the credit for my being alive - I would pray and pray as a young person and make deals not to kill myself if certain things could get better or change. In the end, I now know that many thoughts of suicide are an actual wish that someone else in your life would die or go away, not that we actually want to die ourselves - which in my case, was true. Anyway, this morning I felt that sadness again. And it struck me by surprise since I haven't felt it for so long. It's different than the crying of being sick for months on end from chronic fatigue. That's more of feeling sorry for myself - this sadness is that hole that never has been filled coming to the surface and crying out for help.

What's funny is that last night I actually went online to shelters & went window shopping for a dog. I don't want a dog, but I was thinking about it last night. Then this morning as I was sobbing I was thinking about how I felt as a child, when I would feel this sadness and loneliness, and it hit me that the worst mistake my parents made was not letting me have a dog - that really could have helped me with a lot of my depression. It could have helped me with my loneliness, it could have helped me with my need of affection and nurturing and it could have helped me feel that I had someone on my side. Now, I say "could" because the thing could have bonded with my brother and then I would have been even worse off - but better odds of a dog working than my old thought of I needed another sibling.

So I sit here now with the puzzle of, "Why was I feeling this profound sadness today?" What triggered it or what am I in need of? The basic answer is nurturing - the harder question is how?

Time to get serious

I've slowed to a crawling, near stopping speed with my weight loss. I'm back to so many of my old thought patterns, and yet they are SOOOO much improved from where they started. But then that becomes the problem - "Don't beat yourself up. You're so much better than where you were. This is a long term process, you have to do it in a way to not burn out." I need to decide if I really want this or not. Basically I'm eating fats all day long instead of a little here & there. I'm eating "bites" of carbs - 1/2 a piece of bread, a bite of a pancake, a bite of pizza. All these patterns are halting any progress and just making life frustrating. It's hard to not eat a whole slice of pizza when you see a 1 lb weight loss in 3 weeks. I was losing 3 lbs a week on average for months - but then I've modified this plan to the new & improved Wendy style - which means eat a bit more of what you like & see no success. It also doesn't help that everyone is going on & on about how much I've lost. It makes it seem like I've already arrived at my goal. I'M STILL 100 LBS OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE. Because I don't have a correct viewpoint of my body image (see earlier posts) I feel much lighter than I am. I never did see myself as fat as I was so with all these praises & my new size 20 jeans, it's made it harder to keep the final goal in sight. I think the final straw has been the thought, "If I just exercised more, I could keep eating this way" This is the thought I've had for the past 19 years & it's back. CRAZY WENDY! This is the voice of CRAZY WENDY. Let's reason her off the ledge - "If you had been exercising for the past 19 years you wouldn't be in the position you are in. If you showed us that you were willing to exercise more & had steady weight loss, then, yes, maybe add an avocado here or there - but first PROVE you are willing to do it. Show me the treadmill in any position but closed & we'll talk again." Okay, she's moved away from the ledge & has quieted down. I'm telling you, keeping all the irrational voices from taking over, is a full time job over here. Okay, time to show us what you're made of!!

Setting up our kids

The other day Emily was too sick to go to a sleepover at Nana's house and as she was crying I found myself saying, "Daddy is bringing home your favorite dinner tonight & Nonie is bringing over Subway tomorrow for lunch." And she stopped crying and got in a good mood & I thought, "Uh Oh!" I'm repeating the pattern for her that I am trying to break in myself - using food for comfort. But is using food for comfort ALWAYS bad? I think it's ingrained to use it this way. Most of us have a food memory of a grandparent or a food memory of a favorite time with a parent. Or do we? Is it just me? Or just us with food issues, I should say.

For me food was used to comfort or more often create a good time. It was a treat for good behavior or a way to have fun as a family. We didn't go to the movies or do sports or play in the park as a family. I can't remember doing those things even once. Later in life, when I was older, I'd go to a concert with my mom and I can remember bowling as a family maybe 3 times. But the thing we used as a family was getting ice cream at night or lox and bagels on the weekend. Even when I broke both of my arms & my parents were driving me to the hospital, we stopped for ice cream first. Of course, it was during the Weight Watchers days so it was the gross low carb kind. But still, it struck me odd, even then, that we were eating ice cream before taking care of my broken arms and bloody body.

So maybe the trick is creating great memories with my kids of things not only food related. If some of the good times are around food but other good times are vacations or playing at the park or playing hot potato or putting on plays - if their memories are diverse - maybe then they won't use food as comfort when they grow older.

The Next Addiction

I'm trying to break my next addiciton - eating out!! This one is just WAY tough for me to break. Not that the other ones (sugar, emotional eating, diet pop) haven't been horrible to get under control, but this one is like giving up EVERYTHING.

First, the reasons I love to eat out: 1) I feel pampered 2) I don't have to wait on others or clean up 3) if alone w/ hubby, we can actually talk & be relaxed 4) if w/ kids then I'm feeding my emotional eating because they stress me out when eating (I don't LIKE that, I didn't want that on mine, I'm thirsty, etc) 5) most restaurant food tastes good & will be stuff I won't make myself at home 6) it's a way out of my house every day 7) it's a reward for whatever I feel I need a reward for ("If I work out today, I can go to Subway afterward")

The reasons I don't like to eat out: 1) too expensive 2) I eat too much that I shouldn't be eating 3) even when trying to stay on plan, I don't lose weight for a couple of days 4) I often feel a let down after, which means I was looking for something emotional when eating out, instead of just food 5) I drink diet pop most of the time when out & 6) did I mention TOO EXPENSIVE!!

But even when I try to not eat out, it seems I eat out - for example: Sat I was going to meet someone with my mom & they canceled & so my mom & I went out & split a salad. Then Sun I was going to meet the same person & they canceled again so Kurt said he'd treat all of us to lunch. Last week I ate out: Tues met Kurt for lunch (alone time w/ Kurt), then again Tues night (night fell apart & was depressed), Wed night (Kurt took kids out & brought me home something), was good Thurs & Friday & then out Sat & Sun. I'm telling you, this must get brought back under control!!