Past 2 days

The past two days have been really really rough. It started with a big fight with my after which he left. My most vulnerable time for a binge is when I am alone. Add in the frustration of the argument and it was just all bad. Yesterday was the same.

I keep telling myself that every time I give in to eating emotionally I give those feelings, habits and addictions more power. I tell myself not to judge myself for eating off protocol (I'm not binging, at least), and that I sympathize with my actions rather than feeling guilty. I gained 2 pounds over the past two days, also. We'll see how tonight goes.

VLCD 13. The trap of commercial satisfaction

I just watched this video from Robin Phillips Woodall, the one about the mother whose dieting affected her son.  I have heard, over and over again, that the cult of the good body is akin to the dieting cult.  I was listening to this song, and it struck me: which ever part of this deficit based society you buy into, it requires that same kind of crazy.  Because once you have that body, you would give anything to maintain it.  Once you have that house, that car, that look, those clothes, IT defines who you are.  You are no longer in control of your fate, the very clothes, car, size, etc that gave you the life you thought you wanted are now the things your life depends on.  Think about those "celebrities" who have lost their fame and have done just about anything to gain it back, or to achieve it at another level.  

That is not a life.  It's a trap.


Today I avoided the coffee with too much milk, but there was another issue. 
I am not spacing out my drops well. These led me to eat brussel sprouts roasted in a little oil. 
I think I got too hungry because it was 12 hours between my first and second doses.

Quitting is off the table, perfection is not the goal

In 10 days I have lost 12 pounds! I want to see how different this round is when quitting is totally off the table.

And I feel so different.  Even though I have cheated far more than is probably safe, I keep trying to look at it from an intellectual place, analyse and learn from it.  This round feels different.  I think I feel more committed to long term: not just long term as in the next 30 days but long term as in the rest of my life.

Since I was 11 years old I have fought my weight, fought my body, and fought my feelings.  I feel like Weight Loss Apocolypse, along with my spiritual foundation as a Jehovah's Witness has changed me profoundly.  It has been 6 months since I discovered this method of body awareness and mind/body HCG and I can say definitively that this has stuck.

It has been 5 months since I have looked in the mirror and thought I hated my body.

It has been 5 months since I have pinched fat on myself.

It has been 5 months since I have thought of staying home because I hated how I looked in my clothes.

It has been 5 months since I tried to "punish" myself in some way or another because of a number I saw on the scale.

Now, if I can just finish a FULL 40 day round, I will be a brand new person!  Hey, I think I already am!  Thank you Robin Phipps Woodall.

Day 8! Feeling great!!

Wow, I need to learn to use this blogger app. I was just trying to edit an old post for punctuation. This is from months ago.

Tomorrow is the day I put the scale away.  I have resolved that I will only weight every other week.  This Saturday, I will take measurements, next Saturday, I weigh.

I cheated AGAIN due to stress but you know what? For this round it's all about the follow through. I will do the 40 days because that was my commitment. And I still am not going to weight myself. Worry doesn't go away but this is the time that I must learn to deal  with  it

Robin's words after my last cheat on the FB group:  " If you cheat, observe your justifications, judgments, and your guilt. Cheating opens your eyes to observe your thoughts and your resulting behavior. they can be essential steps towards changing your relationship with food and your body permanently."

So now I will use these words as a tool to analyse what happened today.  Today I broke protocol.  Again.  In one week.  But I know, I have to let go of the idea of perfection.  The goal is to slowly change how I look at food and how I look at myself.  So . . .

My justifications:

  1.) I was baking cookies for the Step Up seniors at Roosevelt and I wanted to see how they tasted (had to make some recipe modifications.
  2.) My husband and I had a huge blow out fight and I was frustrated.
  3.) The food was left out and it looked good.

My judgments/guilt:

  1.) Now I have ruined my diet and I will be fat forever.
  2.) I might as well give up.  I am going to suffer through this round and lose nothing.
  3.) I might as well give up.  I am going to keep cheating and gain back more than I was at first.
  4.) I can't do this for myself so I must hate myself.
  5.) I am never going to lose weight or meet my goal of not emotionally eating.  Ever.

Thoughts:

I notice that one thing I left out when I was so upset and food was so available was how my body felt in that emotional space.  In fact I don't remember one thought I had in that moment.  I just remember being mad and shovelling food into my face.  Last week my goal was to observe my bodies' reaction to my feelings, especially uncomfortable feelings without judgment.  Just to see what my body feels like when my mind is in an uncomfortable situation.  I ate much more normally when I did that.  So what I learned from today is that it is imperative that I give myself a time out when those emotions start to surface ESPECIALLY when food is around.

I can do this. Still.

Goodbye grads . . . happy thoughts and worried confessions

Today I had the immeasurable privilege of seeing 12 of the students I have worked with for at least one year, and some more extensively through this year GRADUATE.  What a feeling!  So much excitement and so much stress, writing all of my thoughts and wishes for each of them down.  

Food was present in my mind all day.  I noticed that I was also hungry more than usual.  True, I am dealing with TOM, but I am concerned that there was an element of stress eating.  Or celebration eating?  Whatevs. Emotional eating, not need based eating.  

I still struggle with stopping eating when I am no longer hungry.  I know if I am not satisfied, if I am still hungry I will go get more, or another food option.  But if I have scooped it out I will consume it.  :/

While I am confessing, I better put this out in the universe: I have been weighing myself.  A lot.  Like, the first two days, at least twice a day.  The past two days I have only been weighing daily.  I know I need to put the scale away!!  

What am I looking for the scale to tell me?  I guess that I am making progress?  I don't know!  I know the real progress is what is gong on inside, what the scale cannot measure.  I know that if I change PERMANENTLY my view of food that my weight, looks, outward will eventually match the changes I make inside.  

So why the scale?

I will set a date.  Saturday.  I will note my weight for the week and ask my husband to put the scale away until next week.

Also I am scared that since I have been weighing so frequently, and since my body asked for a little more then protocol today, that I will be upset/frustrated/discouraged by my weight tomorrow.  Which is, I realize, one of the biggest reasons that Mind/Body HCG protocol recommends not weighing.  I have been challenged by Robin on the Facebook support group to accept a protocol round that is not perfect.  I will take my weigh in tomorrow as a challenge to do just that.

VLCP, Day 3. It wasn't worth it . . .

Hey all.  So I did my load, and I remembered the ice cream (although I never got my buffalo wings) and began on Saturday.  Preload weight was 219 (WOW).  Guess what happened Sunday?

I cheated.

My mom had a friend over who is from Lousiana.  She makes a fabulous gumbo and an even better rice dressing (think stuffing, like in turkey, but with rice.  It is AMAZING).  She brought over some spaghetti, one of my favorite foods.  There were meatballs in it AND hot links.  Somehow, I ended up being the one putting everything away . . . and the rest is history.

As soon as I took the first bite I thought: "This is not as good as I thought it would be."  Then downed bites 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . it tasted like some straight up Chef Boy-ar-dee.  This was what I blew my protocol for ON THE SECOND DAY NO LESS.  I was furious.  I ran to the store to find some cookies to at least make the cheat worth it.  While I sat hiding on my mom's back porch eating the cookies, I thought about what I wanted the spaghetti to taste like.  I couldn't imagine.

In that moment, after I cheated on myself and my commitment I had made to changing myself and the way I viewed food, and even just my commitment to the idea of finishing what I promised myself, I couldn't imagine ONE THING that would have been so good it was worth letting myself down.  I need to remember this next time I want to cheat.  Nothing tastes good enough to break your trust with yourself, your COMMITMENT to yourself.

Successes with a side order of dysfunction

Howdy.  I have not fallen off of the face of the earth.  At last writing I was off of the HCG protocol for a while.  I am still off.  Eating when hungry has still proven a challenge to me, but I am glad to say that I have not gained weight since going off protocol.  I also have not been weighing as often as I used to, and I feel like my whole attitude about my size has changed.  My self talk has changed.  I see changes inside, and I know eventually the outside will catch up.  My husband surprised me with a gym membership that includes Zumba, and I LOVE zumba.  I have even toyed with the idea of becoming an instructor.  I also have been trying green coffee beans.

The bad: I still am emotionally eating.  Even binging a little, though not half as much as I used to.  I am (temporarily) losing my best friend due to some life stuff, and now I am 15 days from the death last year of my other best friend.  So I have some sadness I will need to decide how to deal with.

I feel I need to continue to document my journey.  I am dealing with TOM now, and I have yet to decide if I want to return to the protocol after.  I feel like right now I am enjoying the gym membership and the Zumba classes, and I want to continue to work on eating when hungry.  If I can JUST eat when I am hungry, that will be a huge success for me.  The next success will be stopping when I am full.  I am looking at the small goals right now, and the long run.

I am not in a rush.  I will be this new me for a LOOOOOONG time.

Done With Week 1!!

I really still want to weigh myself.  I keep thinking about how much I can lose and how many rounds I can do and . . . I am trying to keep myself from spiraling into this "dieting" mentality.

So I am going to celebrate my success, and hope that this energy generates more success.

I only weighed myself once!  For me, that is a huge success.  I have been known to weigh at least twice a day when I am actively trying to lose weight.  

I feel like I really do know when I am hungry.  The past two days I feel like I have felt hunger.  I feel like for the first time in my life I am feeling hungry and eating and stopping when I am not hungry.  That is my goal, and I have begun to reach it.

Now is the practice.  I need to finish this protocol so that I can be used to eating when hungry and stopping when I am satisfied (or before).  I know this is going to be tough but I have to let this become a HABIT.  I have to watch Robin's videos and I have to remember my goals.

YAY ME!!  

10 Reasons Not To Weigh 

During Mind/Body Hcg Protocol Round

1. If I gain weight, or stall, I might give up and eat everything in sight.
2. If I lose weight, I might be too happy and eat everything in sight.
3. Weight loss does not give me any information about how I have done eating to hunger.  Only I can give that information.  The scale can take that power from me.
4. Weight says nothing about fat gain, loss, or shifts.
5. Focusing on weight will orient my thinking back to size and body image and away from my goal: to eat in response to HUNGER and break the cycle of emotional eating.
6. Monitoring my weight will change my goal to a weight loss amount rather than the weight loss being a side effect of being a healthier, happier, person.
7. Whether or not I weigh myself, the magic will happen . . . so let it be magical!
8. I don't want my kids seeing me on the scale multiple times a day (I always start with weighing once, then twice, usually three times).
9. Before this, not weighing myself has been a symptom of me giving up.  From now on, I want not weighing to be associated with being more and more in tune with my body rather than needing an appliance to give me the 411.
10. I decided I would not do it, and I want to keep my commitment to myself!

I did give in and weigh myself, and I don't know why.  I hadn't weighed myself since about a week before I began my protocol so I don't really know what the number means.  206.4 was my weight.  I guess when I am done I can use this number to have an idea of what I lost.  But I can't care about that.

I have bigger fish to poach.

8 Reasons I Would Rather Defeat Emotional Eating

Then Lose Weight

1. I can gain the weight back.  If I quit emotional eating, I will not have a mind that leads my body down that path.
2. You can be a skinny bulimic or anorexic.  I want to be a role model more than I want to be a fashion model.
3. I want to trust my body, not control it.
4. I want to love and respect my body, not hate and fight it.
5. If I only eat when I am hungry, I don't have to worry about getting sick, hormonal issues like PMS or TOM.  I can have confidence that my body will take care of business.
6. I like food, and I don't want it to become my enemy.
7. I am more tired of the dieting roller coaster then I am of being fat.  So why not end the madness in a way that will give me the full happy ending I want?
8. I can eat whatever I want a stay a healthy size! (Except I will have changed what I want and when I want it)

This hunger thing is trickier than I thought.  I keep analyzing and reanalyzing yesterday, because I feel like everything was mentally and emotionally in the right place.  Why the fall?

I have come up with two reasons.

1.) Maybe I WAS hungry.  I ignore my hunger so much, especially busy times during the day.  When I was pregnant sometimes I would wait until I was actually dizzy to eat.  Maybe I misread, and the empty, stomach gnawing feeling was hunger.  I was waiting for pain, or to feel like I had to have food.  Maybe that isn't what it looks like for me.

2.) I may not have been getting enough water.  I usually drink coffee and don't really drink water until nightfall (with the rest of my calories).  This will not be a way to be successful on the HCG protocol.

Today was okay, I ate really light for a protocol day but I ate when I felt that empty hunger.

The biggest thing I encountered today on my journal was a challenge from my therapist.  She was excited to see that I was trying to shift my thinking on weight loss, body image, etc.  She saw a road bump:

What about your inner critic?  Can you spend this week really tuning in to what that voice is saying, and when it is talking?  Not just about dieting, not just about your body, but about anything . . .

Wow.  Like most people I notice my inner critic.  I mostly notice it when I look in the mirror.  Or when I used to weigh myself.

Do I feed myself in response to the negative energy generated by my inner critic?

I asked myself this question:  What if I finish this journey, and my body settles at a size 10?  Mind you, right now I am a size 14 (sometimes a little more depending of the style).   Would I be able to stand up to that voice and say "I'm done, my body is at a healthy weight, and size?"  Right now, the answer is no.  I couldn't face myself in the mirror and see that as my destination.  But what if that is what my body needs?  My inner critic is going to have to learn to line up with my body, we are all in this together!

Me, all of me, is going to have to decide I am good enough.

How does your inner critic affect how and what you eat?

I ain't even gonna lie y'all.  I came downstairs after a long and HECTIC day.  The kind of day where you are beckoned by fast food and frappacinos because you "deserve" something that feels good.  We ended the day at Chuck E. Cheese, and the social eating reared its head.  The family we were there with were eating and enjoying themselves and so were both of my sons and my husband.  I passed these tests.  Then I put my youngest down.  I felt proud that I had done so well today.  I still was not hungry.  But it is NIGHT.  My husband was nowhere to be seen and this is what I see on the dining room table:

Ohhhhh . . . I felt like I needed those chips.  Like I earned them.  What a rough day, and I don't even know how this is doing.  Besides, I thought, I barely ate ANYTHING the past two days . . .

And then my husband walked in and snapped me back to reality.

And now I sit typing and listening to my stomach.  Is it just growling (peristalsis) or am I hungry?

I will wait.

Social eating is a weird thing.  It is not as cut and dry as either party would preach, in my opinion.  Social eating is natural for humans.  The first meal we have is social, and loaded with associative reinforcement and emotional meaning.  Right after birth, we feel so cold and alone and in such an unfamiliar surrounding, and we hear our mother's voice, her heart, taste the familiar taste of amniotic fluid that comes from the Montgomery glands in the areola.  We gaze into our mother's eyes, and we EAT.  There is an aspect of social eating that builds relationships and creates community, and this is a cross cultural phenomona that is part of the fabric of human society from time immemorial.

What is NOT a universalism is the cultural attachment to gluttony that Robin so eloquently addresses in her book.  And I look at myself in the phase of my transformation in the same way alcoholics look at themselves in rehab.  I cannot eat socially until I learn to coexist with food in a non disordered manner.  I must learn what my body needs and what those senses feel like and that must be my focus.  When I have that down, I will try eating HCG meals (protein and veggie)  rather than splitting them up by food group so that I can tell when I am no longer hungry without having the "finish your food" syndrome.  When I have that down, I will be adding foods (Phase 3).  When I have that down, I will add more foods (Phase 4).  When I have that down, I will experiment with social eating.

I have a long way to go.  But I KNOW it will be worth it.  Then, yes, I will have a slice of pizza with a friend at a predesignated time.  I will be in-tuned to my body by then, and I will know when to stop.

:)



But not with food!!

************UPDATE*************

I ate until I was not hungry.  But I wanted more sooooo bad.  So I decided on Miracle Noodles.  A cheat but not a cheat.  But while I loved Miracle Noodles during my first protocol, I forgot that I HATE them now.  So guess what I did to get that nasty taste out of my system?

You already know, if you in any way relate to this blog.

I inhaled those chips, plus half of a sandwich and a couple of other things laying around.

Why??  Why do I do this?  It does NOT taste good at all . . . I go back to the initial trigger that sent me on this spiral . . . it was wanting more after than first protein serving.  Why did I want more?  I think it was the television.

I have a STRONG association with late eating and television.  Really, with eating alone and television.  I have to break this association.  I think the best way would be to not watch television alone at night.

It is drastic.  But I am tired of living this way, and something has to change.

Let's go (again).