Friday, April 30, 2010

Great Day!

Lots of good stuff has happened today and I'm thrilled about it.  One thing is that I had a great workout.  The other is that I've reached that point in the reduced calorie diet that I actually feel more energetic.  Thank G-d for that!  I've been way too unmotivated for too many days.  Anyway, that's today's report.  I weigh myself tomorrow at the one week point.  Excited to see how that goes.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

This ought to be fun!

I've decided to post my virtual model as a means of gauging my progress of losing weight.  Again, my sole reason for being on this journey is to face the fear of being thinner, not for looking better as being thinner.  I'm not sure if that makes sense to everyone so I'll try to elaborate.  Losing weight will obviously make me look better.  That's a given.  That's not why I'm losing the weight, though.  While I feel like the law of averages will equal out and I'll eventually have issues with health, THAT is not even why I'm doing this.  I'm doing this to confront my demons...and boy are some of them nasty.  The hideously unfortunate part about this is that I am not just dealing with weight issues as a result of avoiding emotional issues.  I, as is stated multiple times on this blog before and in the future, am addicted to food.  So, I'm dealing with two very difficult aspects of this.  Jeez...wouldn't one have been enough?  Anyway, tangent over.  Here is my virtual model.  Let's see how she changes over time. 


Just to let you know, this is actually a pretty good representation of how I look in real life.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

BTW

Doesn't that family in my header look happy?  I swear when I come to this blog sometimes I feel like slapping the shit out of each one of them.  Sadly, it's because I want to be one of them and will have to work for it, instead of it being automatically granted.  I hope at some point I feel that this is worth it. 

Defeated

That's the sense I have today.  I didn't write yesterday because I was feeling kind of squashed, like I may have had a virus coming on.  Because of that, I catapulted off the diet a bit.  Though, admittedly, I watched my intake to the extent that I didn't exceed 1200 calories.  It just wasn't as much liquid as usual. 

I feel more rejuvenated today and was back to the normal plan.  I am not as hungry as I have been, but part of that is just a feeling that food has me.  It's that feeling that addicts have when they realize that they don't have the control anymore and may not have ever had it.  I am such a control freak that I adore the sense of control, so it should make sense that I'm feeling defeated.  Someone took my security blanket, damnit!!! 

I think the worst thing about being in the field of psychology and having any issues like this are that I can intellectualize this experience down to the last detail.  Unfortunately, that doesn't do a damned thing to help the way I feel emotionally or physically during this process.  I feel the same way about watching films like "Food, Inc."  I completely agree with the premise of the film and changes to diet that should be made for the sake of myself, my family and everyone else on this good, green earth.  But I have the "Dug" syndrome.  What the hell is the "Dug" syndrome, you ask?  Well, because I have young children I am subjected to a plethora of PG movies that are requested over, and over, and over, and over, and...well, you get the point.  Anyway, the movie "Up" is a big fave right now.  There is a character, a dog named "Dug," in the movie who can talk and like most other dogs is fascinated/obsessed with squirrels.  Thus, he can be in the middle of a topic and if he sees a squirrel even out of the corner of his eye, he shouts, "Squirrel."  Well, I feel the same way about food.  I can be watching "Food, Inc." or intellectualizing anything and all of a sudden, "Cake!"  Again, I talked about pathology in the beginning.  This is the characteristic of an addict.  The moving around of things in their world to revolve around their substance.  There's a tad of OCD to it.  I've been on many diets before and behavioral interventions and I have never gotten past this point and my realization today is that I may never do that.  How about that?  I can't get rid of it.  I have to live with it knowing that I take it with me everywhere. 

Yeah, defeated.  I think that fits today like a glove.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Good Fucking Morning

I'm hungry.  I was hungry last night and had an apple, when I really wanted flamin cheetohs.  I woke up hungry and knew that I had to pick something different at Starbucks.  I was really, really close to buying a breakfast sandwich there, but I didn't.  I got a grande cappuccino which is less calories than what I usually get. I came home and made a shake (chocolate, cookies & cream with a bit of coconut added).  Before I made the shake, though, I tested a little theory of mine.  I was having a conversation with my husband last night and I was telling him I may actually lose 10 pounds this week.  He thought that was impossible.  He said, "Based on your plan, you may be able to hope for 3 pounds."  I didn't say anything else, but I got on the scale this morning.  Two days after the beginning of this diet and I'm already 4 pounds down.  Hmmmm....6 more pounds in 4 more days doesn't sound incredibly unrealistic.  But I'll save my gloating for next Saturday morning.

I'm really glad I weighed, though.  It made the decision not to get that breakfast sandwich validating. 

I have a headache.  I don't know if that's in response to food changes or allergies.  I haven't curtailed my caffeine intake enough to get a caffeine headache, so I'm pretty sure that's not it.  I have been slowing that down, though. 

Well, I've procrastinated enough, now.  Time to go clean the house.  Babysitter coming tonight and we're going out to a concert.  Yay!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

So Far, So Good

Here's a detail of what I've had today thus far:

Chocolate Banana Shake
Cookies & Cream with Marshmallow Shake
Salad w/Calorie Free Dressing
2 cups of Red Chile Stew

The supplements I'm taking are:
Linoleic Acid
WaterEx
Prenatal Vitamin

I'll have one more shake tonight and that's about it!  I think I'm going to go for an Orange Julius kind of thing.  :)

I've noticed that the shakes don't have the protein I would like them to have, so I will likely go purchase some unflavored protein powder to add to them.  I also may consider whether I want to do some kind of bar as a supplement.  Still undecided on that.  Husband may have a fit about that since he can't have them, but I'm not sure I want to follow his program to the letter anyway.

In short, I think this will work well.  I think cravings will decrease as the days go by.  This first part of dropping the weight will not be the hard part.  It will be keeping it off and dealing with the emotions.  So, this may be a bit monotonous for a while. 

Let The Shakes Begin

I'm feeling pretty good this morning.  I'm feeling a lot less anxious about doing this all of a sudden.  Not sure why, but I'll take it!  This morning I began with my first shake, which is Swiss Chocolate Banana.  Pretty yummy.  I think I'm getting the picture that my husband and I will be cranky until we get used to this, so I just have to remember that before I take his head off.  I will most certainly have caffeine withdrawal if I don't make some coffee, which I am about to do.  I think I'd like to back off the caffeine as well.  When I am not drinking caffeine I am less hungry.  I guess food and caffeine addictions collide in a bad way.  For now, though, it's coffee time. 

I wish I had some readers already so I could say good morning.  I have wondered whether it is a good idea to give some of my friends access to this, but I think it may alter what I am saying here.  There are some deep, dark things I'll want to talk about and it's a lot easier if I'm talking to the unknown.  If you read this and want to continue reading this, I'd love to hear from you.  However, either way, this is the journal of my journey and I'll be here regardless.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Good & Bad

Well, my stuff came today, thankfully.  I was mostly looking forward to the supplements I ordered.  It's been a while since I've been on a good daily vitamin and I ordered a really good prenatal vitamin.  Additionally, I bought linoleic acid and a blend that balances water/electrolytes.  I think they should work out pretty well.

Since I didn't have my supplies from the beginning of the day, I did have all regular food today, though I was careful and kept the calories down.  I weighed myself this morning and was horrified.  It was 265, which it has not been for well over a year.  When I first got my lapband I was 280, so it's not that high, but way too close for comfort.  I have nice restriction on my band but, again, the band doesn't really help addiction.

I want to talk about addiction a little bit.  It seems to be a pretty broad topic and there are certainly lots of kinds of addictions.  Food addiction is like other addictions in that the pathology exists which affects daily living.  For instance, when I wake I think about food.  I think about certain types of food that make me feel the best and how I can fit them into my day.  I think about how I can hide them from my husband, children, friends and other family and sometimes strangers.  My gateway drug is sugar.  Once I have sugar I am prone to eat more of it or move on to more equally destructive substances, like high fat foods or high carb foods.  Food addiction is unlike other addictions in that you can't stop eating.  There is a 12 step program called Overeaters Anonymous (OA) which explains that abstinence is different from person to person.  Abstinence usually includes eliminating only your trigger/gateway food.  If I followed that program I would eliminate all sugar from my diet, or certainly  minimize it down to as low as possible (because let's face it, sugar, particularly corn syrup is found in EVERYTHING).  I may do that in the future.  Right now I'm more concerned with getting to a healthy weight.  Not perfect weight, as if there is such a thing.  But a healthy weight.  Anyway, food addiction is complex and there are no easy answers.  I'll say right now that I am not fond of OA.  The reason for that is that I don't like that there's no feedback.  I want to share my story with someone, but I want it to be with others who aren't afraid to confront me.  I need that.  I'm way too learned in the field of psychology to simply be all right with verbalizing my experience for the sake of doing so.

Have I mentioned that I'm a substance abuse counselor in training?  Nice timing, eh?  My personal philosophy of substance abuse counseling is a combination of individual and group counseling.  Right now, I'm in neither.  I do have an amazing therapist but I've been on a break from her for a while.  Likely the amount of time it took me to balloon to 265.  Anyway, I will return to her for this journey.  However, I wish there was a good group in which I could participate.  There's nothing like a good group for being confronted or having the mirror held up. 

I think I am going to end here for tonight.  Tomorrow will be official day one of the meal replacement diet.  I'm actually looking forward to it.  :)  Please remind me of that a couple of days, weeks or months in. 

Kicking & Screaming

Otherwise known as Day 1.  Though, my supplements didn't come yet, so I'm not "officially" doing this until I get them all in.  Husband is already driving me crazy as he's doing an official program and I'm following with a "look-alike" as to not stretch the capacity of his money-obsessed mind.  But, it's all "me, mine, I" already because he refuses to see this as a partnership.  In fairness to him, it's probably a good way to look at it AND it eliminates him being my food police, which he tends to do. 

Wait, I should step back here for a second.  I bet you're wondering what my journey will look like.  Well, let's just say that I've been on every diet imaginable in the past AND I've had lapband surgery.  None of those things address food addiction.  That said, I'm at a weight which makes me uncomfortable and I'm not addressing any of my issues by staying big, so I am using a meal replacement system to lose the weight up front.  Dieting is easy for me.  Getting past my "I must fuck this up" phase and keeping the weight off is the hard part.  I'm not suggesting this is the right way to do it, but it is the way I'm going to do it.  My husband got frustrated with his weight as well, as he is the highest weight he's ever been and decided to enroll in a doctor monitored meal replacement program.  This is good for him because he has Type I Diabetes and he feels like he is part of something that is his.  Again, the self-centered aspect of this is not all bad, just terribly annoying at the time.

As you can see by the title, I do not want to do this.  I like feeling safe and sound in my obese cocoon.  I like the way food makes me feel emotionally.  However, I do not like the way bad food makes me feel bad physically.  Obviously, my emotions have been given more attention along the way.  As mentioned before, though, I haven't dealt with the fear of how I would feel and what my behaviors would be if I were thinner.  Herein starts my journey.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Creating This Blog - The Beginning

I went through a plethora of titles and available blogger addresses before this one. I'm actually very happy I went through that process. Because for every address that wasn't available, I went to the address to realize that those people may have posted once or posted a few times and then no more. While I am freely admitting my addiction to food, I am also about to embark upon a journey to reclaim my life, so I like that the title includes the word, "Life!" Maybe I should have made the title L'Chaim.

Anyway, I think this should be the post where I tell you a little bit about myself. I am only going to reveal a little bit about me because this is my online journal which I am not revealing to a single friend or family member. This is for me, by me. This is an important part of my journey and may prove to be beneficial when I go back to it later. So, let me give you a basic list.

1. I am female
2. I love food

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I have to admit that the journey I'm about to take I am imagining will be painful. You see, I like being a food addict. I don't think bad thoughts about myself. I'm not even in bad physical shape (though I am obese...just lucky that I don't have considerable health issues). I WANT to keep eating foods that keep me in a destructive cycle. They make me feel good. They make me feel comfortable. They make me feel safe. Did you get that last one? They make me feel safe. Food, and subsequently my weight, has kept me from having relationships with some people. These aren't even people who are necessarily known. My past has played a huge part in this, which I will get into at a later time. But, suffice to say, if food feels good and provides security, I'm not overly thrilled with eliminating or controlling it.

Why am I doing this?

Well, the law of averages will eventually even out and I will have health issues. I want to be able to be more active. I want to be able to shop at regular sized clothing stores. I want to be average sized for once in my adult life since it hasn't happened yet. Finally, I want to face my fear of being an average sized person and conquer the last of my demons in the process. I can't, nor do I want to speculate how this journey will end. Hell, it hasn't even begun. I just want to be with it every day and see where it takes me.

You're welcomed to join...but not welcomed to judge.