Skinny Tammy Is Back!!!

I have great news everyone! The bingeing fog has lifted and I'm back in the game!! You're not going to believe what pulled me out of it. I watched The Biggest Loser tonight and it gave me the shove I needed. Yes, yes, I know...I trashed this show to death last Tuesday. However, I did say that I was sure the longer I watched it, the more I'd warm up to it. I just had no idea it would happen on the 2nd week!! But it did, and I'm so, so glad. I have Pam to thank for this....she asked me to watch the show with her this season, because it's been such an inspiration to her.

I will say that I still hate their outfits...that doesn't change. But if you watched tonight, then you noticed that there wasn't the same degrading yelling and screaming in the gym this time. That was very refreshing....and also proved my point from last week....you CAN motivate people to reach their goals WITHOUT screaming and cussing at them. Also, there was a segment where Jillian was talking with half the group about nutrition, etc. She actually seemed human....almost like she really CARED. Totally different from last week. That, too, was refreshing. It completely changed the tone of the show this week, and I was able to enjoy it, learn from it, and be inspired by it.

Bob was talking to Shay about why she was there. Her mom was a heroine addict and died from it. Shay has a LOT of emotional issues....she weighs over 400 lbs. She made a statement in talking to Bob where she said, "A lot of these pounds are wounds". Oh my goodness do I know what she's talking about. It put me in mind of one of my very first posts entitled "Healing Old Wounds". Here's an excerpt from that post:

" I am hoping that with each pound I leave behind it will act as a little dab of salve on the wounds that have been gaping open for so long. I want to heal. I want to be truly happy with myself for the first time. I want to love me."

I know that some people will say that you have to love yourself now....that you deserve to be happy now, just the way you are....that the number on the scale doesn't define who you are as a person, etc. I'm probably fixing to piss all of those people off with my next statement, lol.

Some of us fat people just don't feel that way. It can make sense in our minds...it can sound all warm and fuzzy...and we can even realize other good traits/characteristics about ourselves. But that doesn't mean that we know how to fully embrace the whole "love yourself NOW" concept. For some of us, these pounds ARE wounds....and for some of us, we do feel undeserving. We don't have to have a good reason for feeling that way, we just feel that way.

For some of us, we feel like getting this weight off and keeping it off will cause those wounds to close and finally start to heal. There will be scars left....reminders of what we went through and the terrible way we dealt with it...or didn't deal with it. The horribly abusive way we treated our bodies. But I'm hoping those scars will remind us to never go back the way we came. At least that's my prayer.

I know that for some of us, the weight is just a "surface problem".....you say that you just love food and you eat too much of it...a simple problem of needing to learn some self-control (although I think the # of people that it's that simplistic for is not very high). But for others, the reasons you got THIS fat go far, far deeper than just needing to learn self-control and correct portion sizes. Way deeper. For those people, and I am in this group, the mental/emotional work that needs to be done and the changes that need to be made are what's most important in these travels. That's the real issue here. The pounds falling off are just a result of working out the reasons you became obese in the first place. Yes, eating less and moving more cause you to drop the pounds. But learning how to reverse 20 year habits, thought processes, and developing new coping mechanisms are what's going to KEEP the weight off for me. It's what's going to keep me from going backwards.

Isn't that what we all want? To make this the last time that we ever have to lose the weight? To know that we will succeed, and then succeed at maintenance because of the things we learned and the work we did along the way? Who wants to be the blogger that has to post about a 50 lb. climb back up the scale, if they're still interested in accountability? Not me. That's for damn sure. It's not gonna' be me. I won't let it happen.

I slipped. Okay, I did more than slip. I took a friggin' head dive off the wagon. And boy do I have a nasty bump on my head. It hurts like heck, and I have a feeling it's going to hurt again when I step on the scale this Friday morning. I'll pay the piper, and then I'll laugh in his face on the next Friday's weigh-in. I re-visited my old way of life, and there are no words to accurately describe to you how depressing it was.

Here's what I learned. That's not me anymore. I'm tired of the stupid eating. I'm tired of the lack of control. I'm tired of not walking in the last 4 days. I'm disgusted with the bad eating. You wanna' know the crazy thing about the crappy eating these last few days? I didn't even enjoy any of it. Isn't that crazy??? I ate some of the same things that I used to eat before I started learning to eat healthier, and they just don't taste the same. Same stuff, totally different taste. How weird is that? Here's the other thing. They used to comfort and satisfy me. I haven't felt any comfort or any satisfaction in the last few days. I've felt miserable....I was going backwards and I hated it.

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I miss 166 calorie breakfast casserole. I miss cantaloupe and cottage cheese. I miss 87 calorie a cup chicken soup. I miss turkey burgers. I miss 32 oz. glasses of water. I miss a sweat-soaked shirt after a long, hard walk. I miss the pride I feel when I progress how far I'm walking from one week to the next. I miss scouring my low cal/low fat recipe books for yummy, healthy recipes. I miss being able to look in the mirror in the morning and smile back at myself...instead of having to look away from shame. I miss laying my head down on the pillow at night, and thinking back on all the great choices I made that day, and the restraint I exercised, instead of laying there in misery in a carb-filled fog.

It's time to get back to the things I miss. I'm the only one keeping myself from it. The only one standing in my way is Fat Tammy and even as I type this, I'm plotting her demise, lol. Her days are numbered. All the comments I received from my last post were just beyond awesome. I hope you guys know that I care just as much about you and the work you're trying to do, as you do about me and my crazy travels. I was feeling like a ship on a stormy sea that lost all of it's bearings and had been blown off course. You guys are my lighthouse. Along with the inspiration I drew from the show tonight, your kind comments and the private emails I received guided me back on course. You didn't leave me....your light shone bright....and you waited for me to take hold of the wheel again. Well I'll have you know that as soon as I finish typing this post, I'm super-glueing both hands to that wheel.

I'm very excited to do my post tomorrow night so I can report how many miles I walked at the park. I know how bad it's going to hurt...."pain is just weakness leaving the body"....I'm expecting to fully feel every ounce of weakness that I purge from this big, fat, lazy body. I'm going to pay for my sins from these last 5 days. I managed to walk 3.5 miles last Friday, but not one step since then. That's okay. When I get done, I get to enjoy the sticky feel of my sweaty shirt clinging to my fat rolls, and the aroma of smelling like hot garbage on my drive home to a welcoming shower. I'm looking forward to the feel and smell of a successful day. :)

Quote For The Day:

"Failure? I've never encountered it.......only temporary setbacks." -Bill Marriott, Marriott Hotels

The Blame Game

Sorry I didn't get to post last night. We've had some terrible storms and heavy rain for the last 2-3 days in my area. Schools are closed today, bridges are washed out, roads are closed, and we lost our cable and internet. It's finally back up this morning, so I'm going to do a quick post.

I'm off my game this week. Way off. I started this final weight loss effort 3 1/2 months ago and yesterday I had my first day of bingeing since I started. What was going on doesn't matter, and neither does how I was feeling. I made a bad choice. The scary part is, I'm not sure that the behavior is over and done with. It wasn't a "free day" or a general "bad eating" day. It involved some really bad, out of control feelings, and those feelings are still hanging around. Last night was the first time since I started this blog that I actually thought it was possible for me to go backwards.

Backwards. How scary is that? Terrifying, really. This needs to be the LAST time I lose the weight, and I need to accomplish all the mental changes that come with keeping the weight off. I need to develop a completely new eating lifestyle that will sustain my loss for the rest of my life. I've lost 35 lbs and have learned to enjoy healthier foods....even made some progress with the mental stuff....but have known all along that I still have a long way to go. Some days I think there will always be demons to fight, even long into maintenance. But I never had the thought that I might not make it.

Until yesterday. My mindset is still a little fragile this morning. I'm waivering, trying to steady myself and get a tight grip again. My mind and my heart want to keep fighting and get it right, but I swear I feel like I'm not even living in my own body right now. Last night was like I was standing outside of myself and staring at a 340 lb girl eat her way into oblivion. Her name is Fat Tammy and it was like she had never even heard of my blog....like she has no idea who Skinny Tammy is or what she's trying to do, and really doesn't care.

Fat Tammy blindsided me....like she hit me over the head with a ballbat. I don't know how she made her way back in, but she's here. And she doesn't want to leave. I want her gone....I want my focus back...AGAIN. I haven't done any walking/exercise in the last 3 days. Day 4 isn't looking too good either. I'm trying to get back in the game....I had a cup of cottage chz this morning for breakfast for 180 calories. I've got some soup in the frig that I made a couple of days ago that's only 87 calories a cup...that's my plan for lunch. Thawing some chicken breasts for dinner. Just trying to find the tools to do some radical surgery on my brain and get rid of Fat Tammy for good.

I'm not sure if I'll be posting every night this week....just wanted to pop in and let you all in on what's going on with me. Accountability, right? No matter what, I'll definitely post my weigh-in on Friday. We'll see where I stand.

One last thing. A new blogger left a comment on my last post suggesting I either stop blaming Dwayne for my bad eating with him, or extract him from my life for good. I don't plan on breaking up with him over food, but I do plan on not mentioning him on this blog anymore in regards to food. I checked out her blog and saw that she did a post about me. She was a tad bit worried that she might have offended me. I want her to know that she didn't offend me, but rather than write that on her post, I wanted to say it here, so that ALL of my readers know that they're welcome to leave whatever comments they want.

I moderate my comments, but the only purpose for that is to axe ones that might cuss me out or call me a bunch of nasty names. I know this happens on other blogs, and that's the reason. However, I will always publish all of the other comments, even if it seems like you're "being negative" as she put it, disagreeing with me, or what have you. After reading her comment, I realized that she may not be the only one that's tired of hearing me blame Dwayne for my eating choices around him. So until I learn how to deal with confrontation better with him, and learn how to deal with the fights and bad feelings hanging over my weekends that will no doubt ensue, then I'm just going to stop talking about it.

Hope all of you are having good, strong weeks and are making solid, healthy choices with your eating and exercise. If I don't talk to you sooner, then I'll be back by Friday morning. :)