I know you guys are getting tired of reading about my frequent binge episodes, and quite frankly, I'm tired of telling you about them. But I think posting about this crap is helping me in some way....not exactly sure what way, but I think quitting posting or shutting down the blog would end up being way more damaging than writing all this garbage out.
Today was a really bad day. Yes, ANOTHER really bad day. They're so frequent, and I feel the need to apologize for that, but it's simply how my life is right now. This is the second week in a row that I didn't get paid. I was supposed to have 2 weeks of pay left on the unemployment, pending on whatever's going on in Congress right now...and yet, I haven't received either one of those checks. I'm holding my breath that all the paperwork that I had to fill out last week when I didn't get my check will be processed by this Friday and I'll get BOTH checks and can actually pay the people I owe. At least that is my hope.
I didn't even have the heart or guts to ask Dwayne for any financial help this week, because he came through for me so valiantly last week. That, in turn, led to an argument, and it just grew and grew and I was pushing him away as hard as I could. It's really for his own good....I don't want to pull him down into the muck and mire with me. It's depressing down here. How did all of this affect my eating today?
I had a 200 calorie breakfast scramble at 7am, right after I found out my bank account was still empty. And then at noon my sister, nephew and I were out shopping at Goodwill for some clothes and we had a really big lunch around noon. This is where I felt myself starting to slide downhill. I got lost while driving around looking for a particular road, Cyress was in the backseat whining, it's been raining all day and my windows were fogged up and I forgot the driver's side one is broken. I tried to roll it down and it FELL down and startled the crap out of me. I pulled over and finally got it back up, got back on the road and a van pulled out in front of me while I was going about 45 mph....Amy and I both threw our arms out to the side (as if we were trying to keep Cyress from flying over the front seat) while I slammed on the brakes, and then I went to cussing at the van (like they could hear me), telling them I've got a kid in the car!! Were they trying to kill the baby??? Yeah I know...it was bad to cuss in front of the youngin'.....but it was just one of those stressful days.
Right after that I told Amy I feel like binge eating today. She said, "Awwww....I'm sorry......I know what that feels like." Even though she's a twig and I didn't believe that she really knows what that feels like, the fact that she was sympathizing with me got me teary-eyed. It felt like someone cared, but was it enough to stop the cycle I was in? We stopped at Quik Trip to get gas and I got a medium caramel macchiato and a brownie. I drank half the coffee and threw the rest out when I got home. I shared the brownie with Cyress and Amy, so I ate about half of that. That was my attempt at trying to save myself before the whole day was ruined.
I got home about 3:30p I think and started drinking water....lots of water. Argued some more with Dwayne through email....texted Billie and cancelled the gym for tonight....cried for about an hour, took an hour nap, woke up and cried some more. I knew what I was headed for. Didn't I just do this last week? Yes I did. Am I going to have to go through this every week? I don't know.
I guess the first bit of good news is that I'm now acutely aware of when a binge is coming on. I've read in other blogs where people say they kind of "wake up" in the middle of one, after they've ingested 4,000 cals, and can't even remember how it really started. I may have been guilty of that in the past, because before I started blogging, I really didn't know what bingeing was. To me, it was my "normal". I didn't know there was an actual term for eating like a moron or stuffing down your emotions or stress with food. But now that I've been at this blogging thing for a while, I'm all too aware of what's going on....what leads up to one, how quickly the downhill slide is if you enter into one, and how amazingly fast it's over with and how many calories I can eat in such a short amount of time. I'm also becoming aware of just how horrid I feel afterwards. The guilt and disappointment in myself is overwhelming. It's absolutely suffocating.
That's actually a good thing, because if I keep concentrating on that when I feel a binge coming on, then hopefully I'll be able to stop myself more frequently, and they will be fewer and farther inbetween. I've just about decided that emotional and stressful stuff will always trigger the binge feelings for me. Kind of like once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, no matter how many years you're in recovery. I'm thinking it's also once a binge-er, always a binge-er (no, that's probably not a real word, lol).
Back to the eating. I woke up from my nap and drank some more water.....I think I've had my usual (3) 32 oz. glasses so far today. Then Shane called me at 7pm and asked what's for dinner. Sh*t. I was trying not to cook dinner because it was one of those desperate feelings of eat absolutely nothing else today, or you're going to eat everything in the house. I hate to sound so extreme, but that's the truth for me. Some days are just like that. I told him I'd make some chicken tenders in Rotel for soft tacos, because I knew I just had those a couple of days ago, and they didn't sound that appetizing to me tonight, so I shouldn't be tempted. So I made them, and I didn't touch them. It's 8:30pm right now, and I haven't had another bite of food since that 1/2 of brownie this afternoon around 2:30pm. I think I made it through the binge feelings w/o doing too much damage for the entire day. I had a big lunch, and fattening snacks with the brownie and coffee. But since breakfast was only 200 cals and I haven't had dinner, I think the overall day may still be intact.
There's nothing saying that I won't be back on here Friday if I don't get my check again, telling you how I ate 10 bacon double cheeseburgers. I'm not brazen enough to claim that kind of victory over bingeing. But I made it through today. I stopped the cycle before it really got out of control, and I feel pretty good about that. It's still a crappy day and I feel bad in a lot of other ways, but there's one tiny gleam of hope that I get to hold onto for today. I have to believe that the more I work at breaking this cycle, that the better I'll get at overcoming it for longer periods of time.
Other than the big lunch today, I've done really well with my eating and exercise this week. I'm still looking forward to my weigh-in this Friday....I'm not dreading it...and that's a good feeling. :)
Quote For the Day:
"Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time." -Mark Twain
Showing posts with label bingeing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bingeing. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Good News:Bad News
The day started off great and ended up crappy. I woke up starving this morning, probably since the last thing I ate yesterday was at 5pm. I made a huge breakfast scramble with 4 egg whites, 4 oz baked chicken breast, 1/8 c. of 2% cheddar cheese, spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers & red onions. The whole plate came to 270 cals and it was delicious.
After breakfast I got an email from Christian at Budget Life Insurance. They wanted to tell me they loved my blog and that I was selected to be in their list of Top 25 Weight Loss Blogs! Really???? MY BLOG???? Are you SERIOUS???? But I clicked on the link that he sent, and what do you know? It's true. I thought it was pretty cool to make ANYBODY'S Top 25 list for ANYTHING, so I felt very honored. I share the list with several other bloggers that I know....some I follow and some I've seen around Blogland....a few I didn't recognize at all. Pretty cool stuff....thanks Budget!
I was going to go to the gym today and simply walk on the treadmill. I needed to give my muscles a rest. We don't usually work out with Chris on Thursday's....only Tuesday's....but there's an exception this week because he'll be going home to California for vacation next week. I've effed up my left elbow somehow...probably from trying to lift too much weight....and yesterday's workout was pretty hard on it. Not knowing what to expect at tomorrow's workout (it's always a surprise!), I decided to just do a few miles on the treadmill.
I got in my closet to put on some workout clothes and decided to try on the shirt I got free at the gym when I signed up. I got it about a month ago and didn't even bother trying it on because it's an XL, and I knew I wore a 2X. I tried it on today to see how far I had to go before I could fit into it. Turns out....not far at all!! It fits!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the first time in at least 15 years, I am wearing a shirt that doesn't have a number in front of the X. If you've never worn 3 & 4X's for as many years as I did, then you couldn't possibly understand the feeling of wearing just a plan ol' XL. I've got to be the happiest girl in the world to ONLY be wearing an XL....who else gets THIS excited about wearing an EXTRA LARGE??? I do!! That's who!!
Given the fact that my number of pounds lost isn't all that much, I'm guessing it has to do with all the work I've been doing in the gym. I think I joined the first gym last October...somewhere in there, and then switched over to Planet Fitness about a month or so ago. So I've had steady, hard workouts for several months now and I guess I'm tightening up. Now....I'm not going to turn into one of those happy a$$ people that says the scale numbers don't matter to me (yeah...right!).....but I will say that there's definitely something to toning up and losing inches. Hooray for such a great NSV!!
After this is where the day, and my mood, went downhill pretty fast. I was sitting in a parking lot talking to Pam on the phone, getting ready to head to the gym. I rolled my window down and the dang thing came off track....WAY off track.....like, nearly-fell-out off track. I got off the phone with Pam and since I had my camera with me, I took a picture of it just so I could show you what I'm talking about. It looks like a triangle instead of a rectangle, because the front end just fell down in the hole, forward, when I tried to roll it down.
Instead of going to the gym, I called the garage that does all of my car repairs and asked if they could fix it. He said he could, but he didn't know where he'd get the parts for a car that old. I drive a '92 Honda Accord LX....so it's 18 years old and has over 200k miles on it. It's pretty amazing that it's even still running. He said he'd probably have to order them from the Honda dealership. Yikes.
I just happened to be about a mile from a Honda dealership at the time, so I drove by there to get an idea of how much parts would be. The guy came out and looked at my car and said things didn't look good....namely because the car is so old. He said there's a good chance that it's not just one part that's messed up.....he said he would give me the worst case scenario, print it out, and I could take it with me to the garage to get it fixed once they decided what all it needed. So.....if it needs all of the main parts...a motor, regulator, channel & 2 side sashes....the parts total just over $500. Labor at the garage will probably be around $200. So we're talking a possible $500-$700 car repair for a stupid WINDOW.....on a car that's probably only worth $1000 at best to start with (it does run really well....it's just super old).
This is just how fast my mood and attitude can turn from great and happy to very stressed, anxious, frantic and bingey-feeling. Everyone knows I'm on unemployment, and while I have a tiny bit put back in savings for car repairs (I just had a $500 repair a month ago), I don't have the full amount to fix the window. That would mean asking Dwayne to make up the difference...and I've never asked him for anything. Enter in more stress from being unemployed for a year now and losing nearly all my financial independence. I've paid my own bills for years....I'm very frugal, very responsible, very budget-minded and cannot remember the last time I had a late bill. Even on my unemployment check.....I can pinch a penny 'til it squeals. But when things like this happen that are beyond my control and more than I can afford.....well, it's just not good for me.
I texted Dwayne and briefly told him what was going on. We were supposed to meet up for "date night" tonight. He wanted to go to Barnes and Noble and grab a coffee together and peruse the aisles of glorious books.....we both have a thing for books...the smell, the feel, the knowledge within the pages just waiting to be absorbed....so it "would" have been a perfect, relaxing night together. However, my mood was sour and I told him I wouldn't be meeting him tonight.
He called me when he got off work at 6:30p to get the whole scoop. I cried....I told him everything....I cried some more. I was really feeling the financial pressure and the guilt of having to receive some kind of help from him. At the same time, the thinking side of my brain just couldn't process spending up to $700 to fix a stupid window on a car that's maybe worth $1000 in the first place. Turns out, he was thinking the same thing. What I didn't know is that he has been casually looking around at used cars for me in case mine died. He said it would be super cheap.....like maybe $2500....but he's seen some Honda Civics in that price range, which are known for their dependability & good gas mileage, on Craig's List.....and it will still be probably 8 years newer than the car I'm driving now.
I didn't even know he'd been looking.....that freaked me out and stressed me even more. Dwayne does okay for a single guy....he works in IT....but he's definitely not made of money, and he's got his own bills to take care of. I abhor the thought of him buying me any kind of car....even a cheap $2500 one. The guilt associated with not being able to take care of myself financially was really starting to suffocate me. He asked me what I thought about the idea. I told him I appreciated the thought, but I hated the idea on a couple of different levels....he basically told me I'd have to get over it. That he'd probably be finding something for me but I might have to deal with not being able to roll the window down for a couple of months while he saves up a little more money. (I finally got the window up today, so if I don't try to roll it down again, it shouldn't fall out).
He wanted to come up and see me here at the house. I first said okay, then 5 mins later I changed my mind again and said no....just don't come up tonight. Basically because I didn't want to sit here and cry in front of him all night. He's got a lot of high stress going on at his job right now with back-to-back software releases and talk about his boss being phased out and replaced, which in turn has him worried about his OWN job. Qutie frankly, he's terrified of BOTH of us being unemployed at the same time and living on very little money. He didn't need to be up here with me tonight watching me wallowing in my own self pity. I told him I'd be fine...I just needed some time to think, and to go hang out with his buddies and have a relaxing night. I'm pretty damn sure I heard a sigh of appreciation on his end of the phone.
Shane called while I was on the phone with Dwayne, so I called him back. As soon as he asked what was wrong, I was crying again. I blurted everything out to him, and he told me not to worry about cooking, that we'd just go out to eat tonight. Normally I refuse to go out to eat this close to a weigh-in, but I was in such a dangerous I-don't-give-a-sh*t mood, that I met him and Billie out at Moe's Southwest Grille for dinner. I had a good bit of calories left for the day, and I ordered a chicken soft taco & a beef soft taco. I think the calories are fine....but the sodium will be a disaster on the scale tomorrow morning. That's not an issue.
The issue was going to be making it through the rest of the night without an all-out binge. I had been crying on and off for hours on end....seeing no way out of my current financial situation because while I'm doing everything I can do on my end, I just can't MAKE someone call & offer me a job. I had a splitting headache & my sinuses were clogged. I am STILL on my cycle (too much info, I know, but it's been 8 full days now and I feel like bitching about it), upset about being a financial burden on Dwayne.....and all I wanted to do was eat. Even after dinner. I wanted to keep on eating....just to eat. How many years have I used food as a comfort? How many??? Enough to get me all the way up to 340 lbs. at one point and a prime candidate for a heart attack or stroke, and enough to give me Type 2 Diabetes, which is the 3rd leading cause of death behind heart attack and cancer, for those of you who don't know.
I really had to remind myself of this tonight. I had to remind myself that the comfort from bingeing is TEMPORARY. The guilt afterwards is immediate and does not wash off or go away. It would be there to haunt me again on Friday morning when I weighed-in. And when it comes right down to it....it wasn't going to solve a single thing in my life. In fact, it was going to make me feel that much worse about myself. And let me tell you something if you're not one who's prone to bingeing......although you KNOW all of this stuff....you KNOW it all to be true and factual....it is VERY HARD to bring yourself to CARE about it when you're in the moment. EXTREMELY HARD. It only takes 5-10 minutes to do a 3-4,000 calorie binge.
Those fleeting moments right before a binge are crucial....where you actually make yourself sit there in the car (in the parking lot after dinner, when everyone else had already left and you're all alone).....and tell yourself the facts over and over in hopes of saving yourself. I told myself, "Tammy....you know what you're about to do....don't do it...please don't do it....you're worth more than this....you're becoming more and more important to yourself every day. Don't damage yourself like this. Think of how you'll feel tomorrow morning...think of how you'll feel Friday morning when you weigh-in. Better yet....remember how AWESOME and PROUD you felt about yourself just this afternoon when you slipped on that XL shirt. Remember? Do you want to undo that feeling? Do you want to go backwards AGAIN?? The food only masks the pain for a few short moments...it doesn't fix what's hurting you. It can't be fixed right now, and it can never be fixed with food. You know what you have to do. You just have to go through it. You just have to feel it. Cry it out, then drive yourself back home and start flushing out that friggin' sodium you just ate."
And that's exactly what I did. I cried almost all the way home. But I didn't binge. Thank God...I didn't binge. So very close...but I made it through tonight. I'm downing my 2nd 32 oz. glass of water right now. I know what the scale said this morning....so I'll be drinking a ton of water over the next day and a half to get it back to that number by Friday. I hope I can do it. Sodium gains irritate me still....but they don't really UPSET me, because I know exactly how my body responds to it now and what kind of "fake" gain it produces. It doesn't matter how healthy of a choice I make from a menu....it can be grilled fish w/ no butter and steamed veggies....and I'll still be up at least 6-7 lbs the very next morning. That's just the way my body is....but I also know from experience that if I drink enough water, it will all drop off within a day or two and my weight will be back to what it previously was before the restaurant meal.
My brain's a little fried right now....my head still hurts and my eyes are burning and puffy from so much crying. I'm going to sign off now and drink a few gallons of water, lol. I'll leave you with some pics. The first one is my 270 calorie breakfast scramble this morning, the next one is me in the XL shirt, and the last one is my effed up car window. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
After breakfast I got an email from Christian at Budget Life Insurance. They wanted to tell me they loved my blog and that I was selected to be in their list of Top 25 Weight Loss Blogs! Really???? MY BLOG???? Are you SERIOUS???? But I clicked on the link that he sent, and what do you know? It's true. I thought it was pretty cool to make ANYBODY'S Top 25 list for ANYTHING, so I felt very honored. I share the list with several other bloggers that I know....some I follow and some I've seen around Blogland....a few I didn't recognize at all. Pretty cool stuff....thanks Budget!
I was going to go to the gym today and simply walk on the treadmill. I needed to give my muscles a rest. We don't usually work out with Chris on Thursday's....only Tuesday's....but there's an exception this week because he'll be going home to California for vacation next week. I've effed up my left elbow somehow...probably from trying to lift too much weight....and yesterday's workout was pretty hard on it. Not knowing what to expect at tomorrow's workout (it's always a surprise!), I decided to just do a few miles on the treadmill.
I got in my closet to put on some workout clothes and decided to try on the shirt I got free at the gym when I signed up. I got it about a month ago and didn't even bother trying it on because it's an XL, and I knew I wore a 2X. I tried it on today to see how far I had to go before I could fit into it. Turns out....not far at all!! It fits!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the first time in at least 15 years, I am wearing a shirt that doesn't have a number in front of the X. If you've never worn 3 & 4X's for as many years as I did, then you couldn't possibly understand the feeling of wearing just a plan ol' XL. I've got to be the happiest girl in the world to ONLY be wearing an XL....who else gets THIS excited about wearing an EXTRA LARGE??? I do!! That's who!!
Given the fact that my number of pounds lost isn't all that much, I'm guessing it has to do with all the work I've been doing in the gym. I think I joined the first gym last October...somewhere in there, and then switched over to Planet Fitness about a month or so ago. So I've had steady, hard workouts for several months now and I guess I'm tightening up. Now....I'm not going to turn into one of those happy a$$ people that says the scale numbers don't matter to me (yeah...right!).....but I will say that there's definitely something to toning up and losing inches. Hooray for such a great NSV!!
After this is where the day, and my mood, went downhill pretty fast. I was sitting in a parking lot talking to Pam on the phone, getting ready to head to the gym. I rolled my window down and the dang thing came off track....WAY off track.....like, nearly-fell-out off track. I got off the phone with Pam and since I had my camera with me, I took a picture of it just so I could show you what I'm talking about. It looks like a triangle instead of a rectangle, because the front end just fell down in the hole, forward, when I tried to roll it down.
Instead of going to the gym, I called the garage that does all of my car repairs and asked if they could fix it. He said he could, but he didn't know where he'd get the parts for a car that old. I drive a '92 Honda Accord LX....so it's 18 years old and has over 200k miles on it. It's pretty amazing that it's even still running. He said he'd probably have to order them from the Honda dealership. Yikes.
I just happened to be about a mile from a Honda dealership at the time, so I drove by there to get an idea of how much parts would be. The guy came out and looked at my car and said things didn't look good....namely because the car is so old. He said there's a good chance that it's not just one part that's messed up.....he said he would give me the worst case scenario, print it out, and I could take it with me to the garage to get it fixed once they decided what all it needed. So.....if it needs all of the main parts...a motor, regulator, channel & 2 side sashes....the parts total just over $500. Labor at the garage will probably be around $200. So we're talking a possible $500-$700 car repair for a stupid WINDOW.....on a car that's probably only worth $1000 at best to start with (it does run really well....it's just super old).
This is just how fast my mood and attitude can turn from great and happy to very stressed, anxious, frantic and bingey-feeling. Everyone knows I'm on unemployment, and while I have a tiny bit put back in savings for car repairs (I just had a $500 repair a month ago), I don't have the full amount to fix the window. That would mean asking Dwayne to make up the difference...and I've never asked him for anything. Enter in more stress from being unemployed for a year now and losing nearly all my financial independence. I've paid my own bills for years....I'm very frugal, very responsible, very budget-minded and cannot remember the last time I had a late bill. Even on my unemployment check.....I can pinch a penny 'til it squeals. But when things like this happen that are beyond my control and more than I can afford.....well, it's just not good for me.
I texted Dwayne and briefly told him what was going on. We were supposed to meet up for "date night" tonight. He wanted to go to Barnes and Noble and grab a coffee together and peruse the aisles of glorious books.....we both have a thing for books...the smell, the feel, the knowledge within the pages just waiting to be absorbed....so it "would" have been a perfect, relaxing night together. However, my mood was sour and I told him I wouldn't be meeting him tonight.
He called me when he got off work at 6:30p to get the whole scoop. I cried....I told him everything....I cried some more. I was really feeling the financial pressure and the guilt of having to receive some kind of help from him. At the same time, the thinking side of my brain just couldn't process spending up to $700 to fix a stupid window on a car that's maybe worth $1000 in the first place. Turns out, he was thinking the same thing. What I didn't know is that he has been casually looking around at used cars for me in case mine died. He said it would be super cheap.....like maybe $2500....but he's seen some Honda Civics in that price range, which are known for their dependability & good gas mileage, on Craig's List.....and it will still be probably 8 years newer than the car I'm driving now.
I didn't even know he'd been looking.....that freaked me out and stressed me even more. Dwayne does okay for a single guy....he works in IT....but he's definitely not made of money, and he's got his own bills to take care of. I abhor the thought of him buying me any kind of car....even a cheap $2500 one. The guilt associated with not being able to take care of myself financially was really starting to suffocate me. He asked me what I thought about the idea. I told him I appreciated the thought, but I hated the idea on a couple of different levels....he basically told me I'd have to get over it. That he'd probably be finding something for me but I might have to deal with not being able to roll the window down for a couple of months while he saves up a little more money. (I finally got the window up today, so if I don't try to roll it down again, it shouldn't fall out).
He wanted to come up and see me here at the house. I first said okay, then 5 mins later I changed my mind again and said no....just don't come up tonight. Basically because I didn't want to sit here and cry in front of him all night. He's got a lot of high stress going on at his job right now with back-to-back software releases and talk about his boss being phased out and replaced, which in turn has him worried about his OWN job. Qutie frankly, he's terrified of BOTH of us being unemployed at the same time and living on very little money. He didn't need to be up here with me tonight watching me wallowing in my own self pity. I told him I'd be fine...I just needed some time to think, and to go hang out with his buddies and have a relaxing night. I'm pretty damn sure I heard a sigh of appreciation on his end of the phone.
Shane called while I was on the phone with Dwayne, so I called him back. As soon as he asked what was wrong, I was crying again. I blurted everything out to him, and he told me not to worry about cooking, that we'd just go out to eat tonight. Normally I refuse to go out to eat this close to a weigh-in, but I was in such a dangerous I-don't-give-a-sh*t mood, that I met him and Billie out at Moe's Southwest Grille for dinner. I had a good bit of calories left for the day, and I ordered a chicken soft taco & a beef soft taco. I think the calories are fine....but the sodium will be a disaster on the scale tomorrow morning. That's not an issue.
The issue was going to be making it through the rest of the night without an all-out binge. I had been crying on and off for hours on end....seeing no way out of my current financial situation because while I'm doing everything I can do on my end, I just can't MAKE someone call & offer me a job. I had a splitting headache & my sinuses were clogged. I am STILL on my cycle (too much info, I know, but it's been 8 full days now and I feel like bitching about it), upset about being a financial burden on Dwayne.....and all I wanted to do was eat. Even after dinner. I wanted to keep on eating....just to eat. How many years have I used food as a comfort? How many??? Enough to get me all the way up to 340 lbs. at one point and a prime candidate for a heart attack or stroke, and enough to give me Type 2 Diabetes, which is the 3rd leading cause of death behind heart attack and cancer, for those of you who don't know.
I really had to remind myself of this tonight. I had to remind myself that the comfort from bingeing is TEMPORARY. The guilt afterwards is immediate and does not wash off or go away. It would be there to haunt me again on Friday morning when I weighed-in. And when it comes right down to it....it wasn't going to solve a single thing in my life. In fact, it was going to make me feel that much worse about myself. And let me tell you something if you're not one who's prone to bingeing......although you KNOW all of this stuff....you KNOW it all to be true and factual....it is VERY HARD to bring yourself to CARE about it when you're in the moment. EXTREMELY HARD. It only takes 5-10 minutes to do a 3-4,000 calorie binge.
Those fleeting moments right before a binge are crucial....where you actually make yourself sit there in the car (in the parking lot after dinner, when everyone else had already left and you're all alone).....and tell yourself the facts over and over in hopes of saving yourself. I told myself, "Tammy....you know what you're about to do....don't do it...please don't do it....you're worth more than this....you're becoming more and more important to yourself every day. Don't damage yourself like this. Think of how you'll feel tomorrow morning...think of how you'll feel Friday morning when you weigh-in. Better yet....remember how AWESOME and PROUD you felt about yourself just this afternoon when you slipped on that XL shirt. Remember? Do you want to undo that feeling? Do you want to go backwards AGAIN?? The food only masks the pain for a few short moments...it doesn't fix what's hurting you. It can't be fixed right now, and it can never be fixed with food. You know what you have to do. You just have to go through it. You just have to feel it. Cry it out, then drive yourself back home and start flushing out that friggin' sodium you just ate."
And that's exactly what I did. I cried almost all the way home. But I didn't binge. Thank God...I didn't binge. So very close...but I made it through tonight. I'm downing my 2nd 32 oz. glass of water right now. I know what the scale said this morning....so I'll be drinking a ton of water over the next day and a half to get it back to that number by Friday. I hope I can do it. Sodium gains irritate me still....but they don't really UPSET me, because I know exactly how my body responds to it now and what kind of "fake" gain it produces. It doesn't matter how healthy of a choice I make from a menu....it can be grilled fish w/ no butter and steamed veggies....and I'll still be up at least 6-7 lbs the very next morning. That's just the way my body is....but I also know from experience that if I drink enough water, it will all drop off within a day or two and my weight will be back to what it previously was before the restaurant meal.
My brain's a little fried right now....my head still hurts and my eyes are burning and puffy from so much crying. I'm going to sign off now and drink a few gallons of water, lol. I'll leave you with some pics. The first one is my 270 calorie breakfast scramble this morning, the next one is me in the XL shirt, and the last one is my effed up car window. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Talking Myself Down
Yesterday I had to talk myself down from the edge of the Bingeing cliff. Nearly every week that I go to my sister's house to babysit, my eating goes badly. I know some of you might be thinking I should just quit the babysitting, and oh trust me, if I could, I would. However, there's backstory there that I can't talk about and the bottom line is that I'm stuck with it for a while longer. Yesterday was absolutely horrible....not quite the binge I was considering, but bad enough. I made myself count up all the calories when it was over, I arrived at 2400, sat down and had myself a good cry.
Let's see. My sister asked me to meet her early at a gas station so she could get to the lab by 4pm and study for a test. I obliged her, and we met up at 3:45p. She quickly handed me a Chic-fil-A gift card with about $15 on it, an envelope of free coupons for Chic-fil-A items that came in some calendar she bought from them, and swift instructions to take her kids there for dinner when we parted ways and let them play at the indoor playground. Then she was gone in a flash. That's just how quick my healthy eating plans dissolve. Yes, this is my problem....not my sister's. Yes, I need a stronger resolve. Yes, I should be able to face temptation head on and stare it down with no damage done to my eating plan.
Grace was crying and clinging to her mom, saying she didn't want her to leave. Brandy was bribing her by saying she'll bring her a gift home, etc etc. Same thing every week. Grace cried all the way to the restaurant and by the time we got there my nerves were already half shot. I should have been able to sit in that Chic-fil-A for over an hour and watch them munch on their chicken nuggets and fries, slurping down their milkshakes, and not been affected at all. I should have been able to resist the smell of the fast food that I've been working so hard to avoid by staying AWAY from those places, but I didn't. I failed, and I did it in a big way.
We were sitting at a table right against the glass that enclosed the indoor play area. Elijah was leaned up against the glass looking in when he dropped his milkshake. It went everywhere. There weren't enough napkins in the world to clean up that mess. I sheepishly told one of the workers what happened and asked if I could use their mop. She insisted on cleaning it up herself, while another worker brought him another milkshake! (I was thinking, what the hell are you doing crazy lady??? The last thing he needs is something else to splatter all over the glass, table, floor, his clothes and shoes, etc.!!) I just smiled and told her how kind she was to replace it at no charge. When they were done making their food messes and stressing me out, they played for a while.
We got there at 4pm and left at 5:15pm. Elijah wears a diaper or pull-up still, and he had a bout of diarreah while he was in there. You could smell it a mile away. This is when I realize Brandy didn't send any diapers for our venture out to dinner and playtime. Lovely. We got in the car so I could rush him home and clean him up. I know how acidic that can be and I didn't want him to suffer with diaper rash. The smell was overwhelming. I rolled down the windows but it didn't help. 15 min drive home. I did some dry heaving but managed to keep from actually puking up my food (although that probably would have saved me a ton of calories). I rushed him upstairs and onto the diaper table and pulled open the diaper. He's a squirmy little thing and refuses to be still for a diaper change. Threatening his life doesn't seem to help.
This is when I realize there's no diaper wipes. Anywhere. Diarreah...a squirming child...and no wipes. By this time my stress level is through the roof. I had the diaper open and Elijah's legs up in there air, trying to keep from having poop get all over him AND me. He kept wiggling around and hollering, "LET ME SEE THE POOP!" "I WANT TO SEE THE POOP!".
Oh.
Dear.
Lord.
I tried to get Grace to bring me something to clean him up with while I held him in place but she was spinning around singing some song or something and totally ignoring the impending disaster. I finally spotted a roll of paper towels and grabbed them, running back and forth from his butt to the sink to dampen the paper towels, without him jumping down and running off. It was a poop fest to beat all.
After I finally got him cleaned up and unleashed him, I went to the kitchen to find some plastic bags to wrap the diaper up in and put outside. Guess what I saw sitting on the kitchen table? A pan of homemade brownies. Really? Seriously? God, do you hate me THAT much??? I ate 2 brownies.
Every time I get there the house is a wreck because the kids aren't made to pick up their toys....EVER. They're just always there in the middle of the livingroom floor, strewn down the hallway, hanging out of their bedrooms, etc. And every time, I set about picking them all up and tidying up the place. I fixed the cover on the sofa and got it looking nice again, washed a few dishes that were in the sink, etc. I'm a bit OCD and beings that I have no kids, I'm able to keep my house neat and tidy pretty easily. It helps keep my stress level down and sitting in a tidy environment calms my nerves.
Well a few mins after I got the place picked up, Steven came home. The kids had watched their Franklin video 2x and their Candyland video 2x. But when Steven got home, Elijah started yelling for his trains. He couldn't find them in the middle of the floor because I cleaned everything up and put them in toy boxes. Well....good ol' Dad came along and dumped out 2 toy boxes in the middle of the livingroom floor. Stress level back up. I immediately went to the kitchen and got my dinner out of the frig that I had originally brought with me....ate every bite.
A couple of hours later, around 9pm, Brandy came home from class. The kids were playing in the livingroom floor, and Steven and I were attempting to watch the news. We couldn't really hear it over the noise of the kids, but we could at least see the screen. Elijah jumps up and asks his mom to watch Franklin. I told him he'd already watched it 2x and Candyland 2x. Brandy reaches over and pops Franklin in, muttering something like, "You don't care, do ya'?" but not really looking for an answer. Then Brandy asked me to take the kids BACK to Chic-fil-A for lunch the next day. I said ok, got up, went back to the frig, and ate the ham sandwich that I had brought for my Tuesday lunch. The tears were just below the surface, and they stayed there until everyone went to bed. Then I let them flow freely.
This happens every week. Maybe not as bad as this week, but for some reason, I haven't found another way to cope other than food when I go up there. I didn't want to, but I MADE myself count up all the calories. 2400 of them. The really bad part is, I was scared Tuesday was going to be the same....but worse. Once I knew I was going to be faced with fast food again, I was very much throwing my hands up in my mind and saying "Eff it, I'll get the kids their Chic-fil-A and I'll go across the street to the Chinese restaurant and take care of that craving I've been fighting off for a month now!!"
I was really disappointed in myself for going so far over the 1800 cal limit that I set, and felt like Tuesday wasn't going to be any better. Sort of like I was pre-doomed. I cried a lot last night....and I prayed a lot last night. I asked for strength and resolve to move past the bad eating day, and make Tuesday a much better one. Inbetween the praying, I was having horrid binge thoughts filled with vats of Chinese food and buckets of fried chicken.
I woke up feeling really shaky this morning, like the resolve was still waivering. I really hate to piss my sister off, because it leads to all kinds of unsavory things when I do...hurtful stuff that I can't get into. And I was scared if I didn't take the kids back to fast food hell, that she'd be mad. But....I took the chance. I had to do it for me. I had to. We stayed in the house today. The kids asked for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and peanut butter crackers and that's what they got. I had some cottage cheese for breakfast that I brought with me, but unfortunately had eaten my lunch the night before. By the time Brandy got home at 2:30p, I was only at 330 cals for the day. I was determined to not go over 1500, in an effort to reduce a little bit of damage from the high calorie day previous.
Well I didn't quite hit 1500, but I came close. I'm sitting at 1530 today and I had a good, hard workout at the gym tonight with the trainer. Yesterday, before I went to Brandy's, I got myself in the gym for 40 mins of cardio. So the exercise is still spot on this week, thank God. I don't know how bad Saturday's cookout, and yesterday's stupidity is going to affect Friday's weigh-in. I never know til I step on that scale.
I thank God for helping me get through today without having 2 bad days in a row. When I do something like that, it leads to a downward spiral and I would have given up until Friday and then started over, probably with a decent-sized gain. It was really tough beating down the bingeing thoughts. I spent most of the morning talking out loud to myself, praying, whatever I had to do stay indoors and keep control over the eating. It's been a rough couple of days, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. Staying on track can be a real struggle for some of us, but I know if I just stay the course as best I can, that it will all be worth it in the end. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there." -Unknown
Let's see. My sister asked me to meet her early at a gas station so she could get to the lab by 4pm and study for a test. I obliged her, and we met up at 3:45p. She quickly handed me a Chic-fil-A gift card with about $15 on it, an envelope of free coupons for Chic-fil-A items that came in some calendar she bought from them, and swift instructions to take her kids there for dinner when we parted ways and let them play at the indoor playground. Then she was gone in a flash. That's just how quick my healthy eating plans dissolve. Yes, this is my problem....not my sister's. Yes, I need a stronger resolve. Yes, I should be able to face temptation head on and stare it down with no damage done to my eating plan.
Grace was crying and clinging to her mom, saying she didn't want her to leave. Brandy was bribing her by saying she'll bring her a gift home, etc etc. Same thing every week. Grace cried all the way to the restaurant and by the time we got there my nerves were already half shot. I should have been able to sit in that Chic-fil-A for over an hour and watch them munch on their chicken nuggets and fries, slurping down their milkshakes, and not been affected at all. I should have been able to resist the smell of the fast food that I've been working so hard to avoid by staying AWAY from those places, but I didn't. I failed, and I did it in a big way.
We were sitting at a table right against the glass that enclosed the indoor play area. Elijah was leaned up against the glass looking in when he dropped his milkshake. It went everywhere. There weren't enough napkins in the world to clean up that mess. I sheepishly told one of the workers what happened and asked if I could use their mop. She insisted on cleaning it up herself, while another worker brought him another milkshake! (I was thinking, what the hell are you doing crazy lady??? The last thing he needs is something else to splatter all over the glass, table, floor, his clothes and shoes, etc.!!) I just smiled and told her how kind she was to replace it at no charge. When they were done making their food messes and stressing me out, they played for a while.
We got there at 4pm and left at 5:15pm. Elijah wears a diaper or pull-up still, and he had a bout of diarreah while he was in there. You could smell it a mile away. This is when I realize Brandy didn't send any diapers for our venture out to dinner and playtime. Lovely. We got in the car so I could rush him home and clean him up. I know how acidic that can be and I didn't want him to suffer with diaper rash. The smell was overwhelming. I rolled down the windows but it didn't help. 15 min drive home. I did some dry heaving but managed to keep from actually puking up my food (although that probably would have saved me a ton of calories). I rushed him upstairs and onto the diaper table and pulled open the diaper. He's a squirmy little thing and refuses to be still for a diaper change. Threatening his life doesn't seem to help.
This is when I realize there's no diaper wipes. Anywhere. Diarreah...a squirming child...and no wipes. By this time my stress level is through the roof. I had the diaper open and Elijah's legs up in there air, trying to keep from having poop get all over him AND me. He kept wiggling around and hollering, "LET ME SEE THE POOP!" "I WANT TO SEE THE POOP!".
Oh.
Dear.
Lord.
I tried to get Grace to bring me something to clean him up with while I held him in place but she was spinning around singing some song or something and totally ignoring the impending disaster. I finally spotted a roll of paper towels and grabbed them, running back and forth from his butt to the sink to dampen the paper towels, without him jumping down and running off. It was a poop fest to beat all.
After I finally got him cleaned up and unleashed him, I went to the kitchen to find some plastic bags to wrap the diaper up in and put outside. Guess what I saw sitting on the kitchen table? A pan of homemade brownies. Really? Seriously? God, do you hate me THAT much??? I ate 2 brownies.
Every time I get there the house is a wreck because the kids aren't made to pick up their toys....EVER. They're just always there in the middle of the livingroom floor, strewn down the hallway, hanging out of their bedrooms, etc. And every time, I set about picking them all up and tidying up the place. I fixed the cover on the sofa and got it looking nice again, washed a few dishes that were in the sink, etc. I'm a bit OCD and beings that I have no kids, I'm able to keep my house neat and tidy pretty easily. It helps keep my stress level down and sitting in a tidy environment calms my nerves.
Well a few mins after I got the place picked up, Steven came home. The kids had watched their Franklin video 2x and their Candyland video 2x. But when Steven got home, Elijah started yelling for his trains. He couldn't find them in the middle of the floor because I cleaned everything up and put them in toy boxes. Well....good ol' Dad came along and dumped out 2 toy boxes in the middle of the livingroom floor. Stress level back up. I immediately went to the kitchen and got my dinner out of the frig that I had originally brought with me....ate every bite.
A couple of hours later, around 9pm, Brandy came home from class. The kids were playing in the livingroom floor, and Steven and I were attempting to watch the news. We couldn't really hear it over the noise of the kids, but we could at least see the screen. Elijah jumps up and asks his mom to watch Franklin. I told him he'd already watched it 2x and Candyland 2x. Brandy reaches over and pops Franklin in, muttering something like, "You don't care, do ya'?" but not really looking for an answer. Then Brandy asked me to take the kids BACK to Chic-fil-A for lunch the next day. I said ok, got up, went back to the frig, and ate the ham sandwich that I had brought for my Tuesday lunch. The tears were just below the surface, and they stayed there until everyone went to bed. Then I let them flow freely.
This happens every week. Maybe not as bad as this week, but for some reason, I haven't found another way to cope other than food when I go up there. I didn't want to, but I MADE myself count up all the calories. 2400 of them. The really bad part is, I was scared Tuesday was going to be the same....but worse. Once I knew I was going to be faced with fast food again, I was very much throwing my hands up in my mind and saying "Eff it, I'll get the kids their Chic-fil-A and I'll go across the street to the Chinese restaurant and take care of that craving I've been fighting off for a month now!!"
I was really disappointed in myself for going so far over the 1800 cal limit that I set, and felt like Tuesday wasn't going to be any better. Sort of like I was pre-doomed. I cried a lot last night....and I prayed a lot last night. I asked for strength and resolve to move past the bad eating day, and make Tuesday a much better one. Inbetween the praying, I was having horrid binge thoughts filled with vats of Chinese food and buckets of fried chicken.
I woke up feeling really shaky this morning, like the resolve was still waivering. I really hate to piss my sister off, because it leads to all kinds of unsavory things when I do...hurtful stuff that I can't get into. And I was scared if I didn't take the kids back to fast food hell, that she'd be mad. But....I took the chance. I had to do it for me. I had to. We stayed in the house today. The kids asked for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and peanut butter crackers and that's what they got. I had some cottage cheese for breakfast that I brought with me, but unfortunately had eaten my lunch the night before. By the time Brandy got home at 2:30p, I was only at 330 cals for the day. I was determined to not go over 1500, in an effort to reduce a little bit of damage from the high calorie day previous.
Well I didn't quite hit 1500, but I came close. I'm sitting at 1530 today and I had a good, hard workout at the gym tonight with the trainer. Yesterday, before I went to Brandy's, I got myself in the gym for 40 mins of cardio. So the exercise is still spot on this week, thank God. I don't know how bad Saturday's cookout, and yesterday's stupidity is going to affect Friday's weigh-in. I never know til I step on that scale.
I thank God for helping me get through today without having 2 bad days in a row. When I do something like that, it leads to a downward spiral and I would have given up until Friday and then started over, probably with a decent-sized gain. It was really tough beating down the bingeing thoughts. I spent most of the morning talking out loud to myself, praying, whatever I had to do stay indoors and keep control over the eating. It's been a rough couple of days, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. Staying on track can be a real struggle for some of us, but I know if I just stay the course as best I can, that it will all be worth it in the end. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there." -Unknown
Friday, November 20, 2009
Suffocating Sadness
I promise that this will be the last negative, depressing post for a while. I was thinking about not posting this, but I'm afraid it's going to directly affect my weight...whether it's in a good way or a bad way remains to be seen, so here it goes.
I broke up with Dwayne on Thursday, my boyfriend of the last 5 1/2 years. I thought I had finally found the one, but I was wrong. He's a great guy in a lot of ways and helped me in many ways. He's given me gift after gift, and money to keep my head above water since I became unemployed this past February. He also gave me Scarlette as a Christmas gift last year....and she's my one little spot of sunshine amidst all the darkness that I'm surrounded by.
Nothing major went wrong....no fight, no infidelity, nothing that serious. As much as we love each other, we're just not meant to be together forever. Our beliefs, values, priorities....the real fundamentals of life....are just too different for us to make it. It saddens me to no end. I've been crying pretty solid since this happened Thursday afternoon. The truth is, I should have done this a long time ago, but I didn't. I didn't want to be without him, or just alone, period. When I made the break, he told me that he was tired of not acknowledging the 800 lb. gorilla in the room when it comes to marriage and that I have more guts than he does. In other words, he knew we weren't going to make it long-term, too, but couldn't find a way to break it off himself.
I'm guessing it's because he knows that I lost 3 good friendships earlier this year. That I've lost my job. And that basically, he was my only real tie to sanity and some form of happiness right now. So for that reason, I appreciate him letting me get to a point where I finally decided it was time for us to part ways. He was trying not to hurt me or cause me to lose any more than I've already lost this year, and for that I am grateful.
Dwayne was my rock in many ways and now I feel lost. I called Pam today and told her that I feel like I can't breathe....like I'm suffocating. I'm just enveloped in a gloomy, dark sadness and unfortunately life doesn't have a fast-forward button. You just have to sit here and go through it....feel it....every bit of it. You have to deal with 5 years of memories playing over and over in your head and blow your clogged nose 500x a day. I can't tell you how many Excedrin Migraine I've taken in the last 2 days for the splitting headache that just will not go away.
Yesterday, when my calories were at 1140, the frantic feeling of everything hit me and I knew I was fixing to go on a major binge if I stuck one more bite of food in my mouth. I stopped eating right then, at 1140 calories, which was around 3pm, and didn't eat anything else between then and 1am, when I finally fell asleep. It was either going to be 1140 calories, or it was going to be 4-5000.
So I made it through yesterday.
Today I've overeaten, but it hasn't been in binge fashion. We had Thanksgiving dinner at mom's house because her and the rest of my family are going out of town to visit my grandparents for Thanksgiving next week and I can't afford to go with them. I was supposed to be having Thanksgiving dinner with Dwayne and his mom at her house. Now I'll be spending it alone at home. Do I know how to eff up the holidays or what??
I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't want to give up on the weight loss thing, but at the same time, I don't feel like trying right now either. I don't know how long it will be before the clouds move out and the sun shines on me again. I pray it's fairly soon, but for now, I guess I'm kind of going on hiatus. I don't know when I'll go back to the gym. I didn't go Thursday or today. Billie wants me to meet her there when they open at 8am tomorrow, but if I get sporadic sleep like I did last night, then I'm not going to make it there that early. My body is exhausted, but I can't seem to shut my mind off so I can rest.
I'm been crying for 2 days now, and my eyes are puffy and swollen and burning. How long does it take to run out of tears? I am truly sorry for such a crappy post...I don't want sympathy, that's not the reason for writing about this. I just wanted everyone to know what was going on if you don't see regular posts for the next little while. I'm taking it one hour at a time until I can get a grip again. I'll leave you with a little tip. If you're in a good relationship, cherish it. If you're in a bad one, don't axe it before the holidays...wait til January.
I broke up with Dwayne on Thursday, my boyfriend of the last 5 1/2 years. I thought I had finally found the one, but I was wrong. He's a great guy in a lot of ways and helped me in many ways. He's given me gift after gift, and money to keep my head above water since I became unemployed this past February. He also gave me Scarlette as a Christmas gift last year....and she's my one little spot of sunshine amidst all the darkness that I'm surrounded by.
Nothing major went wrong....no fight, no infidelity, nothing that serious. As much as we love each other, we're just not meant to be together forever. Our beliefs, values, priorities....the real fundamentals of life....are just too different for us to make it. It saddens me to no end. I've been crying pretty solid since this happened Thursday afternoon. The truth is, I should have done this a long time ago, but I didn't. I didn't want to be without him, or just alone, period. When I made the break, he told me that he was tired of not acknowledging the 800 lb. gorilla in the room when it comes to marriage and that I have more guts than he does. In other words, he knew we weren't going to make it long-term, too, but couldn't find a way to break it off himself.
I'm guessing it's because he knows that I lost 3 good friendships earlier this year. That I've lost my job. And that basically, he was my only real tie to sanity and some form of happiness right now. So for that reason, I appreciate him letting me get to a point where I finally decided it was time for us to part ways. He was trying not to hurt me or cause me to lose any more than I've already lost this year, and for that I am grateful.
Dwayne was my rock in many ways and now I feel lost. I called Pam today and told her that I feel like I can't breathe....like I'm suffocating. I'm just enveloped in a gloomy, dark sadness and unfortunately life doesn't have a fast-forward button. You just have to sit here and go through it....feel it....every bit of it. You have to deal with 5 years of memories playing over and over in your head and blow your clogged nose 500x a day. I can't tell you how many Excedrin Migraine I've taken in the last 2 days for the splitting headache that just will not go away.
Yesterday, when my calories were at 1140, the frantic feeling of everything hit me and I knew I was fixing to go on a major binge if I stuck one more bite of food in my mouth. I stopped eating right then, at 1140 calories, which was around 3pm, and didn't eat anything else between then and 1am, when I finally fell asleep. It was either going to be 1140 calories, or it was going to be 4-5000.
So I made it through yesterday.
Today I've overeaten, but it hasn't been in binge fashion. We had Thanksgiving dinner at mom's house because her and the rest of my family are going out of town to visit my grandparents for Thanksgiving next week and I can't afford to go with them. I was supposed to be having Thanksgiving dinner with Dwayne and his mom at her house. Now I'll be spending it alone at home. Do I know how to eff up the holidays or what??
I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't want to give up on the weight loss thing, but at the same time, I don't feel like trying right now either. I don't know how long it will be before the clouds move out and the sun shines on me again. I pray it's fairly soon, but for now, I guess I'm kind of going on hiatus. I don't know when I'll go back to the gym. I didn't go Thursday or today. Billie wants me to meet her there when they open at 8am tomorrow, but if I get sporadic sleep like I did last night, then I'm not going to make it there that early. My body is exhausted, but I can't seem to shut my mind off so I can rest.
I'm been crying for 2 days now, and my eyes are puffy and swollen and burning. How long does it take to run out of tears? I am truly sorry for such a crappy post...I don't want sympathy, that's not the reason for writing about this. I just wanted everyone to know what was going on if you don't see regular posts for the next little while. I'm taking it one hour at a time until I can get a grip again. I'll leave you with a little tip. If you're in a good relationship, cherish it. If you're in a bad one, don't axe it before the holidays...wait til January.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Bye-Bye Bingeing
I learned something about myself today. I'm getting better at dealing with, and changing, the reasons I became obese in the first place. I've always been the poster girl for emotional eating. Not anymore.
I heard some really bad news today about someone that I love. It doesn't affect me directly, but to them....for their life....it's devastating. My heart aches for them. Not long after I heard the news, maybe an hour or so, I felt an old, familiar feeling coming over me. The binge feeling. It always shows up in a helpless, hopeless situation, and before 5 months ago, I always gave in to it, without even much of a thought, really.
Well not today. I felt it, and for a change, I actually RECOGNIZED it for what it was BEFORE I shoved anything in my mouth. Next was the decision on whether or not to give in to it. The first amazing thing was that I even took the time to make a decision. The second amazing thing is that I decided not to give in. I chose me over the heartache. I chose my health, and all the progress I've made, and the goal I've got my eyes fixed on over the stupid eating.
I think this means I'm finally learning to compartmentalize. I have been yearning to learn this new skill. It's a tough one to get a grip on, but once you start to, what a feeling of freedom. If I keep practicing this, it's going to make me free from obesity forever.
It doesn't mean that I don't care about this person, or the tragedy they're trying to deal with right now. In fact, it means just the opposite. We can't be there to help our family and friends through problems in their life if we're dead from a heart attack, stroke, diabetes, etc. None of us can. It's a matter of separating the feelings and how you deal with them. Losing my weight, and dealing with the way I got obese in the first place, is starting to become a separate issue from everything else that happens in my life....good or bad.
While grieving for my loved one today, I felt frantic, nervous, helpless, out of control....and I felt like my hands wanted to be doing something (shoving food into my face), and like my mouth wanted to be chewing on that food. It's a knee jerk reaction for me, because I've done this very thing for what....20 years??
So instead of bingeing, I told myself no, I know what's going on here, and I'm changing my life. This is not the way I will continue to react to these situations. I ended up chomping on some sugar-free chewing gum while I busied my hands cleaning out my closet. I packed up a big box of clothes that are too big for me now, and got everything else in there organized. I downed a couple of 32 oz. glasses of water to make my stomach feel super full, and that's how I got through it.
After such a mentally exhausting afternoon, I started thinking that I didn't want to go to the gym tonight with Billie like we planned to do at 6pm. I told myself I was just too tired. This was the first time I told myself I wasn't going since I joined about a month ago. It was such a foreign feeling, because I LOVE going to the gym. Exercise is not just good for you physically, but it's sooooo good for you mentally. You get to work out all of your stresses and Lord knows there's plenty of those, aren't there?
That's when I realized that the gym was EXACTLY where I needed to be. I told myself that if I can just make myself get there, and especially during the really rough times, then I've got this thing licked. I beat the binge, and I was going to beat the exhaustion and get to the gym. That's what I did. I did Day 2 on the C25K (the first 3 days on Week One are all the same), and I finished a lot stronger than I did a couple of days ago. I also did 3 reps on all the machines in my weight circuit. It takes us about 1 1/2 hours for our workouts, and it's the best hour and a half of my day.
I came in at 1700 calories again today, and took a little peek at the scale when I got out of bed this morning, to see how things were going. I weighed exactly the same this morning as I did last Friday. Huh? Not sure what's up with that, but it's only mid-week, so no need to fret. My crazy a$$ body has been known to add and drop 7 lbs in a single day. The only day that matters is Friday, so I'll just keep plugging along and we'll see how it works out. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." -Dale Carnegie
I heard some really bad news today about someone that I love. It doesn't affect me directly, but to them....for their life....it's devastating. My heart aches for them. Not long after I heard the news, maybe an hour or so, I felt an old, familiar feeling coming over me. The binge feeling. It always shows up in a helpless, hopeless situation, and before 5 months ago, I always gave in to it, without even much of a thought, really.
Well not today. I felt it, and for a change, I actually RECOGNIZED it for what it was BEFORE I shoved anything in my mouth. Next was the decision on whether or not to give in to it. The first amazing thing was that I even took the time to make a decision. The second amazing thing is that I decided not to give in. I chose me over the heartache. I chose my health, and all the progress I've made, and the goal I've got my eyes fixed on over the stupid eating.
I think this means I'm finally learning to compartmentalize. I have been yearning to learn this new skill. It's a tough one to get a grip on, but once you start to, what a feeling of freedom. If I keep practicing this, it's going to make me free from obesity forever.
It doesn't mean that I don't care about this person, or the tragedy they're trying to deal with right now. In fact, it means just the opposite. We can't be there to help our family and friends through problems in their life if we're dead from a heart attack, stroke, diabetes, etc. None of us can. It's a matter of separating the feelings and how you deal with them. Losing my weight, and dealing with the way I got obese in the first place, is starting to become a separate issue from everything else that happens in my life....good or bad.
While grieving for my loved one today, I felt frantic, nervous, helpless, out of control....and I felt like my hands wanted to be doing something (shoving food into my face), and like my mouth wanted to be chewing on that food. It's a knee jerk reaction for me, because I've done this very thing for what....20 years??
So instead of bingeing, I told myself no, I know what's going on here, and I'm changing my life. This is not the way I will continue to react to these situations. I ended up chomping on some sugar-free chewing gum while I busied my hands cleaning out my closet. I packed up a big box of clothes that are too big for me now, and got everything else in there organized. I downed a couple of 32 oz. glasses of water to make my stomach feel super full, and that's how I got through it.
After such a mentally exhausting afternoon, I started thinking that I didn't want to go to the gym tonight with Billie like we planned to do at 6pm. I told myself I was just too tired. This was the first time I told myself I wasn't going since I joined about a month ago. It was such a foreign feeling, because I LOVE going to the gym. Exercise is not just good for you physically, but it's sooooo good for you mentally. You get to work out all of your stresses and Lord knows there's plenty of those, aren't there?
That's when I realized that the gym was EXACTLY where I needed to be. I told myself that if I can just make myself get there, and especially during the really rough times, then I've got this thing licked. I beat the binge, and I was going to beat the exhaustion and get to the gym. That's what I did. I did Day 2 on the C25K (the first 3 days on Week One are all the same), and I finished a lot stronger than I did a couple of days ago. I also did 3 reps on all the machines in my weight circuit. It takes us about 1 1/2 hours for our workouts, and it's the best hour and a half of my day.
I came in at 1700 calories again today, and took a little peek at the scale when I got out of bed this morning, to see how things were going. I weighed exactly the same this morning as I did last Friday. Huh? Not sure what's up with that, but it's only mid-week, so no need to fret. My crazy a$$ body has been known to add and drop 7 lbs in a single day. The only day that matters is Friday, so I'll just keep plugging along and we'll see how it works out. 'Nite friends. :)
Quote For the Day:
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." -Dale Carnegie
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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
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. :)
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. :)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Too Close For Comfort
The most bizarre thing happened to me tonight...right in the midst of my newfound attitude towards healthy eating for life, crucifying Obesity, and gaining optimum health.
I almost ate an entire casserole. It was so close.....too, too close.
Here's the bizarre part....I have NO idea why. I had a good day. It was productive with cleaning house and packing more boxes for the move. No bad emotions going on...no major stress...heck, I wasn't even celebrating anything. No binge feelings, no plans to go over my calories...in fact I'm so in sync with my calorie limit now that I've actually been thinking about dropping them, but decided that's better left for when a plateau hits.
I almost always have around 800-900 calories left by dinnertime. I had the desire for a casserole...something a little creamy and a little cheesy. I had bought some 98% fat free cans of cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, and broccoli and cheese a couple of weeks ago, and decided to finally try them. I figured with almost no fat that they would taste like crap. Boy was I wrong. Turns out the broccoli and cheese one I used was entirely too good.
I sauteed (3) 6 oz. chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces w/ my Pam Olive Oil cooking spray. I covered them in all kinds of yummy spices....a touch of salt, black pepper, Adobo, garlic powder and onion powder. I added them to my casserole dish along with 1 c. of instant brown rice, 1 can of the broccoli and cheese soup, some water, 1 jar of mushrooms, and 2 c. of broccoli. I baked it in the oven on 350 for 45 mins and then raised the temp to 400 for the last 15 mins to make sure it was good and done and heated all the way through. When I removed the foil I added 1/4 c. of reduced fat finely shredded Colby Jack cheese on top and watched it melt. I was already starting to salivate.
I went to the computer and added everything up on my nutrition website, SparkPeople, to see exactly how much I could have....I'm ususally pretty darn hungry by dinnertime. And even after nearly 7 weeks of reducing my calories from 4,000 a day to 1550, I'm still amazed at how much volume I can hold and not feel sick afterwards. The entire casserole ended up being 1150 calories, half of it being 575. I decided I needed to eat half the casserole, lol, and I did. Of course I shared some with my puppy dog, so I didn't eat the whole whopping plate full, but probably 80% of it.
Here's the problem. It was TOO good. Just creamy enough, just cheesy enough (I do NOT like a ton of cheese in my food), and the chicken had just the right flavor. I wanted more. I took my plate back to the kitchen, set it down, and stared at that beautiful casserole. After what I had already eaten, I had 289 calories left for the day. I could have had a little more, but I wanted ALL of it.....another 575 calories which would have sent me way over, not to mention probably would have sent me to the bathroom puking my guts out once the entire thing hit my stomach.
Who eats ENTIRE casseroles in one sitting????? Good grief.
I stared at it...my eyes glazing over as if I were in a deep trance...food trances are the worst kind. I could just barely hear Skinny Tammy screaming at me in the background....very, very faint....barely audible.
nooooooooooooooo fat tammy....don't do it!....think of destin....think of the 21 lbs you've already lost....think of how much you're going to hate yourself....it's the day before weigh day for God's sakes......step away from the casserole.....save yourself!
It was so faint...so far off in the distance......I could just barely hear it. The casserole was winning out. I took a bite. OMG it was sooo good. Why do I have to cook so good? Why didn't I eat egg whites for dinner on the night before weigh day? I took another bite. And all of a sudden I was jolted out of my trance like Skinny Tammy was standing right beside me screaming in my ear with a megaphone....
GET YOUR FAT A$$ AWAY FROM THAT DANG CASSEROLE!!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING??? THIS IS YOUR AMAZING MENTAL CHANGE???? THESE ARE THE GREAT STRIDES YOU'VE MADE??? THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL "FINALLY" HAVING YOUR MIND IN THE RIGHT PLACE??? YOU IDIOT!!!!!!!
The best way I can describe the way I felt after snapping out of it is "frightened". I've read in other blogs where if people make a mistake or nearly do, they try to analyze it, identify trigger foods, certain emotions that set off bad eating, etc. I have no answer for mine and that frightens me. I very nearly ate that whole thing....1150 calories in one meal.....more food than any human being needs to put in their bodies in one sitting....would have totally killed all the work I've done this week to get off the sodium gain from all the birthday/restaurant eating LAST weekend.
And I just don't know why.
All I can say is that I hope it doesn't happen again...or if it does, I hope Skinny Tammy is a little more audible from now on. It's really, really bothering me. It's screwing with my mind. It doesn't jive with my decision to get this weight off at all. Yeah, I'm definitely frightened at what a close call that was, and having no reason to explain it.
Moving on....tomorrow morning is my weigh-in. I've drank enough water this week to float the Titanic. As I mentioned earlier in the week, after my 3 restaurant meals last weekend, I got on the scale Monday morning and saw a 5-6 lb. gain. Yikes. We'll see where it ends up. I can promise you one thing though....the following week WILL be a loss. The numbers WILL go down. How do I know that? Because I know what it takes to lose. It takes a decision to do the work, it takes daily consistency on staying within your calorie limit, it takes persistence with your daily exercise...pushing yourself as far as you're able to go. That's what I'll be doing this next week.
I'm really looking forward to the next 7 days. And there will be NO restaurant/Publix deli food this week. NONE. ZERO. I don't care what we're celebrating...I don't care if I win the lottery...we won't be celebrating it in SODIUM HELL!!! If I win, it will be more like....turkey burger and egg whites for EVERYONE!!! I'm buying. ;)
Quote For The Day:
"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is the one who endures that the final victory comes." -Buddha
I almost ate an entire casserole. It was so close.....too, too close.
Here's the bizarre part....I have NO idea why. I had a good day. It was productive with cleaning house and packing more boxes for the move. No bad emotions going on...no major stress...heck, I wasn't even celebrating anything. No binge feelings, no plans to go over my calories...in fact I'm so in sync with my calorie limit now that I've actually been thinking about dropping them, but decided that's better left for when a plateau hits.
I almost always have around 800-900 calories left by dinnertime. I had the desire for a casserole...something a little creamy and a little cheesy. I had bought some 98% fat free cans of cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, and broccoli and cheese a couple of weeks ago, and decided to finally try them. I figured with almost no fat that they would taste like crap. Boy was I wrong. Turns out the broccoli and cheese one I used was entirely too good.
I sauteed (3) 6 oz. chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces w/ my Pam Olive Oil cooking spray. I covered them in all kinds of yummy spices....a touch of salt, black pepper, Adobo, garlic powder and onion powder. I added them to my casserole dish along with 1 c. of instant brown rice, 1 can of the broccoli and cheese soup, some water, 1 jar of mushrooms, and 2 c. of broccoli. I baked it in the oven on 350 for 45 mins and then raised the temp to 400 for the last 15 mins to make sure it was good and done and heated all the way through. When I removed the foil I added 1/4 c. of reduced fat finely shredded Colby Jack cheese on top and watched it melt. I was already starting to salivate.
I went to the computer and added everything up on my nutrition website, SparkPeople, to see exactly how much I could have....I'm ususally pretty darn hungry by dinnertime. And even after nearly 7 weeks of reducing my calories from 4,000 a day to 1550, I'm still amazed at how much volume I can hold and not feel sick afterwards. The entire casserole ended up being 1150 calories, half of it being 575. I decided I needed to eat half the casserole, lol, and I did. Of course I shared some with my puppy dog, so I didn't eat the whole whopping plate full, but probably 80% of it.
Here's the problem. It was TOO good. Just creamy enough, just cheesy enough (I do NOT like a ton of cheese in my food), and the chicken had just the right flavor. I wanted more. I took my plate back to the kitchen, set it down, and stared at that beautiful casserole. After what I had already eaten, I had 289 calories left for the day. I could have had a little more, but I wanted ALL of it.....another 575 calories which would have sent me way over, not to mention probably would have sent me to the bathroom puking my guts out once the entire thing hit my stomach.
Who eats ENTIRE casseroles in one sitting????? Good grief.
I stared at it...my eyes glazing over as if I were in a deep trance...food trances are the worst kind. I could just barely hear Skinny Tammy screaming at me in the background....very, very faint....barely audible.
nooooooooooooooo fat tammy....don't do it!....think of destin....think of the 21 lbs you've already lost....think of how much you're going to hate yourself....it's the day before weigh day for God's sakes......step away from the casserole.....save yourself!
It was so faint...so far off in the distance......I could just barely hear it. The casserole was winning out. I took a bite. OMG it was sooo good. Why do I have to cook so good? Why didn't I eat egg whites for dinner on the night before weigh day? I took another bite. And all of a sudden I was jolted out of my trance like Skinny Tammy was standing right beside me screaming in my ear with a megaphone....
GET YOUR FAT A$$ AWAY FROM THAT DANG CASSEROLE!!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING??? THIS IS YOUR AMAZING MENTAL CHANGE???? THESE ARE THE GREAT STRIDES YOU'VE MADE??? THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL "FINALLY" HAVING YOUR MIND IN THE RIGHT PLACE??? YOU IDIOT!!!!!!!
The best way I can describe the way I felt after snapping out of it is "frightened". I've read in other blogs where if people make a mistake or nearly do, they try to analyze it, identify trigger foods, certain emotions that set off bad eating, etc. I have no answer for mine and that frightens me. I very nearly ate that whole thing....1150 calories in one meal.....more food than any human being needs to put in their bodies in one sitting....would have totally killed all the work I've done this week to get off the sodium gain from all the birthday/restaurant eating LAST weekend.
And I just don't know why.
All I can say is that I hope it doesn't happen again...or if it does, I hope Skinny Tammy is a little more audible from now on. It's really, really bothering me. It's screwing with my mind. It doesn't jive with my decision to get this weight off at all. Yeah, I'm definitely frightened at what a close call that was, and having no reason to explain it.
Moving on....tomorrow morning is my weigh-in. I've drank enough water this week to float the Titanic. As I mentioned earlier in the week, after my 3 restaurant meals last weekend, I got on the scale Monday morning and saw a 5-6 lb. gain. Yikes. We'll see where it ends up. I can promise you one thing though....the following week WILL be a loss. The numbers WILL go down. How do I know that? Because I know what it takes to lose. It takes a decision to do the work, it takes daily consistency on staying within your calorie limit, it takes persistence with your daily exercise...pushing yourself as far as you're able to go. That's what I'll be doing this next week.
I'm really looking forward to the next 7 days. And there will be NO restaurant/Publix deli food this week. NONE. ZERO. I don't care what we're celebrating...I don't care if I win the lottery...we won't be celebrating it in SODIUM HELL!!! If I win, it will be more like....turkey burger and egg whites for EVERYONE!!! I'm buying. ;)
Quote For The Day:
"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is the one who endures that the final victory comes." -Buddha
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