Silence may be golden but it can say a lot!

I've been pretty upset these past two weeks.  Emotional lows left me out of the mood to do things like track my foods and exercise.  My exercising was half hearted with lots of eating of things I should not have eaten in between.  Then yesterday was the big one.  I had eaten my three square meals, exercised for the day, felt pretty good and then I had company.  Company, who expressed being hungry after having barely eaten and to me it sounded like I needed to find a solution to the problem, and when asked "are you hungry" the polite thing to do was to reply "sure I can eat".  Fast forward a half hour later and I found myself in a restaurant answering the question "are you gonna get a drink" with "Can I have a wildberry frozen lemonade?"  At the end of a meal we shared a desert because why not just go for broke?  Then I went home and went to bed...

Today, I get up go to my meeting and the lady behind the counter, after my weigh in, just gives me my sticker with my weight info and says nothing to me.  Up until this point the people who weigh me in tell me about my weight loss no matter how small, they give me a smile and a good job message.  Once I even got a high five.  When I got nothing from her I knew, I just knew that I was going to see a gain and sure enough there it was.  My gain was not catastrophic, not even a full pound, but the silence from that woman began a sense of doom that is sticking with me until now.  The problem is that I know what my problem is and yet the behavior won't leave me.  I wasn't tracking, hadn't gone to a meeting in two weeks, wasn't working out like I should have been and then I was just not saying no when offered, or asked to indulge in, what I should not have.

What gets me upset is that even as I'm saying yes, I'm thinking no.  But I feel bad, guilty to let people eat alone, guilty to ask for something light if someone else is having a whole meal, guilty to say no to food when its offered to me.  I don't know how to change this or if I will.  I know I have to keep going and trying cause I just don't think I can take anymore silence.

My mind is so much stronger than...my mind.

I need to get the hell out of my house!  I think I am going stir-crazy.  I've downed some 50 pieces of lemonhead candies because I was craving something sweet and suddenly remembered I had them in my bag.  They were a gift.  The problem is not so much that I ate the candies but rather that I had them after I had fixed a bowl of oatmeal with cranberries and almonds because I was hungry.  Why can't I just ignore what seems to be the perpetual needs of my stomach.  I go through this internal struggle in my mind that I end up losing against myself.  Everything defeats me, boredom, work, happiness, stress, it all leads back to the need for food.  I have a lack of control when it comes to the things that I put in my mouth.  I have no self-control and that leads to a lack of self-respect and acceptance.  It upsets me that I cannot seem to win this war.   Conquering food is the hardest thing that it seems I've ever attempted to do, the one insurmountable obstacle, the impossible dream.  I'm frustrated and I know that this is the time when I need to work the hardest at what I am doing, but it feels like I'm fighting an uphill battle.  I need to keep the positive thoughts in my head.  If this was easy it wouldn't be worth it right?  Except that for some people, millions of people in fact, this is easy.  But that won't help me, will it?

Happy thoughts.  Tomorrow I begin again.  This reminds me of a poem my professors gave me when I was going to become a teacher.  I think it will serve me better now, and at each new beginning of conquering my problems with weight:

The Non-conformist

Today as many times before
the sun has lit a streak of fire in the sky.
But in the morning of the new day
I am pushed from the hastening trolley bus
like a cork from a bottle.

Men and women love the dawn for its freshness,
for its promise of new beginnings.

In the morning therefore,
I am not frightened
that I have chosen to live a life
unlike that of other young men.

-Anatoly Ivanushkin

It still applies so much to every day when I wake up and go off to teach my kids, but I know if I try it can bring me to a new place.  It's the power of poetry.

In the morning therefore...I begin again.

The power of nothing!

I find that a true enemy of weight loss is the ever dangerous and ever present....boredom.  Boredom sneaks up on me.  I could be perfectly fine reading a book, watching a movie, or staring into space when I suddenly find myself beset by boredom.  What happens then? I get hungry.  Its like boredom and hunger go hand in hand.  There is something entertaining about eating I think.  I guess its the act of putting the food together, actually engaging in eating and then the feeling of satiation afterwards, except just like getting high the euphoric feeling is temporary and eventually the boredom that lead you there comes back.  It is hard to fathom just how hard it is to combat boredom.  I wish my boredom lead me to want to do something different like workout or write the next great American novel, but alas no.  My boredom leads me to want to stuff my face 'til I burst.  Gorge and burst, that's my motto.  Boredom seems unconquerable.  How am I supposed to fight something as strong and ever present as boredom?  I believe the worst part of boredom is that I can be bored while doing something I otherwise enjoy.  It is this aspect of boredom that makes fighting it even harder.  I ALWAYS enjoy eating,  Eating is never one of those boring things that I find no entertainment in.  I need some redirection in my life but I'll see what comes up.  Perhaps a hobby?  Something that takes up more brain power, or hand use....something, cause I'm about to be done in by something that basically amounts to nothing.  I hate being bored!

Off to the Races...

I seem to be in a rush to finish every meal, why is that?  This morning I decided to indulge and have a bacon egg and cheese.  I ate the first half of it only and left the second half for lunch a few hours later.  I began eating at 11:30 by 11:34, I was finished.  That's crazy.  It actually hurt to have finished that thing that quickly, it felt like it got stuck somewhere on its way down and it made my heart quicken.  What is my rush?  I seem incapable of just taking my time with a meal.  I don't know where that stems from.  Maybe its because growing up we never actually sat down to meals, instead eating was secondary to whatever else we were doing.  I never pay attention to what I eat and when I do I feel a little foolish.  If I stop and think about chewing my food I feel like anyone who looks over will think that I'm being weird because I feel like purposely chewing slow causes me to make weird faces.  Although the truly weird part is that I'm not sure why I feel that way even when I'm alone.  What's that all about?  I'm not sure how to engage in slowing down without feeling like an idiot!  I've been told to count how many times I chew, put my fork down in between bites, wait a 30 secs to 1 min in between bites but all of that feels weird.  How am I expected to eat and enjoy a meal if I am also doing calculations?

Well I went online and guess what?  There's an app for that!! Its this app that has a green light that tells you when to eat, a yellow to warn you that its time to slow down and a red one to tell you to stop.  Upside? Its programmable so you can set the time intervals.  Downside? If its on, the phone will shut itself off automatically after what it considers a period of inactivity, the phone cannot tell you are actively using the app.  I can of course set the phone to stay on but then that will...1. kill my battery and 2. take too much time to set up if I have to do that whole turning it on and off thing EVERY TIME I eat. And then I discovered an upside that turned into a downside.  It has a vibrating function for when you are out dining among people so you don't have to have it on in front of you.  You can keep it in your pocket and just follow the feel of it vibrating to warn you.  The down, down, downside...I'm just soooo.....how do I say this?.... REALLY REALLY FAT that I can't feel it vibrating in my pocket.

(sigh) Back to the drawing board!! AGAIN!!

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

27 lbs lost? WHAT?!?! How happy am I? I'm so happy I immediately started craving some of my cousin's delicious rhubarb pie. Mmmmmm.... Ahhhh, the food cravings never go away do they? I'm happy and so I turn to food, just like when I'm unhappy I turn to food. So I'm taking my happiness and running to something more positive. I'm going to go home and do some exercise to celebrate!! That's my gift to me. Cause otherwise this might turn into a not so happy moment. But either way I'm off to the races:)