The Power of Past Tense

In my life I have striven to accomplish things. I strove to be a university graduate. I then strove to be someone with a Master’s degree. I strove to be a homeowner.

I have also striven to reach a healthy weight. A weight that is comfortable for me.

Unlike the other things like education, being at a healthy weight is something I have recently achieved, but it’s something that does not feel as permanent. Being at a healthy weight can be undone for health reasons, or by simple bad choices. There are a number of factors that can undo this recent accomplishment of mine, so I am treading carefully moving forward.

I have started to focus on my healthy eating through the lens of this is my new identity. The me that did not plan my food (and subsequently overate) has been left in the past. The current me does not do that anymore. And therein lies the power of the past tense. Instead of saying I cannot have certain foods in my house because I have a problem with over eating them, instead I HAD a problem with overeating them, past tense. Who I am now, someone who simply eats what she plans to eat, can have any food in the house. Who I am now is my identity now (in the present tense), and my identity is I can have anything in the house because I plan what I eat daily. Therefore, overeating by “accident” is not going to happen, because I had that problem in the past, (past tense). I don’t have that problem anymore, (present tense).

This led me to think about the 12 step programs. I am not saying there’s any fault in those programs whatsoever. I would never criticize something that obviously works for so many. But I feel as though, for me, constantly identifying myself in the present tense, “I am a binge eater,” would be problematic with my current way of thinking. Binge eating is in my past. I WAS a binge eater. The overall thinking of always identifying with a behavior in the present tense, is never thinking you can behave the way you used to without consequences. I get that. But the distinction here for me is that what is in my present is that I have to plan my food every day to remain someone who USED to binge eat.

I have—in the past—overeaten, or binged, when I did NOT plan my food. In the past, I have been on a diet and restricted my calories, and then felt deprived and entitled, and let loose eating whatever in whatever quantities. In the past, I thought, “Well, I’ve blown my diet now with something unplanned, so I might as well keep going and reset my diet tomorrow,” and then I would eat a lot of everything I had been previously restricting. But all that thinking is in my past now, so it would not serve me to refer to it as my present. It would not serve me to have my identity as, “Hi, I am a binge eater.” For me, this is just me, I believe it will better serve me to have as my identity, “Hi, I was a binge eater, but I don’t do that anymore, I plan my what I am going to eat each day.” Not planning my food, (and subsequently binging for whatever reason among many I can come up with), yeah, I simply do not do that anymore. If there is something I want to eat, I’ll just add it to my food plan for the day.

Recently, I bought the Ninja Creami, (this is not a product advertisement). I want to control my ingredients, therefore, if there’s going to be ice cream in my house this summer, I would like to control the ingredients and make it homemade, particularly for the people in my household that do eat it regularly when they want a dessert. (I had noticed a lot of ice cream commercial brands aren’t even called “ice cream” anymore, instead they’re called “frozen dessert.” That was my first clue that it’s not really ice cream anymore, so making it homemade from scratch and processing it with the Ninja Creami is pretty great).

Now, I have not had the desire to eat homemade ice cream yet myself. Is it because I don’t trust myself? Is it because I still identify as someone that has a problem with my portions? Do I still identify as someone who has a problem with eating sugar? I’ve given it a lot of thought. I was a person who could start eating something with a lot of sugar and then would have trouble stopping. But that was when I was usually in the process of restricting calories, and I was telling myself I wasn’t “allowed” to eat ice cream. And then if I finally gave in and had some that I did not plan to have, then for my brain I was activating “variable reward” that I wrote about here. The lack of planning the item that has some sugar in it, like ice cream, was the problem.

Dr. Robert Lustig is has some amazing stuff on YouTube about sugar, (it’s really not good for us), but he himself says he is not a purist, he’s a pragmatist—there is bound to be some sugar in what we eat daily, even healthy eating. Additionally, your body converts almost all foods (including protein) into glucose, (which is the same as sugar), which is the basis on which our bodies survive. So, you can limit the amount of added sugar to your diet, but even he says that you cannot go purely without sugar in your life. There are naturally occurring sugars that are in milk and fruit, for example, so don’t try to be a purist, be a pragmatist.

Of course, I recommend making anything you eat homemade these days, to control the ingredients and limit the ultra processing chemicals, but that’s a personal choice.

So, I haven’t had the homemade ice cream yet. However, if my identity is that I had a problem like that in the past, and I no longer have that problem, then I am more than welcome to plan some ice cream into what I eat, should I desire. I believe as long as I plan it, then it is not the same problematic behavior I had in the past.

Variable Reward

I have to say that one thing that has really helped me in this last endeavor, (which is at least my 7th time working at staying at a maintenance weight following a significant loss), is to eliminate variable rewards. You can google the heck out of all the scientific studies done on the “Chronic exposure to a gambling-like schedule of reward,” but the cliff notes version is that when you go to the fridge and cupboards randomly, looking for a food reward (snack), imagine yourself standing in front of the fridge as though it is a slot machine, and you just pulled the lever, and the dials are turning. The science backs me up here. That behavior, (as though a random food choice is a slot machine that may or may not pay out), is addictive for the brain.

The key word here is random. If, instead, each day I plan what I am going to eat, (and sure, I plan for snacks, and even have a few back-up plans for alternatives if something in my day changes, if this happens I can eat that instead, so that my brain will still interpret this as a fixed plan, versus a variable), then I am eliminating variable reward.

I have planned what I am going to eat (each morning) long enough now that my brain has stopped offering me the thoughts of a myriad of possibilities of other things I may want to eat (overeat) because that is no longer the normal behavior from me it has come to expect. However, if I embark on just a few random choices, I will reactive the possibility to my brain that a variable reward is an option. I prefer my life when I am not constantly resisting the possibility of that option, that of a variable reward.

Not an option.

I Cannot Be Bothered to Have “Hate Myself” on My To-Do List These Days

I don’t think I was necessarily taught to hate myself, but I have spent a lot of my life disliking lots of parts of myself anyway. Disliking my thighs, disliking the numbers on the scale, disliking the shape of my face, disliking the size of my nose, disliking the things I said, disliking the choices I made, ad infinitum. I did not question why this was, not really. It felt like a normal emotional setting for me, and it enabled me to do self-destructive things like not take care of myself.

I suppose it does not matter why, but I just do not want to do it anymore.

And I realize, almost as though it is all of a sudden, those feelings are just gone right now. I wish I had a better explanation as to why, so that I could share this wisdom with others, but I just realized when looking at these two comparison photos, that I no longer hate the version of me that weighed more. And, I no longer hate the thinner version of me either, which is what I used to do in the past. Fat or thin, the weight wasn’t really the problem, there was always the self-hatred.

I think part of my habitual regain problems have been rooted in hating both the women in these pictures. When I was at the weight I was in the picture on the left, I thought if I was at the weight in the picture on the right, I would NOT hate myself anymore. The problem was I still did hate myself every time I got close to that lower weight, so that meant I would hate both pictures, no matter what my weights were. The result was I usually did NOT stay very long at the weight in the picture on the right. Actually, I never quite got to the picture on the right (until now) in the first place, and I used that as an excuse to continue hating myself. That picture on the right represents the lowest weight (129.6 pounds) that have ever gotten to (since I was 12 years old). I got close to this weight three other times, 1991, 2012, and 2016, but not quite to where I am now, in 2024. And, in the past, I definitely used NOT getting there as an excuse to hate myself.

So, now that I am at this current weight this year, I really want to unpack all the reasons in the past why I did not/could not stay at this weight for very long. And I realize the first and biggest reason has been that I used to choose to hate myself. Hating your own body may not feel like a choice, but it is. I don’t anymore. I just refuse to continue to do it. It does not serve me. It would be an excuse to hold myself back and not live the best life I could, for however long that may be.

Unfortunately, this does not mean I love myself, I am not quite there yet. It just means I accept myself. And because of that, I can accept both pictures as me without hating either one. The one on the left, sure, there is excess weight on that body, but I no longer feel the “hatred” for it I used to feel.

And yes, I want to stay here, at this weight, no self-destructive sabotage. That means just saying no. Food is fuel, and junk food hurts my stomach, and I don’t want to put “eat crap food” on my to-do list anymore either.

There used to be a saying, nothing tastes as good as thin feels, and I used to complain that I never knew what thin felt like. And even when I got thin, I did not let myself “feel” thin. Do I feel thin now? Not exactly. What I feel now is accepting. So, the saying should be, nothing tastes as good as accepting yourself feels. Nothing tastes as good as not hating yourself feels. Because you can choose to hate yourself at any weight, and then getting thin does not solve your problem. The problem you have is with yourself at any weight.

I wish I knew what has truly shifted in me, but I don’t hate myself, or my own body anymore. And some could say, well, it’s easy not to hate your body because you are at the thinner weight in the picture on the right. But I don’t hate the picture on the left either, and I know that no amount of food will taste as good as not hating myself feels. Maybe it’s just that I have gotten plain old sick and tired of self-hatred. It’s such a waste of my time. I really cannot be bothered to have “hate myself” on my to-do list anymore.

Success Even Better Than Reaching Goal

I overcame a challenge last week. Last Sunday, and a few days leading up to it, I experienced a revving up of my appetite. Then I experienced a resulting small weight gain. So, this week, I watched my calories, avoided certain foods, exercised by gardening, and today I am back down to my goal weight of 130 pounds. (One day this week I was even 129.5, goal weight for me bounces around a 2 pound range). I tell this story not to impress, but to impress upon someone else who may experience the same moment, standing at the proverbial crossroads, where one path leads back to goal weight or any lower weight, and the other path leads to regaining weight.

One phrase I used in my last post here keeps coming to mind: self destructive.

A quick Google search:

“Self-destructive behavior is when a person takes actions that are sure to harm themselves. It can range from isolating themselves from others to harming their own body and behaviors such as gambling. Self-destructive behavior is when a person causes physical or emotional harm to themselves.”

Now that I think about it, why the heck would we do this? To our own selves? And the really crazy part is it is quite common. This is not some rare human behavior, it is one that is quite common. All the reasons behind why any human being would embark on self-destructive behavior are as unique as we are, but the common denominator is so many of us have, in our lives at one time, embarked upon a self-destructive action.

I believe this is especially true of people who have yo-yo dieted, weight cycled, or struggled with regaining weight after losing weight, at least more than once. Choosing the path of excess food that causes weight gain, after following a path of healthy choices that causes weight loss, can be (of course, not always) deliberately self-destructive.

When I feel a strong negative emotion, some of my old patterns of thinking include wanting to eat excess food, for which I am not hungry, that I know will cause weight gain. And yet I would, so many times in the past, start overeating anyway, knowing it will cause me to gain weight and hate myself all the more. Why? It’s not just because the food will soothe, although that can be part of the reason. It’s not just because I think I “deserve” a treat, although that can be part of it too. Sometimes it is because I am deliberately being self-destructive. I have hated myself on a certain level, (all the bad stuff in life would not be happening if only I was a better human being), so I might as well gain the weight back and have a reason to hate myself even more. (A reason I think I can then spend time trying to “cure,” thus creating an illusion of control in a world that feels uncontrollable).

Rather than thinking about what I deserve, like a body that moves easier in this world at a healthy weight, I think I do NOT deserve it, and I might as well destroy it.

Wow. Very self-destructive indeed.

I would like to say this is in my past, but it still happens now, although now I am trying to unpack it, for example, by writing about it on this blog. I line up a mental laundry list of all my imperfections, personally, professionally, and even physically. I look at photos of myself, like the one above, and mentally criticize my thighs. For me, in particular, my thighs have always been the body part upon which I have focused all of my body hatred. I do not know why exactly my thighs became something upon which I could focus most of my hate. The 80’s diet culture in which I grew up did not help, and I felt my thighs were large when I compared myself to others, and my pear shape felt generally out of proportion. I felt I did not conform to the ideal body shape I decided I wanted. I have actually spent a long time thinking my legs were deformed in various ways. I know now those thoughts just allowed me to embark on self-destructive behaviors. If I actually liked my body, then I would not have an excuse to treat it like a trash can, filling it with junk food.

But this week I did NOT do that, the way I have done in the past. This week I forgave myself for finding my homemade beef jerky “sexy” and tempting, resulting in too many samples of it. I forgave myself for finding Sunday night’s roast beef dinner delicious and eating a second helping that had nothing to do with hunger, and instead was me just plain wanting to indulge in something that tasted delicious.

I forgave myself.

I forgave myself those behaviors, but then promised myself I would not continue them. And then I kept the promise I made to myself.

I tell this story not to impress, but to impress upon someone else who may experience the same moment, standing at the proverbial crossroads, where one path leads back to goal weight, and the other path leads to regaining weight. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. You deserve to start making the better choices, as soon as possible after any slip-ups, the better choices that will serve you best in the long run. You deserve the best from life, you do not need to be self-destructive.

The First Test – Homemade Beef Jerky is Sexy

Okay, it finally happened, my first test.

Last week the scale climbed up a little bit. It went up .3 of a pound, and then another .3 of a pound, then back down .3 of a pound. Then up .4 of a pound, then up .3 of a pound, then up .5 more. The second half of those gains were, in part, due to the fact that I had made homemade beef jerky which turned out to be one of those “sexy foods” I mentioned in this post. Each piece just tasted like more please, and it was hard not to keep going back to the fridge for one more little piece, 3 days in a row.

Then on Saturday, I did give myself a small sunburn in a small spot along my lower back. Note to self, wear a longer shirt when weeding. So, on Sunday, I had a sore spot on my lower back that was sun burnt, and I don’t know if that small amount of pain and discomfort contributed to what happened next, but technically a sunburn is a physical injury.

So, then last night happened. Everything had seemed reasonably fine that day, then we had roast beef for dinner which turned out perfectly. After finishing my plate, I know I did not feel hungry, but my appetite was revved up and I wanted to just keep eating. So, I had a second helping. And then the old thought patterns started up again. The “you’ve already gained this week even though you were good, so you might as well be bad, have some beef jerky.”

Net gain for the week = 3.3 pounds.

So, that’s why this was my first test in maintenance.

Can I handle seeing this small gain on the scale, and simply make choices this week that will get me back down to where I was a week ago? It certainly has me giving this whole last week some serious thought.

I read a blog over 10 years ago written by someone who had been involved in a Weight Watchers campaign. Through that, she had a taste of being a public figure for a brief point in time. She was sent for an official photoshoot for Weight Watchers International and her picture and success story were advertised in other countries. As a yo-yo dieter, I have certainly dealt many times in the past with regain, and so did this blogger. With the whirlwind of traveling for WW, she experienced a small regain. I must have read her story over ten years ago, and yet this line still sticks with me. She said, “Meanwhile I gained a couple extra pounds and the self hatred built up like cat piss in clumping litter.”

And this: “I never LEARNED how to be OK with gaining a couple pounds and getting it back off.”

If I gain a few pounds, even if I am within a maintenance range, which I still am, I find myself this morning wanting to get them back off again. As. Soon. As. Possible.

This is my first test, learning that gaining a few pounds is not the end of the world.

In the past I have catastrophized gaining a few pounds. I have allowed gaining a few pounds (which will happen from time to time) to then lead to gaining a few more, and a few more, and a few more, until I’m absolutely terrified that I am going to regain out of all my clothes and regain all my weight! I catastrophize those first few pounds.

So, this week, I want to make choices that will help get those few pounds back off, and that looks like no more beef jerky for me. I made this batch just way too sexy for me. I could just add some pepper next time. My husband will love it, and I won’t mind it, but pepper is not exactly my favorite flavor, so that should dial down the sexiness for me.

That is the thing I suspected about maintenance. For me, it will be saying no to sexy foods that rev me up like that. In the last 9 months, I have had a few times where I’ve eaten “sexy food.” Christmas, I ate a bit of “sexy food,” on two separate occasions, but I was able to just be calm about it the next day. We went on a little camping holiday in March, and I ate some “sexy food,” and again, I was reasonably calm about it the next day and just carried on tracking my calories.

But I recognize this is my first true test at maintenance, where I learn a new pattern of just remaining calm after a week of gains culminating in a number of bad choices, and learning to be okay (instead of self destructive) about it. I am going to be okay with a few pounds gained and will now simply get them back off.

Community

Truth! I have been amazed over the years how connecting online with other people (which is why I started a blog) who have similar struggles (or dreams or interests) can really help me connect with myself. Staying connected will be very important in my maintenance phase also.

(Still feels strange to say I am in “my maintenance phase.” Never before in my life have I “let” myself think I am “good enough,” and that I do not have to lose any more weight).

I am at Goal Weight, How I Did It, and Now What

April 20, 2024 = 129.4 lbs.

I have been dieting my whole life. I’m going to own it; this is partly because I have wanted to be dieting. It’s a distraction. It’s comforting to always have a problem I need to solve. One that has the illusion that it absolutely can be solved with just enough willpower, (versus all the problems of the world that feel unsolvable, like poverty, cancer, and hatred).

This YouTube video really explains it all here. Even though the title of this video is about Ozempic, it really says (in my opinion) some things that are bang on about why we (as a society) have so much trouble keeping the weight off. And these difficulties are especially evident among those of us dedicated dieters who have had many successful attempts, (born out of sheer willpower, tenacity, and our dedication to making the “right” choices), followed by making all the wrong choices that lead us back to weight gain.

“I would start by saying, you’re totally right, we live in an obesogenic environment. An obesogenic environment is an environment that primes you to be obese and it’s hard to be a healthy weight. Right. It’s hard to get healthy food. Healthy food is expensive and rare, whereas shitty food that makes you obese is cheap, abundant and constantly promoted to you.” – Johann Hari

Yeah, I just can’t eat those foods, the shitty ones that cause me to make all the bad choices.

That’s how I lost this weight. No medication, just good choices, no bad choices, pretty much zero slip-ups. It (overeating shitty foods) was just not what I wanted to do any more, after luckily surviving my crash that I wrote out here without breaking any bones. Using the power of that disruption, I just counted calories and kept track of them with the LoseIt app, and walked more outside with my dog. That is all.

It was right around mid March of 2024, when I reached what I decided was my goal weight, 130 pounds. I am 5’6”. I turned 53 years old in March, and I haven’t been this thin since I was 12 years old, shit you not!! (I was 5’6″ at 12 years old too, tall for my age, which made me feel “large” compared to my classmates and put dieting on my radar, but I also hit puberty at the same time and just stopped growing any taller).

Therefore, the maintenance phase of this, my most recent attempt to get off my excess weight, once and for all, is not even 6 weeks old. This is new territory for me. I have been very close to this territory before, but I have never managed to stay here for more than a few months.

So, what I have been feeling is that I have to completely avoid “sexy” food. “Sexy” or extremely delicious food for me, is fat, sugar, and salt combinations, as well as ultra processed items, even “health-food” processed items, that seem to drive, in me, over consumption. If the food is just too delicious, even in maintenance calorie quantities, (I still track every day with LoseIt, and may never be able to stop), that kind of food seems to light up the pleasure center of my brain, and it restarts the overeating, (and the resulting white knuckling to gain back control over my quantities). Not to say I don’t eat delicious foods, but they are usually quite natural foods, like potatoes and veggies roasted in olive oil, meat, and fruits with no added sugar, that kind of delicious food.

I already say no everyday to gluten, (since 2012, I found out I am Celiac), so that is no to gluten containing foods for the rest of my life.

I already say no everyday to all other grains, (since 2019, I realized I had become cross-reactive to all grains processed in the same way wheat is), so that is no to foods made with grains for the rest of my life.

So I will admit, it is very easy for me to say no to ALL fast foods, because I get very ill. I don’t even need to use any willpower at all!

But boy, oh boy, it is still super easy for me to gain weight in our current food culture and environment.

I can still eat all the meat, dairy, and fruit and veggies I want, so yes, I can still gain weight. Fast. Easily. Sugar (although it would give me night sweats) and chocolate = I can eat those as long as they are gluten and grain free. Nuts like cashews and pistachios = I can eat them by the handful. And cheese, omg, I love cheese. All kinds of cheese, hard, soft, sliced, melted. Fresh fruit with sugar and whipped cream…veggies and dip made with full fat sour cream…juicy fatty meats…mashed potato with butter…

And there are a ton of ultra processed gluten free grain free products, even with health claims on the bag, but tons of calories, (but also with yucky chemicals with names I can barely pronounce).

Not to mention, for me, the simple act of overeating any food can be emotional. I have overeaten for stress, or for comfort, or even for a feeling of self-care, (I worked hard and “deserve” this).

So yeah, I suspect maintenance will be a lot of “sexy” foods I can just never eat again. Ever.

Right now, I don’t even want those foods, so it just might be easier to never open that door and eat them again. Not even a small, measured out within my maintenance calories “treat.” I am not sure, but I suspect that may be what it takes…

We will see.

The Coals Keep Burning

Osoyoos, BC, March 18, 2024.

I read something interesting about finding your “fire” of motivation, (an upcoming special event, a trip, wearing leather motorcycle clothes for the first ride of the season, etc.), and that helps us achieve temporary goals with our health.

But fire eventually burns out.

Instead, you have to find your “why” each and every day, and it starts with reminding ourselves that we get to show up as our best selves for the “fire” if we keep the coals burning and never let them go out. No matter what 2024 holds in store for me, I will keep the coals burning each and every day.

Maintaining your weight can be hard as well, but I am glad my coals are still lit. I will work damn hard to keep them lit so that I am able to show up for my life the best me I can be.

I have updated the page My Story to include at the bottom where I am at exactly right now.

Sensitive

New Year’s, Obviously

Short hike at Frog Falls BC Rec Site on December 31.

In December, I went skating three times, and even though it was in an arena, and not on a frozen lake, gliding down the ice brought back all the wonderful memories I have of skating with my dad.

I had originally set a goal for December of hitting 100 kms walked with my dog. I came very close. I did exceed the amount of kilometers I walked for all of last year. And I did exceed the amount of kilometers I walked all of last month. I am excited to start the new year continuing to prioritize my health.

A week before Christmas, December 18, my mom ended up in the hospital. Each day we thought maybe she could maybe go home, and each day the news came, more tests, so one more night in hospital. Finally, Saturday, December 23, she got to go home. I keep thinking how lucky we were that it was not more serious, and bonus, she got home in time for Christmas. But it was serious enough to keep her in the hospital for 6 days, 5 nights, and she is experiencing intense post-hospital fatigue.

Having a loved one who was sick is just one more reminder (if I needed it) to prioritize my health at any age. There are no guarantees in life, but knowing that I am working on moving my body more, spending less time on the couch, and making better food choices, so that I do not have a bad reaction, (although too much stuffing-gluten free grains-with Christmas Eve dinner gave me a bad eczema reaction Christmas Day, ug), does make me feel better. It is worth putting in the effort. As long as I am working at doing better, that is all any of us can do.