Dieting pit falls to avoid (all of which I have done in the past):

1. Do not set an unrealistic goal weight and forget to just enjoy the weight I am at right this moment.
2. Do not buy new clothes at a low weight and get rid of every else that is a larger size.  I am not invincible.  A small gain of three to five pounds will mean clothing becomes tight (on my body, at least, 5 pounds is one inch on the hips), and then I would be miserable, instead of what I should be: happy!
3. Do not forget how great it feels to be LESS weight than before.  Even if I keep going down in weight (just numbers on the scale), and then back up a bit again (normal fluctuations), do NOT focus on it as being more than the low weight.  I am still LESS than before, and I should never forget it.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

—Shakespeare, Hamlet

Over the weekend, I finally decided I needed more pants. I am losing weight very slowly. So slowly, in fact, it feels like I am not losing anything at all. But that is not the truth. I fluctuate, but it is still a downward trend.

I gained weight so fast in 2017, and it was spring, so I switched to wearing capri pants and never bought new pants that fit at a higher weight. Because of that, coming down the scale now, currently I only have 2 pairs of pants that fit me right now, already hanging in the closet. That means I needed to go buy new pants. Pants that fit me, pants that are my size now, not the size I chastise myself for not being.

The thing is, whether it was positive at the time, I don’t know, I created the idea that I don’t deserve clothes that fit me unless I am at an ideal weight. It could have been positive, something along the lines of, “If you lose a little weight, we can reward you with a shopping trip for some new clothes.” I don’t think I was ever told I didn’t deserve new pants because I had gained weight. Regardless, that is a feeling I felt, and I tried to soothe those feeling with food.

There are bad feelings, then there is seeking a remedy for the feelings. I used to use food to attempt to remedy the bad feelings, but it didn’t work very well. Despite this, I made the connection, first comes bad feeling, then comes food.

I finally figured out the connection. I felt bad for having to buy pants that fit me right now, because I still own my old set of clothes from 2016 when I was thinner. But once I identified that feeling bad was tied to an old script I made up in childhood, (getting bigger means your pants don’t fit you, shame on you, get smaller again so you fit your pants), then I could be an adult and just buy for myself what I need. And I didn’t turn to food to soothe (ineffectively) the bad feelings.

The real truth is, this time, I do not know how much weight I can lose. Sure, I’d like to lose 10 more pounds. But what I want more (for the first time in my life) is to stay where I am and not gain. I am willing to give up the idea of being ‘thinner’ just so I don’t get ‘fatter’ than this.

Betwixt and between—I believe I first heard that phrase in Peter Pan. But it describes where I am at currently, not fully where I want to be size wise, but not as heavy as I was either. In 2017, when I was at this weight before (after coming back from our trip to Hawaii with a few extra pounds), I started to struggle. And then I gained 20 pounds very rapidly. At that time, I had a number of pairs of pants. First, they got tight. Then too tight to wear comfortably. Then I started wearing carpi pants in a bigger size (it was spring by then). And 6 weeks later I was about 4 inches in the hips too big for all those pants. And after the summer spent in a new set of larger shorts (not the shorts I had worn in Hawaii, they definitely didn’t fit anymore), I just went out and bought a whole new set of pants that fit me at my new size, the size in which I would spend the next 2 years.

2 years.

Now, losing weight since I turned things around on July 23, I haven’t even had the excitement of being about to fit smaller pairs of pants in my closet. I didn’t have any smaller pants to fit, having gained so quickly back in 2017.

Despite looking for that validation, I have to remember how far I have come in the mean time. Despite feeling like it is taking forever to get this weight off, I must be patient because I’m just not ready to stop yet. That means continuing to eat healthy and saying no to extra food and calories I don’t need. So, going into the holiday season, is there any food that I’m not eating now, that would be worth getting off my healthy plan for? Eggnog perhaps? What would happen to me if I made an exception and drank eggnog?

I would train my brain to make exceptions.  And right now, I don’t do that.

Smarter people than me, like Susan Peirce Thompson, PhD, say it better than I can here.

This is the part I really connected with:

“What’s on this side of the equation, and what’s on this side of the equation? When you think about that voice of that saboteur that might be saying something like, ‘Oh, just a bite of that—you know holiday tradition. Or just a little bit of this. Or just relax the rules a little bit. Or you deserve it. Or you’ll tighten up, you know, in January.’

Think about what you buy if you follow that path. You buy a little comfort, a little ease. You grease the social skids a little bit, you don’t need to say no to, you know, Aunt Judy when she says that she bakes especially for you, you know.

Think about what’s on this side of the equation. Your health or happiness. There will be living in a right size body. Getting off those medications. Waking up in the morning without joint pain. Depending on what kind of numbers you’re coming from, getting to fly on airplanes without worrying about how much space you are taking up beside you, not having to use a seat belt extender. Liking how you look. Feeling good in your skin. Being able to show up in the summer in a bathing suit. Avoiding heart disease, greatly reduce risk for cancer, for diabetes. Having energy to get through everyday, to do everything else that you most like in life. And loving life. Basically, all of you, if you’ve been bright for any stretch of time, you’re probably aware that on this side of the equation is all that’s good with life, like, all of your upwelling of gratitude and freedom and peace…

And on this side of the equation…is basically a cookie.

And in what world does all of that get counter-balanced effectively by that? Like, really, that’s insanity. I know that’s a strong word, but it’s such a lack of proportion, right, lack of ability to think straight. To think getting to eat however many more bites of food for, you know, this holiday season, is worth trading in all of this stuff for. Stay on medications. I’ll hate myself. I’ll be fat. I’ll maybe not live to see my grandkids graduate from high school. I’ll be a miserable wretch to my spouse. I’ll…on and on and on, right?

And then it gets worse, because, of course, when you pick up that food, the idea is that it’ll—the lie is—that it will scratch some kind of itch, right? But it’s not what happens. Does it scratch the itch, or does it make it itchier? Do you not then create a brain that is demanding the treat again at the next available opportunity?”

Because what happens is you train your brain either way. Either way, if you’re squeaky clean bright, you train a brain that expects you to be squeaky clean bright. And what happens is eventually it stops asking for any exceptions. Literally, the inputs to the basal ganglia—which are the decider molecules, the parts of the brain that literally decide what you’re going to do moment to moment—they get fed options by the cortex in general. They get fed options of, like, well, we could go to a movie tonight. Well, we could read a book tonight. Well, we could…does it say we could fly to Mars tonight? Probably not. Why? Because that’s not a realistic option, given the lay of the land. The fly to Mars suggestion never comes in for what to do on a Friday night right. Similarly, as soon as the brain knows that you’re not going to eat anything off plan, it gives up making the suggestion. You train your brain to never propose that bite of that food. In contrast if you have a stretch of bright days and then break, you train your brain to become a brain that has a stretch of days and then breaks.

So, that voice that says that it will be easy to start again on January 1^st? I’m sorry, but it’s not accurate. That voice has no idea, and it’s not speaking from any place of knowledge or experience.”

It’s easy for me to think I have no time. No time for extra exercise, no time to blog. But that is not true, I just have to take the time I have and be smart with it.

Truthfully, my days have been extra full lately. A three day trip ending September 22 was getting our new puppy. My class this term, my 6^th in the MFA program, has been extra demanding with three different assignments that required resubmission. This is week nine of class, the big project is due Sunday worth 40% of my grade, and I am looking forward to going on one last camping trip of the year next week…with a 10 week old puppy, and a 18 week old kitten.

I commented on a blog yesterday something I’ve been thinking about:

“Me” time is so important to recharge ourselves. I know my daily list includes work, school, house, yard, family/friends, and then me. My friend said “me” should be at the top of the list, because if I don’t take care of me, I cannot do anything else. She is right, but “me” is the easiest one to neglect when all the other things are needing my time.

I have been prioritizing just enough “me” time to be sticking to healthy eating, taking time for the bio joy of family and friends, and I’m happy to be 158.8 pounds this morning. Being closer to a healthy weight is making it so much easier to go outside with the puppy every hour, and three times a night. And to get down on the floor and clean up accidents and keep the house as clean as possible in general so that I find accidents right away. And it’s easier to get back to sleep and feel rested even though I’m up multiple times a night with the puppy.  And have extra energy for doggy play dates.

Things should settle down soon, just in time for my grandson’s first birthday and to start class number seven on October 28.

I still feel thin, thankfully, but unfortunately the scale is stuck. I’ve bounced around 2 pounds or so, but this morning, I was 166.8, same as I was when I last blogged on August 21.

For me, time has slowed down. It’s not just a few days that have dragged on, it’s all the time since we lost our Rat Terrier Bo on August 10. I blogged about waiting for our new puppy Ripley here.

On the diet front, I am holding steady, but I am surprised that my body has stuck me in a 4 week plateau. In August, knowing I was going to visit my 5-year-old niece for 5 days, I wanted to build up my stamina. Without Bo in the house, I chose to escape my grief by going for long walks for the first time in a very long time. In 2016, I averaged over 100 kilometres a month in walks (with Bo). In November 2016 Bo and I walked 200 kms. In December 2016, we only walked 92 kms, and it tapered off after that even more. Bo, who had always been prone to benign lumps and bumps had grown one on his shoulder, and another under his arm pit, and they made him limp if we took too long a walk. He stopped going for walks with me, so eventually I stopped walking altogether. I did start a two day a week workout with a friend, using the treadmill and elliptical in the gym of her building, and that helped stay a little in shape. In August 2019, I walked 102 kms for the first time almost 3 years. It did build my stamina, and I had a wonderful visit with my niece, where I kept up with her (almost).  And yet, my eating has been healthy without excess, and the scale is stuck.

So, it’s good to get a little more back in shape before Ripley comes home. Since getting back home Sunday night, I haven’t gone for a walk yet, but I did go to the gym Tuesday and will go again today (Thursday). I have a walk scheduled Friday. Despite the plateau, I think my body has changed a bit for the better. I’m a bit firmer maybe, and I am definitely a full 10 pounds less than those scary days in July when I was really off the rails with eating crappy food and not exercising much at all. 10 pounds is a really big deal. It’s certainly a big deal when you gain 10 pounds. I am so glad to have lost those pounds. Now, for a few more pounds lost please.

The only way to solve this weight/health thing once and for all is to keep heading in the right direction, and I want to lose some more. Giving up or giving in is not an option, plateau or no plateau, if I want to reduce the number on the scale.

Thin is a feeling, just like fat is a feeling.

You can be legitimately at a healthy body weight according to the bathroom scale, and still wake up feeling fat. Maybe the pants that were a little loose last week are a little tight this week due to water retention, so all the sudden, even if you are at a completely healthy body weight according to a scale, you feel fat.

The same thing can happen with thin as a feeling. This is not about the definition of the word “thin,” this is about being at a healthy body weight versus being overweight. Currently, at 166.8 pounds, I am not at a healthy body weight according to my bathroom scale, however something has shifted in me in the last few weeks and I’ve been waking up feeling thin. Even with some emotional setbacks, we lost our beloved dog on August 10 which I blogged about here, and I’ve been very devastated by that loss, I have felt a shift in that I wake up feeling thin. That’s why I was recently able to look at my picture from 4 years ago and see that I looked great, whereas when that picture was taken, I couldn’t see I looked fine. I have clarity right now. I can see what I really looked like back then. And I can realize that thinking negatively about myself was just an excuse to not take care of myself.

The funny thing is the scale does not yet say I’m at a healthy body weight for my height, but because I feel thin, I’m surprised when my clothes don’t reflect my feelings. I end up asking myself things like, “Why don’t these pants fit yet?” and “Why aren’t these shorts hanging off me – why are they still a little snug?”

It’s because I feel thin, but I’m not yet technically thin, so that becomes a study in how I can continue to feel thin, so that everyday I pursue an eating plan and exercising that will eventually result in being at a healthy weight on the scale. How can I bottle how can I bottle this feeling of being thin so continue to behave like a thin person, eating healthy and exercising? Before I actually become ‘thin’ according to the bathroom scale, how can I sustain this feeling and use it, so that when something stressful occurs, I can tap into the feeling of being thin, instead of tapping into sweets and foods to make myself feel better?

Growing up there was a saying nothing tastes as good as thin feels, but I used to argue against that notion, because I didn’t know what thin felt like. But I certainly knew what good food tasted like! It has happened a few times in my life where I have felt thin, and then I have been able to reach a healthy body weight on the scale that matched that feeling. I don’t know what the secret formula was for that shift inside me to have recently happened, but it’s is helping me to continue on a better path which started four weeks ago yesterday.

I think I’m finally getting through to myself.  I’m figuring out my whole life I’ve been addicted to dieting to reach a lower number on the scale.  Always needing that elusive lower number.  Obsessed with the numbers.  Miserable on a diet, and worse yet, miserable if I wasn’t on one.  And I’ve had unrealistic expectations of what I would look like if only I could reach a magic lower number on the scale.  I never get to the magic number, I never see what I really look like in the mirror, and I use that distortion to continue to do what I do best (worst): diet.  And this obsession with numbers is not just because I started my first official diet at the age of 12.  I also remember some time around grade 3 stepping on the scale at a friend’s house.  She was 80 pounds, I was 79 pounds, and I was happy I was 1 pound less than her.  Just the fact that I remember that day, like it’s something to be proud of, and it left an indelible impression on me.  I have no idea where that thinking was coming from at such an early age, and it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that now, today, I change the way I think about myself and the number on the scale.  Not just say it, really do it.

I’ve been eating well, and last week I was able to get a great kick start on exercise with 6 days out of 7 in a row of walking.  Not much walking since Saturday, but life got crazy this week.  Excuses, I know, but I haven’t decided what exercise habits I want to establish just yet, so walking for a week for the first time in ages, and then not walking this week, does not feel like I’ve broken a promise to myself.  The biggest promise I have made to myself is to eat healthy, to not eat to excess just to stuff emotions, and that is a promise I’ve kept for over two weeks now, since July 24.  It’s all made a difference.  This morning I am 170.0 pounds even.

The title of my post comes from a picture I saw of myself today.  4 years ago today, it was about a week after my step son’s wedding.  For the wedding, I had dieted and exercised vigorously for about three weeks leading up to it, so I would feel I looked good in the wedding pictures.  Just about a week later, my husband and I went for a motorcycle ride, and although I still felt pretty good about what I had accomplished for the wedding pictures, when I looked at the pictures he took of me I still thought I was fat, because that is my default setting.  I always think I am fat.  When I looked at this picture today, it was like a bucket of cold water in my face.  How did I think I was fat in that picture?  Was I literally crazy?  What was wrong with me and my distorted brain that I looked at that picture and thought I was fat?

I get it now.  All I saw in that picture was a number = 153.8 pounds.  I didn’t see me.  And the fact that I have that number from August 8, 2015, memorized, is very telling.  That number was not 130 something, or 120 something, so I thought I was fat.  And after that day, knowing I was scheduled to go on a trip to see my brother, sister-in-law, and niece, I started overeating to stuff my negative feelings of being fat, of being not good enough, and I rapidly regained 10 pounds before my trip.

Today, I see the me from 2015 as just fine.  I think I am finally starting to see the real me, if such a thing can exist in my head.  But that is just seeing the real me of the past.

Today, at 170.0 pounds, I think I am fat again.  I have spent my whole life thinking I am fat.  Even when I get down to a decently low weight, ribs showing, I think on some level I’m still fat, never good enough.  I am shaking my head as I type this.  There is a logical part of my brain that cannot believe that this is my truth.  I am taking a step back and observing myself like a third party would.  I am sad she (I) feels that way about herself (myself), because it is unnecessary and counter productive.  I am determined, today I am letting go of this negative self image I have held on to for so long.  Life is difficult enough without this kind of distorted self image to deal with.  It is a choice, and today I am choosing to…I don’t even know for sure.  I’ve never really tried to embrace a kinder to myself reality, instead of using negative self image as a motivator to eat less and lose weight.

I need to learn a whole new set of thoughts to replace the ones I’ve been thinking my whole life.

The whole sordid tale begins.

The first time I went on a diet I was 12. I was 130 pounds and lost 10 pounds to 120 by simply cutting deserts out of the lunch bag I took to school every day, I didn’t make a goal, it was just a casual decision, like, hey, what would happen if we skipped putting the desert in your lunch? 10 pounds, that’s what happened. I don’t remember if I was happy about it or not, I just remember that early attempt was considered successful.

The first time I ever set a real “goal weight” for myself I was 15 years old and had joined Weight Watchers for the first time.  There was a rule of thumb that you should be 100 lbs. at five feet tall and add five pounds for every inch after that.  At 5’6”, that would put my goal weight at 130 lbs.  But then you were to subtract one pound for every year you were under 20 years old, which at the time gave me a 125 lbs. goal weight.  I decided to subtract one extra pound for good luck, so my goal weight was 124 lbs.  At Weight Watchers I was 144 lbs., so that meant I wanted to lose 20 lbs.  I got sick the next week and missed weighing in.  Another week later, after eating whatever I wanted while sick, I was 148, which was a gain of 4 lbs.  The lady weighing me was so surprised, she thought maybe someone had written my starting weight down wrong.  I explained it had been two weeks since weighing in, that I’d been sick, that last time I was wearing jogging pants and this time I was wearing jeans.  But I was so mortified, that I never went back.

In 1999, I went from 204 lbs. on January 12, 1999, to 149 lbs. on July 31, 1999.  Even though I was now 28 years old and had just lost 55 lbs., I still had the 124 lbs. goal in the back of my mind.  I was telling myself (and not really admitting this to anyone else, lest they try to talk me out of it) that I still had 25 pounds to lose.  With that unrealistic goal in mind, I couldn’t maintain the loss, and eventually started gaining.  Even though I had lost over 50 lbs., I felt worse than I had at 204 lbs., because I perceived myself as a failure for not even getting close to my ‘goal weight.’

In 2004, I went from 204.0 lbs. on January 10, 2004, to 141.5 lbs. on December 12, 2004.

I thought I was being smarter this time, because I finally reset my goal weight at 132 lbs., and even patted myself on the back for being so flexible this time.  132 lbs. was my previous low in 1991, although I reached that weight just ten days before Christmas, and I was four pounds more just five days later.  In 2004, 132 lbs. seemed like the perfect ultimate weight to want to get back to.  Similar to 1991 though, in 2004 I was reaching my lowest weight just thirteen days before Christmas, the biggest eating season of the year.  With goodies being brought to the office I worked at daily, I was struggling to maintain my weight, and I kept telling myself I still had more than 10 lbs. to lose.  My weight varied between 142 and 148 for about a month, and to me that meant I was still nowhere near my ‘goal.’  I was 149 by my birthday, March 3, and perceiving myself a failure again, I starting gaining it back.  I had never let myself off the hook and allowed myself to be happy at the weight I was already at.

It’s hard for me to admit this in a public forum.  But keeping it a secret, trying to forget this is part of my past history with dieting while currently trying to diet again, hasn’t been working.  I’m just trying to understand that having unrealistic expectations has been a problem.  Part Two to follow.

I was debating back and forth in my head about how to write this post.  I feel like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.  I really wanted Dr. Jeckyll to show up here, in this space, to use the defense mechanism of intellectualization to rationalize why I behave the way I do and lay out my plans to do better this week.

Except Mr. Hyde’s voice is louder, because he’s a little crazy with anxiety right now.  This post about anxiety could not have come at a better time this morning, to allow me to feel some validation that my struggle is real.  But I just don’t want to be struggling with it.

Ironically, telling myself to just stop struggling with anxious thoughts doesn’t work.  Ironic Process Theory explains why that is.

The long and short of it is that on Friday I experienced a disruption in routine, and that combined with a terrible reaction to 14 bites (yes, there were exactly 14 bites, and my best guess is it was a spider) that had plagued me from Monday to Friday inclusive, my will power was depleted and I turned to eating excess food to simply feel better.  Sadly, it sort of worked so I kept doing it.  I didn’t track calories and didn’t get any exercise.  I didn’t even go for a ride on my electric bike, which usually makes me feel great.  I spent the whole weekend not giving myself the opportunity to experience joyful activities I usually enjoy, to counter balance all the other crappy stuff.  Instead, I numbed myself with food, getting in as much of the usual “not my food” like peanut butter while I “let” myself relax the control that I usually wield as a ritual to reduce anxiety.  I don’t suppose the anxiety I feel now is all that ironic.  I am the equivalent of “off my meds” if my “meds” are rigid control, habits, rituals, and to do lists.

I have started writing a history of my dieting.  It goes back many years, so it’s getting very long.  But I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a wordy person anyway, so I will be posting it coming soon, probably in two parts.  Part one can be found here.

Here’s to getting control back this week.