I Wish I Was As Fat As Back When I First Thought I Was Fat

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.

Dieting in the Eighties

1983 Kiera

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.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

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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.

To Set a Goal

My fridge before my Father’s day get together June 15.

Setting unrealistic goals has been a problem for me in the past. For example, unrealistic short-term goals like I must lose 10 pounds in two weeks, or I must lose 20 pounds in a month. Or an unrealistic ultimate goal weight somewhere south of 20 on the BMI scale, (calculated with height in mind). I’m 5’6”. My number on the scale is going to be different than someone who is 5’10” or 5’2”, but even I know (now) a BMI of less than 20 is far too thin for me.

However, I believe in the importance of visualization, so I need to have a goal in mind for that.

I just went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and I had my hand around the package of cheddar cheese before a voice said, “Wait a minute, didn’t you just set goals?” I immediately put the cheese back. Kiera = 1, cheese = 0.

This morning, I visualized two goals, one short term, one long term. Competitive athletes do visualizations before competing because research shows it is incredibly powerful to live out an experience in the mind. In addition to visualizing myself in a good place with these goals having been met, I tried a new technique. Beside the good place I had visualized, I visualized my fears, separated by a wall with a door. I opened the door and walked through to that other side and visualized myself living through my worst-case scenario. Then I asked that version of myself, the one that had experienced the worst, if she had any advice for me. She told me to get out of there immediately, close the door, and don’t open it again.

That is powerful advice. I can choose the good side, close the door to the other, and no one is going to come along and push me back through it. Even though I cannot control when life throws me a curve ball, leaving that door closed is entirely within my control.

On the other side of the door, the good side, I visualized losing 10 pounds this summer, sometime in August, ending up at a weight just less than the Mother’s Day weight I’ve been obsessing about, 167.8 pounds. And then I visualized being 145.8 pounds by the end of the year, as that was what the scale said that morning in February 2017 when I boarded a plane for a week-long vacation in Hawaii, and I love those vacation pictures. This is how I’m going to kick start this journey in a significant way. Eat less, move more, sure, that is a big part of it. But really, I’m setting aside the fear that I’m going to end up on the other side of that door. That fear is based in my recent past failures. I’m looking forward instead, and I can see myself doing it, staying firmly on the good side of the door. I could see it so vividly, I put down the cheese.

And the good news is that momentum carried my through the weekend, and I am now 172.2 pounds.

How Do I Surrender?

DiveCliff

Last Wednesday night found me ‘white knuckling’ it. It was the Sesame Snaps calling me, because they are gluten free. I’m a Celiac and being forced by an autoimmune disease to be gluten free has helped me lose weight at times. Instead of carving off my own piece of cake while I serve my family some, I cannot eat it because it’s not gluten free. Ice Cream was on sale last week at Safeway, and so I bought three cartons of it. Do I want to taste the new flavor, Blueberry Cheesecake? Yes, but I don’t, because it’s not gluten free. All those tastes, licks, and bites that used to derail my dieting efforts are just not an option since late in 2011 when I was diagnosed Celiac.

Despite not having much in the house to binge on, there is always something gluten free if I root hard enough in my cupboards. Lately, its been the Sesame Snaps. Costco (damn them) sells cartons with 36 four wafer packets that my husband likes in his lunch. I like the number 12, so 3 packets of four equals 12 which equals 540 calories. That is an awful lot of calories, and the horrible truth is, after 12 wafers, I’m still not satisfied.

Because it’s not really the food I need. I’m trying to fill something else. I know this. I’ve got my iPad out, I don’t want to look at Facebook anymore, I don’t feel like reading a book, I don’t feel like watching an episode of whatever. I think I want to eat something sweet, but what I really need to do is find something that fills me with joy. But how do I find that on a Wednesday evening knowing all that’s left is go to bed and wake up to another work day, just like every other work day? Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Many diet plans focus on the “what.” What to do: eat less, move more. Or only eat only these certain foods. Every successful diet book out these has pages and pages in the back of what to eat, what meals to plan with sample menus, what to cook with corresponding recipes. I think that is a great way to sell books. But it still does not tell me how I am going to do it. Some advice is to just make the decision to start the diet, January 1st, Monday morning, today, doesn’t matter. Just do it now. Then comes the psychology. If you really wanted to do it, you would have done it, what’s holding you back? Then comes the physiology. You’re addicted to sugar, your metabolism is damaged, your hormones are affecting your satiety signals. Those can absolutely be valid contributing factors, but none of them get me to the, “How do I get consistent enough to get this weight off, and keep it off, despite all the contributing factors?”

This Bio Joy diet is about finding the “How.” How do I surrender to all the conflicts (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual), and just get busy losing weight and keeping it off? How do I decide to surrender to whatever eating plan I choose, the one that gets me and then keeps me at the weight I desire to be at, the one which is probably the one I’ve used before that I know I can sustain, if only I could figure out how to stay on it consistently?

My Bio Joy diet is about finding the how. How do I surrender? How? Maybe by finding the Bio Joy around me daily and substituting it for the other things I’m in the habit of turning to, like seeking food to comfort my stresses. We all have stress, up and down, every day. But what about today? That’s what I’m still working on, today, staying consistent, and even if it’s not easy to find Bio Joy today, I’m never going to stop searching.

The Problem With Looking Backwards

Dorothy age 11 Marjorie age 9

There is nothing wrong with doing a little reflecting on the past. We learn lessons from past mistakes and we can make better decision for the future. Unfortunately, although I long for my future, thinner self, I can easily get sucked into regretting anything and everything to do with my past behaviors and choices with respect to dieting.

Regret is a very unproductive place to be, I know this. But I started this diet three weeks ago, wanting to solve my issues with using excess food emotionally by replacing those behaviors instead with activities that bring me joy. Honestly, I hoped I’d be back in the 160’s by now, and getting close to the weight I was for my Mother’s Day picture. Instead, buckle your seat belts, this is going to be a bumpy ride. The result has been my typical up and down roller coaster journey on the scale, all on the up side this week.

And even though I know it’s not a good idea to go there, look backwards at Mother’s Day 7 weeks ago, I’m going to do it anyway. Mother’s Day I was 167.8 lbs. I acknowledged last week that I did too little in terms of getting this diet off the ground, and yet I continued to do too little this week also, using hip pain (although valid) as an excuse. There is a difference between a valid physical issue, like pain, and capitulating instead of finding a work around that still results in weight loss. This week, I gained back to where I started, plus some.

The worst part is regret; toxic, bitter, regret. There was popcorn again last night, and I regret it. There was a long day of work where I snacked all evening waiting for my husband to come home, and I regret it. There is a laundry list of bad decisions last week resulting in the regret of right here and now. Today I woke up with a well earned 177.2 pounds on the scale, nearly 10 pounds more than Mother’s Day, and the highest regained number I’ve seen in over 7 years.

What is it going to take to snap myself out of this backwards slide up the scale? And it is backwards, it’s all turned around. Going up the scale is a backslide, because I’m a proven dieter. I have lost weight successfully many time, only to gain it back. I do not know what it would feel like to be starting a diet for the very first time, with hope for the future in my heart, without the jaded wreckage of all my past regains tainting my optimistic outlook.

This blog is telling my new diet story, but I suppose I am going to be spending some time chronically my past diet stories. I was standing on a scale at Weight Watchers at the age of 14. My entire life feels like past diet stories, plus the current one I am always on. All the special events of my life (graduations, marriage, vacations) are tagged in my mind with a weight. Including Mother’s Day, as above.

Today is July 1, a holiday in Canada, and I am not going to spend it eating. Instead, it’s a beautiful sunny day, and we have a ride to a campsite in our Jeep to visit the kids and grandson who have been camping all weekend.

I Did Too Little

2019_06_21 Inspiration

As much as I thought I deserved to take a Sunday off from work and school work, I did nothing that would give me true joy, joy at a deep biological level. Instead, I slothed (made up word-meaning like a sloth) out on the couch and streamed shows on Amazon Prime. It was an escape (albeit an entertaining escape, Good Omens was great). And then there was cherry custard made with the last of the cherries from the Farmers’ Market and a bag of microwave popcorn. This was not like last weekend when I was surround with friends and family and celebrated Father’s Day. Last weekend I was present, not looking for escape, and I woke up Monday morning feeling great.

Sure, I can find reasons. Stress, emotional upheavals, a really bad Thursday, whatever. Sloth and gluttony are not the answer no matter what the reasons. This is a familiar pattern I have allowed myself to develop of doing well for two weeks, and two doing badly for two weeks. I am determined to break this pattern.

Picking Up the Pieces…Not Today Monday

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Kitsugi – Breakage and repair as part of the history of the object.

I’ve spent many Monday mornings picking up my broken pieces, like a clay pot thrown to the ground. The pieces of whatever was my current diet plan was the least of the damage. The really jagged pieces, the ones that cut, were the pieces of the broken promises I had made to myself. The promise to not overeat to soothe anxiety at a social event. The promise not to overeat as some ‘food funeral’ before I start my diet Monday. The promise not to overeat just because of whatever stress I felt at the moment.

Today, I am not picking up the pieces, I am whole. I promised myself last week that enough was enough with treating my body like a garbage can and filling it full of foods with no value. I have yet to add in exercise, instead last week’s spare time was about shopping for dresses with a friend for her son’s wedding, which was truly more important spiritually. My food choices were based on health and taste, not on stuffing. I hosted a small backyard pool party with family and friends and I absorbed the joy of my seven-and-a-half-month-old grandson pulling himself up and taking steps. Food was just the background. I loved the fruit, (three different kinds of fresh cut melon is a rare treat), the steak was cooked just right, but that wasn’t where I found my joy. The very definition of Bio Joy was found in seeing the next generation grow and thrive. It touches something very deep in us biologically. I am so happy for his parents who have found their center with this little guy, their first and only child. I am so blessed this is a part of my life.

2019_06_15 Reggie

This time of my life is flying by so rapidly. It was only just shy of one year ago we had the gender reveal party to go to (another pool party), and I was worried about my weight then too. With this new outlook, based on living life focused on Bio Joy, I am looking forward to all my future events not being served up with a side a dieting just to lose weight that I have little chance of keeping off.

Last week I started this journey at 175.8 pounds. Today I am 173.8.

Trying to Find the Trigger

Was Mother’s Day the trigger to this recent backslide? It didn’t seem like the trigger at the time, but it could have been. Even though I accept I am only a step mom, not a ‘real’ mom, and even though that is my choice (I could have had children, I just decided all my nieces and nephews and my step son were good enough), maybe it’s me that feels “not good enough.”

I suppose that is one thing I’m trying to figure out, as I move forward. I have the typical emotional triggers, stress, etc., where I find allowing myself “off the diet” is a release of tension and eating makes me feel better. But there are deeper ones that erode my ability to stay consistent, lose the excess weight I want to lose, and then stay at a healthy weight. Those deeper triggers are in the “not good enough” narrative. The feeling that I’ll never been good enough so why bother. I may never know where those feelings come from, and I don’t need to know. I just need to learn to manage these feelings without snack foods I don’t need.

Deep breaths, it’s Father’s Day weekend (pool party this afternoon, ug, bathing suit) and I want to stand on the scale on Monday knowing that I eat what I needed to nourish my body, and not that I ate to stuff down anxiety.

One Thing Leads to Another…

Yesterday, I was struggling to silence the voice in my head that said I should be doing a workout instead of shopping with a friend.

Then this morning I came across an article that called that voice “The Shitty Committee”

Kelly is right! The Shitty Committee is lying to me. Of course, I should be shopping with my friend. We’ve been friends for two years, we’ve gone for walks in the park with our dogs, we’ve worked on our writing together, and we’ve worked out in her gym almost every Tuesday and Thursday for over 18 months. Her gym is closed this week. She has a wedding to go to in 8 weeks. We needed to go shopping for dresses. I did not need to feel guilty in the least.

But I felt guilty, not good enough, never good enough, because I’m struggling with regained weight at the moment. But when am I going to stop telling myself that I’m good enough, and start telling myself what will lead me to long term success with getting into a right sized body for me?

I was inspired to start this blog (after three years of just thinking about it) by a fellow classmate and blogger who stated on her new blog, “My writing is often infused with women struggling with the balance of hard emotions- loss, love, joy, fear, deep sadness, and deep gratitude. I write from where I have been and from what moves me forward. I am forever changed by that line in the sand of my life. And forever grateful…”

After reading that I told her, “I think your resource page is the perfect segue into other areas of your life (yoga, for example) from which you can draw your audience, and because your audience can be found in both those areas. I’m actually a little envious that your genre and your life connect like that. In our readings this our class this week, Kirsten of Create If Writing wrote, ‘When I first started blogging eight years ago, I had a simple goal: to share updates on my pregnancy with friends and family who lived in other states.’ Lucky her! Women’s lifestyle blogs are big business these days, seriously. I’m big into reading diet and health blogs, where average women just like you and me build up huge audiences, but for me, that wouldn’t necessarily translate to speculative fiction book sales, even if I did get a huge mailing list with my The Bio Joy Diet (yet to be realized).”

Wow, as soon as I typed “yet to be realized” I realized that I have to do it! I’ve had The Bio Joy Diet cooling in a computer file for 3 years. I would truly regret it if I never saw the successful outcome of writing the story of my own life long problem with gaining and losing weight.

I don’t want to admit I have struggled with this. And that is probably part of the problem. Hiding from my struggle. Well, my classmate and new blogger is not hiding, she is writing “from where I have been and from what moves me forward.”

My speculative fiction novel (thesis) is about a dystopian world where a 45 year old women is abandoned by her husband of 20 years. I guess this course in Finding and Reaching an Audience is already paying off, because I finally clued in that my market for my book is me, so if I read diet blogs, then so do other forty-something women who are watching The Handmaid’s Tale and loving dystopian fiction!