Posts Tagged ‘cheating’

I got inspired to write on account of some good coaching I received today.  Thank you, Lyndee!

Although I haven’t been blogging, I have definitely still been focused on my weight.  Mostly, I’ve been focused on my dissatisfaction with my weight and the return of my “bad” eating habits and the slow, insidious way that I am gaining weight and undoing all the progress that I have made this year.  I completely abandoned my diet at the end of October after unsuccessfully attempting to get back on it several times.  Since then, I have been “trying to figure out” how I’m going to keep losing weight, what plan I’m going to follow next or how I can get remotivated to get back on 1st Personal Diet - because it was really working.

What I am realizing today is that my focus has been on what I don’t like, being stuck and trying to find a solution to a problem.  The diet I was following seemed like a pretty good solution and I’d love to be back on it.  What I know though, from experience, is that it’s not sustainable - for me.  Or I’d be sustaining it.  Instead of making myself wrong and trying to get back on it, I’m looking in a new direction.  Instead of coming from a place of punishing myself, restricting myself and attempting to get motivated to move away from my current weight, I am looking to come at this situation from a very different perspective.  Rather than setting the goal to lose 100 pounds, I am looking at creating a vision for my lifestyle.  The question becomes “Who do I want to be?” instead of “What do I want to do?”  BEing healthy, fit, sexy and well is very different than chasing weight loss.  It’s about the process.  It’s about being present to my life.  It’s about being aware of how I use food and how I choose to use food.

One of the main things that I remembered today is how uncomfortable I was in my skin the first couple of days of my diet.  I was feeling my feelings and I could barely stand to be with myself.  I realize that I really use food as an insulator to keep my feelings at a comfortable level and to anesthetize myself against “negative” feelings and stress.  And my blog helps.  It’s an alternate way to “deal with”, express, hold, be with, or (just plain) feel my feelings.  So, here I am.  Returning to my blog.  My diet is imperfect or worse at the moment.  I’ve gained weight.  And, I’m realizing that the important thing is to show up anyway.  Today, I am starting with my blog again.

For the last two months, I have been dieting.  More specifically, I have been cheating on my diet.  I am realizing that a shift happened.  When I first started following my current plan, I didn’t think of it as a diet.  I decided to change the way I eat, permanently.  I decided that my health and my weight were more important to me than eating what I want, when I want.  I decided that I was perfectly okay giving up certain foods - for life.  I acknowledged that bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, fast food, processed foods and junk food are not good for me and make me feel horrible.  I decided to change my lifestyle.  I found a lifestyle plan for people who want to lose a lot of weight quickly and easily and I followed it.  And I felt great.  It was easy - really easy.

A couple of months ago, it started getting hard.  It only started getting hard when I started cheating.  It’s really a mindset game.  You don’t cheat on a lifestyle, right?  You cheat on a diet.  I stopped thinking of my plan as a lifestyle and started seeing it as a really restrictive diet.  I had all kinds of people colluding with me, too.  A lot of my friends have tried the diet, based on my previous great results.  And a lot of my friends and family have had the pleasure of dining with me on my diet, too.  The general consensus is “I don’t know how you do that.  I would starve.”  Well, I think that’s the idea.  I wasn’t really “starving” and I was never hungry.  Hungry is not my problem.  I never eat because I’m hungry.  I eat because it’s time, because I’m bored, because I want some entertainment, because I’m stressed out, because I’m lonely, because … fill in the blank.  So, anyway, somewhere along the line, my very effective lifestyle became a diet and my new lifestyle is all about cheating on my diet, beating myself up about it and resolving to get back on.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  The cheats start lasting longer and my resolve starts being shorter.

So, here I am.  I am aware of where I’m at - the first step.  I have been avoiding this awareness, which is why I’ve been avoiding my blog.  I realize that it’s not helping me.  And, I actually humbly admit that I don’t know where to go from here.  I am still committed to my goal.  The only thing more painful than being fat and not losing weight, is being fat and gaining weight.  I refuse to lose any more ground.  I am committed to exploring my vision and looking at the solutions that are present in my life right now.  I know that it’s simple, just do it.  And, simple isn’t necessarily easy.

Well, I’m back. I missed blogging and I missed my diet, actually. I can’t believe I’m saying that. I’ve been messing around with my diet for over the last month and I am so tired of the fight and the struggle. I know that part of my inconsistency was that I was looking forward to really being off my diet when I was on vacation. I had pretty much planned to cheat for a week. And, therefore, I had a pretty hard time being very serious about my diet leading up to that. Well, I am back now. I’ve been cheating for a month and I really let loose last week. And, I’m done. I didn’t really think that I had it completely “out of my system” when I got back on Sunday, so I spent yesterday making sure. Yep, I am completely done. I feel horrible when I eat so much junk. I don’t sleep well and I don’t like myself. And, I’m sick and tired of fighting with myself about it and complaining about it.

So, here I am today. I’m tired. I wish I was still on vacation with my honey. I am sad because he left today for the rest of the week. I want to go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day. I don’t want to deal with my life or my appointments or my schedule. I definitely don’t want to deal with my diet and my body. I just want to curl into a little cocoon. I am not feeling centered or motivated. And, I’m taking a stand any way. I am done. I am done cheating on my diet and feeling icky and beating myself up. I’m done looking for comfort or rest or rejuvenation in food. I’m done escaping from my life with food. It doesn’t work! It just makes me want to escape some more - kind of like all those other ways we escape from our lives.

So, today, I am doing today. Now, I am doing now. I am eating a salad and a hard boiled egg for breakfast. I have my liter of water on my desk. I took my vitamins. And, I’m going to rest and take it easy and sleep when I need to sleep. I think I’m just exhausted. And, food doesn’t help - not the kind I’ve been eating any way. So, here I am. Starting again. For my Leadership friends out there - “begin again”. “Begin again” is a leadership lesson. We are human, we will make mistakes, we will actually fail. The lesson is to begin again. And here I am, humbling submitting myself to the lesson today - beginning again. So, I will weigh in tomorrow because it’s Wednesday and I will report the facts and I will keep moving forward from there - wherever “there” is.

I realize that I use food like a drug. My favorite anesthetics are simple carbohydrates and fats. Sugar is okay, but I generally go toward a white flour and fat combination. I like cheese and crackers, quesadillas, grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta and butter, and chocolate. These are the things that I gravitate toward. I’m trying to figure out if I go to these things in order to avoid other things, numb pain and discomfort or because of hormonal insanity and I think it’s a combination of all three. I have been way, way off my diet the past several days. The thing that’s crazy is that I don’t even like it that much. I don’t like how I feel in my body. I don’t feel good, I don’t sleep good, I feel tired all day, I feel restless and I am generally disgusted with myself. I am cranky and irritable. And I want more junk food. Go figure! It’s the weirdest thing. It really is like an addiction. I know people who say it is an addiction. But, for me, I don’t know if it’s actually sugar that’s the problem. I don’t know what it actually is, though. Chocolate, cheese, butter, tortillas and pasta seem to be the big players in my world. So, carbohydrates and fat, chocolate and cheese, vehicles for butter and salt. My coach had a great suggestion. She said, “Instead of counting on your willpower to get you through the tough times, plan for the tough times.” I was doing so well that nothing could get me off track. But, I also didn’t have a period almost that whole time. Now, I’m having my period again. Of course, that’s supposed to be a good thing, right? So, I’ve got my unpredictable hormonal fluctuations to contend with, in addition to letting my schedule get insane. My coach’s plan is to know that I’m going to become unreasonable and my will power will eventually fail me, so be prepared for that. Know that during those time, I can not have certain things in the house and I can not prepare certain meals and foods for my family. That actually seems like a really good idea. I need to pick some things to feed my family on the several days a month when I’m feeling crazy. I need to acknowledge when I’m feeling crazy and get those foods out of the house, too. I guess that means I should stop buying macaroni and cheese and chocolate chips in bulk. Good idea, in general, I guess.

I started this blog because I felt totally 100% committed to losing 100 pounds. There was no doubt in my mind that I was doing it and nothing was going to get in my way, not a class, not a trip, not a birthday, an anniversary or a holiday. I was thinking clearly. Nothing could distract me. And I wanted to document that feeling and how I got there and how I think there, because I know what it feels like not to be there and not to be able to get back no matter how hard I try. My coach asked me, “Do you remember the moment that you decided to lose 100 pounds?” I actually remember deciding, but I don’t remember HOW I decided. It wasn’t like some big thing happened and I said, “Never again!” It was a series of small things and I was just completely done. I simply decided. And I decided that there was no messing around and no going back. And I guess the simple thing is just to decide again, today - and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. And, I keep telling myself that I’ll decide again “first thing tomorrow.” WHAT is that? There is really no such thing as “tomorrow”. The only time I have is NOW! I can only do something now and right now what I’m doing is messing around on my diet and getting terrified that I’m going to get fatter again. THAT, I know, is absolutely unacceptable to me. I am upset about not losing much weight, but I am totally unwilling to gain weight. THAT will NOT happen!

So, today, I leave you with this quote that is inspiring me:
” You’ve been walking in circles, searching. Don’t drink by the water’s edge. Throw yourself in. Become the water. Only then will your thirst end..” This was posted by my facebook friend, Danny Inman

I hate asking for help. Well, not always… I don’t mind asking for help with the dishes or reaching something high or cleaning the house or something like that. But, I don’t like asking for help in certain areas and my weight is definitely one of them. I guess the first part is admitting that I need help. With my weight, it’s more about admitting that I have a problem. I like to pretend that I’m fine. I avoid spending too much time looking at my body. I get dressed and make sure that everything looks as good as it’s going to look today and then I don’t look at my body or even consider it much for the rest of the day. I think that’s why I have come to hate clothes shopping, because I have to deal with what my body really looks like and what fits and what doesn’t. So, noticing what’s going on in my body, seeing it for how it really is and what it really looks like, is the first step. As Byron Katie would say, I have to “love what is”. I know, I know. I hear you. It’s a big stretch between noticing what’s going on in my body and loving it. But, that is probably the most important part of this journey for me and the hardest part. It’s not just being in that relationship with my body, either. It’s being in that relationship in my life.

This week, my lessons are all about surrender. So, I am surrendering back to my diet. I knew that the only way to start was to actually start. It’s so easy to talk about doing things and it’s not as easy to just do them. I knew that it was time for me to get back on my plan - 100%. And, I was actually afraid that I didn’t have the will power to actually do it. Most days for the last three weeks, it has been my intention to have one full good day without cheating. And, I couldn’t do it. So, I asked for help. Ugh! I admitted to my husband that I’ve been cheating. He was great about it and he was really encouraging and he also called me forth to get back on track. That was hard and it really helped. I also have my sister visiting from Oregon. She’s so supportive. So, I told her that I needed help staying on track. And, well, you can count on a sister for stuff like that, especially since we have been spending all day, every day together. So, she provided the “all day” accountability that I needed yesterday. It worked and it was great and I really feel so much better and back on track. I know it’s only been one day, but it feels so, so much better to be back on. I’m going to definitely remember to use an accountability partner in the future.