Chaos.

Chaos.  My inner life is in a state of chaos.  Wikipedia defines chaos as "as state lacking order or predictability".   The only thing that is predictable is the unpredictability.  Thoughts ping around in my mind like a  pinball.  I indulge in worry.  I worry about my house, my job, my weight, my grown children, my mother.  I worry about disappointing people.  My husband says if I didn't have something to worry about I would make something up.  It's been this way my entire life.  I can remember being in 5th grade and being unable to sleep because I was worrying about my report card.  Worry and anxiety drive my life.  The worry is so great that I have difficulty in addressing the issues that worry me.  This can't be good for me.

My house reflects this chaos as well.  Piles of clutter litter every flat surface.  I can't seem to sustain any interest in anything for more than 5 minutes.  I rarely finish anything that I start unless it is a work related deadline.  I find it difficult to focus on this blog.  Early in my life I had to find a way to stop all of the noise and worry and reading seemed to work the best.  I could check out of reality and live another person's life for a while.  A life which progresses from one point to another, no random deviations, no anxiety.  Just peace and order.

I sometimes wonder if I have ADD.  I wonder if I need more structure in my life - because often it feels like I have too many choices.  Perhaps I need to think more about structure, about what it could do for me.  

Lies, Lies, and more Lies

For the last couple of days I have been pondering the lies we hear, the lies we believe, and the lies we tell ourselves.  They come at us from all sides.  From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to sleep we seem to hear an endless stream of lies about fat people.  About how we are unappealing, or how we are lazy, or how we aren't worth anything because we are fat.  And if society's lies aren't enough the ones we tell ourselves are the most hurtful because there's nowhere to run and now way to block them out.  Have you heard this one "I'll never succeed at this; so this one choice won't matter."  My personal nemesis is what I call the silent lie - the one that just sits heavier on me than all of the fat.  The unhappiness I feel with who I am because I am fat.  The unhappiness that sucks all the joy out of life  kind of like J.K. Rowlings' dementors.  That lie - that we aren't worth anything because we struggle with our weight. 
So what do we do?  When the darkness and the lies get to us - what do we do?  There is only one thing to do - we shine the light of truth on them.  What is the truth?  That,  first and foremost, we are worth far, far more than what society says we are worth, we are worth far, far more that what we think we about ourselves.  We all have unique gifts and talents, we all have love to give, we all a  have a beauty that sometimes we never see. 
The truth is that fat is just fat.  It is nothing more than something that impacts our health.  It isn't who we are,  We can spend our lives focued only on our fat, allowing it's lies to twist our choices and beliefs, or we can focus on the truth.  We can do this, one choice at a time.  Like any facet of life, there are times we will fall and fail at the attempt to eat healthier but we have to shake it off and keep trying.  We are worth it.  Like every good thing in life or any great accomplishment we have to pick ourselves up remind ourselves of the truth and keep moving forward.  Because we are all worth far, far more than we think.

Holding Steady.....mostly

I have been going along for a while now, not really staying on the program but trying to eat healthier.  I notice my weight has been slowly creeping up.  I am committing to stay on track (under my calorie limits) at least through Friday.  Also, I commit to walking for at least 20 minutes today and tomorrow.  I can do two days. 

It's time to ask myself where I want to be by my birthday.  I want to have lost at least 6 more pounds.   That's my goal. 

One of the main reasons that I want to do this is to have vitality and energy - something which is lacking in my life right now.  So, that is what I want.  I'm going to make a plan to keep busy so I won't be a couch potato anymore either.

Negative Thoughts

I am noticing that as I change my eating habits - my thinking is changing as well.  Every pound that melts away reveals something about myself that I don't really want to face.  Memories that I want to stay buried, old hurts that I never really faced, poor choices I made,  mistakes that I can't (or won't) forgive myself for.  Not only do I need to deal with the straight up meal planning and eating choices I make on a daily basis I also need to deal with all of the self criticism, resentment, guilt, and pain that I dish out to myself on a daily basis.  I hate making mistakes - but why?  Everyone makes them.  There isn't a mistake that can't be fixed.  BUT here's what I do when I make a mistake - I beat myself up with words, with constant negative self talk, with words and thoughts that are meant to hurt.  If one of my friends treated me the way I treated myself I would end the friendship.  Sometimes,  I feel trapped in my body with an enemy and the enemy is me and there's no escape.  Up until now the escape has been food (or rather weight.)

See, when I focused on my weight and my eating I could bury the voice of the evil twin (I think I will name her Drusilla.)  I could worry about my weight - not about my mistakes.  But when I eat right I have no cushion against the voice.  I have nothing else to worry about.  I can't divert the message. So what is the answer?  I think I said it earlier - I just have to apply it.  There is no mistake so bad that it can't be fixed.  Now, I have to figure out how to apply that belief.  At the end of the day I need to just simply own the mistake and move on.  I have to start to realize that there is no need for punishment and it's counter productive. 

I think I'm going to be having to face a lot of stuff in the near future.

Spring.

I've really been struggling lately.  In fact, I gained 4 pounds since last February.  That means I only lost 7 since last September.   I was feeling pretty depressed about it and hopeless about it too.  Yesterday, I was out in the afternoon and all of a sudden I felt great.  Excited about getting back on the program and eating healthy and fired up about losing weight again.  Why?  How did this happen?  Will I be able to make it happen again?  It would be really nice to know because I could get things turned around a whole lot faster if I could consciously do this when I needed to. 

I have 5 more months until I hit the one year mark and I have been thinking about my goal.  Since I got back on the plan I started to dream about what I can do before September and I really have to stop this dreaming.  Because when I dream like this the focus of my life shifts to weight loss. 

I need to keep practicing taking the focus of my life off my weight.  My spiritual life, my career, my writing, my family, those are the things that I want to be the focus of my life. 

It's not about feelings.

As someone who regularly eats her feelings I'm looking at a tough day.  Lack of sleep combined with a minor weight gain has put me in a foul mood.  The dog woke me up at 3 am and kept me awake the rest of the night. I left my fitbit on my slacks yesterday and it went through the washer and dryer and now is won't work.  Whatever happened to yesterday's fun?  I'm expecting a terrible day today.

I guess what I need to do is to figure out what would make it a good day and work like crazy to make it happen.  Despite how I feel.  What would make today a good day?

• If I could stay on my eating plan despite how I feel.
• If I could think of something to have for lunch.
• If I fake being happy until I actually become happy.
• If I can stay alert at work and do my work well.
• If I get my exercise today.

 I guess these are my goals today.   First order of business:  caffeine.  Second, breakfast.  Third, caffeine.  Fourth: make some lunch and snacks for work.  Fifth:  caffeine.  Once I tackle this list I'll be ready to face the day.

"Fun"

Lately, as I've struggled with staying on my eating plan I haven't had much success or fun with the weight loss journey.  the original title of this post today was going to be "It's All About Me" but as I wrote that first sentence I realize that "Fun" is what I want to think about.

Whenever I start a diet I'm full of resolve and a heady excitement - a passion to finally lose all this weight and be thin forever.  Some people might be able to sustain that excitement --I'm not one of them.  So I have struggled for the last 2 months - struggled to stay on the plan, given myself pep talks, and failed repeatedly.  Whenever I fail I mentally beat myself up and get frustrated and weigh myself everyday and feel bad.  Which brings me to fun.  How is any of this fun?  It isn't.

But this weight loss journey should be fun.  I want it to be about new adventures, new ways of thinking, new ways of reacting to problems, new recipes to make, new meals to try, in short, fun.  I want to focus on what I can eat; not what I can't.   I want to focus on what I have accomplished - not how far I have to go.  I want to enjoy myself on this journey.  So, from now on - it's all about fun.