Some very ealy epiphanies

So today is the first day I haven't said, "I'll start tomorrow!" (And promptly purchased something at a fast food joint.)

Instead: IT STARTED TODAY.

I'd be lying if I said I was super stoked. No one wants to have to work at losing weight. But I'm here. And I'm trying to be positive as possible about it. And I've already learned some things!

1) The different container size system I am on? I'd been doing it wrong! Instead of thinking about what I want to eat and trying to then force that into the containers that exist in my world, I should instead be earmarking, ahead of time, what each container is for. NOVEL! So it becomes a "fun" thinking game of logicing out what goes where at what time when, instead of waiting for hunger to strike and going, "Shit, I don't have any carbs left for the day."

Yes, I've just described color coded meal planning. But reframing it not as "ugh meal planning for a week! That's impossible and not how I want to spend my time!" and instead as, my nerdy board gaming husband would look at it, asset allocation over a period of days, it becomes far less daunting and feels less tedious. Go figure! I think this is why my coach asked me what my "go-to" meals are. During the work week I know I can do greek yogurt in the morning, and berries in the afternoon. On the weekend, I know spinach and scrambled eggs and a bit of cheese will make me happy without looking at a menu and having ALL THE OPTIONS and then making bad choices. So asset allocation as opposed to meal planning and the whole damn thing took on a new tilt. (I wish I'd bought that on sale star wars notebook I saw to do this in.)

2) The second thing I learned is about recalibrating my hunger. In the past, I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. There was no set time. This was particularly true in the morning. I know everyone will tell you "breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" (which is likely false, btw) but it's not when I'm "hungry". But what is hunger? If we think of it as a need for food, waiting until I felt that need means I then devour things because I am past the point of logical hunger (which I talked about in the last post). Forcing Encouraging myself to eat in the morning when I may not particularly feel like it, and then to eat a snack again in the afternoon, will hopefully have the benefit of not wanting to eat my arm off/everything in sight the second I get home. Which means less cheese and crackers/chips/salty delicious things. It's day one, so let's keep our expectations in check, but off to a decent start, eating my late afternoon raspberries.

3) Don't reward yourself with things that counteract your goal. Again, this SEEMS like it's self explanatory. I've heard it at weight watchers before when I did that. "Have a nice cup of tea! Go get your nails done!" But how often do you want to instead devour a cheeseburger after your week or two of "clean" living? More often than not, at least for me. Then it was, again, reframed! Lifehacker stated: give yourself a tool to reach the next level. The article that tidbit came from is here and led me to Nerd Fitness. My husband will tell you I'm not a nerd because I think Sauron and Sauromon are the same thing (I don't, actually, but the alliteration annoys me) but Nerd Fitness sounds kind of awesome. And the idea of leveling up and giving myself more tools at each stage sounds awesome. I've been eyeing some of those awesome strappy sports bras and the go "wah wah, I'm too fat for those. When I lose some weight" or "I already have a ton of underused workout clothes, I can't rationalize strappy sports bras." But what if it's a reward? You worked out ten times in 14 days? Put $20 in aside for that. So I'm going to pull out one of my many (many many many) empty journals and set myself some prize levels along with my color coded asset allocation.

I also signed up for the Nerd Fitness newsletter so I'll let you know how that goes. But I think the big thing here is: I've read it all. I get the principles. Hell, we ALL get the principles. (Eat less! Exercise more!) What is needed now is putting those into practice to reach results in a way that still makes living this life sustainable and FUN. While also being kind and generous to ourselves when we do slip up. Phew. That's a LOT to try and balance. It's day 1 and I'm more optimistic now than I was when I woke up. So let's see how this goes.

Just Eat Less!

My coworker told me today, "You just have to eat less." WELL THANK YOU FOR THAT FABULOUS INSIGHT! I hadn't considered that, person who needs to lose ten pounds and not 100 pounds! WHY DON'T I JUST DO THAT!

Because we all know it's not that simple. It's never that simple. Because the logical rational part of my brain that knows I should eat healthy for my future self and that moderation is good and excess is bad shuts off when food is placed in front of me. When food is placed in front of me, delicious, wonderful, cheesy, melty, fattening food, my brain goes, "ARGH BARGH BARGH GET IN MY FAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEE!"

She also posited, in her best southern sorority girl, that "Sure, you can eat the animal style burger today but then you just eat less tomorrow." HAHAHA Okay! I'LL DO THAT TOO!

Except, again: Not how it works. "I had animal style yesterday so I don't want that so how about mcnuggets!"

I live in a world with an abundance of choices where I can indulge in almost any desire I have. As I recently read in an article, making the good (healthy) decision for future me is often overcome by my base desire to have wtf I want for right now me. And just because my conscious rational logical mind knows that the healthy choice is good, doesn't mean the me faced with all the options listed on a menu can turn off the "fettucine alfredo is the best and why not give yourself the best you've earned it you lovely unicorn!" part of my brain.

The struggle is, as they say, most DEFINITELY real.  It's like something clicks off during food satiating periods. Do I need the whole burger and all the fries on my plate? Nope. Am I gonna eat 'em all anyway? Yeeeeeep. And why? Because in that exact food satiating moment, I'm honestly not really pondering it that hard. Something has been placed in front of me, it must be the right amount, I am going to devour. And am I really enjoying it? I mean, it all tastes good. It all tastes better than smoothies and protein shakes and kale. It tastes like...deliciousness. But am I savoring it? Probably not. Because, again, brain has shut off during satiation. Fugue state? Some deeper carnal neanderthal nom nom state? I dunno what to call it. But I'm not thinking, that's for damn sure.

And no matter how many pep talks I give myself of, "We need to be better about being conscious about how and why and when and what we're eating", the second I am faced with choices or hunger, I am choosing what I WANT, not what I need, and eating all of it, with glee.

So. The advice wasn't wrong. It's just not something I haven't thought about a million times before.

In an effort to forever and always change my waistline, I have been suckered into getting a "coach" for an infomercial system, along with their protein drink system. I say suckered because I feel a bit. I had an existential crisis on Friday about paying for yet another weight loss gimmick in the ongoing battle over my weight. Like...what if it were just easier? What if it didn't matter? I wanted to pout and dig my heels in and think about how unfair it is to not be trapped in a lithe gorgeous body. And so I did. And ate all the things because the diet always starts tomorrow.

But I need this, I guess. I thought about the cost relative to the weight I want to lose and decided it wasn't that much. And having a coach and accountability and a check-in system will keep me honest. And I need to think about my own expectations of how this isn't going to happen overnight. I'm trying to remind myself to try really really hard and not be tempted by the first piece of buttery deliciousness that crosses my path. I'm trying to remind myself to think about my future self, not just the one who wants to look good in a bikini in a few months but also the one who doesn't want to be a terribly out of shape older person who is using a wheelchair to get around Disneyland. I need to be good (healthy good, not delicious good) to my current self for my future self. Does that make sense? Probably not.

Anyway. That's where we're at. About to try this again. About to try and not get derailed by myself or life circumstances. To convince myself veggies are delicious as more than just a pizza topping and that you don't need bacon at breakfast or cake after dinner, no matter how RIGHT NOW delicious those things are.

The first rule of diet club...

is don't talk about diet club. I have an aunt and a mother-in-law who are diet obsessives. The MIL's drug of choice is to mention her cholesterol every five seconds. The irony here is that the woman is fit as a fiddle. It's just that somewhere along the way a doctor told her to maybe keep an eye on her cholesterol and she took that as the word of god to never again eat anything remotely good tasting and to swap out margarine for butter even though that's a pretty universally reviled substance that even the Southerners I know stopped using ten years ago. (Bless her heart.)

My aunt is slightly different. She is a food obsessive. And a diet obsessive. She lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds on weight watchers and has kept it off for some fifteen years. That's impressive. And amazing. And laudatory. And we would do those things if she EVER shut up about it. There is no zealot like a convert.

She's gotten better. She's less likely to extol the virtues of soy cheese. I once chastised her for her food obsession. As we sat there eating lunch, she pondered her next three meals. I told her to stop talking about food. To enjoy what she was eating. To enjoy the moment. And I think that made her think about her reaction to food and she's at least less chatty about it and her points.

But those were the examples set before me. Every time I would consider dieting or being healthy or a lifestyle change I would think of those who were obsessed with it and reject that notion because life is short and food is wonderful. Not just from a taste and sense perspective, but from a communal association perspective. When you celebrate something, how do you do it? You do it by sharing a meal. So how do you escape what food means?

And lord help you if you dare speak out loud what you were trying to do. Everyone will have opinions and thoughts and scold you for daring to deviate from what they perceive is the way you should be dieting. Which just makes it that much harder. "I thought you were dieting. Why are you eating french fries?" Because I thought long and hard about it and made a rational adult choice, that's why.

So I've failed. And I've gotten even lazier and more sedentary now that I have a desk job. And I can feel my bones and muscles atrophying and I want to be better. I want to do better. But being and doing better always starts tomorrow.

I'm not obsessive or passionate enough about anything in the world to be my aunt or mother-in-law. And my issues aren't that I got here in some slothful manner. I was a chubby kid. Always. I lost a ton of weight in college just by virtue of having too much free time and spending it at the gym. But when you grow up fat, you never think you're pretty enough and so I never did. You're never not a fat kid. As with virtually every girl in her 20s I know, I had pretty limited self esteem. As with virtually every woman in her 30s I know, I'd love to go back and smack that 20 year old version of myself for being an idiot. Sure, I wasn't perfect. But good lord I was close. Likely as close as I'll ever get.

After college I made the moronic decision to move home. I didn't know what I was doing with my life, I didn't know who I was. And I figured the job market was better in the Bay Area than in South Louisiana. I was likely right. I was also mostly an idiot because SF wasn't "home". I moved in with my mom because she'd instilled a fear of failure and debt in me and I didn't think I could make it on my own. I stayed for far far far too long, living there as I went to law school.

And if I thought I had low self esteem in my early 20s, living with someone out to sabotage me (we have a healthy relationship), while struggling with my identity and feeling worthless made things worse. I don't think I binge ate. I just really enjoyed good food and eating what I wanted, whenever I wanted, whenever the mood struck me, to cover up some of the feelings I was having and didn't want to deal with, as I am privileged enough to do as a white middle class chick, even if good food was ostensibly bad food. And somehow in the four years after I moved home, I put on 70lbs. I always thought if I ever topped 200 I'd be depressed and disheartened. I've been well above that for some time.

And here's a thing: I can rationalize any and all of it. That's the way my brain works. Why would I deprive myself of a burger and fries? That's delicious and life is short. Why not have what I want? Why moderate? Why stop? Or: I'll do better tomorrow. I'll be better tomorrow. I'll start next week or next month or after that trip. No need to moderate now. Which are all lies we tell ourselves.

I got married fat, which I HATED. I hate those photos. I want them gone. I am lucky enough to have someone that loves me for me and that's great. But *I* don't love me for me. (It didn't help that at the time I was planning a wedding that same loving mother was offering me all her clothes because she'd "just lost so much weight and they just don't fit anymore! They're nice clothes!" The fact that a diabetes medicine was helping wasn't mentioned, it just worked fabulously to undermine my own feelings about myself as I faced being seen by the most people in my life ever at an event where I wasn't happy with my body.) And I want to love me for me.

So it's time to actually change. Except the first rule of diet club is don't talk about diet club. Instead I'll keep a published diet club diary, I guess.

And I have to figure out how I want this to look and who I want to be and what that means to me. There are a thousand pieces of advice out there. There are medical opinions and medical opinions that counter those medical opinions. People who say you must eat breakfast and those that say you need to do what works for you. Those that advocate giving everything up cold turkey and living monastically and those that say you can indulge occasionally in moderation. Diet plans and fads and groups and...noise. It's all so noisy. It's a multi billion dollar noisy ass industry. And I've done it. Or some of it. But really I need to find my truths. Who I am and how to do this for me in a way that is sustainable and that works. While I don't know what that looks like, I'd like to work on practicing mindfulness. Of thinking before I open the fridge or eat the entirety of the meal placed before me. To follow guidelines rather than rules. To not rationalize my way into a burger but to indulge if it's all I can think about. To take baby steps instead of giant leaps.

And I know it can be done. This was published recently. Which linked to this. I HAVE THOUGHTS. First off, while the world definitely treats fat people differently (I deal with it daily), I think the thought that your friends are ashamed of you is a bit unfair and probably more in the head of those who are overweight than reality. If there are people who don't want to be in your life because of the size of your waist, they are a waste of time. You are all beautiful, smart, interesting people. That has nothing to do with your size.

But even as I type that last sentence I know it's a lie. I deal with my weight by pointing it out. I think I joke and sometimes I make people uncomfortable but I also want them to realize the reality of it. And that *I* get the reality of it. Recently at a work potluck everyone stood around waiting for someone to dive in get the proceedings started. They looked to me. "Oh no!" I said, "I can't go first. Fat people can't eat first." Everyone politely tittered. I meant it. I talk about not wearing spiky high heels because that reduces me to looking like a hippo walking around on toothpicks. I joke that I can't wrap myself in my favorite color, purple, without looking like a grape. Tightly packed restaurant tables give me flashes of panic. I've been flying this week and the thought of encroaching on a strangers space fills me with fear. Being fat, being in a less than ideal body and moving through the world is hard work. And I don't want to work that hard anymore. So I need to work harder in thinking consciously and carefully about what I put in my body and why and not giving into whims and desires because I can.

On the other hand, I reject the idea that a body should look like anything other than it does. That we should have to apologize for how we look. I read the page for a yoga instructor apologizing for her size 12 body and was like, "Why?" Is a yogi supposed to look and be a certain way? I know in Western culture they're mostly your average ex sorority girl, wearing "Namaste Bitches" t-shirts who wants to turn yoga into a competitive sport, but why put a disclaimer on your yoga website about your size? That's the body you inhabit, that's the yoga you do. Fin.

But it's HARD holding those parallel ideas and living in this thin obsessed world. It's hard not being happy with my ability to walk up stairs or bend over and tie my shoes and yet still loving food. And it's REALLY hard having other people push their ideas of food on you.

I'm currently in New Orleans. All this get healthier/eat better/be better stuff was going to happen after this trip happened. I was going to indulge in all the things I love about this city. And now, after a mere day here, I'm faced with my host saying "OMG no more food! Just veggies! I can't!" Which, maybe unintentionally (probably, in all likelihood), makes me feel bad about my choices and my desire to eat fried shrimp poboys and rich creole dishes and red meat. And I recognize that those are HER issues. That I'm on vacation and that she's not. But...still...it gives me pause and makes me feel bad about the body I inhabit and what I'm doing and...that kinda sucks when I really WANT to indulge and enjoy and make merry with all the food around here.

There are no answers. At least not yet. I'm just gonna try and do the best I can, with some sort of guidelines, and mark that journey here. And share with whoever is out there and cares what that means to me. But this is for and about me and so if this never reaches anyone else's ears, that's okay too. I'll be back in a week when I get done being in New Orleans.