Making and Breaking Rules

. . . So, the starting over and doing Phase 1 for a week (the week technically doesn't end till tomorrow) to kick myself back into shape and good discipline. Yeah, it didn't happen.

In a general sense, I feel like I'm doing better than failing entirely, but I don't feel good about what I'm doing. I'm making rules that I follow most of the time. It helps when people know the rules and could (by observation) keep tabs on me and make a judgment if I break a rule. Accountability is something I haven't always held myself to - but I don't keep the rules if no one is holding me accountable. I can convince the person watching that I will be OK if I break this rule this once, and since they are usually different people, I can also convince them that it really is only this once - which makes me feel like I'm being incredibly secretive and dishonest, but also that it REALLY is just this ONCE. That's kind of ugly. And I feel like beating myself up about it.

Phase 2 has so much fruit and grain in it that when I think about following it closely, I panic a little - though I understand that fruit and grains are important. So I decided, last Sunday with Doug's assistance, to eat one serving of grain per day (tennis ball size) and 1 serving of fruit per day until Sunday Feb 28.

On Wednesday, I skipped my therapy appointment to spend time with Doug in town. We went to Blue Plate. Doug and I had a serious conversation about whether or not I should eat that bun and those fries - he said he never knows what will happen to me. Sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes it puts me in a funk for a week - Grumpy, Sad, Introverted. I convinced us both I would be fine. On Wednesday while I was eating that bun and those fries with my burger, I felt fine. While driving home, I felt fine about it. No guilt, no self abuse, no problem. But when we got home, all I wanted was more and more and more and more sugar - I ate a lot of fruit mostly, but that's when the problems started over again. Doug was really onto something, but I didn't understand exactly what until this morning.

I picked up a copy of "When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies" by Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter several months ago. My roommate said it was incredibly influential in her life when she was in her twenties. This morning I read the preface, and am now only on the 2nd page of the introduction and it hit me . . .

It's not so much that I shouldn't eat refined sugar and high starch foods because of the guilt (that's part of it) . . . but because refined sugar makes me crave more sugar for several days afterward. Those cravings are my body in action . . . blood sugar rising and falling, insulin resistance, etc. Which is where my diet comes into play - to avoid pre-diabetes I have to prevent that from happening and cure my insulin resistance.

About two days after a refined sugar and potato indiscretion, I find myself not just slipping down the slope, but skiing!!! Not with freedom of will and desire - joyfully and with love for good food, but ANGRILY, obsessively, with self-loathing, fear, panic - with outright HATRED that I cannot control myself. I start to feel AGAIN! that I am a bad, immoral person.

I do things like drink coffee in the morning and then, panicked about what a bad person I am, I try not to think about food at all . . . before I know it, it's 1:30 in the afternoon, I've been on the phone all day doing project work, my email is piling up and suddenly all the people who couldn't reach me in the morning are calling. I'm desperate, hysterical, hungry, stressed out to the max and I reach for what is available to me - 2 slices of a pepperoni pizza that my co-worker ordered from Dominos.

The problem is NOT just blowing my diet, but food obsession, and self-loathing. I can see in me now a need to protect my health, but also a need to treat the behavioral issues that continue coming up. I don't want to do this anymore. And I feel like I've said this before. I'm glad it is back in front of me.

The preface of this book talks about a "non-diet approach" allowing these women to find out how to eat what their bodies actually need; allowing these women to learn to speak to themselves with compassion. "When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies" says that women use "dieting and body hatred to cope with the central issues of their lives" to a great extent.

Because my health is on the line, I don't feel like I can say no to dieting and body hatred like these women have - I've only just started to diet. But I choose to read this book with an open mind. Another sentence says that "women have a way of saying: 'We want to free ourselves from body hatred and dieting, but who will we be without them?" It sounds familiar.

Doug asked me once, and says in other words every time I get super intense about something that shouldn't matter, "Are you ever going to be ok with being ok?" I would be lying if I said that today the answer is yes - I am ok with being ok. After he posed this question to me the first few times it occurred to me - I've called myself a "Self Actualizer" and it is one of the things I strive for - constantly wanting to be a better and better version of myself. Who would I be if I weren't working on an issue?

Part of me doesn't want to "work" on this at all. I want to just be 'foot loose and fancy free'. I want to eat whatever I want in amounts as big as I'd like - but I only want that if the consequences go away - no self-loathing, and no risk of diabetic coma!

So instead I commit to not setting myself up on that slippery slope in the first place. Especially when I see a little bit of success. That back-slide I do when I feel like "you did it" is part of the trouble. Rewarding myself for losing weight by eating a brownie is not a good idea. Martha Beck would say it's the wrong decision if it feels like it takes my freedom away, and this feels like hell, but I think once the sugar craving goes away (probably by tomorrow or the day after) I'll get my freedom back.

I want to work on this. I want to resolve it. I want to get to a place where, if it comes up again, I'll know how to speak to myself and to others with compassion. That feels good.

P.S. if anyone has any ideas about how to make chicken and beef more exciting (without breading) please let me know because if I have to eat another grilled chicken breast, I'm going to puke.

Harder Than I Thought

Contrary to intentions set in my previous post - rule changing did NOT go very well. I don't like the guilt, or that I'm gaining instead of losing, and I don't like feeling like a total failure. I've decided to do Phase 1 of South Beach for the next week starting today.

I liked being able to feel my blood sugar rise and fall - it was all the indicator I needed when making food choices. So it's also back to the book to read up a little and remind myself what I'm up to in the first place.

It's 7 weeks and 3 days to get to 135 from 148.

Doug has agreed to help me hold myself accountable - he also promised to be gentle, and we are both going into this hoping that I won't fly off the handle :)

Starting Over

Geez Louise!!! time for an update, and to come clean about my progress :)

Just about Christmas-time, I jumped off the South Beach Diet Wagon . . . as it was on a bridge over a river. I swam downstream until I was several miles away before getting out and I didn't look back. I'd made it to 154 pounds or something from 162 in the two weeks before Thanksgiving. Without any bathroom scale evidence I believe I gained it all back by New Year. Dieting over the holidays requires a lot of self discipline. I felt at that time like I either needed to stick to the diet every day, or give myself permission not to, and relinquish any and all guilt for giving myself that permission. (I think this first picture was taken in November after some of my first results were reached, before jumping off the wagon).

In hind-sight, it feels really good to see that it takes less time to lose 10 pounds than it does to gain it back, but there's a slippery slope involved. There came a time when I could no longer feel my blood-pressure elevate. Once that happened it was only a brief matter of time until I was no longer monitoring what, or how much of it I was eating.

I decided I would start over at Phase 1 as soon as Little B was back with his mom in Colorado Springs. Then it was going to be as soon as about $100 worth of groceries that South Beach would call "bad" were gone - I just don't have the money to throw it away. Then it was going to be . . . guilt started adding up. One day a co-worker and I got on the subject and he told me that he would do it with me to be my support and to take advantage of the same kind of results he'd seen in me the first time around. The moral of this story is just get on with it dammit!!!

I've sort-of stopped keeping track of where in the diet I am, but I started-over something like 4 or 5 weeks ago. My weight is down to 144 to 146 pounds and has been since last week. I haven't weighed this "little" since junior high and most of high school!!! My goal is to get to 135 before my birthday on April 20.

According to the South Beach Diet, if I'm not still losing a pound or two per week on Phase 2, I'm eating too much sugar. It's definitely the case that I'm floating instead of losing. I've done some pretty serious self reflection and I've made some decisions . . .

(This second photograph was taken yesterday before a haircut. Notice compared to the previous one how slender my face looks around my jawline) I think that South Beach is a phenomenal program. I'm in a little bit in disbelief. My clothes fit great, my skin is getting clearer and clearer every day. I want to just say "Eff SB" and make my own commitments. I feel like I understand what my body needs and wants. But I also feel like it will be safer to follow the guidelines. Once I hit that 135, I will be comfortable making my own rules if I can maintain that weight. 16 - 18 pounds!!!!

So I'm going to follow the guidelines of phase 2, but this week I'm going to avoid any baked goods that I didn't make for myself (including crackers and even the Spelt bread that I'm liking so much) to see what kind of impact that has. I feel like they are what has slowed me down. I'm also going to limit myself to 2 servings of fruit per day, one cup of brown or wild rice or whole wheat pasta per meal per day, and increase my dairy intake. No potato, no more than one sweet potato per week, no corn, peas sparingly. I'm going to add some nuts to the mix and increase my water intake . . . and here's the hard one - get some effing exercise because while I am losing weight without exercise, it would feel so much better!!

I also feel like I am now the only person holding me accountable - and that makes it easy to "break the rules". I hate feeling guilty for it later - HATE feeling guilty. I'm committing this morning to stick with it. I want a bikini body . . . and I feel like I can have it. Thankfully mine doesn't look like any VS models, just like a healthy woman who isn't carrying any extra weight around. I hope my boobs don't disappear or get droopy.

I can see the changes on my body and so far, the "saddle bags" on the outer/back side of my thighs are smaller. The lumps of "chubby" on my hips are less, I think my hips will have a smooth line at 135 pounds. The little pooch on my belly is shrinking. My inner thighs are smaller too, and the chubby on my upper arms is something I haven't even noticed for a while - perhaps it is gone.

I don't want to advocate for "Lose weight to improve your self worth". I want to advocate for eating in the way that is best for your body. It's eating in a way my body really responds to that makes me feel good - the weight loss is a bonus for knowing that if I stick with it, I won't develop diabetes. I'm not too worried about the other symptoms of PCOS and my family history. I feel that if I can avoid adult onset diabetes, I will be healthy for the rest of my life. How's that for feeling good?

I took this third picture last night before going to bed. Like my new haircut?

Happy Red Hearts Day! I intend, this evening, to eat some nibbles of dark chocolate (70%) made from beans grown in Guatemala. I suspect it will go perfectly with my sweetheart, some perfectly ripe strawberries, and my favorite Champagne (Francis Coppola's "Sophia"). For the record, my bathroom scale and I are great friends.