Tag Archives: fears

to being strong…

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I’m struggling.

I have been thinking about my blog every day since the last day that I posted something, what was that two weeks ago?!?  I have been struggling, dieting and emotionally and I just want to keep that hidden.  I keep telling myself that when I turn the ship around and feel better and my diet is better then I can write about where I was and how I’m in a better place.  I think that most stories, novels, successful blogs are all about the after moment.  The before and after pictures.  The story of how said person was in a low place but is writing to tell about how they got through it.  How they struggled to find success but they are now being successful.  I guess we as a human race prefer to read stories and blogs and watch movies about triumph and coming through the dark stuff because it keeps us hopeful.  But what about those of us still in the trenches??  I personally feel like I’ve been living in survival mode since roughly, January of 2006.  That’s 6 and a half years!  Throughout that time I’ve had some good times, happy moments etc, but I really feel like I’m just surviving each day, not living and enjoying those days.  Maybe I say that because when you’re in the trenches the lens you have to look at the past through clouds everything so it all looks pretty grey.

I wanted to wait and see when I would feel a little more sunny but I don’t, in fact I feel darker.  I want to write from the dark place, with the goal of not sounding whiny and complainy.  But here it goes:

I feel alone.  And dark.  And tired.  And sad.  And stuck.  And alone.  And alone.  And alone.

My diet has been shit this week.  Its a reflection of the emotional tsunami I’m trying to swim through.  My space is a mess, also a reflection of whats going on inside of me.  My car even smells funny, although, that I do not think is a reflection of my inner turmoil, I think there’s just something stinky going on.  Things with Preston’s dad continue at a standstill.  I haven’t had more than a 2 hour window of time without Pres in 5 weeks.  When I’m not near Preston I am at work, helping other people sort out their darkness.  I do have a few evenings to myself when I am not working and those prove to be even more challenging for me because I sit, alone.  Needless to say, I’d love to have a weekend “off” where I can get on my bike again, where I could sleep in, or visit a friend without planning how Pres will be entertained while I’m visiting.  I would like to consume an alcoholic beverage and enjoy the cooler evening weather with a friend.  I want to feel more human – more like a person who has needs and wants that are just as valid as her clients or her son’s.

I’m so sick of being alone (yes I find saying that funny when I just stated that I’d like a break from mommy duty for a few minutes but I’m talking about something a little different).  I want a partner, a boyfriend, a husband.  I want to be chosen by someone.  I dream about someone proposing to me and saying, “I choose you.  You are the one that I choose above any others.  You are worth choosing.”  I want a best friend that I can laugh with and play with and sleep next to every night.  I want a man in my life that helps me sort out the harder times and celebrates that happy times.  I want someone to watch the olympics with, someone to have inside jokes with, someone to play rock paper scissors with when Preston makes a mess and neither of us want to deal with it.  I want someone to sit with at mass.  I want someone to dream with and cry with and play with.  I don’t want to be alone anymore.  I want someone to be my someone who is a constant in my life, I want that person to choose me, pick me, love me.

Sometimes I tell myself that my desire to have a partner is so strong that it must mean I’m desperate.  I don’t know – I won’t settle, I won’t marry the next guy that comes along if he isn’t right, but I am definitely ready.  At least I think I am.  I just don’t want to do life alone anymore.  It sucks.  It does, it really just sucks.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for my family and my friends.  I love all of them so much – the thing is, they’ve already chosen someone to be their someone.  So I get all those parts of a “someone” piecemeal from all my friends and family members.  I get shoulder to cry on here, concoct ideas over there, dream about winning the lottery over here, and share a Sunday afternoon there.  And I don’t get the best part of anyone, those parts are reserved for their someone or family.

At times I do an ok job convincing myself that the deal I’ve got going isn’t so bad.  I have awesome friends and an amazing family.  I get my needs met, even though its piecemeal, I don’t go completely without.  I am aware I have it better than some, many even.  Am I selfish for wanting more?  For wanting to feel validated and worthy because someone chooses me, and just me?

My best friend, Katie, wants me to put myself out there and start dating – I’ve been single for a year now.  I have my moments where that sounds exciting to me, but it mostly just feels like a meat market, and my feelings about my body trump my desire to put myself out there and risk being rejected.  All the things Chris used to say about my weight and how my beauty was measured by my size replay over and over in my mind and I can’t possibly imagine being viewed as beautiful at this weight.  I think, why would I go speed dating, or to some mixer, only to stand awkwardly by myself and not be approached by a single guy?  Why would I continue trying internet dating (ugh I hate it) when its all based so much off of the pictures that you post to attract someone to you.  I don’t even think I’m that interesting anymore – all of my hobbies, interests, and knowledge have been swallowed up by sorting out which dance classes to sign Pres up for, what Pres needs to know before preschool starts in three weeks, and what do my clients need from me this week?  Another person couldn’t possibly find any of that interesting.  All of these self-destructive thoughts don’t help my case at all, but I’ve got quite the crowd in my mind telling me these things and its hard to quiet it all down enough to risk putting myself out there.  :(

I have invested several hours this week looking online for a second job.  I need to find a way to bring more money in, without sending most of it out to childcare for Preston.  I want to work more, I want to make more money, but I want to be with Preston.  I don’t want to miss out on these precious years that he actually likes me.  I know that the reality of single parenthood is generally working two or even three jobs to pay the bills and make ends meet and I get so angry and upset that, that is my reality.  This is nowhere near what I wanted my life to be like.  I never would have laid out this path as the one to take.  Maybe that’s true of most peoples lives and you just have to work with where you are.  I know this.  I help people realize this and work to accept these things about life for a living!!  I am just really struggling with it for myself.  I don’t want my life to be like this but I can’t figure out what move to make in order to change it.  With every move I think about taking it means giving up something else that I don’t want to sacrifice.

I know a man (boyfriend/husband) won’t fix this.  I know having a second job won’t fix this. I know Preston’s dad being completely amicable and flexible won’t fix this.  Only I can decide to feel better about what my life is at the present moment.  I’m just really struggling with that.  I’m really struggling to cheerlead myself through this life.  I’m really struggling to find strength and perseverance through this time, through these years and years of uphill battle, where is the top?  When do I summit this beast of a mountain?  How much further and harder can I push?  Everyday I end my day praying to God that something gives because I simply don’t have anymore fight in me – and then everyday I wake up able to make it through one. more. day.  My definition of strength has always been that if you keep waking up every day and keep making it through each day then you are being strong, even if you feel weak the whole time.  Here’s to being strong…

…You are not the Biggest Loser

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This morning I opened up my email and found this waiting for me…

Just a couple of weeks/months ago I signed up at NBC.com to get info on when they were casting for the next season.  Looks like its coming up at the end of this month.  And the Chicago location is barely a stones throw away from my house!  But as soon as I opened this email a wide smirk passed across my face.  I don’t need this information.  I’m doing this on my own.

After watching season after season of this show (the show started around the time I was losing weight – 2005/6) I began to dream about being a contestant.  I am fully aware that the way they do things is a bit controversial but I wanted the results.  I held myself back from auditioning for the past three years because I’m a single mom and couldn’t fathom being away from Preston and/or figuring out the childcare situation.  I always wonder how contestants are able to just take a leave of absence from life and most have a spouse taking care of their children and jobs that allow them to do something like this – or at least I assume.  I however don’t know anyone that would be able or willing to sign up for up to 4 months of 24/7 childcare of Pres and I only get paid when I work and if I stopped working I’d have to rebuild my caseload and so it just hasn’t ever felt totally right for me.

This year I thought: If I don’t lose the weight really soon I continue to run the risk of shortening my life and if I die how would all those logistics get figured out with someone having to raise my son etc.  I decided that this year I would audition so that maybe if I were picked I could get out of the danger zone and live a long life for Preston.  I thought if its in God’s divine plan for me to lose the weight and do it by being on the show I’ll get a spot and somehow I’ll figure out the childcare/no income thing.  I mean I somehow managed to get through graduate school with a toddler!

And now here I am, one month into making some drastic changes for my life and feeling good about where I am ALL ON MY OWN (well sans show at least).  Receiving that email reminded me that the plans we make for ourselves are not often the way the plans play out.  It motivated me to keep on trucking.  The people who wait in line and audition for the show are not where I am.  They are where I felt I was when I signed up to receive the email.  I feel blessed and excited that I can delete that email and not worry about logistics of child care, just logistics of feeding myself the right fuel and getting my workouts in.  It reminds me I’ve come a long way mentally in the weeks/months since I signed up for that email, and that will help me keep on, keeping on.  :)

Have you ever considered auditioning for Biggest Loser?  Have you ever actually auditioned and gone through that process – I’m always curious about the behind the scenes stuff.

angry.

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I’m feeling angry toady.  Really REALLY angry.  My anger is directed at a particular person who made a horrible decision that affects my son.  I am so angry about it I could swear for ten minutes straight and I’m not sure I could convey how much anger I feel inside of me.  Anger is one of the emotions that I don’t have a problem with feeling and expressing.  I am what some in my line of work might deem a ‘quick to anger’ kind of person.  Instead of letting things simmer and bother me for a long time without saying anything until I explode (a slow to anger type) I am ready and willing to express my anger when I feel it.  Neither way is right or wrong, and both ways of dealing with upsetting things can get you into trouble.  But my way is definitely quick to anger.  I get angry sometimes about little things and express it and move on without it feeling like a lasting thing.  I have scorched a few people in my life because of this trait of mine.  But I am also not typically simmering with anger at anyone because I get it out as I express it.  This particular situation last night sent me through the roof.  So angry that I am struggling to find words to describe it.  And as I have grown older and wiser ;) I have made more of an effort not to scorch those around me when I get angry and instead let the feeling subside a bit before expressing it.  It seems to be most beneficial for myself and those around me.

When I work with my clients on anger I typically talk about how anger is a secondary emotion.  That it is the emotion that rises to the top but there are usually other feelings going on beneath the surface that fuel the anger.  Anger is just more socially acceptable than fear or sadness for example.  The example I use is: when someone cuts you off you get angry with the other driver, sometimes mutter some choice words at them, and other times whip out the bird and send it their direction.  Either way you express anger, but what sits below that is fear.  Fear that you could have been in an accident, fear for your safety, and when that was threatened your expression of it turned to anger.  So in this time of waiting out my anger I decided to ask myself what is beneath the anger in this situation.

Frustration, disappointment, fear, disbelief, betrayal, and sadness are the feelings that come to mind.  Frustration for me is almost always and immediately turned to anger.  When I’m frustrated with something anger happens very quickly.  A very clever way of avoiding feeling frustrated.  Disappointment is something I feel somewhat confident in handling – everyone experiences disappointment and it doesn’t have an isolating feeling associated with it so I’m ok with a little let down every now and then.  Fear is something I don’t like, I typically cope with fear by reaching out – talking to people and expressing my fears helps me to normalize my fears and get a grip on reality.    I cope with disbelief similarly to disappointment.  I don’t live the same as a lot of people in this world, I have different viewpoints and at times other people act in ways that lead me to disbelief but I reason that they are simply wired different than me – I’m big on the ‘different strokes for different folks’ mentality.  Betrayal and sadness lead me to eat.  Plain and simple, I don’t like dealing with these two.  They lead me to feel isolated, lonely, disrespected – and all of those play into my fears & insecurities about my self worth.  Particularly in this situation because it was something involving the care of my son it reminds me about my status as a single mom and that enhances my feelings of loneliness and thoughts of “how did I get into this mess?”.

I was proud of myself that yesterday after discovering that my sons care had been neglected and disregarded to the level that is in the ABSOLUTELY NOT OK category I thought about taking a bike ride.  I was so mad and had no words that all I wanted to do was get on my bike and ride around until I felt clear inside.  So I am happy that my initial reaction for coping was something that is healthy for me.  However, at that moment it was time to get my little man some dinner and put him to bed.  I swallowed my anger down and focused on my responsibility as mom.  After I said goodnight to Preston and shut his door I allowed myself to fully feel/reflect on this information I learned about how he spent his weekend away from me.  The anger was so quick to appear that all these other feelings quietly sat unattended beneath the surface.  I made my dinner and ate alone.  This is when the real stuff started to creep up.  This is when I thought about food in a coping/avoiding kind of way.  I didn’t actually feel like acting on this desire my body was informing me of – I tried to stay focused, recognize it, and allowed it to pass.  I told myself no.  I didn’t allow any space to entertain the idea of what type of food I might want to binge on or anything like that.  It was the people that read this blog and what it represents for me that helped me shut down that possibility very quickly.

But now I’m left to deal with all this ugly anger and all of its little buddies that follow along behind him.  In times like this I think a lot about how much I struggle being a single mom.  I tell myself that if I were married I wouldn’t feel so alone.  I make up that people that are married always have a person they can seek solace and support in.  Rationally I know that isn’t always the case – in fact sometimes it is the person you are married to that brings up the feelings that I have been feeling for the past 18 hours.  So I know that I’m lying to myself – that I’m feeling lonely and frustrated (and wanting a prince charming to rescue me) and the story I make up about married people fits with how I feel.  But continuing to believe that I don’t have what all married people have is not really helpful for me.  I may not have a husband but I have family and friends that listen to and support me.  Might it be different if I had a husband?  Maybe.  But only maybe.  So for now I will sit in and process my frustration, disappointment, fear, disbelief, betrayal, and sadness.  I will try not to avoid feeling those things and instead let them help me take action.  Let them help guide me in what to do next and how to respond to a situation that has left me feeling so angry.

Facing My Fears

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“Whatever it is we’re afraid of, one thing holds true: that by the time the pain of not doing a thing gets worse than the fear of doing it, it can feel like we’re carrying around a giant tumor.” – Meredith Grey (or her writers)

 Just watch the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds of the clip if you’ve never seen this episode.  The sound is really quiet but its the best I could find.

I’m not sure what made me think of this episode of Grey’s Anatomy earlier today yesterday but it happened and it inspired me to write about it.  If you aren’t a Grey’s fan or haven’t seen this episode this woman comes in with a massive tumor on her abdomen.  She hasn’t left her house in a year because of it.  At one point in the episode George O’Malley asks her why she let it grow so big and the woman explains that she’s always feared the hospital so she put off going to the doctor.  She only decided to seek medical attention when it became unavoidable.

The whole episode is basically about why we put things off and that it is because of fear that we don’t do things.  When I think about weight loss, dieting, trying to change myself, etc I can completely relate to this idea.  Before I lost 100lbs the first time I was afraid of the unknown, and feared all the work I would have to put into losing the weight.  I was also afraid of failing.  But that first time was mostly me forcing myself to stop being lazy.  This time around has been a different ball of wax.  In fact the past 7 years I think I’ve been like this woman, growing a “tumor” (the weight) and being so afraid of dealing with it that I simply avoided it until I couldn’t anymore.

Someone might say a tumor grows out of human control, and I was the one in control of the weight growing.  The thing is throughout the past 7 years a lot of it felt out of control for me.  I recall times of trying to diet and then on Friday after work feeling lonely or let down or some other negative emotion and I would go find food on auto pilot – literally the decision and execution of finding junk food would happen so quickly I only felt the guilt of breaking my diet after the food was ordered or was sitting in my car on the way home.  Often times I would get a bag of chips, or cookies, or some other treat and plan to eat some of it in moderation and save the rest of it, but when I would try to put it away it would sit there calling my name, taunting me until I picked the bag back up and consumed the rest of whatever it was until I felt sick.  There are a variety of foods that I have sworn to God I would never touch again if he would just make the sick, I totally overate, feeling go away.  In those times I was just too afraid to face the bad feelings so I soothed myself with food.

Other times in the past 7 years I have been stuck in this cycle because of the stream of thoughts I have running about myself as a result of trying to make losing weight about someone else.  The woman in the Grey’s episode had witnessed several family members enter the hospital and died while there, so she believed that if she went to the hospital the same would be true for her.  And unfortunately it was true – she waited too long and died on the operating table.  After dating Chris I believed that even being thinner didn’t make me worth loving.  I believed that he proved that to me by not loving me and letting me go when I was trying so hard to be exactly what he wanted.  He showed me that I had to be 135lbs and maintain that to be lovable or else I wasn’t.  I struggled to believe that at 250lbs if I was laughing and having a good time with people that I was as worthy and lovable as my friends who were at least 100lbs less than me.  I believed these things because I had experienced them.  At one of my lower weights I recall Chris asking me how I ever thought I was pretty when I was at my heaviest, because I used to say I felt pretty when going out with friends or something.  I was at a loss for how to answer it because I did feel pretty.  Probably because I was only focused on my face and I like my face.  And maybe I felt pretty relative to my size.  But, regardless of how I felt pretty at the time, the fact that he asked me that sent the message that I clearly was not pretty then and I shouldn’t have thought that way about myself.  So when I put the weight back on it was tremendously  hard to have “pretty days”.  I also started to interact with the world as if these things I believed about myself were true.   Like the way the doctors react to the woman with the tumor; I believed all thin people talked about me and judged me like that every second of every day.  I was unlovable if I was fat.  I was not funny and enjoyable being overweight.  That “pretty days” were only possible for thin people.  And the world started to react to me that way.  Not that people were more mean or insulting, but the world just didn’t care for me the way it felt in 2005 when I was thinner.  Likely this was all a result of perception on my part.  The story I told myself about my self worth felt true because I looked for validation of it in everything.

I would have moments of clarity where I could convince myself those things weren’t true, that I was worth fighting for, so I would fight.  I would start a diet and within a week or two something would happen that lined up with my bad perception of myself and I would quit. I became less willing to try over time.  I became resentful and frustrated and depressed.  I still struggle with this.  My story about my self worth that was influenced by Chris and adapted and developed by me has a way of creeping up on me.  Sometimes I notice something I don’t like about myself in the mirror and I obsess about it for some time.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel pretty and the voice inside of me tries to remind me that fat girls don’t get “pretty days”.  I have to tell myself to shut up – quiet down and go away! That’s not true!!  When I say something and everyone in the room doesn’t drop everything and come listen to every word coming out of my mouth it is not because I am overweight it is because they’re busy, or preoccupied, or something else – but its not about me.

I’m still at a point where my weight loss isn’t noticeable to anyone but myself and I fear something coming along and knocking me off this ride and failing.  And I initially feel comfort in thinking that people then wouldn’t know I failed, that I hadn’t done what I set out to do and it would be fine.  I could just stay overweight and no one would know I want something different for myself.  But then I remember that I’m writing this blog.  That I’ve told everyone I know that I’m making this effort, that quitting now would mean that I have to own it and tell people.  And that is not something I want to do.  And ultimately giving up is not something I want to do either.

The Grey’s Anatomy episode ends with Meredith saying, “We have to make our own mistakes.  We have to learn our own lessons.  We have to sweep todays possibility under tomorrows rug until we can’t anymore.  Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant.  That knowing is better than wondering.  That waking is better than sleeping.  And that even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying.”

The pain of being so overweight has far exceeded the pain of facing my weight and self worth issues.  It has been time to face all of this for a long time.  And I am left with a giant tumor – the pain, the regret, the missed opportunities and experiences.  But I won’t live in fear anymore.  I will continue to try.  Every day.  I don’t want to wonder anymore about who Megan is as a healthier and happier person.  I don’t want to long for her anymore.  I want to work my ass off to become her and maintain her.

Is it enough?

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I am second guessing myself left and right today!  I didn’t get much exercise in the first half of this week so I felt like I needed to get more in the second half of the week so that I see some movement in the scale on Sunday.  Yesterday I felt great and did an hour of cardio on the elliptical.  It was the easiest hour on the elliptical I’ve had in a long time. Today I had plans while Pres was at school (social – the best kind of plans) so I decided to take him to the gym after I picked him up from preschool.  I only got in half an hour because I wasn’t feeling it and I had a million and one things to do before I had to go to work.  I managed to burn 400 calories in 30 minutes which was awesome but I felt somewhere deep inside of me saying “its not enough!”

Later I was at home doing some meal planning for the weekend and thinking about Saturday’s meals so that I can have a good weigh in on Sunday.  I started to get worried that there is salt in the cheese I wanted to add to my salad and thought the salt would make me retain water and then I wouldn’t see a loss on the scale the next day.  At that moment I realized that I had stepped into the obsessive side of me that I have to very carefully monitor.

I decided to just shake it off.  What I’m doing is enough.  If I choose to eat salads on Saturdays that have cheese that contain salt but am eating salad and not cheeseburgers and fries I have made a significant change.  If I move for 30 minutes and burn 400 calories it is way better than having spent that hour on the couch.  I am making changes and continuing them over time will have an impact.  I will lose weight.  Even if I’m retaining water from some salt!  Writing this down helps me to see that my ways of thinking are a bit skewed.  I am hopeful that I lose weight this week, but regardless I feel great and have energy I haven’t had in a while.  So I’m gonna keep on truckin’.  I’m committed to the changes I’m making and I’m confident I will have the success I want!

Pain in the…

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Last night as I was falling asleep I was thinking about pain tolerance and how we say that one person has a higher pain tolerance than another person and wondered how we might actually know something like that.  The thing about pain is that pain is such a vague concept in terms of it being comparable to other people.  We can compare our own pain to other times we have experienced pain but can not very clearly relate it to another’s pain.  And when we relate our pain to a previous experience we are measuring current pain with a memory of pain.  And memories have a way of fooling us sometimes – whether it be remembering things worse or better than when we actually experienced it, they are rarely 100% accurate.

Our pain is all connected to our awareness of it.  I had Preston via c-section.  I never even went into labor, it was planned, so one minute I was a happy and (relatively) comfortable pregnant lady and the next minute I was numb from the chest down and hearing the first cries of my new baby boy.  It was a good experience and I would say that I didn’t really feel any pain.  In fact I felt great through the whole procedure.  They pulled the epidural out 24 hours after the birth and as the medicine wore off I became sore and then there was pain; but because I wasn’t aware of the pain before the medicine wore off does that mean that my body did not experience pain during the c-section?

What about emotional pain?  Can another person gauge how painful a given emotional experience might be for someone else?  Can two people experience the same trigger to emotional pain (say a death in the family) and give the pain a different value on the pain scale?  Are we ever experiencing emotional pain and simply unaware of it due to the “epidural” that we have firmly in place to block the pain from being too much?  Can we ever have that pain blocker in place before the pain begins (like we can with physical pain) or is it always secondary to the pain – coping?

Some of these questions I can’t answer.  Pain is so personal and so abstract and yet so concrete all in one.  When I recall times of pain in my life I think first of emotionally painful times and later to physically painful times.  Maybe I have been blessed to have not had to endure too much physical pain – although I’ve had a few doozies!  Maybe the emotional pain has just always rated higher on the pain scale for me.  Maybe I have a high tolerance for physical pain and a low tolerance for emotional pain.  But who’s to say?  Pain is pain.  I have dealt with my physical pain with ibuprofen, ice, stitches, casts, and bandaids.  I have dealt with my emotional pain with tears, screams, silence, laughter (a sometimes awkward reaction but it happens), TV, and food.

Now that I am working daily to monitor my food intake (a primary form of emotional pain block) it brings up a lot of memories of emotional pain.  I had my emotional epidural for a long time so that I could avoid and/or lessen the pain (I still felt the pain when not “medicating” but the food managed to dull it).  Now I’ve essentially pulled the block.  I am not feeling all the pain like a backed up dam, but I still have pain its just not quite clear what the source was for all of it.  Just like when my epidural was pulled after my c I didn’t experience the pain of the actual procedure just the residual effects of new wounds healing.  It took several months to no longer feel pain after my c-section.  And I guess for me, it takes years for the emotional pain (from some wounds) to fully heal – or maybe I’ve perpetuated them instead of allowing them to heal in a timely manner.  So now I’m left to sort out how I will deal with, tolerate, cope with the pain that seems to still be present.

The ironic thing is that in an effort to dull the emotional pain from various experiences with other people I ate which caused me to feel miserable about myself, which put me in a fair amount of pain as well!!  Both emotional pain and physical pain.  I think the challenging part of losing the weight for me is getting out of this cycle.  I have to lose a decent amount of weight before my weight is no longer a source of emotional pain for me – and I fear my weight will forever be a source of emotional pain because of some of the emotional pain I endured in a previous relationship (read a little bit about that here).  I also have to deal with the emotional pain from other experiences that are marbled throughout the parts of me that are depressed about my weight.  It is so complicated.  And yet going forward is so simple – right?  I have to eat less, move more and the weight will come off.  In the meantime I have to cope with emotional pain in a new way so that it doesn’t make me turn to food, and when I want to I just have to tell myself no.  So whether my tolerance for pain is high or low I am extremely aware of it while I attempt to eliminate triggers to pain that I have control of, my weight.  As for how I will deal with pain going forward, be it physical or emotional, is yet to be completely determined.  But I’ll keep you posted ;)

How’s that working for you?

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Yesterday was the first day I had to work since starting my diet.  Have I mentioned I love my job?  I do.  I feel like it is the perfect job for me and it also allows me to be home with Preston a bunch which is really good for the both of us.  I love my job because of what happens when I’m working with couples or families (or individuals).  Perseverance, rethinking, clarifying, honesty, change.  I offer possibility and perspective that my clients may have been unaware of before they came into the office.  I encourage people to see how they impact their world, their family, and themselves – and when they don’t like the impact they’re having I help them find ways to change.  The job requires a delicate balance of stirring the pot and being sensitive and empathetic, being straight-forward and walking the winding path with your clients.  It’s a great job for me.

At one point last night I felt a twinge in my chest and I began to think about food (in an unhealthy, binge triggering kind of way).  I observed this and moved on as I was focused on what was happening in the session but as I drove home last night I began to think about the feeling I had and the topic that was being discussed.  The topic was how a married couple could rely on each other and work together when parenting… every time this topic comes up it reminds me of what I don’t have in the parenting department (a partner) and sends a signal to my brain to cope with emotions I don’t like eat to dull the pain.  Like I said before, in session I can observe it and move on and remain focused but its after work that those feelings come up for me.

In the past year I had developed a habit of coming home from work (around 10:30pm) and eating.  On one hand sometimes I didn’t have dinner before I went or I ate very little before I left for work because I was rushing to get Preston to bed and therefore I would feel hungry at 10:30.  But mostly it was an excuse.  Late night eating has always been a struggle for me – and tends to be a time most overweight people indulge because no one is around to watch.  So on my way home from work I’d stop and get a second dinner or I’d come home and eat whatever I could find in the pantry.  My after work eating was not an all out binge in the 5,000 calorie range or anything, but it was an additional meal which was still likely over 1000 calories so still a binge in my book.

On top of possibly feeling hungry this was also a way of avoiding feeling sad or frustrated about the situation I find myself in, in terms of single parenting and lacking a partner who supports me.  I am so good at avoiding those feelings – I would come home eat my meal and watch TV until midnight or 1am to completely distract myself from thinking about how I felt (and virtually trash myself for the following morning).  I would let myself get lost in TV shows just to escape and avoid feeling.  Of course, no one can keep those feelings inside forever so they’d bleed out in various areas of my life – onto Preston, in my attempt at co-parenting relationship with Justin, to my lack of effort put in other areas of my life etc.  So clearly this was not really working for me, but eating and avoiding has been how I have coped for many years.

So back to last night.  As I drove home (passing Taco Bell, Chipotlé, McDonalds, Five Guys etc) I thought about how easy it would be to go home and follow the same pattern of eating to dull whatever pain or discomfort I was feeling.  But I knew if I indulged I would only be perpetuating the problem.  So I told myself no; no Megan you don’t need to eat anything its 10:30pm you need to go home and go to bed.  So that’s what I did.  One might argue that I still avoided the feelings I have about disliking my single parent status, but I am not sure that 10:30 at night is the best time to attempt to process those feelings anyway.  In fact, I know its not because it would’ve kept me up until well past midnight.

I woke up this morning feeling really good.  I was also proud of myself for doing what I knew I needed to do.  It gave me confidence in myself.  It helped me believe that even though I want more for my life than living in my parent’s basement and being a single mom, I can still be content in the present.  I can still manage me.  AND the more I manage myself now the better the future looks for both myself and for Preston.

It’s all in the mind

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“Sometimes I make a big deal out of something that doesn’t require so much ‘deal’.  I think that might be happening already with this whole “starting a diet” thing.” – Those are the first words I typed in composing this post…self-sabotage at its finest :)

I have yet to weigh myself or take ‘before’ pictures or do any of my measurements.  I am working on a food plan – but find myself thinking, “this is so much work just to feed myself, and (fingers crossed) Preston, he’ll likely refuse to eat much of the stuff I will make and go on hunger strike”.  It feels like so much energy into this one thing (this one thing that will ultimately save my life – no big deal).  It makes me want to just start this whole thing and shoot from the hip…

I recognize this is one of my minds most clever tricks.  Its trying to force me to put in minimal effort so that when (need to change the mindset to “IF”) I fail, I don’t feel like one of my good plans failed along with all of my bad ones – and this time I feel like I’m onto a good plan (the actual planning, and blogging and sharing plan)!  I convince myself that I know how to eat between 1200 and 1600 calories/day without planning; I know how to exercise and what kind of exercises will encourage weight loss; I know how to avoid triggers all because I have done this before.  I was successful before.  But it’s a trick!  Maybe since I have done this before I want the planning to go more quickly or more effortlessly, but I didn’t keep the weight off, and over the past 7 years I have lost and regained the same 20/30lbs so many times its absurd.  The mind tricks are the worst in self-sabotage.

My mind tricks are so powerful that I almost agreed to this one and thought about blogging how I was ready to just get going already and the meal plans could wait!  What a frustrating situation I would find myself in two weeks from now.  Already I am feeling the benefit of this blogging thing – it helped me realize how closely I have to monitor what is going on inside my head.  That’s such a huge part of this battle!!

So, be gone poor planning thoughts!!!  I see you and hear you but you aren’t getting a foothold today!  I will continue to invest in my meal planning and organizing in preparation for this Sunday’s take off day.

As soon as I typed those words I thought – “just because I’m planning doesn’t mean I will be successful…”  Maybe not, but my awareness and dismissal of those thoughts will!

My Story – Part 2

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Before I left for the conference that I attended in early January 2005 I had been inspired to read Dr Phil’s – 7 Keys to Weightloss Freedom.  The book touched me in a different way than others had been able to.  I planned to start a diet sometime after I returned home from my upcoming trip.   I sat on the plane to Nashville with my arms folded over my enormous tummy/chest so as not to disturb the person next to me.  I just barely fit in my seat and was thankful to have the aisle to lean into, I was mortified and thought everyone on the plane must be judging me.  Upon arriving in Nashville I realized that it was one hilly town!  I struggled walking place to place because of how out of shape I was (huffing and puffing, sweating, the whole bit – it wasn’t pretty).  While negative thoughts about my weight were never far from my mind the trip was positively life changing.  The conference was put on by well known Christian speakers and the most popular Christian artists.  It was amazing to be in such a giant space with thousands of kids my age worshiping God together.  During my time at the conference I embraced God in a way that I had avoided for so long.  Before then I had convinced myself that due to my weight not only could the people in my every day life not love me, but neither could I, and more importantly neither could God.  My thoughts shifted and I had a true realization that God made me special, he chose all of my uniqueness, my gifts and talents, and my weaknesses. I accepted that he loves me and therefore I began to believe I was worthy of being loved.  Maybe for some people this idea comes easy, but for me it was a major hurdle of self acceptance.  I had clarity and peace that I had never experienced before.  It was amazing.  I left the conference having 110% confidence that I could be successful in whatever I set my mind to, and next on the list was a major slim down.

I decided that because I had been on so many diets before, I would keep this one a secret from everyone except my parents whom I was living with at the time.  I didn’t want anyone to know I was trying just in case I wasn’t successful.  So Sunday morning January 22nd 2005 I stepped on the scale and saw the numbers 290… I couldn’t believe how close to 300lbs I was.  I promised myself that would be the last day in my life I would ever see a number that high on the scale.  So I set to work.  By using Dr. Phil’s plan I was able to eat very sensibly and controlled without having to put too much effort into measuring and counting and all of those things that became tiring after a week or two.  I decided to skip the exercise portion that goes with most diets for a while to allow myself time to get used to the new eating plan.  The first week I lost 11lbs!  The second week I followed with 6 more!  I was on a roll.  It was as if I was melting from the inside out.  It took time for people to even notice that I was losing.  When you are thin losing 5 or 10 pounds is very noticeable.  When you are nearly 300lbs it takes at least 30 before people question if you’ve lost weight.  It only took about two months (maybe less) for me to drop nearly 40 pounds.

35lbs lost

And that’s when things got interesting…

**I am struggling with this next part of the story…1. to make sure I tell it fair and from as honest a place that I can, 2. to explain it clearly and concisely and, 3. 7 years later it is still painful to rehash – bear with me, I will do my best.**

So there was this guy.  His name was (still is) Chris.  We had known each other for several years.  We were JUST FRIENDS.  I had the biggest crush on him.  We hung out pretty regularly before I started losing weight.  In fact he and I talked about my desire to get healthy and he was really supportive of my efforts.  We had a really goofy, no boundaries kind of friendship.  Like I said earlier I didn’t tell anyone I was dieting, especially him.  I wanted him to notice that I was looking thinner.  He noticed.  In fact he noticed sooner than anyone only 3 or 4 weeks in.  He was very excited and supportive of how well I had been doing and only encouraged me to keep going.  So we continued to hang out.  Then one weekend we were out together and he kissed me on the cheek.  I knew it!  He liked me, it was clear.  So the next time we were alone I asked him about it.  I recall saying something like “I probably shouldn’t be asking you this right now” and proceeded to ask him if he was interested in me and if my weight loss had anything to do with it.  We had never kept things from each other before so he was honest.  I thought that’s what I wanted – I did want that, I just didn’t know the effect his answers would have on my self worth over time.  He did like me but was hesitant to date while I was still losing weight to be sensitive to my process and for selfish reasons on his part.  We spent weeks discussing the status of our friendship/relationship.  I was so excited at the idea of dating him – dating someone I felt so connected to mentally and spiritually that I pushed really hard for him to get over the weight loss thing and start dating already.  I knew he was not 100% sure he was ready but I was 130% so I rationalized that it kind of evened things out (and patience is not my strong suit).  Around the time of our first date I had hit the 75lbs lost mark.  I felt so good about myself.  When I got dressed up to go on dates I felt truly beautiful.  I bought products for my hair and new makeup and perfume.  I even wore heels!!  It was magical.  He took me on your standard dinner dates but nothing about dating him felt “standard”.  I convinced myself I was living a fairytale.  We were happy but I spent a lot of time in lala land feeling so excited I had found my soul mate (I thought we were one evil step mother away from being a Disney movie…).

75lbs lost

Shortly after we started seriously dating I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  I had not faltered one day, one meal, in the previous 5 months but I was heading to another country to serve and didn’t feel like my diet could take precedence over respecting our hosts.  That mindset sounds all good and innocent, but as soon as we landed in Miami (our layover) I gave myself permission to go off my diet – but not permission to fall off the wagon – however I felt like I did…I had a turkey and cheese sub sandwich with mayonnaise and a bag of chips and real pop!  Then I bought a small bag of candies and a small bag of teddy grahams for the flight (the fact that I can remember exactly what I ate and recall devouring all of that “off limits” food just tells me how obsessed with food and my diet I was then, and how restrictive I was).  The slope was slippery!!  When we landed in the DR our host was waiting to take us out for pizza.  The pizza wasn’t that good but I ate far more than a controlled portion.  We went to our hotel and about an hour after I went to sleep I woke up feeling like my chest was on fire.  I thought maybe I was having some indigestion from the drastic shift in diet.  (damnit megan why did you do this?!?)  Then I thought the pain was too severe to be indigestion and it must be a heart attack (oh sweet jesus don’t let me die in another country!!!).  I was rushed to the nearest hospital, was asked a bunch of questions, got a chest xray, an EKG, and an ultrasound all to find out I had gallstones.   I was told that it is common for extremely overweight people to have stones and even more common that a gallstone “attack” occur as you are losing and then have a largely fatty meal (damn you pizza!!).  So I was laid up for the rest of the trip and got my gall bladder removed a month after returning home.  The whole thing was an ordeal and something inside of me got shut off on that trip – my self discipline.

Chris and I continued dating.  He even came to visit me after my surgery (I think I basically begged him to come and even was an ass about making sure he sent me flowers – I had expectations and a fantasy he had to live up to!).  It became very obvious my weight loss from week to week (I shared in detail with Chris every week) was slowing down.  I went from averaging 4lbs a week to 1 or 2.  And Chris didn’t get it.  I made excuses and at times lied about what I was eating but I began to feel a bit defensive with all the questions.  I started to wonder why the 75lbs weren’t enough.  Our relationship continued to get more serious we said the ‘I love you’s and talked about spending our lives together.  I was drunk on love.  It was bad.  I was blind to the scary dark undertone that developed in our relationship.  This ‘weight thing’.

85/90lbs lost

We spent Thanksgiving together and I thought I was looking good, somewhere around 90lbs down.  A week after we got home from visiting his family I got the question I’d hoped to avoid that week – “so did you lose any weight last week? I forgot to ask?”  I knew it was coming because we celebrated my successes together every week. “no. I gained 4 pounds…but some of it was probably from traveling and I’ve been working really hard this week and by Sunday I will have lost it all so its ok…right?” There was a clear and painful shift between us from that moment on.  My diet went from being something we both celebrated for me to it being an expectation for the relationship to continue for him.  By the end of the following week we had decided to “take a break” to see if I could get back on track with my diet and such.

**Now this part of my story is hard to tell for so many reasons, but one of the very important reasons is because I don’t want all of the blame to end up on Chris.  He and I can share it 50/50.  I defended him at the time to all my friends because I was not willing to look at some of it without my ‘drunk on love’ goggles on.  Then after coming out of that I spent years being furious with him for it.  None of it has done me any good and I think the only way that telling this story is of any use is if I own my half of the destruction of the relationship 50/50; but this is my story and it can’t be skipped over because of its profound effects on my motivation, self worth, and relationship with food.**

I wanted to get back on my diet as much as he wanted it for me.  I shared his viewpoint that I didn’t want to be with someone who would just accept me the way I was.  I wanted to be with someone who loved me enough to want me to live as long as I could and not live overweight and die young.  This part of it is so confusing and tough to work through in my mind.  I wanted to be loved for who I was on the inside – but I didn’t want to be loved as is because it wasn’t my best me, or the me I needed to be in order to live a long and healthy life.  Additionally I had already started to fall out of love with myself the moment that I “cheated” at the Miami airport and then continued to binge and “purge” with exercise and minimal calories – so expecting someone else to love me felt unrealistic.  When we went on a ‘break’ I was devastated.  I wanted to be with him.  I had already committed in my heart to spend my life with him.  I made choices in our relationship based on that internal commitment. So I cut my calories down to the minimum and went running, a lot.  Within a couple of weeks he and I decided that we would continue with our plans to spend Christmas with each others families and see where things went.  I sent an email to his mom letting her know the small amounts of rabbit food I would require while we were staying with them (I was consuming on average 800 calories a day – less if I could bear the hunger).  Things were looking up for our relationship but I had entered dangerous territory in my relationship with food and my weight and how those defined me).  I weighed myself the day before Christmas Eve and I had dropped 100.5lbs total!!!  I was 189.5!  I was so proud of myself.  And I knew he would be proud of me too.

100.5lbs lost! (I looked normal sized standing between my sisters!!)

We officially decided to get back together on Christmas day.  I was so happy.  On New Years Eve morning we had a small fight that turned into the ugliest fight I had ever been in by that night.  We were done (again).  I was devastated.  I had worked so hard; under eating to reach a goal I thought would make me worth hanging onto and within a few days it was all over.

I cried for days, weeks, I cried so much I nearly lost my voice. I regularly went to work/school with wet, swollen, red eyes.  I could barely hold it together.  My friends were angry with him.  I was angry with me and then him.  It was all really confusing.

I binged.  Often.  We saw each other every Sunday due to a shared commitment we both had so I would binge the first half of the week and be “really good” (aka, starving myself) the second half so that I didn’t have a gain on the scale by Sunday.  I was in so much pain.  I said a lot of hurtful things.  I convinced myself he wasn’t hurting because my pain was too intense to believe he would hurt like I did by choice.  It was awful.  A few months later I found a job in Atlanta, GA that started three weeks after I finished school.  All I wanted was to get out of Chicago and start over.  I abandoned my Bachelor’s degree and the opportunities it offered to be a live in nanny in Atlanta, GA so that I could get as far away from him as possible.  What I didn’t realize is that you can’t run away from yourself no matter how far away you go…

Keep reading… Part 3

It’s time to begin

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I have been thinking about starting this blog for several months now.  In fact this is not my first go at the whole blog thing. This time I am truly committed to sticking with this blog to keep track of my journey for however long I feel it is beneficial.

I want to start by sharing why I chose the name that I did for this blog.  Jump Starting Me.  It is, in its truest sense, my number one goal.  Since 2006 my life (spirit, energy, attitude, outlook) have slowly stalled out – my goal is to reclaim those things and improve my quality of life and thus improve Preston’s quality of life, who has become the reason I do anything now.  I find myself comparing my current life with my life in 2005.  That was the year I lost 100lbs.  I had myself convinced I was going to marry my soul mate.  I was in my final year of completing my Bachelor’s degree, and was living the life of a 20-something in Chicago.  I felt alive that year.  I felt confident.  I felt like all of my dreams and fantasies about my adult life were going to play out perfectly.  I couldn’t have been further from reality.  Throughout the past 7 years I told myself that the life I had always envisioned just slipped right out of my hands – and in some senses it did – but I played a large role in retreating to the safety of obesity and general withdrawal from life.  So my blogs name reflects my goal to jump start my body, mind, spirit, and head back to a place that is greatly feared but is the kind of living I want for my life and for Preston’s life.

My focus will be primarily on weight loss.  I know that my weight is my best excuse, my biggest challenge, my most effective protector, my worst enemy, and a death sentence.  I became so supremely aware of my mortality the moment I realized I was pregnant with Preston.  My life was not my own anymore.  God blessed me with the responsibility to raise and care for Preston.  But knowing how much my little man relies on me scares me so much; every time I feel slightly dizzy or have a pinch in my chest I fear I might not be around another day for Preston.  I know being overweight, obese even, means that I won’t be allowed to play the role in Preston’s life that God has intended.  My hope is that through this blog I can explore what happens in my brain that convinces me that making bad eating decisions trump being around for Pres for many more  years to come.  So my primary focus must be to take this weight off – again – and then some.  My plan is to share photos, work out plans, recipes, the whole thing through the blog.  I’m not sure if I’ll be weighing in ‘Biggest Loser’ style every week, but I might share the numbers once I become more comfortable revealing my true weight to the unknown thousands ;) that will someday be reading this blog – we’ll see.

Another area of my life that will likely come up regularly is the struggles I face as a single mom.  Being a single parent is very foreign to me.  My parents have been married for nearly 34 years and thus I have no experience being raised by only one of them.  I have only one single mom friend who lives 850 miles away.  It was never my intention to be a single mom.  I didn’t decide one day that I wanted a child so badly I would just have one and do it by myself.  I made a choice given all the circumstances of what was in Preston’s and my best interests.  But it was a tough choice.  I have second guessed that choice many times over the past 4 years.  But I know that ultimately it is what is best.  My hope is that maybe through this blog I might be connected with other single moms – that would really be great!

Beyond those two areas, I intend to touch on areas of my financial improvements (like budgeting, saving, goal setting etc), my spiritual journey, and basically anything else that I fancy, since this is my blog and all ;)  I can pretty much guarantee that Preston will make several appearances throughout the course of this blog because he is the light of my life, and he is too funny not to share with everyone.  Today I commit to write three days per week.  My intention is that I post five times a week but I don’t want to commit that until I get a sense for this.

Peace be with you…