As for counting the times I've been standing here, looking into the mouth of the wide abyss, I couldn't do it. I am a chronic dieter (and re-gainer) with a lifetime of disordered eating. I restricted, fasted, purged and used drugs in high school to get down to my lowest weight (a none-too-dainty 170 lbs). My best friend was anorexic, waif-thin, and my already messed-up way of thinking about food went into a tail-spin when we started collaborating. Now here I am, four years later, sixty pounds heavier (!!!) and endlessly wiser- although I wouldn't go so far as to call myself wise. My biggest problem is that I know all the right things to do, I know what's best to eat, which exercises work best for my body to kick me into shape, my patterns of behavior, but I continue to indulge myself as though there were a chubby eight-year-old girl embedded in my brain, controlling my decisions with unpredictable temper tantrums. In my opinion, that stubborn child is actually food addiction and disordered eating habits. It's my long-term goal to break the addictive cycles that bind me to unhealthy foods without going over the line and indulging my obsessive tendencies (i.e., counting calories with such perfectionism that I end up restricting as much as possible and sinking below 1000/day, effectively halting my metabolism in its tracks and setting myself up for one mother of a binge). I want to find the healthy balance, the happy medium, the "normal" zone where I view food as fuel and have little or no emotional attachment to it beyond that. Whether "normal" is attainable for me is yet to be seen, but at the very least I want to learn to manage my impulsive and destructive eating tendencies so that I can live a happy, healthful life.
This time, I've started out fairly slow by my standards. First I cut back from the outrageous 3000+ calories I know I must have been consuming daily by eating fast-food and having food delivered every day with wild abandon (my fiance goes to work for eight hours five days a week and alone at home for those eight hours I would go to incredible ends to obtain and gorge on food secretly, carrying the take-out containers and bags of food-trash to the dumpster for our apartment complex before he got home so he would never know). I'm writing in the past tense, but these are all still very present and real dangers that I'm working to avoid every day. I've been on plan, doing pretty good for about a week now. It started off slow, like I said, when I almost by accident ate a "normal" amount one day and didn't *gasp* DIE of starvation. When I discovered I'd had a successful day, my first thought was to go in the kitchen and binge on food I normally wouldn't look at twice. How screwed up is that? But I fought the urge, and snuggled into our warm bed and fell asleep instead of indulging the desire. That was the one giant leap I've been waiting for, the one that always kick starts weight loss for me- breaking the cycle. One day without fast food and I start to realize that I don't need or even really crave the stuff as much as I think I do when I'm all hopped up on saturated fat and gooey meaty cheesy combinations of toxic deliciousness. Really, bringing my calories back below 2000/day was a triumph in its own right, and through-out the week I've managed to stay under the 1898/day that livestrong.com suggests I eat in order to lose 2 lbs per week. It started basically while I wasn't looking, and then I started tracking the calories I was eating and keeping up the momentum, no muss, no fuss, no mad dash to various weight loss sights to announce my merry leap back onto the wagon. Just slow, small progress every day. After a solid week of stress-free eating, I already feel better, rejuvenated, more beautiful if you can believe that! What's more, I WANT to keep going because I feel great and I'm excited about cleaning out my system, treating myself to beauty products and tasty clean food and yoga (oooh yoga, love of my life, why did I ever leave you?), essentially getting my act together at long last. I know that progress and success happen with a plan, not a rush of motivation. Too many times have I had my heart broken by MY SELF because I lost five lbs, ten lbs, maybe even fifteen and thought I was on top of the world, thought there was no way I could ever go back after realizing how good it felt to lose weight, and how honestly easy it was. My approach, this time, is slow and thoughtful and excited. I want to take the time to get to know myself at this weight and every weight on the way down. I don't have some magic date by which I hope to be a size four (hah! I'm not sure whether I EVER want to be a size four, I'm afraid it would compromise my hourglass figure), and instead of waiting to reward myself until after grueling weeks of dieting and loss, I've gone ahead and bought a new skincare system, dyed my hair, and splurged on Herbal Essence shampoo. In addition to getting physically fit, it's a strong desire and goal of mine to start putting more love into my skin and my hair and my nails, my whole appearance. Right now I live in yoga pants, I've only just begun to make myself wash my face every night, and I never fix my hair or wear makeup. I'm sort of floating in this sub-existence where I don't take care of my appearance because I figure, since I'm fat, it really doesn't matter how pretty my face is or how soft my skin feels. I've had to remind myself that I am engaged, and my man DOES care about my face and my skin and he thinks I'm sexy, especially when I put a little effort in (in his opinion, I'm beautiful no matter what- but I know that a little effort goes a looong way when it comes to my appearance, and I love to get dressed up and look nice, so why have I been denying both of us this small pleasure?). What's more, I love taking care of myself and grooming myself. I hate to see myself naked, and sometimes when I'm doing makeup or whatever I get frustrated because of the fat on my face that's hiding me, and I will probably not go shopping for any nice clothes (other than some $15 cargo fat pants from Wal-Mart that I desperately need so I don't have to spend another semester rocking the pajama-chic look) until I am a size or two down at least, but taking small steps to make myself more beautiful every day boosts my confidence, and that boosts my ability and desire and motivation to get healthy and lose weight. I want to be beautiful from the inside out- I'm reading a book by Mariel Hemingway called something to that effect, I think it's Healthy From the Inside Out, that's teaching me invaluable things like learning to read the influence that foods have on my mood and general feeling of well-being, therefore having some motivation other than the taste-factor to steer me towards the right, healthful foods. She also talks about calming exercises such as yoga and meditation, and cleansing processes that include throwing all the junk out of my fridge and giving it a good scrub down so that it reflects how clean I will be on the inside, all full of good whole foods. The book is really helping me with one of my major dieting problems, my psychological mindset, and reworking that from every angle so that I can make a real lifestyle change.
So for now, I have really simple goals. I want to incorporate some basic yoga, strength training and cardio into my routine, starting off easy with basic exercises where I just need my yoga mat, tennis shoes and the resistance of my own body weight. I'm thinking some sort of exercise at least five times a week, with a sixth easy day of yoga if I want it, and a day of rest. Cardio at least three times a week, skipping every other day. As for food, I'm tracking my calories and trying to roughly plan out what I want to eat for the day, making a plan in the morning of my most healthy options but not berating myself if I don't stick to it (at least not for now). As long as I stay under 1900 calories I'm happy in this first stage. It's all part of the slow start that I'm learning to savor. I want to write in this blog every day, though I know there's no way I'll be able to manage that all the time, so my priority is once a week. However, I view this blog as one of the strongest tools in my recovery, so I may end up taking more advantage of it than I think. My vision is for this blog to be a place that I can record my struggles and triumphs, my highs and lows, as well as my mundane day-to-day. I want to post pictures of yummy, healthy foods that I eat, and I may even post condemning pictures of the junk food I will inevitably slip up and eat sometimes. Mostly, like me, this blog will be a giant work in progress, hopefully only getting better with time and effort. It will be my story, the chronicle of my journey, and even if I only end up motivating ME, it will be so powerful and so very worth it. Part of my problem is sticking to goals I make for myself, and this blog is an active exercise in sticking. So we face the wild blue yonder together, I guess, for better or worse, fingers crossed, here we go.
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