So on March 30th I woke up at 4 A.M....again. It was the fourth time that week. I clutched my stomach, because I had woken up thinking I had gained back all the weight I lost. Tossing and turning, I felt so sad and angry with myself. Here I was, over a year after my weight loss journey had started, and I was STILL ten pounds from my goal weight. I spent February taking my diet down to the minimal amount of calories. I weighed myself three times a day. I did everything I could think of. Injury had side-lined me from serious exercise, and I just felt lost. Then the binging started. Once or twice a week in March I would binge (in fact I wrote about it here). I was up to 151. I was overweight, again. I felt like the worst failure in the world. I just wanted to melt into my bed and disappear. I felt like when people looked at me, they saw what I phony I was...how hopelessly out of control and stupid. I clutched my stomach and faced the abyss: what am I? Am I just a worthless lump if I do not make my goal? My heart screamed yes, yes, yes! However, my mind said: NO! I needed help. I needed to reach out. I needed to get a handle on what had ceased being a diet and had become a way to punish myself for something that I always thought was secretly true: that I am just not worth anything.
The upcoming weekend was Wondercon (it's a comic book convention in San Francisco), so I knew there were two ways I go approach the con. I could agonize over every bite or I could use it as an opportunity to relax and learn to eat like a woman on vacation. That's what I did. I ate. I didn't overeat, I didn't under eat. I ate chocolate, drank alcohol, and ate things without asking for nutritional information first. Yes, I gained almost ten pounds over three days! However, I lost it all the following week by eating sensibly and getting some minimal exercise.
The break I got a Wondercon did a lot for me. I felt free to reach out and talk things out. I started to talk to friends about how depressed I was about my lack of progress and my self destructive behavior. I started opening up first to my Saturday walking buddy, then my other walking buddies, my TOPS friends, and my husband. All of them, even my mom (who worries endlessly about my weight loss--sorry mom, but it's true!) encouraged me to rethink my goal. I had let this number control my mood and actions for far too long! They all saw something I didn't.
Finally, the Weight Recorder at my TOPS chapter said to me: "Look at your numbers! Your body wants to be around 150-155. You've been through so much this year, let your body rest. These last ten pounds can wait." I started to cry...giving up my goal would be letting everyone down. I just thought that I needed to get there so that others would not think I was a loser!
Now, I realize that I cannot do all the things I need to do: train for a marathon, return to graduate school, raise a child, and rehab my leg...while obsessing on this goal!
So, I told my husband this morning: I am revising my goal to 150. Maybe I will change it in the future, but for now 150 is good. This resolution is not what I had in mind, but perhaps my doctor knew something I didn't when she first suggested 150 as a goal for me. The bottom line is I need the psychological rest. So, I am taking it!
This morning I weighed in at 155.8, so I know that, if I don't get a handle on my emotions around my body and my spirit, that I will regain all the weight that I lost. As my husband said this morning, a physical goal is better than an arbitrary number. My new goal is to run/walk a 1/2 marathon in October. Tomorrow, I start training.
Wish me luck!
The numbers:
Starting Weight 235
Current Weight: 156
There is only one goal: self love--whatever that means to me right now.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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