I will survive, hey hey...

We made it through last week's tremendously hot, hot, hot Tastefully Simple party. I earned $65 worth of free product so that was a nice bonus to seeing my friends gathered in my little sweatbox apartment.

Today I started taking insulin for my diabetes. I am still taking all my other diabetes meds so now I am doing two shots a day: one of Victoza and one of insulin. My A1C was up from 6.7 to 8.3 and my glucose numbers are way too high.

I am also dealing with the stress of a work friend who is very ill and in the hospital again. He has been sick for many, many months and hospitalized for almost that whole time. He was improving but now has had quite a setback. I am sending up many prayers for him and his family.

In my free time I am working on making cards and a scrapbook page for upcoming events. I feel like I am slowly making progress with my business although I am not pushing it very hard. It is mostly about me right now and I am okay with that. I am just enjoying the crafting and pure joy of making beautiful things.

Oh, and on the MS front, I was the number one individual fundraiser for my local work and the 39th highest fundraiser in the state. Other than that, I am doing my monthly Tysabri and doing well.

The biggest hurdle I need to clear is the diabetes and obesity issue. Move more, eat better, take my meds, and test, test, test. I'll make it!

This isn't my first rodeo...

It's been almost a week since I last posted. What have I been up to?

Well, on the diabetes front I am basically testing twice a day like I was told to do. I have started eating better with more fruits and veggies.

Exercise? Well, something's gotta give and it's been that. I have only exercised once, partially because I am lazy and don't think about it until about eight o'clock and it's hot and humid then. I have been more active than usual because I have been cleaning and organizing and hauling things out to the dumpster. I am having a Tastefully Simple party on Thursday with a bunch of friends coming over to my place.

Having a party like that once a year is a good thing because I see my friends, we have a great time, and I clean my place up! The bad thing is it's supposed to be about 100 degrees that day which is just ridiculous. It never gets that hot here and I only have air conditioning in my bedroom. Sigh, I'll figure something out with the fans to keep people alive and ungrumpy.

My brother is still home which is nice. I met his new girlfriend the other day and she seems to have redeeming qualities beyond the fact that she is attracted to my dork of a brother. Hehehe...

Tomorrow will be the continuation of some cleaning and organizing and making the beer bread and the chocolate pound cake. I also have to make a strawberry cheeseball. Everything else is made already.

Now I just need to start moving my body!

Back in the saddle again ...

Today was a day of reckoning as I drove myself out to the diabetes nurse educator's office. First off, we stopped at the scale and blessedly my weight really hasn't changed any. I was scared to death that it had gone ever higher as I approach a rather large number that I don't want to surpass.

Then we took my blood for my A1C level (piece of cake after Tysabri yesterday) and we tested my glucose level. It was 221 five hours after I had eaten. Not good. Really not good.

I came out with the truth about my lackadaisical testing regimen and my recent high blood sugar numbers. I told her that I was getting no exercise. Shame, your name is Weeble!

So, what am I going to do about this and where does she plan to go?

It looks like I will be starting insulin once a day at the end of the month. If we do that then I no longer have to be on the pills. If it works better then I am all for it as I am already doing a Victoza shot daily.

On my end, I have to check my glucose levels twice a day and report those numbers in two weeks to her. That, coupled with the A1C level, will be the insulin clincher.

I also started exercising again tonight. It was 27 minutes of very low intensity walking but it was something. I am making a real effort from this point on to build up my exercising to 3-4 days a week. I am also charting my blood sugars online along with my exercise at a health site. I really enjoy spending time online so why not use that to my advantage?

I am also making a true concerted effort to eat better and choose better meals and snacks. I even made a big salad tonight and enjoyed it. I'm not saying I will be perfect because I won't be but I have the time and energy to focus on this. It is summer vacation, after all.

Consider me back in the saddle again. My horse may not be moving anywhere but I am ready if it does!

One more day...

One more day until the gammagram and finally some news. I either get to stop worrying or I turn myself into a whirling dervish who is on a one-way path to getting better. In the meantime I have walked the last two evenings to get some movement going with this body and to help deal with the feelings of nervousness.

I need to stop bullshitting myself about this whole bit with my diabetes. My glucose numbers are all out of whack because I am only taking one Metformin pill a day instead of the four I was taking because of all my bowel explosion issues. I am still taking Glipizide and my Victoza shot but it seems that all I eat is carbs, carbs, and more carbs. I have at least got myself to the point where I am taking my blood sugar numbers once a day; all this after months of hardly any readings.

It's time to start really thinking about what I am eating and exercising regularly again. I feel better when I eat better and I move more, yet I am a slack ass and I don't do it nearly enough. Time to pull out my Geneen Roth books, dust them off, and find those pages that ring true for me.

How is it that we as women often sabotage ourselves as if we don't deserve to be fit and healthy? We put ourselves last on the list and I don't even have a family of my own to take care of, no hubby anymore or kiddos, so what the heck is my reason for acting so piss poor lately? Why do I let myself fall apart and gel into this giant body?

It's time to focus on me more and getting healthier. I can win the fight against diabetes and I can get it under control again. I have summer vacation coming up and I will have all sorts of time to take care of me in many different ways.

Wishing you health and happiness, Weebs

A little bit fraudulent

I posted my A1C and glucose levels yesterday. They're much better than I thought they would be and I am delighted about that. But I must come clean...

Sometimes, often times, I take my blood sugar when I know it will be low so I can record it. I have been a little bit fraudulent with my readings therefore but I am overall doing much better than I ever thought, as evidenced by the A1C. You can't fake that as it is the the last three months worth of readings averaged out.

So here I am trying to cut down on my carbs at night and starting on a new diabetes med called Victoza. Victoza is a daily shot, not insulin, but another new med that works with the pancreas. I am no longer on Actos and I have been on this new med for a little over a week now. It has a side effect of weight loss and I think I am eating less on it, even though I have been dealing with major hormones the last few days. Losing weight and pulling lower numbers at all times would be a great thing for me to do.

I am also slowly getting back into using my Wii. I have been dancing and boxing a few days a week. Way better than my doing nothing. I still need to lose about ten pounds to get back to my lower weight (and then keep going from there).

Work is going well even with one stressful class. I seem to be doing okay with the major change in grades and learning all 100+ kiddos. I am healthy and happy and thriving even with the new obstacles.

I guess I'll keep on keeping on!

Sneaking

I recently started corresponding with a new friend about food issues via email. In the course of our conversation it brought up this memory about sneaking food.

I remember a time from my childhood where I snuck some food because I felt I needed it. It was as if there were some magnetic draw between myself and the food. I had to have it.

I was probably a tween and it was definitely summer. I remember wearing shorts, remember sitting at the kitchen table, remember it being the weekend. My mother was making lasagna and had taken a brick of mozzarella and shredded it by hand with a grater.

She left the room and the fresh pile of cheese behind. I got up to eat a little bit, stuffing it into my mouth quickly. Then I went back for more.

My father came charging into the kitchen questioning me about the cheese. Had I taken some? Where was it?

I had heard him coming and hidden the cheese under my leg, my right leg, as I sat at the table. He made me open my mouth. No cheese. He looked around and then discovered the hidden food. I remember a lot of yelling and my mother coming back into the room, looking at me, while I sat shamefacedly.

I think I had been in the room to be close to my mother who worked a lot. I remember the feeling of shame, the embarassment, the guilt. I had stolen from her, from them, and in doing so removed myself even further from her.

Why did I have to sneak that cheese? Why was I compelled to eat? Why couldn't I just sit there like a good girl, a normal girl? Why did I have to let my mother down again?

Hiding

How do you hide an overweight woman? Answer- in plain sight underneath all the fat and flab. A big girl learns to hide under specially chosen clothes, with a big smile, ready to deflect any conversation about herself to talk about others.

If she sees a mirror she flinches and looks away. She does not want to see her ever expanding girth. She does not want to see the thick waist, the belly that hangs down, the wide hips. She dresses in silence, willing herself not to see the X's in front of the L or the 2's as a first digit in pants or shorts sizes.

She pretends she is a normal size, just slightly bigger. To do otherwise would lead to a further loss of self-esteem. She has so little now that it would seem cruel to add more fuel to the fire.

When she does her Zumba that is the only time when she feels good. The only time her body does not betray her. The only time when she feels powerful, strong, lovely. Is it that time she treasures and holds tight when reality tries to slip back in.

It is better than nothing.

Stretch

I remember being young and fat, of course. I was always chubby and I was always embarrassed by it. I had to get clothes in the bigger kids' section, the Missy Plus area. In second grade my pants split and everyone on the playground saw my underpants. In fourth grade I noticed red marks appearing on my skin, especially my belly.

Imagine my shame when one afternoon I was playing on the floor with my little baby brother. My shirt went up and my big round belly was exposed. Both my parents saw the stretch marks.

I was immediately pounced upon verbally by both of them. They were ashamed of me and my weight and my stretch marks. There was a verbal barrage of how bad it was to be so young with those marks. I was branded forever, taught to be further embarrassed by a body that wasn't seemingly under my own control.

Once again my body let me down, I let me down, and I let my family down. That's an awful lot for a little girl to carry on her little shoulders.

Full

Why is it that some of us choose to eat past the point of comfortableness and go straight to full? Is it because we feel we're lacking in some way, that somewhere there is an emptiness that we are trying to rid ourselves of?

For me filling my stomach makes me feel something. I feel when most of the time I just glide through my life on a sort of invisible track, going through the same motions day to day.

I feel full, weighted as if I do indeed exist on this planet. Days can pass now where I sit in my apartment and see no one else, interact with no one else. But if I eat I take up space. I can be seen whereas before I was empty, full of air. I eat to be hidden from view yet I eat to be viewed as well.

How is that possible? How can one be empty and full at the same moment? Simply because what I am filling up is not the part of me that needs support and love. The empty parts of me are the ones that are the most sacred, the most needy, the most deserving. Yet I share them the least.

When will I learn it's okay to be filled with happiness, delight, wonder and self-acceptance? When will I learn that eating does not, will never, can not fill the voids in my life? All it does is make me bigger on the outside instead of on the inside.

Again

After yesterday's post I realized that I needed to regroup and get focused. I need to start a new way of eating again. It's time for me to be conscious and to follow the guidelines that Geneen Roth puts forth in her books.

When I do what she's suggested I do better and feel better. When I slow things down and give that time while eating back to myself, it's magical. Less food fills me up. I make better choices. It takes longer to eat because I am tasting the actual food instead of just shoving it down.

I wonder if food will ever not have this pull over me. Why are some people able to just eat, to just sustain themselves with food? Why are others of us seemingly tortured day in and out, trying to eat well and get or stay thin?

Who decided that some of us see food as only fuel while others view food as friend, foe, solace, and comfort?

I have been chubby to overweight to obese for most of my life. When I was thin I was only that way due to an eating disorder. I have had a disordered view of food, weight and eating for as long as I can remember.

I'm trying to change that though, again...

More

We know too much of a good thing is just still too much and therefore not really a good thing. Lately I have been having issues with too much, specifically my weight and my blood sugar. My glucose levels are slowly coming down but are still not in the normal range. I know this is because I am still enjoying a one-sided, unrequited love affair with carbs. Specifically, bagels and cookies from Dunkin' Donuts.

They, however, are basically through with me.

Most days I drive to DD before dawn has cracked to buy a bagel with strawberry cream cheese and a cookie or two. Then I come home and eat them in front of the TV. I am not eating them consciously like Geneen Roth recommends. I am not eating in silence and enjoying the food. I am inhaling it and waiting for the sugar rush to hit.

I am craving carbs like there is no tomorrow, as if each meal is the last one on this planet. This is not a good thing. Some people eat a bagel like this every day and are fine. I'm more of a junkie, biding my time to the next carb fix.

I have to stop and refocus on what Roth has suggested in her books. It's time to eat slowly, without distractions. Time to taste the food and savor it. Plus, I am having big time weight issues.

My weight is up nine pounds in less than 2 weeks. I'm not quite sure how that is possible. A bagel a day and maybe a cookie do not add up to that much poundage. I know I need to get in more fruits and veggies. I know my intestinal tract is rather sluggish and it's not my period.

So I did a little Zumba today and the other day. I had a big salad for lunch. I bought some bagels from the store to stop the DD runs so that means no more cookies. I am still only getting a small frappe once a week. I no longer order out every other night. McDonald's is a place I go for salad instead of burgers.

But I still crave more, more carbs, more sweets. I have curtailed my diet a lot from all the crap I was eating before. Then again I was thinner when I was eating all that crap because the sugar was just running through me.

I need to ask myself what I am trying to fix with food. There's some messy stuff hidden there that needs to be dealt with. I need to do this soon before I go back to work, which is part of the issue. I'm still nervous but doing better because I know I still have weeks left before we start up again. I know I can do this.

I have to do this. My body needs me to get it healthy. I'd like to get off some of this medication. I'd like to start the scale moving in the right direction again. I want to buy smaller clothes. I miss my button-fly jeans!

Time to spend more time eating consciously and looking at the messy stuff.

Into the light

In college, several states away from home, I was very sick with bulimia. There I started real therapy for the first time in my life. I was slightly hopeful. Maybe then someone could see the good in me.

At one time I was so ill I had to go to the college infirmary every day for vitals. Every morning I dutifully showed up. I was a good girl underneath all the "badness". I did as I was told.

Eventually the therapy helped me to realize I wasn't worthless. I never took meds there for depression but that improved also. I got better with someone believing in me.

When I was doing better, years later, the bulimia came under control. Eventually I stopped all the pills and the purging. I went from throwing up every night to nights where I could eat and retain the food like a normal person. I didn't have to excuse myself to go purge any more. I put on some weight once I stopped the bulimia, not much, but I remember my mother saying I looked pregnant. I was so hurt because my family knew of my bulimia but ignored it. They were good at ignoring big problems and making me feel bad about myself.

Now I see a new life, a better one. One not filled with so much anger. One where I can let lots of the past go.

This new life is a strange one. Part of it is better living through pharmaceuticals, part of it is better living through ten years of intense therapy, part of it is self-acceptance, wisdom, and self-love. A lot of it is personal growth.

If I can overcome depression and bulimia, I can overcome anything. If I can adjust to life with multiple sclerosis, I can learn to deal with diabetes. I can learn to control my weight instead of letting it control me.

It's time for the real me to shed the extra weight and let my light shine.

Safety

What makes you feel safe? Is it knowing that you have a home to call your own, friends who keep your secrets, a spouse who loves you no matter what, or a combination of these things?

For me, safety has been being overweight, to be full to the point where no one can see inside me. It meant to be surrounded by and covered with weight so no one could get to my core, the place where the real me survives.

Slowly, ever so slowly, that is changing.

Weight has been a form of protection, a barrier from and for others for a lifetime. To change that takes great courage and introspection. Looking inside and at myself is something I rarely do. What I see frightens me and causes me to want to run away from that.

What do I see when I look deep inside? I see someone who is small and scared, someone needy and wanting, someone desperate for intimacy but so scarred that I run from it when it's offered. I see someone who wants to be less shy and more open, less restrained, happier, and more content with my life. But I haven't known how to do that until recently.

Shining the light on the messy stuff is hard. Working through the weight issues means not just losing pounds but getting my head on straight. My mother suggests weight loss surgery but that would only solve the problem of the pounds not the actual demons I battle. When you live feeling like you are unloveable, that you are not worthy, that you are not enough, it does not matter whether you weigh 110 pounds or 210 pounds. The feelings are still there and the pounds will come back if that is how you deal with things.

Food is slowly but surely losing its hold over me. I have cut down to one small frappe a week. I no longer go to Dunkin Donuts for bagels or cookies. I can order a pizza and it can last for more than one meal. It sounds silly but these are small victories for me. I am doing battle against diabetes, against obesity, against these feelings of being less than I am.

I am slowly winning but this isn't a race, it's just a journey that I need to take.

Too much of a good thing

I still have more than a month until I officially go back to school to work. I do have to work two days coming up in a few weeks and I will have to go in and set up my new room but for real work, I have some time left to waste. The thing is it's too much of a good thing. I have too much time on my hands.

Sounds like a good thing but for me it isn't. I wouldn't mind working all year long and having three days off a week. Throw in our regular vacations and I would be a happy camper.

Food can be too much of a good thing too. It's all around me and available 24/7 because I am here at home 24/7. I do better on an eating plan when I have a structured week. Now I am just all over the place, sleeping at odd hours, awake in the middle of the night, with no specific purposes to my days.

Food can be friend, enemy, joy, sadness, anything at all that I need it to be. What I need food to be is just fuel. That's what it is supposed to be anyway. Babies come in to the world with base instincts, eating being one of them. They basically eat whatever is placed in their mouths from the little spoons. They don't start out all whacked out about food.

How do so many of us get from there to here? I know I am not the only obese person in the country or the state or this city or even in my apartment building. There are literally tons of us. When did we come to the fork in the road and take it to eat more?

Why do I feel so alone in this when I am clearly not the only fat lady in the room? I guess that's why I see food as a friend at times. It keeps me company when I am lonely and fills up my time when I am bored.

Food as only fuel... something for me to ponder.

Feeling and not feeding

Today I stepped a little outside of my comfort zone and went to a party at a friend from high school's house. I haven't seen him for about twenty years, except for on Facebook which is how the whole party got started. First off, I am shy. Honestly I am. Most people don't know that but I prefer to stay out of the spotlight. I prefer to hide rather than shine. I prefer to feed instead of feel.

What does that mean?

Well, I've mentioned before how I use weight to separate myself from others. Being fat allows you to exist on the fringe of society. People see me, but they don't really see me. Instead they see flesh, poundage, rolls. They can focus on my looks and not focus on what lurks beneath. If they are looking at my fatness then they are not able to see what the Inner Voice talks about: how I am selfish, lazy, unlovable... I listen to those words and cringe and feed.

But not today, not so much.

Today I grabbed my fruit tray and traveled with my trusty and reliable friend BJM to our friend's house. I tried not to worry about the way I looked and who would be there. When it was time to eat I did not gorge myself because I was feeling uncomfortable. I felt the feelings and smiled and listened and occasionally talked. I ate appropriately and did not come home and binge. I shut down the Voice for a while.

Sometimes silence is golden.

Making choices

When I choose not to eat consciously and without the television, I find myself overeating, putting way too much food inside me. I did this this morning eating a bagel with cream cheese, a cookie, and a small frappe for breakfast. What the heck was I thinking? I guess you could say I wasn't thinking. I was just looking to fill a hole that has been there since I was little. I was hungry for food but for something else, as well.

I want to rebel against the guidelines that have been set before me. I want to eat more carbs than I am supposed to, I want to eat more food than I am supposed to. I am what Geneen Roth calls a Permitter and boy, do I fit that description to a T. I want to throw out the rules and live and let live. The problem is that in doing so I am slowly killing myself. I mean how many health-related problems does a woman have to have before she cries enough?

Part of the permitter syndrome is falling prey to the Inner Voice I mentioned before. The Voice that says, "You're fat, unlovable, unworthy, selfish, dumb..." To shut the Voice down you can either stuff it down with food or feel the feelings behind it. This morning I chose to stuff it down.

Feeling the feelings behind the false beliefs of the Voice is tough stuff. I feel so much better when I choose to eat with no T.V., chewing thoughtfully, feeling and tasting the food. It's so much tastier and satisfying when you slow down and enjoy your eating. So why am I not doing it all the time?

I must remind myself that I am better than being a woman with type-two diabetes, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea. I deserve more than that. I can get my weight under control and must do so. In doing that I can start to control those things that I just mentioned. I can beat back the Inner Voice. I can eat consciously and I enjoy doing so. I just need to do these positive moves more often.

It's all about making choices. I hope yours are good ones.

The number

"It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale." (Geneen Roth)

That statement is absolutely true so why the heck do we buy into the scam? We live and sometimes die by the number on a scale. We're embarrassed by it, rejoice in it,or hide from it. A number. One number.

I know that when I follow the healthy guidelines put forth in Roth's book, I feel better. Physically feel better, mentally feel better... I slow down and think about what I am eating, why I am eating, and how I am eating. I now eat with no outside disturbance, no television to numb my pain or pass the minutes as I used to stuff the food down. Now I focus and breathe and do not punish myself for a number.

Do I want my number to go down? You betcha. I don't know what my final number will be. I do know what doctors' charts suggest and what Weight Watchers advises for my height. However, will I ever be a mere 100 pounds again? Not likely, because even when I was bulimic I weighed a little more than that. I've never been naturally thin. I have self-medicated with food or been quieted down with food since I was a toddler.

How can that be? One of my earliest memories was living with my grandparents and crying for my mother who was not home at the time. Apparently I would not shut up. I remember my grandfather yelling at my grandmother to shut me up. She rushed into the room with candy for me, little pieces that needed individual wrappers taken off. I recall quieting down and stuffing down the feeling of being alone, feeling abandoned and lonely. That was probably the start.

I remember being a chubby little girl, a moon face with big cheeks and pig-tails. I used to eat Oscar Mayer weiners raw from the fridge and at times I ate little bowls full of mayonaise. Who does that? How is that okay for a little girl?

I also remember later, maybe around aged five, living with my parents in a trailer. I often did not want to eat all my dinner. I would stuff food in my ample cheeks and go to the bathroom to spit out the offending mess. I would also stuff it into my napkin and, even more sneakily, I would chew food and mash it underneath the table around little ledges that were there.

I also remember times when I would sit at the table until my meal was done, being forced to eat everything on my plate. No wonder I later developed an eating disorder. People often say that ED's are not about food, but they are about the food just as much as the other reasons for having them. I learned to overeat, to eat unhealthily, to eat everything that was in front of me. We can get into that another time.

Today I just want to remind people that a number is just digits strung together. It's not your heart, your soul, your enchanting qualities, your wacky sense of humor. It's just not and that's the way it is.

Happy almost two year anniversary!

This morning I went back to my very first blog post and reread it. I was so smug then, thinking I had such important things to write about, such a good sense of humor, and a somewhat decent grasp of the English language. This is what I wrote at the end of that post:

I recall some saying out there that explains that giving a voice to or shining a light on a problem that is bothering you ends up diminishing that very same problem. So here's my chance, time to share my messy stuff and by the end it shouldn't look so bad after all.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Wow, who knew I was going to delve so deep into life with MS and life that doesn't revolve around MS? I had written so much about my journey with multiple sclerosis at the beginning that I never dreamt I would one day be not writing about it. I'm in remission and doing fine on Tysabri, especially now that we have the payment thing supposedly under control.

Who knew I would write about a new diagnosis, diabetes? I never imagined that I would end up diabetic until a few months ago when I began drinking tons of water, peeing my life away during the day, and watching my eyesight grow hazy as I tried to read aloud to my class. It's okay to be dealing with another disease. It really is; 'tis better to be dealt with than to let it run amok with sugar dripping out of me at an alarming rate. Next up on deck: the diabetes nurse educator on Tuesday.

I've written about work and family and mistreating myself. Now I turn the lens inward again to focus on weight and health. I am not healthy. I am obese. It pains me to say it, t0 type it. Some of you knew me when I was thin and fit, but I wasn't healthy then either. It was all a facade while I purged and ran and took diet pills and laxatives. I was a full-on bulimic for many years, starting in high school and carrying me through college.

I remember "beating" bulimia for the first time after I graduated from college. I had put on ten pounds and my mother accosted me and asked me if I was pregnant. Yes, I was rounder but still slender. Her remark cut me to the core. I was devastated and hurt. I left her house and moved in with my soon-to-be-betrothed shortly after. A huge mistake but one that tried to serve as a protective measure at the time.

That was part of what led me to gaining weight, lots of weight. A hundred pounds! I gained a small person; I gained what I should weigh at five feet tall. I gained the weight until I was suffering underneath it. I am now at a place where there is nowhere to go but down or up. My option is down.

Time to rage against the Inner Voice (this comes from Geneen Roth). The Voice that tells me that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not enough... The Voice that has held me hostage for many years and kept me cuckolded into thinking that I don't deserve health, I don't deserve love, I don't deserve just being the wonderful me that I am.

I vote for health, for love, for appreciation, for satisfaction, for excellence. It's time to tell the Voice that it is wrong, even if it takes me a million times. It's time to eat consciously with pleasure and for a real taste of food. It's time to lift my head up and say, "No more." It's time to gird myself for the battle of my life for this is a war that has to be won.

I hope that you continue to come along as I fight this battle. It could get ugly, but not any uglier than the non-truths I tell myself on the continuous loop in my head.

I AM ENOUGH!

I am fabulous and kind and intelligent.

I am going to become the me that I have been holding back because I have been scared of going up against all the awful labels.

I am ready world so you better watch out!

Yogurt

I just ate a yogurt, a raspberry cheesecake low-fat one. No biggie, right? Except it was a BIG deal, a HUGE deal if you are inhabiting my body.

I have almost finished reading Geneen Roth's latest book called Women Food and God. And no, there is not a parentheses in the title. It's been both a struggle and an eye-opener for me.

Back to the yogurt, though...

I experienced the yogurt like I've never done before. Yep, I ate it but I felt it and smelled it and savored it and focused on it. I actually turned the TV off while I was eating. That's a biggie for me right there. Then there was the ten-minute process of experiencing the yogurt. Yes, ten minutes. You read that correctly.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I was in the moment and conscious of what I was eating. I was feeding myself something I wanted and taking the time to enjoy it. I felt the texture and the little seedlings that make you think of raspberries. I smelled the yogurt before I even started eating it, felt the silky texture as it glided past teeth and over tongue and down my throat. I thought of my poor esophagus that I mistreated for years when I threw up after almost every meal. I thought about the mistreatment of my body by my own self through food.

There is a line in the book that made me say, "Wow, that is me, too." It's from a letter written to the author after one of her retreats.

The letter writer states,"I keep people out and one of the main ways I do that is by eating."

That is me to a T. I eat for lots of reasons and for a variety of emotions. I eat because I am lonely, I eat because I am alone, I eat because I am a bundle of nerves about my new job, I eat because I feel that I am not enough. I eat to fill up the space between my feelings and the reality.

I eat because I am sick, I eat because I feel good. I eat and eat and eat and it's somehow never enough. The eating isn't the answer but it's not not the answer either. It's time to slow down and rethink my relationship with food. I might finally be able to throw the door open and shine a torch on the dark spaces inside that I've kept hidden. It might just be time for the messy stuff to come out.

Weigh in

I did manage to lose a teensy, tiny bit of weight on Tuesday. That's a miracle because I had been up on my scale at home. I talked to the leader after the meeting and she told me to start getting protein with every meal, so that is my goal for the week. I threw myself off the wagon today and had a frappe. It was tasty but so not worth it. Sigh... drink and learn.

Edison the wonder kitty jumped up on the counter last night and knocked down his bottle of antibiotics. I cannot find the bottle anywhere so he gets a two-day pass on those meds. He still is taking his liquid ABX because he cannot open the fridge yet. Or can he? LOL

My meds are kicking in so I'll be logging off now.
Night,
Weebs