"Last Meal" Mania

As one of the wonders of being over 50, I am entitled to my first colonoscopy. TMI? Sorry about the Scope Dope but I only bring it up as a lead-in to my current problem. As part of the prep work for Wednesday's fun fest, I can't eat any solid food all day tomorrow. This, as any over-eater can imagine, has set off my binge alarm and I'm afraid that I might cave in to answer its siren call.

As anyone who has failed at diets as consistently as I have knows, the real reason for the lack of success is the notion of deprivation. Let's call it more than a notion - let's call it stone cold hard reality. I cannot be deprived of things and still find myself in a positive enough frame of mind to complete such a momumental task as losing all this weight. I've worked hard these past few months to get myself to a place where I can eat what I want - in moderation, with occasional splurges - and make sure I exercise every day, being conscious to raise the level and intensity as needed. I have forced myself accept a little weight loss over a long period of time - the old "Baby Steps" model - even though I am an instant gratification freak.

So as visions of mac and cheese and Chips Ahoy dance in my head in anticipation of being deprived, I must take a step back and get some perspective. I am only being asked not to eat for a day and a half - I am not going to the electric chair; therefore, I should resist the "last meal" mentality and suck it up. I may give in a little but if that's what it takes to get me over the hump, so be it. I am trying to get through this weight loss journey as best I can and without the self-sabotage that has brought me down before. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It never was as black and white as that and it never will be and I'd do well to remember that.

Playing The Cards You Are Dealt

Oh my! An entire month has flown by without an entry. But the good news is that my weight is down 1.6 pounds. It has been one of those months dominated by stuff that would have typically knocked me on my ass and off my mission. In days gone by, I would've become so overwhelmed with my problems that I would have thrown in the towel and sank into the deepest pool of self-pity I could find. Bad times happen to everyone. Life is unpredictable and stressful. I currently feel I'm in the middle of a "Perfect Storm": the combined stresses of sick and aging parents, a son entering adolescence and myself smack in the middle of menopause. Every day feels like I'm driving a dump truck with a tricky axle through a nitroglycerine factory. But perhaps the only good thing about getting older is I've finally come to realize that life is ALWAYS going to be this way and my choices are either to adapt or fail - and I'm so tired of failing. In fact, 214 pounds worth of failing.

We can rise above our circumstances. As the popular wisdom goes, you can't help the cards you're dealt but you can certainly learn how best to play them. So in spite of bad times I'm pushing myself forward to achieve my goal. Every day that I don't let the negative forces beat me down is another day that I've bettered myself and built up something you don't hear a lot about but is essential for a meaningful life: character. Gradually, all those days build up to form a good habit; be it daily exercise, a more positive attitude or riding the waves a little better. That is what I'm after - not the newest, quickest "diet". I want change - permanent change - that will last me my entire life. This time I'm working from the inside out as I believe that is the secret to permanent weight loss.

The Road To Hell...

Ah, yes, good intentions. As every fat person knows, there is no shortage of people out there who are trying to help us with their good intentions.

This situation revisited me last week as I had lunch with an old family friend. She is old enough to be my mother and I love her dearly. When I brought up the topic of being on a weight-loss mission, my friend immediately chimed in. First of all, there was the uncomfortable pause in the conversation as the look on her face betrayed her intial thought: "Does she know just how fat she really is?" Yes, I am aware, thank you very much. I'm all over it like a cheap suit. It's not like having a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth, you know. Even without benefit of a mirror, I am onto the fact that I need to lose weight. I'd have to be on life support to NOT know.

Then there was the very sincere but oh so humiliating helpful hints. "Have you tried Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig?" "Do you belong to a gym?" Again, thanks for the heads up but I get the whole diet and exercise connection and I don't need to have it pointed out to moi by vous, my little size six friend. I know how it works...I have just chosen to ignore it up to this point because it is h-a-r-d work. And I'm not always a fan of hard work - especially when I've wrapped up so much of my reward system in the exact thing I need to curtail. Now do you understand my dilemma?

And then I had to curl myself up into the fetal position as I anticipated the very predictable final blow: "You know, you have such a pretty face." Go ahead, finish out your thought. I DARE you! Such a pretty face and .....? Such a fat ass....right? I know, I know. But that doesn't make me a bad person. Never did, never will. You know, I have a skinnier sister (altho the old menopausal metabolism slow-down is hitting her like a bag 'o bricks - yippee!) who has the most vicious temper of anyone I've ever known and yet I don't know of anyone, friend or foe, who has ever implied that she get the kind of help she needs like they are way so enthusiastic about offering to me. She is a bad person and yet no one ever calls her on it. I am a very respectful - but fat - person and yet I'm the one getting all the "useful" advice. Go figure.

Usually the people giving advice have never been in my position, which is why they don't understand how hurtful their "helpful" comments can be. I know for the most part, it's out of love and concern. But as with any personal problem, it is something that must come from within, never without. My problem in the past with losing weight was that my focus was always from without - getting slim for a reunion, a wedding, the summer, to make a bitchy relative jealous, to get a cute guy's attention - and it never worked because it never got to the root of the problem: what was inside of me.

The good news is that I have done more "inside" work than ever before and it is having positive effects. It is going so slowly because there are some things - like my CoffeeBomb (20 oz. of coffee, oozing with Coffeemate) in the morning, that I refuse to give up. I know if I give that up, I will slip into the whole "deprivation" mentality and my efforts will spiral out of control. So for now, it will be slow but steady and it will work as long as I keep doing it a day at a time. Baby steps on the Road to Hell.

Not Such A Day At The Beach

Nothing quite says "fat loser" than squeezing yourself into a bathing suit for the first time in three years and pretending to enjoy yourself at the beach with your family. Spandex and sweat just don't mix. And I'm not talking just physical sweat from exertion or heat - I'm talking absolute flop sweat - the kind that you break out into when you realize that with very few exceptions, you're the fattest one on the beach. And nothing but that absolutely miserable feeling makes you want to crawl back into the vicious cycle of eating to soothe yourself.

I don't know what obseity epidemic they're talking about because the beach I visited today had only about 97% healthy specimens. The other 3% were either fat like me or in a disturbing new trend, elderly women parading around in flashy bikinis. (For the first and only time, I'm kind of glad to be a part of the former group as opposed to the latter.) Perhaps society has shamed those of us plus sized people into staying home. I sure wish I had. I've been promising myself for the past 10 years or so that next summer was going to be the one where I don't feel like Shamu's bi-ped sister who washed up on the beach. And I was doing so well with keeping my head in the weight loss game - until I was around so many scantily clad normal sized people and realized how very far I have to go. The elastic leg and arm bands of my bathing suit digging into my flesh didn't help matters either.

So I am safe at home now - back in my elastic waist pants and a cotton shirt, desperate not to drown my sorrows in chocolate. I must admit that my hands are still shaking as I took a real hard knock to my confidence today. I am trying my best to sit still and let the feelings of shame, frustration, and sadness pass through me until I don't want to eat to comfort myself any longer. And I am happy to report that I am NOT in the kitchen while waiting for this to occur!

We have another beach trip planned for Friday. This time we're headed to Rhode Island where no matter how bad I think I look, there are always lot of others in worse shape. No wonder I like it there so much.

"You're So Vein" Meets "Catch-22"

After 5 years of cutting me some major slack about my weight, my doctor had finally had her fill. "I want you to walk 30-45 minutes every day. It will help manage your weight a lot better." So would cutting out food from my diet but perhaps I haven't reached crisis mode yet.

I started walking only to have these nasty varicose veins I've had since my high school waitressing days start squawking. The pain and tightness were really bothering me so I went to see her again. She said the heat, humidity and increased exercise were all contributing factors - as well as the extra weight I'm carrying around. Well, duh."How can I lose the extra weight if my legs don't cooperate?" I asked. (And I actually was NOT looking for an excuse to quit exercising this time - I just wanted my old legs back.) She advised me to elevate my legs so that they were above my heart in order to help my circulation. Now if I could only get my legs up over my head I could become a stunt woman for Madonna with my only problem being the occasional STD. Not a bad trade-off.

Baby Steps, Big Picture

Three pounds down! Woo Hoo! Although the progress seems glacial I have to keep in mind that if I were to lose 1 to 1 1/2 pounds a week for an entire year, I'd eventually be down 50 to 70 pounds! (I am all about exclamation points today! Can you tell?!) It is so hard to keep the big picture in focus when time seems to pass so slowly - or should I say the time between meals passes so slowly. I have thought about nothing but food for the past 3 weeks. But it's just like anything in short supply - you want it most when it's least available - food, money, clothes, men, the list goes on. I haven't gone on any strict diets as I tend to rebel by eating to my heart's content. Plus I'm trying to keep in mind that this will have to become my new way of life; something flexible enough to last me for a long time. The other most important aspect is the exercise - I am doing it every day and as early in the day as possible. The later in the day it gets, the more tired I become and the more excuses I make. And I am all about finding excuses not to do the right thing. I have perfected the art of procrastination and that's a nasty habit I'm trying to break.

I may have made a big mistake last week. I asked my 12 year old son to take a "before picture" of me but swore him to secrecy. That probably wasn't very smart. Taking out a full page ad in the NY Times would probably have been the more discreet thing to do. I'm also going to need his help uploading the picture too. It's a good thing I have plenty of dirt on him to use as leverage. Maybe I need to trust him more. Yeah, right.

I know all the fitness experts tell you to "go public" with your weight loss efforts to keep yourself accountable but I'm not so sure. I have failed so many times before. I'm known as the Chunky Monkey Mama who cried "wolf" (sounds like "loaf", as in bread...mmmmmm!) one time too many. People do not take me seriously anymore. I don't think fat people in general are taken very seriously - except when cake is involved. I've been thin and I've been fat and believe me, thin people rule! I just want to be normal, that's all.

I Still Don't Know What I Want To Be When I Grow Up...But It Sure Ain't This

One of the best pieces of advice I got from a nutritionist whose time and expertise I completely wasted not so long ago was that when the emotional urge to eat hits me (it is the sudden craving that signals emotional hunger versus the slower, oncoming train version of physical hunger), I should "sit with my emotions" instead of acting on this hunger impulse. This concept goes against everything I have been doing for my entire adult life - but then again, one look in the mirror tells me that my current behavior needs serious revision. Perhaps there is some merit in what she says.

I'm no member of Mensa but I am smart enough to know that losing weight can be as easy as eating less and exercising more. But then there's that sixth toe of emotional hunger that I know I have but am reluctant to acknowledge. When (and if) I stop myself to consider whether I'm really physically hungry and the answer comes back no, then I really am forced to stop and wonder what is driving me. Food and the act of eating have become real comfort for me. And when I eat without thinking I am just fast-forwarding past these emotions that need to be confronted.

Forgive me while I go all psycho-babble here for a minute but for me, I think it all started revolving around my need to feel secure. When I was 1, my mother became very ill and my sibs and I were sent to live with another family for months. I gotta think that impacts a little kid pretty hard. Then when I was at the advanced age of 5, my parents thought I was becoming too dependent on my security blanket and took it away during naptime one day; never to be seen again. I remember exactly where I was and how hard I cried. Now that I'm 50 and have been forcing myself to take a really long hard look at myself (mercifully, no mirrors were involved, abused or injured during this process), I have discovered that in order for me to satisfy this need for security, I became a people pleaser. There was a great deal of comfort in people liking me and I was really good at it. But I spent so much time figuring out what other people wanted that I never stopped to figure out my own needs and desires. I never mapped out a life plan or set goals for myself. And so now I'm starting to do all the thinking I should've done in my 20's when I was simply flying on auto-pilot. Auto-pilot's great until it's time to land and then someone with experience has simply got to take over. Who knew I'd actually be held responsible for living my own life one day?!

Okay, okay...so I've been circling the airport for 30 years (I may be low on self-esteem and life plans but I do have a ton of stamina!) and it's time to land this thing. Problem is I'm at the wrong airport. Shit. It's just one goddamn thing after another, isn't it? I am a wife and a mother and have not held a professional-level job since the 90's. Some of this is good but most of it isn't. While I love being available to my son 24/7, I have sacrificed a lot by being out of the adult world (and by adults, I don't necessarily include other stay-at-home moms - much too big of a topic to go into now). The isolation is crushing. My interpersonal skills are limited to school administration, store clerks and other moms (way too many of the alpha dog variety) - none of these categories being my strong suit. So I've begun taking stock of my strengths (I do have some) and am forming some ideas about what I want to be when I grow up...but fat, underemployed and unhappy with my current station in life ain't it. I am less about pleasing others now and thinking about pleasing myself. It seems so selfish to the old people-pleasing gal of my past but it's exactly what I need to do for the rest of my life. This much, at least, I've figured out.