A Warring Week, Good Meals, Bad Meals, AKA A Divided Will AKA Old Me vs New Me AKA ARGH!

A week that was all over the place. Some excellent choices, then some bad choices, then some great meals, then some bad meals. Reading to get my good-choice frame of mind in consistent gear. Some praying.

But, really, the decisions were mine, and I chose poorly too often to say this was a winning week.

It's interesting how one can be going along, feeling fine, feeling in control, cooking stuff up properly, watching portions, then, bam, that goes to hell with one self-indulgent choice. The streak ends.

I'm fascinated how I undermine that. I know that I've felt worried and fragile a lot. Worrying about bills and the future and such. Dishing out nearly 7K for property insurance and seeing the checkbook dive, well, that sort of made me wanna dive into the nearest bakery or pizza shop. I went to neither, but I WANTED to.

The OLD ME that binged and relied on food for comfort and joy and hardly took 1000 steps a day, she is still alive and warring with NEW ME, that made sound food choices and got her butt into exercising.

It was years and years of study and work to build up a NEW ME. It felt so good. I was hoping the OLD ME might just go off and die on an ice float or something. I intend for new me to win. But old me is very, very strong. VERY. The anxieties and desire for the brain-hit of comfort.

Anyway, this past week saw me RE-ENTER OBESE ZONE. Yes, I crossed that DREAD BOUNDARY of 185. One weigh in was 185.8. Thursday's. By Sunday, the official weigh-in (listed on my sidebar), it wa back to 183.2. That high weight was partially stoked by tamago and asparagus sushi dipped in super-salty tamari. And the miso dressing. But seeing that number scared me.

And the 170s, which I inhabited for a nice spell and even saw the bottom of, well, that seems so far away AGAIN.

I am also royally ticked off at the doc for reducing my Levoxyl. Ever since she did that, weight has crept up, appetite got up, sleep increased, and I have two vexing new bald spots. It just adds insult to injury. I was already struggling with keeping weight down before she did that. This anger, I do not need.

I find that I'm really sodium-sensitive this month, moreso than usual, the fluctuations, and that might be the thyroid status. No idea. But it's kinda weird. I'm normally not a hoarder. When I had a period, I'd easily go up 4 pounds during the days prior to blast-off, but that was a normal monthly thing, and it would be gone after, so you got used to it.

Anyway, the fight is on here. New Me vs Old Me, and it's fierce. This is the crux. THIS IS WHERE RE GAIN hits the road and become monstruous if not caught and managed. I feel it. I feel that this is where the war is lost or won, this sort of situation where the Old Overeater wants back in, tired of exile. Where the New Me is tired of vigilance and is overcome some days with neurotic thoughts and anxiety attacks. Where food looks like a good old friend who just wants to make me FEEL good again.

Which is, pardon my bluntness. bullshit.

Food Desire is only my friend if it follows the rules of friendly behavior.  If it supports me and doesn't become toxic. If it's a positive force, not a destructive one. The Food Desire that wants "in" now wants in to wreak havoc, not do me good. It's not a friend. I gotta kill it.

That's the deal. Old Me let Food Lust be an enabler and a destroyer. A crutch and a deceiver.

New Me wants food as a partner, to grow and be stronger, not weaker.

I've not surrendered. I'm reading lots of articles on regain. I've highlighted and bookmarked pages in Riley's updated version of BEATING OVEREATING to re-tap into my inner choosing mojo. I've reminded hubby not to be the sweet "whatever you want" guy of the past if I ask for him to get me something destructive. I haven't yet sent him on massive food runs full of crap. The Old Me used to do that--pizza and chocolate cake and enough tacos to choke two horses. So, just in case she shows up, I want him to give me the breathing room of a hesitation and question: "Is that what you really want? Isn't that bad for you?" That's all I need, sometimes. Just to have that moment of stopping, re-deciding.

It's part of taking control, asking, "Is this what you really want? Is this what you choose to have? What are the consequences?"

I have a divided will. Sometimes I answer the question as the New Me: "No, this will subvert my plans for good health. I won't fit into my clothes. I'll feel like a social pariah again."

Sometimes, I answer like the old me. "I don't care. It's what I want now. Consequences be damned, I just want that pleasure NOW."

The devil that is the Old Me is out to get me and make me one of the loser statistics.

I've lost too much. For too long. And it has wrecked parts of my potential and years of my life.

Screw you, devil.

Oh, and yes, I prayed, too.

To those who don't have food issues, well, they won't understand how powerful the lure is. Maybe junkies and sex addicts will get it. But folks who go about and don't self-medicate with food or have old bad habits that grab them back into the pit, they don't get it.

You get it, right?

It's hard.

But we do not give up.

No quitting.

Okay, a new day to get it right. I know all I need is a few weeks of really good days and the new habits reinforce and New Me wins again. For a spell.

I guess this fight goes on for life, as I suspected all along. And it's only easy in periods/stages/phases. Then you put on the armor and go on campaign...again. And again. And as many times as it takes.

Til Kingdom come.

I'll post some of the stuff I gather, cause it helps me. Keeps my head in it. Maybe it will help you. Whether it's for scaring or for encouraging or for illuminating. It helps.

Be well..

I'm a mess, but this baby is gonna get cleaned up cause I ain't putting up with ME being a childish eater aka Working on the Return of the Warrior Princess

Okay, so man, today the scale said 184.0.

Yesterday, it said 184.8

That's right at the border of my acceptable high weight of 185. This is when emergency measures need to be put into place.

THIS IS THE TRUTH!

Ever since I got lax late last year when I got sick, my brain is in "I don't wanna be mature" mode when it comes to eating. I'll have semi-decent (not at all perfect) days with crappy days. The only good thing I can say is that I have not binged.

But with my brain in baby-mode, immature-eater mode, a binge is sure to come knocking, if I do not implement the measures I once did to get out of obesity and stop binge eating.

Tonight, I gotta go dig up my dietitian notes from Jan 2011. I've got them somewhere, and it's a matter of sitting down with my old blog posts, my R.D. notes, some good motivational reading, and getting hubby fully on board.

The child in me needs to shut the hell up.

My brain needs to grow up.

I really hate being out of control. It's not pizza and cheeseburgers out of control, but it is self-indulgent. IT's noshing here and there. It's not sticking to what I know is a good eating plan for me.

This is why I mention that letting go of control for whatever reason--sickness, holidays, vacations--is a bad, bad idea. REgetting control is one mother of a task.

I'm in the thick of warfare with my old bad habits.

I"m gonna win this. Why? Because I have to. Because obesity beckons again. Because grown-ups don't just eat what they wanna when they wanna. Because being mature and in control means you stick to a fricken plan 95+% of the time at least, with only the occasional bobble.

I'm being a brat again. This me, this is not noble or laudable.

I could make excuses. My thyroid is a bit off (with my hair falling out again and I'm sleeping 10 and 11 hours). But I won't. Because EVEN with my thyroid out of whack at various times since 2010, I worked to keep my food intake happy and mature and nutritious and controlled.

This time, the problem is ME.

The solution is....ME.

I'm crafting guidelines for a challenge. I figure if I need to, I activate that as a plan for self-motivation. Worked for me in the past.  I would do it pretty much like I did the others--Slimmer this Summer, Christmas Dress Countdown, Eve 2 Easter. Same sort of requirements and accountability and buddy system and positive support. If you are struggling, too, and if you've completed my challenges  in the past and want "in" again, keep an eye out for an announcement sometimes later this month.

Knocking Out the Food Idiot!!!

For the next four days, my focus will be on empowering that warrior part of me. I gotta knock the stooopid outta me.

Today, I did my strengthening exercise. But today I also swerved the car to my fave chocolatier and indulged in truffles and conversation with the owner.

Yes, I'm a fricken idiot. Feel free to tell me to stop it the hell now. Thanks.

Okay, I'm gonna do some cardiac before I go pick up my organic co-op share, and the whole time, I'm gonna be thinking and speaking affirmations.

This sh*t stops today.

Tomorrow, I'm waking up like a lion. Roaring...

I control me. No one else. ME. The me in control so far is the food-stupid Princess. I'm gonna shoot her dead. Or at least slap her unconscious. She needs to get out of the way of Princess Dieter, the one who isn't food-driven and slothful. I want that royal gal back. I want the Princess Brat exiled or gone and forgotten. I'm too old for this self-indulgence and laziness. Really, way too old.

I felt better when my food act was together. I will be that me again. SOON.

Wish me well....

The battle goes on....

Let's win it.

Formally Tracking Again....and an apology with some comments on "whining" and what I mean by it...

Okay, so I haven't tracked, walked, or really been disciplined in a couple weeks plus.

Actually, I have only mentally tracked for months.

So, as an exercise in discipline for today--since what I need is to get that BACK, the discipline--I started tracking again. Today. With Breakfast: 480 cals. 27 carbs.

It was a weird feeling entering each item I ate and seeing the data add up. I spent over a year faithfully tracking, until it became burdensome, and I dropped it. Now, it feels nostalgic. I remember the 268 pound me really facing the long journey and deciding, okay, this is one tool. One.

I remember how much I learned using it, though it was a pain in the kiester, as a lot of things requiring faithfulness and discipline are.

I haven't weighed in days. I haven't even mentally tallied calories in days. I have felt such apathy and sadness. But today, I begin small. I track.

Ya know,  I feel a little better. Just doing this little old "diet discipline" thing made me remember. It was so much harder and sadder being morbidly obese. But I remember the drive and fear and hopefulness of my furiously intense tracking days. That was a good thing to remember. How much I wanted to be...here.

~~~~~~
 

I apologize if I offended anyone with yesterday's post.

It wasn't meant to say we cannot gripe or whine on our blogs, which of course, that's one of the reasons for HAVING a blog, to be able to be ourselves. It's not meant to say our diet journeys don't matter. Health matters. It's meant to say we matter more than the diet, and other things matter more in perspective, so not to let our weights be the determinant of our being, our feelings, our outlook. That makes us slaves, in a way.

My feelings as blogged yesterday came from my observations of a certain distortion that can happen with diet bloggers: How a pound up can make folks feel worthless and like failures and the self-hate that follows. How that pound takes on a meaning beyond what it should have. The lack of perspective.

A needed vent, whine is therapeutic.

Speaking of some negative things: necessary.

When the whines go on and one, chronically, and the scale is master and lord, one's perspective surely can become screwed up. Badly screwed up. (Been there.)

My tracker, my scale, calculations of BMI, and so forth--these are tools. And they should never rule or define me. EVER. I told myself this in 2010, and I still tell myself this.

Morbidly obese me had as much value as not morbidly obese me.

But morbidly obese me couldn't move or feel as good or have the renewed dreams not obese me can, simply cause I have better ability to FUNCTION in my day to day. And the growth in self-worth isn't cosmetic. It's because I achieved something I wanted to. I wanted to NOT be obese. I wanted to become master of my food, not let food master me.

The previous post, partly born of depression, partly of frustration at the self-hating from the blogging sphere over failures, was meant to say, "Keep perspective." Hating ourselves (and in some cases out there hating OTHERS) for failing to meet slimming goals is counter-productive and, yes, adds to the negative power in the world. We need to cut that crap out.

Even as we learn to discipline ourselves, we need to forgive ourselves when we fail. Not for self-indulgence's sake--cause if there's anything we overeaters don't need is an excuse to self-indulge-- but for the sake of being humane in our journey. It's easy to lose that perspective.

 And when that number can ruin our day and alter our sense of self, we've lost perspective. It's time for a corrective at that point.

(It goes both ways. If a pound lost can make the radical sunshine reaction change in your day, like the pound gained can put a huge black cloud over it, there's some calibration issues with one's emotions. It's like the scale-mediated bipolar syndrome or something.)

So far, I haven't had a number ruin my day in a long while, though I may not like the number. Though it may not be my goal number. I look at the feedback and try to do better, but I refuse to be self-hating anymore about weight. I spent too many years--decades!--doing that. What did it get me? Diddly squat other than low self-esteem.

While I disagree with the Heath-At-Any-Size folks on some particulars--sorry, me at 300 and 400 and 500 pounds could hardly be called healthy, and I'm not buying that line--I do believe we ought to be loved, respected, and valued AT ANY SIZE. Even by ourselves. And that's really hard to do, but I believe it should be part of the program as we work on HEALTH and getting to different size.

Maybe we should ask about the motivations and the outcomes:

Is my whine/vent about a frustration? Is it about self-hate? Is it ongoing and fruitless? Is it therapeutic, a release?

These are questions I will ask myself. And maybe you should ask, too.

If whining is persistent and goes nowhere in terms of progress, internally and externally, then that whining is a mental rut or self-indulgence, the latter of which makes it a lack of virtue or, if really chronic, a character flaw , not a release or a vent.

For Christians, it would qualify as a sin, perhaps, at that point. Just take a tour of what Scripture has to say on whining, complaining, murmuring. It may apply. It may not. This requires self-examination.

With a caution: Just because a thing is "permissible", doesn't mean it's beneficial. That which makes you FEEL better for the moment may actually be keeping you from being built up into what you want to be.

I've been there; I know that where my mind and spirit abided, in times past--and I'm talking pre-2010-- were BAD places of much complaint and some despair and a whole lotta self-loathing. If it gets to that point, we who were told that no matter the situation"in everything, give thanks" need to cut that out. It's a command.

It's a simple fact to say, "I chose to eat X and it was off plan.  I feel sad about that. I feel frustrated and wanna SCREAM.  I'm considering why I made these decisions, in these situations, so maybe I can have strategies to better fit those temptations. Here's where maybe I went wrong and can do better, yadda X and yadda Y...  And though I feel sad, I know I can learn from this. I can do better. I won't let this cut me up and get to me. I will fix this somehow."

That's not whining. That's assessing. That's confessing. That's learning. That's keeping hope. That's  something that can lead to self-work that is productive, I think.

Whining--the whining I refer to, not the occasional vent--is when there's this sort of persistent sense of "woe is me" going on and on on a blog, a repetitive thing, a habitual thing:

...this thing happened and that thing happened and another thing happened and it's not my fault I overate cause I was stressed and then I got tempted by birthday cake and I couldn't resist and then my sister made this and I ate that and why do they tempt me and how come people don't support me and help me stay on my plan and then I went to get donuts cause my neighbor was mean to me again and really I'm just so lazy that I can't bring myself to walk which isn't my fault cause it's hot and there are mosquitoes and I get itchy, but I should go to the gym, but I didn't, cause the gym people stare and were smirking at me last time, and it's the worst, and I hate that I'm like this and I hate myself, and when I hate myself, I just wanna eat more...

I don't see how that helps much, other than the venting aspect, if for some that helps. And it may.

BUT, is it a pattern? Vent and vent and whine and whine and...then what? It can become another sort of addiction, maybe.  Addicted to the vent-whine and the pats on the back that can follow. The sympathy addiction.

Which helps precisely how?

I'm seriously asking that. If it helps, then do it. I can't say don't do something that is leading you down the right road, helping you make progress.

I just wonder at the follow-up: And then what.  Does it help? Does it really lead to progress? Or is it just about FEELING the moment. And then..no fruit. A dead tree.

If it bears fruit and helps: do it.

If it has not helped and you're still stuck and whining: Please, find another way. It's a dead tree that can't nourish you. Why keep watering it?

So, if what I wrote yesterday hurt your feelings in any way, or sounded too bossy or critical,  I'm sorry. It was not meant to do that. It really was not.

(And I hope you were brave enough to read the story.)

Today,  I'm still fighting for joy and self-control and to be well...

You, keep fighting, too, and find joy, and be well, too.

Fight The Fat Remotivation Project Day 1 VLOG

E2E Update #11: &^%$**~!!@ ...and yes, that means REGAIN, and this is the week where I put into action WILLPOWER INSTINCT exercises...okay, the VLOG update finally got YouTubed...here ya go!

After using this spot as a linky placeholder and trying umpteen times to get this VLOG uploaded to YouTube, here it is.

Weight: 182.4
Waist: 35
fluids fine
Exer: Pilates x2, walking x2 (goals not met)
Sleep: variable  Mood: very good, but some lazy days
Support: minimum met. Kept up with some of buddy's blogs.
Book: reading it, starting one of the "I won't" challenges this week and beginning the 5-minute meditation recommended THIS coming week to work the "self control" muscle.

And on we go....happy and healthful new week to all!

"The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success." 

~~Maxwell Maltz

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~~Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Day 15 of 84 in the StSC: I Beat Back the Emo-Eating Binge Monster--and how I did it yesterday-- Sample Chapter from EATING LESS (one of my recommended reads)...and yes, it's about taking control of an addiction...

Does Gillian Riley describe you in this clip?

This was me, and is me. The 'was' me : obsessed with food, with mealtimes, with quantities. Food addict. The 'is' me: someone who can still be called to (though more rarely) by food for comfort, pleasure, escape, but who now has tools to short-circuit the bad times.

One of the bad times was last night. There was an emotional outworking at our Father's Day gathering. Three of us ended up in tears, for different reasons. I won't go into the details--we're family, we love each other, sometimes things need to be vented, and somehow they tend to get vented when stress or anxiety or bad moods hit--but I was feeling fragile from a self-sacrifice hubby had done for me, a very generous, beautiful, loving bit of self-sacrifice that put my well-being and desires above his own. It's what spouses do for one another, but it made me feel...like I was holding him back. I was also worried about eldest sis (who was looking drawn and unwell).

One of my nieces was having a fragile time herself, worried over her mom. My other sister was having a bad day, and I became a bit of a target. We all stepped on landmines and, well...venting and tears. We kissed, went home, and eventually sis and I will sort it out. Love does that. Niece and I are fine, though still worried about her mom. :(

So, I had eaten exactly what I had planned to. I had none of the "bad" foods at the party. I took what I could eat and drink, and tasted what was allowable of what sis prepared.

But the emotional stuff left me sad. (I mean, no one wants to see their loved ones cry.) Hubby was hungry, and as he's now one pound away from being officially UNDERWEIGHT, we decided to stop for take-out. At nearly 10pm on a Sunday, options were limited. Part of me was doing the little undermining/justifying thing that the OLD ME used to do regularly.

I want to eat X and Y and I'll find a way to justify eating X and Y, cause I WANT IT.

We fat folks do that all the time. We make excuses to have stuff we ought not have, whether it be special occasions/holidays or depression or needing comfort. We decide we can overeat cause of this and this and this. If we're obese, we sort of lost the right to overeat, I figure, but we find a way to justify the crap. We do.

Food is toxic comfort. But we fall for its lure. That's why we're fat. Obese. Superobese.

So, there we were at a place we hadn't gone to in....well, I forget it's been so long. A Chinese place in our neighborhood that was near closing time. The whole time we had driven there, part of me was deciding on what would be "safe". The other part of me was making excuses for the not safe. It was like angel/devil shoulder banter. I swear! Ridiculous. In the end, I justified ordering BBQ ribs cause "hubby can take them for lunch." Right? Sound familiar? We do that, right? Say it's for "the kids" or "the hubby", when it's really US who want to dive in and pig out.

The part of me that is sound was looking for a lifesaver, the strategy. I was going mentally through the caloric calculations of this and that and finding a way to stay in StSC boundaries. It was telling me I'd done well, and not to screw it up.  It was telling me about the need to not give in or lose ground.

The part of me that is unsound was looking for what would give me maximum food fat reward without looking too self-indulgent. It was going by emotions...it was promising to comfort me.

In the end, I fought mentally every second from the restaurant to the house and through about a half hour at home. It was the fricken Colisseum in my head, gladiators in battle.

Drinking water. Making coffee. Biting a bit and stopping. Eating the veggies first. Throwing some of the chicken on hubby's plate. Saying no rice, Then a few forkfuls of rice. Then the ribs. Yep. There they were. I had two. I battled with every bite, trying to delay, knowing that with delay, the water/coffee/veggies could kick in and fill me up. I went 400 calories over before I said to hubby, "I'm eating too much. I'm feeling like I'm gonna cave. I feel like the hunger is just not gonna go away, and I know it's just feelings, not real body nourishment need. I have to stop."

Saying it out loud, as embarrassing as it is to say such stuff, did it. I stopped. I admitted I was out of control and was about to seriously do some damage if I didn't just cop to it, stop making excuses, stop hiding it (I ate the ribs in the kitchen, not with hubby seeing it), and just admit I was in a crisis.

And that stopped it. Confession is not only good just for the soul. It's good to break the beginnings of a binge. I ended up at a bit over 1800 calories. No binge. Just more than my alloted calories. No painful belly from overstuffing. I was actually still roomy in there.

Hubby actually did end up taking the uneaten ribs for his afternoon snack. :) 

I wonder my confession is akin to the "call a sponsor" thing at AA. Call when temptation hits and let yourself be talked out of the booze craving.

I talked myself out of it by just letting hubby know: "I'm eating too much. I want to eat more. I have to stop."

I went, drank more water, took my supplements, took some potassium to counteract the salty Chinese chow mein veggies I ate. I threw out the rest of my food so as not to be even minutely tempted. I sat down and just allowed myself to feel bad about having a tiff with my sis. Food can give pleasure that distracts. I just let myself feel bad. It's human. Be sad. Be it.

I was fine after that. I woke up still a bit sad, but once things calm, we'll do as we siblings always do when we vent frustrations and get upset: We forgive, hug, and move on.

Same with food. I overate. I beat it back, stopped the binge momentum, and kept myself from binging. I overate, but I still won. I hug my heart, forgive myself, and move on.

Don't stuff feelngs with food. You'll want to. But it's not the solution. Just feel the feelings and find the actions that make it really better, not just "food reward brain pleasure" reaction.

Most of the time this year, I beat the overeating desires before food hit my mouth. Last night, food started to get the better of me. But I came out stronger.

And Tanita-san agreed: 190.8

That's .4 lbs down, after not just overeating, after Chinese food overeating. This is a numerical reason why stopping the binge while it's just "a bit extra" is worth it. :)

I leave you with this excerpt from Gillian Riley's book EATING LESS: Say Goodbye to Overeating. It's a good resource for "food addicts", even recovering ones. :)

For me, the goal is not just a number on the scale. It's getting over an addiction. It's being the one in control. Or regaining control ASAP after it loosens. It's making my life and my character better by not being a slave to this or that. Food being this. All sorts of other thats.

I want to get healthier, which is even more important than one particular scale number. And getting healthier means taking control. Of what I eat. Of how I move. Of what I think. Of how I act.

Being out of control feels crappy. I saw proof of that last night. With tears. With Chinese food.

Being in control feels so much better...

Day 37 of Phase 5: Japanese Dinner Out, Election Day, Vote For Your Health Today! And Why I Believe That Food Addiction is Possible, though I'm Not Fanatical About It! :)

We had Japanese food last night. I am still amazed that I don't inhale everything in front of me anymore in restaurants and we end up with so much to doggy bag home. The soy sauce/sodium always makes me bloat. But man, that tofu yakitori was so good. I have to be very careful about tofu, but this was worth any endocrine disruptions. Grilled with a light sauce on top. Nice. We got a bunch of grilled sticks of yakitori--pork tenderloin, tofu, zucchini, mushroom, green pepper. Hubby got the roasted corn.

I drank lots of water and green tea and just accept a bit of bloat come next morning. Behold: Half a pound up.

Tanita-san: 217.4

I felt a little weird in a Japanese place, cause part of me wanted to offer sympathies and part of me thought that was crazy dorky cause, well, yeah....you can see, I was a bit conscious of the events in Japan post disaster. Still really sad. Going out to eat was part of just getting away from CNN. I've been glued to it, having crying jags on and off depending on what horror story of loss is shown. I can't handle it too well when a mom talks about her daughter being swept away in the tsunami, a man losing his wife, another not finding his parents and wondering if they are buried in the rubble. I feel a bit like I did on 9-11...unable to turn off the tv and wishing time could turn back and we could warn everyone...

Today is election day. I'm going to vote after posting this. I'm gonna put on my walking sneaks and clothes, walk to the poll, vote, then do my regular walk.

I voted for my health with breakfast. Egg white omelette with spinach, mushrooms, onions, lower sodium and lower fat Swiss cheese,  and assorted Mrs. Dash seasonings thrown in. More sodium I don't need today. I had papaya with lime as my fruit (lots of potassium to debloat). It's my fave type of breakfast (veggie-cheese omelette and fruit) cause it keeps me full and I get a lot of protein and phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals. It keeps me full for hours, too. It's a habit now. My first choice.

What did you do today to vote FOR your health?

I visited a blog today I got off a link from another blog I visited (um, maybe Sunshine's Heart?) and left a comment.

I don't hold the same position as the blogger who owns the blog, but I respect her position. This is an iffy area for me. I never used to believe in food addiction. Now, I'm not so sure we can dismiss it so easily. One thing I've learned as a gal who has had chronic health issues since infancy--I'm created from an old egg of mama's, my sis says, half-teasingly on occasion--is that when I've made observations of X or Y or Z phenomenon or effects over the years to docs about this or that condition, I was often dismissed as "anecdotal". Then, years later, the science caught up to those anecdotes of mine and I was vindicated. :) So....

I hold the same sort of thing here. I think we're going to find that certain created foods in our world act as "drugs" the way heroin, cocaine, and meth can act as addictive drugs. God's nature doesn't have ice cream, pizza, cakes, pies, cookies, awsome blossoms, baby back ribs drenched in BBQ sauce with a side of fries. These are created items, and if you read Kessler's THE END OF OVEREATING (the book that changed my dieting life), you will see as studies and insights rack up, one after another, that we have created what seems to be addictive foods to a certain segment of the population. And we keep doing that, making them more HYPERPALATABLE and "addictive".

Kessler doesn't call it food addiction. But after reading the book, and in light of my own history of feeling utterly in thrall and out of control around certain foods/restaurants, I will call it that. For now. We'll see how the science continues to pan out on this. I remember my own history with asthma and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and my own self-discoveries, later vindicated. Now, let's see how the obesity studies evolve....

But I leave you with this extended comment from an article on WEB MD:

Kessler stops short of calling Americans' love for sugary, fatty foods a "food addiction." But he believes there are similarities between why some people abuse drugs and why some of us can't resist every last deep-fried chip on a heaped plate of cheese-smothered nachos.

Knowing what's driving our overeating behavior is the first step to changing it, he says.

"For some, it's alcohol," Kessler tells WebMD. "For some, it's drugs. For some, it's gambling. For many of us, it's food."

Kessler, a Harvard-trained pediatrician and medical school professor at the University of California, San Francisco, started researching what would become The End of Overeating after watching an overweight woman talk about obsessive eating habits on The Oprah Winfrey Show. It sounded familiar. Kessler's own weight has zoomed up and down over the years, leaving him with suits of every size.

"For much of my life, sugar, fat, and salt held remarkable sway over my behavior," he writes.

And so the man who tackled tobacco companies while leading the FDA started researching why he couldn't turn down a chocolate chip cookie. He pored over studies on taste preferences, eating habits, and brain activity, conducted studies, and talked to food industry insiders, scientists, and people who struggled with overeating.

His theory: "Hyperpalatable" foods -- those loaded with fat, sugar, and salt -- stimulate the senses and provide a reward that leads many people to eat more to repeat the experience.

"I think the evidence is emerging, and the body of evidence is pretty significant," Kessler says.

He calls it conditioned hypereating, and here's how he says it works. When someone consumes a sugary, fatty food they enjoy, it stimulates endorphins, chemicals in the brain that signal a pleasurable experience. Those chemicals stimulate us to eat more of that type of food -- and also calm us down and make us feel good.

The brain also releases dopamine, which motivates us to pursue more of that food. And cues steer us back to it, too: the sight of the food, a road lined with familiar restaurants, perhaps a vending machine that sells a favorite candy bar. The food becomes a habit. We don't realize why we're eating it and why we can't control our appetite for it.

Once the food becomes a habit, it may not offer the same satisfaction. We look for foods higher in fat and sugar to bring back the thrill.

Kessler points to these factors as the cause of a dramatic spike in the number of overweight Americans in the past three decades.

That's from "Compulsive Overeating And How To Stop It" by Elizabeth Lee, and if you are an overeater (and a compulsive one for sure), then do go over and read the whole thing.

If science proves me wrong in my position, fine. If it proves me right, fine.

I still think that it's about learning what helps and taking responsibility. I will never use my conditioning to overeat--or "food addiction" to hyperpalatable foods--as an excuse. It may be a REASON I was prone to eat to the point of pain and illness. But it's not an excuse. It's information. No one should throw around food addiction as an excuse. That's not adult behavior. You find tools, get help, implement changes as needed--not make excuses.

So, anyway....

Off to vote.

Be well today! Don't overeat! Move on toward your health goals with persistence...

Day 3 of P4 of SoDDDY Challenge: Not Hungry, Feeling Calm, Eating on Plan, Gotta do the Walking, Still Really SORE! Ow, my abs! And a Peek at my Neglected "My Utmost for His Highest" Journal to remember that Slavery Sucks! Sooooo.... Does Food or Sloth Enslave You?

It's the third day. I am peaceful and calm, foodwise...so far. Nice. Yesterday, I was just a scosh over 1000 calories in a ratio of 53c/17f/30p. I liked this ratio. It left me feeling full (more protein) and didn't rack up the calories (less fat). (Had no appetite for my night snack, hence the lower number than the 1200 for the challenge.)

Breakfast: Ezekiel Toast/egg white/some chopped tomato and onions to make the egg whites interesting/milk-n-half-medium-banana-with-cinnamon smoothie/coffee/water/fiber supplement/cranberry supplement/Quercetin ~~~~  Calories:322

Snack: After walking, to be decided (prolly carrots and hummus or yogurt)

It's lovely not to feel food obsessed. Yesterday was calm. Today is calm. None of the nutty hunger like Monday evening's attack. Oh, Lord, let me stay this calm through til May 1 and beyond. Hear my prayer!

Speaking of Him and Prayer....I pulled out this journal I bought some years ago. Yes, dat's right, YEARS. I got it at the end of 1999 to document the Year 2000. It's a Christian inspirational type journal. Each page has a devotional taken from the Christian classic: MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST. You can read it FREE online. Same text that is in my journal.

I brought it out of the bottom drawer of my desk because one of the other things I need to get fit is my spiritual life. I've focused so much on other things in the last year, that this has taken a back seat, and that is NOT where God should be sitting in one's car. He should be inside me, choosing the direction and path. So, something else to work on besides food and fitness. And decluttering. And renovating. And moving. And becoming work-force ready again (after 2 decades out of the work force, which is scary as heck.)

So....I have never completed a journal within a year's span, ever. No diary, ever. This one is a little odd, in that instead of following the days--it's dated from Jan 1 on, one devotional per page with space for me to write my thoughts--I just date it from when I pick up my journal writing (very few entries, and I'm just starting APRIL's first day. April Fool's..hah!

 Inside I've put receipts from lunches and dinners out with hubby and sister and tickets from when we saw the Tutankhamun exhibit (woo, that was cool) and cards and other memorabilia. Even a piece of quality paper on which I wiped off some Ash Wednesday forehead ashes.

It's got lots of painful stuff, as my mom was a year and a half into her journey through excruciating illness, hundreds of hospital and doctor visits and death when I bought that thing. I was starting a dive into depression and rise in poundage.

A December 15, 2001 entry is where I started notating my weight in the white space above the devotional title. Almost 2 years since I bought the journal, but I was still in the January entries. I left a lot of blank pages in January. For January 31'st entry--this time 2002--I note I had lost 26.8 pounds at Weight Watchers, which brought me to 255.4 on their scale (so I was in the 280's prior to that, huh?) 

By 2003, I was regaining and was in the 260's. So I joined a gym. That was the year I built up some good muscle doing weight-lifting and exercises with a personal trainer for the first time. Negligible weight loss, but got nice and strong and just in time to lift my mom to and from a wheelchair when she got peripheral neuropathy. I wonder if God moved me to get that training to be ready. I never hurt my back or anything (and my mom weighed in the 180s when she was felled) cause I got STRONG. Stopped going to the gym by summer as she was getting worse and depression came knocking hard.

Slave Collar

August 25, 2003: 270 lbs. This is noted in the journal date of March 14 (I crossed that out and put in real date).  The entry  in the journal is titled OBEDIENCE (or YIELDING in the other translation that is available at the link I gave.) It quotes a verb from Romans:

"...you are that one's slaves whom you obey..."

And says this:

The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.

If you are fat/obese/overweight/supersized, and don't have some really rare medical condition to justify it, guess what? You and I, we are slaves to food, slaves to gluttony, slaves to our appetites, slaves to our stomachs. It's not easy to type that. Truth is like that.

It further says:

When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, “Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like,” you will know you can’t. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, “He will break every fetter,” while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person’s life.

On May 25, 2004, the day my mom died, I hit my highest weight, which I recorded in the journal (on the journal date of March 15):  I was 299 lbs.

I'm not 299 today. See sidebar for my weight loss progress.

TODAY.....I don't plan to yield to food. TODAY. One day at a time. TODAY, I will not let it control me. I want to break this crappy, sinful, childish, selfish habit of letting food overtake me, of wanting to be ovetaken by the pleasure of food.

As a believer, I have never, obviously, fully relied on the power of The Risen One, cause I stayed fat for ages. Other sins in my life are similarly controlling me. I plan to break free from one of them at a time..one by one...and end up, on my deathbed, a woman who yielded in the proper way to The Good and conquered the Bad..the unfruitful or vicious habits.

You don't have to be a person of faith to admit you are a slave to food or bound by sloth. If you didn't do your exercise today, sloth has you, baby. If you overate, food is your master.

You don't have to acknowledge God as Master to master yourself. You do have to be YOUR OWN master and tell food who rules your world: You not it.

For a Christian, the answer is in yielding to the Spirit. If a sin has control over you--and that includes sloth and gluttony--then you are not sufficiently yielded. That's the ugly truth. Sin can get you sometimes, but if it's chronic, you're a slave to  it and not a yielded slave to God. The whole lotta fat folks in our churches says that we have focused so much on X sin or Y vice (be it sex or cussing or anger or envy or materialism or unforgiveness or vanity) that we've ignored gluttony. You know it's true.

God or You....or Food or Sloth. Something is gonna rule your day.

I am gonna write in the journal today, and by day's end, I intend to log there that I overcame food and I kicked the crap outta Sloth.

Pray for me or, if you are a non-believer, wish me well. I wish YOU well.

Thanksgiving is past (maybe the leftovers aren't though). Start a Controlled Eating PlanH for CHRISTMAS today!

Here's one way to do it courtesy of the EATING LESS Newsletter from September 2010, link at the site for all archived newsletters. This one is targeted at buffets, but the idea is sound for all major eating occasions. Practice beforehand. Have a plan:

QUESTION TIME

THE PROBLEM:  It's only September and already I'm worried about Christmas and I really hope you can help. The reason is that I've worked really hard this year to lose the weight I gained last Christmas and I'm afraid it's just all going to go back on again this year. I'm fairly safe at home, it's the buffets at the parties are what really do me in. It's on my mind already and I'm thinking about going away somewhere to avoid it all but that's not something I'm going to want to do every year. MY ANSWER: I think it's great that you've brought this up so far ahead because this means you've got lots of time to practice, to get into training for The Buffet Table Challenge. I wonder if you've ever used the technique of 'Plans' described in Chapter 6 of EATING LESS, because that's what will help you most.       What you do to make a Plan is simply to decide what and how much you intend to eat, preferably just before you start eating. Try to picture it, and as you make that Plan, keep in mind how you will expect to feel after you've finished eating that amount, for the rest of the evening and even the following morning. So it's something like, "do I want to eat so much that I feel bloated, uncomfortably full and miserable, or do I want to eat less and feel energised, happy and in control?" So you make your Plan with that - what sort of experience you intend to create afterward - in mind.       Assuming you've made a moderate Plan, the real challenge will be keeping to it, because when you've finished eating a significant amount smaller than usual, you will almost certainly feel an addictive desire to eat more. Keeping to your Plan will depend on your management of that feeling of desire.       The more you can use any opportunity to practice making and keeping Plans over the next three months, the less anxious you'll be feeling and the more control you'll have when the parties begin.

Face the Truth Fridays: Met Goal at Week 7 (weekly and overall) and Learned I Can Overcome Urges for "Comfort Food" Self-Medication When Sick

681 days, 10 hours, and 91 lbs to go...

Last Friday's weigh-in was 252.8.

Today, Tanita-san (my scale) smiled a nice number at me: 251.0

I like even weigh-ins. Don't you? Especially if it's a lower round number.


- 1.8 lbs.


The original goal, as you may recall, was to lose 4.08 lbs per month, roughly a pound per week. This puts me back on track. This is my seventh weigh-in since setting my 98 lbs in 2 years weight loss goal. So, I should be 7 lbs down.

And now I am, after some iffy weeks.

Nice to be back on track.

I'm hoping that I can accelerate loss before Thanksgiving, cause once the holiday hoopla starts, the celebratory days may get dicey. Better to lose extra beforehand, just in case.

If I can lose 1.5 lbs for a few weigh-ins, rather than "roughly 1" (technically, 0.95 per week), I can get a nice cushion for holiday temptations. Although I do need to PLAN for those tempting episodes. That's the pre-holiday homework.

What truth am I facing?

I don't have to let my diet go all to hell cause my health deteriorates a bit. Normally, when my asthma/allergies act up, I hit the comfort foods hard. I slurp a ton of soup. I drink a lot of tea. And I go for the easy to swallow, warm, gooey comforting stuff (usually something cheesy or doused in gravy or swimming in olive oil).

This time, when the breathing went downhill last Wednesday, got worse Saturday, and then got better before hitting a bump yesterday, I didn't go for the gooey-food-loves-me consolation.

It is possible to say no to food self-medication.

I need to remember that I did that this week when this temptation hits again.

So, while I'm not feeling great health-wise, I'm feeling great about my controlled eating and progress this week.

Hope this Friday finds you full of joy and health...

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