I am learning.
I can now go to a restaurant and make smarter decisions. When I allow myself to have eggs OR meat OR something bread-related, I make my points go a lot farther. I now ask for items without the included bread/toast/croissant/muffin so there’s no temptation. I rarely order a beverage – empty calories (& unnecessary points) and they say it’s actually bad for the digestion. I drink water water water water!
With the social level of work I do, I have to be conscious. So, I have changed it up and usually meet for a meal somewhere that I know has healthy options, rather than straight up coffee. I use that in-between time for my exercise, reading one of my library books (currently an amazing bio on Harriet Tubman) and catching up on the emails that pile up with my multiple clients.
Reaching out for help in adjusting my relationship with food was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I see how much pressure I put on myself, how many outdated reasons I’ve used to eat things that don’t nourish me (do you realize how often you eat not because you crave the food but the memory it’s associated with, for example?), and how much more conscious I’ve become of the mind’s tricks it plays on you.
Here’s the deal. I wasn’t an overweight child. In fact, I was a dancer for many many years. I have never been on a diet. I walk and/or bike almost everywhere (I don’t own a car). I grow my own food and shop organic. I don’t like potato chips or packaged cookies or french fries or fast food or beer. As a former chocolatier, the key ingredient in my truffles was never my downfall.
During my marriage, I gained 40 pounds. I was married to an emotionally scarred addict who fell down the newest rabbit hold of alcoholism during the final years of our relationship. As I’d loved this man since I was a mere sixteen years old, I was convinced I was failing when he retreated into the bottle, when he reminded me of how skinny I was when we first met, when he showed little interest in making things work, when he used the textbook manipulations to make me feel like I was at fault, when he chose his mother, time and again, over me. After I divorced him, I gained 20 pounds more. I moved back to my hometown, bought a home, changed my life, started on a good path, and had lost about half of the weight. Then my father died – and all the weight came back.
Did I tell you my father died due to complications originating from obesity (hemhorragic stroke caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure caused by morbid obesity)? Did I tell you I never acknowledged that my father was an addict until after his passing?
The dirty little secret of eating disorders – obesity is an eating disorder, it’s not just on the skinny side – is that they are addictive behaviors. Obesity is the addiction to food.
And yet, you can’t quit food.
“So just don’t eat it” she would say. My mother was always a beautifully curvy woman, yet when I had gained weight, she had suddenly lost all her bootyliciousness and gone thin – then judged us on how “heavy” we were. How she spoke about my sister’s weight gain made me think, wow, how humiliated she must be by me. As she was about my father.
Dairy. Fuckin’ dairy. Ice cream doesn’t cross the threshold of my home. I traded in nonfat milk for almond milk a year or two ago. I avoid sour cream and yogurt and - my hardest battle – now try to avoid cheese. Avoiding that is a mental game I am attempting this week as I bought some smoked cheddar to put on a baked potato – the smallest increment I could (but still, for points? even a cube can ruin the rest of your points for the day) – and sometimes it might as well be singing like a siren to me, my dears.
Walking down the aisles of the stores when you can’t make a sound food decision, and you walk out, empty, because you don’t trust yourself. Ever been there?
The fantastically beautiful feeling I have after a great workout at the gym, after an extra long bike ride, after working my tail off in the yard all day? It’s worth recalling on those tough days. Yet still, you can find yourself wanting to hide under the covers, and pretend.
I’ve lost 7 people I cared for in the 7 years I’ve been back in P-town.
2006 – grandmother
2008 – grandfather, father
2010 – friend
2011 – grandmother
2012 – friend, beloved dog of 9 years
How am I going to make this current grief evolve into one where I give myself the world rather than punish myself?
One day at a time, I forgive myself. One day at a time, I am brave. One day at a time, I allow myself to grow, to heal, to love and be loved. One day at a time, I learn to be gentle with myself.
I keep going, I keep showing the whole world everyday I’m growing
Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything in me says I got this.
~ Jennifer Hudson