Food Addiction Support Group
An individual suffering from a food addiction disorder frequently experiences episodes of uncontrolled eating, or binging, during which they may feel frenzied or out of control. They will eat much more quickly than is normal, and continue to eat even past the point of being uncomfortably full. Binging in this way is generally followed by a period of intense guilt feelings...
That's the title of the memoir I'm writing about the next eighteen months. Seriously.
In 18 months, I'll be 60 years old. I think of myself as someone who's battled food addiction all her life, but the reality of it is that with a few short-lived exceptions, I'm actually someone who's mostly just given in to her food addictions her whole life. I've thought about battling it, I've belittled myself for not doing so, I've written grandiose plans for the approach that I'm going to start 'tomorrow'. I've journaled and made lists of what I've eaten and studied my triggers and read lots of books. But the honest and ugly truth is that I haven't done much about it until now. There really hasn't been that much battling. Until now. Now, I'm putting on the superhero cape and charging ahead.
Until relatively recently, I've gotten away with ignoring it. I've been fit and strong and healthy overall, and while I've always carried some extra weight, I've at least been blessed with proportions that are relatively flattering. Meanwhile, my eating habits have always, always been appalling. I lie about food, I eat in secret, I shove it in my mouth and barely taste it, I feed all my emotions, I use it as a disguise and a barrier........all the things. I've just kind of been able to still squeeze it into a costume the rest of the world sees as 'mildly overweight' instead of 'really messed up.' But, deep down, I know the truth. I'm a hot mess.
Things changes post-menopause (I got to that particular party kind of late, just about three years ago). Weight shifted - well, actually, it sunk. "Shifted" implies some kind of gentle rearranging, doesn't it? This is different; this is two boobs racing to see which one can hit the floor first, this is a brand new belly 'apron', this is thigh-chafing, and just a general feeling of leadenness.
My metabolism slowed down. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which is a giant load of suck, let me tell you. Bottom line, my bottom line is widening beyond the point where I can ignore it.
I'm not motivated by vanity. I have no need to be any particular size. Sure, thinner would be just peachy. But what I want, what I am working for now, is health, and self-control. I recognize that many factors in life are outside my influence - the RA is a perfect example - but that's all the more reason to control the things I can. I want to be a better role model for my adult kids and for my grandchildren. I want to fix some wrongs in the world in my remaining years and I just feel like I need to get my own act together in order to be more effective.
My family doctor suggested a nutritional counseling class. I said, "Honey, I could write that book. Give me a pen and paper and I write out a 1600, 1700, 1800 calorie daily diet with proportionate carbs, proteins and fats." See, I know that stuff. I just don't do it.
Someone I chatted with online mentioned having more access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Know what I do for a living? I'm a musician, and I'm also, wait for it, an organic farmer running a fruit and vegetable CSA. I pack 50 boxes a week for my member families filled with just-picked berries, melons, leafy greens, etc. I grow them with love and care and pack them up every week. I write a funny newsletter with great recipes. Then I go to McDonald's while I'm on the delivery run. I sit in my farm van, stenciled with the farm name and a healthy-green-crunchy-sounding motto, stuffed with boxes of fantastic produce, and I shove a Big Mac into my face and cry because I don't want it but I can't stop eating it. Sometimes I wipe away the tears and go through the drive through a second time for an extra order of fries. This kind of s*** goes on all day, every day. I've had enough of it.
Well, I'll wrap this up because I needn't write the whole darn memoir here, you know? But I wanted to join the group, I wanted to make a sort of public statement about my intentions in the hope that it keeps me more accountable. I'm having my first hypnotherapy session tomorrow (I've had two preliminary sessions, just talking about issues, and based on the questions the theapist has asked, I'm excited about this journey) in the hopes that it will jump-start the process and help me unearth some hidden triggers. I'll report back every now and then.
But mostly, I wanted to thank all of you for your courage and honesty. I read a lot of posts when I came to this site last night, and I kept thinking "I could have written that one." Over and over again. It is heartening to know that I'm not the only one with this problem. I hope that i can somehow offer some support to all of you here. Cheers, and carry on, warriors.
Fourth session yesterday. Each one has been very different, and this one was no exception. I couldn't go 'under', really. I've got this truck-ran-over-me sinus thing going on, and even reclining my head a little causes a snot tsunami. I was afraid I was going to start coughing uncontrollably, and that made me too tense to side into that half-awake, half-asleep state where, the theory goes, we're more receptive to important messages.
I'm sold on the concept, by the way. I hadn't associated this with a hypnotic state before, but we were travelling, one time, in the 1964 Comet Station wagon, and my sister and I were dozing in our pillow and blanket fort in the back. I believe I was in that state where you're not entirely asleep, but you can't get up or open your eyes, either - and that's the hypnotic state. My parents were very quietly (surely they checked and thought I was asleep) discussing how sad it was that I was not as attractive as my younger sister, and how this would be a liability for me through my life. Understand, I was ten at the time and she was four. It was a very matter of fact discussion - too bad she has your mother's nose, I wonder if those dark circles under her eyes will ever go away, her skin is so translucent she always looks ill, maybe when she's older that hair won't be quite so fine and limp........etc. Yep, I overheard that when i was ten. And now I realize that having overheard it in that half-way state between sleep and awake, it probably had a much, much bigger impact on me than it would have otherwise, which, can I vent for one moment - was a FREAKING BIG AMOUNT to begin with, because that's a HORRIBLE THING to say about your own kid. Okay, done venting. Honestly, it's wonder I am not totally screwed up.
So, back to the session. The therapist, C., imp[anted a technique into my head as I lay there snuffling snot and trying not to cough. And I want to share this process with you guys, because if the image helps one person for one day, it's worth it.
See yourself as the operator of an old fashioned switchboard, the kind with cords and plugs, were you, the operator, literally can connect of disconnect any call. (C. spent a few minutes describing this in more detail; you can do it on your own. If you're under 30 and have never seen a land line, this is probably a new concept for you. Think Radar O'Reilly on MASH reruns.)
Okay, so: these bad urges you have to overeat, to console yourself with food because your mother thought you were ugly, to distract yourself with a cheeseburger because you're not sure what's going on with the husband - okay, you fill in your own neuroses here, I've overshared quite enough this morning - anyway, these urges are incoming calls. And you, the operator, can decide whether or not to connect them. The operator of the switchboard has total control. the operator can connect all of the calls, none of them, or decide to connect only one or two a week.
There's good calls coming in, too - let's park at the far end of the lot and walk the extra steps to the store, let's drop and do a few sit-ups during the commercials, let's have a glass of water. Those calls can get 'patched through' right away.
Now, in one of my very first posts, I wrote about seeing a therapist a year ago, a thin, fit woman who just looked and me and said "well, just stop DOING these things." This was a total fail, therapeutically; my logical brain looked at her and thought Jesus God, lady, if it were that easy, I wouldn't be here.
But this seems to have lodged into my brain this time, and when you get down to it, it's roughly the same message: it's my choice. The difference is that Thin Therapist just said it straight out, and charged twice as much, whereas C. the hypnotherapist, guided me to a relaxed state, sinuses notwithstanding, in which I was more receptive to the message.
Prior to my experience with hypnotherapy, the paragraph above would have made me gag, and I would have had something sarcastic to say about it, But.........here I am, disconnecting calls. I had to get some prescriptions filled yesterday, so I was in a large box store killing the twenty minutes until they were ready. And I was hungry. It could have been a disaster. They have a McDonald's and Pizza Hut on site. They have a deli. They have rows and rows of overprocessed crunchy wonderfulness in bags. They have chocolate. Pre-hypnosis, in that twenty minute waiting period, I could have hit four out of five easily.
Instead, I walked around, stomach growling audibly, pointing to bags of chips or chocolate bars saying "disconnect". I'm sure someone will sell the footage from the surveillance camera and I'll show up on the next People of Walmart video. I walked to the Pizza Hut area, looked at the menu, inhaled the fragrance of good things, thought 'well, that would taste good, I'm sure, but I can do it some other time.' Disconnect!
The store was pretty empty, possibly people were just clearing out because there was a crazy woman walking around talking to pretzels, but maybe not, since it was Walmart. So I thought why not spend the next ten minutes walking briskly through the aisles, and rack up some steps on the pedometer? Connect!
By this point, I had a mental image of the talented Lily Tomlin doing her Ernestine routine on Laugh-In, and I'd started to giggle, not just from thinking about her gift for comedy, but with relief. Because I was walking through the near occasion of sin for twenty minutes while I was hungry with cash in my pocket, and I did not connect one single bad call.
I now have a good guardian angel, a bad angel, and Ernestine sitting on my shoulder. It's getting crowded, but with Ernestine at the switchboard, I'm feeling pretty good about today.
There's a stigma attached to food addiction, isn't there? We're just not as hip as cocaine addicts. Fashion designers used spaced out emaciated waifs to peddle their wares, not chunky people like me. No one goes on a late night show and sits in the guest seat and tells anecdotes about food binges, but I can think of more than one, no, more than fifty, examples of celebrity guests telling a 'funny' "When we were drunk and did this" story.
Well, screw that. I'm just going to keep putting it out there.
Yesterday I did so in an unusual way. I got to market and discovered to my horror that the wonderful Amish family with the adjacent stand was making doughnuts. Pure Americana here, folks. Old women in black dresses and bonnets rolling out the dough. Young women taking the dough out of the propane-heated proofing oven and dropping the doughnuts into simmering oil. The children hand-dip them in soft glaze and hang them on racks to dry for sale.
I've known this family for years. I've been a guest at their home. They are warm and loving, and right in that moment, when I pulled up at market, I wished they weren't. Because even if I didn't buy doughnuts (I've been known to eat six during market and then take some home for later), they would probably give me a plate full of them.
And these doughnuts would trigger anyone. I am not normally triggered by sweets, but dear God, these are amazing.
So, I set my stand up, and went over to talk to them. Now, just for the fun of it, try to imagine the picture. There are eleven black-clad Amish, the men (down to the four year old) with straw hats, the women wearing bonnets, dusted with flour up to their elbows. And I'm spelling out my food addiction problem and asking them to please help me out by not giving me any doughnuts. I said I know every vendor here walks by and says Oh, I shouldn't buy one of these, and then they do. But with me, I said, it's a different thing, because if I do, I can't stop.
They were so cool. They were so understanding. Halfway through market, one of the littlest ones, who doesn't speak English yet, tugged on my shirt and handed me an apple. I looked up and the Grossmama, the family matriarch, busy rolling out dough, said "You eat that, now. It will fill you up and help you stay away from things you shouldn't have." I could have cried. Actually, I think I did.
They made and sold 750 doughnuts in six hours. I did not have one. I breathed that sugary fried-food nectar, I listened to people moaning with happiness as they bit into a doughnut, and.......I was okay. Customers came to my stand licking sugar glaze off their fingers, and some of them even offered to break off a piece of their doughnut for me. And somehow I held my shit together. The hypnosis helped; I was able to look at the doughnuts and say 'disconnect'. The support of my Amish friends helped. The strength I get from all of you, here, helped. Six hours smack in the middle of a community doughnut-gasm and I came out unsugared.
After market, one of the young women came up and said that she was a binge-eater (she didn't know the phrase though) and it helped her to hear someone talk about it, and to see that her family was supportive. She'd been walking to a convenience store when she was supposed to be doing chores at home, and eating bags of cookies and throwing out the trash before she walked home. Now she thought maybe she could talk to her mother about it.
Friends, we need help to get through this. Find it here, find it with your close friends, find it with strangers, find it at your church, find it among the Amish or wherever you can, but we all need it.
It's 6:45 am - a.m.!- and I have to leave in two minutes for a rehearsal. I am as sick as I have ever been with an unbelievable head cold. My ears are blocked, I'm coughing, I have a sore throat - you know what I mean, you've been here. I can't skip the rehearsal because it's for a concert tonight in which I have some wonderful, terrifying exposed parts. A concert I will have to somehow play with all this snot, and a complete inability to hear my tone or dynamics, which I will have to control purely by muscle memory and hope it blends.....
Anyway, enough whining, we all have things happen like this. Here's the problem: I want, so badly, to drive through McDonald's and get a sausage biscuit or two. I have not had a craving this intense for weeks. I am trying to analyze it. Am I hungry? Yeah, kinda, 'cause I just got up about an hour ago. But there's food here. Reasonably tempting food, even. I could make a bagel, which is still not an ideal breakfast for a fat person trying to lose weight. But I want those sausage biscuits.
I'm pretty sure I'm not going to cave in. I'm staying on the computer an extra minute or two so I'll be just late enough to not take the risk of a slow drive-through. I just popped the bagel in the toaster. I'm reminding myself that the rest of the brass section would not appreciate wafts of sausage biscuit breath blowing over them, and Altoids can only do so much. I'm not taking cash.
But, friends, WHY do I want this so badly? Is it a love substitute? Is it some kind of weird validation? Is it self-sabotage - am I freaking out because I've had a few pretty good weeks?
I have spent much of my adult life thinking I might look pretty good if I just lost some weight. Is there a part of me - dead serious here - that wants to hold on to that illusion? Because, after all, if I lose the weight and I don't look good (whatever 'good' is - I'm a little vague there) then what do I have to hold onto? Is that why I inevitably fall back in the feed bag? (but, not this time. Not this time. Not this time.)
Oh, this is too much thinking before 7 am. But I've got to figure this out.
There are dangers to this mindful planning thinking ahead kind of mindset.
There's a danger in getting too rigid, and in not being about to think on the fly.
I see this in my mother in law, who does laundry on Monday, because Monday is laundry day. therefore, you do laundry. Because, Monday. This means that she will not accept an invitation on a Monday. This means if she needs a dentist appointment for a sore tooth, and all they have is a Monday, she'll postpone the much-needed appointment until they have another day open. Because Monday by God is laundry day, no matter what.
So she's not really good at adjusting, at figuring out Plan B.
My whole LIFE is plan B. But I've allowed myself to fall into a lull here by thinking that if I planned meals ahead, I wouldn't have to think about it. I could go on autopilot, and eat X because my calorie-specific, thoughtfully prepared nutritionally balanced chart said it's time to eat X. Whether I felt like it or not.
It's worked pretty well for these last few weeks. But yesterday I hit a snag. I hit my first wonderful, unexpected, joyous celebration. Went to see the house that might be THE house with my son and his wife, and they asked if we wanted to go out for a beer after and discuss the pros and cons.
Well, look, I'm not Rigid Laundry Day Person. Your adult kid likes you enough to ask you to be part of a big decision like this, you go. He and his wife enjoy your company and ask you to hang out for a beer.........you go. Of course you go. I do not want my epitaph to read "her laundry was clean".
But, I got there, a sort of hipster craft brewery pub-food kind of place, and I realized I had absolutely no idea what to do. I have been to restaurants a few times in the last few weeks, since starting the Quest, but I'd been able to plan ahead, mostly. Even the day that we ended up surrounded by platters of fried fresh caught fish with the other son and his family while traveling, I'd at least had a few hours in the car to steel myself.
This just kind of rattled me yesterday. I felt like I'd started the day thinking Red River cereal for breakfast, salad for lunch, chicken thighs and veg for dinner. And suddenly I'm in this noisy pub and all my willpower goes straight to hell in a handbasket. Actually in a basket of cheese fries. With things on top. Things which I won't detail here out of respect for anyone who's feeling fragile, but.......they were tasty things.
And the Beast came to life, for the first time in a few weeks. If my son had turned his head, I'm pretty sure I would have grabbed a quarter of his quesadilla. My daughter in law clearly wasn't going to finish her fish taco, maybe I could ask her for it. I briefly considered a trip to the restroom with a side dash to the window where you placed orders for food; surely I could pick up another order of those fries and eat them in the corridor. I fantasized about the cheeseburger at the next table. May I just point out the the cheeseburger was being eaten by a truly gorgeous man, I mean, the waitresses were swooning. But all I saw was the cheeseburger.
So I kind of beat myself up about this last night. And then I realized that I just haven't practiced this kind of thing often enough to have good reflexes. I can study a menu the day before I go to a restaurant and make some good choices, and talk myself to a point where the Beast is controlled. But yesterday caught me unaware, and it showed that this isn't instinctive yet. And once I made that first bad decision, the Beast was unleashed.
Now, what's the answer? For now, I do still need to continue to avoid the near occasion of sin, as we cradle Catholics used to say. But at the same time, I need to practice making good decisions. I need to exercise my willpower. I need to do exactly what I wrote about a few days ago: say 'Disconnect" and unplug the incoming call. And to do that, I have to step outside my comfort zone occasionally.
As a performing musician, I understand muscle memory and how it saves your butt when things get weird and you have to adapt. You absolutely must have it in your hands, you absolutely must have the muscles programmed already. Then, when the singer skips a verse, or someone pulls out the wrong plug and the whole pit is suddenly dark, you've got the skill set to adapt.
So I guess I need practice. I need a grocery store run today for some supplies. I think I'll go with a full belly, and then I'm going to actually go into the dangerous aisles and stare down the tempting things and exercise my 'disconnect' superpower and confront them. Look for footage later on youtube, I'm sure someone will pull their phone out. Just type "crazy old lady yelling at Tastycakes" into the search engine.
In the farm van yesterday making deliveries, interview on NPR with experts talking about the likelihood of war with North Korea and the outcome of such action........and I pulled right into Wendy's drive-through and ate all the things. Well, now I know that the threat of nuclear annihilation is definitely a trigger for my food addiction.
I've been thinking about triggers. There's got to be a pattern here.
And I've been thinking about how to drown out the head noise that seems to factor into this. That voice that says "you might as well just eat." (I call her Gruoch, after Lady MacBeth. She's a flaming bitch.) In my personal mythology, Gruoch is the voice that awakens the Beast. And when the Beast decides to feed, there's no stopping it. Thus, I'm trying to work on Gruoch.
And parenthetically, if this sounds borderline insane to you, that won't hurt my feelings. I get it.
My normal friends tell me that when they're 'dieting', by which they mean trying to lose 4 pounds or something, they distract themselves with projects so that their heads are just 'so occupied' that they can't think about food. You know, while they make Pinterest projects.
I love these women, I do, but they sure don't get where I'm coming from.
How do you distract a brain that has multiple channels?
It's easy if you have a single track brain. It starts thinking about potato chips, and you drown it out by getting all excited about gluing glitter onto whatever the hell it is that Pinterest devotees are doing these days.
I have ADD, and I believe that it is somehow connected to my food addiction. I believe it has something to do with my brain not producing enough dopamine or other calming substances, and so I'm looking for that 'ahh' moment in food. I don't know which is cause and which is effect, or if it's actually correlation and not causation. I'm not positing this as an excuse for my overeating. I'm just trying to understand it so I can get control of it. At the moment, my goal is not to figure out the big picture, it's simply to keep myself out of the food bag.
And the challenge here (I stopped myself from saying 'the problem') is that ADD people have these great, awful, multitrack brains, with many things happening at the same time.
I don't know how to drown out Gruoch's voice. She has her own track. People who don't get it say "Oh, just be busy and you won't have time to think about food," but they simply don't get the way my brain works. I am running at least eight tracks in my head right now, but there's space on the tape for even more, it's a slow day. Gruoch isn't going away. She's right there in the mix, chattering about potato chips, which are on the second display case to the right inside the front door of the little Mom and Pop store in town, three miles away. My favorite kind costs 99 cents and there's that much change in my pocket, and I have time to run down there and get back and still get everything done for market today. Gruoch is making sure I know this.
Sad and frightening national news stories aren't going to go away. Gruoch isn't going to stop whispering in my ear. I guess that leaves Ernestine, the phone operator, pulling cords and yelling 'disconnect!' when bad messages are coming in. Maybe I need to visualize Ernestine having her own dedicated track.
I just re-read this. Honestly. I'm either brilliant or certifiable, and I have no idea which it is.
Soooo I've started a different mindset that actually gives me hope and gets me thinking more positively about myself and the binge eating. .....It's a book called THE PRIME. It makes the connection between the brain and stomach along with meditation. I've taken the 1st step towards Phase 1. Bought all the spices at an Indian market (new experience....lol). Don't know if it will work, last, be a detour or what. But at least temporarily I don't feel so unbelievably rotten and responsible for this disorder.....
Keep hope alive....LONA
But, poor people can't always 'choose' to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as anyone who's worked with people in chronic poverty can tell you. Alcoholics can choose to get treatment, but they're can't just choose not to drink - or they wouldn't be alcoholics. You can choose to build in a floodplain, but you can't choose whether or not a hundred-year flood will happen during your lifetime. Maybe some earlier choice of mine triggered my rheumatoid arthritis, but I don't know what it was. And so on. Someone might argue that every single thing that happens to us, or every component of our personality, is a result of choice. I would disagree with that, although I believe that choices can be contributing factors.
So let's start this by figuring out something important: as food addicts (not just overweight people - there's a world of difference) what, exactly, can we choose?
Let's start with a given that we didn't choose our addiction. Let's start with a given that it's something in our neurochemistry that's misfired. I don't have the background in science to know all the correct terms here, But let's assume we all agree that something has gone haywire, either chemically, or as a result of some kind of trauma, or both. If someone doesn't agree with that premise, then, I'm not sure why they're here at all, because they'd have no basis for an addiction, they'd be considering our problem to be a choice.
So what can we choose?
We can choose to seek help, which can come in a myriad of forms. It can be a book, a guided spiritual journey, friendship, medical help, counseling, It can cost us money (i.e. my hypnosis sessions) or it can be free. It can involve strangers (OA meetings) or stay private.
We can choose to look in the mirror and face this head on. We can study ourselves like we've never studied anything before: learn your triggers, learn your best techniques for talking yourself out of an episode, examine all of your scars and make sure they have in fact healed, and aren't festering.
We can choose, to paraphrase the Serenity Prayer, to change the things that are within our control. For me, that means doing some re-arranging in my house, cleaning out my car, re-setting as many things as possible in my environment to avoid my triggers. For you, it was jettisoning the toxic spouse (kudos to you for that!).
We can choose optimism. We can choose to believe that we are each evolving creatures, that we are works in progress. That we're not done with this process until we take our last breath. We can choose to believe that we can and will get better.
We can, when the big journey is overwhelming, choose the next small step. We can choose to accept that losing the weight is harder for us than it is for other people. THIS IS HARD. But, as Glennon Doyle says, we can do hard things. We can choose to get up again after it knocks us down.
We can choose not to be defined by this disorder. We can be other things, other things than food addicts. We can choose to not sit on the sidelines. We can get up and dance.
We can also choose grace. It may have a spiritual component for some, and for some within that group it may be tied to a specific religion, but it can exist outside of that as well. We can choose not to be miserable human beings. We can choose to reach out in some way and make someone's existence better. All of us can do that. I can't think of anything more powerful than if all of us actually did.
I think that we DO have to accept that we can't control how food affects us. I am starting to accept that I have this problem for life. This has been a huge step for me, because it does take away the guilt. This is AA's first step, admitting that you have a problem, and I think it's a crucial one.
But, and this is important, is does not replace the guilt with permission to give up. It does not mean that I can just say oh the hell with it and start having Omar the Tentmaker make all my clothes.
It means I pull on my big girls pants, look around and realize everyone has shit to deal with, and I get to work on my problem.
You are rocking this, Lona, with your book, and your fierce attitude. YOU CAN DO THIS. Let's make today a good day. Just focus on today. Check back in later tonight and let me know how it went for you.
There are 483 days left until I turn 60. Yes, it's arbitrary, and yes, I know the work of becoming oneself is a never-ending continuum, but I also know myself well enough to understand that setting a goal and using my 60th birthday as the goalpost is going to motivate me.
Except it hasn't. Not enough, not yet.
I could spin it and say that the past two months, since I first gave voice to this challenge, have been the warmup. The laying of the infrastructure. Setting the foundation.
But the honest truth is that I'm not making enough progress, and I'm not working as hard on this as I should.
I can't waste any more days.
So, using the Serenity Prayer as a guideline, I spent yesterday's meditation time (also know as "the hour in which I shovel poop out of the barn") thinking about my circle of despair.
I am fat. Because I am fat, I don't move as much as I should. I also have an autoimmune disease which affects my joints and which also, more horribly, makes me lethargic. So I don't move as much as I should. So I'm fat. So I get depressed / disgusted, and I start eating too much. So I'm fat. Then it's harder to move.
I need to open up this circle. I see it in my head now, and on my whiteboard near the computer. I visualize it as being fairly thick. Now I need to collect all my superpowers and figure out where the chinks are in the armor, where the circle is the most vulnerable. It's a circle of rope, and I need to break through it, so it's just a single piece of rope, not a continuous circle.
If I were not-fat, I might be more inclined to move more. I can't snap my fingers and be not-fat immediately, though. So I can take only very small bites out of that part. Oh, note to self: 'taking bites out of it' is probably not the best choice of words for an overeater, is it.
If I didn't have rheumatoid arthritis, I might be able to exercise more comfortably, but I can't make that go away. I can (and I do) work with my doctor on management, though.
If I didn't overeat, I wouldn't be fat, and I would be moving more. I'm trying, but I can clearly do more there.
BUT, the one part of the circle I think I can actually break though is the 'not moving' part. There are a lot of excuses for my not exercising, but honestly, my Facebook page has three things, just this morning, that make me realize I'm being a pansy. You know the kind of thing - the double amputee running a marathon, the little girl busting her butt in physical therapy to overcome her Thing. In comparison, my excuses are ridiculous.
Listen to some of them:
I'm too tired to exercise. (Yes, fool, you're actually tired BECAUSE you don't exercise.)
I'm too busy to exercise. (This is sometimes true. Some days there just doesn't seem to be much wiggle room at all. I notice however that your ample ass manages to park itself in front of the computer for long stretches though. You know, if you took all the time you spend on the computer and just walked, you'd be in much better shape.)
I need better walking shoes, and $ is tight. (Yeah, well, remember the $ you had to shell out for PT because you were wearing shitty shoes and you got plantar fasciitis and that tendon problem? True, money's tight. But one less fast food trip a week would pay for those good shoes pretty soon.)
It's too hot. Or too damp. Or too dark. (Wahhh. Shut up with the whining already.)
I am going to walk today. There is a spectacular 3.5 mile trail on a nature preserve right by an exit of the highway I drive anytime I leave the farm. I am going to walk it today. Slowly. Probably bitching every single step. But I'm going to walk it on my way back from making the veg deliveries this morning. This is going to be the very first little mouse-nibble on the circle of rope that represents my circle of despair. (I seemed to have shifted to Aesop's imagery.)
Please, friends, do this with me. Figure out your circle. Figure out why you keep coming back to the same old terrible habits. Figure out where the weak spot(s) might be in the rope. Figure out what action you can take today to weaken the rope a little further.
Mousenibbles.
As a sign of faith, faith that I will achieve my goal, I have just burned my shorts.
Instead of putting them away for the winter, I am letting the universe know that I will have a handle on this overeating thing and my ass will simply not be a size 18-20 when the weather warms up again.
So they went on the burnpile.
Disclaimer: this would probably be a more heroic gesture if I'd owned more than three pairs, if they hadn't come from Goodwill originally and cost less than $7 total, if they weren't so worn out and stained that even my low standards wouldn't allow them to leave the farm anyway. So I suppose one might make the argument that I was getting rid of trash, as opposed to making a statement of faith. One might say Katie, you were really just overdue for some new shorts, and those were too disgusting to even donate back to Goodwill. But, this is my story and I am by God sticking to it.
We all feel bruised by this addiction sometimes, don't we? The guilt and self-loathing can really take a toll. I can't tell you how many times I've looked into the mirror and said things to myself, horrible things, that I would never say to someone else. I'm working hard on that now, trying to stop doing that.
As I write this, a very dear friend is facing up to his alcohol addiction. Like all of us, it's a journey and not a giant 'aha' moment - those seem to only happen in movies.
For the past few months, I guess actually even years, he's bounced back and forth. A few nights of binging, a few concerned words from family members, then a couple sessions at AA meetings and a 'strict regimen' - his phrase - of healthy eating and exercise and abstaining. A few weeks will go by, and then...........something triggers him and he starts drinking again. He's always positive that he can handle it, and he gets angry if anyone tries to gently step in and say......hey........let's maybe put the brakes on for a second and think about this.
Well, this past weekend was one of those times. And this time he fell out of bed, or tripped, or who knows what, really - he doesn't remember - at 1:30 am, banged up his face, lots of blood, concussion. He phoned his ex-wife, who lives nearby, and she came and took one look and called an ambulance.
He's 'okay' in the sense that, well, he didn't kill himself. But, he's still having dizzy spells and short term memory issues, and he's going in for some testing today. His ex, who is a good person, made him an appointment with their family doctor for this afternoon for followup. And when she did, she used the words 'alcoholism' and 'suicidal thoughts'. My friend was furious that she did so. But, he's going to the appointment.
And he has one hell of a bruise. We're talking a black eye that nearly covers one side of his face entirely. Today, he says it's started spreading to his other eye as well, that it's looking red now too.
Now, I can't say this to him, he'd take it the wrong way. But, I am actually really, really happy that he has this awful bruise. You know why? Because this man has been the master of denial about his problem for years. He's smart, he's funny, he's attractive. He can, apparently, drink a fifth a night and still function at work somehow. He's been getting away with this for years, for the most part. On the rare occasions when someone other than his ex-wife challenges him about his drinking, he very charmingly disarms them. He doesn't have a problem, he assures the rest of us.
And now every time he looks in the mirror, he sees this huge, awful, swollen, multi-colored hideous bruise, and it's saying to him: No. No. You are not in control of this. You have a problem, and you need to face it. He's going to have that bruise for weeks.
I am hoping and praying that the reminder is what pushes him to finally take the steps he needs to take.
His appointment is in two hours. The ex-wife is going along. It's a small family practice; I'm guessing they'll just let her walk right in with him. And it not, I'm betting she'll make damn sure they hear the truth, even if my friend isn't willing to admit it.
He's told me, in his moments of honesty, that he's deeply ashamed of his addiction. He has to get past that. He's told me that he thinks he's let everyone down. He needs to understand that he's only letting them down if he continues to hide the problem. I'm telling him that the best gift he can give his (adult) son is to get the help he needs - not just because the young man will have a father who isn't prone to lying and rages, but because he will also then know that even if this is in his own DNA, he'll be able to beat it too. He needs to figure things out with his ex-wife. I am certain that this history has played into their breakup. En route to the hospital, he remembers his ex saying to him "You have to forgive yourself for this addiction. You need help, and it starts with forgiving yourself."
I am hoping and praying that he can do this. I want so very much for him to realize how worthy a project he is, how good he is, how many people care for him.
Now...........can I learn from this? Can I forgive myself for my own addiction? Can I let other people help me? Can I admit I'm really powerless over this THING that happens when I start eating certain foods and just lose control? Can I be as kind to myself as I am to my friend? Can I believe in myself the way I'm asking him to believe that this time he can really do it? Can you? You're coming to this board and reading through the posts here because you're looking for a path forward, too. Can you start by believing that you can do it? Isn't that what you'd tell your friend, if you were in my situation right now? So, let's tell ourselves that too. We can do this.
If you're old enough to remember the song, you need to hear those words to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "Feeling Groovy", and, you're welcome (for putting that song in your head for the next hour.)
Mornings on the farm start with a lot of noise because by God EVERYONE is hungry and they want to be fed RIGHT NOW. And as you move from one to the other, it gets incredibly eerily quiet as the chickens, the turkeys, the sheep, the dog, and cats, etc, everything is happily eating.
For a few seconds. Pretty much by the time I get to the end of the the morning feedings, whoever ate first is making noise again.
The chickens can wipe out a five gallon bucket of feed in minutes. The dog is a vacuum cleaner; he can snarf up a bowl of kibble in one inhalation. The sheep plow through their hay. It takes the turkeys about 40 seconds to get all the good stuff, and then they spend a little longer on the parts they don't like as much.
Silly animals, right?
It took me 42 seconds to eat an entire bagel this morning. I know this because I had a set a timer for something else and happened to glance up when I finished my delicious (maybe? Who could tell at that speed?) bagel.
42 seconds.
This isn't right. This isn't normal.
The little blurb at the top of this forum page that explains food addition mentions eating fast. But this is a factor that I've never really studied in myself.
I know when I go to a restaurant, I'm aware that my companions eat more slowly than I do, and I try very hard to fit in.
I know when the spouse and I eat dinner in front of the TV (I know, I know) it barely takes any time at all.
I know when I do the terrible fast food thing when driving, I can finish all of it before I get back on the highway from the fast-food exit.
I know that I'm always in a hurry, it's probably part of the ADD thing, and part of having a lot on my plate, no pun intended, lifewise.
But, this isn't normal. This isn't helping me.
My resolution for today is to chew.
That's it. To chew.
Reporting in after 24 hours of chewing. Not non-stop, of course. And I'm not giving in to any latent OCD tendencies and counting how many times I chew or anything weird like that.
No, I just tried to eat mindfully for a day. I tried to take smaller bites. Chew my food. Be grateful,
Linger. Savor.
It was pure hell, people.
Seriously, it was awful, and it certainly pointed out how big a problem I have. Apparently I generally just mindlessly inhale food.
Let's make sure I'm clear about the irony of this: half of my income is derived from farming. Not the corn-wheat-soybean kind of farming, but the small scale, organic hippie crunchy weirdo greenie kind that, you know, celebrates kale and pastured free range poultry and all that stuff which yes, is trendy and annoying, but which people used to just call 'food' back in the day. I send weekly boxes of food to 50 families who participate in my CSA, and I write weekly newsletters with recipes and suggestions for how to use the sometimes unusual produce. This week, the boxes contain bright purple (inside and out) sweet potatoes, lime green Romanesco cauliflower, fresh figs, sweet, mild Hakurei baby turnips, a butternut squash, roasted sunflower seeds, Jerusalem artichokes, two kind of lettuce, and spinach.
I mean, I do this shit RIGHT. The boxes are gorgeous; they're visually appealing, they're fresh.......I have a waiting list for the CSA and don't even advertise anymore.
And yet.
And yet, I eat fast food french fries, apparently without actually even tasting them.
I test and write and send out recipes for figs stuffed with goat cheese warmed in the oven and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, but last night I ate Triscuits for dinner.
Mindfully, at least.
I am beginning to believe that one of the many screwed up things in my head is some sense that I am not worth the effort. I would never serve anyone else Triscuits for dinner, you know?
I have so much work to do. So much work.
Remember the cartoons where the evil robot character comes unglued and starts spinning in circles, repeating the same thing over and over as it decompensates?
Well, do I have a story for you.
If I ever have to explain the ridiculousness of food addiction to someone in just a few sentences, I'm going to use this story.
Long day of errands yesterday and I'd neglected to pack healthy food. I would have stopped for something but I was in a remote part of the state and simply had no options. So by 5 pm, after I'd dropped off a horny goat at a farm where he'll provide stud service, picked up forty pounds of mushrooms for my CSA customers, bought a thousand pounds of seeding mix for the greenhouse and loaded it into the goat-pooped van, and been gifted an emu egg while visiting an emu farm - seriously - I was pretty hungry.
And there was a McDonald's.
So, I pulled in the lot, intending to go through the drive through.
But then my better angel interceded. "Disconnect,, remember? This not a good choice." So, I braked, and started to turn to leave the parking lot.
But my bad angel, Gruoch, jumped right in. "Chicken tenders. Fries. You know you want them." So, I turned back into the parking lot, and circled the building.
But just before I'd have gotten in the takeout lane, my better angel was back. "You won't die. You aren't going to starve. There's salad in the fridge at home, fool." Quick swerve out of the drive-though lane, circle the building again looking for the exit.
"You could just get fries." Swerve back to the drive through lane.
"But you've come so far in the last two months." Gently brake, back up a bit, drive around again to the exit.
"You didn't eat lunch. You can afford the calories." One more circle around the building.
"Stay strong! Think of your intentions!" Another circle.
Friends, I lost count as the battle raged in my head.
So. So. So I finally park the van and go inside. I'm going to buy an unsweetened iced tea and a small order of fries.
I should back up just a bit and describe my van. It is twenty five years old, a Ford Econoline 350 monster, with peeling matte white paint and lots of rust. It has a huge PVC thing and ladder racks on the roof. It bucks and snorts at low speeds. My farm employees, who are young and strong and fit, are afraid to drive it. It is the classic stalker van. My kids call it the 'creeper van'. What can I say? My old pickup had died and the van was free. It runs. I can hose out the occasional goat shit.
I am met by the manager at the door. He is holding a cell phone. He has been videotaping my van circling the building. "I was just about to call the police," he admitted.
"I'm on a diet," I answered, with as much dignity as I could, which was absolutely none. "I was having a brief moment of indecision."
"It occurred to me that it could be something like that," he said. "Which is why I waited to call."
"The van threw you, didn't it?"
"Yeah," he said. "Our daytime circlers usually drive mini-vans."
"Because they're arguing with their kids..........."
"Giving them one last chance to settle down or we're going straight home and not getting milkshakes. Yep, at least once a week."
So there you go, people. If you ever want to terrorize a small business, be sure you use a mini-van, they'll suspect nothing.
Every employee of the McDonald's watched in silence as I left the building with my unsweetened tea and small order of fries.
If the emu egg hatches, I think I'm going to name it McDonald.
It has been just over two months since I started this journey in earnest, and I haven't really got anything impressive to show for it.
I don't weigh any less. I actually weigh a little more.
My clothes don't fit any better. In fact, I had to go to Goodwill and get a larger pair of jeans.
I've become obsessed about this to the point where it's crowding everything else out of my head.
Shopping for food has become a nearly paralytic activity. Eating has become very angsty, with all this paying attention to chewing and being thankful and mindful and so on. Journaling is no longer a cheerful moment of reflection, but rather a dark, soul-searching exercise. I am second-guessing everything. I am over-analyzing everything. None of my intended new habits are automatic yet. Every thing I do has to be mentally dissected: is this the best choice? Will this get you closer to your goal? Do you really need that second helping? Is there a better choice?
My friends, this is exhausting.
But.
But.......I think this is okay.
I think this is actually how the process works. I think I am right where I should be - for two months' in. I don't want to stay in this place. I want to see results. I want to let my mind drift a little. I want to think about other things. I want these new habits to happen on autopilot.
But this horrible upheaval that I'm in right now is actually part of the process. In retrospect, I can see that this part scared me off in the past. I'd get all excited about the beginning stages: sweeping declarations! detailed lists of resolutions in brand new notebooks! new toys (exercise videos, diet books, gym membership)! grand gestures!
Yeah, I like that part.
Then comes the hard and ugly part where you really have to tear yourself down before you can build yourself back up. Drop down on that floor and do the sit ups or pushups. Get your ass out there on this rainy chilly morning and walk those miles. Throw that chocolate away. Get up from the table while you're still a little hungry. Look in the mirror. Take the measurements and write them down. Try to understand why you've done this to yourself, and try to forgive yourself, and try to figure out how to stop it from happening. Admit you're powerless and you need help. Confront the fact that you may, in fact, die, or live a horribly physically compromised life if you don't get your shit together. This isn't losing five pounds to fit into your high school prom dress. This is, literally, a life or death situation, because that's how messed up you are right now. And you have to deal with it. Not tomorrow. Not tonight. Now.
Yeah. I don't like this part as much.
I think, in the past, i've given up long before the point I'm at right now. In that sense, I do have something to celebrate, because I'm hanging in here.
I know the weight gain is related to a med change, and is not permanent.
I know that my fridge has better food in it.
I know I've learned to shop differently.
I know that I've made fewer fast food runs.
I know when I've given in to that, I've ordered smaller amounts, at least.
I know that I've kicked the diet soda habit.
I know that I'm drinking more water.
I know that I've stopped lying to myself.
I know that I've got a good medical team assembled.
I know that I have the raw materials I need (good shoes, some exercise equipment)
I know that I've identified some pretty major catalysts for my problems.
I know that I've figured out some triggers and how to avoid them.
I know what to do.
I also know that
I don't yet know how to prioritize what I have to do.
I am overwhelmed by how much work I have to do.
I struggle to find the time I need for exercise when I also need to earn money and take care of things here at the farm and so on.
Food is still providing a kind of weird comfort for me that I need to find elsewhere.
I am still seduced by short term as opposed to long term happiness.
So, since I don't actually know how long this intermediate phase is going to last, I'm going to declare that it's ending (slowly) and I'm entering the next phase, which is a more active assault on the problem. I'm not done digging into my psyche for answers, nor am I done exorcising demons from my head. But it's time to do so while actually in motion: either walking, or cleaning things up here, or something active.
I have spent two months looking in the mirror. I can no longer deny anything I see there. But, it's time to start the renovation process.
And maybe that's the best analogy. We've all done that. Decided a room / house / something needs a big change, spent happy hours developing a plan, started tearing out walls and ripping up floors...........and then you look at the mess and think oh sweet baby Jesus, help me.
Well, that's where I am right now. I'm looking at piles of plaster dust and two by fours full of protruding nails because this project - me - has been ripped right down to the foundation, and it hurts, and it feels so exposed, and there's just such a bloody huge MESS now.
But, that's where I should be right now. I am where I should be. (Repeat that last line with me, because it applies to you too, no matter where you are in this process. I am where I should be. I am facing the right direction. I need to take the next step. Just the next one.
We can do this.