I am like cgagirl....I just read every one of your posts and I'm so glad I found you!! You are so an inspiration. Thank you soooo much for keeping it real. I especially like the part that our success is determined by what we DON'T do....such a true statement....And you are so right! We have GOT this!

^^^ thank you, dear, and good luck to you on this journey!

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR???

Humor me for a second. Grab some scrap paper and a pencil, and make a list of the things you're going to do as soon as you've got this food thing resolved.

(I'll wait.)

Okay.

Got a couple things there? Things like wear a swimsuit, train for a 5K? Let's see...........rev up your social life / sex life, reach out to some long lost friends, get a new hairstyle, try for a better job, go back to school? Dump the soul-sucking partner, put some boundaries on the soul-sucking parental units? Sign up for a yoga class?

Because you don't want to be the fat girl in the yoga class, you don't want to be the last one in the race, you just know they'll pass you over for that job, you're too messed up in your head for that relationship...........right? Need to get this food thing cleared up first.

If you're like me, you even have things on that list that make no freaking sense at all until you look very closely. Mine includes 'paint the bedroom'. Yep. Cannot hit Sherwin Williams until I get my shit together. This is, of course, ridiculous on the surface.

I understand the connection, actually: sprucing up the bedroom is a metaphor for sprucing up the relationship that theoretically is enthusiastically consummated there, but which has grown as stale and humdrum as the paint that I put on in, oh, maybe 1993. Now, I'm not sharing more details of the humdrumminess, but I suspect that some of you are nodding your heads right about now.

We have this vision of Perfect Me, the one with the shit together, stunning the interviewers for the job, wowing the Tinder date, and being photographed looking radiant and dewy coming across the finish line. Or renewing the enthusiasm in the dull-as-old-paint situation.

Because we think we can't do anything until we're 'right', or 'better', or 'perfect'.

I am working on weeding out those feelings. I'm not ready for Sherwin Williams yet, but I'm getting closer.

And, let me tell you about my marathon.

Because it's on your list too, right? Crush the addiction, get healthy, buy the spandex, get the race medal? Admit it. You look at those magazines in the store with the stories of the people who turn their lives around and enter a race, and you superimpose your own face on the picture, mentally.

So, here's what I did. This is not technically part of my current goal, because it was nine years ago, but I think it was really the start of the turnaround.

I had just turned 50. I had finished a grueling round of physical therapy for back pain (scoliosis, and mis-use, basically.). So I signed up for a marathon. Yes, there's some missing pieces between the second and third sentences, as far as logic goes, but I did it.

I signed up to walk a marathon in the Adirondacks six months later. Not being the least bit off-put by a) not being able to walk even half that and b) having no mountains anywhere near that size for training and c) only owning cheap sneakers. Because those were just details.

I trained. I did a great job, when you think about where I started from. I walked into an elite sporting goods store and said I"m fifty and overweight and I can't run because my back's screwed up and I want to walk a marathon in six months and I need shoes and I have no idea where to start." And the staff spent two hours with me that day. We walked around the parking lot, they recommended a sports exercise therapist to help fix a gait issue (she was a godsend) and they finally found the right shoes for me. (not nearly the most expensive ones there, either.) They gave me their emails so they could keep in touch. I was so scared to go in there, that day - i was so sure they'd laugh at me, if not outright, then, you know, that look. But it was cool.

But here's the real point of this story: it's about your list. It's about that 5K you don't want to sign up for because you might come in last.

Here's what I have to tell you:

I was the last finisher.

There were hundreds of runners and hundreds of walkers.

And I was last.

By a lot.

And when I dragged myself into the bar where they were giving finishers a free beer.........

,,,,,,,,,,I got a standing ovation.

I was last. Everyone's worst nightmare, right? Last place. And you know what, the world didn't end at all. And no one laughed at me. In fact, so many people bought me a beer that night that I got as tipsy as I've been in my adult life. And you know what they pointed out to me? I was last, sure. Except.............two hundred and three people dropped out before the finish line. And how many people hadn't even shown up that day? Or even tried in the first place?

And who gives a shit anyway? i did it. I walked the marathon. I still wear the t-shirt, and by God I earned it. It will always be one of the proudest moments of my life, crossing that finish line, and walking into that bar and hearing that applause.

Please, look at your list again. And pick something.........and get started.

PROGRESS.

Some disjointed thoughts today:

I ran 3/4 of a mile today. By 'ran' I mean 'jogged', and by 'jogged' I mean it wasn't walking anymore, even though it wasn't much faster. A trainer once commented that my running looks like 'controlled falling'. Also, it wasn't consecutive, it was in three sections spread out over my 3.5 mile morning walk.

But who cares? I couldn't do this a month ago, but I did it today. This is a Thing, people. Like making my bed in the morning now. Or keeping food out of the car. It might not sound like a lot, but these Things are going to change my world.

+++

I had more carbs yesterday than I have for two weeks.......and within an hour I was craving, well, everything. It was awful. The evening felt like wrestling an alligator. It just kept coming back at me. It was horrible.

So, I've learned that FOR ME, this carb thing is a factor. There's some kind of switch that goes off when I cut back on carbs. And when I add them back in - when I add back too many, or maybe too quickly - the switch goes back on again, and the Beast is awakened. I capitalized the words FOR ME because I honestly don't think there is one dietary regimen that works for everyone.
I mean, if one size fit all, we'd all be doing the same thing. When I get that book written, it will not be championing any approach to eating other than this: find out what works for you.

+++

The end of January will be the end of my hibernation period. There's minimal farm work and very few music gigs in January. I feel that I've sued January pretty well to my advantage: I've rested, I've read a lot of books, I've organized some things, and I've exercised a lot. I need to keep the momentum going in February, but I will do so with gigs on 16 of the 28 days, and getting the seedlings going in the greenhouses.

+++

I've also spent the entire month of January wearing the same two pairs of jeans and three different baggy grey sweatshirts, no makeup, hair back in a ponytail. Mind you, I've been clean. And I've been doing the things: the home pedicure, the lotion at night, keeping the eyebrows within reasonable boundaries. You know. The good,healthy, self care sorts of things.

I feel like I'm going to come out of a cocoon this spring. It's a good feeling and a little scary, too.

okay, back to work. Carry on, warriors.

HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

I'm convinced that the answers to all of our questions are usually in front of our faces, and it's only when we reach a point where we're willing to look for them that they become obvious. So many times in the last few months a phrase in a book, or a comment I hear on the radio, or a scrap of poetry or a line in a song will make me sit upright and say "Oh. Yes. Yes!" And then I spend some time sorting it all out, and slowly prying the meaning out of it.

Yesterday, the post and writer Mary Karr was interviewed on NPR. Now, I'm going to need to find the interview and listen to it in its entirety, because my experience yesterday was interrupted often. We live in a black hole, internet-wise - a lovely beautiful valley with no television reception at all,zero, unless you buy cable, and no radio reception. If you drive from my house to the main road, you're on a three mile winding path that, if the car radio is on, results in getting thirty seconds here, then a blackout until the next curve, then you pick up a little bit, and lose it again. Once you get to town, the reception is fine.

I set this up just to explain that I heard snippets of the interview, and I may have connected dots in my mind that weren't actually there as I tried to fill in what I needed for context.

But this is how answers-from-the-universe often works. The truth we hear was, maybe, not even spoken. Sometimes we're just ready for a little bit of truth, and something triggers it - even if that something wasn't, on the surface, all that profound.

I'm rambling. Mostly, I want to give Mary Karr credit for her thoughts, while still making clear that I may be paraphrasing. Let's stipulate that in the following, anything that sounds wise is probably her, and anything that doesn't is probably me.

Here's what I think I heard: she's talking about a young friend, a single parent of three very young children, who called Mary one day, in despair, and confided that she felt overwhelmed, seriously depressed, to the point of dysfunction, to the point of thinking perhaps her children would be better without her. I believe the last straw had been that she'd slapped one of her young children in anger, and she was now horrified at herself, and was questioning her fitness as a parent.

Mary's response - I think, given the bad reception - was to ask her this question: How did you get here?

How did you get here, she asked her friend. Have you eaten anything today? Have you slept? When did you have a shower, wash your hair? Are you dehydrated? When have you have a few minutes of quiet?

Now, at this point, I lost the radio reception completely. But I'm guessing the point was that we sometimes reach terrible places, places where we think things are hopeless, or that we're not worth the effort, or that we're just terrible, unlovable people.

And while we may have in fact made bad choices, or done some things that we're not proud of, maybe we got to that point because we haven't slept, we haven't drunk a glass of water, or sat for a moment of quiet with a cup of tea.

That's what I hope Mary was going to tell her. I hope she wasn't going to abdicate her friend from any responsibility regarding her children. I hope she wasn't going to shrug it off and condone her friend's burst of anger directed at a small child.

But at the same time, it's important to ask: how did I get here? What brought me to this point?

By this point I've driven out of the valley, but the interview's ended anyway. So I shut off the radio and thought about how this applied to me.

How did I get here? How many little, or larger, nudges in my childhood pushed me toward an addiction with food? So many snippets come to mind: being rewarded with sugar cubes for memorizing the German alphabet, the times tables, and pieces of poetry. Hearing my parents discuss their joy that my baby sister was so beautiful: "I guess we have one smart one and one pretty one". Wanting to be hugged, not ever having that available, and finding that Reese's peanut butter cups did a darn find job of releasing the same brain endorphins. And continuing that last part as an adult, marrying someone who - while he is a good person - is not at all demonstrative, and who does not talk much at all. But the peanut butter cups were always there for me.

Now, you know by now how I feel about focusing too hard on the past. If that focus takes the place of moving forward, it's bad. If that focus leads to completely abdicating any sense of personal responsibility, it's bad. If that focus leads to a giant pity party and a sense of further hopelessness, it's bad.

Because ultimately we're the only ones who can change the path we're on, after all. And time, as i'm discovering, doesn't give us the luxury of wallowing in our situation indefinitely. We either change it, or we remain mired in it.

Yet at the same time, we need to understand how we got here. If we're altering that path, a map is good. And a map is only helpful if you know where you actually are when you're starting. I'm sure you could say yes, but if you're goal is to go west, you can just follow the sun, and even if you don't know exactly where you are, you'll know that you're going in the right direction. And that's fair. Analogies can only take us so far.

This question applies to us in a very practical way, too. Conventional 'diet wisdom' suggests that when you're considering an off-diet treat, you ask yourself "Do I really want this?"

Oh, for the love of all that's holy. Of course I want it. I want twenty of it. I want to shove it into my face and have it drip down my chin. That's a ridiculous question to ask a food addict. At that point, I not only want it, I'm am obsessing over it. I am in food-lust. It possesses me. Owns me. I am a madwoman.

Anyone who would answer "Oh, GOSH no, I don't really want it! Thank you for saving me!" is, well, someone who isn't reading this post, am I right?

Other questions that are total fails, from my standpoint, are "do you really need this?" (Hell, yes.) "Does this fit into your plan?" (I do not give a flying eff at this point, I just want it.) "Will you feel good about this later?" (I never feel good about myself anyway, so who cares?)

A better question when we're at the brink, I now realize, is Mary Karr's: how did you get here?

So, last night, eleven pm, reaching into the fridge for a container of something decadent.........and I actually stopped and asked myself THAT question.

"How did I get here?"

And, my friends, I found that I could actually answer it.

"I'm over-stimulated from a great rehearsal, my head is swirling with the music I just heard. I didn't eat before I left home seven hours ago, and I didn't take a snack, so my blood sugar is probably whacked out a bit. I drank one bottle of water all that time, and the theater was warm and I was playing, so I may be a bit dehydrated. I'm worried about a personal situation, a toxic-to-me person I have to ease away from, that's on my mind tonight. I know tomorrow's to-do list is kind of overwhelming. The Visa bill is due in two weeks and this is a rough month financially. i didn't sleep well at all last night."

I closed the fridge door, drank a glass of water and went to bed.

That never happens. I mean, it happen to normal people, I think. But it almost never happens to me, that I can close that fridge door.

I think the difference was that last night I asked the right question.

WHO WOULD YOU BE?

Who would you be, if you were not in the grip of this addiction?

What would you accomplish?

What would people think about you?

How would you feel about yourself at the end of the day?

What relationship might you repair?

What might be part of your life that is absent in it now?

Who would you see in the mirror?

Who would you be?

Just take some time to think about this. It's a powerful exercise.

THE STORY OF MY FUTURE LIFE

Building on the last post - who would you be, if you weren't gripped by this addiction? - I began to imagine my answer to that question.

It became a novel. I mean, literally. It's a mystery novel, and maybe someday I'll send it somewhere, I don't know. But I created a person, an alter ego, and just sort of thought about what that person would do in certain circumstances, since she was a lot like me, only without food problems.

And since I overdo everything, it turned into jotting down a few thoughts, and that turned into writing up a bit of it, and next thing I know I have a 350 page novel.

I'm not suggesting you do that.

I mean, don't take it quite that far.

But it is a good idea to think about yourself without the albatross. Who would you be?

What would your life look like next year at this time, if you could kick this addiction?

Imagine it. Think about small details - for me, even though I'm not really into clothes, I like imagining certain things I would be able to wear. Think about practical details - surely I'd be saving some money. Think about huge details - if my mind wasn't swirling around with food thoughts, I'd be able to achieve something amazing with all that energy.

Okay, can you see her / him? Can you imagine doing things like opening the fridge without all the mental chaos, all the warning bells, all the voices in your head screaming?

Now, here's the thing that I've literally just come to accept - this will sound ridiculous - but truly, I didn't grasp it until recently:

Time will keep moving on, no matter what you do.

Next year will come, whether you fix this or not.

You'll be here, or God forbid you won't. But if you are, you'll still either be screwed up, or you'll be on your way to getting better.

The thing is......eventually you'll run out of time. You'll run out of 'later'. I don't meant his to be morbid. I'm speaking as a grade A level procrastinator who nearly always manages to slack off on deadlines and still pull things out okay.

But ultimately, we will run out of time.

My future life is going to happen unless, well, unless I drop dead. You know? It's going to happen. Either I slide willy nilly into it just sort of shrugging and letting this food addiction continue to control me, or I work at this. Work to understand it, work to forgive it, work to solve it.

But either way, tomorrow will come, next month will come, next year will get here.

So let's make the right choices. We can't undo whatever weirdness programmed us to have a proclivity for overeating. We can't go back in time and change the past. That malfunctioning brain wiring is already there, and we have to work around it. Those pounds are already on, those bad choices were already made, and we have to move forward now.

I say we look backwards only in order to understand......and then turn our full attention to Future Me. She needs us more than Past Me does.

I may have made bad choices, or missed opportunities or whatever yesterday, but I haven't screwed up today yet. Today is only twenty four hours long, and I'll sleep for some of that. I need to concentrate on making, oh, sixteen hours go okay. I can do that.

I think this is a key thing: imagine your future, free self, and figure out what is reasonable to do in the next few hours to move towards her.

I'M NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE?

I'm calling myself out for something that is pretty ridiculous, and which also has impacted my attempt to beat this addiction.

If it's ever been in print about dieting, i've read it. If there's a book, I've bought it. Magazine article, read it. list of top twenty tips for dieters on Facebook, clicked on it.

BUT, I have never really acted on any of the advice, Not truly. You know why? Here comes the embarrassing part.

Because I think I'm special.

I think my problem is worse than the author's problem.

I think no one else gets the severity of my addiction issues.

Because, I'm special.

So, I read things like "learn to drink your coffee black and save 150 calories a day" and I think, oh, you amateur, you're trying to get from a size 6 to a size 2, poor baby! (Because I am also terribly snarky and sarcastic inside my head, when not actually dealing with a live human, whose feelings I might hurt.) Saving 150 calories a day? I scoff.

Or, I read about ideas like bringing home the Tempting Food and immediately repackaging it into tiny, single serving packages. And then I get all righteous. All that plastic! The environment! Baby whales! Polar ice caps! And bah, like opening a tiny ziploc is actually going to stop me?

Because I'm SPECIAL, you see. My problem is worse than the author's. Or the friend I meet for morning coffee, who tells me that she's lost weight by doing x, y, or z. I'm actually secretly smug, thinking that my friend can't comprehend the overwhelmingness of MY problem, because.....say it with me......I'm special.

Now, this will sound like it contradicts what I've just written above, but.......part of that is actually true. A food addict's problem is a different one than the person trying to knock off a few pounds that crept up over the winter. It really is a different animal. Believe me, I get that.

But do you see what I've done here?

In thinking that MY problem was the worst of all possible problems, food wise, I have disrespected the wisdom of my sisters and brothers on the same path. It doesn't matter if they started closer to the finish line than I did. We are still ON THE SAME PATH.

By cavalierly dismisssing the individual bits of advice, the little hints that worked for plenty of people, I have also dismissed them, and the wisdom they have earned through their own hard work.

The fact is, setting a timer so that i don't snack until it's the right time, or counting grapes so I'm not mindlessly eating too many, or actually weighing my portions because what I think is a 1 cup serving of lasagna is actually five............none of those things, alone, will solve my problem. That much, yes, that much is true. My food addiction is an monster in side my brain, and it's a devious one. It will work hard to outwit all of these little tricks. And I have a lot of weight to lose. How can eating twelve grapes instead of thirty make a difference?

Well, that's been a mistake, to think that way. A huge mistake. And I'm changing that, now.

Those little tricks would add up. Those little tricks could be reminders. Even if I open two bags of cashews instead of just one, I'm at least reminded that the goal is to limit snacking. Even if I eat a second serving of pasta, weighing it will make me accountable for what I'm actually eating. Parking at the far end of the grocery store lot really does add steps to the daily total. These things could help.

Everyone's diet tips aren't going to work for me. I'm not going to eat a lot of prepackaged ready made food - I still have to balance my commitment to small local farms, one of which is my own, and the whole environment thing; this is part of who I am, and I'm not going to toss convictions aside.

But I think in the the future, the future being defined as thirty seconds from now, when I read someone else's success story and read their hints and suggestions, I'm going to do so with an open mind, and with respect for their accomplishments.

There is a huge, huge blessing that comes when we realize we're part of a larger community. I remember the first time I took my newborn first child to the grocery store and he started fussing and I locked eyes with a much older woman, and her expression said "I"ve been there too. It will be okay." and I realized that I am part of an incredible sisterhood that transcends race, religion, politics, and time. Because all mamas know. Now, I have to recognize that every single person who has crawled off the couch and trained for a 5k, or stopped eating sugar, or battled any kind of addiction - and I mean any kind - is my sister or brother. We're all in this together.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go count almonds and put them into tiny ziploc bags.

OOPS I ATE IT AGAIN

I was wondering if I could let my guard down for one evening. Some friends over for the Super Bowl, made all the snackage.........let's just say that the answer is a resounding "no".

It was pretty awful. I did all the things we do, like getting up from the game to 'check the wings' in order to surreptitiously shove a thousand calories of guacamole into my mouth in the kitchen. Oh, and I kept offering to get people drinks, you know, like the gracious hostess I am, you know, the gracious hostess who's not paying any attention at all to the game, because the leftover filling for the three-layer cake is in a tub in the fridge, and that's not like actually eating a piece of the cake itself, right?

SIGH.

FROM ELIZABETH GILBERT

I can't improve on this quote, so i'm just going to park it right here and walk away from it:

"I've never seen any life transformation that didn't begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit." (Elizabeth Gilbert)

7:15-7:30 am: DISGUST AND SELF-LOATHING. 7:30-7:45: COFFEE

Oh, I've hit on a good one. This is day seven of a little experiment and I think it's really helping my outlook.

I'm trying to keep everything about this transformation experience as positive as possible. And yet, I recognize the danger of denial, since my head has lived in that attractive imaginary place at times: oh, I'm not that fat. Oh, I can turn this around easily. Oh, I look okay in these jeans. It's so easy to tell myself those things. I'm basically a happy person, and it is so easy to just not care that I'm overweight. And yet when I confront it, sometimes I just want to give up. There is a need for honesty, but at this stage of the game, sometimes plain honesty can be overwhelming.

Now, let me set the stage. Our house is a collection of additions that spawned over the decades, and as a result, the first floor has a circular path connecting the rooms.

If I start at the back door and walk through the kitchen, living room, library, and hallway, I end up at the back door, right where I started.

It is 26 steps. Exactly. Always. My years of conducting band camps at high schools and teaching kids a 22.5" and a 30" step may have factored into my accuracy here. But it is right every time. 26 steps, 30 inches each.

Ubernerd that I am, I have done the math, and figured out how many times I need to go around that circle to hit a mile. And I do this. I do this on shitty days when even the dog refuses to walk outside. I do this when I am preheating the oven. Or waiting for the coffeepot. Or when my husband is eating breakfast, because the man eats dry cereal, and has a hollow head, and the noise drives me crazy. Look up 'misophonia'. It's a thing.

Anyway. I am trying to build sustainable routines here, so that exercise is something automatic and not something over which I must agonize every single day. ("Should I walk now? Maybe later. I'd have to change shoes. Maybe tomorrow. How far am I going?") Yeah, see, I have to eliminate all that mental anguish.

And so in February and March, one of my regular things is to jog my house-circle from 7:15-7:30 every morning. It is going well. By 7:15 the dog has been out and pooped, and the sheep and chickens aren't hungry yet, the husband is in the shower, and the coffee isn't ready anyway.

Now, backtrack to the balance of positivity and realism.

What I've done this last week is simple: I give myself shit from 7:15 to 7:30, while I'm jogging. Out loud. (Well, softly.) I berate myself for my fat thighs, I point out my wobbly ass, saggy boobs, potbelly, dangly upper arms, crooked nose, squishy thighs. I do not leave one single body part out of this litany, even the lady parts. I am graphic, and I am relentless. I say every bad thing I possibly can about not only my body, but my overall tendency to laziness, sloppiness, disorganization, everything. I really let it rip. At five houselaps to the minute, and a fifteen minute jog, I can list 75 flaws and elaborate on each one for 12 seconds. And I do, with gusto.

And then...........then it's done for the rest of the day. Done. I imagine putting all that negativity, or negative honesty - it's a fine line - into a box and sealing it up until tomorrow.

At 7:30 I pour a cup of coffee, and start giving myself love. For the entire rest of the day, I will not tolerate one single negative thought about my body. If my lumpen ass does not glide into the jeans I've chosen, I put them aside for another day and move on. If I catch my reflection of my protruding belly in the microwave door, I wave at it and remind myself that two amazing humans were produced there. When I look in the mirror, I ignore the eyebags (having covered them ruthlessly at 7:22:48) and remind myself that in certain light my eyes are green and that's kind of cool.

I am trying, in Feb and March, to do three of these house-runs a day, and the other two are an absolute love-fest. I mutter to myself about how focused I've been, how much stronger I'm getting, and how good my hair looks today for some reason. I go back over all the parts and give them some loving.

The funny thing is, everything I say, all three times, is true.

Regarding the negative stuff, I figure I've got to be honest, but I don't need to dwell on it, either. Acknowledging that my upper arms are getting kind of floppy motivates me to exercise and to to keep my head out of the Tostito bag. But I don't need to beat myself up about it all day, either. I'm compartmentalizing the negative thoughts now - I'm in charge of them. They'll keep very nicely in that box until tomorrow morning.

Yes. This is weird. This is eccentric. This is undoubtedly a manifestation of some kind of OCD behavior or some other abnormality. But here's the thing. It's working. I no longer have any shits to give about being 'normal'. That ship has sailed.

I just can't be miserable every single time I look in the mirror because I have a double chin. Once a day is fine. The rest of the time, I'll focus on having good teeth and a good smile. This isn't denying Chin.2. Acknowledge it, and move on.

You do not have to run around your house (although if you do, put on an Aretha Franklin CD, and carry a few dog biscuits so the dog will follow you; it adds to the sheer lunacy of the experience.) But if you're a food addict and you're visiting this page, then the odds are good that you're beating yourself up a lot, too. So, see if you can't figure out a way to control it. Yell at yourself int he car, but only until you get to the first stop sign. Write down a list of your horribleness, and then burn it. Get it out of your system for a few minutes a day, or maybe just once a week............and then get back to being awesome.

FEELINGS...........Woh Woh Woh FEELINGS.........

Ah, I guess most of you aren't old enough to know that song.

Thinking about feelings right now and loving the irony: because I'm trying to shift to Thinking more and - well, not Feeling less, not exactly that. Because I'm a fan of feelings. It's the acting on them part that I think I need to tweak.

And maybe all of us with addictions need to consider this. In a brief stretch with a therapist - she either wasn't the right fit or I wasn't ready yet, you know, like throwing seeds on unplowed ground - I was told that a key is to rethink how you approach feelings, and to stop thinking of them as commands.

Now, I'm definitely guilty of that. The slightest twinge of food-lust, and my mouth is open. As in this sequence: I'm on Facebook. A recipe for pizza pops up on a friend's page with a video of cheesy, carby happiness coming out of the oven. Hmm, I think, that looks good, maybe I - and suddenly there is pizza in my face. Yes, it's like magic, It's that fast. It's kind of unsettling. I wish I had a different superpower but there you go.

Therapist suggested this sequence: Facebook, pizza recipe pops up. Video of cheesy carby happiness coming out of the oven. Hmmm, I think, that looks good. Maybe I (INSERT NEW SCRIPT HERE: will think about making a pizza this weekend. Maybe I could cut that recipe in half, and make it with a nice spinach and mandarin salad END NEW SCRIPT)

Her advice was to recognize the feeling, take a moment to sort of examine it, and to name it: to say to myself, this is just a feeling, I don't HAVE to do this. Or, I can do it, but under my terms, healthier terms.

At the time, as I said, this just didn't quite resonate with me. If it were that easy, I thought, I wouldn't be here in the first place.

But over time, the message has sunk in. I don't feel like practicing some days, but I just go ahead and do it. I don't feel like weeding long rows of veg when it's hot and humid, but I do it.

And it works in other ways too. I DO feel like bitch-slapping certain politicians and political commentators, but I don't. I DO feel like tracking down a certain male celebrity and offering my body to him, but I don't. I DO feel like saying the hell with everything and jumping in my van to tour the country with my dog, but I don't. There are, of course, other considerations that come into play in these decisions. I mean, there would clearly be consequences. But, hello, overeating is not without consequences of its own.

So apparently I can override feelings sometimes.

The therapist felt that in the case of food addiction, I'd somehow re-wired the food-wanting-feelings into commands. She said everyone feels that they want the second or third piece of cheesecake, they just don't act on it. And I needed to teach myself to recognize that.

I'm still not sure that advice was worth $90. But I do see some merit in it. And I'm passing it on to you for free!

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

I've just realized, I have none. On this subject, that is.

I know there are historical references and references in literature of alcoholism and drug addiction. There are mentions of depression and PTSD, both of which may factor into our addiction.

But food addiction specifically? I actually hadn't thought about it until now. I've read criticism that suggests that our food addiction is a disease of the affluent in modern times ('affluent' meaning, in this case, people who are not literally starving). that sort of implies that it's our fault, doesn't it? that is we were 'stronger', whatever the hell that means, we'd be okay? For the record, It hin the people who battle this or other addictions are the strongest people I know. So let's just move on from that.

I wondered, though, how much of our issues stem from modern agriculture and food-growing and processing practices. As an organic farmer, this is kind of my thing. And hey, what's on our plates has changed more dramatically since WWII than in any other 70 year period in history. Is there something going on with food preservatives that triggers an allergic reaction in some of us? Do artificial sweeteners somehow reboot our endocrine system? Are we growing up with too much abundance around us and for some of, the ability to understand feeling 'full' is compromised?

I still don't know those answers. But even with my limited researching skills, I was able to find information about eating disorders in history. I won't list a summary here, God knows I already talk too much, but just to mention one example, most of us have heard ot the Greek vomitoriums. That was a cultural practice and arguably not a sign of individual overeating disorders, but it's at least a clue that this has been around a long time.

There's some comfort in that, weirdly, at least for me. People are people,. We're all a hot mess and we have been since day one. Everyone's got something, everyone's broken. We're not alone.

DOES MY BUTT LOOK BIG IN THIS? or, HOW STRONG IS YOUR SAFETY NET?

Sometimes I read posts on this page from people who are contemplating, or have attempted suicide. And my heart breaks.

Not only that, but I feel incredibly inadequate.

I grew up with a bi-polar, often suicidal father. He may have overdosed; we chose not to have an autopsy because honestly there was no point, by then, in finding out. He probably did. I can sort of understand it, because he dealt with extraordinary physical pain.

I'll never stop wondering, though, if there was more we as a family could have done for him.

But, that's only a background note for what I need to write about today.

My younger son was married last year. I haven't worn a dress for years, but I decided to buy something nice, on my limited budget, for the wedding. i looked at a few things, even took some photos of various outfits, and thought about it for awhile. Understand, this is pretty far away from my norm, which is to hit the Goodwill and buy an armful of plain t-shirts and sweatshirts once every few years, and be in and out of the store in less than ten minutes. But this was different. Because, you know. My kid. I wanted to look nice.

And I really thought I did. The color was great. I felt good.

Until I saw the wedding photos, and realized that the dress made my ass look huge. Something about the cut of it, in the back, just acted like some kind of spotlight, drawing attention to a part of me that really doesn't deserve scrutiny. From the front, I was a smiling gray haired Mom wearing a sundress, three-quarter-length sleeved jacket, and Converse hi-tops. From the back, I was a butt with a head. Period. Seriously.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, I can laugh about this. the wedding was lovely. I'm sure a particularly snarky relative made comments about my ass. But she would have anyway, you know?

My point here is that I really, really thought I'd made the right decision. But I didn't.

I should have taken a friend with me when I bought it. I should have had someone photograph it for me from the back. I didn't, pardon the expression, cover my butt, you see.

Because I was so sure I was making the right decision. I didn't bother to have any kind of safety net to talk me out of it. I did not have enough perspective. i could only see 180 degrees, not the whole picture.

So, I made a bad decision. Next time I need to wear a dress, I'll know better. I'll know that my own judgment isn't all that good when it comes to things like this. I'll have another chance to get it right.

If you are contemplating suicide, I can't say that I personally understand how you feel. What I do know, though, is that you won't get a do-over.

So, you might want to think about that safety net. If these are feelings that you are struggling with, if your pain is that great, then you might not be making the clearest decisions. What steps can you take, on a good day, to put a net in place? Can you lay some groundwork with someone you trust, so that they know you might need to make a middle of the night call? Can you look into your local resources, see what might be available to you? A trusted clergy or doctor? Maybe write down a hotline number before you need it?

Because nothing would suck more than for you to take that step and then find out, in whatever type of consciousness comes after this one, that is was the wrong decision. None of us can see the full 360 degrees. We all need a little perspective from someone who has a different viewpoint. Please, take some time to line up your safety net before you need it.

DIFFERENT HATS

As I ramp up my transformation journey, I'm looking at areas of my life which I have NOT screwed up for guidance. I'm looking specifically for clues that may help me navigate the challenge I'm facing now.

I've identified three main areas. Somehow, despite having been raised by wolves myself, I am a good mother. I have raised two terrific human beings. I do not say this with any pride - I taught school long enough to know it's a bit of a crapshoot; I've seen too many families with loving parents who have one kid out of four who is for whatever reason a nightmare. No, I'm not judging anyone else when i say my sons are fine, good men. But nevertheless, it's is on my list of successes.

I've done well with my music, and that's an area I'm going to have to explore more at another time - I want to talk, actually, about the third thing on my list today. But there is definitely material to consider with the music, because the truth is that for most of my playing career I have worked just hard enough to do well at what's expected of me........but not actually pushed myself to go further than that. For many reasons. I'm saving that for another time.

And that leaves my strange, magical little farm, which despite many many things stacked against it, has absolutely exceeded expectations. It's not where I want it to be yet, not exactly. But farms never are. I won't spend time describing it in detail, but the goal was to create a place that visitors immediately recognize is a safe haven, a place of peace........that also pays the bills. I'm getting there.

So, what I'm looking at today is the WHY of it. Why is it working? There are a few reasons that may peripherally also be relevant to my weight-loss, addiction-busting journey, like having a complete lack of ego in the sense that I'm willing to ask anyone for help, and I'm willing to admit all of my mistakes.

But we're going to talk about hats today.

My farm is working because I have three imaginary hats.

They represent three very distinct roles I play on the farm.

They are Creativity, Management, and Labor.

When I'm in creative mode, wearing that hat, I don't do any 'work'. I wander around, I dream, I look at magazine articles or websites, I think about idea that might work, I create nearly-possible scenarios. I am great at this part. I can see possibilities, always.

When I switch to the Management hat, I walk the farm with a clipboard and make careful notes about everyEVERYeverything that has to be done. I do this once a week without fail. I take the list and a cup of coffee, sit down and prioritize it. (Priority one is 'will something die if I don't do this?") I break the list down into daily and weekly projects, I am pretty good at this part. I can usually identify the needs and figure out the logical progression of solutions fairly accurately.

Lastly, I put on the grubby clothes and the last imaginary hat, and I'm now Labor. In this mode, I (ideally) just shut the hell up and get to work. I stop overthinking (again, this is the goal, not always the reality) and just get the job done. If it all goes right, I do not spend this time with my brain racing around thinking oh, but you really ought to be doing THIS instead. This is a real tunnelvision time, at least in regard to my overactive brain.

This part does not go as well as it could. One thing that finally occurred to me is that this is the time in which I should be listening to music or podcasts or audiobooks. I should be thinking about totally unrelated things. As I begin to hire more and more help on the farm, it also becomes a somewhat social time; I can chat with Louise about her kids while we transplant tomatoes. The key is to NOT be in management mode, or even full-blown Creative mode, during Labor time. I can do the physical work without exhausting my brain by worrying and overanalyzing.

When it works best, I can do the routine work on the farm and get into the kind of Zen place that I did when I did manual for someone else. I'd do a good - no, I'd do a great job, But I wasn't mentally anguishing over every aspect of it. I knew what was required of me and certainly did it as well as I was able. But my brain could sometimes be elsewhere.

I have learned that I do my best work, manually, when I allow my brain to just calm the hell down and get out of my own way. Seriously, shovelling chicken shit (which is on today's list) does NOT require overanalyzing, you know? Just do it.

So how does this apply to over-eating?

Remember, this is 'allaboutme', and isn't necessarily how it works out for you - but my guess is that we're all doing a bit of this.

I think we get stuck in the first two modes and don't get to the third as much as we should.

I think that's what happens with me, at least.

I can write volumes about my vision, you know? I can imagine my life as a person not shackled by this addiction. I can see myself as that person. This part, I can do.

I can do the management part pretty darn well. I harbor no illusions about my shortcomings; I can list them body part by body part, bad habit by bad habit. I can devise ways to tackle them. I can write up spreadsheets involving calories consumed, miles walked, water intake, daily scale numbers, waist measurement, everything. I can make a daily meal plan. I know the science involved, or where to find it.

The problem, then, is actually DOING it. But what I begin to realize now is that I'm hampering myself by not allowing my brain to turn off. I am SO FOCUSED on my goal, so very determined, that I'm allowing it to be the foremost thought in my brain at all times. While my body is in fact doing the Labor part in terms of exercise, my brain has not yet caught up, and it's still in management mode.

And that's making me nuts.

Here's why:

I should be deciding ONCE what I'm going to eat. And then just do it, you know? Instead, I decide what I'll have for lunch today, and then I spend literally the three hours leading up to lunch thinking about whether that's actually what I'm going to do. I start thinking about cheating. I start thinking about actually being MORE stringent and, say, eating a smaller portion. And I allow these two things to battle inside my head up until the moment lunch is actually done, at which point I begin either berating myself for bad choices, or congratulating myself......for five minutes,..........before obsessing over dinner.

In other words, I'm not taking off the Management hat and putting on the Labor hat.

The husband does not do this, The husband eats what is in his lunch bag every day. The husband has taken the same homemade denim lunchbag to work for 32 years. I am not making that up. I made the lunchbags the year the oldest was in kindergarten and he's 37 now, The husband has had essentially the same lunch every day that entire time: a sandwich, a yogurt, a piece of fruit, a package of cheese crackers. The husband does not even think about it. The husband is thin, and is not an addict.

I, on the other hand, obsess.

And part of it, I am convinced, is that I forget to take off the Management hat and put on the Labor hat.

So, that is my plan for today. I've envisioned the addiction-free self in my Creative time this morning. I've planned a healthy lunch and dinner and a small snack, and I've put time in the schedule for a long walk with the dog. I've changed into the grubby work clothes. I'm going to shovel chicken shit, while listening to Mahler and my first ever audio book. And then I'm coming back in to eat lunch. Exactly what I've 'packed', or planned, for my lunch. No agonizing over changing it. Just eat it. Just go for the walk. There is no need to have the brain in overdrive. Just do the things.

Like a normal person.

I THINK THE WORLD NEEDS US TO GET BETTER

Look, I know that grandiosity, i.e. having an inflated sense of one's value / abilities, is a sign of mental illness. I know I'm skating on potentially thin ice here, and I'm very aware of that. After giving it a lot of thought I don't think it's ego posting what I'm going to say next, but heart.

We live in a fucked up world where people do awful, awful things to each other.

If we study history, we learn that this has always been the case. If we study sociology, we learn that it transcends race, religion, income, education, and other factors. If we study psychology, we learn that - not unlike our addiction - there's some stuff that goes on in our brains that can predispose us to awful behavior. If we're spiritual / religious, we may bring an entirely different analysis to it.

But the point remains, the world is fucked up. We're reeling now from the latest school shooting, and even as our hearts break we rail against the inadequacy of our responses, and we know with certainty, statistically, that the next shooter is finalizing his / her plans right now.

So what's this post doing here? Aren't we supposed to be focusing on our food addictions?

Yeah.

But.....

Consider this.

Maybe we need to get our asses in gear and get our acts together here because someone here in this group is meant to be part of the solution to some part of the world's collective fuckeduppedness. Maybe, maybe, every single one of us has a role to play. It might not be gun violence per se. It might be any one of the many, many bad things that are happening. It might be a huge, newsworthy thing. It might be a small gesture, you know, one of those butterfly-wing moments, where the butterfly wings start a breeze that changes something and leads to something else and there's eventually some enormous consequence.

Maybe we don't just need to get healthy so we can fit into a pair of jeans, or save money on our grocery bills, or have more energy, or break the cycle of lying and addictive behavior. Maybe we have something wonderful to do in our remaining time, and we need to be mentally and physically clear to do it.

Maybe it's you. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's all of us.

Maybe I am suffering from delusions of grandeur. Maybe I'm a naive idealist.

But what if I'm right?