Pre-op class #9 and weekly weigh-in

Yipee, my staying stagnate streak has ended.  The last couple of weeks I was staying at the same weight, but I dropped three pounds this past week.  I'm happy with that.  Maybe all the extra exercising that I have been doing has helped!  Unfortunately I didn't get exercise in today.  I wasn't able to walk during lunch because of work commitments and the same will be true tomorrow.  I'm promising right here that I'll get some sort of exercise in tomorrow after work, whether at the gym or at home.  I don't want too many days to pass in between.

Last night's pre-op class was about healthy physical activity and building exercise into my life.  I'm glad that I've been exercising consistently because it felt good to be able to say the things I'm already doing.  In going through the material, I was reminded that exercise is not necessarily just going to the gym or going for a walk.  There are ways to get your heart pumping that can be incorporated into daily living, such as taking the stairs instead of an elevator or parking the furthest spot away in a lot instead of the closest spot.  Some really great suggestions from the reading include:

• Leaving sneakers by my front door to remind me to walk
• Bringing a change of clothes to work with me and going straight to the gym afterwards (that is a really good one because once I get home and start to relax, I won't want to go)
• Scheduling exercise into my calendar to remind me to get it done, just like any other appointment

The most important take-away for me is to always remember there is time to exercise.  The commitment level has to be there.  I've been incorporating changes in my life to prepare myself for surgery and my life afterwards, like no longer having sweets and bread.  While it has been challenging, it has felt pretty awesome to know that I can do this.  The same is true for including exercise and more movement in my life.  Sure, I don't necessarily want to do those things at times, but I always feel better when I do get in more physical activity.   

One of the things that has really helped is being actively engaged in MyFitnessPal.  I log in all my food every single day, along with my exercise.  I even have changed the settings so anyone can go on there and check out what food I'm eating.  That keeps me super accountable and very honest.  Sometimes that's not easy.  Today I had picked up some lunch because I didn't make the time to do it at home.  I got very tasty, but not great for me, Chinese food.  I still logged it in.  It's frightening to see how many calories are in Chinese food.  No wonder it tastes so freaking good!  It's not worth it, though.  I don't want to have days like this all the time where I'm worried that I'm going to go over my daily allotment just because of the choice I made at lunch.  Sometimes the hardest thing is to be honest, even with just myself let alone other people.  I'm committed to change, though, so I'll keep moving forward.

Water Challenge Day 57:  Drank 192 of 180 ounces

Relationship with food

When I went to my Options bariatric class on Monday, I didn't have my course materials with me.  Another classmate was gracious enough to share some of what we were covering.  One of the activities we had was to look at a checklist of statements in regards to the relationship with food and place a check next to the things we identified with.  Then we discussed our answers in small groups.

I brought my binder home today since we'll be off of work next week and I didn't want to accidentally leave it behind.  I opened to the class lesson and decided to really look at that list again.  An example of one of the statements is, "Once I start, I can't seem to stop eating."  So I went through the checklist again and really was as honest as possible with myself.  Of the 35 statements, I affirmed that 26 were issues for me.  That is more than what I did during class; at that time, I checked yes to 22 statements.  Some of the things were about the emotional reasons I eat, that it feels out of control, certain foods that can't be resisted, hiding food, deprivation, celebration, compulsive activity around food (like eating right from the box/bag/carton), having guilt and shame around food and so many more reasons.

When I looked at the checklist with my results, I thought, Wow!  You really do have a problem with food.  This is not some sort of revelation out of the blue of course.  Any person that is 50, 100, 200, 300 pounds overweight has a really big problem with food.  Look at the example of the people that are on The Biggest Loser each season.  Do you seriously think someone gets that overweight just because they love to cook or that willpower will fix it?  It's just not that simple and for anyone to think that it is really is in a place of ignorance.

Going further past the checklist were some exercise questions related to the list.  I thought it was important for me to answer from the depth of my soul.  I have to do that or I will never overcome these habits around food that have taken a lifetime to build.  I would like to share the questions with you, as well as my answers.  The questions are for you to ask yourself, keeping the utmost honesty at the forefront when answering them.  The answers I put down are for me to be honest.  Putting them on this blog will definitely keep me honest because it doesn't paint me in the best light but I am owning my truth.

• Why do I think I overeat?  Searching my soul, I really feel like there are so many deep-seeded issues - child abuse, sexual abuse, fears I have, lack of self-confidence, feeling ugly.  Some issues started in the past but they really affect me now.
• Am I more likely to overeat at certain times of day or days of the week?  What times of day or days of the week?  Why these times?  The hardest times are when I return home from work and then through the rest of the night.  I come home to a place with no one there and I think the loneliness overtakes me.  I become really hard on myself.  Somehow the food provides comfort until more food's needed.
• Am I more likely to overeat when I feel a certain way?  What feelings lead me to overeat?  Why?  Definitely when I feel loneliness or that I don't have friends.  It's not true ... I do have friends, but it's just what my head tells me when I'm alone.  When I get critical of my body or when I feel ugly, I tend to escape into food.
• Am I more likely to overeat with other people?  Who?  Why these people?  The majority of my overeating is when I'm alone and have privacy to indulge in whatever.  No one can see what's going on.
• Am I more likely to overeat at night?  What do I think causes me to overeat at night?   Night is part of it.  I get really lonely being single.  I need more and when I don't have it, the food provides a false sense of comfort.

It's not easy to honestly answer these questions because, if you're anything like me, you have to deal with what you've written down.  I don't want to admit that I feel lonely or that I beat myself up for where my body is right now.  Yet, I also want to change.

At the high school where I work, we were fortunate to be blessed with a guest speaker today.  His name is Brent King.  His daughter, Chelsea, was murdered here locally by a man who took her while she was out running in a public place in the middle of the day.  She was abducted, raped and left for dead.  She was 17 and had a lifetime ahead of her.  The same person also murdered another girl around the same age, not too far from where he killed Chelsea, in the same manner.  The message of Brent's message today was about conquering hate by living in love.  He had every reason to live in anger and hate towards the evil monster who did this to his precious daughter.  Instead, he and his family choose to live in love and treat others in such a way.  They have taken was was an incredible tragedy and turned it into something positive.  They helped bring together a law, Chelsea's Law, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.  They began a foundation that directly helps kids and the community.  They have grown stronger together as a family.  As I listened to this man's words, I thought about my own past and present.  I asked myself if I have chosen to walk forward in love or in hate.

It's a hard question to answer because I really want to say that I have walked forward in love.  In many ways, I do ... I'm kind to other people, giving to the kids I work with and do the best I can to leave a positive mark in this world.  However, when I look deeper, there is also hate and anger inside of me that I don't embrace enough to bring it out.  While I don't sit here in tears any longer when I think about being physically and sexually abused, there is hate inside of me towards the people that did those things.  While it was not my fault, I took those events and let them impact my confidence level as a human being.  I viewed myself as ugly, unworthy, disgusting.  I did things that helped to only confirm those things in my mind.  I hurt people, and myself, believing that I was no good anyway.  The truth is that there is good in all of us, but I have a hard time seeing past the weight and my looks.  My last boyfriend always told me how beautiful I was.  I have a friend that always calls me pretty lady when she sees me.  Yet, in my mind, I feel hideous a lot of the time.  Those feelings lead me to going to food to somehow comfort me.  It's a horribly vicious cycle that I pray I can get out of.

You may be reading this and thinking that I'm being brave for sharing this so publicly.  I do so because I know that we are as sick as our secrets.  I don't want to harbor ill-will towards anyone, no matter what they have done to me.  The only person that hurts from that is me.  It's easier said than done to say that I choose to be positive versus negative.  Habits take practice and consistency to change.

Water Challenge Day 29:  Drank 100 out of 185 ounces

Staying in the moment

Sometimes the most difficult thing for me to do is to stay in the moment.  That could be in both positive and negative situations.  What I do is either project into the future or play the "what if" game with events that have already happened.  Here's a case in point to illustrate what I mean.

Two years ago, I was having lunch off-campus from the high school where I work.  Sometimes I do leave campus for lunch, which I am absolutely permitted to do, either to just have some alone time or to go grab something to eat.  A job at a high school is definitely a stressful one, no matter what your role, and there are times when you just need some quiet time even if you love what you do.  Trust me, it's generally not a job for someone that needs to be in a quiet space all the time.  On a particular day two years ago, that's just want I needed.  I went out to have some lunch and ate it in my car while I listened to NPR to find out what was happening out in the world.  When I was done, I put the lunch in a bag, put on

my seat belt and proceeded to start the car.  The only problem was that it wouldn't start when I attempted to turn the key.  I suspected it was a bad battery.  I tried to find people to jump my car, but no one had cables and all I got when I tried to call people was their voicemail.  I ended up having to call a tow truck so that I could get a jump and then take the car to have it looked at.  In my mind, I was thinking about all the things I was missing at work and about what I did to make this happen in the first place.  Surely it had to be my fault, I thought.  Never mind the fact that I had no idea how old the battery was when I bought this used car.  No, rational thinking was not part of my head conversation in that moment.  And all I wanted to do was eat, even though I had just finished having lunch.  It was just very uncomfortable sitting there, trying to stay in the moment.  In fact, I sort of hated it. I eventually got everything taken care of and, yes, it was the battery.

Now, have I learned anything facing that sort of situation in these two years?  Let's see ... I started out my morning feeling really great with glorious sleep.  I had a nice breakfast and was ready to start my day.  Even the new medication I've been taking has really been helping with no side effects and the added benefit of helping with my leg pain.  While it's still with me, it's much more manageable.  So I practically skipped out to my car (okay, I didn't really skip but didn't the image just pop in your head??).  I went to get it started and, boom, it wouldn't turn over.  The same exact thing happened that I faced two years ago.  I tried for a few minutes but nothing was working.  Thankfully I was at home, so I wasn't stranded anywhere.  I was grateful for that!  I went in the house and calmly tried to remember who lives near me that is up at that time of day that could possibly give me a jump.  I was able to find someone who sent her husband over with his jumper cables and working battery.  While I was waiting for him, I calmly watched Good Morning America, my kitties purred next to me and I just sat in peace.  I wasn't happy about this development, but what could I do?  I didn't go to the thought that I did something wrong and I didn't worry about things out of my control.  I sent an e-mail on my iPhone to my office to let them know what was going on.  In no time, my friend's husband came, I was able to drive over to the place where I had the battery changed and it was still under warranty, so that means it was free to me.  They did have to test it to make sure it wasn't the alternator but I was out of there in about an hour and headed off to work.

This was a big lesson for me in remembering that I don't have to react in an extreme manner and that I actually can sit in the moment.  I wasn't rifling around in the kitchen looking for food to soothe an anxiousness I may have been feeling.  I was as calm as a cucumber.  This doesn't mean I always react so sedately to situations.  It's still very difficult for me to not want to munch on excess food in the evenings.  It's my worst time of day in terms of the food calling me.  In those moments, I need to remember that if I just put one foot in front of the other, I can get through it.  Habits took time to develop, so they will take time to change, too.  I pray that the more times I can get through those dicey moments without succumbing to the enticement of the food, the easier it will become.  Who knows, maybe it will always be a struggle for me, as it is for many people.  I just want to have tools at my disposal to help me get through those moments.  Having the battery die on the car is not the worst thing in the world by far, but it can be anything that sends a person to eat if that's how they've learned to be in the moment.  There could be a really good reason to eat or just out of sheer boredom.  Therein lies the mystery of the call of the food.  As they say in 12-step programs, "It's cunning, baffling and powerful." 

Weekly weigh-in & question of the day

I lost 2.8 pounds this week.  I'm happy with that since it was first full week back on food after stopping the Optifast product.  I feel like I'm starting to get into a groove, although I'm still adjusting to the right kind of food to have.  My body just can't handle things that are too rich.  And that phrase "too rich" is completely relative because most anything is too rich after having had shakes for so long.  I know I'll get into a good pattern soon, though.

As I mentioned a while ago, I want to seriously delve into the emotional side of this weight loss journey.  It's just as important for me to heal emotionally as it is to heal physically.  Let's face it, a person doesn't get to weigh 417 pounds at the first Optifast meeting if there isn't some emotional stuff going on behind the eating.  So I have a few sources of questions I'd like to dive into, some from the Optifast binder and some from other sources.  I'll call these segments Question of the Day.  I have a friend who used to work at one of our sister high schools (she no longer works there but is still a friend of mine) who used to send me an e-mail at work and titled it Question of the Day.  So what I'll do is pose the question, then answer it.  I think it would be great if readers answered them too, if they're so obliged.  You can either do it in the comment section, send me a private e-mail or do it in your own journal.  No matter what, this is about healing and leaving the overeating and the desire to overeat in the past.  Here we go!

Question of the Day

What makes you think you are ready for change now?  In other words, why is now different than before?

This is hard to explain in words, but there has been a shift in my life ever since the day I decided that I was sick and tired of the obesity plaguing my life and decided to go on Optifast.  There was an internal shift, as though I had crossed the line and could never return to the place I've been.  Things were definitely different than any resolve I might have had in the past.  This time I was willing to do whatever was put before me.  I mean, that must be pretty obvious if I was willing to do something like go on a liquid diet for months on end.  Seriously, isn't that the epitome of willing to do absolutely anything?  I didn't want to be regarded is that morbidly obese person who was suffering from diabetes, who was breathing heavy in the corner, with a smile plastered on my face that masked the true pain that exists beneath the weight.  As I move into this next phase of my weight loss life, I know without a doubt that I am not only ready for change, it is imperative for me to continue moving forward.  My life is changed and I never imagined it could feel so good.  Here I am, a person who never exercised voluntarily, and I work out practically every day.  Not only that, I am often the one to get other people to do it.  I like exercising with other people, by myself or either one.  It makes my body feel good and that makes me feel good.  It's a part of my changed life now.  Things are different now because I want this more than anything else and I am surrendering to a process I don't always understand but one that I know is a gift from God.

Okay, now it's your turn to answer the question ...