the whole truth

i'm ready to be honest with myself, my blog readers, & the whole world wide web (aka universe). so today, on the life of my ferrets, i swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. so help me god(s). amen.

i've let a lot of stuff slide as of late, one of the main ones has been my blog. not that i don't love my writing, my blog, or my readers (if any are still left as of this date). i've been absent because i've been healing. i'm finally at a good place, a great place, a place of peace. some place that intellectually i knew existed, but some place that i was never quite sure i would see in this life time.

today i find myself firmly in recovery. & yet, i'm not quite sure yet if recovery is a forever road, or if i will one day find myself totally recovered from the evil demon that is my eating disorder. i eat now. i get my three meals & my three snacks. it's not what the peeps at HCMC would prefer since i'm a post gastric bypass patient, they'd prefer the three meals, but my body just doesn't work that way. & for my physical, mental, & emotional health i need to make sure i'm eating every couple of hours.

for the most part i'm not restricting (starving myself) & for the most part i'm not binging. once in a while i will have a day where for whatever reason i think it's a good idea to push my body & i wait much too late to have breakfast. or i'll skip lunch or under eat at dinner. on the flip side of that coin when i'm stressed i some times find myself reaching to munch on something. the old habit of using food as an emotional band-aid. the difference now is that i recognize myself doing these things & i stop myself. i stop myself because i know that i'm worth fighting for. that it's just food. it's fuel. & if i want to accomplish all the AMAZING things i have planned for myself i need to treat my body as a machine. ya know, rotate the tires, get the oil changed, fill the gas tank, get the engine detailed....oh wait, that's the list of maintenance for my saturn.

what has happened thus far in 2011? so many things! the year is almost 25% done and already i'm on cloud nineteen (yes, i'm still a drama queen with a flair for melodrama after all this time). just on friday i had my defense for my MFA thesis. &{drum roll please}: i passed with no revisions required! which means i need to just get the final copies of my thesis to the office and then i graduate. it's been 9 years that i've been in the MFA program & i'm finally graduating. when i think on it i'm so happy that i literally want to cry.

cry? why for you ask. thanks for asking. {hint: here's where the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth part comes in} i cry because i realize how terribly close i came to not making it to this day. back in 2009 when my uncle joe died i missed his funeral because of how sick i was with my eating disorder. & while i was honest about this on my blog i wasn't brutally honest. the brutal honesty is something that i've come face to face with in the past month as i finished my thesis & really done some hard core introspection on my time in the MFA program. there was something about facing the end of the student era of my life & preparing to move onto the next, as of yet unnamed, phase that has made me rewind time and re-watch my life.

my plan is to use my poetry to change the world. i want to take my message about living with & recovering from an eating disorder to help keep other girls from going through the same hell. & as i prepare to do that i've realized that even though i'm in recovery i have not been completely honest with the people i care most about. my eating disorder nearly killed me. i'm not being melodramatic. i'm not asking for sympathy, for pity, or for tears. i just need to be transparent about what really happened.

2009 was a total craptastic year in so very many ways. but it was a year that i needed. that year tested me. when i was at the sickest & allowing my eating disorder demon to control me i was so weak that each day i was in pain. this is not a metaphor. yes i was in emotional & mental pain. but i was in physical pain. my back hurt, my tail bone hurt, my chest hurt. every day it hurt to breathe. i'm not even talking deep breaths, i'm talking regular breathing made my chest hurt. but i was scared to say anything because i did not want to be hospitalized.

when my therapist told me that she thought i needed to be hospitalized i balked. i know if i would have told her about the chest pains i probably would have been committed against my will {which was the only way, i told her, i would be hospitalized} at one point she said that i was so malnourished & dehydrated that if i did not start eating i would probably be placed on a feeding tube. i was in such a dark place that secretly i wanted that to happen. because if i had a feeding tube then i wouldn't have to deal with food. as i type this & remember sitting in her office with that reality it does make me sad. she was trying to use it as a threat & the me at that time saw it as a golden ticket.

the thing that i have not confessed to anyone until recently is how close i really came to death. i'm convinced now as i look back at that time that i was much closer to dying than i realized. every week i thought about dying at least three or four times. sometimes it was multiple times a day. it was not that i wanted to kill myself. to me that was selfish to slice my wrists open or over dose on pills. but i was slowly killing myself. every day it hurt to open my eyes, i drank a gallon of coffee a day just to get myself enough energy to drive the 3.3 miles to work & hunch over my desk. i put a smile on my face when people were looking, a grimace when no one was looking.

at least twice a week i would tally the people in my life. my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, my grandma, each of my friends. & as i thought of each one i would tell myself they would be okay if i didn't wake up the next day. if my heart just stopped beating from the strain, the stress, not enough food, not enough water. & as i thought of each of them i did feel a bit of guilt, what would happen if i did die. but i also told myself they would be okay. i told myself that then my parents wouldn't need to worry anymore. that my dad wouldn't tell my sister that because we work at the same place it's her responsibility to go to my desk each day & make sure i'm eating.

even my ferrets. i thought of them & what would happen to them. i knew my family would make sure they were taken care of until they crossed the rainbow bridge. cassie & sunny d, my first two boys. they'd be sad, but they would get over it. podo & doodle are strong & would carry on. marley, linus & lucy were young & resilient. they'd all be okay. except for my nyddah. my little rescue from the humane society. i knew that if i died nyddah would not be okay. she would not be okay just living with my parents.

she crawled into a deep crevice in my heart when she reached up & licked my chin at the shelter on august 16, 2008. i've heard people say soul mates are not always human. in a way i feel nyddah is my soul mate. i love that little furkid more than i ever thought i could love another soul. just as she crawled into my heart i know i crawled into hers. it was miss nyddah & the thought that my death would kill her that kept me getting up day after day. it kept me fighting. i know that it will probably hurt those that i love when they realize that what kept me going was nyddah instead of one of the humans in my life.

but as i type this i don't hang my head in shame. {statistics are slippery things & i try not to use them, especially in my blog, however....} about 20% of people with eating disorders will die without treatment. even receiving treatment 2-3% of people with an eating disorder will die as a result of their disease. sure, that's a low statistic. however. i tend to defy the odds. there was a minuscule chance, less than 1%, of the type of complications i had post gastric bypass, & yet i had surgery again four months & three days after my bypass because of complications. my tonsils were removed twice because they grew back. i was born with only three wisdom teeth. i tend to be an odd conglomeration of weird medical issues.

& the point of all of this? honesty. i want to change the world with my poetry. i want to stand in front of millions of people & read my poems & change their lives. i will open people's hearts & minds & change the way people with eating disorders are viewed. i will open the dialogue so that there is no more shame. it's a disease just like breast cancer or seizure disorders or alzheimers. no one blames someone for getting cancer or having seizures or alzheimers, why attach shame to an eating disorder. & to be the role model i know i can be, to revolutionize the way people see this disease, i need to make sure i'm honest with myself, with those around me.

to thank nyddah for saving my life i've dedicated my poetry book to her. i realize she's a ferret and {probably} can't read. but, for me, i needed to acknowledge how close i came to dying & who saved my life. so, miss nyddah: i love you, always. thank you for saving me.

triggers

i have come to realize that recovery is going to be so much harder than i realized. not like i thought it'd be a piece of cake (fuck...another food reference!)but i guess i was under the misconception that once i reached out for help it wouldn't be so tough. in a way the deeper i get into therapy the worse i get at times. right now, at this exact moment, the past few days/weeks, it's been rough. right now i don't want to blog, i don't want to work on my book, or do anything else that involves me being too social. i want to curl up inside myself, tell the world to kiss my ass & fuck off, & surround myself with my family, E, & my close friends. i really don't want anyone else to be around me.

when talking with anne last week (anne's my therapist) she said that part of what is going on with me right now is that i'm becoming more aware. i've had 24+ years living with my eating disorder & being completely blind to it & how it impacts my life. now that i've come to grips that i really DO have an eating disorder i'm able to see how it is there all the time. & because i'm so aware of my eating disorder right now it's really easy for me to be triggered.

this whole thing is kind of like an exorcism. my eating disorder is a demon that is living in me, controlling me, changing me into someone i don't want to be, hurting me. & now that i'm trying to take control of my life again it's fighting to stay. i have this battle of wills all the time. sometimes it's a second to second struggle to do what's right for ME not what my eating disorder wants. for all those x-files fans out there it's like the black oil episodes. my eating disorder is this parasite that is swimming in my body, once in a while others could see it flash across my eyes, just for a second, gone so quick they didn't know if it was there or not, but now, it's been caught & it's just a matter of totally pulling it's nasty little self out of me & locking it away in a glass jar.

one thing that i've really noticed is how much the rest of the world is really obsessed with food. it's not just me, it's not just obese people, it's not just people with eating disorders, it's the whole god-damn-fucking world! every single day at work my coworkers (the ones in the cubes right next to mine) make it tough for me to sit at my desk & work. they talk about being bad if they go to chipotle, but good if they go to jimmy john's. they're bad if they don't work out twice a day, but good if they do. it's ok to maybe have a piece of chocolate because of the extra 20 minutes on the treadmill they'll do that night. when i was in the store at work on friday afternoon this random woman started talking to me & saying she was trying to decide if she was going to be bad & have some chocolate or good & have some popcorn. & then she went off & i could hear her muttering about calories.

& then there's tv. unless i watch nothing but dvds i am literally bombarded with images of food & exercise programs & gym memberships & judgment regarding weight & food & how all of that reflects on individual character. & it's so easy to believe all of it. i think that every person (at least, every girl) who grows up fat somehow thinks that all of their problems are based on their weight. it's what the doctors tell us, it's what the movies tell us, tv, & sometimes even what the people around us tell us. right now my weight is at like 160-something. it was 162.2 this morning when i weighed in at home to be exact. i'm still overweight according to the bmi charts, but "normal" or "too thin" if you ask some of my family & friends. & i look at my flabby tummy, arms, thighs & then i see a commercial for the total gym, or nutrisystem, or jenny craig, or weight watchers, or anything like that & then the regular programming comes back on & everyone is thin & they seem so happy.

my eating disorder soaks up all of this & uses it as ammunition to whisper in my ear that i'm a bad person because i had some m&ms. but, it's also my eating disorder that nudges me to go graze & nibble when i'm stressed out. it's my eating disorder that says "it's a bad day at work, shit is rolling down hill with your name on it, let's go get some m&m's. let's see who has some candy at their desk." & sometimes i win the battle, but not all the time. it's pretty even steven right now.

my eating disorder is also the part of me that makes me nauseous when i try to eat at times. like this past wednesday morning. i was driving to work & felt really sad about cleo & i started feeling guilty that maybe i hadn't done everything that i could for her & that i hadn't spent enough time with her & i was a bad person because she was so sick & i didn't notice it. & then amongst the tears my eating disorder started picking at my brain telling me to skip breakfast. i'd feel better if i didn't eat anything. yes, i do realize this is counter-intuitive & that usually people feel like shit when they don't eat.

before my surgery i'd starve myself as punishment. when someone hurt me really bad it was easiest to starve myself & focus on the physical pain of hunger than to allow myself to feel the emotional pain. now starving myself doesn't give me the same satisfaction that it used to. i still don't feel hunger. it's fairly common after gastric bypass to have to "eat by the clock" for a while & not really feel hunger. a couple of times i thought i've felt hunger, but i haven't really. & that makes me happy. one of my biggest fears right now is feeling hungry. i feel like i've written this before in here. but, if i start to feel hunger again then it'll be harder to skip meals. i know that is totally my eating disorder talking. & it's hard to admit this, but i can't lie to myself any longer about anything.

in my journal i've started writing down some of the things that i'm not yet ready to admit on here. "what, beckah, has secrets? & is unwilling to air something? pish-posh that cannot be true." yes it is true. i still feel at times that opening myself up while i'm in therapy is a dangerous game. there's a part of me (is this my eating disorder or not?) that is afraid people are going to judge me. think that i'm weak. & then there's the fear that somehow this may prevent me from getting promoted at work. or that somehow someone at work will use this against me. i know that legally they can't because i'm protected against discrimination because of medical/mental health conditions (& this one straddles both arenas); but that doesn't mean that i'm not scared anyone. especially since i'm pretty much all about the self promotion. i pimp my blog to almost anyone that will stop & listen. & i'm even contemplating getting business cards with my name, my blog addy, & my gmail for my blog as self promotion.

& finally, a picture of me blogging (yes, i bite my fingers when i think. i don't chew my nails/bite my nails off, but i pull at my lips & bite my fingers. eating disorder related? maybe. maybe not. we'll see).

my eating disorder: my pet

as i go through therapy at the emily program i learn more about myself, my eating disorder, & how i fit into the big bad world with all of this. & maybe it's cause i'm a gemini, maybe it's because i don't want to BE my eating disorder, but i've started to think of my eating disorder as something outside of myself. it's like it's a part of me, but it's also something outside of me. it's like this little gremlin that is always perched on my shoulder, hanging off my back in an invisible little baby back pack, always just there, in my life, whispering in my ear.

quite a bit of the time i'm able to control my eating disorder, my response to life, but sometimes i'll see it pop up & be very clear & present in my life. i guess it's a good thing that i'm becoming very conscious of when i am in control of my eating & when my eating disorder is in control. my eating disorder is not all about losing weight, much of it is really about food & how i interact/react to food. historically i've used food to reward myself & make myself feel better. but i've also used food, or rather, denying myself food, as a form of self punishment. sometimes it's easier for me to try to eat my emotions away, or starve myself, than feel emotions. it's easier to feel the pain of hunger than to feel sad, hurt, disappointed, ashamed, or any other emotion.

but, ironically enough, while before my eating disorder (before my surgery, before i even knew i had an eating disorder) was all about control now it is a bit about weight. before i used food to soothe & as a self injurious weapon. now body image & weight have become wrapped up in my eating disorder. just like my relationship with food has changed, so has my eating disorder. last week i was at work in the bathroom & feeling kind of bad about myself. my jeans have been a bit tight lately, a couple of my tshirts are tighter, & my weight has gone up about 5 lbs. so i had been beating myself up pretty bad. well, someone that i don't see very often at work told me that i was looked like i've lost some weight recently that she could really see it in my face. the part of me that is ashamed of my protruding bones & visible ribs & all the other "too thin parts" cringed, but, my eating disorder was just like a little puppy being given a biscuit. she sat up nice & tall & beamed & wagged her little tail & was so happy. & i felt nauseous. & i then went to my desk & ate some peanut m&ms.

i am convinced that i'm experiencing all of this for a reason. i am very grateful that my insurance is covering my therapy & that i have a job that allows me to leave early once a week to attend therapy sessions. this could be a lot worse for me. i am friends with someone who has a binge eating disorder & her family is not supportive & just makes her feel bad about herself. she won't even seek therapy because she feels she has no one to support her in that. i'm very lucky in that my family, my boyfriend, all my friends are very supportive of me & try to help me in anyway that they can.

this past weekend i started officially working on my book about my eating disorder. & yesterday at work i started going through emails from my mom. i decided that i'm going to include emails from her & from my friends & sister in my book. i don't want to BE my eating disorder, i'm so much more than that. but right now this is front & foremost in my life. & it's that way for a reason that i have yet to be able to identify. it's also important of me to be honest in all of this. i don't want to sugar coat anything. i don't want to shy away from anything tough or difficult. not everything will make it right away to my blog, but that's why i'm also keeping a journal. i'm also keeping a journal to make sure that my memories don't get shimmery. & by that i mean that i forget the hard stuff, or make things seem tougher than they were.

saying good bye to old friends

i was just looking through pasta queen's archives & i came across a very apropo posting: good-bye to soda. even though christmas beat my ass like i was stealing its tv, i learned some very important lessons, the largest of which is: don't binge, food makes me feel bad, not good. i know, a very obvious thing, but in the life of a fat girl, it's not such an easy concept to embrace because, well, for many years i've been that fat girl stereo type. eating to make myself feel better. comforting myself with rich, sweet, tasty foods. anything with a complex texture & taste that made me forget whatever it was that inspired the binge. in high school, it was mostly feeling alone. food really was my best friend. i didn't have to worry about being judged, abandoned, made fun of, or harmed. it was there, no questions, no strings, just there. & i was a secret eater. it was my guilty pleasure. my addiction. it was my shame to conceal.

& when you start making food your friend at seven, it's hard to give it up, even if you know that it's slowly killing you. but lately, since christmas i'd say, or maybe more accurately, since the end of the canukian porn trip, i haven't felt that same urge. the longing & the desire to gorge myself is dissipating. i do definitely have my slips, like the 3 brownies at the post-funeral luncheon on tuesday, but i'm showing great restraint over all. i did not stuff myself at little oven tuesday evening, even though their garlic butter is so good i'd fight my mom for the last piece of bread. & yesterday i passed by the two cakes (one chocolate & one white with raspberry filling) that were sitting in the breakroom in the afternoon. i actually passed by them several times, without so much as the teensiest tiniest morsel touching my lips. i didn't even have a post workout evening snack when i got home. i was hungry, but drank some water, played some wow, & pushed on through it. & that felt good.

sometimes, the things we love the most are the things that are the most detrimental to our well being. case in point: tssob (the southern son of a bitch). while in the relationship i loved him, er, thought i did. & i was so wrapped up in that dysfunctional relationship that i was literally blinded by the truth. it really was like i was seeing my life through a tunnel. & all around me my parents, tina, rachel, all my friends, even my coworkers saw the truth as plain as a billboard on 94, flashing red & orange, danger ahead. but all i saw was the road straight ahead of me, nothing else. & then one day, i woke up, realized i'd been wasting my time, money, my life, on someone who was completely unworthy of any of my attention, much less the degree of caring that i invested in that relationship. & FINALLY, then, it was ok for me to simply say good bye & walk away. ((OK, i do still have some anger issues over the fact that the lying cheating mother fucker never sent me back my stuff which he said SEVERAL times he'd do & then the bastard kept calling me for a year after i broke up with him trying to insinuate himself back into my life. & luckily for me, he's a closet racist & stopped calling me when i told him i had a temporary booty call in the form of a yummy indian boy. yo.))

& with food it's kind of the same way right now. the things that used to be my biggest vices no longer hold the same appeal to me. for instance, the brownies at the luncheon were just OK, nothing fantastic. & i think i had them out of boredom. hoping that they would taste better. we can always chalk it up to grief too, if we want. but i'm not even trying to make any excuses for the brownies because, it happened, i felt like shyte afterwards, & i'm over it now. & even with the slip up for the luncheon, i don't feel the same way towards food anymore. just like with tssob, one day i opened my eyes & was able to see a huge world beyond the tunnel vision of the routine of eating.

i know that it's not going to change how i feel except for possibly giving me a gut ache & making me feel guilty for putting such horrible things in my body. neither of those is a very appealing option for me at this time. i like feeling strong & healthy. with my tummy satisfied from good food, but not overly stuffed & miserable. & looking back over the years i know that i've said this kind of thing before, but i think that i've finally reached my limit with junk food. i've been living that old tired saying of "living to eat instead of eating to live." & like any addict, i've let my addiction control me, warp my everyday actions. while i'm not knocking over a liquor store or purse snatching from old ladies, it was controlling my life. it's not like i sit at my desk fidgeting until i can get that next twinkie fix, but it was getting to the point where all my socializing was done over food. i was going out to dinner several times a week, sometimes twice a day. so it really is time for me to cut the ties, say good bye to all of those bad food fetishes, & look into the future & find a life for me outside of being just the fat girl. part of it is growing up, part of it is just living life & taking in the little experiences to compile them into something larger, & a large part of it is having faith in yourself & your abilities.

& it feels damn good to have that faith. that strength. to break away from familiarity. from the ties. from the safety of routine. & find a new way in the world.

holiday hangover

i think i ingested five & a half pounds of sugar over the past two days. my tummy is pretending it's a sailor & tying itself in knots, my blood is slogging through my body laden down with the sugar crystals, & my head is heavy & fuzzy, & all i wanna do is sleep.

oh holy hell i feel like crap!

& here i swore i'd never do that to myself again. never again would i stuff my face so full of food that i felt hung over the next day from the excess, & yet, oops, i did it again. except without the pop soundtrack, skimpy clothes, or suggestive dance.

what is it about christmas, or any holiday for that matter, that makes us not only feel it's ok to over indulge, but makes us feel entitled to gorge ourselves past our limits?

i won't do this to myself on new years eve, i guar-en-tee it.

sometimes i hate the weekends

yeah, so basically all of my good eating & hard work went straight out the window this past weekend. i had pizza, long island ice tea, french fries, smore's malt, a chili dog. . . .ugh, i feel sick just thinking about all of it. & it's not like any of it was really any good. ok, the long islands were pretty tasty, & the after effects of those were SO nice, but other than that, the rest of it was not even worth it!

& that's the frustrating part. that i've been busting my butt all week long, working out before work, after work, eating those stupid lean cuisines with no snacks, resisting the cakes & donuts & danishes & all of that at work all week long. then the weekend comes along & it's as if all of my restraint & will power is left behind me at my cube in minnetonka.

i know there's a difference in the motivations behind eating. & this past weekend i wasn't eating because i was hungry, to fuel my body. i was eating because i was: bored, upset, it was there, any & all of the above. & yeah, i know that's a bad thing to do, it's not healthy, in any way. & it's a behavior that i really need to change for good. i mean, i thought that i really had changed it, but i guess this also proves that sometimes in times of extreme stress it's much too easy to revert to the old familiar habits that have been your long time companions. too bad mine haven't always been something like yoga or biking. then again, i'm not dead yet, so there's still time to change it all.

this past weekend wasn't all bad. i did see an interview on you tube with david grohl, thanks to miss jenn, that really made me pause & consider the way that i've been living my life. he kept saying that he feels so lucky to be able to spend his life doing something that he actually enjoys. & that he doesn't feel like music is work. in a way my situation is not terribly dissimilar in that i want to be a writer, it doesn't really feel like work to me. the biggest difference is that while he's getting paid to live my dream i'm working two jobs that are just OK in order to survive & meanwhile i'm letting my writing slip to the side.

the other thing he said is that every day he wakes up thankful to be alive & have another day to live. yeah, semi hokey, i'll admit that. but there's also something to be said for that thinking. right now i wake up many days dreading what's to come. work, bills, all of that crap, & i'm not really taking any time to experience the joy that life has to offer. & that's not good. i used to take great joy in the beauty & the wonder in each & every day, even the ones that i wasn't so jazzed about like the frigid cold days in winter, or the ones where i would really rather curl up in bed than go to work, but even then i found something to appreciate in the day.

control issues

anyone that knows me at all knows that i have control issues, always have, most likely, always will. part of that is just my personality. part of that is being the oldest child. & i seriously think part of it comes from my ocd tendencies & my compulsion to over worry about every thing.

so knowing all of that you'd think this whole weight loss schtick would be a natural for me. it's the perfect hobby for a compulsive control freak. because if you think about it, it's the ultimate control. i've often read stories about anorexics who started not eating because they felt like their life was completely out of control & so to negate that they started limiting their food & controlling what they ate & the weight that they lost.

now for some reason, the exact opposite is true in my case. when i start to feel like i can't control anything in my life it winds up being even harder for me to limit my food & try to lose weight. in my head the rationale goes something like this: "i can't control anything else that's going on, but if i want a cheeseburger & fries then dammnit i'm going to get my mother effing cheeseburger & fries! & let's add a strawberry shake in there for good measure." it's almost like my response is taking control of what i eat & then stuffing as much tasty bad stuff into my body as humanly possible.

yes, i know that's not a good way to do things. but then again, that's one of the things that makes the human race so great, that every single person reacts SO differently to different stimulis. i will say that i've been doing fairly well since friday, even with my little meltdown & my mom's negativity. & like the wise jessica has stated recently, it's all about the choices. sometimes substitution is a heck of a lot better than out & out denial. i'm also trying to just really enjoy & savor things instead of inhaling them like it's my last day on earth & i need just one more piece of chocolate to survive.

in addition, i'm taking control again of my activity level. i dragged jenn out of her apartment today to work out with me, she was cursing me & giving me the evil eye for a while, but at the end she thanked me for making her come along with me. & of course, i'm thankful that she lets me drag her out of her apartment at the crack of dawn so that i have motivation to go to the gym because someone else is depending on me to be there for them.

my body really is a slow moving machine lately. i ache. i creak. i feel at least double my age. but then again, i've also really abused it lately & not taken care. just like a car when you run 12,000 miles without an oil change, your body acts up if you're not doing proper maintence. so water & i have made up & i'm nearly done with my 64 oz for the day. i'm trying to end the battle with carrots & other vegetables. it's a long & tumultuous history filled with much strife, but headway is definitely being made on that front.

& best of all, the scale may be being nice to me again. yes yes, i know it's not all about the number that flashes me from the led read out, but it can affect my mood & my general attitude towards this whole thing, i'm not going to even pretend that it doesn't matter in the least. so, today after my workout i checked the locker room scale, & if it's to be believed, i have lost a bit of weight since last week. tomorrow is official weigh in day, so i'll wait to post the numbers, but oh, i hope it's right i hope it's right.

all in all, i think it's time that i take an aa approach to all of this & so "god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, change the things i can, & the wisdom to know the difference." i know, not exact, but close enough. & my weight is something that can be changed. & of course my fitness, overall health & well being.

scone me baby, one more time

today was not such a great day. i won't go into the nitty gritty details, but suffice to say, i'm not doing terribly fabulous right now. & to soothe my emotions i ate. &ate. & ate. & none of it was at all good for me. tasted fabulous, but not in any way healthy. today was the end of our employee recognition week & they catered in lunch for us. sandwiches, pickles, chips, & pop. it was SO yummy! & then this morning they had sweet martha's cookies to celebrate the upcoming state fair. & then there were the treats from treat day, cookies & mini scones, oh my!

& can anyone predict how i'm feeling now? yup, miserable! one thousand brownie points to the person behind computer number seven. my tummy is all full, i have a head ache, i'm sleepy & over stuffed & i really just want to go home & go to bed. i don't want to pass go, but i would like to collect the 200 hundred bucks, i could really use it right now. & i did over eat today with full knowledge that i was doing it. i knew it when i loaded my plate with chips to go with my sandwich, when i grabbed the cookies, & the scones, & the hershey kisses, i didn't mention those before, did i? well i had those too! completely out of control day. & i know this isn't the behavior that i need to be cultivating. & to top things off i didn't get in my work out this morning either. double strike. & i've had a whole whopping two ounces of water thus far, & it's half past seven at night. that's it, three strikes, i'm out for the night. stick a fork in me 'cause i'm done.

yes, i do read my own previous blogs. & yup, every minute is another chance to change it all. so maybe this could be the minute. when i'm stuffed & feeling fat & gross & like a huge ass failure. maybe i'll pick this moment as the fulcrum on which to turn my attitudes around. not exactly the hollywood moment that would win me the acclaim of the academy & the adoration of a million fans, but i'm not in this show for that, *thinking* nope, definitely not in it for that. when i get home i'm going to take a good long look in my mirror. & then go to sleep. tomorrow i should be able to sleep in & finally get a decent amount of sleep. maybe even get something done around my house. oh, maybe i can be super-duper ambitious & get my independent study typed up so i can drop that at school on monday. that'd be super keen.

then again, a nice dark cocoon made of my comforters & snuggling up with my teddy bear sounds really tempting. no, that's not a euphemism. it's literal. me & my teddy bear pookie & about half a foot of blankets curled in the middle of my queen size bed. sounds like a great idea to me.

at any rate, i'm in need of some good vibes, so if you have extra, please send it my way.

a vanilla sky & star-spangled brownies

i was watching vanilla sky on bravo yesterday & i happened upon a pearl of wisdom "every second is another moment to turn it all around." now this may or may not be an exact quote from the movie, i don't travel with a steno pad, but it's a very close approximation. this came to me at a very opportune moment in that i had been scarfing brownies with chocolate frosting & patriotic stars ever since they had cooled & been frosted.

while i don't typically take advice from movies, this was a particularly good turn of phrase. & it's also very true. why wait until the next morning, next week, next month until you change your habits to make your life what you dream that it could be. sometimes the cliche is the most true: there's no time like the present, seize the day, tomorrow is today, [insert tired cliche here], . . . .

while it shames me to say, i will readily admit that my compulsive eating has gotten way out of control lately. my depression is a daily struggle. as is my home environment. & i really feel that so much of what's going on around me is completely & totally out of my control. BUT, i can control what i eat. & instead of becoming anorexic & not eating anything i binge & indulge myself because i can. yes, i do realize the behavior is just as destructive. & i know it's a good thing that i realize it. but i still feel like i'm light years away of getting a handle on it. how can i know, i mean really by-god fucking know that i'm killing myself with these actions & yet i feel unable to do anything about it? it just doesn't make sense.

it doesn't even follow the chewbacca defense. that's how seriously messed up it is. i'm a sad panda.

& i don't have an answer. a year & some change ago i was doing fabulous. i moved back into my parents house & that seemed to be the beginning of this awful down slide. i hesitate to blame it on them, but the environment that i live in is extremely dysfunctional & less than healthy. if i had the money i'd move out, right now, this minute. well, maybe not this minute 'cause i'm at work, but asap most definitely.

anyone out there want to hire me starting at $65,000/year minimum? come on, you know you want to : ) maybe not the best job hunting tactic, my comments may be quite interesting over the next few days.

i guess i'll just have to work to change what i can & not fight what's out of my control. no, not in AA, never been, but it seems to be the mantra to a lot of twelve-step programs which seem to be all over. i've also watched lots & lots of nypd blue which often featured the end of AA meetings. it also falls into the above mentioned category of cliche, but also just into plain old common sense.

new wardrobe, party of fat please? (take two)

**note, i had this post written & was trying to post it when blogger freaked out, errored, & erased it & i couldn't recover it& now i have to rewrite it. SO not a happy camper right now**

summer is here & it's the time of year when the sun comes out, humidity rises, sweaty skin sticks to itself, & jeans are too hot to wear for casual gear. shorts, capris, tank tops, & whatever exposes the most skin to whatever breezes happen to wander. closets are gone through to pick out the cutest of last year's clothes as the new summer approaches. this is one of those stories {law & order da-dunk-dunk}

tonight i'm going out with jack & the whole gang to celebrate josh's birthday, happy 28th dude! we're planning on heading into down town to a bar that has a $5 cover & then we get to drink free for an hour. yesterday i had been telling jenn about this wicked cute outfit that i have, a black & white plaid mini skirt, black bustier, & fish nets. so last night i went rummaging through my dresser to find it & yippee! i found it, then i tried it on & it doesn't fit, not so yippee. the last time i wore the skirt was in august when i was in vegas on the fated night that i went to club vivid. what happens in vegas most definitely stays in vegas, so that's all you'll get of that story. suffice to say i was smokin' sexy hot looking & it was a night to remember. so fast forward about eight months & bingo-bango the skirt won't even come up over my ghetto booty, despite all those ass checks & "oh yeah, your butt is getting smaller" comments! blech. talk about feeling crummy about yourself. & that does beg the question, if my ass is getting smaller than a month or so ago, then how shamu have i gotten since last summer?

there are two main ways that i could react to this wardrobe malfunction. plan a: pass the goddamn chocolate, please?! & while your at it grab me a pizza too. or plan b: pilates, crunches, & cardio OH-MY! the first plan has definite appeal. some yummy chocolate, maybe with a carmel center, to soothe my spirit while i crawl in a hole & lick my wounds. then again, that's kind of behavior that got me to this place. the other plan seems less appealing at first. intellectually i know that by exercising every day & monitoring what i eat not only will i lose weight, which is my paramount goal right now, but i will also feel loads better, with more energy & able to do more activities, which is also really important to me. even while actually knowing all the benefits, sweating & all that hard work seems like a real buzz kill.

& yet, i do want to be around to harass my family & friends for a long time to come, so i'll take plan b, dammit. i will give myself kudos for the fact that yesterday i did get in all of my 96oz of water. i also did over an hour of exercise yesterday. & this morning, despite my disappointment & feeling horrible about my skirt fiasco last night, i got up before 5 am today to work out. i also had to be to work before 8am, so i'm pretty proud of that one. not super fantabulous, but it's a good move in the right direction.

on top of the whole skirt fiasco, last week i discovered that all of the wicked cute capris that i bought last year are much too tight for me to comfortably wear right now. so this gives me an opportunity to set a new goal. that is for me to, by the end of the summer, be able to fit into my mini skirt & capris. with that said, from here on forward end of summer will mean the last day of the minnesota state fair which is labor day & fit will mean being able to wear said clothing without feeling like i'm impersonating a polish sausage.

some motivation would be nice right now. on the one hand i can visualize myself working out & being the picture of miss health in what i eat everyday. & the devil on my other shoulder is saying that being bad is so good. & wouldn't i really like some cheesecake right now? i think i need a montage. a weight loss montage. eye of the tiger, anyone?

back fat

so one of the things that got me thinking on this whole body issue was a couple of weeks ago i was driving over to old chicago to meet jack & josh for a cheeseburger & a drink. i was driving along down 394 west when all of a sudden i felt very uncomfortable. i twitched & shimmied in my seat & then it hit me what was bothering me. i could actually fell the fat on my back, the small rolls of fat folding into each other under my t-shirt. & i was repulsed.

normally i roll with the punches, & being obese i usually literally roll. but at that moment i just couldn't believe that i'd neglected myself for twenty one years. yup, i've been overweight for that long. it started when i was 7 years old, in second grade, & got progressively worse as time went on. the kicker of it all, is i look back at pictures of me when i was younger, & it wasn't until end of elementary school, beginning of junior high, that i actually became a rather large porker. before then i was just kind of a piglet. overly round & puffy for my age, but it could still be described as "baby fat". i stopped believing that whole baby fat line when i was, hmmm, about sixteen. until then i held onto that phrase like it was gold hoping that one day, yes, hallelullia praise the lord the fat has left the body!

but no, next century & twenty-some years later there i was on the way wrong side of the 200lb mark. now i have no idea what prompted me to do it, but i reached my hand up & felt my neck, grabbed a hunk of flesh & realized that in addition to the back fat i also had neck fat. now granted, the neck fat may, possibly, be a bit of an exageration, but the pudge on my sides & back is no hallucination. that is an undisputible fact, ask anyone who's seen me with my top off.

you'd think that after this realization i would've gotten to old chicago & said to my waiter "can i have a salad with lite dresing on the side please?" instead i did order the cheeseburger i was craving, with, of course, a diet pepsi. because yeah, at that point the diet soda makes all the difference in the world. & i admit it, i enjoyed every juicy mouthful. the fries were just ok, but the burger was fantastic. i do highly recommend their burgers. you might want to get it to go & grab the fries from ruby tuesdays across the street though. at least, that's what i'd be inclined to do.

while the desire for a healthy future. to be a beautiful bride. to be a fantabulous role model for my future children. to be able to finally snowboard. to finally feel good waking up in my own skin. while all of these things are great motivations, & have motivated me in the past, it all came down to the fat. knowing you're fat is one thing. having to actually go buy & then wear the size 24 or 26 jeans reminds you. there's something surreal about realizing that just sitting, not looking in the mirror or at your clothes, you can feel how large you actually are, now that's the mother of all wake-up calls. &, of course, it helped that all of this came close on the heels of walking into the bridal salon & ordering my wedding dress in a 24. i really wanted to crawl into bed & cry. with a cheesecake.

yeah, the shame & depression that is caused by my weight also gives me the urge to soothe myself with all the same things that i've turned to in the past that have helped me get to the point that i'm at right now. while it is by no means a healthy cycle of behavior, i am becoming aquianted with it & coming to grips with the fact that i need to be hyper aware of my emotions & my eating patterns. do i want pizza because i'm hungry & pizza sounds good? or do i want it because i had an absolute shitty day at work & i might feel better to sit down to a plate full of pizza? eventhough the end result might be eating some pizza, the motivation behind the eating is important for me to recognize.