Staying on My Side Takes Work

So last post I was going on about these friends I was worried about. Well, one called me back, she was away at a conference and I had totally forgotten about it. Much easier to catastrophize! I have to laugh at myself. Still not much news from my other friend so my unconscious is still making up stories. I can't remember the exact details, but I know I dreamed about her and her family last night, something about sharing a hot tub with her brother, and a distinct feeling about being in her house when I shouldn't be. I think it's a pretty clear metaphor about me being in her headspace where I had no business being.

Maybe I could give her another call when I finish this, and stop all this speculating. I know she's probably okay because she has a roomate who would have found her if she wasn't. It is quite amazing how preoccupied I am with her. I almost wrote her an e-mail last night and then something stopped me. I wasn't sure what to write. "Are you mad at me"? That just seemed too lame. But maybe I should.

When in fact I am still angry with her in some part of my brain. In some part of my brain I am mad as hell, even if I don't want to feel it. The wave of feeling possibly doesn't have a lot to do with the present. I think it's harking back to some early anger and fear with my parents when I felt emotionally abandoned by them. I have this vision of being some age around 10, alone in an upstairs room in this cavernous, somewhat decrepit victorian house we rented from my father's boss, writing this letter/journal entry being angry and sad and confused because my father was away on business so much. I felt abandoned. I also felt guilty about being so angry, like I was betraying my parents, making too much out of nothing. After all, materially I really wanted for nothing.

But emotionally, I wanted for a lot. I was starved for love and friendship. Enter food. Now that I'm trying to put food in its proper place, I am left with the wreckage of my stunted life skills. I don't know really well how to live here, so I have to rely on the twelve steps as a prototype for living in this world. It's really a how to for how to live your life more effectively, but it's not foolproof and I keep forgetting to do it this way. I keep circling back to my old ways of living: isolate and stew, which doesn't work so well, and then I grab back onto the steps, right myself again and try to resume walking straight again.

Staying on My Side of the Street

I've already said, I think, that I have a couple of friends in "the rooms" that I'm worried about. Well, that and ticked off at. Why ticked off? I guess I feel like I'm being a better friend to them than they are to themselves. And I got worn out. I needed to work on my life. So I didn't phone them for a few days because of that. Then I called them both yesterday and then this morning (in a fit of "get over it") and nobody answered. So I'm trying not to make a federal case of it. I am not their entire lives, I have my life to live, and so do they. I have to stop making up stories in my head about what is going on with them, stay on my very cluttered side of the street.

Food wise, the last week and a half has been good. The nibbling monster is being starved of sustinence, and that means I'm safer from any big binges. The last couple of months have not been good that way. I had several months of abstinence from binge eating and then lost it. Then I lost it a couple of months again after that. And then it was a couple of weeks, it was getting shorter and shorter. Scary stuff. I was starting to get very afraid.

Then I had one of those classic Halloween candy blow-ups. Moral of that story: we're now going to give out juice boxes, no candy. It's deadly for me. On the good side, Halloween is now my abstinence date, which makes it easy to remember.

So, while I'm still a healthy weight, my pants are still tighter than I want them to be and I don't want to keep sliding down this slope. I hate writing about this! My perfection monster is all over me, not wanting me to show this very imperfect side. There is something about showing imperfection that kicks up a lot of fear in me. I think that is a very old trait instilled in me by my parents: if I don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. Classic for the child of a closet alcoholic.

So, rather than get all riled up speculating about what is going on with my friends, I can't do more than I've done. And I have to keep my head on this body here, not fly off trying to save them, because if I'm immersed in doing that, my own disease will come up and bite me in the ass as it's done many times before. I know that feeling that comes after living for someone else: that emptiness and that gnawing hunger, and I know it has the possibility of becoming fatal.

Challenges, Challenges, Left, Right and Center!

Welcome to life on the Thin Planet: Every time you turn around there's another challenge. This was the life I signed up for when I decided to move here and if I'm going to stay here, I have to figure out how to cope with it, otherwise I'll be going back...home?

I have to say that Planet Fat (tiring of this metaphor yet?) still feels like home. I still feel the pull of my native Bingetopia. I think I'll always feel like an immigrant to the planet of those people who seem so effortlessly thin, but you know, it isn't effortless. I've been told (even if I don't really believe it) that even thin people have struggles. Amazing! And in one part of my brain I do know that, that would be the logical brain which is supposedly the most recent part of the human brain to evolve, but my stronger, more primitive brain, the part that is obsessed with my next bite, doesn't believe it for a second. So it's going to take some more work for that idea to really sink in.

Bingetopia seemed straightforward for me: Have a problem? Eat over it. Problem didn't get solved, but I got to eat! Thin people have these strategies that enable them to cope, more or less, with life, and they don't eat a whole box of chocolates on a semi-daily basis. Part of the coping is not feeling like every problem has to or can be solved and wrapped up neatly. Many times you just have to live and wade through the crap of everyday life.

I'm learning that lesson in my dealings with the board of a choir I sing with. There are over a hundred people in the organization, seven other people on the board with me, and an artistic director who is very talented and has an .... artistic temperament. (Note to self: how do I get one of those temperaments? Reply from self: Congratulations, you have one, just ask your husband! Oh rats...) Since I joined the board, we've done a lot of housekeeping stuff, but there are always interpersonal issues, within the board, in the choir, between the board and some choir members, between the AD and choir members, between the board and the AD, normal stuff, right?

That's the thing, it IS normal stuff! And after being on the board for two whole months, it comes and goes, and what seems maddening one week recedes after a couple more weeks, and then something else comes up... And I looked back and thought, wow, what was really bugging me in September just faded away when I was distracted. I didn't have to do anything about it, it was like water over the bridge. Then something else happens. It's like Gilda Radner said: it's always something. I don't have to fix it all. The compulsion to fix it is from my scared little primal brain, screaming "Eek eek, it's going to eat me, it's going to eat me!" Yeah, well, some day it might. But it usually doesn't. The bigger threat to me is actually what I do in the privacy of my own kitchen.

What feels like comfort food is actually a comfort weapon in the long run, a Weapon of Mass Addition! So, I have to cultivate those Thinnite coping strategies, and the helpful ones, not the self-sabotaging ones, because there are plenty of the latter out there, I just couldn't see them through my veil of fat: a myriad world of addictions or compulsive behaviours, controlling behaviour, rage...

The positive coping strategies are subtle and not sexy at all: I'm using one now as I write this. Prayer and talking it over with my OA sponsor and therapist and friends (including my best friend, my husband) are other ways, but boy, they are tough ones for me to learn. It has been my pattern to first isolate and then eat. But you know what they say, repeated practice is the only form of permanence nature knows.

So I have to repeat these new dance steps over and over, and occasionally step on a land mine. But I doubt it will be any worse than the old booby traps I laid for myself.

Creaky Day

I had a pleasant creakiness last night after running. It made me feel like, yeah, I just did a big run with my group on a blustery raining night. And I rolled off the edge of the sidewalk onto my back (damage: where I think I dug my thumbnail into my middle finger) and survived it fine. Actually, the adrenaline of falling made the end of the run fly by. Iced my healing (I hope) plantar fasciitis. I am woman hear me roar, yadda yadda yadda...

Today, the creakiness has lost its smug allure. It's cold and grey, and I told myself I was going to the gym to do weights before lunch. Can you hear me pouting? Getting to the gym seems like the hardest thing to do today. I'd much rather go shopping, but I think I can drag this sorry middle aged butt in if I bribe myself with a Starbucks Grande sugar free Cinnamon Dolce Americano afterward. And then there is lunch, hooray

The glamour of the slim life!

The other tough thing I have to do is call a sponsee and see how she's doing. And while we are really good friends, I have to show some backbone and bring up her programme. Being a good sponsor is different from being a friend, and although I really do regard her as a friend, I am not doing her any favours by letting her slip through the cracks. A really big excuse for me would be to not push it because she's got some tough problems right now. Well, more than ever, she needs the structure to hold on to, otherwise it's just another unhealthy pattern that's dragging her down. Can I be tough? I guess I'll see. Tune back in tomorrow for another chapter of As the Stomach Turns...

Ignoring my Family at My Peril

Ahhh, my family... what a bunch of coconuts... We're not a close lot any more, and really, when my mother became sick and died, the bonds undid fairly completely, as they often do. My parents and most of their contemporaries are dead or unpleasantly doddering, and I'm not in touch with my cousins (I'm an only child). A couple have reached out but it's just too painful, there are too many ghosts. There are just too many bad memories, too few good ones to unite we survivors. That's what I feel like, more like one of the few survivors of some catastrophe like a hurricane or a train wreck. I'm lucky to be alive and as relatively unscathed as I am.

At the same time, I do have to look at my family in order to understand ways I have of dealing with the world. Some of them are quirky, some of them are unhelpful, some of them are downright harmful to me and those I love. Luckily, I have a very good therapist to guide me through this, and a supportive community of fellow sufferers both in Overeaters Anonymous and in group therapy. While most of my problems end up at the refrigerator, it's not always OA business that goes on in my work, so I need other avenues of support.

An interesting book recommended by a friend is Elan Golomb's Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in their Struggle for Self . For a while, my therapist has maintained that my father's behaviour was narcissistic. Obviously, I was affected by his alcoholism, and diseases such as that have a certain narcissictic character, but there were other behaviours of his that were just as damaging to a child: his rages, and his unstated but very real attitude that his opinions must be my own. My mother and I were not his family, we were to be his harem. If that creeps you out, well, it does me too. The crummy boundaries stopped at the actual sex act, but just barely. And yet, I've seen this pattern reinacted over and over in the families of my friends (most are women) in recovery.

I've got a friend who is currently dealing with some very life threatening issues which are tied to her weight. It makes the diabetes and hypertension I had at over 300 pounds look rather like a walk in the park. I'm praying that she can deal with them and start dealing with the equally dangerous and possibly original threat that her family is posing to her life. I love this friend dearly, and she can be such a joy. She's warm and smart and funny. But she may not survive this.

I've got another friend who seems very depressed. In a phone conversation yesterday, every second sentence was a self-insult. Where did she learn that?

I had some very odd dreams last night. In the first one, we were moving to the center of Australia, buying a lovely house that was in a drought stricken area. In the next one, I was suddenly visiting a friend at a family home in another continent. This home was not the comfortable, prosperous one I'd seen in photos, it was a mean shanty in a dangerous city being run by tyrannical despots. And her elders were fairly despotic too, where the children could not speak or even be seen freely. We kept being shunted into the kitchen when visitors came. I was running home, to the relatively less frightening new home in Australia, but it wasn't certain that I would be able to catch my plane. Obviously, the dreams were exotic but dangerous. Of course, they were my dreams, which by nature are fairly narcissistic. In these dreams I feel threatened by significant dangers in exotic locales, and even when I flee it isn't back to real safety. I perceive a lot of danger to me and others. And I'm worried I won't be able to cope. I feel drawn to their problems, and I may be so worried about theirs, I lose sight of my self. It's an old pattern for me, back to my childhood when I'm worried about my yelling or drinking father and my fuming mother...

My sponsor has encouraged me to write about my caretaking of others in situations... I think I need some of that right now, going into the history of that in depth. Phew. This is tough.

Write write write...blechhhh!

Good ol' writing... how I hate it!

But it seems to be good for me. Damn writing, damn exercise, damn meetings... it all dovetails together. This morning I have a combination of all three: I started off the day with a phone call from my friend from OA where we discuss our food (and life). Later on I have a swim lesson then I'm taking my lunch over to my sponsor's studio (she's a painter too) and we talk about programme... and life. Then into the studio for a few hours. Alas, I'm going to have to use the minivan for transport as it's cool and wet and it's just no fun on my beloved scooter when it's like that. I'm going to have to put the scooter away for the winter soon, but it's pretty good that I've been able to ride it into November in Canada, yet.

I know I'm blathering on about life, and I won't blame anyone for skipping ahead. It's therapy, it seems. I just know when I don't do it, I soon find my appetite on the rise. I know, it seems strange, but that seems to be how it is working. My muddled sense of what happens is when I don't regularly give some vent to what may be minor, petty emotions roiling around unacknowledged in my brain, there is a sense of discomfort that rises to a point that something in my unconscious kicks in and does its damnest to smother the discomfort. And without even being aware of it, I start looking for stuff to eat.

Last night, for instance, not only was I feeling hungry earlier in the evening because of the time change, I just had a nagging case of the nibbles. After I had had my dinner and a snack, I pulled from the fridge, of all things, cooked broccoli with garlic. Then I had 4 nose clearing wasabi coated peanuts (all that was left in the can)... then a small amount of dark chocolate, sharing it with Fuzz, again polishing off what was left in the box. Then I had a small piece of cheese. Finally, I made myself a cup of chai which put a lid on it, and went to bed. I was the nibbling Dustbuster. Not really bad, but I know the start of a trend. If I'm not on my game tonight, that compulsion will return.

I don't live in a vacuum. I have a life. And I have to eat to live. But my compulsion to eat to quash the discomfort of my psyche is so strong I have to keep checking on the condition of my psyche, much as you would check on a small child that might be occupied with a task to make sure they are ok. As much as the phrase "inner child" makes me cringe, it really seems like I am having to develop the skill of reparenting myself to keep from continually falling into the trap of self sabotage.

Time to Limit the Food Porn

The American Institute for Cancer Research yesterday released a report linking excess weight to a higher incidence of cancer. Since I'm obsessed with obesity, I'm hardly surprised by the findings. I had long ago been informed by my doctor that my obesity might be influencing the growth of a huge uterine fibroid that I had as fat cells can produce excess estrogen.
I'm all for healthy living, and I strive for it myself. But some days it's tougher than others as my compulsion to overeat gets triggered without me even being conscious of it. I'm also worried that now that obesity has had the last nail put in its coffin to lay it beside smoking as a health risk, obese people will be subjected to even more judgemental scorn than ever, without getting the help that they need. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we know it's bad for us, we still don't have a cure for obesity.

Meanwhile, we are surrounded by constant images of what I heard a person in an OA meeting call "Food Porn". It's all those lovely tempting images of food that surround us from the front of magazines, and particularly in ads for prepared foods and restaurants. And it's the cooking shows. When we moved and ordered satellite tv, I made a conscious channel not to subscribe to the Food Network. My bete noir is cookbooks. I have cut back considerably in recent years, but I still have a small bookcase full of cookbooks, and I love to cook. I think I sublimate all sorts of emotions in cooking and eating. Despite my conflicted family life growing up, it was one thing we could actually find some common ground on, for better or worse.

I wonder if we are now going to start looking at all this food stuff like we now view smoking. Smoking ads are pretty well totally banned, and I haven't seen any smoking shows lately. And with the exception of that cigar magazine (is it even still around?), I haven't seen any ciggie mags. In my province it will soon be law that visible cigarette counter displays disappear. What would happen if they did that to the rafts of junk food in the convenience stores and you had to ask to get a big bag of cheesies? What if you had to be 21 to buy potato chips?

I know I'm pushing the metaphor here, but I think it's started to turn in that direction. Schools have started looking at their sales of soda, and last year my niece's grade 2 teacher asked parents not to bring candy or cake to the class.

Is TV inherently toxic?

At a meeting the other day, a friend who has been in the OA program a while said that she has been aware for a long time that when she is feeling negative about herself, she tends to get mysteriously hungry. That statement in itself was a "DUH" comment for those of us who have been pondering our compulsion to binge or just nibble continuously.

The really interesting thing was that she followed that observation up with noting recently that those negative self-thoughts surface whenever she is watching tv. She is a very active woman and no couch potato and even while watching tv she's doing something else. But still, after a while she sees the negative thoughts appear.

What is it about tv that does it? Is it the passivity of opening up your head and letting all those quick processed images in? Is it the physically perfect people with issues that normally are solved neatly within the confines of 40 minutes? Does a diet of PBS make you feel better, like a tossed salad for the brain? Is what we choose to watch on tv as indicative of our problems as our eating habits?

I know that the longer I avoid dealing with my feelings, the harder my life becomes, and the more tempting the food looks. I wonder if perhaps when I choose to spend time watching tv, I'm in the midst of trying to squash discomfort or anxiety (like I've done most of my life), and it backfires. Maybe not right away, but it adds up. It takes a real conscious effort to counteract this, and when I begin doing it, it's tough. It takes several attempts. Seriously. Several attempts. I have to remember that. The practice of a lifetime takes, well, a lifetime.

A Lifetime of Habits

I'm middle aged. Yuck! But there it is, don't like how that looks, among the many other things that look the way they do when one gets to this age. But it's interesting, as I look around the rooms where I attend my OA meetings and see that most of the other women (and it is mostly women most places) there are of that "certain age" too. Maybe it's because of desperation. We've done all the other stuff, it didn't work, and short of bariatric surgery, we've landed here in the basement of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Last Resort. Actually, we've even got a few who've had the bariatric surgery that has not worked for them.

And I think that this is what makes it work for us - the desperation, the being so damn sick and tired of being sick and tired. You get so sick of the unrelenting pain that you will even risk our cult-like readings and give that whole, gag me with a spoon, GOD thing. Even God is better than another lousy diet. And you find out that maybe the whole God thing isn't what you thought it is. It can be a whole different kettle of fish if looked at with some creativity. Look at it as an entity completely different from that hackneyed image guy in the nightdress. My conception of God was so pathetically unevolved from my 2nd grade Sunday school, it was crazy! When I started looking at a higher power as possibly some force in the universe that was trying to keep me healthy and sane, things started looking up, no pun intended.

But it's hard to stay with that concept. Old habits die very, very hard. Only by repeating the new good stuff, and I'm not even talking about eating habits here, does the new stuff stick around. I have to do, as they say in the program, the DO Things: Write and reflect regularly (several times a week, daily is preferable but not always possible), omigod, I have to keep praying. I have to keep in contact with the fellow strugglers who lift me up, and keep slugging away at it. This is what long term success looks like, but it requires daily vigilance. I'm only as good as my last reaching out to what keeps me sane.

It's like.... hmmm....my diabetes. Luckily I'm in remission because of all the weight I've lost. My doctor says its gone, but I know would almost assuredly return if I regained that 150 pounds. But someday it might spontaneously return even if I didn't regain the weight, and I could have to take daily meds and monitor my blood sugar.

Look, in every fashion I can see my compulsion to overeat is a chronic disease. I HATE that. It is never going to be completely gone. Some days are easier, some are damn hard. So, I need this daily practice to keep me healthy. The funny thing is, it's got a lot of side benefits that have nothing to do with my waistband --- I do have flashes of , gulp, serenity. I've got many great friends that encourage me to take risks and keep growing, try things I would have never considered years ago. It's even helping my work. As an artist, I am now having the great experience of my creativity and scope of the possible opening up. If that ain't a great antidote for "that age", I don't know what is.

Food as Oblivion

I was talking with a friend the other day about binge food. You know, as in what you choose when you really binge out. It's usually junk, but not always. High refined carbs are good --- pasta with butter is a favorite of mine, as is bread and butter. But it almost has to be a type of food that must be like hard liquor or shooting into a vein. High sugar. Lots of crunch, salt, grease. Enough to lose myself in.
I don't use food as a simple fuel, I use it as oblivion. I use it to block feelings, to blunt uncomfortable stuff like anger and envy and sadness. The more I work on feeling those feelings (oh, ugh) I see how much anger is there. It's quite shocking, actually. I've been struggling with lots of uncomfortable feelings since I was elected to the board of my community choir. 120 members. Lots of competing viewpoints, complaints, ideas. I'm feeling swamped. Twice over the last two weeks I came home and before bed ended up eating too much. Last week was the big show down with the leftover pork roast. Last night it was nibbling on the coq au vin. I had even made it to bed (safe, I thought) when I realized my oily paint brushes from work hadn't been washed out. So I went down to wash them at the kitchen sink and then, the fridge magically opened... luckily, I got it shut again before I did too much damage.
But it's incredible how automatically these feelings drive me to the food, and the fridge. I have learned to open the refrigerator before I'm even aware of feeling "off" or doing it. But my body knows what it wants and hasn't bothered to notify my consciousness. Right now I'm doing step work, a twelve step method of dealing with my feelings very popular in my OA programme. But it's damn tough. For over 40 years I've stuffed those feelings down with the food, and when I don't it all feels like too much. I don't have the luxury of blunting them with food. And so I feel overwhelmed. And I have to sit down and write about that feeling. It feels soooo uncomfortable. But if I don't deal with it, I'm just back at square one. So I try again, remembering the old OA maxim that if you have a problem and you eat over it, you now have two problems! Fuck. It hurts!

Still Hangin In---You?

It's been a great summer. It's been a lousy summer. I've had fun. I've felt very low. I'm full of love, I'm full of fear. I love my home, I hate my home.

And we wonder why a person can seem wildly different to different people on different days! Here I am, still hanging in. It has not been an easy season, I've had some minor, yet still challenging physical issues. Just getting back into running, very gently, with my 3 pals. One had sciatica, one lost her husband, and the third is totally unmotivated to run if we're not, especially in the heat of summer. And I had my plantar fasciatis and my hernia came back, hopefully temporarily. Honest. The surgeon said I have a 50-50 chance that it was small enough to heal spontaneously. Please God let that have happened. So, here we are out again at the local park, gingerly doing 1 minute run, 1 minute walk intervals. I was still hobbling around a bit later that night. Hopefully gently gently will be ok.

I've had some big food challenges. It's driven me to my knees, almost daily. I have to, in the words of a very funny friend, "pray like a bastard"! I need the willingness to uncover my issues, really work them out, and the best way I have found to do that right now, is go beyond my weekly therapy session and work them out on paper using the template of working the 12 steps of Overeaters Anonymous. When I can chain myself to the computer and (teehee) not be on the 'net, its a method that really forces me to face my issues. And I have to. The alternative is just too sad to contemplate.

I was able to attend the OA World Service Convention in Philadelphia earlier this month. It was a great way to end the summer and it filled me up for the work ahead. I bought a fridge magnet there, and it's my mantra for September: Face your stuff, or stuff your face!

That large iced skinny latte at 8 pm was a mistake

So it's 430 am and I'm WIIIIDE awake... ah well, what better excuse to blog than feeling like your eyes no longer have lids? Besides, it's been ages since I posted. Time to check in to the mother planet.

This fatgrrl was on a roll for a while, the new scooter (I call her Bella Vino) was pure fun for just over a week, and then I crashed it, doing a lame-o newbie maneuver coming out of the driveway, hit the throttle too hard + hit the curb = sore shoulder and scratched up scoot, and luckily, the worst damage was my ego. For 3 days I felt like the biggest idiot. It was all borne out of being rusty, not having driven a 2 wheeled motorized vehicle for over 20 years. Let this be a lesson: even if you're experienced, get a refresher course. Now I'm doing my own refresher course in a parking lot, because I realize I need practice doing things like tight turns, obstacle avoidance and quick braking. I'm also investigating how to do my own oil changes and bike maintenance, and I bought some snazzy new protective gear. My favorite is a surprisingly economical white and silver mesh jacket (tres cool for the hot summer) with protective armor in the shoulders, elbows and back.

The irony is with the shoulder injury, doing serious swimming (ie the crawl hurts) has been off my list for the last 2 weeks. So I'm basically not doing any real exercise right now. Because of my hernia and plantar fasciitis, I'm not able to run, weight train, or bike strenuously for at least this month, when I get rechecked by the doctors. Because I have a scooter, I'd rather just use it rather than bike around town. So I'm worried. Will I gain weight? Well, in the short term, it seems not. My weight seems stable, but it has only been 2 weeks. But I figure in another week I can pick up swimming again.

I'm trying to be sane about eating and exercise, but I think it's just as easy to fall into compulsive exercising as compulsive eating. Sometimes, if I'm honest here, I think I exercise to avoid doing things that might help me more with my life issues, ie such icky things as meditation and writing. It actually might be a gift to be among the walking wounded at least temporarily to make me see that I need to do some more in depth work on my emotional issues.

Right now I'm continuing in weekly sessions with a therapist, and I've just started another group therapy session with other former patients of a gp who specialized in treating people with addictions of all sorts. He moved to another province, but we're still going. After 2 sessions, it seems to be helpful in me addressing painful issues I want to look at and also cutting myself a mental break. I beat myself up a lot mentally, I think I learned that one from my parents who could be cruel to themselves and me too, with the best of misguided intentions. This is not easy stuff, it's painful to look at, but if I want to stay a normal weight and not be a raving nutter, it seems I have to do it.

Zoom Zoom Redux

I'm chuckling at myself today. I see the signs of a midlife crisis everywhere: not spending much time at work in the studio, busy injuring myself doing sports, and today, I should be able to drive my new scooter home (Insurance Gods willing, but I'm having a hard time being patient). Call it my mini-menopausemobile!

(Warning! The following rant will only be of interest to the severely two-wheel obsessed!)
I finally gave up my fruitless quest for the TNG Lowboy, because despite its low price and cute styling, the parent company seems to be behaving like jerks, screwing up the importation of the model into Canada every which way, and I've heard so many horror stories about how they treat dealers and customers that after the second delay I decided to ask for my deposit back. I feel sorry for the dealer in Toronto, they seem like very nice, professional people, but I think they chose a bad company to represent.

So the last couple of days, to cheer myself after the hernia mishap (see previous post) I went scooter shopping. Since there were so few available in this area besides the pricey Vespas, I broadened my search for lower cost, lower gas guzzling transport into small motorcycles (under 650 cc) and found a couple of really nice little Hondas and Suzukis. Then my friend the Reverend Brian, who just bought himself a nice Kawasaki, (I call him the Rolling Rev) suggested the Yamaha dealership a few miles out of town. I checked it out on the web and voila, they have a lovely little retro styled scooter, the Vino, in a nice 125 cc size: enough power to scoot around town with a little juice leftover. Ain't she cute? The silver color is a little understated for me, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to pimp it out a little.





















Now I just have to be patient and wait for my insurance agent to call me back. Not one of my strong points, as I seem to have that addict's tendency to want everything, and want it RIGHT NOW! But then by that criteria, most of North America would be addicts. Maybe we are?...

Crappity, Crap, Crap!

Ever heard of Julia Sweeney's show "God Said, Ha!"? It's about how the best laid plans in your life can suddenly go sideways, particularly if your health and/or that of a loved one suddenly takes a dive. Well, last week was one of those weeks that made me wonder, ok, God, what's the plan NOW? It wasn't a life threatening event really, just my femoral hernia, the one I thought was fixed in February, made a sudden dramatic return. I had gone for an hour long, mildly strenuous bike tour with a group, and that night I was popping a tennis ball sized lump out of my groin. At one a.m. the next morning Fuzz was driving me to the Emergency room. Within an hour I was in a bed in the ER with an iv drip and some lovely morphine running through my veins. Somewhere around 4 a.m. the little sucker in my crotch retreated and all felt fine.

The surgical resident told me it may be just a small tear and there's a 50/50 chance it will scar up and heal itself closed, but I have to be careful for 6 weeks. And I still may need further surgery if it comes back after that. No running, no swift biking, definitely no weight training. That leaves me with gentle biking around town, slow and low up hills, and swimming. Phooey. For 3 days I was severely bummed. Angry. I've just discovered this whole new life of physical activity, I made it through a hysterectomy last year, this winter the tummy tuck and the hernia patch, and I thought I was in the clear for a while. Well, there was the plantar fasciitis in my left foot, but it's healing. Am I suffering from Boomeritis (symptoms include a return of adolescent illusions of immortality) or what?

Anyway, I slowly came to terms with it and after a week I'm ok with it. Unless I end up injuring myself swimming. Is that possible? The scariest part of this hasn't been the threat of further surgery, it's been the possibility that if I can't exercise for the hour each of 5 or 6 days/weekly that I've been doing, will I have to eat less? That feels threatening. Cut off my leg, but don't take away my food!!! What is the sane way to handle this? Good damn question, I wish I knew.

Surprise! This is a Life Long Battle

Ok, this sounds pessimistic, but it isn't really. Well, sometimes it does get me down. I suffer from a compulsion to overeat. I thought that one day I would lose weight and all the hard stuff would be over. No more dieting, I would be one of those people who just sat at a healthy weight. No extra effort needed, I would just be like normal people and get on with the rest of my life. Lost weight, tick that one off the to-do list. Yeah, right. The bad news is, it seems to be a chronic issue. I still struggle with my compulsion to overeat. I still have food thoughts, I still get waves of nostalgia for old binges.

The good news is, I have so many more things going on in my life that I didn't have when I was morbidly obese, and so I have less time to dwell on the food. All in all, my life is better, but it isn't an, excuse the pun, cakewalk. I need to work on this new life, and when I take time daily to recommit to living a better life, it is easier. It's like the antidepressants I've been taking for years, I have to remember to take them every morning. Or the antihistamine I have to take daily in the spring to keep me from sneezing my head off with seasonal allergies. I have to write, here and privately. I have to think, I have to pray. All of this is necessary for me to deal with the chronic compulsion I have to eat. Through lots of therapy and lots of Overeaters Anonymous meetings over almost five years, I have come to believe that my disease has much to do with using food to comfort myself, deal with life when it feels unmanageable, which is often. The twelve step model offers an alternative way of dealing with my issues which seem insurmountable, and I have plenty of people in the meetings to mirror myself and my insanity back to me.

Often it is very frustrating, ok, often people in meetings piss me off! And usually, when I analyze why someone is driving me to the point where I want to stick my thumbs in their eyes, I find that it's my disease that's being triggered: I may need to stick up for myself, or just remember that I am fine and I don't need them to tell me I'm fine. Just because I didn't get that reinforcement when I was a kid does not make them responsible for my happiness right now. I don't have to love them, spend time with them outside a meeting, I just have to be there and be present in my own skin.

I recently had an issue with someone in the OA programme that was upsetting, but I drew a boundary with this person and I'm very comfortable with it. The other person did not take it well, and while I was angered by the pettiness of her response, it was affirming for me to know that drawing a clear boundary with this person was a wise decision. More importantly, I did not try to save this person from her disease, because that's an old pattern in my life---decades in the making---I want to stop repeating.

There's one of those 12 step maxims that seems self evident, but today I quite treasure it: Nothing changes if nothing changes. If I want freedom, I need to change a few things, things that I never thought had anything to do with me & food. Admitting that I was wrong about that assumption makes it possible to shift things that have felt unshakeable.

Zoom zoom

So I weighed myself this morning, all seems well, I'm at a little over 156 pounds, and I feel pretty good, wise, except for my left foot (see below). I was a little worried about my weight because I haven't been able to run for a few weeks; it seems that I've developed plantar fasciitis in one foot. So, while I'm doing physio and checking out orthotics, I've been using my bicycle and swimming more. After being ticked off by being unable to run, I'm now actually grateful that I've been forced to use my bike for longer and more aerobically challenging rides rather than my usual short trip downtown to pick up something. I grew up overweight, and completely non-athletic. Gym class was awful, and I just wasn't an athletic kid. I had a bike but I never really used it much. So now I'm discovering that it's kind of fun to go on a long ride, and I'm gaining confidence on my bike, a cheapo mountain bike type from Costco. I've got friends with snazzy road or hybrid (road/trail) bikes that cost at least 4 times mine, but all I need at this point is something durable that has a range of gears to make the big hills manageable. I did have a coaster bike that had actually been my moms, but she didn't know how to use it. And on a hill, well, I would just die.

Last week, I had a number of times on my bike when I felt ike a kid. Not like a kid again, because I don't remember ever enjoying it this much when I was young. Honestly, I'm having a hard time finding time to work in the studio, because I'm having too much fun. Yesterday the scooter shop phoned with bad news: my new scooter, on order now for over a month, has been further delayed because of import delays involved in introducing a new model to Canada. Now it looks like it may arrive in August. I'm disappointed, but maybe I'll hang in rather than just caving in and buying a much more expensive, but readily available scooter like a Vespa. Maybe it's a good opportunity to get friendlier with the old bike.

Living is Tough when it's Good

Today I feel like a truck ran over me. It's Monday. Ugh. But yesterday was almost the perfect day. I went on a bike trek with some friends along a hiking trail on an old railway bed between 2 points about an hour each way and had a lovely lunch at the end of the first half at a great restaurant in a little town. It was great: Sunny and just the right temperature. Fairly flat terrain but the gravel could be loose enough in spots you had to keep your wits about you, and only one big hill which we walked up. Trees and lakes, swamps and lily pads, with all the smells of nature in early summer. It was great, just great. I was well aware of a voice that said, "uh huh, couldn't do this when you were 310." Not surprisingly, all my companions on this trek were OA people.

The physical stuff was easy, the part I find hard is the interpersonal stuff. I crave being with other people, but after I'm with them for a fairly short time, they begin to grate on me. I think everyone finds that to some degree, don't they? But I wonder if I have a way of presenting myself that makes it worse? Do I swallow my needs and wishes excessively when in the presence of others? Is this why I feel so dragged out?

Or am I just feeling a natural letdown after such a nice day? I wanted it to last forever. How do I get more of that? Maybe I just get back on my bike? I'm going to a DA meeting at noon, I'd better get moving. Maybe that's the answer for now, I just have to get moving.

Apologies to Gary Larson

In For the Long Haul

I chaired an OA meeting on Saturday, always an unnerving experience for me for I so easily take responsibility for everyone else at the meeting. I just have to keep giving it away, telling myself, "nope, not my issue, not my issue...". I had another one of those "wow" moments during the time when as chair, I had to qualify myself as an oa member, or in other words, one who wishes to refrain from compulsive eating (under, over, unconscious, whatever problem eating issue one has). And I realized I had been attending OA for four???? years!!! I did a quick check with D, sitting beside me and she nodded yes because she had been there about the same amount of time.

Four years. It kind of feels the same way as when I think about how long I've been married. Simultaneously it seems like a very long time, ok, like forever, and almost no time.

So, how am I after 4 years? Well again, I feel very different and yet not changed at all. I am not where I want to be in my life with my career, which seems to be on hold right now, but I am enjoying days where I feel physically well. I am physically fit, foot injury not withstanding. As I start physiotherapy, I'm picking up the pace of my swimming. I am trying to be healthy, exercising moderately, but not become a compulsive overexerciser.

I eat a balanced diet, but I do have treats. But the treats have an interesting was of biting me in the butt. I notice that the day after having a treat --- say a nice dessert or a bag of chips (BTW, which came in a single serving size, but is it my imagination or are small bags of chips getting bigger?), I will feel deprived and crave another treat, as if I had been subsisting on a diet of celery sticks, when I most definitely had not. Yet if I just have my usual evening treat of a small bar of dark chocolate, my cravings just stay at their normal level (always there in the background, but not very strong). The nature of my beast, I guess, I'm built differently. Aren't I? What do "normies" feel? I'll have to ask one. Maybe they do the same thing.

Stuck in the Mud?

Unlike yesterday's visitors to my pool (above) I'm feeling a bit stuck in the mud today. Do you get that? It is absolutely a beautiful day, and I'm feeling like I should be doing something, God knows there's enough around here to do, and yet I don't really want to do anything. I feel stuck. But maybe, just maybe, my psyche is saying: do absolutely nothing. The weather is great, I can smell BF/neighbour's lilacs through the open window, I iced my sore foot (a bit of fascia irritation, I think) by sticking it in the still frigid pool and it feels much better. I can just write, I can just be here. I'm hoping the ducks will return, but if they don't, oh well, probably best for the pool chemistry...

I weighed myself this morning, and my weight is stable, and I feel physically pretty good, sore foot notwithstanding. It's been almost 4 months since my surgery, and I feel nothing spectaular, just generally well. It seems like my biggest activity lately is being a --- jock??? I was afraid I was becoming a compulsive exerciser, but I'm not overdoing it, I took 2 days off last week from it because of the holiday, and I'm just enjoying being fit, my body moves, I can exercise and get winded, but I'm ok, I'm not going to die. I bought a new pair of swim goggles with some optical correction, and I can see in the pool! And, they don't leak!!! Ok, ok, so I was limping along for way too long with old swim goggles. And speaking of limping, I think my foot is sore because I went too long with my old running shoes. It's so hard for me to listen to my body, it has to hurt for me to pay attention. When my foot started hurting, I discovered that my hamstrings were way too tight, probably exacerbating my foot, and that stiff back I thought was just another middle age symptom? Hamstrings again. Some regular stretching is really loosening things up.

Self care is tough. I got an OA phone call from a member who is struggling not just with food but with taking care of herself, and we just talked about our challenges. Shame, caregiving for others when we're really hurting ourselves, and did I mention shame? Biggest aspect of our disease. I didn't try to cure her. I just listened and shared. And tried to keep listening to myself along the way. Oops, time to ice again! And I thought I was doing nothing!!!

Food and Friends

Social eating has to be the bane of most people who struggle with their weight. Mind you, I'm no stranger to sneak eating either --- it was one of my favorite binge methods, being able to eat continually while nobody was watching me. But I still struggle with social eating. Last night we were at a charity benefit for women in Afghanistan and I knew some good food was going to be served, so I went light on supper, just a poached egg on some braised cabbage (omigod, you gotta try the braised cabbage....go to Orangette's blog to get this fabulous recipe. Perfect accompaniment if you're already roasting something in the oven, and I cut down on the oil by almost half and it was still unctuously tasty. Go ahead, roast the whole head. The leftovers are even better!) so I could still sample the Afghan treats. But peril lies in the buffet table, because in large groups, I get very anxious. Honestly, I get anxious in small groups too. In fact, any group over 3. I just start eating to calm my nerves. The food goes in, and then faster, and faster... So I've got to watch it.

Last night was an interesting challenge. A number of fellow OA members were singing in the choir that entertained us. So there was my reality check--- they were there to ground me. But also in the choir was a surprise for me: an old friend that I had been very close to around fifteen years ago and then had broken away from because, well, she was emotionally and mentally ill and so was I. I felt like we were both going under, and I did what I do when I feel out of my depth, I disappeared. It's a recurring pattern for me. We hadn't talked for years. Well, my friend resurfaced and she wants to try to pick us up again. She looks really well. But I'm scared. I'm not sure I can handle this. More importantly, do I want to handle this again? Can we be friends in a way that is not co-dependent?

In the context of this blog, this is an important question, because I've learned that the more I stuff down my feelings and needs when I'm with others, I just need that balm of food all the more. It's like my security blanket. A security blanket with a bomb hidden underneath!

Curious

I can't figure it.

I just posted saying I needed to be honest about my weight and needing a larger size and then I bought a pair of size 8 denim capris because they just looked "right" sized when I held them up to me. I was at Costco and one of their "charms" is they don't have dressing rooms. If it doesn't fit you have to return it. But it did. I did try on a light jacket in a Small and it fit too. Maybe Costco sizes are, like everything else about the store, oversized, and/or I've gained muscle which weighs more than fat per inch size. After all, BF weighs about the same as me, but hates to exercise so she's a few sizes bigger than me.

Whatever. Obviously I have no clue.

Reality Check

I need to be honest here. I have to change my profile because I have gained weight. I can blame the surgery in February, or whatever, but the last couple of months when I've weighed myself I've been closer to 160 than 150. I'm mildly concerned. I'm aware that after my surgery I indulged in a few too many pizzas while not getting a lot of exercise. And maybe I've been letting the treat fairy visit too often?

And I had a couple of no-shit binges. One in January, and one in early March. So, my size 8 jeans are getting a little too tight, and I actually had to buy a 10 in the last pair.

I don't feel bad, but I'm concerned that this could be a slippery slope, and I wish my jeans fit better. So, I need to take some action. Get back into programme a little more. I already mentioned an extra meeting a week would be good. More journalling to keep track of how I feel from day to day. Cleave to what has helped me in the past, shake off the belief that I was safe, that I wasn't going back "there". Well, if my body's inclination is to return to a higher weight, I have to be vigilant. Sucks kinda, but it's really just a reality check. I have work to do.

Yikes, it's noon, lunch! Snuck up on me. Guess blogging may help too.

A Scary Book, but Why am I Surprised?

I've been reading exerpts of Gina Kolata's new book Rethinking Thin on the nytimes.com website, and it's a scary read. Because it reinforces that idea that losing and keeping off a substantial amount of weight is tough. Really tough. She maintains that studies indicate that my trying to stay at a healthy weight feels akin to starving, according to my body. And that does feel right. Another thing that feels accurate is this:

"There were a very few who did not get fat again, but they made staying thin their life’s work, becoming Weight Watchers lecturers, for example, and, always, counting calories and maintaining themselves in a permanent state of starvation."

I don't like the terms starving or starvation, because it feels like entirely too dire a term to describe how I feel about 80% of the time, but yes, there are times, like last night, when I was dying for a bag of chips and it did feel a bit like I was starving. Although I had other, less calorie- dense and more filling snacks, my body was sending me messages like, "aw come on, gimme a break, can't we have something fun to eat, just this once?!" I was having nostalgic flashbacks of the days when Fuzz and I would mow our way through a large bag of chips on the couch in front of the tv. But when I actually thought about it, I remembered that only three days previous I was at a cocktail TGIF with BF and other girl friends, and I had had lots of rich salty treats: crackers, cheese, pate, dip, crusty bread... I'd had my treats, and it was too soon for another exception.

Actually, I've just realized that my body is still playing tricks on my memory. I forgot that I've got a disease, and it's perfectly reasonable for that disease to include a body memory that wants me to be binge eating. And from hard experience I've found that anything less than the calories that keep me above 300 pounds (or maybe higher, if I hadn't stopped in time) feels like starvation --- AT TIMES. I find that those strong cravings that feel so compelling often leave when I've decided it's not getting filled and distract myself with another activity and my mouth with a cup of tea.

I don't count calories by the way, but I do have a fairly unchanging plan of eating, which includes regularly weighing and measuring foods I'm worried I'll eat too much of. And I'm having to relearn my life ---- emotionally, I feel I'm about 4 years old. I'm not a WW lecturer, but at times OA has been just as big a part of my life, I have spoken at many meetings, and I think that I actually need to increase the amount of time I spend on OA, maybe attending a 3rd meeting a week and doing more outreach work to my friends in the programme. Because I'm stuck with me, and I gotta work it if I want to keep where I am. And if that means relearning how to be in the world, well, right now I feel like I'm up for the fight. Ahrrr ahrrrrr, grrr.... ok, put up yer dukes!

Regrets and Questions

While out shoppping with a friend yesterday I ran into an acquaintance. She was a Starbucks buddy, one of those people I would see regularly when I stopped for coffee and she or I would be parked in one of the few comfy chairs left in the store these days. She has a bright and "out there" personality to match her over-the-top raspberry hair and hip glasses, and she isn't the type of person that goes unnoticed.

I hadn't seen her for a long time, and honestly, I had forgotten that she had briefly attended OA, at least partly due to me spouting off about how it has helped me. Interestingly, I had forgotten she had expressed a desire to lose weight. She's tall, and I never thought she had that much to lose, but then from my frame of reference, anyone who wants to lose less than say, 80 pounds isn't all that fat in my eyes. Like many people, she didn't come back after a meeting or two. I hadn't seen her since then and self-absorbed kid that I am, hadn't thought about her recently. I had forgotten how desperate she was to change her life, and her health, and how out of control she felt.

Anyway, out of the blue she tells me she's scheduled to have gastric bypass surgery, roux en y, (because our government health plan will cover it, I believe, rather than the less drastic lap-band procedure) in New York later this month. I was shocked. I don't consider her the usual candidate for this operation, primarily because she doesn't appear to be morbidly obese. I know, it's none of my business, but it makes me sad that this dynamic woman struggling with her weight and depression decided this was her only alternative.

Was there more I could have done to help? Damn it, I don't know. Perhaps I have to be more aggressive in reaching out to newcomers. I do tend to retreat into my own shell o' shame. On the other hand, I have had episodes where I've tried to save people from themselves (I believe they call it co-dependency...) and it's gone badly. I do know that there but for the grace of God go I, and who knows? I could be in the same position some day if I gained back enough weight to make me that desperate. I know that the longer I stay thin the more the odds are in my favour, but face it, I know I've been battling long odds in this war.

I hope the suregeons know what they are doing and she gets good post operative care and counselling. I hope she doesn't have bad side effects now or in the long term. Above all, I hope she's happier. The woman I saw yesterday seemed sad and quite desperate, but very determined, but then she's a determined personality. I hope it serves her in good health to come.

Ain't She a Beauty?

Just ordered her from Totally Scooters in Toronto! Yes, she looks suspiciously like a Vespa but half the price (come on, we're talking scooters here, not Ducatis!), and I really dig that color, which is actually rather close to my hair color, I think. Somebody asked me if I had a name for her, but I don't yet. Naranja?
Of course, I'm not vain or anything... but I was madly scanning the web for accessories, wanting to be the perfect scooter girl. But then it hit me. I was sittting in a 12 step meeting having just whipped there on my bike, and I realized that what I was wearing on my bike would be just fine on a scooter. It's not as if I'm cruising the highway on a big beefy cruiser, I will be just scooting around town! I already own three old leather jackets and some sturdy boots, and I even have my old motorcycle gauntlets kicking around from when I owned my Kawasaki 440 ----gulp--- 25 years ago. Oh my lord, it actually has been a quarter century since "diverted" a year's tuition into buying a bike, completely without telling my parents (I always was a sneaky rebel). I kept the helmet but I need a new one, definitely, but the gauntlets have come in handy when it was time to prune those extra thorny old fashioned roses.

Oy! My Brain Hurts!

A friend of mine finished a reading on handling stress the other day with the saying "Some days you're the pigeon, other days you're the statue..."

I still cannot believe the way my brain works. I started today with the best of intentions for dinner this evening. I would make some tasty and fairly quick curries (chickpea with spinach and butter chicken, with most of the seasonings coming from jars of Pataks...) for an impromptu potluck with the family of best friend/next door neighbour and the family of her partner's best friend. Got that? Sort of a chosen family dinner. But it quickly got complicated: suddenly, they were hauling cute as a button hors doeuvres out of freezers and putting them into ovens: escargots, brioche, fancy cheeses, shrimp with garlic butter, salmon pate... it was like being mugged by Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa, Friend of Martha, etc.... Mrs. Stewart, I blame you for this!

So a simple supper got way bigger than I wanted. Food, food, more rich food. Stir in a soupcon of my ever present social anxiety because I don't know the other family all that well, and my hunger rises up to roar "moooooooorrrrrre!" The one thing we didn't make was dessert. Well, the grownups other than me were drinking wine. And we made coffee. But I realized that my insides really were expecting, nay, demanding a rich fancy dessert to go with the rich fancy dinner. Never mind that I probably ate enough extra calories just in butter between starters and main course for an extra meal! That gaping hole in my psyche was demanding more.

I ate a couple of marshmallows that the kids were eating, and had some of my usual dark chocolate and three silky Iranian dates with tea after we went home. Which was fine. Again, the episode was another reminder that my stomach does not work like that of others. So what else is new, huh? Once again, I feel like the statue, but I'm not quite as surprised finding myself in that position as I used to be. It's my reality, and while that craving is pretty darn irritating, after a while it lessens, kind of like a mosquito bite. Like a bite, I know that if I scratch it, it will only become more inflamed. I acknowledge I'm having an adverse food reaction and try to live well anyway.

BF's father, a recovering alcoholic, told her that for him, the first drink is always the easiest one to turn down. When I have those keep-eating cravings, I have to remember that stopping will not be easier after the next bite, but now, before the next bite happens.

Resentment is 12 step talk for "I'm pissed as Hell atcha..."

Ok, so I'm going for a run. It's a beautiful Sunday morning, Fuzz is out of town, and I phone my running buddy to try and bludgeon her into running with me. She can't. Or she won't. What I suspect, no, what my stubborn brain believes in every inch of it's little codependent soul, is that she is too busy doing for others to do for herself. Running with me today might mean she wouldn't be so damn exhausted when we meet again on Tuesday for our engraved in stone running date. I am totally convinced she is self sabotaging. And I resent her for it.

Well, ya know, what my brain is doing to me is just as bad if not worse than what I imagine she is doing to herself. Here I am over in her yard, perceiving that she has more and uglier crabgrass than in my yard. And what do I really know about her, anyway? She may indeed have better things to do than heavy breathing with me. I get so pissed off and exhausted by the rage generated by my mental gymnastics, no wonder that most evenings it seems that the only answer to all this misery is collapsing on the couch under an afghan armed with a bag of Miss Vickies and back to back episodes of House, another real sane example for me!

Truth be told, I wish I had the company to run. But if I really really wanted her company, I could wait until this evening. But I want to run now when it's cool and fresh and then have the slightly achy but oh-so-superior feeling for the rest of the day when it's done and can happily collapse at a local Starbuck's patio with my 2nd iced americano of the season. But I ain't going nowhere unless I get myself out of my friends back yard and just mind my own business. I ain't the boss of her, and when I really truly learn that, maybe I'll feel better.

Enuf Already!

What a beautiful day! Sun! Finally, it's stopped snowing and the dregs of that late few inches we had Monday have disappeared. I walked downtown with a light jacket for my final post-op check with the plastic surgeon who did my panniuclectomy. This guy does not have the greatest bedside manner, perhaps he has a touch of asperger spectrum disorder because you get the feeling he's talking to himself and you just happen to be in the room too.... It's a bit like having Eeyore for a doctor. He looks at my incision scar and said, ehhh, not bad, a little puckery here and there, a little uneven here...and I realized he wasn't critiquing me, but his handiwork! Then he told me that he could fix the unevenness in the scar in office with a local, but my tummy wouldn't be completely flat unless--- and then he grabs the skin on either side of my abdomen and pulls it back!--- we did a bigger operation with incisions that basically go almost all the way around my trunk!

No thanks. I'm quite happy with what's happened to my tummy, it's flatter than on most women my age, and the scar will fade, even on my white white rehead's skin. And the only one who sees the scar line is Fuzz or maybe the other chicks in the locker room at the Y. Geez Louise, I'm going on 46 this year and I'm very happy that I'm not 300 pounds any more. I'm not going for a bikini tummy, I feel rich having a whole rack of size 8 0ne pieces or tankinis to choose from. I'm just happy to have the flap gone along with the constant rash. Another benefit was a numb area of skin that never recovered from my hysterectomy was removed, and sensation in the new "landscape"seems to be pretty good. And I look pretty damn good in a pair of jeans!

That being said, I'm feeling strangely down. Is it the after effects of dealing with Dr. Eeyore? A feeling that life should feel more perfect than it is? Tax season? Studio anxiety? Just a bad case of life? What do I do? Maybe go to the studio any way. I've got over 3 hours before I meet my running group, I guess I could give it a go. I'm getting sick of the painting (a copy, just to get my chops up again) I'm working on so I should keep going on that, finish it up and get on with work that actually means something to me.

Sometimes ya just gotta keep going, even if it feels sucky. Oh yeah, I have to call my shrink...

The Nature of My Beast: Logic has Nothing to do With it!

Bless Oprah. A few days after I was complaining that the Appetite Awareness Workbook author didn't seem to understand my binge eating, I turned on Miz O (during lunch, of course) and she was having one of her semi-regular programs about addiction. After another one of the heartbreaking stories of one of her guests whose drug habit won out over their family, Oprah commented that the guest was obviously not stupid, to which the guest replied that intelligence didn't have any relevance to her cravings for the drugs--- they were beyond intelligence, beyond logic.

And then I had another one of those lightbulb moments when I thought, yup, that's how it is with me and food: my three university degrees and all the learning about nutrition, exercise and mental health got me close to nowhere. My cravings are not assuaged by my knowing that they aren't related to actual physical hunger. Fat people are not stupid! Knowing that the gnawing desire for cookies in the evening soon after a good meal is emotional in origin knocks the craving down by about, oh, .5%.... I learned I was an emotional eater around 1975 when I first joined Weight Watchers. It didn't really help with the diet and weight rollercoaster I rode for the next 30 years.

It wasn't until I started using the addiction model to describe my pattern of eating that I actually got anywhere with changing it. In the beginning I had trouble describing myself as a compulsive overeater. Yeah, I'm an overeater, but compulsive? Sounds too much like a form of mental illness. But then I realized that my behaviour did seem compulsive: my reaction to almost any life event or feeling was to eat. Celebration? Eat. Mourn? Eat. Bored? Eat. Feeling creative but going into the studio and painting too scary? I could create an elaborate chocolate dessert, earn praise of family and friends, and then eat 4 helpings of it in one evening. Repeat ad infinitum all the way above 300 pounds...

Paradoxically, it wasn't until I admitted that my eating issues seemed to be best described by using the model of an uncontrollable disease, was I able to get some help for them.

Always Hungry, or Never Hungry?

I bought a new book the other day. Sometimes I think I need a twelve step programme for those addicted to self-help books, and I'm having particularly severe buyer's remorse about this one. It's called the Appetite Awareness Workbook and I'm steamed, because after 4 chapters of this I'm gettting that creepy feeling that the author doesn't know what, or rather, who she is writing about, despite the claim touted on the cover that it has been clinically proven... on what? Rats eating junk food? Nah. Actually, the author does have some experience at an eating disorders facility in Colorado. However, for a book aimed at people with binge eating disorder (which I think I am), it is striking a rather hollow note with me. Hollow. That's how my stomach always feels...

The homework in this early stage of the book is to write down after every meal and snack how hungry you were and if you stopped when you were full. Well, it's been two days and, naturally for someone with an eating disorder, I have absolutely no clue when I'm "really" hungry. Other than, well, duh, I'm always hungry! The only time I know for sure when I am authentically hungry is when I'm really past a mealtime and I'm so ravenous I get nervous and cranky. I tried to "feel" my hunger before I started my oatmeal this morning. Nothing. No rumbling, no discomfort. I even, as suggested, and feeling like a dork, placed my hand on my tummy (you remember, the part that's still numb from surgery... making it feel like even more of a futile gesture) and thought... does this abdomen feel empty? No response. Not even a teensy growl. But I polished off my usual hearty portion.

The other question is, did I stop eating when I was moderately full. This one is also a real headshaker. The only way I know for sure I'm full, is of course when I'm really full, or stuffed. And that doesn't kick in easily. Maybe after a large bag of chips and a pint of ice cream, and a hamburger with gravy on the fries, but oh boy, there's chocolate...

For crissake, IF I COULD FEEL WHEN I WAS FULL, WOULD I BE BUYING this STUPID BOOK?!? So, I'm disconnected from my stomach feelings. I'm just not feeling too confident these people understand the nature of my beast. I'm feeling like some new species of animal just discovered by science, being observed in a lab by people with clipboards quizzing me in gibberish. I think this is a classic case of failure to communicate. I'll bet these "experts" even have cookies in their cupboard at home that go stale before they polish off the box! Mars and Venus, baby, Mars and Venus.

On the other hand, I went to my usual OA meeting on Saturday morning. Now they are talking my language. They know my disease, better than they want to, because their demon is my demon.

Phantom Tummy

It's funny that as recently as a year ago I thought I was fine with my stomach. Let me clarify: that part of my stomach that, due to gaining and losing weight many times over 40 plus years, had lost most elasticity and hung like an apron over my pubic area. Doctors call it a pannus, but people with it commonly refer to it as their apron. I thought I would just live with it, but when I found out that I had to have a hernia repaired in that area, I also did some research with a plastic surgeon and discovered that because of the nearly constant rash and skin irritation I had under the pannus, our provincial health insurance would cover the surgery. If I wanted it.

Did I want it? Well, surprisingly, the answer wasn't initially "Hell, yes!" I really had resigned myself to living with it. I looked at my apron as one of my battle scars, along with the stretch marks, and flappy or saggy bits on other areas of my body that showed the war I had been through. I was not a twenty something twig, I was a middle aged woman who had lived and fought and kept going. But the rash was not going away and I would arguably not likely be in any better shape to recover from a surgery than now. And of course there was that part of me that wondered what it would be like to have a flat tummy. Why not enjoy it now? In fact, while I was waiting for word back about whether the province would cover the surgery, I decided that I would be willing to find the money to pay for it myself if they didn't. Better now than years from now when I could be old and weaker with and the rash compromising my health more.

Does it sound like I'm equivocating here, just justifying a vanity choice? Perhaps, but really there is no black and white answer to this. Vanity entered into it, but also my health was a concern. And, as the surgeon said, having the two procedures done at once is less risky than having than having another surgery later and another 6 weeks of recovery time. Drat, I hate grey! So much of life falls in that grey area. One of my big problems in life, dealing with those dratted greys.

So, it's been about 8 weeks since I had the surgery. Healing pretty well, but the scar is very long, like someone drew a rather uneven happy face from one hip bone to the other. It will fade. I got a brand new navel in the process, a teeny little cute one because the other one had sagged so low the surgeon removed it with the skin and gave me a new one, except I can't feel it. I'm still pretty numb all across my abdomen in that area, but sensation is coming back slowly. My gp, who herself has had a cesarian and hysterecomy cautioned me that some sensation could take a year to come back, and some may never. To which I responded, oh well, guess I can't cook in the nude any more! All together now: "EEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUU!!!"

Sometimes the area tingles, like when your foot is falling asleep. And the wierdest feeling, which I've only started experiencing this last week with the return of some sensation, is the one of "feeling" the missing pannus. It might be a little like phantom limb sydrome. Not painful, but occasionally it feels as if I still have the pannus. I'll roll over and bed and almost feel the skin that isn't there any more shifting.

As Count Floyd used to say "Spooky stuff, eh kids?" Wierd. But neat too.

Feeling Low

Yup. I feel like crap. I've got this non-food related issue I'm not dealing with and I'm feeling like a total schmuck. Hopefully, I'll soon get so sick and tired of feeling, well, sick and tired over this that I'll do something about it. Right now, I'm living in this twilight limbo of hating myself. I say it's not food related, but really, when you're a compulsive overeater, emotional eater, whatever, it always relates back to food. I had some cravings last night for comfort food: saltines with peanut butter... you know, the stuff your mother would give you (or you wish she had) when you were feeling low.

Of course, in my family, at some point it felt as if my mother went from being my comforter to my jailer. I know she was only doing what she felt best, but I did feel as if she started monitoring my food. I remember when I was a kid, around 10 or 12, and they had bought some kind of canned chocolate milkshakes. It was Friday night, and I was watching TV with my parents, and I thought the milkshake tasted like heaven. My mother said I could have only one can that night. Well, I snuck out to the kitchen at some point, sat in the dark hallway outside the livingroom and watched tv through the door while drinking the second milkshake. If my mother knew what I was doing, she never gave any indication. I can't remember if I tried to hide the "evidence", the can, that time. That was for later years when I was in high school, at a "healthy" weight, dieting and bingeing in secret or with my friends who didn't care what I was eating. In most other respects, I was a pretty squeaky clean kid. Until I got a boyfriend and discovered the joy of making out at the ripe old age of 18, food was my big rebellion tool. Mind you, cigarettes and booze didn't have a big appeal because my father always sounded as if he was going to hack up a lung every morning, and my best friend and I both had to cope with alcoholic dads. Food was our comfort, our outlet, plus it was socially sanctioned. Except around my Mom.

So, last night, how did I deal with this? Well, I ate the snacks I usually eat in the evening, a fruit, some yogurt, decaf coffee and an ounce of 76% chocolate... ok, and a little extra: I split the 1/3 of an ounce left of the bar with Fuzz... and then I went to bed early , at 11 pm. Which is early for me. Safe in bed. Away from the fridge.

Ya Gotta Laugh

I was meeting with an OA sponsee yesterday, but I don't think we don't have the "classic" sponsor/sponsee relationship... whatever that is. Everybody does it differently, just like everybody works all aspects of their 12 step programme differently. In fact, one of the only universals in 12 step programmes that I've found is the belief that there is one right way to work the programme and we likely aren't the ones doing it "the right way"!

My sponsee has stuck with me through my recent relapses, just as I stayed with mine as she had hers. When you find someone whom you have so much in common with, you tend to stay with them even if they don't have "perfect" abstinence from compulsive overeating. I meet with my sponsee once a week and we just chat about stuff. Not all OA issues, but our lives. Actually, most life issues are OA issues. For those of us who call ourselves compulsive eaters (overeaters, undereaters, and those who eat too much and then purge or starve) we see that our eating is affected by our moods and coping mechanisms with those moods.

The depths we go to with this disease can be truly humiliating. A lot of sneakiness happens. When I was a child, I used to steal change from my mother's purse to buy candy. When house sitting for a family member, I plowed through tons of bread and cheese. A member who is a retired supermarket clerk talks about how she used to steal food and money from her till to buy food. Amazingly, she has actually had the courage to approach former employers to apologize and reimburse them for what she stole.

But with the exception of shoplifting, overeaters rarely are charged with serious crimes directly related to stealing for their food "habit", unlike alcoholics or drug addicts. Yesterday, my sponsee and I were practically rolling on the floor with the mental image the two of us wearing masks to hold up our favorite bakery. She'd go for the scones, I'd take the butter tarts. Thank god for large mercies.

Trying to Be Sane (Random Ramblings)

My friend M offered to drag me to her Monday morning yoga class. I don't like yoga much, but I figured it was a better way to start the week than huddled in bed hating myself, so it was ok. Some good stretching, some opportunity to meditate a bit, and the woman instructing gave me this great lower leg massage while my legs were propped up in the air. Since we're all friends, we sat around and chatted over coffee afterwards. I don't think yoga will replace other forms of exercise, but there are much worse ways for me to spend time, like: worrying, watching useless tv, or eating. So, this week is turning out to be much nicer than last.

Fuzz is off school, on March break. He's really had his head buried in work (teaching and taking courses) since Christmas, so he needs some down time. We have no travel plans, but it's nice to have him around. We decided we would try to get out for a good long walk every day, but it's hard for me to fit that in even though I'm still off sick. I'm not even back to work yet, but there's always stuff to do. Today I meet with my OA sponsee, and then I'm going to babysit while Fuzz and my BF bottle a batch of wine they made.

Sometime this week I'm going to get back into the studio. It's been 4 1/2 weeks since my surgery --- a femoral hernia repair and a panniculectomy --- and the recovery has been fairly uneventful, but my mood has stunk. But it's generally been a difficult 6 months emotionally. Regular writing helps, but I think my old coping mechanism of stuffing the feelings down came back. One of the other artists in my studio building seems to have had some sort of breakdown. Part of me really feels sorry for him, but another part of me is hopping up and down and going "YES! Another artist is having problems!"

Since the black mood retreated last week I've been to 3 meetings of 3 different 12 step fellowships, OA and two others. Compulsive overeating is still the bugaboo that feels the most dangerous to me, but I have issues with alcohol and money, so I also go to the odd AA and Debtors Anonymous meeting, and since they are all from the same AA routes, they have the same message and the same techniques to try and live a healthier, saner life. Basically, they give me opportunities to reflect, share, and write about the problems bedevilling me. Trying to follow a 12 step way of life is about putting habits into place that make my life easier, not harder. But the change takes work and regular recommitment because I'm trying to change the self-sabotaging habits of a lifetime, some of which started before I even learned how to talk.

Some Days I Really Hate Myself

This week has been awful. And it's all been in my stewy brain. Nothing bad happened except I fell into the black pit on Monday and gave myself over completely to the binge rottweiller. I've been struggling with a big fear of dealing with some investments left to me by my mother years ago and because of some changes in them I have to deal with them this tax time.

Monday morning I felt incapable of dealing with these and I'm so horribly furious with myself for not dealing with this and feeling as if I mismanaged my money and all is horrible. I know it seems drastic. That's my drama diva brain. I abandoned all hope and retreated to bed except for regular trips to the refrigerator. There are 8 messages on my answering machine from friends that I couldn't bear to talk to. The fact I am writing right now means I have clawed myself back to the lip of the pit, and I'm sitting on the edge, swinging my legs over the abyss, contemplating the pit versus getting back into the world of the living again. I don't truly know if I clawed my way out or what happened last night when I popped out of the top.

I just know that last night in the wee hours (ok, it was after 4 am) I was lying in bed hating myself and that awful stuffed feeling in my stomach and suddenly I had this rush of gratitude. It seemed very profound then, but then, don't 4 am thoughts always feel profound? Profound Thought went something like this: "Here I am, in a cute little house that needs a little work, with a loving wonderful man, and I have good friends and some interesting things to do and two great cats and enough money. The only thing really wrong in my life is how much I hate myself. The rest of the stuff is minor. "

Click. Life seems worth living suddenly. Two things I am considering: Today I need to go to a meeting. Any 12 step meeting will do. Number two, I think I may benefit from some a residential treatment programme. I need to give this default self hatred switch a good scrub, and maybe look into turning it into a dimmer switch... It's so fucking drastic.

Fat = Pain

I believe that there are possibly many fat and happy people out there. I just know I was never one of them. My experiences with food have led me to believe that for every 50 pounds of excess weight most people carry, they have that much emotional pain that they are carrying around inside them. Or, on them, as it were. Some day we may have such sophisticated imaging equipment that we will be able to see the pain inside that inch of fat, and say, "oh, look, there on the left lateral abdomen, there is that incident from 1983 when your father slapped you and called you a lazy slut!"

Of course it's more complicated than that, because even when you dig down and see the suspected source of the pain, it doesn't mean you will immediately feel better. I believe then you have to try to counteract all the little distortions in thinking that followed that. Self knowledge then has to be followed by a massive change in mental habits of thinking, and behaviour. It's not enough for me to distract myself with a crossword puzzle when I feel hungry. I need to challenge the black dog of the soul and affirm that all is not lost, and I do not need comfort and oblivion in food.

I could become the fairy queen of the beautiful cupcake, but all the admiration of my fans will not help my pain. It's too hard wired. I cannot earn my own self love.

This may seem oblique to many, but if you've suffered from the black rottweiler of the binge, you'll probably understand.

Busy Being Me

Things happen. I sunk into a funk. The toxic thoughts got the best of me. I stopped going to OA meetings because even they seemed toxic to me. I got too deeply enmeshed with some people without even trying, but by being unable to say "no". Tried a new antidepressant which initially REALLY knocked the stuffing out of me. The depression itself didn't get worse, but I slept a LOT. And I had the cold that would never end, so I wasn't able to exercise much, which was the loss of a major mood elevator. But after a month I finally started to feel better.

The most amazing thing then happened: In early January I got back into the studio. Recovery sometimes is so subtle, you don't even notice it's happening, and in this case it was nothing dramatic. A couple of days after New Years', I got Fuzz to help me put up some blinds in the studio and I unpacked a few boxes that had been sitting in the basement. Then it was just a few hours a day, working on a Van Dyck copy I had started years ago when I was studying in New York. Before I knew it, I had spent more time in the studio in January than I had during the whole fall!

Unfortunately, some old habits resurfaced: The toxic thinking, the isolation, and last to come, I had a food issue. Aka, a binge. It happened in the first week of the New Year, and my eating had gotten kind of sloppy over Christmas, you know, the usual, a little bit of this and that, a bite of that and the other thing, more dessert more often, and it got harder and harder to stop with a healthy portion. Then there was one night when I just didn't want to stop eating. So, I didn't. I ate until my stomach felt like I had swallowed a bowling ball.

Luckily, it only lasted one day, and I was back to sane eating again, but I have some emotional work to do.

Maybe it IS Just the Weather!

Maybe I'm too quick to dismiss this whole Seasonal Affective Disorder thing. The weekend was sunny and I felt better. I've also cranked the light box up to x-tra high, and leave it on for an hour or so. I don't feel so bad. I think I'm at about 65%. And then there was a news item on the national news about how doctors are seeing a big increase in people with low moods this fall, when the east coast has had one of the most overcast fall seasons in almost 60 years.

I'm tired of the guilt, of the shame of feeling like I'm doing something wrong. To HELL with it. Now I have to try and live that out, and stop slinking around with my tail shoved under my butt. I wish humans did still have tails. But only involuntary ones that wagged or sagged in true response to one's feelings. I keep up a good front when I'm not so low I have to take to my bed. Unfortunately, it's mostly a front.

Thank god the food is ok. I've not been going to any meetings, I've just felt too low, too vulnerable, yet I fear that this is going to catch up with me. But my support group doesn't feel like a support group any more. My disease is using it against me. I can't go to them for support, I feel like as an "old-timer" I think I have to be the support, and I don't feel up to it. I've got to change something here.

Revelations, I Think...

I've been depressed for the last couple of months. The weather here has been horrible and grey. Oh for a nice white snowfall! I gave in to the opinions of my therapist and GP and finally bought one of those light boxes, and I've been taking my vitamin D faithfully, along with an antidepressant, but it doesn't seem to be taking. It's not just the weather, this has been a problem off and on for me since early adulthood. I believe that my long and torturous history with the food is also linked to this mental turmoil. Researchers have long theorized that substance abuse may be an attempt to self medicate mental illness.

Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.

I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.

My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.

Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.

But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.

So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.