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.