Pounds Released - Not Lost .....

I was surfing the web and came across a story about weight loss and this woman referred to it as pounds released ..
I LIKE THAT !!!

Lost - often has a emotional and negative connotation to it, when you think of losing something - or its lost to you - it can often without even realizing it create negative feelings within us that we react too at a subconscious level.

I looked up lost in the www.m-w.com dictionary online and I was very surprised at all the "negative" meanings of the word.
How many times do we talk of it as a loss/ lost pounds and then as "found" when we have regained the weight.

I like the word release .. that implies/conveys my true feelings .. that its a choice made freely to let the pounds go. .. that I release myself from the weight and because they are not lost - there is no need to ever "find" them again!

Forgiving Myself

As a mom of many, one of the things I teach/encourage my children to is to forgive.

I teach them that it is good to forgive when someone wrongs them or makes a poor judgment that affects them, and to forgive that person that hurts them with words.
Yet I have realized - that equally as important is being able to forgive oneself.
Sounds easy but oh so hard to do.

I have come to realize that I am very hard on myself in non productive ways. I have also come to realize that my knee jerk reaction was to punish myself with food when I do something "wrong" that I feel guilty about. I have already established - that I don't seek food for comfort but rather more as a way to punish myself. That somehow - I don't deserve to feel / look good.

I need to forgive myself, I need to let go of the negative emotions, and to realize that I can learn from my mistakes - and if one can learn - then the mistake had purpose.

It is no different then I teach my children. Forgiveness is good, it makes a person stronger, more compassionate. It has purpose.

I forgive myself, I forgive myself for all the things where I wish I had made better choices but realize now that my only choice is to learn from those mistakes and move forward with that knowledge.

I forgive myself being fat, I want and will be healthier but until I am - I am who I am and that is not a bad thing.

I forgive myself for all the times I have started something and not completed it. Again - all I can do is aanalyse what held me back and to move forward .. always moving forward with the belief that I will complete what I start if it has purpose and meaning for me.

I forgive myself for abusing my body with food - and to realize that to learn a new way of life is going to take time. I can and will do this.

I forgive myself for all the horrible things I have said to myself.

I do deserve to be happy, healthy and the person I choose to be.

The Turning Point and other things

I have had a few turning points - that I thought at the time was enough to put me on the right path to weight loss and then ended up self sabotaging and sinking back into the abyss - of dark thoughts- what I affectionately call the dark side.
What I have now come to realize that while each "failure" was very painful - it has been what I have learned from each time - that brings me where I am today. I deal in today - and what I know I can do today.

In September of 2002 - I had reached what I thought was going to be my highest weight ever- of all time - I believe it was about 380 - because I didn't have a scale that would weigh me - and I hit the wall - asthma was out of control at the time, constant pain joint wise, totally disgusted with myself -many other aspects of my life in chaos - the one thing I have always held together pretty good was my ability to be a Mom .. but who I was as a person - a woman and how I felt deep down inside and how I viewed myself was in tatters.

So - I talked the talk - walked the walk and I lost 130 plus lbs - and I thought myself in control - in fact - it was largely about "control" that I was focused on that time. I embarked on this mission to bring order to my life, which I felt - if I could,  I could control me, my surroundings, my finances, my house, my emotions, then I could lose weight and it worked for almost 18 months and many things I felt, wrote about at that time - I still believe in -

I still very much believe that losing weight isn't just about diet - but the whole life approach, how you feel and present yourself -your home environment, etc etc- its the whole package and that they are all enter-twined and integral to each other.

However there are some key differences this time - In the past and more then once I so bought into myself - that I projected myself months down the road-at goal - and feeling - hugely successful and in doing so created a a "perfect" facade and yet I was still struggling so much of the time emotionally - but I kept tamping that down inside me ..because I was still was seeing losses at the scale and that is how I measured my "self worth" and then I became complacent - and while I had always said it was about my health, secretly - I was getting off more on how I looked, how my clothes fit, and what people were saying about me.

Now the lowest weight I got too - I think was about 240 something - which is highly ironic to me at times because of how many others view themselves at that weight.

But I was on top of the world .. and then I crashed and burned in a spectacularly brilliant fashion - There are many factors that let me to stumble - falter and completely derail - but the one was that my body rebelled on itself - and I started having huge irritable bowel issues and in whacked out way - I "felt" better when I was eating a diet high in fat, now - of course I have come to understand physiologically why that was and of course it played a huge mind game with myself - After years of abuse - the body in amazing in how it adapts but when you start doing "the right thing" its responses aren't always what you expect of it. So that combined with the fact - that life or least my life didn't allow me to keep all my balls perfectly juggled - they all started bouncing down.

The next number of years are a blur in that - I still at times have a hard time reconciling the fact that almost 12 years has passed since I first saw the light - and that right there is probably one of the biggest facts I had to make peace with. Because once I really woke up again - the feelings of failure impeded me for years- on being successful at weight loss.
I had myself so convinced I was going to fail again - and I couldn't handle it. So I buried my head again and again and kept gaining more and more weight - and until ..

As i said a couple of key things happened .. back a number of years ago - when I first started this blog- it was created when I went to have a a ultra sound done of my leg for a suspected blood clot - and the technician matter of factly informed me that if I was over 400 lbs - she couldn't perform the test because - I was "over the table limit" - and I was OMG .. I knew I had to be (in a moment of being honest) but of course I lied and said NO and then prayed as I laid on the table in utter mortification .. - You would think that would have been enough .. but it would be another 3 years - (I think) before quite frankly the fear of where I was headed - was more then the pain of facing and dealing with feelings of failure and all the other baggage.
It was also watching the show big medicine and thinking OMG - but there for a 100 or so pounds am I ... and I made the personal choice that having gastric bypass surgery wasn't a answer for me. Not judging anybody who does but because I have binged when physically sick to my stomach and in horrible pain - I thought - no - I had to deal with the emotional issues once and for all.

Fast forward a few years to 2013 when I did reach a new all time high, - not exactly a achievement one likes to brag about *smile*.  I weighed 450 lbs. at Christmas time 2013  and by this time my health and mobility severely compromised, even more then before .... I started again .. but didn't get truly serious until May of 2014.

I acknowledge my past, I recognize that I can't "rewrite" it but what I do know for sure is that there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on it .. it is what it was ...

And now here I am - quietly celebrating that I have lost 100 lbs and I am well on my way but - I still need to take it one day at time - and there are days I do it 15 minute segments at a time - thinking I can do anything for 15 minutes - I can make good choices in all aspects of my life for 15 minutes. I can do 30 minutes - a hour and so forth - Now I am doing it daily - but - again I know I can go back to getting through 15 if I have too.

I try very hard not to project myself where I will be next week or the month after that - and I certainly don't project myself at goal, because that is still very overwhelming that when I think on it - and realize that despite 100 pounds lost to date I still have 100 plus to lose.

What continues to be a work in progress is being at peace with my mistakes and letting go of them- its about letting go of negative ideas, beliefs - feelings of failures - etc.. and that is something I work at daily - and not only in relation to weight loss but all aspects of my life.

I am a work in progress and I accept that I always will be- but today - I can do this.

** Edited October 2014.

Self Fulfilling Prohphecies

I really do believe to some extent that we are self programmed for either success or failure. It all has to do with the voices in our head - (and no I am not psychotic or at least haven't been diagnosed as such).

If we really listened to the voices in our head, we would see the writing is on the wall. How many times have you started on a self help program of some sort only to fail again and again ? This is not a new theory by no means. Its a multi-million dollar industry. People writing books telling people how to solve their problems, how to lose weight, how to stop smoking, how to effectively change a bad habit.

And in most every one of those books are some good ideas, some thought that makes you think, look at and examine your own life, your own choices. We get all fired up, we buy all the stuff, We start to talk the language and we become a follower of the great plan. I have those books, the tapes, I love "stuff".

However since the stuff hasn't included a micro-chip that I can insert into my brain that somehow automatically changes my thoughts ... I have realized that this really does take some inner brain work on my part!

I always start off with the best intentions - the can do attitude - and next thing you know you I am half way through a box of frozen flakies.

Its a vicious cycle and for myself - each time I lose a little more self respect. I question my abilities just a little more and that nasty negative voice in my head gets louder and as I get older - I certainly get a lot more cynical and yet .. here I am - unhappy with how I look and more importantly how I feel and wanting to do something about it.

So how do you stop that vicious cycle ? How do you stop the false starts and stops and how do you just do it.

Well that is what my writing about, to figure it out and these are a couple of things I know for sure.
The resolve to lose weight has to be stronger then the resolve to stay fat. Now one might question - why anybody would want to stay fat ... and that is a good question. Yet - obviously on some level - I want to stay fat... wait .. I meant to say WANTED to stay fat.
A question I definitely need to explore and answer for myself.

Something else I know for sure is that my inner brain chatter really is not in my best interest and I need to change the script. I need to re-record over the little voices that tell me - yeah somehow its ok if you have a big mac, large fries and hell why not the apple pie too cause you have gone that far.

What I do know for absolutely sure is that - you can't change it all in one day, it is a process, it is a concentrated effort of deliberate actions.

That is what I am thinking on today.

***** Previously written and re-posted October 2014

Emotional Eating vs Food Addiction

What is the difference between emotional eating and food addiction - and does emotional eating turn into food addiction.

I have always labelled myself as an emotional eater, as for me that is someone who eats when they aren't hungry, will eat things that I don't necessarily like - leading to binging which for some - maybe something else entirely.

I have also said before - one doesn't get to be my size without being addicted to food. Addiction by definition is when there is a compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance. I also recognize that I have a addictive personality in other aspects of my life that I have to be aware of.

But this is where I question addiction - because I question if food in and of itself - say a bowl of chips is addictive - but whether instead its the associated feelings/emotions to food that is the addiction.

We all may crave certain foods - lots of scientific studies to show that there are certain components that we can become addicted too - but .. I think largely for the most part at least speaking for myself - its the result of the uncontrolled eating that I am addicted too.

Feelings that for me include - escapism, numbing, avoidance, self punishment.

That is where the emotional eating part comes to play as well, it is the negative cycle we find ourselves in.

Now the big question is - how to stop that emotional eating.

Well - for myself, its identifying the triggers - the reasons why I eat, what it is I get from eating and the EXTREMELY slow process of re-wiring myself to not associate those feelings with food.
It can be done. I refuse to think it can't be.

It also doesn't matter how many times one starts over or starts again.

For myself, I know some of the triggers - one being stress - which is so cliche but .. then for me its then breaking down that stress - to pinpoint exactly what it is. I used to think it was night time eating I had problem with - as often that is when I binged - but what I realized is that I had formed the habit of when the house was quiet in the evenings -that is when I would start to think of the day and what had gone on with the kids or how was I going to pay for something or thinking over a disagreement I had with someone -it was that that I reacted too by eating so that I didn't think of those things - that instead - I stuffed my mouth as a way of "avoiding" having to think.
During the day - for myself - its easy for me to stay OP but its the night-time when I have time to "think" that is when the problems can start.

So I would eat, and eat and often binge eating which then comes with its own associated feelings - BUT guess what - I stopped thinking of the problem with my daughter or how I was going to pay the bill etc.

So what I have been trying instead is to turn that negative obsessing - into constructive problem solving. To journal about it - to talk it over with a friend - and if I really can't get my brain to shut down - to sit on my front porch - drinking a cup of tea listening to music- anything to move me out of that moment.

Bottom line - FOOD IS NEVER THE ANSWER to a problem unless its true hunger.

****previously written, edited October 2014

The Emergence

I love butterflies, I love the idea that they start out as something totally different then what they end up being. Slowly evolving, emerging  into the beautiful butterfly able to break out of her cocoon and fly high and free
I originally started this blog years ago, as a place for me to share thoughts - and all the emotions - that go with the struggle to lose weight. Its a place for me to think out loud - to keep my fingers busy so they aren't stuffing frozen ding dongs into my mouth (they really are best frozen).
 Much of I wrote before and in years past, still defines me and what my thoughts are and how I view this weight loss journey, however at the same time I wanted  to re-examine where I was and where I am going now.  I have removed all my previous posts and my plan is to edit and re-publish them as well as my new thoughts, rants and musings.
I will continue forward evolving and getting my wings, I know that some day I will have them!