My Fragile Transition To Food

Since starting my Progressive Food Encounters (PFE's) I have discovered that my old impulses were only dormant during the fast, and are still present.  I realize that this week was literally the Perfect Storm for triggering old hurts and having old reactions resurface, and it unfortunately landed when I was planning to and really wanted to reintroduce food.  There is nothing like a visit from a relative to touch those long-buried (and in my case, therapied) feelings, and then react to them in old familiar ways.  This week has made me realize how fragile my recovery is, and how I'm going to need to learn to be present with strong emotions in order to stave off my impulses to emotionally eat and binge, which were my old go-to coping mechanisms.

A couple of days ago, after an upsetting family encounter,  I resorted to my old comfort - food.  I was totally off program and nibbled on things leftover in the house.  Little cookies, cheese, bits of leftovers.  I didn't like what I was doing.  Alarm bells were going off.  I decided to stop myself and throw away all the foods that were tempting me. I wasn't happy with myself, but I wanted to move on and start over.

I had a good day after that.  By the book, 3 oz. of chicken and my shakes.  That was great.

Then yesterday I had a good start, but I was ruminating over my frustrations, and last night, I started eating smokehouse almonds.  Three handfuls until I threw the bag away.  Oy.

I felt very sick to my stomach last night, and I'm sure today is going to be intestinally tough.

So here I am writing about it for all the world to see.  Luckily I have my group to go to next week, and a maintenance class to start in the near future.  I'm going to need the support and I realize it.  If I've learned anything in this program, it's that support really helps me.  And writing works for me too.  This blog isn't like Facebook for me (although it has been filled with fun lately)  But it's the good, bad and ugly of this weight loss adventure I'm in the middle of.

Deep down I know that I will grow from this experience, but I am disappointed in how quickly I resorted to my old ways.  Today is a new day, and I will be mindful and take it one meal at a time.

Here are some readings I'm gaining strength and encouragement from today.  These are from the wonderful blog A Weight Loss Journey:

The Language of Letting Go

Accepting Our Best

We don't have to do it any better than we can - ever.

Do our best for the moment, and then let it go. If we have to redo it, we can do our best in another moment, later.

We can never do more or better than we are able to do at the moment. We punish ourselves and make ourselves feel crazy by expecting more than our reasonable best for now.

Striving for excellence is a positive quality.

Striving for perfection is self-defeating.

Did someone tell us or expect us to do or give or be more? Did someone always withhold approval?

There comes a time when we feel we have done our best. When that time comes, let it go.

There are days when our best is less than we hoped for. Let those times go too. Start over tomorrow. Work things through, until our best becomes better.

Empowering and complimenting ourselves will not make us lazy. It will nurture us and enable us to give, do, and be our best.

Today, I will do my best, and then let it go. God, help me stop criticizing myself so I can start appreciating how far I've come.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

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Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
--Edwin Markham

So life has given us some dents. So what? Dents are necessary, besides being unavoidable and painful. Each dent is a part of the process that enables us to embrace life as a creative experience and to see the world in a new way, a way of compassion and understanding. Recovery is not a matter of escaping further blows or of disguising the dents we already have. It's a matter of understanding what the dents mean and how we can work with them.

Dents are neither soft spots in our characters that should make us ashamed nor saber scars that should make us proud. They are simply evidence that we have been alive for a while. Recovery offers us the chance to learn from our dents, to accept them as new spaces for growth. When we decide to see our dents as opportunities gained rather than opportunities lost, we stand much taller in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.

Today, I will look on my difficult life experiences in a new light. Today, I will plant some seeds.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

Thoughts on Doctor Visits as An Overweight Person

Almost my whole life, I have dreaded visiting the doctor, and frankly avoided it at all costs.  I have gone a handful of times for routine visits, but unless I'm really, really concerned or sick, I don't voluntarily go.  It's a weight issue for me, and has caused me an incredible amount of angst over the years.  I feared the doctor scale, the blood pressure reading, and the suspense of whether or not the doctor would comment on my weight.  The doctor's office was the one place I carried the most shame about being obese.  I knew that my health was being compromised.  On the wall, I saw the creepy poster of the fat and thin persons through x-ray - the admonishments about what I was doing to my health by eating too much and not exercising enough.  I would leave the office feeling terrible about my inability to get a grip on my health and weight.  Look at what I was doing to my body!


At my book group meeting this past Saturday, one of my dearest friends, who is also a nurse practitioner at an Optifast clinic (not mine, though), brought up this issue as she heard the sad stories from her bariatric patients.  Her eyes were opened to how the established medical community is failing to help obese patients.  I shared with the group my own experiences with this.

As I reflected on my feelings, what came to light was the absence of hope.  Six months ago, I never dreamed I could lose weight.  The task was just too daunting and I had tried and failed so many times that I never felt confident that I could do it.   I knew that I should do it, but didn't feel that I could do it.   When I think about the public messages at the doctor's offices, what they really lack is compassion and hope.  I didn't need to be scared and shamed any more than I already felt.  What I really wanted was for someone to send me a positive message of hope and help.  You know those signs in the women's restroom that aim to help abused women?  "Are you suffering in an abusive relationship?  We are here to help you.  Call -----."  What if the waiting rooms in doctor's office and clinics had beautiful compassionate posters that said "Are you overweight and overwhelmed?  We have several programs to help you every step of the way on your journey back to good health.  You can do it and we can help!  Call us at ------."

The commercial weight loss industry does this pretty well.  We've flocked to their programs with the "before and after" posters, dreaming that we would one day be one of those people.  The medical establishment could learn a thing or two from their approach.  They are big on naysaying commercial programs (talk about mixed messages!), but what alternatives are they providing us?  In our most vulnerable moments, are we going to reach out and ask for help while we have to face a giant poster with an x-ray of a fat person or when we feel the wagging finger of the medical establishment?  Not me.

I'm lucky that my current medical provider has this special weight loss clinic with a number of programs (some of which are free).  I didn't learn about them through a visit to the doctor's office, though.  I found them online when I was grasping at any solution to my weight problem.  I was also lucky to have a friend who I felt comfortable confiding in, and who worked in a weight loss clinic.  In the end, it was my friend in the medical community who compassionately led me to my current program.  Did I know that Optifast was going to work for me?  No.  But just that little bit of encouragement helped me take the next step.

I'm not saying that Optifast is the right choice for everyone.  At my clinic there are a number of real-food support groups to help people who want to lose weight.  I think that support is one of the most important success factors.

Every day for the past 6 months I've been thankful that I started this journey back to health.  It hasn't been easy, but I am giving it my best and really trying to make changes in my relationship with food.  I still have many months to go as I finish my fast, transition to food, and attend maintenance support groups, so I'm a work in progress.  I'm just trying to soak in every bit of this experience.

If you are reading this and are searching for hope, please know that you are not alone and that there are many great people who have started a long weight loss journey and are maintaining a healthy weight.  You can do it too.  Don't be afraid to research and reach out for help, whether it's in person or online.  Even if you have had a lifetime of being overweight, it is never too late to discover the healthy person that is inside of you right now.

Week 26 Weigh-In: Just Keep Turning the Page

176.5 lbs.

Sometimes the universe provides!  In my Optifast group tonight we talked about moving past our negative choices.  It was comforting to hear (re-hear) this lesson about having more (self) compassion when I choose a path that isn't aligned with my health goals.  I consider this to be a very important issue for me, personally.  In my past attempts to lose weight, I would lose a few pounds, fall off the wagon, and then rationalize a delay in re-starting my program.  By the time "Monday" would roll around I would have several days off the wagon and a whole pile of guilt.   At that point, it would be extremely difficult for me to get back to the healthy eating program.  This is the wonderful thing about attending a support group.  You have a safe place to discuss your challenges among people who can relate and offer insights.



I'm happy that after my last transgression I was able to return to my eating plan and move on.  I think that the reason I'm nervous about those off-program choices I made is because in my mind I don't trust myself yet.  Despite 23 weeks of following Optifast perfectly, I look at my recent bites and immediately forget how strong I am, as evidenced by my ability to lose over 80 pounds so far.  I now see this as absurd thinking.  It isn't that I'm suddenly a bad person because I made a mistake.  I am strong to have gotten this far and I am able to begin again and keep moving towards my goals.

Speaking of goals, I've been enjoying my evening walks and goal to complete at least one mile per day (I'm almost at a two mile mark during the time that my son is in karate class). It's wonderful to to feel physically stronger and more athletic, and it has taken my mind off of food.  It's a stress buster too.

On the family front, we are doing well with our business, and my hubby has a conference call with another company next week.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him because it is a direction in his career that he would be excited to pursue.  It would be great for our family as well.  I'm keeping hopeful and positive.

Where the Mind Wanders When The Body Doesn't Eat

I'm going through a phase of thinking about food and about how I'd like to eat when I reach my goal weight and finish transition and maintenance.  I hesitate to dwell on it, because I still have many months of my fast left to go.  But...meat and veggies are looking very, very good to me right now, so I've taken to reading diet-related "groups" on MyFitnessPal.  I'm ashamed to say that I've become a vouyer on those boards, looking at public food diaries for clues about what people are eating to live well and maintain weight.

There is this way of eating called Primal/Paleo that has my attention.  My husband is eating this way right now and has lost about 35 pounds and feels great.  But this type of eating was made for him as he's an avid carnivore and butter enthusiast.  It goes against all the conventional wisdom we were taught about eating.  Eat fatty meats, non-hydrogenated fats (bulk of calories), and non-starchy veggies.  No grains, and for some, no dairy.  I guess we will have an idea of how it's going when he has his next routine blood work done!  It will really mean something, if his cholesterol and lipids are normal.

How crazy is it that I'm even writing about this???  I can't even eat right now!  But somehow, it is helping just to make my inner feelings public.

Optifast is a long journey for me.  I've planted my garden, I've passed on birthday cake, wine, and Easter feasts.  Sometimes, I guess I just need to live vicariously through people who are maintaining their weight and eating food, something I hope to be doing in the near future.  Did anyone else go through this during their Optifast days?

Oh, here's a picture of my happy garden.    Thanks for helping me get through this time.

4 Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes
3 Brandy Boy Tomatoes
1 Kellogg Breakfast Tomato (plus 3 seeds planted)
3 cucumber plants
4 Green Bean plants
3 zucchini plants
Cilantro, Basil and Mint

Fooling Myself

A few of the blogs that I follow brought the program "My 600 Pound Life" to my attention.  I watched an episode yesterday that broke my heart on many levels, but also got me thinking about my own issues related to weight.  The woman they featured, named Penny, was bed-ridden.  Her husband cares for her 24/7 and they have a 6 year old son.  She expressed a strong desire to be able to live for their son, and that was her inspiration for getting weight loss surgery.

What followed was an examination of how her troubling delusions, along with her husband's inability to be a supportive leader in a new healthy life, kept her from successfully achieving her dreams.  Her lies to herself and others-- about following the prescribed diet, about her efforts to become mobile were both painful to watch, yet struck a somewhat familiar chord for me.  Since I have had a lifetime of being overweight and trying to change, I can see how I have harbored my own delusions about how hard I try or how faithfully I follow a healthy eating plan.  Then when I step on the scale, I am faced with a disappointing outcome.  This has happened over and over.

It's never comfortable to confront the lies we tell ourselves.  When I think back, I know that an evening of lasagna, wine, bread and dessert, NOT followed by more activity will result in weight gain.  But it was so easy for me to go on the next day, not willing or motivated to move my butt - ignoring the truth.  Time after time of this has resulted in where I am today.  This is exactly why I feel that weight loss is so much more than following a healthy eating plan.  Almost as importantly, we need psychological support to help us through the process.

Many chat boards, doctors and even the family and friends in our lives are puzzled by why we can't just eat less and move more to lose weight.  In the face of so much judgement from everyone, I have felt paralyzed by my own shame in not being able to follow through with what is necessary for me to become healthy.  So now with my Optifast group, while not a traditional group therapy class, at least I am exploring what is necessary in the company of others who are in the same struggle.  I don't have to have my defenses up, and can know that I'm not alone in this journey, and that I'm not an outlier in my behaviors.

Even as I write this, I'm not sure that I'll be able to re-enter the world of eating and be empowered to do it differently.  This scares me and is why I enjoy reading the blogs of people who have lost a lot of weight and are continuing the healthy lifestyle.  I'm going to keep reading and keep this in my consciousness as I go along with the journey.

So I think of Penny, not with loathing and anger, but with compassion for someone who hasn't quite gotten all the help she needs yet.  Her husband needs the same level of psychological care as well.  We are all a part of a family system, and if one person is out of whack, then it's difficult for all of the others in the group.  But with the right help, things can eventually change.  I believe that.

I will keep on this Optifast Adventure and explore new issues that I come upon.  I will seek new strategies that will support ways of thinking that are truthful and that reinforce the strength that I know resides inside of me.  I know that this will nurture the thoughts and actions congruent with the life I desire.