March 26, 2008 Entry
This is long, so skip if you don't want to read....
I know I don't get the exercise of the average person of average weight, but since I switched jobs I am far more active at work than I have been in the last 6 years.
I have been a firm believer that if I could just work through some of the emotional issues I have stored up, a lot of which I am not even aware of yet myself, that my weight would not feel the need to hang on the way it does. That I could get to the point where I am average, or even above average weight but not morbidly obese as I am now.
There are those that have the opinion that one should learn to love one's self no matter what and then things will start to fall into place. Well, I hate to be the barer of bad tidings, but I will NEVER be comfortable like this. I cannot see that happening for me. Ever. If I am proven wrong, I am proven wrong. But I cannot fathom this.
So, my tactic is to find out what my emotional bullshit is and why, and then perhaps I can start to work on the rest of it. Because until the emotional bull shit is uncovered and dealt with, then the desire - the true desire - and will power to fix the rest won't ever come.
Call me crazy but that is my opinion. So, I have now been in therapy about a year and half, and it's not an easy or fun process. I am in a heightened emotional unrest state pretty much 24/7. I have far more anger than I ever thought imaginable. And all of this has been stuffed down, tucked away and stuffed some more on top of it. And through the process of therapy it has started to come to the surface. So not fun for me. But I am toughing this out.
I have several amazing online friends, my friend Erika, my amazing friend
smeared_kohl who keep telling me that it will get better. That there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I know they are right. They have been there and they know. So I keep plugging away at this.My real life friends, my sister-in-law
mindymoon especially, are also amazing. I could not keep up the day to day with out them, that is the truth. Anyway the point of this post, is pretty much to introduce a food diary into my life. Not changing a thing, but keeping a record to see if I'm right. Of course the problem with this is I don't have measurements for anything and it is totally just guesstimation. So, I could be way off. But it is what it is.
So, Here's the start of my
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Breakfast
1 packet Heart Healthy blueberry flavored oatmeal
½ cup milk
¼ cup almonds
1/8 cup dried cranberries
1 Banana
1 bite of stale Pepperidge farm cookie
1oz piece of ham
Lunch
½ Roast beef Sandwich Dry, with Cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato.
~1 cup of Caesar salad with parmesan cheese, dressing and croutons.
¾ of a 12oz Pepsi.
1 chocolate chip cookie
Dinner
1 chicken leg
1 chicken thigh (roasted from Ralph's)
¾ cup of Stouffer's Mac & Cheese
2 pieces Texas Toast
After Dinner Snack
6 sun dried/pesto flavored pita chips. (was not a fan…didn't eat many)
Liquids drunk throughout the day
16oz Pepsi
I Orange Vitamin water
Comments
I love you too sugar!
*smooches*
Understanding your relationship with food is never bad!
Yeah, I suppose that's true. Like I was in OA for about 6 months, but I stopped going for several reasons. Once being time and two, dude, it was hard to find people in the same place as I was. I'm not a binge eater or a sneay eater or anything like that. I do have food issues, but that doesn't compute as to why I am as big as I am. I should be like normal overweight not DRASTIC overweight if that makes ANY sense at all.
But I would like to clarify a point really fast, because it's just way too easy to dismiss if you are unclear on it.
The people that love you who are telling you to love yourself no matter what you're like don't want you to love the fact that you're morbidly obese. They're telling you to love yourself, and deal with the fact that you're morbidly obese.
It's like this.
You want me to love myself, despite the fact that I hate my facial rash. You want me to look in the mirror and love what I see, even if it is flawed. You must. You certainly don't want me to look in the mirror and hate the girl that I see there.
It's the same thing.
We don't want you to look in the mirror and say "man, I am one sexy overweight lady. Big and beautiful and just hot enough to fry a egg on."
We just want you to say "I love you. Need to lose some weight though. Love you all kinds."
You would never stop loving me if I put two or three hundred pounds on. You know as well as I do that would have nothing to do with whether or not you love me. So why oh why oh why would it have anything to do with whether or not you love yourself?
And part of it is, not the loving but the comfort. I am uncomfortable in my own body, and yet that discomfort is comforting (at least enough so that I have not found the proper motivation to fix it.)
They taught us some "guesstimation" tools for judging portion sizes, like 3 oz. of steak is about the size of a deck of playing cards. If you think that kind of thing might be handy for your efforts, just ask.
And Huzzah to you for Weight Watchers. Do you like it?
I'll type out those guesstimation guidelines and send them to you after work today (first chance I'll get).
Thanks Kev!
"Handy" methods for estimating portion sizes:
A fist is about a cup, or a "medium" sized fruit.
From the tip of the thumb to the base is about 1 ounce of meat or cheese.
From the tip of the thumb to the first joint is about a tablespoon (Tbsp).
From the tip of a finger to the first joint is about a teaspon (tsp).
A cupped hand is about 1 or 2 ounces of nuts or pretzels.
The palm (not including the fingers) is about the same size as 3 ounces of meat/fish/poultry.
Other common comparisons:
3 ounces of meat is also about the size of a deck of playing cards.
A "large" bagel has roughly the same diameter as a DVD (the disc, not the player!).
A "small" serving of a side dish (think coleslaw, beans, etc.) is about the same size as a computer mouse.
A cup of rice is about as big as a tennis ball.
An FDA standard portion of potato is the size of a 60W light bulb (including the base).
Another thing I've done:
I bought a measuring cup and poured 1 cup, 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup into my favorite glasses so that I could have an easier time eyeballing how much water and milk (or other liquids) I was consuming.
Your hands, decks of cards, light bulbs and other objects of comparison may vary.
A rather good book about weight and emotional issues is "Body Clutter" by Marla Cilley. ("flylady" as some know her from her website.) She gets a bit overboard with the big purple puddles and so forth but I think it's quite insightful. *shrug* next time you are in a bookstore you might glance at it and see if it has any wisdom in it that is of use to you.
Mindy's points are dead on. I don't think weighing more than they should ever added to anyone's happiness and just the practical matters of how much a hassle it is getting through life when everything is made to fit little people, is a good enough reason to try to reach a reasonable size...life is just easier...but the loving yourself and love from others comes, or should anyway, not in spite of nor because of your weight but because of things having nothing to do with it.
Let me know if you want any particular recipes. I have rather good resources for that sort of thing. I'm not much good at helping with the emotional stuff but I'll cheer you on and give you any practical help I can.
I have also been thinking about writing more in my journal about stuff that I have been discussing in therapy, but I am also thinking of making that private, only because I don't want to annoy people on my f-list with the stuff I discuss in therapy. I have a feeling it will get insanely tedious. LOL.
Well the loving myself is definitely one of the issues that my therapist and I are working on. I've been going for a over a year and only started to get into what I keep calling the juicey stuff. Basically the stuff I avoid talking about. Which is weird because I haven't even been aware they were issues to talk about.
Anyway, any recipes y ou wanna throw this way is totally appreciated.
You rock!
One thing that I try to remind myself of all the time that couldn't hurt for you, too:
YOU ARE WORTH YOUR OWN EFFORT! You are worth taking care of!
(yep. got my own issues too. don't we all.)
Now, come on over and have some pie!
That whole worthy of own effort thing is being worked on in therapy too...lol.
Mmmmm pie....