Wednesday, August 8, 2018

So I'll go first.

I do think that, for me, losing weight, maintaining a healthy weight, and losing regain (even when it's only 2-3 pounds) eventually requires me to Just Do It.

For myself, that means I must commit to ****ating less than I'd prefer to eat, (2) eating healthy foods, and (3) avoiding or minimizing, by whatever means available at the time, eating trigger foods that lead to eating more trigger foods. And yes, I do have trigger foods. Some of them are dense breads, seed crackers, ice cream and dark chocolate. There are a lot more, but those are some. And no, I don't always succeed at 1-3 above. That's when I regain.

And yes -- exercise, hydration, supplements, and sleep play important roles, too. But my biggest challenges are all about what i wind up eating.

Nonetheless, my Get Back on the Horse and Just Do It times are usually preceded by high anxiety with thoughts like these: "Will I be able to find the courage this time to start over again?" "How can I ease into this, i.e., start easy enough to make sure I'll really START?" "Can I keep doing this as long as I need to?"

So far (in almost four years since WLS) I've found that it's always included starting over. That's why tracking has been so helpful for me because it saves me from the monster that grows and grows and grows and grows unseen behind the curtain until I imagine it's 100 feet tall, unconquerable. For me, it's the mystery of not knowing how bad the problem is that makes it scarier for me than it always turns out to be.

The past four months have been the hardest maintenance challenges I've dealt with yet. These two cruises/vacations, family visits, visits to and from friends, and the wedding weekend have all been tough and very fast on the heels of each other, making me feel pretty unstable.

Another factor is that since my husband died I'm not as physically active as I was when I was caring for him -- to the tune of about 200 calories/day, and I haven't yet confronted meaningfully the FACT that I must become more active every day or just adjust to the FACT that if I maintain this activity level I simply cannot eat and drink as much as I used to be able to and maintain my 100 plus pound weight loss.

Yes, it would be lovely if I could eat intuitively and not gain weight. But I can't. I simply can't. It's not one of my super powers. Nor do I have any illusions that I'll ever be one of those people.

Knowing that I'm not ever going to be one of those people and eat anything I'd like to in quantities that I'd like to doesn't actually **** me off or make me feel like I'm one of the miserable ones. It's just the way I am -- like how I'm lucky that I'm smart and have good hair and good teeth and unlucky that I have fat knees and bad nails. Nobody ever gets the whole package, except maybe Charlize Theron, and I bet even she feels sorry for herself about some inadequacy we don't know about.

Anyway ... my Just Do Its are accompanied by a lot of planning, soul searching, and positive self talk, and a whole lot of whistling bravely in the dark.

This stuff is scary because it's intertwined with our most basic vulnerabilities, although mine are different from yours, and yours are different from mine.

Anyway ... my Just Do Its are accompanied by a lot of planning, soul searching, and positive self talk, and a whole lot of whistling bravely in the dark.

This stuff is scary because it's intertwined with our most basic vulnerabilities,...

Ann, I think what you wrote above is very much in sync with my own thinking. You put much effort and thought into your Just Do It phases.

I view the word JUST in the phrase Just Do It as an intensifier. Just intensifies the phrase Do It. Consider the phrase, "Eat Less". It is a phrase my father has used to promote his cure for obesity. Add the word just in front of the phrase turning it into "Just Eat Less" and the intensification of the sentiment becomes untenable to me. I find the phrase dismissive of the reality of the struggle. Semantics, I suppose.

Clearly, for me there is an emotional trigger attached to the phrase. To me "Just Do It" when it comes to weight management is akin to saying to the alcoholic, "Just Don't Drink" or the heroin addict, "Just Don't Shoot Up", or the chronic depressive, "Just Cheer Up", or the struggling reader, "Just Read It!" I don't think we would ever tell any of those types of troubled people to "Just Do It" to solve their problems.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. Just trying to explain my thinking so it makes sense not just to you all, but to me.

144.0

Wow--so, so much heavy stuff percolating here today. My mind, being somewhat frail and overfilled with other stuff, can scarcely take it in.

Peps, Your post automatically brought images of how, (what you think about, what, how you have discovered that you are not the person you wanted to be? )--of how many of those self thoughts would plug into a Johari window. Could it be, to some degree, that some (of) how others reflect who you are- intelligent-insightful-tender hearted, deserving--yes, deserving of all good things, desires, gifts and joy- a unique evolving creation of God, growing in perfection? --Really ARE true representations of the you that you do not know about? Hell, you might be who you want to be-are able to become--you just don't know or have discovered it yet. Think--Dorothy and her ruby slippers---

BB- You make me think about how sometimes I hold things so tightly--will not drop them--they hurt me--are no longer good for me, but, sometimes- somehow, I have made them so precious that I can't set them down-cannot move because the weight of the value I give the (behavior, thought, belief, priority, coping mechanism)..thing I am holding onto is so heavy, it renders movement forward impossible. It's an old tag, but true, I think, that I cannot pick up (just do..) anything of value until I will first put down what ever it is I am already holding as being the most important thing to be had.

• Gosh, why cant all this be made clear and make sense..I feel like I've just thrown more vegetables into an already over full pot of soup. Stir and read the message- it's there somewhere.

Interesting reference to the Johari Window. I think it is important for me to see the more positive aspects of who I am, yes, and how others might view me.

I also understand I've always had the "power to go home", but I had to learn it for myself. I am in that learning process right now. And what I've learned is that it's not just enough to want to be thin, and that if I ever go looking for the answers to my eating disorders, I don't need to look any further than myself because if they're not there, I never really lost them to begin with. (...Is that right?)

You should never underestimate the ability of a gay man to channel the Wizard of Oz!

Seriously! We are off to see the wizard!

Peps, I often read responses to posts in terms of "LOL". I may smile deeply many times, but your comment above has me truly, audibly laughing- and, because humor is sometimes a response to the ridiculous, but also sharp truths inside of ourselves and pertaining to the absurdity of this broken world, (yes, I read your violet fonted post- good God !)--underneath the laugh, I am now tearing up and sniffling...

Like I said earlier, there is some heavy stuff out here right now.

Devon ... A-******g-men about the importance of looking at our positive aspects and how others view us. Your long posts make me think so hard, and the discussion that follows helps me see my own issues more clearly. Thank you for that gift.

P.S. I didn't know what a Johari Window was until googling it just now. Doing that exercise would be quite interesting. The "Facade" and "Blind Spots" cells would be most useful.