Cos you've gotta have faith...

Hello, blogosphere. That title isn't just a lyric from a favourite 1980s song of mine - it's how I'm treating my behavioural change program. I said this was going to be an honest blog so I'll reiterate that when it comes to the belief that one day I will be a normal, healthy weight, well, I'd say I really don't believe it in my heart of hearts. I will have to cultivate a more positive attitude to this, I can see, but right now everything is too raw and new and I'm flying blind to an extent, but admittedly I do have some good people flying along with me and that means a lot.

So what I'm doing right now is just putting my trust in the process. While my belief in my ultimate success is not strong, to put it mildly, what I DO have is a pretty strong belief that if I keep doing what I'm doing, really important changes are going to happen. Right now things are hard and uncomfortable. Eating at a table, not in front of the TV, not while I'm reading a paper or some catalogues or mucking around on my smartphone - that feels so weird and unnatural. Deliberately leaving some food on my plate when I'm finished eating, as it's been recommended I do - THAT'S hard to do as well. While I'm eating, trying to tune in to my body's signals to see when it tells me I have had enough food - well, I feel like my body and I are communicating with two old tins strung together with fishing line, so unclear are those signals. But yet I HAVE felt that little moment when it seemed very clear to me that I'd filled my stomach and it was just as I've been told - after I'd had a pretty damn small amount of food. A stomach is the size of a fist and even though I have quite a large fist, that's still not much food. When you know this and you realise how often you shovel fistful after fistful of food into it in one go, everything suddenly makes so much more sense. No wonder things have got to this state.

And this may not make any sense to anyone who's currently following any kind of conventional diet or exercise program, but I feel better about doing this than I have felt about any diet I've ever been on, and it has nothing to do with the fact that nobody has put any restrictions on my diet. Well, they didn't need to because following these rules, you naturally eat less. I know I'm not going to see fast results. I could do a 12-week challenge and probably lose 15kg or more, no worries. Hell, I've done it before. But I know deep, deep in my heart that there is no way I'm ever going to commit permanently to a program of food restriction/heavy exercise for the rest of my life. I wish I could but realistically, it's just not going to happen. And my GP and I would far rather I lose 10kg in a year and never again regain it than lose 40kg in a year and end up 50kg heavier in the next year. The madness just has to stop and I'm stopping it. So I'm not doing this because I hate myself - I'm doing it because I don't. And that makes it so different to every other time.

Enough of this philosophy. Peace out, for now. :)

Light Bulb #1

I've titled this blog thus because I am pretty sure this won't be the first light bulb moment I'll have on the way to where I'm going, but it needs documenting, I think.

Today has been a really weird day in a lot of ways. First up I did overtime at work for four hours from 8 till 12 (for a day's pay, though - woot!) and then I had an appointment with my GP to get a couple of sun spots/pieces of thickened skin from sun exposure cut off my face. That it itself didn't turn out to be such a pleasant experience because anaesthetic in the face is OUCH and for some unknown reason it triggered off some kind of allergic reaction in me. Not a serious one as in anaphylactic reaction but one where I got tight in the chest, a big urge to sneeze a lot and a bit itchy, like my histamines were going nuts. Long story short, I ended up with three sun spots off my face and then, as a result of the allergic reaction, they gave me a lung test I've probably needed for a while due to a constant irritated throat and dry cough. I ended up leaving with both a bandage on my face and medication/a puffer for mild asthma. Hmm, well, I can't say it's entirely a surprise because my lungs have always been a weak spot but at least I know now. Hopefully the medication is going to help.

Anyway, in an allergic haze and with a headache, I went off to see the person to whom my GP referred me for help with the "mind" stuff. Let's call her 'EK'. I don't want to go too much into the details because some of it is too private even for a blog but suffice it to say I really found the session very helpful, primarily because EK has heard of Sandy and her program and what she has given me for homework dovetails in very well with Mindwise Bodywise. Basically, when I eat, it's to be mindfully. So, whether I am at work or home, if I am by myself (it's different rules for socialising) I am to eat at a table and I'm not to do anything else BUT eat. I can't have the TV on but I can have music on, especially music I enjoy and which soothes me.

Part 2 of this light bulb moment is to do with my dinner tonight. Now, by the time I had this huge day I literally was too busy running around between doctors' appointments to eat so in between 9.45 this morning and about 5.45, all I had was a cup of coffee. I was the hungriest I've been all week since I started tracking for Sandy's program. I had a headache, I was shaky and I felt weak, which would make me about a 1-2 on the Mindwise Bodywise scale. But still, I had to pick what I really felt like for dinner and and I was determined to put EK's ideas into practice immediately. Bizarrely for anyone who knows me well, the thing I felt like was FISH! So I went to the fish shop at Warner Village and got their "one serve of fish with some chips" meal plus a small container of tartare. When I got home, I was still ravenous by my standards but I had a look at what I'd been given and truthfully, it was really two serves. Not that I couldn't have ploughed my way through the whole lot because of course I could, but I was being honest with myself and I knew I didn't need all of it. So I divided the serving of both the fish and chips in half. Then I went to my dining table.

This is the one I made look all purty the other day (and which I barely ever use!!!) and put a candle on it. I went and put on some music I like. I got my plate and put it on the table and I sat down. I wasn't sure if I would be able to make the meal last the suggested 20 minutes that it takes for your body to register you have eaten and give you a signal, but I was going to give it a try. In the end, I think I managed to make it through more than five songs and I reckon that would have been about 15. A very creditable effort, I think!

So, the million dollar question is how do I feel now? What happened to that ravenous hunger I felt? I can honestly say that right now, about an hour after eating that mael, I am not hungry. I'm not stuffed. I'm just comfortable, perhaps leaning slightly towards being hungry because I have eaten so little today. But that's okay. If I need to eat later, I'll eat again but not unless I really feel I need it. So I suppose what I'm wanting to reinforce for myself is that even if I sit down to eat and I feel like I could chew off my own arm with hunger, if I take my time, relax, put down the fork in between bites and concentrate on being in the moment with what I'm eating, it is possible to reduce that ravenous feeling to a satisfied feeling and the best part is it doesn't need to take a huge amount of food to do it. I feel it's going to be important for me to remember this.

And I think that's enough for tonight. That's my first big light bulb for a long time and it's a good one! xx

Why does someone who's 46 need one of these?

So, who remembers this little guy? If anyone under 30 is reading they probably won't, but this is Linus van Pelt from the famous Charlie Brown comic strip that a few of us grew up on. And he is pictured with his security blanket.

This is an image which popped into my head tonight. I'm on my fourth day of Week 1 of Sandy's Mindwise Bodywise program. Against my usual "all or nothing" instincts, I'm determined to do this in a gradual way because that's how it's meant to work. The first week is all about recording food, but in a different way as I mentioned in my last entry. I've been writing down when I eat, what I eat (no calories mentioned), how hungry I was before, during and after it and, if it seems relevant, my mood. In these four days, two things stand out. One, it has truly stunned me how INfrequently I get hungry. I can think of perhaps twice in the last four days when I've felt hunger pangs. Eeesh, that's been a shock to realise! Two, I've started to develop a small awareness of how much I'm prepared to tolerate the discomfort I feel after eating certain foods or, more precisely, eating too much of certain foods. And here's where Linus, our old mate, comes in. It's because food is obviously a security blanket for me. When I feel like I need it, I think I just get whatever food it is that I think will make me feel better and sometimes I'll just keep eating it until, way too late, I realise that I've overdone things. This leads to feelings of physical discomfort like a sore stomach, feeling overfull and uncomfortable for sometimes hours afterwards, burping/indigestion, and so it goes on. I don't think I'm that much of a masochist that I'd put up with this without a very strong compulsion. I think I knew this anyway but it's good to revisit it because it makes me realise just what I am up against and how much work it's going to take to turn this around. And yet I still do believe I can turn it around, so long as I attack it the right way i.e. via the mind.

And tomorrow my doctor has arranged an appointment for me with someone who will be able to assist me further in this regard. I am looking forward to this as I think it will dovetail in very well with what I've started with Mindwise Bodywise. Wish me luck. Ciao for now. xx

Arrrgghh!

I've just logged into Blogger for the first time in about two years and the process of doing so was a little depressing, I have to say. The blogosphere is rather an unforgiving analysis of where your life is going, I am starting to find out. I seem to have been in this holding pattern over the last three years where I start a blog all full of enthusiasm and hope about once and for all changing my life. This enthusiasm and hope lasts about two months maximum and then I stop blogging because I have nothing hopeful or enthusiastic to write about. And so has gone the last few years of my life. I mean, yes, good things have happened and I feel blessed that they have. I'm now in a career that I enjoy and which pays me enough to live on comfortably. I have a new place to live where my neighbours are nice and don't seem to go out of their way to hassle/upset me like my last horrors (I have drawn a veil over that experience, though). But the real problem still remains. I'm still huge. I've undone all my good work from 2006 to 2009. I'm back to where I was. And it does not feel good, at all.

And then there's reading the old blogs. Boy, that's an eye-opener. :( I continue to be amazed at how much insight I appear to have into my issues, how much I understand my eating problems and why I do what I do. But do I fix it? NO! So what is the use of this insight and understanding? I think the lesson to take out of all this is to do less talking and thinking and planning and more just bloody well doing. Life is slipping by me at an alarming rate, it seems. I just turned 46 years of age and I will be 50 before I know it. 50! Do I really want to still be in this place when I'm 50? I know the answer is no, but the only person who can change it is the person typing this blog entry.

I've called this blog "Last Chance Saloon". I know this seems a negative title and I know in my heart that you can change at any age, etc, blah blah. But facing facts, as far as my health goes, it kind of IS a "last chance saloon" situation. I'm hanging onto my health with whitened fingernails but it won't last. I'm lucky to be as healthy as I am and the only reason I think I am is because eating rubbishy food and being lazy (one sort of leads to the other, I guess) are my only bad habits since I don't smoke and have never been a drinker. But I'm on borrowed time and I know that my quality of life is going to be seriously impacted if I keep going at this rate. There is no sugar-coating (no pun intended - well, maybe it was) this. It has to be stopped.

So this blog is going to be different. I'm going to write in it as often as I can, the good AND the bad. I'm not going to set out to make it "inspiring". I just want it to be a useful tool for getting stuff out of my head. And so this first entry is very honest because right now I don't feel hopeful. I have no reason to believe I'm ever going to be able to conquer this mountain. But I have to start taking small steps at least, or it will be goodbye to my independence and that is probably the thing I prize most in my world at the moment. Being an invalid trapped by my fat is not a picture that sits well with me.

As people like to abbreviate these days, Deb, JFDI.