Header

Sorry, Mr Lucas, I had to steal your movie subtitle because this girl needs all the hope she can get these days.

The black dog has been visiting again and I've been trying to hide from him under the doona and under Magnum ice creams - both surprisingly ineffective. This depression bullshit sucks giant donkey dick. I won't apologise for the language, it's how I feel about it right now.

Of course, depression = shocking eating habits = weight gain. This was only aggravated by my birthday last week, where I went out for meals no less than three times (so-so vegetarian, fabulous Spanish tapas and gorgeous Vietnamese). Only a .1kg (.2lb) gain, but my chances of being Slimmer of the Year are looking slimmer and slimmer.

So I went in search of my old mentor, Kathryn. I figured she would know just what to say to get me back on track.

Well, she would if she hadn't just left WW completely.

I was devastated. I tried to be very gung ho about it, but I realised just how much I was reliant on her when I found she wasn't there. Which just goes to show that I'm going to have to learn to rely on myself now. And you, my wise, wise readers.

And bloody hell, there are some wise, wise women out there in blogland. Right now, I'm looking at you DG, and don't you go hiding in the corner there Ms Kimba, I see you too.

These last couple of weeks have been really difficult for me. Despite wonderful things happening (my birthday and I was headhunted for a permanent job), I found myself burying myself and everything I was feeling under food.

Packets of biscuits, chips, chocolate, ice cream, you name it, I inhaled it.

Why? Feeling out of control again. Feeling scared about the new job, scared of change, scared that I might have made the wrong decision (no, the job is a good decision, I'm just second guessing myself). Scared that we might end up with money problems, that money is utterly out of my control.

That's what my brain says, anyway. Logically, I know we can budget, especially if I'm getting a monthly pay cheque, and steer clear of eating ramen noodles for the week before payday. Logically, I know there are things we can do. But if I was a logical woman, I wouldn't be self medicating with packets of shortbread creams, would I?

Of course, I felt bad afterwards for doing that. I recognised my behaviour, but felt frustrated that after over a year, I still am doing this. Then Kimba posted this and the heavens opened and the angels sang:

"But I freely acknowledge that emotional eating is something I'll never totally conquer, just something I have to try and control, as much as I can. C'est la vie."

I've been emotionally eating since I was seven, I'm clearly not logical if I think that is a behaviour that I will simply conquer. Like a smoker, or an alcoholic, all I can do is try and control it as much as I can. I will fall off the wagon, and I will just climb back on again and keep riding, a little wiser than the last time.

As for DG, this entry was a revelation to me. I wasn't the only one who felt this way! Crazed as it may seem to anyone who's ever had a weight problem, this makes perfect sense to me, it resonated so truly. If nothing else, this line sums up everything in my head right now

"My perception of my body and physical abilities has still not caught up with the reality. I still see myself as this enormous chick who should be applauded for making the effort to waddle to work or stand up the back at a gym class."

It's something I'm really feeling right now, particularly now that I'm giving up my business to work for someone else again. Dammit, I want someone to come up to me with a fuck-off big trophy and say, "Tree, you are the most outstanding woman of the year. Not only did you successfully run your own business, you lost 30-ish kg while you did it. We're all in awe of you and you should become supreme leader of the known universe."

Or something like that, I'm not picky.

I want to be acknowledged for what I've achieved. I guess it's why I wanted to go for the Slimmer of the Year, to be acknowledged for what I've achieved.

I know I won't make that now, which is a blow. And it's getting really weird now that I will be working with a group of people who never saw the 'before' Tree. I know that some days it will be all I can do not to get up in someone's face and say, "But dammit, I USED TO BE THE FAT CHICK! Admire me!"

Sweet skateboarding Christ, reading this back to myself, I sound like a complete loon.

But it's not all mental breakdowns and freak outs. There is some reason buried in there, deep amongst the angst and the bullshit and baggage. I know this, because this bit from Kimba spoke to me so deeply:

"And as much as I'm committed to losing the rest of my fat, some weeks there are just more important things to worry about than counting points or losing a few hundred grams. Life has gotta be lived too."

Word.

Perhaps there's hope for me after all.

Like Beck, I totally managed to goof on my weight last week. Only put on .8kg (1.7lb - which still isn't great), and this week I managed to take a good chunk of that back off again with a .6kg (1.3lb) loss.

All in all, a pretty good start to what I'm calling Operation: Finish Line.

This all began at my last WW meeting, where my leader passed me a copy of the WW Slimmer of the Year entry form. She wants me to enter this year.

But for me to be eligible, I need to be at my goal weight by 20th May. Now, this raised a bunch of different emotions in me (and I'm still swinging about it now). First of all, determination. I want to get this done. I want to be finished, I want to be at goal. I'm sick of bouncing around at 70kg and not going anywhere. This goal is the encouragement I need to really focus and get to goal.

On the other hand, I'm also worried. I do know my body and I know what it's capable of and I'm not sure that even if I eat clean, track, drink my water and exercise like a bat out of hell, that I can drop enough weight by May 20th. But if I think like that and I don't even try, how am I ever going to know?

Finally, fear. It's taken me a long time to decide to even post about this. You see, if I never tell anyone, then nobody will ever know if I fail. And this idea is the very reason I'm posting about this now. If I tell people, then I'm accountable. People are watching and supporting and encouraging me along the way. And they will do that regardless of whether I make it or not. I need to do this for me and nobody else. And I need to believe in myself.

Now, I'm not on my own, a friend who is a personal trainer is currently working on a fitness plan to get me to goal. She's absolutely convinced that there is no reason why I can't do this.

I have just under 5 weeks to lose 5.7kg (10lb). It's big. And I have a birthday on Thursday that will not go uncelebrated just so that I can eat completely clean this week.

But even if I don't make it, I will be THAT much closer to goal and that will be a great feeling!

I've already upped my reps for my weights and I'm taking longer walks when I can. I'm going to get stuck into the veggie soups again, especially on days when I know I'll be eating out.

I'm hungry for this. It's a steep, steep road I've set myself, but no matter what happens, I'll either be at goal or that much closer. It's all good.

Ouch.

.9kg (1.9lb) gain this week.

Not that this was at all unexpected.

After all, it is TTOM (water retention), my sinuses are playing up (inflammation = more water retention) and my system is, ah... shall we say... a little backed up.

Oh, and on top of that, I've just spent the last seven days eating like a crazed thing.

Let's see, this week, I ate a family sized bag of chips, a family block of chocolate, half a packet of shortbread creams, half a packet of mint slices, half a packet of jelly lollies and I had a full fat curry laksa. And there was the business lunch with the Spanish tapas, the bottle of wine and the dessert of thick, hot chocolate sauce for dipping deep-fried churros in.

Not to mention the odd licks, bites and nibbles that have been sneaking in (just how many times did I dip my finger in the peanut butter jar?) and the odd day sans exercise.

Damn, I'm lucky to get away with just putting on .9kg.

And I can feel it. I can really feel the extra weight on me. It sounds crazy, but it's not. My body feels heavier. I feel icky.

Of course, the real question to be asking here is why on earth I thought schlorking down all this food would be a good idea.

The answer? The usual sad, sorry tale.

Me + feeling overwhelmed = eating like a crazy person.

Work is still insane (I'm averaging 12 hour days), my job may be changing drastically over the next couple of months and there was a death in the family this week. I also have a bunch of little stuff I need to do that I never seem to get time to get around to, like sending out gifts and returning emails and things like that.

I don't know whether I'm Arthur or Martha and I suspect that right now, I couldn't find my arse with both hands, a flashlight and a GPS tracking device.

Logically, I know that eating won't help me. And once the nummy flavours were gone and my belly didn't feel safe and full, I was still me with all the issues I still had to deal with plus the fact that I'd just gorged myself on crap.

So I'm overwhelmed and frustrated and guilty and upset and a whole bunch of other icky things. And I've just spent a week reminding myself, the hard way, that food is nothing but fuel and it won't make me feel any better about anything.

But that's OK. I've done it. It's over. I'm still feeling those things and I'm going to use other techniques, like exercise or taking some time out for myself, to try and deal with them.

Sure, I'm disappointed, but I couldn't really expect anything else.

What I've done is not important, what I do next is. I exercised today. I ate clean, tracked and was just under my points for the day. There will be more challenges this week and I'll just try to make the best decisions I can.

Yes, I want to reach my goal weight more than I want to eat junk, but some days it's hard to remember that.

OK, I know there are people who read this blog who have said these very words to me (and it's been said to me a lot recently), so don't take it personally, but if ONE MORE PERSON says, "I can't believe you had 30kg to lose! You wore it so well!" (or words to that effect) then I'm going on a homicidal rampage.

I kid you not.

There will be death, people. Copious amounts of messy, slow death.

What are people thinking when they say this to me?

I know they mean well, but when I hear those words, my brain hears, "You looked fine, we could barely tell you were a fat sow, you didn't need to lose all that weight!" (Hey, I warned you that this blog was going to be irrational.)

Yes, I've spent many years dressing very carefully so that I didn't look as big as I was. But I was big. Really fucking big. Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean I wasn't big.

It is not flattering to be told that you wore 30kg of flab well. It does not make me feel better. I have come to terms with the fact that I was morbidly obese. I don't need others to try to make me feel better about that.

What it makes me feel is that losing all that weight was pointless. If I looked just fine topping the scales at 100.6kg, then why bother taking it off? (Remember, IRRATIONAL blog!) Did my fat suit me? Should I just keep prancing around in an obese body because I didn't look obese?

Seriously, I've come to terms with what I did to my body. I don't need you to try to make me feel OK about that. Been there, done that, threw out the t-shirt because it's too big for me now.

I understand that weight can be a very sensitive issue and people are worried that they will say the wrong thing. Tell me I look vibrant, fitter, disgustingly well, more muscular, fantastic, whatever. But when I tell you I've lost 30kg, believe me when I say that I needed to lose it.

And do NOT tell me I wore it well.

This is the second week in a row I was mentally preparing an entry to talk about a gain and the second week in a row when I've gotten on the scales and discovered that I didn't need to.

It's great that I've lost the weight, but my eating needs to be looked at a bit. Just a .1kg (.2lb) loss this week, but any loss is a good loss!

Got a new WW leader this week (thank the deities of choice!) and she asked us how much we'd lost. Of course, being the shy, retiring flower that I am, I volunteered (hell, I'd shout it from the rooftops if they'd let me!) She then asked me what advice I'd offer anyone just starting out.

Being put on the spot, I couldn't craft a proper answer, but here I can, so here it is. Now, bear in mind, this is what worked for me. Your mileage may vary. But there are a couple of old chestnuts in there, and they are old chestnuts for one reason. They do work.

So, here's what three attempts, 13 months and 30.1kg (66.3lb) have taught me.

Track your eating. Write down everything you eat. It's easy to say that you're eating well if you're not holding yourself accountable. Snacks slip in. Licks, bites and nibbles sneak in under the radar. Be honest with yourself. If you bite it, write it. Then, if things aren't going so well, you can look back, review what you've been eating and see if you need to modify it.

The water thing. They are not kidding. Start drinking your water. Now. Don't whine to me that you don't like it and it's too hard and you pee all the time. I didn't like it either when I started. I hated drinking water. And I'm still peeing like an over-excited two year old over a year later. But it has been crucial to my weight loss.

It's all about the exercise. My previous two attempts didn't really include any deliberate exercise and my success (or lack thereof) reflected that. It's taken me a while, but I seem to have found the right balance to get my metabolism sufficiently fired up that I usually lose a little weight even when my eating isn't on track. Find what fires your metabolism up and do it as often as you can realistically manage. Don't bitch about not having enough time, if you're serious enough about this, you'll find time. I get up half an hour early to make sure I manage my weights or pilates. You can do it too.

Food is not 'good' or 'bad'. It's just food. Don't put value judgements on what you put in your mouth. Sure, some foods will help you to lose weight more effectively and some foods won't. But they aren't 'good' or 'bad'. When you put value judgements on food, you automatically put them on yourself when you eat them. If Tim Tams are 'bad', then you will believe you are bad for eating them. You will feel guilty and blame yourself and waste a whole lot of energy beating yourself up for 'succumbing' to 'bad' food. It's just food. Get over it.

Above all else, and if you take nothing else from this entry other than this then it's worth it, don't beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon. It happens. Life happens. Habits do not die easily. We backslide, we slip up, we make mistakes. We are human.

Remember that and, when you do have a gigantic blow out, acknowledge it and MOVE ON. It does not mean you are a failure. It does not mean you should give up. It just means you're human. Congratulations. Now pick yourself up and take the next step. I've quoted it before, and I'm quoting it again, but Confucius said it best:

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

You are worth this. You are worth taking the time, making the effort and aiming for your goals. A lot of us don't value ourselves enough and until you do, you'll never dedicate yourself to this journey. I'm worth it. You're worth it. Believe it and you'll succeed.