I have had a lot running through my head these last few days, having done a great deal of thinking about my own words…mostly about not being the one who just disappears after a few upbeat posts. Ok, those of you who have read what I have written might say they weren’t exactly “upbeat” but they were honest and my way of taking my eating and weight issues head on.

 

I completely crashed and burned earlier this week—and although I don’t recall everything I devoured, I do know it included a bag of M & M’s and a Kit Kat bar (I had to empty the garbage in my car yesterday). I don’t remember what day it was, but in the midst of it all I thought a great deal about how and when I would stop and what my next move would be. I kept coming back to the posts of people who had started out with all the best intentions, then with suddenly, without another word, were gone. Had they done what I did, and now felt unworthy, unwilling or ashamed to return to the EP blog? Had they just lost interest? Did they see no benefit?  After eating who knows what and in quantities I don’t want to remember, I knew I had to do two things and the order didn’t matter. One was to stop self destructing with food and the other was to write.

 

Of course, it was just before Thanksgiving. Talk about a nationally sanctioned day of overeating! I got back on track with my eating pretty quickly, and with the holiday approaching I was almost grateful to be spending it alone.

 

Most people spend Thanksgiving with their families. I don’t really have any family. I am an only child and my parents are deceased. I was invited to spend the day with friends, but that wasn’t an option due to a glitch with the kennel and the lack of care for my pets. So, it was just me and my four legged friends for the day and although it was a bit lonely, I survived. I ate healthily and I even got some exercise.  

 

I spend a lot of energy trying not to feel sorry for myself or spin about in a state of panic. Things in my life are not going well on several different fronts. But I am trying to make the best decisions I can with the things I can control and trust that God will care for me on those things that are out of my hands.  I am beginning to see that is how it is supposed to be. There is much that I can do each day to better myself and my situation and it is up to me to do everything I can to take appropriate action. But at some point I need to trust that God will see me through the challenges I face that are outside of my direct control. This is a tough lesson for a control freak with trust issues!

 

But in spite of it all, today I am grateful. I am eating well, down a couple more pounds and I am aware of my feelings. I may not like them, but just knowing what they are is a big step.

Life is so strange. I have been in such a funk over a lot of things culminating with the death of my dear friend last night. Instead of going deeper into a pit, I feel so relieved to know he is no longer suffering. He is at peace. He had such a strong relationship and belief in God, he is probably jumping for joy at meeting his maker! He was so full of life, one of those people who inspired others and though he is gone, he continues to inspire me. He was one of my greatest supporters and loved me fat or thin, cheering me on, whatever my path. I remember whining about this or that while he was battling his illness these past five years and he was the one helping to pick my spirits up. Shouldn't it have been the other way around? He knew how to live life and made the best of every day he had.

 

I feel flat. My mood is flat, my energy is flat, and even my appetite is flat.

 

I visited my dying friend last night, after midnight, when I could be sure his family was gone and I wouldn’t intrude. He was unmoving, the morphine keeping his body still but the ventilator forcing his chest to heave almost rhythmically.

 

I recognized his hair and the color of his skin. The ventilator covered much of his face and what small part I could see through the equipment that forced air into his lungs was not the face of the man I knew and loved. His chest was pronounced; but below that it seemed like there was almost nothing left. The cancer had consumed him.

 

I got home sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. and couldn’t sleep. I got on the computer and played games. I watched TV. I ate a sandwich. I tossed and turned. At 7 a.m. I took a Xanax. I slept for four hours.

 

I have been haunted all day by my friend. I can’t focus. I have not accomplished one thing today that I wanted to work on. I guess that isn’t completely true—I haven’t gone on a feeding frenzy. I suppose I could have eaten more vegetables today and I could have gotten some exercise, but that is about the worst of it. I don’t feel like anything matters today, fortunately, my eating didn’t reflect that.

 

These are the critical junctures in my quest for a stronger, leaner and healthier body. When my emotions overwhelm me and life seems unfair, the first thing I turn to is food. It doesn’t matter what diet I am on, I will eat whatever I please when I give up. I won’t exercise, whether I am committed to the treadmill in my bedroom or if I am paying someone $60 and hour babysit me while I do exercises I already know how to do (i.e. a trainer). Whatever structure I have in place is meaningless when I am bent on self-destruction. Today I haven’t slept enough, my friend is dying, I have a cold/upper respiratory thing that is heading into week four, I am unemployed and desperately need a job and this week begins the anniversary of the illness that took my mother’s life 3 years ago on Christmas Eve. I don’t feel hopeful, upbeat or positive today. I feel sad and overwhelmed.

 

As much as many may feel such a state of mind is negative or counterproductive, for me it isn’t. It is honest. It is my reality for today. I believe that it is when I don’t acknowledge what is, it will eventually come back to haunt me. When it does, it is usually in very self-destructive ways.

 

I haven’t given up hope; I have simply acknowledged what I am challenged with today. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I am optimistic. I will wake up knowing that all things considered I did a pretty good job taking care of myself today and for that I am grateful.

 

 

I know this is a diet website, but every day as I write what is solidified in my mind is that for ME it is not about the food plan or the exercise plan I choose. There are dozens out there that are good and that will work. I have been focused on something someone said in a message that has stuck with me, “when the mind is right, the body will follow.”  I am working on my mind…and I am losing weight.

 

My friend is dying. He is 45 and for the last five years has been battling cancer. He has two little girls, six and eight years of age. Because of his illness and inability to work outside the home, he has been Mr. Mom. He has been their primary caregiver, a basketball coach, a loving husband and a caring friend (and a lot more to many other people).

 

He has fought his battle valiantly. He is still fighting at this moment. It is his sister that told me today the doctors are “just waiting for him to die.” I don’t suspect they have made this pronouncement to my friend. He has never been willing to acquiesce to this disease, always believing God would heal him. But God hasn’t and I wish I understood why.

 

Of course, I will never know, at least not in this life. But as I sit here thinking about how his body has betrayed him, I am keenly aware of how I have betrayed my body.  I have thrown away the gift of good health for the price of a candy bar. All that my friend fought for these past five years is mine, right now, at this minute and I can honor what I have or I can throw it away with the next bite I put in my mouth.

 

It seems overly dramatic, doesn’t it? It’s not. My cholesterol is high. My blood pressure is borderline.  I am a type II diabetic, severe enough to require insulin. But these are not illnesses bestowed upon me at random. They are the effects of my own actions and they can kill me. They will kill me if I do not change my behavior.

 

I have no right to take this body and destroy it as I have, while others, like my friend want nothing more than a strong body to accompany their strong spirit.

 

   I love you, D. I will miss you.

I think food is a sedative…really…it helps me sleep. Not eating in quantities made it tough to sleep last night. I was up for hours and finally slept around 6 or 7 a.m.  When I was able to open my eyes and felt somewhat rested, it was noon.  So much for accomplishing half of my to do list before the 12 o’clock hour!

 

I have the TV on in the background and it is Oprah’s “favorite things” show. She is giving away volumes of gifts from cruises to diamond watches and everything in between. I am jealous. A part of me wants to shut off the TV and write a letter and say “what about me?”  I deserve your nice things, Oprah! What makes the people in your audience so special? The audience is full of O fans that have “given service to others.” I have too. So, I am back to the same question, Miss O? Why not me? I can’t take it any longer and I change the channel. I need some new background noise.

 

I find a news channel…let’s see the weather for the weekend. First there is the publicist story—the woman who was murdered in Beverly Hills following the premier of Burlesque the other night.  I wonder if she was asking “why me” just before she was gunned down. I bet she didn’t deserve what she got.  Then there is an update on the jawbone found in Aruba—does it belong to Natalie Halloway? I am sure she didn’t deserve what she got either.

 

I begin to feel grateful. I have a roof over my head and a computer to keep me connected to the rest of the world. I have two awesome dogs that give me unconditional love. I have people that care about me, even though these last couple of years I have been doing all I can to isolate myself and shut them out. I have life.  I have an opportunity to improve my health each day with every decision I make about what I put in my mouth. I have a body that moves, albeit slowly, and that I can nurture and strengthen this body each day.

 

These are things that matter, my favorite things, and they have to come from me, not Oprah.

 

Ok, if I am honest, I still wouldn’t mind a little of Miss O’s bling…

I really want to write about what I did on EP last night but I think I am going through withdrawals and I don’t feel so well.  Ugh. Withdrawals from the physiological effects of fewer calories (specifically refined carbohydrates). Strictly speaking, losing weight means operating at a caloric deficit.  It is a matter of biology or physiology, period. My body feels it, however minimal and no amount of vegetables or other fillers can compensate for that. It is what it is. I am also experiencing withdrawals from the dulling of the senses overeating accomplishes. I am here, present in my life, all the good and the not so good, staring me in the face.  Without the guilt and shame of overeating to mask the fact that I must attend to my life each day, I am overwhelmed. The end result, I have a headache and I want to crawl back into bed.

 

But I really want to talk about the title of today’s post: Gone But Not Forgotten.

 

Using the EP feature to “find diet buddies near you,” I clicked on the little icons in my city and surrounding communities. I must have clicked on about a hundred little green apples to find someone in my area who might relate to my current situation.  Sure, I live in southern California, not too far from the beach, but believe me there are more of us that need to lose a few pounds (or more) than there are those that could easily find themselves on an episode of the Real Housewives of Orange County.

 

So, off I go, clicking away.  It didn’t take me long to become incredibly sad over what I found—and incredibly fearful that I not follow in their footsteps.  Of course, there were many who never started a blog. Ok, so writing is not for everyone. I get that. But what bothered me were the posts of folks that had not posted in a year or two, or three years or longer.  Almost all of these posts were exactly the same--they all started out so positively, so full of enthusiasm and hope. They were filled with statements like “this time I will be successful,” “I can do this!” and “I am ready this time.”  They outlined food plans and exercise regimens. Then there are two or three days, maybe a week of posts then nothing. At the first sign of struggle, they are gone. I would like to believe all these bloggers found joyful lives and success was theirs, but I know better. I have started so many journals, dozens of them, with the exact same words. Everything I have ever said when I started writing with such hope and usually out of horrible and painful despair, I have believed with every ounce of my being. But time after time I disappeared too, discouraged and feeling like a failure.

 

I don’t want to forget about these people or what I read. I am afraid if I do, I will join their club--again. How easy it would be to just fall away from something as anonymous as this. How badly I don’t want to do that to myself.

 

I accomplished most of my goals for yesterday, with the exception of the one related to focusing on some work related tasks. I even substituted treadmill time for dog walking in the great outdoors! People are friendly when my head is on straight and I see the goodness in my life rather than everything that is wrong (and believe me, much of my life is amiss). I walked around an outdoor mall in good spirits and people smiled, talked to me and stopped to pet my two beloved fur friends.  When I hate myself and am angry at the world, the world seems to treat me accordingly, my attitude evident without my needing to say a word.  It is an unnecessary and unpleasant way to live and I can choose differently.  

My thinking gets me into trouble. My desire to do everything just right leaves me doing nothing at all.  I started the morning with my morning coffee and a bagel.  What do I tell myself about this meal? First, I screwed up because I wasn't hungry and shouldn't have had the bagel to begin with. Second, the Earth Balance and whipped cream cheese on the bagel were bad. Of course, the low nutritional value of the white flower bagel is also an issue.  Barely out of bed and you screwed up already. These are the things I tell myself. 

 

What would I tell YOU? I would say good for you--all you had for breakfast was a bagel with some smears!  You didn't have two or three bagels and some oatmeal drowning in maple syrup!  Or scrambled eggs smothered in cheese or a dozen other things in addition to that ONE bagel. I would tell you to be grateful for the one, great tasting bagel and move on with your day!

 

But I don't say that. I tell myself I screwed up because of what I put on the bagel. I tell myself it doesn't matter what I eat now because of the bagel. ONE FLIPPIN BAGEL AND I TELL MYSELF IT IS ENOUGH TO WASTE MY WHOLE DAY! What is wrong with that thinking? Everything.

 

What I do is never good enough. It never has been. I remember when I was a kid and I got a good grade on something, my dad always asked why it wasn't a better grade. If I got a B, why didn't I get an A? If I got an A, I got kudos, but whatever recognition I received never felt genuine. They (the parents, but I think I really mean my dad most of the time) weren't proud of my accomplishments because they weren't really accomplishments at all. A's were simply obligations or expectations met. I don't remember when this started or when I stopped trying to please them. It seems as though whatever I did or didn't do when it came to my parents, I certainly didn't adjust my thinking when it came to myself. I still hold myself to an impossible standard and anything short of that is failure. But I don't believe that should be true for others--everyone else I view with compassion and patience and recognition of their fallibility as humans. Why don't I deserve that same level of kindness?

 

Both of my parents are deceased. Well, sort of. The two people who raised me are deceased. My biological mother is alive but doesn't want any kind of relationship with me. Even though I was raised as an only child, I actually have three half sisters and a half brother. But when my parents died, in my mind, my family was gone and I am now alone, truly alone. Of course, as I go through this process and even the little bit I have covered today, I see that they have ingrained themselves into me in ways that I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to break away from.

 

One of the things that I want to make clear (even to myself sometimes) is that as much as I would like to know precisely why I do what I do when it comes to food, or any of my other self-destructive behaviors for that matter, I also realize I may never really know. As a reader you might have some ideas based on what I write. A trained professional might be able to point to the obvious. I may figure it out too, to a certain degree. But I don't think it is that simple. I don't expect to just dump my life history in a blog and whoosh--there goes my food obsession. Knowing why I behave the way I do isn't going to automatically change my behavior. Wouldn't it be lovely? I think changing my behavior is going to be a conscious and often painstaking process. I am going to have a lot of talks with myself just like the one I did this morning about the bagel. I have to keep reminding myself I am on a road to progress, not perfection. Something as simple as letting go of the morning bagel issue without allowing it to unleash a day of self-destructive eating is huge for me.

 

Someone once told me I can't think my way into right living, but instead must live my way into right thinking.  This blog is a stream of consciousness product--I sit down at my computer and what comes out is what you see. In general, the only edits are for really obnoxious grammatical errors and spelling. Is it a coincidence that the first line of this rant starts of with a statement about how my thinking gets me into trouble?

 

If I live by that statement today, it means I need to "live right."  I ask myself what does that mean for me today?  If I were someone else, what would I see as reasonable and balanced? It means taking care of some business (i.e. work) that I have been procrastinating on. It means paying my bills. It means NOT spending inordinate amounts of time on the computer playing games. It means getting on the treadmill (that is currently acting as a clothes hanger in my bedroom). It means eating only when I am hungry and stopping when I am satisfied (as opposed to when I am stuffed). It is not a life filled with restrictions or overly ambitious or torturous expectations. It is simple, reasonable and certainly something I would encourage someone else to do. Then, it must be good enough for me.

 

May your day be filled with things that are good enough for you!