It's Delle!

Someone on the WW boards mentioned they read my blog (news to me, I didn't think anybody stopped by here aside from my best friend!), so I thought I should put a little blurb about me. I made this journal so I can keep track of the things I'm doing and how I'm thinking and feeling as I journey along the road to getting thinner. It's not intended to be written to an audience, it is honestly something I am writing to myself, and I find it so helpful to be able to look back even 4 months ago and see what kinds of things I was experiencing...so many of our experiences in life slip through the cracks, and I want to remember as many of them as I can in relation to my weight loss; the good, the bad, and even the oh so ugly ones!

So many people say they've struggled with their weight for years, but this is not tue for me. I've been overweight from my earliest memories, and morbidly obese all of my adult life, but I was not the type to yo-yo diet, so in that sense I was not struggling. I don't know what my highest weight was because I didn't have a scale to weigh myself when I started getting set to lose weight. In the year before I started WW I started trying to eat less junk food and to get a little activity into my routine. When I started WW I was 288 lbs and wearing a size 22, and I know the year before I was wearing a size 26 (which was tight on me), so I'm guessing I was easily in the low 300 lb-range at my highest weight.

For the first year of my weight loss journey I was incredibly focussed and motivated. I was keeping my weight loss a secret from my family back home in Newfoundland, and my goal was to surprise them on my trip home in July. Needless to say it was quite a shock to a lot of people when I showed up over 100 lbs lighter without any warning!

Right now I am getting back on track after my trip back home. I wasn't following WW for a while due to comp issues, not to mention life issues, and I've gained back some of the weight I had lost. I got away from journalling, but I'm back at it again and am using it to help me get my focus back. I also like using it to keep track of my activity, although I've not had an organised execise regime for a few months now due to an injury. I'm getting back into my activity, however, and I will be updating all my numbers soon.

As I said, I don't write in this blog with an audience in mind, but if anyone had any questions or comments on anything here, please don't hesitate to post!

BTW, the name of my blog came from a comment my supervisor at work made one day when I was in the middle of a full-blown rant about something I had to do that was infuriating me. He interrupted me and said something to the tune of, "Don't worry about it you don't have to do it. And my goodness look at you! Where are you going, everytime I see you, you're smaller! It's crazy, you're the incredible shrinking woman!!" The moment was funny and unexpected and seemed to sum up my life right now, so I came home and re-titled my blog.

Now all I need is a cape...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I wanna be sedated

I have very little to say tonight. It was another day that ended up being different than I had expected it to be. I had a couple of errends I wanted to run, but the weather didn't cooperate. I ended up getting taken out for supper, and I ate what I pleased, but it felt like a last hurrah, so whatever. As of this moment there is no junk food left in my house, and that will not change unless I buy more. I've been tired much of the day, but tonight I've felt weird, alert and within myself at the same time. I've been making a classic rock playlist and really grooving to the music. I want to be up early tomorrow tho, so I think I will turn off the music and read for a while to try and come down. I spent hours today doing job search stuff and I'm really happy about that; it's tedious and frustrating and depressing and it always gives me a headache and I loathe doing it, so every moment I make myself stick through it is an accomplishment in my eyes. The weather might not cooperate in the next few days any more than it did today, but I want to start exercising again, I'm thinking I'll try to make an activity goal for Oct to get some sort of activity in every day. I can't believe the summer is gone...unbelievable. Strange to think where I was a year ago...

Monday, September 29, 2008

Feels like I'm starting all over again

When I heard that line in a song this afternoon it made me pause. I'm not necessarily back where I was when I started all of this, but in so many ways I have to find that mentality I had when I started, and tackle things the same way.

I've gotten so far off track sometimes I almost get in a cold sweat over it...almost.

But fortunately, I know that I have the ability to live the type of lifestyle I've aimed for, the one I've strived so hard to achieve. I've strayed away from the behaviours I've tried so hard to turn into habits, but that's the thing with a lifestyle...it's still there for you even if you don't live it perfectly. It doesn't disappear in a puff of smoke, and it doesn't become suddenly off limits or Members Only.

I've been struggling in a way I've not had to deal with since starting WW, and worst of all I've been handling my problems in ways I'd truly hoped I've overcome. I've allowed food to become a constant comfort to me again, and I've stopped tracking or eating On Plan. Today was the first time in a a few weeks that I had even logged onto the WW website, let alone put effort into tracking my foods.

I've fallen into the mind trap of justifying what I've been doing, and I know that if I don't put the brakes on, I will start losing ground quickly and start making my way back to where I was when I started.

The worst thing I have fallen into doing the past couple of weeks has been to let my mind gloss over my behaviours, and to not think about them. I've also not talked about them here or on the WW boards or with friends, unconsciously falling into the 'if no one knows, it's not actually happening' trap. I am an old hand at that one, and I've learned to my regret over the years that I have an avoidant personality when it comes to dealing with problems. I withdraw into myself and I hide from everyone. And I also know that it is ever so much easier to fall into a pit of trouble you could have avoided when you isolate yourself and avoid looking your problems in the face. I've been doing that with my eating habits; a month ago my eating choices were poor, but very conscious, and I was willing to make them knowing I was also choosing to make it temporary. Since then however I've quickly slipped into deliberate ignorance, and have been choosing not to think about what I've been doing too much, or to look to closely at the consequences.

A month ago I was doing better, and I was starting to get back into a routine. After my trip home, everything in my life got turned upside down, and for the first time since starting WW I was completely out of my comfort zone. I knew what was happening and was striving to get my routine back and to create a new source of motivation or focus for myself.

Then a bunch of life happened. Go figure, huh?

I committed to a relationship that went pretty quickly into self-destruct mode, but not before it seriously messed me up mentally and emotionally. I've worked so hard to be healthy, not only in terms of my efforts over the last year to be healthy in the physical sense, but also in terms of my efforts of the years before to be healthy both emotionally and mentally. I've said along the way that my weight loss journey was so smooth for me mostly because I waited until I was in a good place mentally before I started. I felt good about me, I'd developed a strong sense of self and of self-esteem. I did not need to be thin to feel good about myself, I felt good about myself as I was. I felt I had worth, even if I was not perfect or did not look the way I prefered.

It is astonishing how very quickly a person can destroy all your careful efforts, and in such a short amount of time tear your self-esteem to shreds and utterly defile your sense of self worth.

The only good thing is that I got out of it before I could be truly damaged. The bad thing is that there was an enormous amount of emotional fallout. If I had been on my A-game when it had happened, then things might have turned out differently, but I was already struggling when it all went down, and I was simply incapable of exerting the will power and focus I needed to get back on track when I had already been finding it so hard to do so.

I needed time to grieve and to heal enough so that I could start to get my life sorted out again. I gave myself some time and didn't beat myself up, and that was okay, but just when I was starting to feel like I could start getting myself back on track, my work situation also went into self-destruct, and the next thing I know I'm without a job.

Things at work had been incredibly stressful and unstable ever since I got back from NFLD. Again I found myself faced with a situation where I was being made to feel worthless, that I was to blame for things I had not done, and that I had reason to be ashamed of myself, my actions, and who I am. Most of me knew I was being treated and judged horribly unfairly, but I have such a strong work ethic, and I am such a perfectionist, that I kept trying to jump through their impossible hoops, because I could not bear the thought of failing at something, especially something as important as my job. That this job was not my chosen career, and that I didn't feel anything for it other than how I feel about any job or task I undertake was not the issue. I let myself get caught up in trying to succeed that I really lost sight of the fact that they were not making it possible for me to succeed, and more importantly, that my whole life had turned into trying to please people for whom I had no respect, and that I had placed the utmost importance upon trying to please them. I was constantly feeling the strain of it, I worried constantly, both at work and away, I was having regular anxiety dreams and even nightmares, and I was unhappy much of the time. But I let it go on because I couldn't tolerate the thought of 'failing', and the prospect of being without a job terrified me.

But no matter how I tried to make things right, the situation couldn't continue as it was, and it only worsened until finally I was forced to see things for how they really were. I think it was the destruction of the unhealthy relationship mere days before that made me finally see what was really happening, how these people were attacking my feelings of efficacy and worth, and how they were making me doubt myself and my abilities and my behaviours and the type of person I am. I realised that to continue to try and change their minds (when they were so fiercely determined to think as they would) was admiting the possibility that they were right, putting truth to the hurtful and disparaging things those few people were saying about me, people who had their own agendas, and who don't know me at all. I realised that it was more than trying to hold onto a job because I needed the income, it was about protecting myself and my health, and not being able to take it any more. To stay working there would have been as damaging to me as it would be to eat poison every day. I did the only thing that made sense, and I walked away.

Of course, no matter how I felt about preserving my mental and emotional health, not to mention my dignity, I fell apart in a major way after quitting my job the way I did. That whole weekend I was a walking basket case, an absolute and complete emotional wreck. I was in a constant state of panic and horror and fear and hurt over the whole situation. It still felt like failure, no matter what the truth of it was, and it took me days to calm down.

I've been having to focus more on putting one foot in front of the other and less on counting points. That is to be understood, but enough time has passed that it's become less about needing time to get my head together and more about just getting decadent and lazy and falling into old habits. I'm getting dependent on food again to regulate my mood. I am feeling so poor emotionally from day to day that I am using food as my comfort and my fix. I can't control the things that are making me feel so wretched, so I'm turning my focus onto food instead and am letting myself put too much importance on it.

The positive is that I see what is happening and I have the power to keep this from setting me any farther back. I can start to turn things around again, if I want to.

I'm terrified of getting big again. I know I've gained weight and I hate it. I hate imagining myself putting on more and more weight. I hate the thought of losing everything I have achieved.

In the end, it's this fear that will help me, because I am going to use this as my motivation to get back on track. I do not want to gain any more weight. I do not want to go back to my old ways. I want to be healthy and happy.

I have been feeling so lethargic and icky lately, and while my stress level will contribute, the binging and the lack of exercise will be playing a large part. I'm tired so much of the time, and I feel down a lot. That is to be expected seeing what I am going through, BUT...if I was eating well and getting my activity, I know without a doubt that I would feel better than I do now, even if I did not feel necessarily 'good'.

I've been binging to try and feel better. But what will make me truly feel better is to get my proper nutrients, to not feel full to the point of feeling sick, to start getting my activity in again, to start building my muscle again and feel strong, to feel like I am living the lifestyle I have chosen for myself, to feel like I am working toward my goals, and to stop gaining weight and to start taking it off again. These are the things that will make me feel better, and I need to remind myself of that when I am tempted to binge.

I need to take small steps, and set myself up to succeed. I logged onto the WW boards today and posted a daily OP thread. I said my goal for today was to make a journal entry here tonight. This was a big first step for me because it means I am being publically accountable for where I am right now and what I've been doing. Being accountable is the first step. I am going to continue that tomorrow by starting to track my food again. I will keep posting in an OP thread, and I will keep journalling here.

I know how to do this, that is the beauty of it. I have proven that to myself. Now my challenge is to do this when things are hard. It is easy to succeed when things are easy, and I wondered along the way how I would fare when things got hard. I'm still unemployed and things are difficult and the money situation is bad, but this is my chance to show myself that I am capable of maintaining my lifestyle and my goals even when things get truly difficult. This is an opportunity for me to prevent a backslide, and to learn new skills I will need for my life ahead, because if I have learned nothing else in my years on this planet, I have learned that the world keeps turning, and that it doesn't stop for the likes of you or I. Life happened, and life will happen again, as surely as the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow. What's important is how we handle it when it does.