God I hope I get it while I’m still in my thirties! I’m just four months away from my thirty seventh birthday (yikes!) and the last thing I want to do is go into it the same way I’ve gone into my thirty fifth, and thirty sixth birthdays – fat and unhappy with my weight. Ahhhhhh if only I could go back to that golden year of thirty four! Little did I know that would be the year my metabolism would bottom out, and stupid unsuspecting me hadn’t prepared to pick up the slack and compensate for the changes…story of my life really. Silly, unsuspecting “live in the moment” me. I’ve read too many weightloss blogs and articles in the past year, and ALL of them perpetuate the fear that I have, WILL IT BE THIS WAY NOW FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE? Will I always struggle, now that I am? Will I always be trying, now that I am? It seems that so many women do. Bethenny Frankel calls it “food noise”, that obsession or constant distraction of food and how we perceive it.
My journey is an expression of mild schizoprenia, which I medicate with soothing dark chocolate, crunchy banana chips, delicious seedy trailmix cookies and the occasional deep fried anything party. The ten pounds that I lost for the wedding, five months ago, is now just a distant memory being nine pounds up…alas…the hamster wheel that I’m sure I’ve already blogged about.
What haven’t I done this year? I’ve set goals, written down motivational quotes, done some unbelievable emotional unpacking, read other people’s stories, tried other people’s advice, cut out wheat, calorie counted, started food journals, focused on small portions, started this, tried that, and dabbled in everything in between….and where am I? STILL HERE.
If anyone comes across my ‘discipline’, please let her know that I’m desperately looking for her and to come back home IMMEDIATELY. I debated putting lost signs up in my area, but then I realized my make believe schizoprenia might be turning into real delusional tendencies or excessive excuse making….ahem. Or is my discipline yet another thing I’ve out grown? Perhaps then I can find it in my parent’s basement, buried away with my fake brand name purses that I use to buy at flea markets, my size four camouflage cargo pants and bandannas I use to constantly wear?…Maybe in another shoe box hidden amoungst my timberland boots or my fake pleather/plasticy club heels…
My Mom came over for dinner last night with my Dad and she looked up across me at the dinner table and unexpectedly and almost disgustedly pointed at my neck and asked if I had a thyroid problem. When I said no, the last physical I had showed that everything was normal (unless 7lbs can create the imbalance) a small part of me wanted to buy into yet another excuse….but that small sane part of me, that I can tap into occasionally, started to recall what I’ve been eating and no, I’m not doing enough to make a difference.
What’s going to be my key? The key that finally unlocks my success? If not for anything else, I just need to know that I can do it. I need to know that I can conquer and win this battle, PERMANENTLY. I need to find a way to be on top of this. Right now, that’s a huge question mark for me.
In my journal recently I likened these days to the days of my dating break up patterns. If I was emotionally invested in a guy and it didn’t work out, I would spend hours journaling, analyzing, talking to girlfriends, justifying….everything to try and come to emotional inner understandings of my external experiences. I think back though, and that was probably just my coping mechanisms, the tides I could surf until I found land again. In retrospect, they were otherwise mostly futile, because trying was always that, trying. I would try to reason and justify, I would try and abstain or stay away from the people I knew I shouldn’t be near, I would try by deleting texts and phone numbers….but the trying was always just baby steps, in my journey of a thousand steps…Fortunately however, the illusion of the love I created would eventually wear and dissipate and I would see someone for what they were, not who I hoped they were. When the smoke would clear and the spell was broken, there was reality (truth). And it was pla
in, clear and undeniable, I didn’t have to try anything, I just got it. It was like that with smoking too. For years I would try and cut down, try and limit myself, try to only carry five cigarettes with me (even though I kept the pack somewhere in my car)….but it wasn’t until I went on Champix that the illusion of the cigarette all of a sudden disappeared, it really wasn’t tasty or satisfying; it was horrible and hard to take down. And again POOF, the trying dance found another partner and I merrily took a seat and rested my weary trying feet.
I know that this is where I am, still riding this tide until I meet land again. I’m in the midst of my trying dance and I know I’ve probably got a few more songs ahead of me. But I also know that eventually I will get it, and it will be clear. I thought I had found that a few times this past year. I uncovered some emotional baggage with the help of Bob Greene’s book (Oprah’s nutritionist). Some really eye opening “aha’s” and though those realizations came in big and still linger, they weren’t the “it” to clear the illusion or stop my dancing. Sometimes I feel on the cusp of finally getting out of this enchanted forest, only to find that I’ve followed a path that looked like it was going to lead me out, but mysteriously somehow led me back into the thick of it.
Being married now, if I could go back and whisper advice to the heart of my once twenty one year old self who was struggling and trying to get over her first love, I would say, be patient, it’s okay; let this run it’s natural course. Don’t fight it, because through this process you will learn so much about yourself and you will grow in ways that only this struggle could shape for you. Besides, it’s worth it, because you are not only going to looooove the person you find after him, but you will loooooove the person you become because of him. Somehow this resonates with me now. I feel like my forty some year old healthy self might speak to my thirty six year old diet struggling self in in this same way….be patient, it’s okay…it’s going all work out.
