Good News and Bad News

I have good news and bad news. Let’s start with a summary of each day this week and what I did and did not stick to on my list.

Monday
· No Starbucks, no pop, no ice cream
Tuesday
· No Starbucks, no pop, no ice cream
Wednesday
· No ice cream
Thursday
· n/a

I think it’s obvious from this list what the bad news is, I didn’t stick to my goals very well. For the sake of being open and honest I have to admit –I ate a lot, Thursday, for example, I had the most delicious and expensive Chipotle dinner of 3 chicken tacos topped with 3 different salsas, sour cream, shredded cheese and lettuce, chips and guacamole, and an ice cold Coca-Cola. Oh, let’s not forget the 1000 calorie pint of Ben and Jerry’s Fudge Brownie ice cream. After a meal like this I couldn’t be bothered to move from the couch. There were no walks.

How can I still be so lazy?

There are more reasons to stick to my goals of eating healthier and not eating out so frequently than losing weight and debt. Here’s a good one –I’m at work and suddenly, without warning I have to make a break for the small, 2 stall bathroom which is one of only 2 rest rooms on our floor for dozens of people. You can bet that the wonderful burning sensation experienced while indulging in the hot spiciness of 3 types of salsa will be followed by a not so wonderful burning sensation the next day. The experience is as much a relief as it is painful unless, of course, an interruption occurs. If another person enters the bathroom, I do my best to stop the chorus of sounds and smells, I’d rather do it without an audience of prying ears, so I clench up. My fists tighten, I grit my teeth and curl my toes, my entire body contorts trying to hold in what so desperately wants to get out. I wish I were the type of person who didn’t care, you know, the one who says to the world “I’m human and I have bodily functions and so do you so get off your high horse, I’m trying to do something here!”. That’s not me. If I could manage to hold my feet in the air, out of site, without losing control of my faculties, I would. What’s worse, is that after all that unpleasantness I imposed upon myself, it’s very likely that I will do it all again in the near future.

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Let me tell you a little bit about the history of my body. Growing up I always was (or at least thought I was) overweight. I’m 5 foot 9 inches tall and have been since I was 12 yrs old. My body was full grown into its frame. In other words, I was never a bean pole, my weight had no trouble keeping up with my height. Surrounded by tiny kids that came up to my shoulders and who were thin enough to thread a needle I became convinced very early on that I was big and I wasn’t supposed to be. It’s so sad to look back at pictures of myself as a kid and realize that I was not overweight, I was average. Tall and thick, not fat, I was healthy. I’m about 1/16th Irish with an Irish maiden name and that’s the heritage I always identified with. But I am 1/4th Norwegian and 1/4th German, both of which are, by nature, a sturdy people. My mother’s side of the family, the Irish side, is who I grew up with. My maternal grandmother, a mere 5 foot 2 inches, never weighed more than 104lbs and my mom, 5 foot 5 inches, at nine months pregnant weighed in at a dainty 129lbs. So where the heck did I come from? I towered over them both like Baby Huey. They ate like birds and I ate like a Renaissance king, happily devouring multiple course meals of oversized turkey legs, heaps of mashed potatoes, loafs of warm bread, tall glasses of milk (or cans of Coke) and nay a salad in sight (I didn’t like vegetables, they displeased me), all served in large wooden bowls. Mostly I ate with my hands, laughing heartily, occasionally wiping the gravy from my chin using the sleeve of my great red silk robe lined with exotic animal fur. (DISCLAIMER: this scene may be a dramatization of actual events)

My reasons for eating vary from boredom, to laziness, to avoidance, and there’s plenty of emotional baggage from a traumatic childhood that makes comfort eating my favorite thing to do besides sleeping.

In high school I hid my huge hideous body under huge hideous cloths, most of which were from the men’s department. My logic was that if I didn’t try to look small and feminine no one could accuse me of failing. Grunge was the style in the 90s, I may have been a few years behind the times, but that was nothing new.

My weight yo-yoed but the feeling of being grossly obese never left my mind. If any guy had been interested in me I wouldn’t have known it. As far as I was concerned my looks couldn’t compare with that of the anorexic blonds that filled the hallways. I didn’t date until I was 21yrs old. It’s no coincidence that I started to let guys see me naked around the same time I could legally drink massive amounts of alcohol.

Many bad decisions and a few years later I started to lose weight, a lot of weight. I was in college (got a late start with school, another story to tackle another day) and working full time. The stress of it all made it difficult to concentrate, that’s when I was introduced to my good friend Adderall. For anyone not familiar, let me clue you in, Adderall is for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and it’s like crack. Not terribly addictive but the weight suddenly melted away. I had no desire to eat. I was exercising at the gym fairly regularly and actually sticking to a reasonable diet but I have always suspected that my massive weight loss was exclusively the result of the medication. 225lbs down to 170lbs in about 6months.

I slimmed down and my world changed. I went from brunette to blond, I started to go to the tanning bed, I wore the most fashionable clothes, casual or dressy they were all cool (and here’s where a lot of my debt comes in, my new wardrobe was very pricey). I was getting so much attention I didn’t know how to react. Everyday my friends and coworkers commented on how great I looked, how much weight I must have lost, and asking me what was my secret. It’s true my body changed, my clothes and hair changed but my mind had stayed stubbornly the same. No I was not a blond bombshell, I was, in fact, obese. My secret? I was fat, what kind of secret could I have that would help anyone else? I could admit to myself that I had made mild progress, especially when I went shopping and could actually wear the same things as the trendy manikins in the windows but there was no way I was thin.

I didn’t really understand the negative side effects of the pills until I started dating my husband. Adderall put me in nasty irritable moods, if I was impatient before it paled in comparison to the short fuse I developed with the medication. I never noticed before Paul because I was alone so much. I realized I could be a complete bitch. Not good for our relationship, not good for me, so I kicked the prescription to the curb. Not long after, my body started to balloon. I was going on a lot of dates, eating out and cooking big meals at home. What else is there to do in the beginning of relationship than to get to know each other over a meal or 2 or 10? I started taking the pills again, then stopped, then started, then stopped and so it went until I made an executive decision that the pills were no good and I haven’t gone back. That was about 6 months ago.
At a staggering 272.4lbs (as of Sunday 8/30/2009) I am bigger than I have ever been, closer to 300lbs than 200lbs. Of course all of my cute clothes are unwearable and I’m back to trying to hide my body.

Good news -after what I have (or haven’t done) this week, I weighed myself this morning, my current weight is…268lbs. I lost 4.4lbs in four days! That’s not too shabby.

I want to change, I want to do it right, healthy and gradually. I want to make exercise a fun part of my life and say goodbye to my sedentary lifestyle. I want food to be enjoyable but not my only source of joy. I want my mind to follow my body into better health. I want financial freedom without being a slave to my financial debt. I want to live my life.