Difficult Environments and Emotional Eating

This weekend I settled in for a difficult few days of taking care of my mom, a role which is usually the primary responsibility of my dad.  It's an exhausting role, and he took a weekend away with a support group for spouses of those chronically disabled.  The short version of a very long story, is that my mom suffers from a host of psychiatric and physical conditions.  Her physical disabilities are primarily related to her back, which in turn rules her entire life.  She has always had significant health issues with her back, from slipped discs to metal plates, surgeries, and arthritis.  The problems with her back and the treatments to try to remedy them have brought her to a current diagnosis of a fairly rare condition, arachnoiditis: inflammation of the arachnoid, which is one of the membranes that surround and protect the nerves of the central nervous system including the spinal cord.  It's just as painful and debilitating, maybe even more so, than it sounds. Surgeries and cortisone shots are thought to exacerbate (and sometimes cause) the condition. There is no known treatment other than pain management, which seems impossible to obtain despite a heavy cocktail of narcotics, muscle relaxants, electrical stimulation and various pain patches.  She is in constant, excruciating pain most of the time and is no longer able to work, drive, stand or sit up for longer than a few minutes at a time, cannot bend over and other than being able to get out of bed to use the bathroom or get a quick drink, she is essentially bedridden at the young age of 45.  This alone is enough to spiral someone into a deep depression, and in my mother's case, has added severe depression, fear, anxiety, and anger to her already overwhelming psychiatric conditions including bipolar disorder and PTSD.  Needless to say, home is a very difficult environment for all of us.

The good news is that I had advance notice of needing to be there this weekend for my mom, so I had some time to prepare.  My partner kindly spent Friday evening with us, then went back to my apartment with me that night for emotional support.  While at my mom's, we ordered chinese food for dinner, which sounds like a baaaad choice for mindful and healthful eating, but is actually food I find easy to stay on plan with.  I really like the lighter fare you can get from Chinese restaurants, the ones heavy on vegetables and light on oil (my particular favorites: chicken chow mein; chicken with broccoli; hot and sour soup; steamed dumplings.)  Leaving my mom's was the hardest part that night, as she cried from excruciating pain and depression and all I could offer her was an ice pack and a hand to hold.  It is difficult to see your mother in pain of any kind, but what's truly heartbreaking is realizing that not only does she have to live with physical pain, but that it causes her great emotional pain as well.  My heart broke as she cried and shared with me some of her fears about whether or not the future will be worse; about her fears of having to be placed in a home should her condition worsen; of how badly she wishes she could just wake up from this horrible dream that is now her life.

Nutritionally, I had a plan for the next day.  I was on my own for day 2, with my brother at hand for help.  I packed a healthy lunch, fruits, and light greek yogurt to have on hand during the day and knew I was going to be cooking a healthy chicken-veggie-potato meal that evening.  I planned to walk our dog, then go to the gym, as much needed breaks from the sadness (the gym never happened, unfortunately, as the dog thought it was a splendid idea to take a mud bath, which required a real one once we got home, leaving no time to get to the gym before it closed.) As I spent time in a house bubbling over with comfort foods, I found myself taking tastes and bites of everything here and there.  There was way too much food around me and there was way too strong of a need to escape and distract from the emotions at hand.  The day really took a toll on me, and I decided that I needed a couple of glasses of wine that night to unwind once I got home.  I was able to stay on plan, technically, though I had gone through about half of my week's worth of points set aside for controlled indulgences in one day.

The first thing I'd like to say about day 2, is that although I was quite often derailed from my oh-so-thought-out meal plan, having that plan helped keep me somewhat grounded and in control.  I did feel overwhelmed with my situation and environment which absolutely contributed to the stress noshing.  Even after years of eating mindfully, the old patterns are hard to break.  It's hard not to revert back to your old coping strategies, especially when you are in the same environment in which you learned them.  But, I was at least aware of that, and I estimated as best I could what damage I had done, accounted for it, and finished the day with a pretty high calorie count, but not so high that it could not be salvaged later in the week.  The second thing I'd like to say about day 2, is that it did not make me feel good.  As I've said before, emotional eating is a really hard thing to tackle because it provides momentary relief and distraction, but ultimately just ends up making you feel worse.  Which is what I felt.  Even though I had technically stayed within my allotted calories for the week, I didn't feel good.  Obviously, I didn't feel good because of everything going on around me, but I also didn't feel good about myself, my choices, my body or my health.  I had really needed to move my body that day to deal with the stress and I didn't.  I had really needed to fuel my body with healthy, nutritious foods and not sugary and starchy ones.  I had done some combination of both.  Not being active, and fueling myself with some of the wrong stuff, just made me moodier, sluggish, angry and frustrated.  I got so caught up in taking care of someone else that I neglected to take care of myself, and had somehow decided that funneling my anger, sadness, exhaustion, etc... into emotional eating was the way to deal with it.  It wasn't, and furthermore, if we can't take care of ourselves even during the most tumultuous of times, how on earth are we supposed to expect to be effective caretakers for others? We're constantly putting the needs of others before the needs of ourselves, but if we aren't caring for ourselves first, how can we be our best for those we love? I decided that night that I was going to have a better day Sunday.

Sunday I started with my usual healthy breakfast, and did a few self-care items before heading to my mom's.  I started my laundry, threw a meal into the crockpot to cook while I was gone and to pack up for lunches for the week when I got home.  I did my dishes and I filled my gas tank so I wouldn't have to worry about it later, and I walked the dog before heading to my mom's.  When I got there Sunday, I was in a better mood and state of mind to take care of my mom.  We sat together and played cards and chatted for a while, and later in the afternoon I made sure she was settled and comfortable for a couple of hours while I headed to the gym.  I finally got my workout in, which helped with the stress.  Working out can be a huge emotional release for me, and sometimes right after a workout my emotions are still pouring out.  As I was a little weepy, I decided to stop at a craft store on my way back to get a little something for myself, something to look forward to doing when I was back on my own time again.  I was amazed at how quickly just being in the store perked up my mood, and I grabbed a few projects that I was excited to start.  One of them was a beginner's cross-stitching kit.  My mom has always been a cross-stitcher and has become a real expert in it, making some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen with a needle and thread.  I brought the kit inside to show her, and we sat together as she showed me a few of her tricks to get started.  We actually had a good time.  And it made me happy to see her light up at her ability to share something, teach something, to me.  Sunday was difficult just as Friday and Saturday were, but Sunday I didn't cry as much as I had on Friday or Saturday.  Not nearly as much.

Today's lengthy blog is to remind myself that no matter how sad, difficult, tragic, whatever life gets, the choices I make about my health, nutrition, and fitness are always in my control.  Sometimes, having control over those things can make you feel more in control and able to deal with whatever life's challenging you with.  Making better choices for myself on Sunday than I had on Saturday not only gave me a sense of control and something to feel proud of, but it also led to smiles and glimpses of joy within the sorrow that we would not have otherwise had.  It's never easy to spend time with someone you love who is always in so much pain, but it's easier if you can bring in some positivity no matter how dire the situation.  Had I not taken care of the simple chores I did before heading out, I would have had them in the back of my brain to worry about dealing with when I got home, exhausted from the day.  Had I not taken a break to go to the gym, I not only would have had less emotional energy for caring for my mom, but I also wouldn't have thought to stop at the craft store, which means she wouldn't have had the opportunity to perk up at teaching me how to do something she loves.  It paid both of us some good to have done a few things for myself that day.

It's also important to remember that just because you may feel like you're slipping off the tracks does not mean you are inevitably going to derail entirely.  Having a shaky day or week or month or year on your journey to better health doesn't doom you for failure unless you allow it too.  Once I had eaten as much as I did on Saturday, it would have been easy to rationalize throwing away the rest of the day, or week, of my health efforts because "I already blew it" or because "this is obviously just too hard for me to do right now."  It would have been easy to use that as an excuse to dive deeper into emotional eating, which would just have continued the cycle of negativity and brought me to a darker place.  It actually is possible to catch yourself as you feel yourself slipping and regain your balance.   Stay in the moment.  The choices you've made in the past are gone and the choices you are to make in the future haven't presented themselves yet; just do the very best you are capable of doing in any given moment, and take the bumps in the road as they come.  Eventually, the tracks smooth out again, just stay on the train as it jostles about on the rough patches of the path.  They will pass.

Our journey must flow like the water of a stream

Ok, I put this down for a few days longer than I had initially intended to.  It was quite a long week.

My grandmother, being as insanely strong as she is, miraculously recovered from what we were told was a point of no return.  They were able to stabilize her enough to get her through a risky surgery.  She now has a colostomy bag, which is unfortunately not the most pleasant of ways to spend your last years of life, and we're concerned about her trying to rip it out, but we're just taking it one step at a time.  Much like building a healthy life!

This was a really emotionally exhausting week for me, and really could have easily derailed me health-habits wise.  After having begun to grieve over my grandmother Thursday and Friday, as I stepped into my driveway to head to work Friday morning, I was startled by a man examining my car, who then rudely and abruptly told me I was not allowed to park in my driveway, but had to make sure I pulled my car entirely into our yard (some of which is paved for a car.)  It was obvious he was nitpicking for the sake of being difficult, I guess he has some anger projection issues, but nonetheless that is not a great start to any day, let alone a day I was trying to get a hold of my bearings again.  I *somehow* managed to not engage in the anger and just got into my car and headed out, then noticed he had also left a note on my car to the same effect.  After having been through the emotional wringer and sleep deprived, I was already on an emotional ledge and my encounter with this man at hardly 8:30 in the morning on my property, a space in which I should always feel safe and in control, touching my car, finally pushed me over into a full-blown triggered state.  After my traumatic experiences of being in a relationship where I had no control; rarely felt safe especially in my own environments; being constantly told what I could and could not do/say/wear/think/feel/etc..., I do not take kindly to white men entering my space with rudeness, anger, and a sense that he has the right to control me in any fashion.  And once I saw the note on my car, reminiscent of the many notes my ex would leave on my car in a desperate attempt to win back my attention in the moments I was able to escape from his physical presence, I sort of snapped.  As I began driving, the rage built inside of me so quickly and intensely that I couldn't envision getting through the day without lashing out in anger at someone else or myself.  I needed a physical outlet.  So, I went back home, packed a bag, then drove to the White Mountains in NH and went for a very, very, long hike.  Alone, which is exactly what I needed.

The physicality of pulling myself up a mountain helped get some of the adrenaline surging in my veins out, though it still took hours of sweat and hard breathing to get back to a manageable state.  The trail I chose to hike was basically one that climbs along the path of a waterfall.  It was quiet, few people were hiking that day, and as I sat at the top of the waterfall watching the water cascade over the rocks I was reminded of how strong and in control I actually am.  I sat and reconnected with nature and took inspiration from the never-ending flow of the water.  No matter how many rocks and falls the water must pass through, it never stops.  It keeps flowing.  It's journey is often re-routed by obstacles in its path, just as obstacles in our lives re-route our planned paths, but it adapts instead of giving up.  It doesn't stop flowing just because trees and boulders and animals get in its way; it just flows around them.  You can use that analogy to talk about many aspects of life or to talk about life in general, but I'm going to use it here as an analogy to my weight loss journey.  I've encountered many rocks on this journey that I've sometimes allowed to stand in my way or use as an excuse to not succeed in pursuing healthy habits, but with time I've learned that we have to be more like the water.  There is never an opportune time to lose weight.  We often put it off until life's "easier," "calmer," "less stressful," until we have "more time to focus on it" but really what we're doing is allowing the rocks to stand in our way.  Life is full of obstacles just as the mountains are full of rocks and trees and really muddy spots that you don't want to step in and get your feet all gooey and your boots all muddy.  But life is what it is.  Whatever is challenging you in the moment will pass and life will definitely throw you other challenges along the way that may feel like derailment, but it's just a detour.  And sometimes you find beautiful things you'd never have found without overcoming whatever obstacle is thrown at you. My point, I guess, is that we always have choice along our journey, even if the choices available to us aren't easy ones.  You can get around the rock by moving to the left, or moving to the right, or you can sit on the rock for a very long time and stay stuck where you are instead of continuing along your path.  All of those options are valid ones and you always have the choice to sit on the rock for a while, but if you choose to sit on the rock, do it with purpose and intention.  Do it because it's the best option for you in that moment and not because you perceive it as an impossible block to your weight loss success.  And whatever you do, don't allow it to force you back up the mountain.  The only thing that can reverse the work you've done up until that point is yourself.  If you're finding it impossible to move forward with your weight loss then just stand still for a minute and hang on to the habits you've developed along your journey thus far.  Don't throw the towel in completely just because you've encountered a rock.  Don't allow a rock become an excuse to escape in food; to give up on being active; to give up on yourself and your ability to succeed at weight loss.  A rock is just a rock; there are ways around the rock and you have to believe you are capable of getting around it when you are ready to.  When things are particularly difficult, there can actually be solace in still being able to hang on to the love and compassion we should all have for ourselves.  And when things are particularly tough, that is when we need to take care of ourselves the most.

After this week I wasn't sure what to expect on the scale at my meeting last night.  I knew behaviorally I had stayed on plan, though I did indulge in a couple of beers (both accounted for points-wise; it IS possible to indulge and still stay on plan!)  Before I got on the scale, I reflected on the positive things I had done to stay on plan during the week and was happy with my behaviors, and decided before I got on the scale that even if it wasn't a good weigh-in, I was still on the right track and it would even out eventually.  I was pleased to see that I went down 0.8 lbs.  Like many of our members, I did have the fleeting "that's it?" reaction, but considering the stress of the week, I decided that the loss was actually pretty decent.  We'd all like it to come off instantly, but that's not how this journey works; not if you're doing it right.

This post is a little heavier on the trauma issues than other posts will be, but I think it's important to realize and point out that weight loss isn't an isolated issue to tackle separately and independently.  It is a journey that is threaded through each aspect of our lives.  We have hundreds of choices to make every day about food and activity and how to work that all in no matter what life looks like in that moment.  Life is what it is; it will throw you what it's going to throw you; the only things you truly have control over are your choices.  And you should always strive to make choices that are good for you and empower you; you'll need the extra strength and confidence to climb over or around your rocks.

Happy hiking on your own respective paths.

This week's weight: 182.6
Change since September 10th, 20014: -0.8 lbs

Oh, life and your curve balls.

I got news late last night that my grandmother is passing away, most likely today.  She had a stomach issue and the surgeries to fix it were too risky to pursue, and would have significantly lowered her quality of life.  My family has made the decision to allow her to pass on her own, giving her morphine in her final stages to make her comfortable on her way out.

This is, of course, a very sad moment for all of us.  My grandmother is a very remarkable woman; she's lived quite a full life, and for the past 5 or so years has been in a home where she could get the continual care she needed.  She has had Alzheimer's for quite a while now, and I know that she has struggled with that and other health issues because of that.  Though the disease often veiled who she really was, she was still brilliant enough to have moments where her true spirit shone through the disease.  It has been sad and difficult to miss her throughout the progress of her illness, and I think she has more than earned her moment of peace.

My grandmother was not and still is not the typical embodiment of a sweet old lady.  My grandmother was as strong and vibrant as they come.  She had a fire in her I've not seen in anyone else.  The flame dwindled with the onset of her disease, but nothing could allow us to forget how strong of a woman she was; not even in her calmest, quietest moments.  My parents had me at a very young age, their teens, and my grandmother, living in the apartment downstairs from us most of my life, was absolutely nothing short of a second mother to me.  She fed me (too much! but that story is for another post;) she scratched my back as I fell asleep as a kid; she put vapor-rub on my chest when I was sick and let me watch horror movies with her when I couldn't fall asleep.  She taught me to be brave.  She taught me that no one has the power to weaken me.  She would tell me amazing stories about her youth; about being a mother of four and having to supplement their income by getting a job (during a time when women in the workplace was not such an acceptable thing) in which she was sexually harassed and bullied by other women who hated her for her physical beauty and the attention she got, however disgusting, from her boss.  She told me about how he had offered her thousands of dollars to sleep with him in a point in her life when she really could have used the money to take care of her sick daughter.  And with that story, she helped me understand true strength, integrity, and self-respect.  She explained how she bravely went to work every day despite the harassment and bullying and how she repeatedly refused his advances.  She made me understand that our bodies are not for sale, that they are precious vessels for our souls that cannot be sold; that honor and self-respect will always be more important than money; that had she taken his offer, it may have helped her daughter in one way, but would have hurt her in another.  She taught her daughter, and me, that taking care of and respecting ourselves is the most important thing we can do, both for ourselves but also for the people we love.  We have a responsibility to be the best person we can be no matter the circumstances; no matter how difficult and unfair life can be; no matter how tempting it is to take the easy way.  She was fearless.  She faced her harasser and her bullies with a smile on her face.  She would always tell me when I would be bullied as a kid to respond with deep kindness and a giant smile instead of retaliating back in a hateful way.  She told me to respond to bullying, (and really, all of life's difficult things) with positivity, and to not give your enemy the satisfaction of knowing that they have any power whatsoever to hurt you.  She told me that those who are mean to us are mean because they are in pain, and no matter what a person does to you, you must remember that it is their issues projecting onto you, and that the best thing we can do is keep in mind that if someone is unkind it is most likely because they have something painful or a lack of love in their life and we should show compassion for the person, but not tolerate the behavior.  She refused to let anyone or anything stand in her way.  She walked the streets at night with confidence and a pairing knife in her purse.  She was not a force to be reckoned with.  She gave me strength.  She gave us all strength, and taught us what it means to have love and passion in your heart.

What's this got anything to do with my weight loss? Quite a lot, actually.  In my pre-Weight Watchers days I would have turned to food for solace; I would have used this sad moment in my life as an excuse to be lazy about my eating habits and an excuse to poison my body with fats, sugars, and portion sizes that were so big they'd give me a stomach ache.  I would have believed that my body, my confidence and my health was not strong enough to both be sad and be respected and cared for.  And as I reflect on my grandmother's magnificent strength, I'm reminded of how utterly ridiculous that is.  My grandmother was also a woman of health.  She always encouraged me (sometimes not in the healthiest of ways, but we all do the best we can given the tools and lessons life gives us) to be mindful of my weight, to be proud of my physical appearance, to project beauty and strength and to always exercise.  The feminist in me cringes at the importance she put on physical beauty, but in the only way she knew how, she was trying to teach me that striving to be beautiful on the outside was really a reflection of how damn important it is to take care of ourselves, and more importantly, to always make sure that we feel confident and beautiful for ourselves.  That in every way that we can, we should always be striving to build ourselves up.

I know that there are some who might think it's a bit selfish or petty for me to be thinking about my weight and staying on plan today; to be planning ways in which I can healthfully cope with the sea of comfort foods in the week or so to come (we are Italian; enough said); to be concerned about how I am going to make sure to stay within my points and get a reasonable amount of physical activity in as we grieve a remarkable woman's exit from this world, but I think it's important to realize that being concerned about these things, about our bodies and ourselves no matter how difficult it may be in that moment to do so, is actually a form of coping.  It's a healthier way to manage and contain the many emotions that can sometimes overwhelm us whenever we have to face the inevitability of death and the loss of a loved one.  Instead of dulling the pain with comfort foods, I will focus on giving my body what it actually needs to healthfully cope with my grandmother's passing.  Pasta and brownies and ice cream are not going to comfort me for more than a few minutes and will just lead me to immediately beating myself up for making poor choices, and that's no way to grieve, especially not to grieve my grandmother, pillar of health and fitness.  In honor of my grandmother and in respect for myself, I will not allow this bump in the road to have power over me.  I will continue to live the healthy lifestyle she so persistently encouraged me to live.

Thank you, grandma, for all of the gifts you've brought to us all.  Thank you for the amazing messages and lessons.  Thank you for imparting so much of your wisdom, strength, and fearlessness to me.  Thank you for showing me how strong a woman can be.  Rest with pride, peace, and my undying love and appreciation for you.

A new day, a new start, a new beginning.

Today marks a new start for me on my weight loss journey.  I'm a 5'5" white female, age 28, and in 2008 I weighed 235 lbs.  Thaaat was...a lot, for me.  With Weight Watchers, I lost 86 lbs, bringing me down to 149, which put me in a healthy weight range according to the BMI! (technically, I was one lb lighter than the maximum weight for my height!) That was something I had not experienced since I was 5 years old.  That is a long time to be stuck in the overweight (and most often, the obese) category.  It felt amazing to get there.

I reached this healthy weight (roughly March, 2012) at exactly the same time that it felt like my whole world fell apart.  I had been in an abusive relationship for a couple of years and, after finding out that on top of the abuse he had been cheating on me in one of the most despicable ways, I finally found the strength (which felt far from strength at the time) to leave him and be able to resist his many psychotic and abusive attempts to bring me back into the relationship.  After months of harassment, fear, rage, a harassment charge, a restraining order, his suicide, and the continuing battle against the resulting PTSD, I find myself 34.4 lbs heavier than that amazing 149.  My healthy weight range felt like a tiny blip on the larger timeline of my life, and I felt/am feeling quite disheartened.  I'm disheartened that something I treasure so much, something I truly did for myself, something I was insatiably proud of had been taken from me.  Except that it hadn't.  My weight loss journey is not something that anyone can take from someone; it's an internal experience and once I remembered that, I realized that I actually still am, and always was, in control of my health habits.  I can focus on putting the blame on him for causing the trauma that led to poor coping skills (drinking and smoking, which led also to drugging myself with food to ease the pain) or I can re-focus.  I can decide to take back control of my body and my choices.  I can remember and be fueled by the knowledge that I know this is an attainable goal because I have obtained it before.  I can focus on the fact that I'm still 51.6 lbs below my start weight and that's an incredible achievement; that despite how unbelievably difficult and tumultuous the past couple of years have been, I've still hung on to what I could, done the best I could, and never gave up on myself and my weight loss.

I'm starting again, as I have many times before, today.  That's the thing about weight loss--it's often perceived as something that you either achieve or fail at; that it's something that has a beginning and an end.  The truth is, weight loss, weight management, hell just managing your health overall, isn't about the goal.  It isn't about the number on the scale.  It isn't about the size of your clothes, it isn't about how long it took you to get to where you wanted to be.  Why? Because this is a journey that has no end.  Goal setting is a tool (and a damn good one!) that we use along our journey, but setting an ultimate goal implies that there is some sort of end to the efforts we make while trying to lose weight and build a healthy lifestyle.  This isn't about getting to a final destination where we no longer have to put effort in; it's about making peace with the fact that this is life-long work, and it's about finding the ways in which we can do that work AND enjoy the process of doing it; because if you aren't enjoying it, you won't continue to do it. This journey is much more about living in the moment than it is about the anticipation of getting to some final state. It's about recognizing that you want to live a healthier life for the sake of living a healthy life.  For the sake of feeling good emotionally, physically and psychologically.  For appreciating, treasuring, respecting and acknowledging that you and your body are just as worthy of the love and care you show to others.  It's about building a better relationship with yourself, learning to love yourself, and having faith in your ability to lead the life you want to live.  It's about feeling good about your decisions and behaviors in the moment you are making them, not simply because they are going to help you reach whatever you have set your goal to be, but because they're decisions that nurture your body, mind and soul.  They are decisions that are healthy and kind to yourself.  They are decisions that remind you on a continual basis that YOU are in control of your body and your life. If you just focus on those things, and not so much about the numbers, the results will follow on their own.  The clothes become smaller; the number on the scale decreases; your blood pressure, cholesterol, depression, anxiety, just about everything gets better, including your confidence and self-esteem.  And who doesn't want all that?

So, today starts a new journey for me.  Or perhaps more accurately, it marks a moment in my journey where I'm finally finding my way back to the path I intended to walk before life threw me a detour.  I'm mindful again that I deserve to treat myself and my body well, and I am taking a judgement-free step back in the right direction.  And ultimately, I hope I will inspire others to realize that this is a possible thing.  This is attainable.  And it doesn't have to be painful.  In fact, it can actually be fun and is absolutely rewarding.

Much love and support to you all, and myself, as I find my way back to my life-path.  I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I intend to.

Today's weight: 183.4 lbs