Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Addiction and Weight Loss (and please help!)

It's been a full month since I posted.  I'm sure you know, weight-loss wise, what that means for me.  When I'm posting here consistently, I'm pretty much doing well.  When I hide my head, well.....I avoid all of you like the plague (nothing personal).

My life is in order.  My kids are really outstanding.  My husband is supportive and loving and kind and all the things I love in other humans.  My depression is (mostly) at bay.  I started a new business venture as a Thirty-One Gifts consultant (cheap plug:  Go check out my site, and book a party!  You know you want to! www.mythirtyone.com/31Colleen ).  But the one thing I'm failing at?  Weight loss.  So since this is my weight loss blog, I pretend it's not here when I'm not doing what I should to get healthy.

Sometimes I watch "Intervention" on Netflix streaming.  I can't help but love reality shows.  I'm a voyeur and can't really help it.  I try not to judge people but I do find myself saying, "How can those folks choose drugs over their kids?  How can they choose the bottle over their children?  I would never do that."

But this, folks, is a bold-faced lie.  I DO have an addiction.  I'm addicted to food.  Many people think it's easy to just "eat less, move more."  It is as incredibly easy and frightfully as hard as that, it's true.  But for me and people like me, it's so much deeper.

I don't know why food is my drug of choice.  I don't know why I binge yet.  I don't know why I often say, "Screw it" when I try and get on the wagon and go back to eating the way I always have.  I have proven to myself I can be successful yet I don't do what it takes to sustain that. I know HOW to do it.  I just DON'T.  And the fact is that it is in the best interest of my children to stop doing what I'm doing.  Of course it is.  But I haven't yet. 

I know that getting back in that positive healthy frame of mind is something that's vital for me to get where I want to be (which isn't even a number on the scale - but a feeling of peace of mind and comfort).  So I will take small steps to get back there.

And I won't ignore you people anymore.  Or at least I'll try not to.  And if I do?  Call my ass out in the following ways:

On Twitter:  @AdiosFatGirl
By Email: goodbyefatgirl@gmail.com
By commenting HERE! (I receive all your comments as emails)

I'll help ya'll if you help me.

18 comments:

  1. You took the first step by coming back to this space! Just make the choice to do what's best for you and your family. I know how hard that is! But you can do this.

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  2. Lesson #1: Never hide. It's too easy to fade away and fail. The more visible you are, the more accountable you are. And that goes for anything in life, really. I tell this to my students all the time. They ignore me.

    Lesson #2: Ultimately, you need to do this for yourself. Yes, you want to be a good role model for your kids (who, at even the youngest age, will pick up your habits). But, really, you'll succeed if you do this for YOU. And that, my dear, requires liking yourself. Heck, loving yourself. And, to quote my guru Buddy Wakefield, "You still don't know you're amazing for the things YOU see."

    Lesson #3: YOU CAN DO THIS. You know you can. You've done it before. You've had super weeks, and you can absolutely do that again. I think, my friend, you have lost faith in yourself. You think you're broken/addicted/lost/a failure. You're not. I hate to break it to you, but you're human. Flawed. And that's ok! If you were perfect, I totally couldn't be your pal. It seems that you (and so many of us) expect perfection. And if we're not 100% perfectly on plan, then we decide that all is lost. We must be doomed to failure, so fuck it. Let's eat the ice cream! The cheeseburger, fries, whatever it is. It shouldn't be that way. We should be able to accept our misstep and move on. But we don't. Because we don't have faith. Because maybe we feel like we don't deserve to be healthy, or it's easier to be fat, or it's cheaper to be fat because then we don't have to buy new clothes, or it's easier because we're too busy to exercise or plan our meals.

    I don't know if I'm still on Lesson #3.

    Here's the deal. I want you to get back on track with whatever plan you want. Stop hiding. I will pretend that I'm not knocked up, and I'll do the same damn thing (because I've totally been a piggy fat ass lately). Because the sooner you get to goal, the sooner we get to have our girly day and get pampered, dance, and play pinball (at which I'll TOTALLY) kick your ass.

    So there.

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    1. Eh. I freaking hate it when you're right. And it's true, you probably will kick my ass at pinball, but we'll have such fun walking around in our old-lady shawls.

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  3. I'm a food addict too and often find myself saying "screw it" and eat and eat! If you those kind of shows, stream "Ruby" on netflix. I just finished all the episodes last week and it really hit home. Especially about food addiction.
    Good luck!

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  4. Ugh - I can relate to this. And oh - I love 31!

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    1. Thanks for the support and let me know if I can hook you up with some Thirty-One!

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  5. I love your post, I feel the same exact way. I dont know why its SO hard to just do bettet, eat better, exercise, make the right choices. I know what losing 20 lbs is like and I need to lose 100 but its SUCH a struggle. I give up way too easily. I have no self control :( wahhh

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    1. We DO have self-control, we just don't know how to use it. But we'll get there!

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  6. I am a food addict in recovery but I can identify with you completely. We cannot get better in isolation.

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  7. Welcome back :)

    First, it's really great to see you back. I have always seen blogging as a safe space to share joys and vent frustrations to people who understand exactly what I'm going through - so posting this here for accountability and support is great. You haven't entirely given up, and you recognize that this is a place where you can go to figure out how to move forward.

    Second, I agree with the other commenters, that food addiction is definitely a struggle and you're not alone in wondering if it's ever something you'll be able to control. I wonder the same myself all too often. Some days, it's easy, and food isn't even at the back of my mind. Other days, I slip back into my old habits and want to drown my sorrows in carbs. The important thing is that every day, I am aware of the issue, and I try to actively decide what is the best choice in this moment. Will this get me closer to my goals?

    So, perhaps a good exercise would be to clearly outline your goals. Weight loss is incredibly hard - so why exactly do you want to put in the effort? Make a list of the reasons, and refer to them when you're thinking about overeating or eating something terribly unhealthy. This helps me get through binge urges all the time. I tell myself that I really want to eat X food - so then I ask myself *why* I want to eat it (and I don't take "because it is delicious!" as an answer). I ask myself how I will feel if I eat it, and what will happen to me physically/emotionally if I eat it. Taking a few minutes to process the thoughts often helps the urge pass.

    Pilgrim is right - this absolutely has to be something you do FOR yourself. But that doesn't mean you have to do it BY yourself. We love you, and we're here cheering for you. <3 Wishing you the best!

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    1. Oh, Mary - you are something else! It really helps to know I'm not alone and don't have to force myself to be alone with this either.

      I do need to introduce "WHY" into my process more.

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  8. I came on your blog the other day wondering where you went.

    It doesn't help to hide. Even when I'm doing miserably, I always stick with writing about what is going on... even if its a failure. Seeing it written in black and white is much harder to do than to ignore it. I know you are strong enough to do this. We all fall down once in a while but we need to dust ourselves off and keep going.

    I'll always to here for you.

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    1. Pam you're absolutely awesome! Even if I don't comment all the time on your blog, I READ EVERY POST! Always! You're doing great!

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  9. I completely understnad I have spent the last year in therapy really working on my food issues. To be honest I first dealt with binge eating but now I am really trying to maintain a healthy relationship with food. I want to so be over food! I am taking one step at time. I also know how you feel about hiding. While others have lost weight in the ten weeks since new years I have put on five pounds! Grrrr. Hang in there and feel free to stalk us back (I am a huge twitter fanatic)

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Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Check me out on Twitter (@OnwardColleen) and come back often! As always - feel free to email me any time! reinventingcolleen@att.net

 
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