Struggles

I've been struggling lately - as in I've been REALLY struggling lately.

Basically, I've been feeling SO out of control of my life that I've gone back to controlling my food. Sometimes I wish I could be anorexic because even though I'd still be crazy with food issues, I'd at least be skinny. BUT I don't have the kind of controlling food issues that go with anorexia. When I feel crazy, out of control, and unloved, I completely unravel and I eat to fill the void inside.

Go figure how I got to be the weight I did.

Two weeks ago, I didn't weigh in at WW at my normal time - since I weigh in on Mondays, they were closed for Memorial Day...instead I weighed in on Wednesday. Sure, I was up 2 pounds, but that wasn't a big surprise. I had had a big lunch that day - and besides, I was wearing different clothes than what I normally did. But the rest of that week? I ate like no one was watching.

I drug myself to the meeting on Monday - not sure if I wanted to stay, not sure if I wanted to talk to my leader about it, and really not even sure what was going on in my own head to get me to shovel in food faster than I could think about what I was really hungry for. In fact, last week, I asked myself as I was getting ready to order a blizzard from DQ what I was really hungry for. And instead of getting the answer, what I felt was more anxiety, more uncomfortableness, and more shame. So I ate the blizzard.

I don't air these things so that anyone can read it and shake their head slowly as if to say "poor poor girl!" I write these things so if anyone else is going through them, they'll know that they're not alone. And when I'm feeling out of control, that's what I feel. So very alone.

But there was such a blessing for me on Monday. My friend from WW, Kris, had dropped off something for me with our leader. Due to horrible traffic, I actually got to the meeting late. My leader said that she had something for me and asked me to stick around. So I did. And as the last person left, she looked at me, sat down, pulled up a chair next to her and asked me what was going on.

And I started crying.

I still don't know 100% of the reasons I felt so out of control and so unloved that I took it out on myself...but hearing her say that I wasn't alone and that she believed that I could do it? Well that was enough for me.

I get stressed sometimes reading the successes of other people's blogs. I wish sometimes I could be plugging right along like how I was at the beginning. When I read these blogs, I say to myself "why can't you be like that anymore?" And what I need to remind myself is that I WILL get there.

My leader said that she's seen many people go through the doors to her meeting and that she knows that I have what it takes to lose the weight and keep it off for good. She praised me for being willing to look at the tough issues in my life - the issues that got me fat and the issues that slow my weight loss. She lost 60 something pounds and averaged 0.5 pound loss per week. She took off the pressure, she heaped on the praise, and she listened. She encouraged me that instead of asking myself what I was hungry for, to instead ask myself what I was feeling. And to write it down.

I heart her.

So I'm telling you - people I'm struggling. And I'm also letting go of the pressure of wanting to be below 200 pounds. In fact, I'm saying that getting through these issues and learning to soothe myself without food take precedence to me losing weight.

My new goal is to have not gained by the end of July. I want to have kept off 50. I don't want to backtrack and regain what I've worked so hard to lose. I want to be comfortable in my own skin, in the size I'm in right now, and put my strength towards figuring out why I don't love myself. And then I want to fix that.

I know that my desire to be healthier will win. I know that I will shed this extra weight eventually. Truthfully, I'd rather get to the issues and have another year or two of trying to get to a healthy weight than just dieting to get there and eventually regaining it. I'm thirty-frickin-two years old. It's time.

I also know that by taking off the pressure that I've put on myself is helping me feel a million pounds lighter already. And I guess that that's a start.