Achieving Kateness

I ate 2 tiny pretzels from a 100-calorie bag that C. had today, and they were the most amazing things ever.  They had a light, buttery flavor, with the perfect amount of salt and crunch.  I savored them for a long time.
It’s funny that food stolen in small bites is often so much better than when it’s consumed in large quantities.  I’ve had those pretzels thousands of times before and logically I know they’re just processed white flour and salt that have been sitting in our work pantry for months.  Yet when eaten on a rare occasion as a special occurrence, they are a delicacy.  The same is true of chocolate - an illicit hershey’s kiss is beyond compare, whereas wolfing down half a pint of chocolate ice cream becomes boring and bland quickly.  It makes me think that the whole “French Women Don’t Get Fat” thing (ostensibly the reasoning is, they eat tiny portions of things they really enjoy) might have some merit.

Still going strong on the T-Cloud diet and down 6lbs. from Monday.  Not yet sick of the subs, but I’m sure our favorite locale is sick of us.  Also have to take into account the fact they close at 9:30 - last night I wanted to work out while I watched the State of the Union speech by President Obama but I had to leave early so I’d be able to eat.  Next time I think I’ll get food before the gym.

If you’ve ever lived in Austin, right now you’re singing “Every day, they’re all over town, they’re right on your way!”  That’s the jingle for Thunder Cloud subs, a local sandwich shop.  Since C. joined, the gym, he’s made a small effort to eat healthier and he came up with the Thunder Could diet - basically he eats oatmeal for breakfast when he gets to work, then a trip to Thunder Cloud for lunch & dinner.  When he first told me that I laughed - it’s like the Subway Diet, but with Thunder Cloud.

Then I started thinking about how Jared lost all that weight on the Subway Diet.  I did a little research and found that he actually lost 100 lbs. in 3 months!  Granted he started off at 425 lbs, but still.  All he really did was eat at Subway, and walk more.  For the hell of it, I pulled up Thunder Cloud’s nutritional information and I was shocked - with the exception of the Egg Salad & Bacon sandwich, just about everything on there is low calorie.  And then I started thinking hey, maybe there’s something to this idea…

It might be crazy, but the simplicity of it is so appealing.  Isn’t that what I’ve missed - when eating was easy?  I feel like over the years I’ve made food so complicated and difficult - how many calories in that, what time should I eat, how do I divide up protein/carbs/fat, etc.  This is just pretty much pick a sandwich, skip the mayo, and you’re good to go.  So I’m going to try it, except instead of eating oatmeal I’m going to just cook my own breakfast.

On the one hand the part of me that spent so much time learning about nutrition and meal timing and everything else is wasted and that I really could do better.  On the other hand, the part of me that has desperately been struggling thinks that this is simple and easy and while I probably can’t live on it for the rest of my life, maybe a return to when food was just food would be nice.

Yesterday I estimate I ate about 2100 calories, because I got mayo & thunder sauce (which I think is just oil & vinegar) on both my sandwiches.  Still, though, I exercised both in the morning and after work, and I lost 3 lbs. so I think it’s a step in the right direction.  Today I will work on cutting out unnecessary condiments.  I’ll report back soon!

First of all, I haven’t weighed myself in a few days so I don’t know what I weigh.  I’m trying not to get on that emotional rollercoaster deal.  For the first week, it was okay.  I visited the gym 4 times, I walked the dogs almost every day for an hour, and my eating was much improved.  I also started taking Jillian Michael’s Calorie Control, because no matter how much I ate I was starving.  After a solid 6 months of regular binging, my body just doesn’t know how to eat regular-sized portions.  It’s really helped take the edge off my hunger.   The biggest problem is I can’t seem to control myself when I’m out with my friends.  The few times I did really poorly, was during/after social events.  So for now, I’m going to cut out going out.  I know I’ve talked before about not being willing to give up my social life for the sake of losing weight, and I’m still not, but until I have more of a handle on my eating I need to stop.
On the plus side, I figured out the ultimate motivation, at least for the next few weeks - I’m going to Hawaii on my birthday!!!  I’m so excited!  I booked a 4-day/3-night trip.  I’ve always wanted to go, and it just so happens I had some extra money.  Plus, I felt like it would inspire me to be really good, then give me a great reward, and also reinforce the idea that just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to have fun or do something awesome or go to the beach.  Now I just have to make sure I work out a lot to reduce the risk of being mistaken for a whale and harpooned on the beach. 

One thing this week reminded me was that eating healthy when you suck at cooking is boooooring.  I need to start coming up with some new recipes.  Cookinglight.com had some interesting stuff although some of it made me wonder - like they have a potatoes au gratin substitute that was like 400 calories and over 20 carbs.  Why would you not just eat the potatoes?!  But I did find some good things on there and I really want to start eating more fish which I can’t cook even a little so hopefully I can find some good stuff.

They say you have to hit rock bottom to really want to change.  I don’t know if I believe that.  The scary thing is, I don’t think I’m at rock bottom yet.  But I can see I have to change.

260.4 lbs.

I always make New Year’s Resolutions, and they always include losing weight.  This year is no different.  I want to lose 100 lbs. over the next 10 months.  I want to do this without counting every bite of food I eat in FitDay, and without driving myself back into the dark recesses of an eating disorder.  Is that possible?  We’ll see.

I can’t go on ignoring what’s happening any longer.  I used to pride myself on the fact that I was super-active, even though I was obese (thus proving the adage “You can’t out-train a shitty diet.”)  Now, however, my activity level is severely compromised.  I can hardly breathe half the time.  I can’t run even .25 of a mile.  I haven’t ridden my bike in months.  I don’t like going out with my friends anymore.  I actually cried in the car the other day when I was telling C. I just can’t have a good time when I’m out in public.  It’s like I’m wrapped in a cloud of fatness.  I don’t want to be dragged down anymore.  So, I’m trying to change.  I’m trying to really figure out exactly how I can live the rest of my life in a way that makes me happy - without being miserably fat or miserably obsessed with dieting.  Here’s to 2010 being the year I finally figure that shit out!

I had a thought this morning about losing a lot of weight.  When you first do it, everyone compliments you, tells you how great you look, admires you, envies you, wants to be you.  You feel fantastic, it’s like buying a brand-new outfit that looks wonderful on you, except it’s your body so it’s an outfit you get to wear ALL THE TIME.  Awesome!
Then…you get done losing weight.  It’s not awesome any more.  You’re not “That Fat Girl That Lost All That Weight.”  Now you’re just “That Normal Size Girl, And What Have You Done For Me Lately?”   Not being the superstar anymore is hard.  This must be what child actors feel like after their careers go to shit.

I left my phone at work on Friday night and intended to go back & get it, but never did.  I decided instead to mope around the house all day Saturday, and play the Sims.  It reminded me of my plan, a long time ago, to distract myself from the urge to binge by playing video games.  I never really did give that a fair chance.  Lately I have had very little interest in hanging out with my friends and I think it’s because of my weight.  I just feel soooo fat I don’t even want to leave the house, and then I get depressed and want to eat.

Yesterday, however, I exercised more in one day than I have in probably 2 months.  I woke up later than usual, and the dogs and I decided we wanted breakfast tacos.  Actually the dogs really didn’t have much input into the decision, but it’s ok because dogs always want breakfast tacos.  For those of you who don’t know, Austin has developed a weird obsession with food served from trailers.  I guess it’s the in thing because you can start or expand your business on the cheap, but it’s kind of weird to tell people you eat food from a big silver airstream.  Anyway, there’s a cool little trailer park up the street from my house complete with tables and a fire pit, so we walked up there.  I always buy the dogs a plain egg taco.  Jester eats it in little bites, it’s the cutest thing ever, and everyone who sees him thinks it’s adorable.  Sora doesn’t like the tortilla so she gets some bites of the egg, then I feed them a reduced breakfast when we get home.

After that, I went home and lazed around for a while, then I felt bad that I was spending a beautiful, warm, sunny day inside so we went to the Green Belt for a little over an hour.  It was really beautiful - there’s been no water all summer so it was great to see the river full and roaring along again.

I also started reading a blog about a woman who lost 100 lbs. in 10 months.  She didn’t do anything particularly extreme or hard-core, she just quit eating like a pig.  It inspired me, so I went to the grocery store and spent $130 on healthy food.  So far today I’ve been good, of course it’s been only like 6 hours but baby steps, right?

The annoying thing about the holidays is that I always have the desire to start eating healthy and exercising, and it feels like the whole world is conspiring against me.   Cookies at work, Christmas parties, Thanksgiving parties, have some cookies my significant other made, happy holidays here’s a box of chocolate, etc. etc.

I’ve spent the past few months adrift in a sea of bad eating habits, no exercise, and gaining weight. I always thought that with my years of healthy eating I’d eventually settle out of the “crazy” eating and get to something more normal, but no, turns out that doesn’t happen.   I wish that I could re-program my brain somehow.  Over Thanksgiving my friend A. visited, and her new SO is a hypnotherapist.  He said he’s helped a lot of people with weight loss, and  I seriously considered finding one locally, but I don’t know what I want them to hypnotize me to do.  I like healthy food, I just want junk food more.  Can you hypnotize an addiction away?
Speaking of addiciton, there was a study that came out recently that found that eating chocolate has similar addictive qualities to taking heroin.  No wonder we can’t break the cycle of obesity, we’re up against drugs more powerful than anything coming out of South America.

My #1 fantasy is to someday be trapped on a desert island with a plentiful source of food but nothing else.  Like fish & coconuts or something.  Sure I’d get sick of eating it but I’d lose weight, and nothing puts you in better shape than having to hunt for your food.  Unfortunately the only way that ever seems to happen is if you’re in a plane crash, and I don’t do much flying over the pacific ocean so with my luck I’d just be splatter on the tarmac somewhere.

In what may seem like a “less than ideal” move, I quit therapy.  Honestly I just didn’t feel like it was helping.   My therapist always wanted to talk about things I didn’t feel were relevant.  Yeah, I know, my family sucked and I ate because I had a shitty stepmother and a crappy childhood.  I’m 33, can we move on past that now?

So basically, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do, I just know I need to do something.  Stay tuned.

My therapist asked me when I told her about the addiction thing, “What does food rehab look like?”

That’s a great question.  I think it’s funny - with alcoholics, they tell you that you can never, ever touch alcohol ever again.  With food, they tell you don’t deny yourself anything completely and eat in moderation.
I’ve never really believed that being an alcoholic necessarily means you can never, ever touch alcohol again.  I know that AA has worked for millions of people, but I also know it HASN’T worked for millions of other people - so there can’t be only one right approach.  I obviously can’t say I’ll never eat again, so I’m going to work on plan B.

First of all, I need to stay away from the black hole that is the couch/tv combo for as long as possible.  Once I settle in there, there’s not getting out - so the key there is to make sure it’s the last thing I do during the day.  I’m moving to a bigger apartment in a couple of weeks, and I’m going to get a little dining room table to eat it so I’m not parked on the couch.  It’s too easy to go from sitting and eating to lying down zoning out.   For now, I’m just going to make sure that sitting down on the couch comes AFTER I’ve walked the dogs, exercised, and done all the other things I want to do.
I’ve also started Kickball and Football again.   Playing sports reminds me that there’s a reason to lose weight - I really enjoy playing sports and if I’m in better shape, I’ll be better at them.  I don’t know what is going on but in both sports I’ve been playing fantastically - like, way better than ever before.  So I’m really enjoying that, but then in our first football game, I almost died from exhaustion.  I also have to use a home-made flag extender to play, and it’d be so great if I could back to where the flags actually fit.  This morning I was thinking “how cool would it be if I could someday order a MEDIUM shirt?”  So I think that the sports need to continue.
I also need to make sure I focus on exercise.  I know conventional wisdom says that you can’t out-train a shitty diet, and that diet is everything, blah blah blah.  I still say you can get away with more diet-wise if your exercise is on par.  And exercising is something I enjoy - I would love to be able to someday jog 3 miles with the dogs, then hop on my bike and ride to work.  Right now if I tried to do that you’d have to look for my body somewhere along the side of the road.
Speaking of diet…I flirted with the idea of going on Atkins but as soon as I did, I started to miss fruit.  I think I’m at the point where I don’t need to follow a plan - I can wing it safely.  This is where the exercise comes in, because I have a lot more room for forgiveness if I’m working out all the time.

That’s my loosely set rehab plan.  Let’s see how far it takes me!

Hello, everyone.  My name is Kate, and I’m an addict.

(Hi, Kate).

I don’t have a drinking problem, or a drug problem.  I don’t like pot, have never tried another drug, was never really even addicted to cigarettes when I smoked them (although maybe that’s not 100% true because I still occasionally want one).  I like to go downtown, but can easily live without it (in fact I elected not to go out last night).  No, my substance abuse is something entirely different.
I’m addicted to food.  I use food the way an addict abuses any substance .  I don’t eat to live.  I don’t even live to eat.  I don’t like to feel things, so I dull them with food.  I binge until I’m ready to pop, and then I’m in a warm insulated cocoon where nothing can touch me and I don’t have to feel or think.  I just lie on my couch and stare at the big shiny pictures while my dogs go unwalked and games go unplayed and life goes unlived.  When I’m actually engaged, at work or playing a sport or out with friends, I often feel vaguely uncomfortable and distant - like, this is what I should be wanting, this is what should be making me happy, but what I really want is to be numb again.  I look forward to the end of the day shut-down and can’t wait to slip into what I call the “couch coma” - full of food I didn’t want and didn’t enjoy eating, unplugged and turned off.   My eating behaviors have started mimicking that of the “warning signs” of severe alcoholics - I would rather eat alone, I would rather eat than do other activities I enjoy, I use eating to cope with…everything, nothing, I want to eat even when I’m not particularly upset or unahppy, because numb is just so much easier.

I came to this realization when I started reading “Dry” by Augesten Burroughs.  It chronicles his stint in rehab, from his insistence that he doesn’t have a drinking problem, but his company forcing him to go to rehab, to the realization that he does, in fact, have a severe drinking problem.  But what really opened my eyes was that I could relate to everything he was doing with alcohol, except that I was doing it with food.

His apartment was with empty DeWar’s bottles.  Mine is covered in fast-food wrappers.

He can’t wait to leave work to drink.  I cant wait to leave work to eat.

He prefers to drink alone.  I prefer to eat alone.

He tells himself that he just drinks a little more than average.  I tell myself that I just really like junk food.

But most importantly, he talks about that numbness, that lack of feeling, that blissful unawareness that comes from being drunk.  I realized then that’s what happens to me after I binge eat.  He alludes to his messed-up childhood (which he also wrote a book about, which I plan to read as soon as I finish Dry), which I also had, and suddenly it all made sense.  I have a fascination with “normal” people - how do they eat?  How do they think about food?  Why is it so easy for them to not eat?  But now I see - it’s not about the numbness for them.  They don’t shut off.  For me, eating is like being wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket on a cold winter morning - you know the cold is out there,  you can feel it if you accidentally pull the blanket up too high and expose your feet, but as long as you stay completely covered, the cold stays out there, unable to penetrate your warmth.  Normal people don’t have a fuzzy blanket.  They experience and deal with emotions because they never spent half of their childhood years feeling awful and desperately seeking ways to not feel awful, even if those ways were self-destructive.

When I first met my therapist, she asked if I used drugs as I kid.  When I told her no, her response was surprise.  “Wow, really?”  Now I understand why.  I’m lucky, I guess, that I had food, because I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if I’d turned to drugs.

And I think I know why it’s been worse lately.  My boss made a comment to me that alluded to him considering me for the next open Field Application Engineer position.  I know that in order to have a shot, I need to study, and pass my MCSA.  But I’m afraid I can’t do it.  That fear goes back to college - failing out of school taught me to never think I could accomplish anything.  So instead of going home and studying, I go home and I shut myself down.  I don’t go to the gym anymore.  For the last week, I haven’t even tried to eat healthy.  I’m just retreating further and further into my warm fuzzy blanket, trying to keep the cold at bay.

I think this is probably one of those things that was obvious to everyone but me.  I suppose that’s how it works with addicts.  But I feel good about it - like I’ve been fighting this invisible enemy for a long time, and suddenly it made a wrong move and showed itself and now I can see it.  I obviously can’t avoid food for the rest of my life but there are plenty of people who have overcome addictions far worse.  Now that I know what my dragon looks like, I can go about slaying it.

First I have to say this - District 9 is a fan-fucking-tastic movie.  I didn’t really have any desire to see it, but I also didn’t feel up to downtown on Saturday night after a fun drunk-fest Friday night, and the only other movie I was interested in, Inglorious Basterds, well, there was no getting in to that movie this weekend.  The story is great, the characters a well-done, the effects keep the cheese to an acceptable level…it rocked.

Anyhoo.  The eating is going well.  Last Wednesday I had an absolutely brutal day - work has been super busy and shit just started hitting the fan in all directions.  I think I spent a total of 10 minutes at my desk all day, never got lunch, never left the building.  It was brutal.  To be nice, C. offered to buy me dinner and drinks so we ended up going to Alligator Grill which is fast becoming my new favorite place.  As I perused the menu, I thought about how easy it would be to drown my sorrows in a big plate of fried oysters, but I told myself that I was NOT going to let that day win.  I ended up getting raw oysters as an appetizer, and then a grilled trout with dirty rice, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  I ate all the beans, half of everything, except maybe a little more than half of the trout, but definitely less than half of the rice.  I will conquer this stupid eating problem, one way or another.

It’s amazing how this “half of everything” has opened my eyes to things - like that being uncomfortably full is actually not a good thing, that you really do only need half of what they give you in restaurants to be satisfied.  Lately I’ve been noticing that if I do eat to the point where I’m super-full, it’s really uncomfortable.  I actually FEEL myself getting full on less food, feel myself wanting less, looking at things like french fries that I used to mindlessly scarf down and thinking “meh.”  Even on Sunday, the only day I really fell apart, we went to Amy’s Ice Cream and I got a small.  I’ve never, ever ordered a small ice cream in my life.  I actually bought one of the single-serving Hagen-Daas ice creams - and no, I don’t mean the 1 pint containers.  :)  I always thought those were ridiculous.  Now I’m finally starting to understand that less is more.
Now what I need to work on is composed of two things - 1) I need to not have meltdown days.  Sundays are usually bad.  And 2), I need to work out more consistently.  I haven’t quite gotten that part of the plan down yet, as it seems like something is always coming up to keep me from the gym.  I’ll see if I can’t get in a few good workouts this week and hopefully build that habit back up.

Something amazing happened at lunch today.  C. wanted to go to Suzi’s, a really good (for Texas) chinese food place, and I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to practice my new-found resolve.  He ordered dumplings, and I ate two - I removed most of the wanton wrappers.  Then we got soup and I got Miso.  I ate it very slowly, forcing myself to take breaks to check my phone, talk. etc.  Then I got my entree - Mongolian Beef.  I ordered the sauce on the side (something I NEVER DO).  I ate a few bites.  And I realized something - I was full.  And then…the amazing happened…

I stopped eating.

I KNOW!  I was shocked.  But I was also full!  Hallelujah!!!

I happily brought the other half back in a box for post-workout noms.

That’s the good part…

The bad part is, I got hungry around 6.  I had no healthy food left.  So I got a bag of pretzels.  And then a bag of cookies.  And then some crackers.  And then some more cookies.  And then, I ate the rest of my Chinese food.  And then…I decided I wasn’t going to the gym.  And then I decided to stop at McDonald’s for dinner.

But you know what?  At McDonald’s I ordered a quarter pounder, regular fries, medium vanilla shake.  Know what I used to get?  Double quarter pounder, super-size fries (you can call it a large McD but you can’t fool me - we both know what it is) AND a super-size shake.

All in all, it wasn’t perfect.  But it was leaps and bounds forward.  And this is after reading only 40 pages of The Beck Diet Solution.  I can’t wait to read the rest.