Time to Forge on, Food Whore...

It's been seven months since I've blogged on this page.  My body has been through hell.  For almost five months, I poisoned myself in the hopes of eliminating cancer.  Thankfully, I won that bout.

In the meantime, my body has been left weakened.  I, in just the sheer exhaustion and relief of being beyond the battle, have been less than disciplined in my efforts to manage healthy eating and exercise.  The result is that I have gained about twenty pounds since September.

I had been down to 170 at one point, a total loss of 75 lbs since last January.  Forty-five of that had come off before I got sick.  Part of my challenge since September has been that I have had little strength when it comes to the notion ofI exercise.  And I'll be honest, after months of eating little to nothing, food was a decadent undulgence again.

So now, here I am, at the new year, and weighing 191.  I had a long, hard talk with myself yesterday after I left the gym.  Lethargy, ambivalence, and delusion are no longer in charge of this girl's bod. 

I was painfully distressed and depressed today as I struggled on the treadmill today to walk 1.73 miles in 30 minutes.  I was frustrated as I recalled my bootcamp victory of last April where I ran an entire 5K in just slightly more than that same 30 minutes.

And then I remembered how much I have traversed since then.  The cancer treatments were a real challenge.  My body is still recovering.  I realized that I cannot give up at this point, because that would be the same as canceling out all the efforts I've made to get myself this far, and this well.  With measured persistence, I WILL run that 5K again.

And I was reminded today of how much support I have.  There's Maria, who with more diligence, determination, and resolve than I could ever hope to possess, has lost more than 100% of her body weight over the past couple years.  Her commitment to her health and well-being has been a real catalyst and inspiration to me.

There's my dad, who tells me every day how grateful he is that I'm getting well. 

There's Rick, who tells me every day how beautiful I am.  To hear such words from someone who is so beautiful in his own right is, well, awesome.  And humbling.

So, I am committed once again to putting myself back on track with a healthy lifestyle.  I'm down a pound since yesterday, I've taken pains to make healthy eating a priority, and I've put exercise at the forefront of the day's efforts.  I've latched on to other people's efforts.  Brian Marker wants to be down 30 pounds by mid-April.  I've joined him in the challenge.  There's no better time to make the change than right now.

I'm going to try to be more diligent about blogging through some of this transformation.  There is accountability, strength, support, love, and power in numbers.  If you're making a similar commitment, feel free to comment and share...

Weight Loss: Where the Battle Lies

My friend Heather posted a short snippet on her Facebook page yesterday about the battle she has with her flesh in maintaining her weight loss. She (correctly, I believe) identifies her struggle as one of a spiritual nature, more than physical. Her words really spoke to me, probably because I am in the same place.


I am 45 pounds down, but haven’t moved much in a couple weeks. It started with the weekend I spent with Michael, cooking until his freezer was heaving from the mass of all the food. Last weekend didn’t help either, with supper at Louis Cairo’s, and a food-filled family reunion. My gym time has been minimal because I’m still nursing a bad knee. Not that any of these circumstances are to blame for my plateau, because they aren’t. They are situations to which I should have made better adaptive plans. If I’m exercising less, I should be eating less. Plain and simple.

The past two weeks have been hectic and stressful. Painful feedback out of Alturas has me at my wit’s end. Traveling cross-country two weekends in a row has created stress around how to manage my workload in the office. Even positive things sometimes have negative consequences. I have been confronted with a couple of consulting opportunities that are truly opportunities of a lifetime. Managing the engagement processes for this good fortune has led to some stress eating.

Learning to eliminate food as a coping mechanism for my emotional needs is probably going to be a lifelong battle. Sometimes, it’s just not as simple as not eating. It takes a concerted effort to break out of old habits and mindsets.

A couple weeks ago, I left work totally stressed out. I had had a busy day in the office, and had engaged in three personal phone calls with the top three stress-inducing people in my life. I was batting a thousand in the aggravation realm.

As I left the office, my intention had been to go to the market and buy some groceries. As I parked the car and began walking toward the door of King Soopers, I realized that I was plotting my next food binge and JUSTIFYING IT. Thankfully, I stopped, turned around, and returned to my car. I sat in the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel. Very apropos, as I told myself, “You ARE in the driver’s seat, Susanne. What you do next is your choice.”

Instead of heading back in the store to purchase chocolate donuts, ice cream, and bread, I started the car and backed out of the parking lot. I drove the dozen or so miles to Parker, and went to the Goodwill store. For 15 minutes, I wandered the aisles, filling a basket full of clothes. I went and tried them on. All the size 16’s were too big. Fueled by that victory, I went and loaded the basket full of size 14 outfits. Wearing a size 14 certainly isn’t my ultimate goal, but considering that when I arrived in Colorado three-and-a-half months ago I was wearing 18’s and 20’s, it’s definitely progress.

Ultimately, I left Goodwill with three pairs of slacks, a shirt, and two skirts, totaling $28.05. A small price to pay at this stage of the game, since I could have easily eaten that same $28-worth of junk food and wound up with it sticking to my ass instead.

I left Goodwill and went to Sunflower, a local farmers’ market-type store and bought a few groceries. Good things that will fuel my body in my new clothes. Probably only someone who has the same struggle could fully understand that the hour or so in which I was confronted with that emotional condition was truly a battle within myself.

Truly, the battle is physical. And it’s not. It’s mental. And it’s not.  The key is knowing the location of the skirmish at any given time.

The Food Whore Hits the Big 4-0

Today I hit another milestone. I have lost a total of 40 pounds. I am down to 197 pounds. I realize that is still a lot of weight to be carrying, but I am feeling good about the progress. Today is day 106 of changing the way I eat and the way I live.

Last night, I went to the gym and ran for the first time since my accident last month. Only three minutes' worth, but it felt good to make my body move that way.

The other thing I'm beginning to notice is that my body has gotten accustomed to healthier foods. I was running tests on some recipes over the weekend and I ate a few bites of a ham and cheese waffle I'm experimenting with, and I could only get a few bites down. It was just so rich. It made me think back to when I was a kid, and Stacey Lawrence's mom Jan would make us waffles with chocolate gravy. We would wolf them down like there was no tomorrow. How did I do that?

Today's photo. Forty pounds gone. Woo Hoo!

25 lbs ago...

A Year of Whoring, and What I Have to Show for It

The most significant thing I've learned in the past year about myself and food is that I rarely use it for its intended purpose-- fueling my body.

Hugely, I use it as solace. As a pacifier. As a balm. I mistakenly treat it like it's some sort of narcotic that will actually dull massive amounts of emotional pain. It really doesn't work for any of those purposes, but when I'm hurt, or frustrated, or sad, it's the thing I consistently reach for in attempting to manage those feelings.

Using food this way was a habit taught to me by someone who used to abuse me, starting when I was about three years old. After violating me, this person would then offer me cookies, ice cream, soda, or other treats. It didn't take long for me to begin associating feelings of fear, shame, anger, frustration, betrayal, and insecurity with high-calorie foods.

This past year has given me myriad opportunities to suffer emotionally. My marriage fell apart. I lost a job. My son ran away. The disintigration of my marriage brought with it the loss of people I thought were friends.

Gratefully, I have managed to emerge intact, and even victorious over each of these trials. I have a new job. I have a new, happy life, and new friends.

Despite all those gifts and blessings, I also still weigh 199 pounds. It's a big number. The only thing that makes it easier to type is that when I finally pushed myself to get on the scale back in January, the number was actually 237. Since then, I've lost 38 pounds.

Some of that is because of the extraordinary stress of divorce. Some of it is just the natural consequence of packing boxes, lifting boxes, hauling boxes, loading boxes, unloading boxes, climbing stairs to get more boxes, etc.

Some of it is because I've been learning a lot about the kinds of things that trigger harmful eating behaviors in me.

One of my worst offenses is serial binge eating. These are the highlights of last year's biggest binges:

Last summer, I lost a job. I drove home processing all the things that a normal person might-- How am I going to cover short-term bills? What can I do to stave off long-term problems? Where should I start job hunting? What am I going to do?

The first thing I did upon arriving home was brief my husband of the horrific news and told him what I'd proposed to mitigate the situation. He nodded and left to go hang out with friends. I sat, and over the course of the evening, ate all but about three spoonfuls of a half-gallon of vanilla chip ice cream. And washed it down with a bottle of wine. Not sure how many calories that was, but I'm guessing that it was a lot.

In August, with finances already being tight, I learned that there was a snafu in my daughter's financial aid for college. During the eight-hour day I worked to successfully build 'Plan B' for that situation, I ate a dozen chocolate chip cookies, two egg sandwiches, a milkshake, two diet sodas, half a box of truffles, two hard-boiled eggs, and a quart of chocolate milk.

In September, while camping with my son, I learned that my husband was planning to take a female colleague to dinner and a movie in my absence. At camp, after a good cleansing cry, I ate half a 9x13 pan of rice crispy treats and almost a whole bag of Fritos. Again, I'm guessing that the nutritional content was negligible.

Later that month, I learned that a trip to a ball game that my husband was on was actually co-ed, and that he purposely left me behind, even though his buddy's wives were in attendance. That night, I drank a bottle of wine and after a full supper of bread, potatoes and meat, I also downed an entire package of those cheap oreo-like cookies with the shortbread outsides, instead of chocolately ones like oreos.

In October, my son spent the night in juvenile hall after throwing a temper tantrum and trashing our house. That night, after keeping up appearances and attending a circus show at the civic center, I sat in the dark in my den and ate three costco-sized muffins. The next day, I downed a bacon-gouda breakfast sandwich from Starbucks, had half a sandwich from Quizno's for lunch, and then proceeded to eat over $20 worth of vending machine crap at work.

In November, my son ran away to his dad's house. I was heartbroken beyond belief. The next day, I ate at Jack in the Box three times in a single day.

Part of what being in Colorado has done for me is allowed me to separate my eating from the emotional triggers that cause me to binge. Now, instead of reaching for food, I do anything else that allows me to think about what is causing me stress. I go for a walk. I pray. I listen to music. I meditate on the insignificance of what is stressing me out in light of who I am, how blessed I am, and what I'm called to do in life.

The other very positive thing that I've started doing is simply listening to my body. I no longer eat simply because it's 12 noon. I eat when my body needs more energy. I no longer eat at the movies, just because it's ritual.

Food is fuel, nothing more.

The Bare Bones of How I'm Workin' It...

I’ve been meaning to get to this blog post, but things have just been so busy lately. Work is going great, and with the rest of my time, I am rehabilitating my knee in the springtime weather.

Spurred by another Susan’s query as to how I’m losing weight, I’m finally getting around to this post.

Today is day 101 of making good body decisions. It started on a lark, back on January 26th. Michael and I made a wager over which one of us could lose the most weight by the time I left for Colorado. That day I weighed 237 pounds. By the time Superbowl Sunday rolled around on February 7th, I had lost a crazy 14 pounds. All of that was, I believe, attributable to stress. I was trying to organize a cross-country move, get my daughter settled in her quasi-adult life, say all my good-byes, and deal with some extreme dysfunction in terms of splitting up a household.

The next 24 pounds are a different story. It comes down to burning more calories than I consume. It’s that simple, and it’s that complex.

Some of the simple parts include the predictable things. I joined a gym. Unlike similar attempts in the past, I am at a place in life where the gym and the office are less than a block apart. Geography is a huge help. My lunch hours are no longer filled with running errands at a breakneck pace. Instead, I go to the gym. If I don’t have time at lunch, I go after work. Evenings are no longer the hoop-jumping chaos of kids, activities, supper, housework, etc. Having time is a real blessing. Being at the gym helps with the empty nestedness.

I live in an area that is full of open spaces and trails, and loads of places that beckon exploration—the plains, the mountains, old Native American settlements, watercourses, and canyons. With the longer days of summer approaching, sometimes I can’t leave the office fast enough to go out and be in nature.

I live alone. I am solely in charge of what goes in the refrigerator. Currently, the only sweet thing in my entire pantry is a jar of sweet pickle slices. Everything else is healthy, natural, low- or no-fat. Some day I aspire to manage “sometimes” foods, but for now, having the ability to keep them banished works for me.

Because I have never been that zealous about time in the kitchen to begin with, I have developed a pattern of really only cooking once a week. Usually on Sundays, I bake a roast or a chicken or what have you, and make a few meals out of it. With the scraps, I make a pot of soup, or goulash, or something along those lines. I divide all of that up into meal-sized portions and I stick to it.

Some of the more complicated pieces of this story revolve around WHY I eat. More about that in my next post.

The Food Whore Revisited

Yesterday, after consulting with the scale, I was thrilled to note that I am down a total of 33 pounds over the past 90 days. What was even more amazing than the absence of so much lard off my butt, hips, and other regions, was the realization that that for the first time in my life, I am also not plagued by a complete battery of self-doubt about it all. There is no, “Gosh, I hope this keeps working!” It’s a good feeling to finally feel like I might have some semblance of control over this situation.

At the urging of a few people who have heard some of my ramblings on this topic, I am reinvigorating the ‘Food Whore’ web page. My weight has, for most of my 41 years, been my greatest battle. Just as in real warfare, the reasons for the conflict are complex. Through my personal experiences, and the experiences of others, I hope to unravel and examine some of those complexities. The hope, the desire, is that others may find the revelation they need conquer this or similar demons in their own existence.

I won’t claim to have all the answers, nor will I claim that this is the only path to success. It’s the path that’s working for me, and I endeavor to make it a healthy and fruitful path that may work for others, too.

Along those same lines, I’ll remind people that this is perhaps not the place to peruse if one is easily offended. Occasionally, there might be profanity here. There might be things that are profane without four-letter words. In my mind, being a hundred pounds over weight is profane in its own right.

I was told yesterday, “The fact that you’re getting real with yourself is EXACTLY what you should write about.” How I got here wasn’t a pretty experience, so telling that tale likely won’t be, either. It’s okay if we disagree about things. And if you just can’t stomach what I have to say, there’s always the big red X in your upper right-hand corner. I’m okay with that, too.

With that, I bring you today’s Dear Diary moment:

Dear Diary:

Last night was confirmation that I truly am a food whore. I don’t know if it was because I’d been hungry all day, or if it was because of the funny conversation I had with MC, but last night, all my dreams were about FOOD. Not just any food, but the stuff that I lust after—hot buttered rolls, barbequed steak, steamed shrimp in decadent sauces, and ice cream. Each time I had these dreams, I felt guilty like I’d done something forbidden, illicit. Strange.

Today, I ate:

Breakfast:

¾ cup vanilla low fat yogurt
3 canned pear halves, canned in juice.

Lunch:

1 cup of spinach and chive pasta noodles (part of my last Trader Joe’s strike!) w ½ tsp butter
4 cherry tomatoes
one tortilla chip

I couldn’t resist the chip, and was triumphant with the willpower to only eat one.

Supper:

1 cup of black beans sprinkled with about a tablespoon of Romano cheese
1 medium carrot—diced and steamed with toasted sesame seeds
1 dinner roll with 1 tsp butter

I drank four glasses of water and three glasses of straight green tea.

To reshape my body today:

I did 45 minutes of core-focused exercises tailored to work around my healing knee.

Today, I weigh: 204.2 Total weight loss: 33 lbs.