Day 12 Completed. Very, very wobbly.
I had a horrific day yesterday, food-wise. Consumed with hunger and not wanting to do this. Not wanting to give up the things I love about sugar and flour.
After lunch, I had to stop by the grocery store for corn on the cob for dinner. My local Whole Foods did not have any. No corn on the cob! In Illinois! In summer! Harumph. So I drove over the nearby farmstand and picked up some lovely fresh-picked-this-morning corn and it was delish.
But. But before I did that, I wandered the aisle of Whole Foods and for reasons that flabbergast me, bought some cookies and a big 7-layer bar. Ate the cookies before I even got home. At the bar after dinner in the car on my way to my evening performance. In the interest of full disclosure, I hid them from my husband. Always a sure sign that I'm acting from an addictive place.
So sad for myself. But sooooo determined to figure out what it is that is making me behave this way.
If it is hunger, genuine real hunger, then I need more food.
So I'm going to experiment with increasing my food a little big. My food plan for the next seven days will be:
BREAKFAST: Regular BLE weight-loss plan
LUNCH: 1.5 protein, 1.5 veggies (so, in most cases, 6 oz. meat and 9 oz. veggies)
DINNER: 1.5 protein (so, in most cases, 6 oz. meat)
If Susan Peirce Thompson is right that my public speaking work means I require more food, then an increase like this should result in continued weight loss. I will monitor and see.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Day 11 Report: Fear
I finished my day 11 really wobbly. Like, really wobbly.
And dang it, I always am wobbly right around day 11. The excitement of resuming has worn off. There isn't huge weight loss (yet) to keep me motivated. And the hunger. Oh my Lord, the hunger!
Hunger has been a massive issue for me throughout my Bright Line Eating journey. I've written about it before. And while part of me things I should increase my food, another part always responds that increasing my food is likely to stop my weight loss, which has happened in the past.
Is it the hunger, though? Or is it more the fear of hunger? Rationally, I know that hunger is not an emergency. I know another meal is coming soon.
But when the wave of hunger hits, especially if it's 2, 3, 4 hours before the next meal, I start to panic. My anxiety rises. My stomach clenches. I brace myself for hours of pain and suffering. If I'm in a grocery store, I'm likely to grab for the first thing available. Stop. That. Hunger.
I am terrified of hunger.
So I wonder if what is bothering me is not so much the hunger as it is the fear of the hunger.
The fear that I won't be able to handle it. That it will overwhelm me and carry me down. The fear that letting go of my old eating habits will mean something bad is going to happen.
It's a minor distinction probably. But still an important one.
Plan for today: Get curious about my hunger. When the feelings arise, see if I can distinguish between actual hunger and my fear of that hunger. Is it possible to separate them? And do a reality check.
Worth a try, for sure.
And dang it, I always am wobbly right around day 11. The excitement of resuming has worn off. There isn't huge weight loss (yet) to keep me motivated. And the hunger. Oh my Lord, the hunger!
Hunger has been a massive issue for me throughout my Bright Line Eating journey. I've written about it before. And while part of me things I should increase my food, another part always responds that increasing my food is likely to stop my weight loss, which has happened in the past.
Is it the hunger, though? Or is it more the fear of hunger? Rationally, I know that hunger is not an emergency. I know another meal is coming soon.
But when the wave of hunger hits, especially if it's 2, 3, 4 hours before the next meal, I start to panic. My anxiety rises. My stomach clenches. I brace myself for hours of pain and suffering. If I'm in a grocery store, I'm likely to grab for the first thing available. Stop. That. Hunger.
I am terrified of hunger.
So I wonder if what is bothering me is not so much the hunger as it is the fear of the hunger.
The fear that I won't be able to handle it. That it will overwhelm me and carry me down. The fear that letting go of my old eating habits will mean something bad is going to happen.
It's a minor distinction probably. But still an important one.
Plan for today: Get curious about my hunger. When the feelings arise, see if I can distinguish between actual hunger and my fear of that hunger. Is it possible to separate them? And do a reality check.
Worth a try, for sure.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
SeptemBLE Day 10 (Not Day 9)
And I didn't even hesitate. I knew I was feeling weak. Knew there were potato chips in the pantry. Deliberately went to the pantry, got them out and ate them. A lot of them.
There's no real question why. My husband and I adopted two pugs this weekend. Due to his prior commitments, my husband couldn't make the 4.5-hour drive with me to get them. The rescue group was lovely, but very uncommunicative so I had little idea what was going on and had to just go with the flow. The pugs are lovely little guys, but they were quite understandably stressed out and anxious. They woke up every 2-3 hours their first night.
So on Sunday I was tired, stressed out, and weak. Food helped, unfortunately.
But here's the really critical thing. I am not going to go back and start counting again on Day One.
I don't "reset" anymore every time I have a wobble. Because if I did, it would imply I'm back to Day One of doing Bright Line Eating (BLE). And I'm not.
Every single day of this journey I've learned something. For this particular break, I learned to pay close attention to my sleep patterns, which are major signals of an upcoming relapse.
What could I have done differently?
1) Insisted we work it out so that both hubby and I could travel to get the pups
2) Insisted, obnoxiously if necessary, on being informed of the plans so I wouldn't get anxiety over the not knowing
3) Trusted the history of the dogs' crate-training to know they'd be happier sleeping in their crate
4) Mentally prepared myself for the reality that moving to a new home is stressful for dogs. Logically, I knew this but I didn't really acknowledge it and brace myself for it.
These things are important boundary-setters. And boundaries are soooo important to my food journey.
So yesterday, September 10 was my TENTH day of the current resume. I'm not resetting to zero because I'm not at zero. Every day is a step in the right direction.
And as a follow-up, yesterday was a squeaky-clean awesomely bright BLE day.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Day Seven: Tune Out the Food Chatter
I spent four and a half hours in the car yesterday, driving to a big city to pick up the new dogs my husband and I are adopting. My husband has a meeting he cannot miss, so I made the drive myself.
I love long drives because they provide lots of time to delve into a good book. For me, I decided to re-listen to a book called Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen (you can find a link to the book below). It’s one I’ve read before, not because I suffered from Binge Eating Disorder, but because I thought intuitive eating was the way to go for me.
At the time, it didn’t resonate much. Her journey, which she describes in poignant, honest detail, involves bouts with binging. But I wasn’t a binger. I didn’t tend to eat huge quantities of food at a time.
My problem wasn’t how to stop bingeing, it was how to stop compulsively overeating. So I didn’t know how to implement her ideas. What do I stop? I wasn’t getting accurate information from my body about what and how much to eat. I wasn’t sure what to do with her approach. book went onto the bookshelf.
This time, though, wow. What a difference. Now that I’ve got two years of trying to do Bright Line Eating, and I know what I need to stop doing (stop eating sugar and flour and stop eating between meals), this book suddenly clicked.
She advocates the idea that in an addiction, the ancient, reptile brain (the part that controls basic bodily functions like eating) comes to see the addictive behavior as a necessary life function. When an urge hits, it’s because the body believes it has to do that thing right now or it will die.
The prefrontal cortex, however, is the part of the brain that represents your truer self. It’s the brain that knows that binging (or smoking or drinking alcohol or whatever) is not right for you. It’s the part of you that wants to recover from your addictive brain.
The reptile brain has a critical role to play in your life because it produces life-sustaining urges. If it’s sending out an urge to breathe, that’s great. But when it thinks binging (or smoking or drinking) is vital and sends out that urge to binge (or drink or smoke or whatever), that’s false information. It’s just neurological junk. Your reptile brain doesn’t know the difference. It just thinks it needs that hit as vitally as it needs a breath of oxygen.
In Brain Over Binge she learned to separate herself from the false urges. When an urge to binge arose, she just told herself it was brain junk that should be ignored.
That is what hit me so powerfully. Maybe every urge I get to eat off my BLE plan is just false information my brain is sending me. Maybe the key to staying on plan is to start ignoring those urges.
Not everything in this book fits me. She decided not to eliminate certain food groups, but I find the idea of abstaining from sugar and flour compelling. And she did not feel emotional pressures tended to trigger her binges, but in my case they really do.
Still, I’m going to try this approach, setting aside what doens’t work for me.
Every time I get an urge to have a snack between meals, to eat a little bit extra than what I planned for, to eat some crackers or bread or other flour-based food, I’m going to tell myself:
“This isn’t my real brain. This is just brain junk my animal brain is sending me. I don’t need to pay attention to it. I can just observe it and let it go.”
This is fundamentally different from what I’ve been doing for two years. My usual approach when an urge hits is to hang on for dear life. I try to white knuckle through it. I try to distract myself from the food thoughts, wait 10 minutes for the urge to subside.
Those never work. The food thoughts don’t go away. And no wonder! My reptile brain thinks it needs its food hit to survive.
But viewing urges as false junk my brain is sending me, well that means I don’t need to fight it. I just need to notice it as junk info. And let it go.
This approach now seems both transformative and exciting. So I’m going to try it for the next few days.
If you’re interested in the book, you can see more information about it here: http://a.co/d/euz34Tv
I love long drives because they provide lots of time to delve into a good book. For me, I decided to re-listen to a book called Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen (you can find a link to the book below). It’s one I’ve read before, not because I suffered from Binge Eating Disorder, but because I thought intuitive eating was the way to go for me.
At the time, it didn’t resonate much. Her journey, which she describes in poignant, honest detail, involves bouts with binging. But I wasn’t a binger. I didn’t tend to eat huge quantities of food at a time.
My problem wasn’t how to stop bingeing, it was how to stop compulsively overeating. So I didn’t know how to implement her ideas. What do I stop? I wasn’t getting accurate information from my body about what and how much to eat. I wasn’t sure what to do with her approach. book went onto the bookshelf.
This time, though, wow. What a difference. Now that I’ve got two years of trying to do Bright Line Eating, and I know what I need to stop doing (stop eating sugar and flour and stop eating between meals), this book suddenly clicked.
She advocates the idea that in an addiction, the ancient, reptile brain (the part that controls basic bodily functions like eating) comes to see the addictive behavior as a necessary life function. When an urge hits, it’s because the body believes it has to do that thing right now or it will die.
The prefrontal cortex, however, is the part of the brain that represents your truer self. It’s the brain that knows that binging (or smoking or drinking alcohol or whatever) is not right for you. It’s the part of you that wants to recover from your addictive brain.
The reptile brain has a critical role to play in your life because it produces life-sustaining urges. If it’s sending out an urge to breathe, that’s great. But when it thinks binging (or smoking or drinking) is vital and sends out that urge to binge (or drink or smoke or whatever), that’s false information. It’s just neurological junk. Your reptile brain doesn’t know the difference. It just thinks it needs that hit as vitally as it needs a breath of oxygen.
In Brain Over Binge she learned to separate herself from the false urges. When an urge to binge arose, she just told herself it was brain junk that should be ignored.
That is what hit me so powerfully. Maybe every urge I get to eat off my BLE plan is just false information my brain is sending me. Maybe the key to staying on plan is to start ignoring those urges.
Not everything in this book fits me. She decided not to eliminate certain food groups, but I find the idea of abstaining from sugar and flour compelling. And she did not feel emotional pressures tended to trigger her binges, but in my case they really do.
Still, I’m going to try this approach, setting aside what doens’t work for me.
Every time I get an urge to have a snack between meals, to eat a little bit extra than what I planned for, to eat some crackers or bread or other flour-based food, I’m going to tell myself:
“This isn’t my real brain. This is just brain junk my animal brain is sending me. I don’t need to pay attention to it. I can just observe it and let it go.”
This is fundamentally different from what I’ve been doing for two years. My usual approach when an urge hits is to hang on for dear life. I try to white knuckle through it. I try to distract myself from the food thoughts, wait 10 minutes for the urge to subside.
Those never work. The food thoughts don’t go away. And no wonder! My reptile brain thinks it needs its food hit to survive.
But viewing urges as false junk my brain is sending me, well that means I don’t need to fight it. I just need to notice it as junk info. And let it go.
This approach now seems both transformative and exciting. So I’m going to try it for the next few days.
If you’re interested in the book, you can see more information about it here: http://a.co/d/euz34Tv
Friday, September 7, 2018
Day Six: Remove the Temptation
remembering how fragile the early days of a resume on my food plan is.
The voice in my head (the one that thinks I need to eat sugar and flour the way I need oxygen) is really really LOUD. It’s such a struggle to remind myself that that voice is not the real me. That’s just my addictive brain, thinking it’s doing what’s best for me.
I’m realizing that in these early days, the most important thing I can do is to remove temptation. And by “remove temptation,” I don’t mean just get things with sugar and flour out of the house. Although that’s important. My poor husband has no goodies for himself because I’ve been relentless in getting rid of them.
What I mean by “remove temptation” is to be ruthless. When it’s early and you’re fragile, you need to smooth the way before yourself. That means, yes, get rid of sugar and flour in the house. It also means:
— Don’t go out to restaurants for meals. Not forever, but for sure for now. Eating in restaurants takes extra work and has extra risks. There will be plenty of time to eat in restaurants when your plan is more solid.
— If at all possible, don’t go to events where food is the main focus. Your book club’s Like Water for Chocolate tasting event? That would be a no. But also your family’s trip to the baseball game, if baseball games used to be all about the food for you. Or whatever. Of course, some events you can’t skip, so for those make a really strong plan, commit to it, and leave early if you need to.
— Don’t make treats for your daughter’s soccer team meet or your nephew’s birthday. Ask someone else to pick up the dessert.
— Don’t read novels that are heavily food-focused
— Don’t decide to update your family cookbook, the one with your grandmother’s recipes for holiday treats. (Guilty).
For some unbeknownst reason, I decided that this week would be the perfect week to start typing recipes up for a revision to my family’s book of favorite recipes. It hasn’t been updated in 18 years, and two of my nieces just moved into places of their own, so the time is right. Doing it now (early September) means it’ll be done in time to be printed for Christmas.
But man, do recipes stir up emotions! I spent two hours yesterday typing up recipes for Granny’s Kolacky and my mother’s famous Thanksgiving turkey and my aunt’s wonderful lemon bars.
Not only did it steep me in happy memories of these wonderful women, who I miss so much. It also filled me with memories of these wonderful foods, prepared with such love and served at happy occasions. It reminded me of how I started using food to express love.
So no, not a good decision. But a good reminder that when you’re early in the game, you need to be vigilant about removing any and all temptation. No more cookbook updating for me until I’ve got a bit more momentum on this journey.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Day five: underwhelm, underwhelm, underwhelm
Day five of my current resume completed. All four of my bright lines are shiny and bright.
And you know why? Because I had a day with no stress. Zero. Everything went easy-peasy. No bad traffic. No work stress. No phone calls or emails that got me riled up.
The house is clean. I wasn’t waiting anxiously for news about anything. It was just ... easy.
And I’m always surprised what a huge impact that has on my eating behavior. In these first early days of getting back on track, this is exactly what I need. To keep the stress levels low. Keep things easy. Don’t take on unnecessary issues. Do the minimum.
Ok, I know, that isn’t always possible. You can’t just stop you life. But you can cut back on anything inessential.
Belle Robertson of tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.com puts it this way: “Strive for underwhelm.” She recommends that people aiming for alcohol sobriety do the minimum necessary. Don’t just enough at work so you don’t get fired. Eliminate invitations out. Order take-out for dinner. Go to bed at 7:30 if you need to. Strive for underwhelm.
The same applies to food recovery too. Treat yourself as if you are recovering from a really awful bout of the flu. Don’t say yes to invitations out unless you really, really have to. Eat at home as much as you can; restaurants can be too overwhelmingly tempting.
Pamper yourself with whatever you’ve got that’s healthy: hot baths, going to be really early, that special herbal tea you love.
Avoid overwhelm in whatever way you can. These early days of squeaky-clean lines are precious and deserve some pampering
And you know why? Because I had a day with no stress. Zero. Everything went easy-peasy. No bad traffic. No work stress. No phone calls or emails that got me riled up.
The house is clean. I wasn’t waiting anxiously for news about anything. It was just ... easy.
Ok, I know, that isn’t always possible. You can’t just stop you life. But you can cut back on anything inessential.
Belle Robertson of tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.com puts it this way: “Strive for underwhelm.” She recommends that people aiming for alcohol sobriety do the minimum necessary. Don’t just enough at work so you don’t get fired. Eliminate invitations out. Order take-out for dinner. Go to bed at 7:30 if you need to. Strive for underwhelm.
The same applies to food recovery too. Treat yourself as if you are recovering from a really awful bout of the flu. Don’t say yes to invitations out unless you really, really have to. Eat at home as much as you can; restaurants can be too overwhelmingly tempting.
Pamper yourself with whatever you’ve got that’s healthy: hot baths, going to be really early, that special herbal tea you love.
Avoid overwhelm in whatever way you can. These early days of squeaky-clean lines are precious and deserve some pampering
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
My day 4: There will always be good days
Success! Got through Day Four of my current resume with bright lines intact.
But it feels like a cheat. I mean, nothing stressful happened. The opposite in fact — we got great news that we were indeed chosen to adopt two little black pugs into our family, which has been sadly dogless since our beloved Katie passed away in March.
Given that day 3 was stressful and I had huge cravings, I was paying close attention to what happened on this day.
And, not surprisingly, the answer was: nothing. No huge cravings, no hunger, no chattering brain reminding me it wanted to eat.
I spent most of the night sitting there in awe that I wasn’t overwhelmed with food thoughts.
If I’d ever thought that my brain controlled a lot of my food obsessions, that right there told me a lot.
I ate my dinner of homemade spaghetti sauce on top of zucchini noodles and got a good night’s sleep.
If only every day were this easy!
But it feels like a cheat. I mean, nothing stressful happened. The opposite in fact — we got great news that we were indeed chosen to adopt two little black pugs into our family, which has been sadly dogless since our beloved Katie passed away in March.
Given that day 3 was stressful and I had huge cravings, I was paying close attention to what happened on this day.
And, not surprisingly, the answer was: nothing. No huge cravings, no hunger, no chattering brain reminding me it wanted to eat.
I spent most of the night sitting there in awe that I wasn’t overwhelmed with food thoughts.
If I’d ever thought that my brain controlled a lot of my food obsessions, that right there told me a lot.
I ate my dinner of homemade spaghetti sauce on top of zucchini noodles and got a good night’s sleep.
If only every day were this easy!
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
My day three: there will always be bad days
Yesterday was day 3 of my return to BLE and it was rough. Not rough because it was Labor Day, although it was. I’d prepared for Labor Day and had a plan.
Day 3 was rough because the cravings hit hardest for me around day 3 — and a whallop of stress hit too.
I don’t handle stress very well. It tends to wind me up and then knock me out, leaving me exhausted but also jittery and unable to sleep.
This time, it was because of dogs. Two adorable little black flat-faced pugs. My husband and I lost our beloved pug, Katie, in March. Although she was old and suffering in bad health, it was a huge blow when she suffered cardiac arrest after minor surgery (she’d gotten into garbage and ate things that got stuck in her intestines, heart-breaking). It took us (well, mostly me) months to process the grief.
On Saturday, we got a call that two pugs in St. Louis that we had applied to adopt had had their chosen adopters fall through. Were we still interested? Yes, yes, and yes! I cried, barely able to contain my excitement.
We were thrilled. There aren’t a lot of pugs who come up for adoption and always lots of families want to adopt them. We’d been hunting for an adoptable pug for a month and now here were two in need of a warm, loving home!
We pulled out the dog beds and washed them. Showed photos of the two darlings to our friends and happily received their congratulations. Got the water bowls out. Told my mother we might have to cancel dinner Sunday night. We might need to drive to St. Louis (4.5-hours away) to get our new darling additions to the family.
And then ... nothing. No phone calls from the foster parents asking when we come pick them up. No email updates on the status. I expected to hear something Saturday night (too early, I know). I expected to hear something Sunday afternoon (oddly, nothing). I texted our contact at the pug rescue group (no response). I waited all day Monday for a phone call, a text, an email. Nothing.
This morning, I have no idea what’s going on. Are we still in the running? Did they just take Labor Day weekend off? Or has another family swooped in and taken “our” babies? Did the rescue group find out something about us? I have no idea what — we’ve always spoiled and pampered our dogs but maybe it’s because we have no children of our own, or because we don’t have a backyard?
We heard nothing so my mind was free to invent all sorts of reasons why they hadn’t contacted us. Most of them not good.
I couldn’t relax. I tried reading, but couldn’t concentrate. Tried working, but couldn’t get anything done. Tried watching a movie but ended up ruminating instead. Tried napping but couldn’t stay asleep.
And the whole time, all I could think about was food. How long until lunch? Should I go out for lunch or eat leftovers as planned? What if leftovers didn’t satisfy me and I then couldn’t eat again for hours and hours? I spent all kinds of time planning my dinner. It took too long to arrive and was over too quickly, leaving me with hours until bedtime.
Here I’d made all these plans for a super September, and all I could think about was how easy it would be to just break them for tonight and start over. I just desperately wanted to eat. Something, anything. I didn’t want to take a walk or take a bath or clean something out. Those things weren’t likely to work. Not in the fast, dependable way that sugar and flour do. I didn’t want to drink either — that would just give me a headache and probably make the food cravings worse.
In the end, I broke my quantities lines, eating an extra bowl of blueberries and some shredded what and some popcorn. Not a huge excess of food but enough to calm me down.
It was a compromise, I know. But I’m trying to think of it as a baby step. I could have gone back to the sugar-y snacks. I could have had something made from heaps of flour. I didn’t do either of those. And I eat the extra with my evening meal, so I was too physically full to eat anything else.
I went to bed early, and had terrible dreams, which ended up with me waking up at 5 a.m. with a raging headache.
Here’s what I reminding myself today. For the thousand-th time. There will ALWAYS be stresses. There will ALWAYS be a part of brain that thinks eating sugar and flour to deal with stress is a good idea.
It isn’t. It never is. The cravings never go away. The stress is just part of life.
And eating sugar and flour as a way to deal with stress just doens’t work. Not in the long term and not effectively. The only way to deal with stress is to go through it.
So for today I’m working on feeling the feelings. Of course, I feel stressed that I haven’t heard anything and don’t know where things stand at the moment. That would make anyone who deeply wants a dog and thinks they are in the running for two ideal dogs feel stressed. That’s human and natural and I’m a human.
The best way to deal with the stress is to feel it and then to try all kinds of things to cope with it until I hit upon something that works.
Feel the feelings, try different things and wait for time to heal the wounds. There’s no easy way and it’s the only way through.
Day 3 was rough because the cravings hit hardest for me around day 3 — and a whallop of stress hit too.
I don’t handle stress very well. It tends to wind me up and then knock me out, leaving me exhausted but also jittery and unable to sleep.
This time, it was because of dogs. Two adorable little black flat-faced pugs. My husband and I lost our beloved pug, Katie, in March. Although she was old and suffering in bad health, it was a huge blow when she suffered cardiac arrest after minor surgery (she’d gotten into garbage and ate things that got stuck in her intestines, heart-breaking). It took us (well, mostly me) months to process the grief.
On Saturday, we got a call that two pugs in St. Louis that we had applied to adopt had had their chosen adopters fall through. Were we still interested? Yes, yes, and yes! I cried, barely able to contain my excitement.
We were thrilled. There aren’t a lot of pugs who come up for adoption and always lots of families want to adopt them. We’d been hunting for an adoptable pug for a month and now here were two in need of a warm, loving home!
We pulled out the dog beds and washed them. Showed photos of the two darlings to our friends and happily received their congratulations. Got the water bowls out. Told my mother we might have to cancel dinner Sunday night. We might need to drive to St. Louis (4.5-hours away) to get our new darling additions to the family.
And then ... nothing. No phone calls from the foster parents asking when we come pick them up. No email updates on the status. I expected to hear something Saturday night (too early, I know). I expected to hear something Sunday afternoon (oddly, nothing). I texted our contact at the pug rescue group (no response). I waited all day Monday for a phone call, a text, an email. Nothing.
This morning, I have no idea what’s going on. Are we still in the running? Did they just take Labor Day weekend off? Or has another family swooped in and taken “our” babies? Did the rescue group find out something about us? I have no idea what — we’ve always spoiled and pampered our dogs but maybe it’s because we have no children of our own, or because we don’t have a backyard?
We heard nothing so my mind was free to invent all sorts of reasons why they hadn’t contacted us. Most of them not good.
I couldn’t relax. I tried reading, but couldn’t concentrate. Tried working, but couldn’t get anything done. Tried watching a movie but ended up ruminating instead. Tried napping but couldn’t stay asleep.
And the whole time, all I could think about was food. How long until lunch? Should I go out for lunch or eat leftovers as planned? What if leftovers didn’t satisfy me and I then couldn’t eat again for hours and hours? I spent all kinds of time planning my dinner. It took too long to arrive and was over too quickly, leaving me with hours until bedtime.
Here I’d made all these plans for a super September, and all I could think about was how easy it would be to just break them for tonight and start over. I just desperately wanted to eat. Something, anything. I didn’t want to take a walk or take a bath or clean something out. Those things weren’t likely to work. Not in the fast, dependable way that sugar and flour do. I didn’t want to drink either — that would just give me a headache and probably make the food cravings worse.
In the end, I broke my quantities lines, eating an extra bowl of blueberries and some shredded what and some popcorn. Not a huge excess of food but enough to calm me down.
It was a compromise, I know. But I’m trying to think of it as a baby step. I could have gone back to the sugar-y snacks. I could have had something made from heaps of flour. I didn’t do either of those. And I eat the extra with my evening meal, so I was too physically full to eat anything else.
I went to bed early, and had terrible dreams, which ended up with me waking up at 5 a.m. with a raging headache.
Here’s what I reminding myself today. For the thousand-th time. There will ALWAYS be stresses. There will ALWAYS be a part of brain that thinks eating sugar and flour to deal with stress is a good idea.
It isn’t. It never is. The cravings never go away. The stress is just part of life.
And eating sugar and flour as a way to deal with stress just doens’t work. Not in the long term and not effectively. The only way to deal with stress is to go through it.
So for today I’m working on feeling the feelings. Of course, I feel stressed that I haven’t heard anything and don’t know where things stand at the moment. That would make anyone who deeply wants a dog and thinks they are in the running for two ideal dogs feel stressed. That’s human and natural and I’m a human.
The best way to deal with the stress is to feel it and then to try all kinds of things to cope with it until I hit upon something that works.
Feel the feelings, try different things and wait for time to heal the wounds. There’s no easy way and it’s the only way through.
Monday, September 3, 2018
It’s not FAIR!
Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day that’s often associated with the last big summer feast. It’s a day for cook-outs and hot dogs and watermelon and s’mores.
These are the kinds of days when it’s easy to feel sorry for myself. So unfair! Why do other people get to eat as much as they want on holidays like this? Why can they eat potato chips and dip, or hamburgers on buns, or brownies, or any of a hundred thousand other goodies with sugar and flour in them — but I can’t? Unfair, unfair, unfair. Why did I have to develop this food thing that makes the only safe route for me not eating any of it??!!
I’m sure alcoholics feel similarly. Why do other people get to sit on the beach with a glass of wine to watch the sunset but I don’t? Why do other people get to celebrate at a wedding with champagne and I don’t? Why can’t I have a beer to unwind at the end of the day?
But as the brilliant Belle Robertson (of “Tired of Thinking About Drinking”) reminds us, it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t all sit around and say “why, why, why, do other people get to do heroin but I never do?” I don’t say, “Why do other people drive 110 miles an hour down the highway and I never do?” Or, “Why can’t I do cocaine before going to work?”
OK, that’s obviously an exaggeration. Still, the reality, when we get right down to it, is that no one has a good reason to put sugar and flour in their body, any more than anyone has a good reason to put ethanol or heroin or fertilizer in their body.
The idea that sugar and flour are required for a celebration is purely a made-up thing. There are a million ways to bring joy and celebration and happiness in your life that have nothing to do with putting chemicals in your body that aren’t good for it.
These are the kinds of days when it’s easy to feel sorry for myself. So unfair! Why do other people get to eat as much as they want on holidays like this? Why can they eat potato chips and dip, or hamburgers on buns, or brownies, or any of a hundred thousand other goodies with sugar and flour in them — but I can’t? Unfair, unfair, unfair. Why did I have to develop this food thing that makes the only safe route for me not eating any of it??!!
I’m sure alcoholics feel similarly. Why do other people get to sit on the beach with a glass of wine to watch the sunset but I don’t? Why do other people get to celebrate at a wedding with champagne and I don’t? Why can’t I have a beer to unwind at the end of the day?
But as the brilliant Belle Robertson (of “Tired of Thinking About Drinking”) reminds us, it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t all sit around and say “why, why, why, do other people get to do heroin but I never do?” I don’t say, “Why do other people drive 110 miles an hour down the highway and I never do?” Or, “Why can’t I do cocaine before going to work?”
OK, that’s obviously an exaggeration. Still, the reality, when we get right down to it, is that no one has a good reason to put sugar and flour in their body, any more than anyone has a good reason to put ethanol or heroin or fertilizer in their body.
The idea that sugar and flour are required for a celebration is purely a made-up thing. There are a million ways to bring joy and celebration and happiness in your life that have nothing to do with putting chemicals in your body that aren’t good for it.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
You don’t mess with momentum
Day two of Super SeptemBLE:
I now have 24 hours of squeaky clean Bright Line Eating under my belt. 24 hours.
That is, as anyone doing this know, a big deal.
And it’s also a really tricky spot to be in. Because now that little voice in my head is saying, “It’s a holiday weekend, have a little something to celebrate. Holidays are special occasions.” Or, “you’re not as bad as some people when it comes to food.” Or, “You just started this resume yesterday. Just move the resume up and start all over again tomorrow.”
That voice is always really loud the first few days of a resume, because it wants you to put off your resume for another day. But, really, what happens if you follow that voice? Let’s imagine that you do. You follow the voice, you break your bright lines. You have a little slice of cake, or some of that garlic bread, or some pasta, or whatever it is that you’ve set up a bright line around.
I can guarantee that two things will happen:
(1) A new resume will be just as hard. Because resuming is always hard. Day one is always the hardest, and
(2) that voice will still be there the next day you resume. Its excuses will still be there. It will be just as resistant. It’s like an immature toddler. Once you’ve given in once, it’s not going to quiet down and be happy forevermore. No, it’s just learned that if it’s obnoxious you will give in.
The only way through it, the only way to get the voice to stop, is to not give in. No more. Nevermore. Once you have a little momentum, no matter how small or new it is, you have to keep it going.
I’ve given myself a sober treat for completing day one (an inexpensive new coffee mug I’d been eyeing that makes me happy). I’ve planned my food for today. I am committed to keep the momentum going for another 24 hours.
I now have 24 hours of squeaky clean Bright Line Eating under my belt. 24 hours.
That is, as anyone doing this know, a big deal.
And it’s also a really tricky spot to be in. Because now that little voice in my head is saying, “It’s a holiday weekend, have a little something to celebrate. Holidays are special occasions.” Or, “you’re not as bad as some people when it comes to food.” Or, “You just started this resume yesterday. Just move the resume up and start all over again tomorrow.”
That voice is always really loud the first few days of a resume, because it wants you to put off your resume for another day. But, really, what happens if you follow that voice? Let’s imagine that you do. You follow the voice, you break your bright lines. You have a little slice of cake, or some of that garlic bread, or some pasta, or whatever it is that you’ve set up a bright line around.
I can guarantee that two things will happen:
(1) A new resume will be just as hard. Because resuming is always hard. Day one is always the hardest, and
(2) that voice will still be there the next day you resume. Its excuses will still be there. It will be just as resistant. It’s like an immature toddler. Once you’ve given in once, it’s not going to quiet down and be happy forevermore. No, it’s just learned that if it’s obnoxious you will give in.
The only way through it, the only way to get the voice to stop, is to not give in. No more. Nevermore. Once you have a little momentum, no matter how small or new it is, you have to keep it going.
I’ve given myself a sober treat for completing day one (an inexpensive new coffee mug I’d been eyeing that makes me happy). I’ve planned my food for today. I am committed to keep the momentum going for another 24 hours.
Saturday, September 1, 2018
A wobbly return and plans for a Super SeptemBLE
Oh man, do I ever need to remind myself how hard it is to resume! Really, really hard. Like, super hard.
Once the door to overeating is open, it feels like wolfie just leaps in and it's so so hard to stop.
So I'm going to do an experiment for September 2018.
I'm calling it my "Super Septemb-BLE" (the BLE meaning I'm aiming for a September of squeaky clean Bright Line Eating -- and if you don't know BLE, go Google it right now because it's amazing).
Here is the plan and my commitment to all of you that I will follow it:
Existing tools that I will continue to use:
-- Daily post either here on this blog or on social media
-- Daily reading of something spiritual or uplifting
-- Daily meditation of at least 10 minutes
-- 3 daily gratitudes in gratitude journal
-- Daily listening to an audio related to my recovery
-- Daily self-care practice (see list below)
-- Daily nightly checklist completion
New tools that I am adding in:
-- Find a BLE buddy or penpal
-- Sober Treats to mark significant accomplishment days because this thing is hard and I need to congratulation myself (big and bold items are bigger items for significant "milestone marker" days).
Once the door to overeating is open, it feels like wolfie just leaps in and it's so so hard to stop.
So I'm going to do an experiment for September 2018.
I'm calling it my "Super Septemb-BLE" (the BLE meaning I'm aiming for a September of squeaky clean Bright Line Eating -- and if you don't know BLE, go Google it right now because it's amazing).
Here is the plan and my commitment to all of you that I will follow it:
Existing tools that I will continue to use:
-- Daily post either here on this blog or on social media
-- Daily reading of something spiritual or uplifting
-- Daily meditation of at least 10 minutes
-- 3 daily gratitudes in gratitude journal
-- Daily listening to an audio related to my recovery
-- Daily self-care practice (see list below)
-- Daily nightly checklist completion
New tools that I am adding in:
-- Find a BLE buddy or penpal
-- Sober Treats to mark significant accomplishment days because this thing is hard and I need to congratulation myself (big and bold items are bigger items for significant "milestone marker" days).
1 – Polish Pottery mug from eBay
2 – Hamsa hand keychain from Natural Life catalog
3 – Artful Home catalog item
4 – Bath Body Works scented
hand soap
5 – white fluffy flowers
6 – take-out chicken
schwarma
7 – Modcloth earrings
10 – Artful Home item
14 -- Massage
15 – Farmers Market run
20 – Thai food takeout
21 – Outfit from Title Nine
25 – Self-care day at spa
30 – Canvas beach wall art
[50 – Schedule 50th birthday vacation]
My aim is for the month of September, but if I go the entire 30 days with bright lines, I am going to extend it to 50 days.
SELF-CARE DAILY PRACTICE IDEAS
n
Take a bath
n
Go for a walk outside
n
Jam to a confidence song
n
Get a massage
n Do a yoga video
n Get a pedicure
n
Get your eyebrows/lips done
n
Clean something out
n
Plan a vacation
n
Plan a knitting project
n
Watch a new Netflix show
n Read a great book that’s not work-related
n
Attend a Soderworld (spa/meditation center) event
Overall: the goal for September is to aim for low-stress. Underwhelm. Say no to anything inessential and just focus on my sticking to my bright lines, eating well, and taking superior care of myself.
Here we go … it's 10 a.m. on Sept. 1, 2018 as I write this, so the first four hours of my Super Septem-BLE are already done and under the belt. I have four hours of BLE momentum going. Let's make it 20 more and my first day of the month done!!
Inspirational image to guide this month:
Inspirational image to guide this month:
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