It's Time for Me

Letter to myself:

Dear Me,

Yes, you can resume Bright Line Eating. Yes, you can reset back to day one. You can have another new day one. That's today.

But looking at the calendar for 2018, I'm noticing a trend. Initially, the length between breaks was pretty long -- months even. Remember when you went two months in 2017 with no breaks? Then it shortened to weeks. Then days. Lately just a day or two.

This means, as I'm sure you don't need someone to tell you, that things aren't working.

The tools you've been using -- they're great. Don't stop using them. Writing down your food, gratitudes, meditating, weighing your food, saying no to meals at banquets, saying no to anything that doesn't serve you. All great. Keep doing them.

And you need to do more. You need more tools. You just haven't found the right mix of tools that work for you. This a very personal journey and no two people are going to benefit from the same mix of tools.

So. Let's reset to day one. And let's layer on tools. Like layers on blankets when the weather is frosty. You need to find the right combinations to layers to give you the support and comfort you need.

I love you. This journey is hard as hell. But you can do it. Many others have and there is no reason why you can't as well.

Write to me tomorrow and tell me the toolbox you plan to use for the next 60 days.

With greatest love,

Me

AARRGGHHH Reset me to Day One

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHHHHH.

It happened again.

Reset me to Day One. I relapsed big time. After vowing for the umpteenth time that I was done with this food addiction once and for all, I gave in. Over the past week, I have devoured:

-- A wood-fired pepperoni pizza that wasn't even that good but I ate because I haven't "gotten to" eat pizza for so long
-- A $7 package of butter cookies that are my favorite brand that I specifically went shopping at the store where they are sold so I could buy them (though I told myself I wouldn't)
-- 3/4 of a bag of tortilla chips that weren't even that good but I no longer have an off switch so I just ate until I was embarrassed at how much I'd eaten.
-- A "fun-size" bag of cheese crackers and a "fun-size" bag of chocolate chip cookies that I bought because they are portion-controlled. Then an entire box of Wheat Thins.

It feels like I'm just shoveling food in my mouth to make the feelings go away.

I give up. I can't deal with this sobriety thing on my own. I surrender to the plan. I surrender to my higher power.

I cannot have just one bite

I cannot have just one bite.

I cannot have just one bite.

My affirmation calendar today says, "Life is tough, my darling, but so are you."

So. How am I going to turn things around?

-- Blog here every day about my journey and not pretend to know all the answers. I've researched a lot and I have read a lot. The facts are not in questions. But I need to be honest about what I'm going through. I need to be accountable here.

-- I need to VIGOROUSLY pursue ways to comfort myself when I don't know what's wrong. I am currently make a list of things to do and I publicly vow here to do so.

-- I need a penpal to report to twice a day about my sobriety

-- I need to bookend every morning and every night honestly about what I'm eating and whether I'm successful. Honestly.

-- I need to use my tools on a daily basis and vigorously pursue my nightly checklist.

I am, in short, using the tools I've used in the past AND adding more tools to the list.

Committing here and now that today will be a sober and clean Bright Line Eating day.

Phew. Sigh. Big lump in my throat at the rawness and honestly.

I've tried so many times and failed, why should I try again?

About 14 months into my fight to successfully resume Bright Line Eating, things got really depressing.

Every time I decided that this was IT, today would be the day I resumed, every time I printed out a new 100-day chart, posted a commitment in social media, joined with a friend to do a 60-day challenge, that annoying little voice in my head would begin:

"You’ve tried this so many times and failed, why do you think you’ll succeed now?"

"This will be just like the last time: a few days with squeaky-clean bright lines and then more bright lines broken."

"With all these failures, how can you trust yourself or this program anymore?"

Today I’m challenging myself to answer that voice. I want some ammunition to toss at that dang voice to make it shut up. Here goes:

n  Sure, I could fail again. But then again, I could succeed. I’ve failed at other things before I succeeded. Maybe this is just like that.

n  Don’t statistics show that people who quit smoking often make multiple attempts before succeeding? Maybe my food journey will be similar. (I wrote about this on another blog post HERE.)

n  Nothing really valuable in life comes easy. Remember going to college? Creating a strong marriage? Building a successful business? Giving up diet soda? Work, work, and more work. But in every case, the work was absolutely worth it, and I succeeded eventually. I've succeeded before, which shows I'm capable of succeeding.

n  I just need to figure out what will work for me in getting my lines bright. Trying again is exactly what I need to do to learn what’s needed to stay on track. If something in my BLE toolbox needs to change, I can change it.

n  I give in now, and decide I’m going to fail, that’s just what will happen. If I claim defeat, I’ll be defeated.

It might take you 5 or 8 or 25 failures – or more – but if you’re not willing to risk failure, you’ll never get to success.

Henry Ford said it really well: “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re always right.”

[Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.]

Self-Care Idea: The Pregnancy Principle

Why is it so hard for many of us to practice self-care?

Maybe there’s something about people who turn to food that makes us want to take care of others before ourselves. All. The. Frigging. Time.

One of the most life-changing things about doing BLE is that you almost have to learn to practice self-care. You have to eliminate anything that feeds the driving need to pick up food.

As I’ve been struggling over and over to resume, I came across a super helpful article by a sober blogger about how to take care of yourself in the early days of recovery process. It’s by Laura McKowen and called the “Pregnancy Principle.” (I’ll link to the article below).

She’s talking about the early days of alcohol sobriety, but the idea works just as well for thinking about the early days of a serious BLE resume. (In reading her article, I just substituted "food" whenever she says "alcohol.")

The idea is this: Imagine how you would take care of yourself if you were pregnant. When your well-being comes first. No one asks a pregnant woman why she's being careful with her energy and her time. At this hard time in your life, you too can -- must -- be unapologetically selfish with your energy and your time.

No one would ask a pregnant woman to attend an event when she’s feeling tired. No one would think twice if a pregnant woman needed to eat a special way. Or go to bed at 7:30. Or avoid any situation other than what she absolutely must attend.

This doesn’t mean you actually tell people you’re pregnant. That’s not what it’s about.

It’s about how you treat yourself. Strip out everything that’s inessential and treat yourself with loving care.

Start saying no a lot. Cut back. Go to bed early. Stop answering every text right right away. If you don't want to host a birthday party in your house because you don't want cake there, don't do it. If you have family over for dinner, don't feel like you have to serve them pizza. And don't apologize for anything. Be unapologetically selfish with your time.

I’m not explaining it nearly as well as Laura does, so read the article yourself.

My point is just that getting your bright lines back is really hard work. It takes energy and focus, and to do it well you have to take exceptionally, selfishly good care of yourself.

You can read Laura’s article on her blog HERE.

What does "support" actual mean?

Susan Peirce Thompson often tells people who relapse that they more "support." But ... what does that actually mean?

I was thinking about this listening to a recent coaching call. Susan usually uses "support" to mean other people: buddies. Mastermind groups. Making three phones a day. Finding someone who has really strong bright lines and asking them to be a buddy.

For an extrovert, I can see why these would be terrific.

As an introvert, they didn't work at all for me.

I had little success with buddies. One of my buddies dropped out because her family went through a terrible loss. Another was so condescending that I found myself feeling worse after talking with her. Another was wonderful but I found myself pretending to be doing better at BLE than I really was because I just wanted to get the daily check-in over. I dread phone calls, so a required three daily phone calls would push me right out of BLE.

I also never even found the FB BrightLifers group as helpful as I'd hoped:

-- People posting about their BLE victories just depressed me because I wasn't having any victories.
-- People posting about their BLE challenges just made me feel sad with them.
-- When I posted, I tended to get a lot of "rah rah" posts that felt good but didn't actually give me much help.

But I did eventually find the support I needed. It wasn't from contact with other people. Here's what support looks like for me:

-- Writing a regular blog post.
-- Listening to BLE and sober podcasts.
-- Reading sober blogs (god, I wish there were more BLE blogs).
-- Practicing extreme self-care (saying no, frequent baths, getting to sleep early, giving myself small non-food treats for staying sober)
-- Taking workshops and reading books all the time -- on meditation, yoga, self-care.

In other words, support can take a lot of different forms. That's why I made a list of my 40 favorite sober eating tools. You can find it HERE. In my view, any one of these tools is a powerful form of support.

The key to success is finding out what support means for you.

Try lots of things. If you've relapsed, try doing 5 things. If that doesn't work, try 10. Try different things. Find the support that works for YOU.

Disclaimer: This site is not officially affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Day 4 Update

I'm starting Day 4 and so far so good! No sugar at all. A tiny bit of flour (arrgh, stress eating). And no snacks despite being very hungry and very stressed. I chalk it all up to a big win.

Since it's early in this reboot experience for me (I've been doing Bright Line Eating since October 2016 but haven't been at all consistent in my bright lines since December 2016), I'm taking a few minutes to review why I'm doing this.

Q: What don't you like about yourself and your food behavior right now?

A: I don't have automaticity yet despite all this time. I consistently break my bright lines, especially the no-flour and no-snack lines. It is thrilling that I've pretty much been able to kick sugar, at least to the point that it's fairly automatic for me not to pick it up, knowing that one bite will lead to hundreds of bites. But I'm still not able to consistently say no to flour or to snacks between meals

Q: What is troubling you?

A: 1) I'm worried that I've developed an addiction to food. I still reach for food to numb myself rather than to nourish myself. I still instinctively crave food when I'm stressed out, tired, angry, upset.  I want to be free from the food chatter. More than being thin, I want to be happy and free. I started bright line eating as a way to cope with my food issues but got sucked into the weight loss game. I need to refocus, using bright lines as a way to free myself from my food addiction. I need to measure my success by how clean my bright lines are, rather than how much weight I've lost.
2) I'm worried about my health, especially my long-term health.
3) I want more energy.
4) I want to be the best version of me possible, and that means dealing with emotions in an adult, mature way, rather than an unhealthy, addictive way. I want healthier ways to deal with emotional issues.

Q: Why do a 90-day challenge?

A: They say it takes about 90 days to establish a habit (though everyone is different). I'm hoping that 90 days will get me momentum and put me in the path of automaticity.

Day 1 of the 90 Day Challenge

Today I am embarking on a 90-day challenge.

For the next 90 days, I  will not eat sugar or flour. I will follow the Bright Line Eating Plan. No matter what. Bad things might happen, but I won't eat sugar or flour. Incredibly horrible things might happen but I won't eat sugar or flour. Funerals, illnesses, weddings, birthdays, all these things might happen but I'll be sugar and flour-free. I can say no to whatever I want. I can leave early or go to bed or cry, but I'll be clean. I'm not eating sugar or flour for the next 90 days. No matter what.

Today's date: Feb. 6, 2018
90 Days from Now: May 7, 2018