Feel Alive

I have felt like I can’t breath lately. I felt like there were ties holding me down and keeping me from enjoying life. I don’t know how the ties got there but I got loose tonight.

This week I got to make a list and go shopping and buy what I wanted for the first time in a long time. We had a little extra money and I got an elliptical and I am so happy about it. I have a great workout available to me day or night anytime I choose. It is sitting in our living room. I can’t go into the kitchen without looking at it. My energy has been increasing daily and I have been more active with my children.

I would love to work in research about obesity and depression. I think there has to be a physical reason that obese people are depressed. I have talked to many MD’s about this. I have gotten many different theories. Some think that depression causes the obesity. I don’t know, I really wonder sometimes if it is the obesity that causes the depression. It pulls you in and won’t let you out.

Well, I am free. I feel on top of the world. I have been working really hard to get the weight off and my weight loss has been slower then I would have hoped for. Today I thought, “Girl, you are in the zone! You really are. Because if you had not been, the lack of motivation from the scale would have been enough to make you quit.” Not now though. No matter what that stupid scale tries to say to me, I won’t listen! *hands over my ears, singing* LALALALA! I can’t hear you scale. You are wrong. My bra (hope I can say that here) is getting VERY loose, my wedding ring is not cutting off the circulation to my ring finger, and today, I think I saw an ankle bone. So, scale, YOU LOSE! I win! I stuck by myself even without your numbers of encouragement. I believed in myself and eventually you will have to give up a smaller number. If not, you will be destroyed. (Just a warning!)

The best sign of my success today though is that I feel alive! I feel in control! I feel like nothing can stop me now. I am in that beautiful place called the diet zone. I do not ever want to leave it again. It is a scary out of control place on the outside.

Viscous Circle

There has to be a way to motivate myself that does not involve self criticism, self loathing or self pity. People talk about their weight loss “click” the switch that occurs when they magically turn into a person who will be successful at weight loss. I haven’t heard a click in a while. There use to be a time when I would find this magic switch and be able to turn it. Lately though I seem to be suffocating in my own fat. It has become this endless day in day out struggle. At the beginning of each day I think I will do great and I will find my way to thinness. But somewhere during the day I start to feel the hopeless feeling that makes me feel like I can’t do it. I don’t give up. I choose to keep fighting this hopeless feeling. But, the feeling doesn’t go away. I sometimes wonder if all of the years of trying and failing have brought me to a point where I can’t believe that I am capable of succeeding. I hope if I just get a couple of good weeks under my belt I will start to believe again. I will have hope. But I have to find a way to keep working without giving up.

I can just here myself saying “Please, don’t give up. Please! Not this time. Please just do it. Just do WHATEVER it takes to lose this weight.” I hate living in my fat body. I really do. It feels horrible on me. I can feel the rolls everywhere. I can’t look in the mirror for very long because I see my face and think “Wow, that can’t be me. Who is that?” But it is me. I don’t want to look like that. I am tired all the time. I am sad. I miss out on so much in my life because I feel terrible I look terrible and I don’t want to be around people when I feel like this.

Every-time I think about my family photo albums the tears start to flow. If I died tomorrow my family would have very few photos of me. My daughter may never be able to look back and see photos of memories with her mother. She is too young to remember and we have no evidence of my existence in our albums. Every once in a while you will see my feet or hand or a arm. But I don’t exist in our family photos. The effect the fat has on me is far reaching. It is more than just a number on the scale. It is way more than that. It is life altering.

So... I have now established that fat is making me very unhappy. What am I going to do about it? What am I going to do for myself every day to keep myself focused. What am I going to do to stop comforting myself with food. I finally understand the vicious circle I have heard of and never really understood. I am in the middle of it now and fighting to get out. I am so depressed about my weight that I stay home and feel hopeless, I don’t take care of myself, I quit wearing makeup. I feel like the fat is causing my depression. I do not feel like depression is causing the fat. But being depressed leaves me wanting to comfort myself in some way. My old friend, food, seems always available to sooth and comfort. So, to lose weight and gain my self confidence and happiness back I need to eat less, to eat less I seem to need to feel good about life. I know, I know, it is mind over matter. It is about having self control. I have heard before, so many times, if you want it bad enough. OMG, I want it so bad. I really do. Wanting it is not enough. I cried again today. I am scared every day that I will never reach my goals that I will continue to start and stop and just keep getting fatter. I am sad every day that I will never find a way out of this fat.

So, here I sit begging myself again today. “Please, don’t quit yourself again. Please, love yourself. Please, get up and find a way to make yourself happy. JUST GET UP AND DO SOMETHING TO HELP YOURSELF. Please, don’t live like this anymore. You are the one in control here. Take control.Please, Sara. Please don’t do this to yourself. You are a good person. Please just do something really great for yourself. I will thank you for it later. There will be a big prize for you if you don’t give up today. ”

Well, that is the best pep talk I can give myself right now. I worked hard on it.

Making The Connection

What is different about this time compared to all of the other times? The times that I have started then quickly given up? Or the times I started, lost 40 pounds then gained it back? Or the times I have reached my goal weight and eventually regained it all? How can I make this time different? I know all about the making it a way of life thing. I tell myself all the time, “I am not on a diet, this is how I will live.” But it is not how I live. I struggle every day to make myself stay within the boundaries set to allow weight loss. I have to work hard to convince myself to exercise. Even something as simple as drinking water is a challenge. It is almost as if I want to fail. Really, if I wanted to lose weight bad enough wouldn’t I do it? If I know that I have to eat so many calories, exercise and drink water to lose weight then why don’t I do it?

I think part of the problem is that I want to lose weight more than anything. I really do want this. What I really need to want is to put in the effort in to lose the weight. Maybe I am focusing on the wrong thing. Maybe I need to stop thinking of the goal and start thinking of the process. Maybe I need to stop saying I want to lose weight and I need to start saying... “I really want to eat well, exercise and drink water today.” Maybe I need to wake up every day and say this to myself until I believe it. Possibly the connection between my long term goals and the journey to get there has not been made. Sometimes I think I only focus on my goal because thinking of where I am now makes me sad. But I can’t ignore where I am or what I have to go through to get where I want to be.