Good With Cheese

I finally (FINALLY) turned my scale over to my husband on Monday.  Actually, I stuck it in a pile of his laundry in the spare bedroom, shut the door, and ran away.  I asked him yesterday if he’d spotted it yet;  he assured me he had, and that it was already “taken care of.”  I hope that involved a baseball bat, Office Space-style.

I cooked a regular dinner last night, a recipe I’ve never made before that wasn’t out of one of my “healthy” cookbooks.  I ate as much as I wanted of it without trying to figure out what my portion should be, and even left some behind on my plate because I was full.  Well, left it behind for about 30 seconds before my husband grabbed it and ate it himself.

The focus for me is action right now.  If I can’t fix the thoughts about my body, then I can at least act like I like myself, in a way that is self-supporting and self-loving.  Maybe enough acts of self-care can start to shift my thinking?  Seems worth a shot.

So, regular non-diet-y meals.  Thoughtful exercise.  No scale.  Good lotion.  Plenty of rest.

Tonight is Halloween, and while we don’t do the trick-or-treating thing because Big Dog finds it DEEPLY DISTRESSING OHMYGOD BARK BARK BARK, my nephews and niece will be stopping by for costume show-offs.  That means I probably won’t have time for a workout, but I’m telling myself to relax and that it’s okay.  I need to see my four-year-old nephew dressed as a skeleton cowboy more than I need to work out.

All those months ago when I first started this, I kind of hoped I’d be a body-acceptance wunderkind and that things would just click and be effortless and easy.  But as good as I was a dieting, I’m every bit as horrible at this.  It’s all up and down and back-sliding and I get frustrated with myself because shouldn’t this be easy?  Shouldn’t it be easy when you know all the information and you know that your body is just trying to do all its body-things and that weight-loss machinations only jack things up?

It just goes so deep and digging out all that junk, all the million-and-one ways in which I am Not Good Enough, is so ridiculously hard and as-of-yet unending. 

But it’s still worth doing.  It’s still worth doing.

I went for a run through my neighborhood yesterday afternoon, at a fast-for-me pace.  I pushed and it felt good, the way my legs were stretching out to increase my speed, and the sun was shining on my face, and I thought, “My body can do this.  I can do this.“

I’m fit.  I’m healthy.  I’m just not skinny.

What’s there to hate?

Sunday afternoon was a Norman Rockwell kind of day.  It was sunny and mild, an autumn day you should spend picking apples or going for a bike ride down some winding, leaf-scattered lane.

I spent it slumped in the corner of my bathroom, sobbing.

What a waste. 

I felt it coming Friday, a fog of sadness and mournfulness rolling in.  I tried to ignore it.  Alas, I woke up Sunday morning quite certain that I was a most miserable excuse for a person, and that I was as ugly as homemade sin, and that such a worthless girl really should stop eating and maybe also go run 10 miles.

Where does that come from?  How can you be coasting along, mostly okay with yourself, mostly eating in a non-restricted manner, and then you tumble into a hole?

I’d say I have a fairly consistent 60/40 split happening in regards to my body right now.  Sixty percent of the time, I think I’m okay as I am; I don’t feel like my body is lumpy and shameful and I’m okay with being plain and unspectacular.

The other forty percent of the time, though.  Damn.  That’s the hard part.

I’m not a pretty girl, regardless of being fat, skinny, or otherwise.  The genetic lottery gave me all the odd parts of my lineage: crooked nose, uneven skin, sad eyes, elfin chin.  I am odd-looking, and I know it, but hey.  I can’t help my face, you know?  But at least when I was smaller, when my body was more socially acceptable, I felt like maybe I looked okay.

I sort of never feel like I look okay now.  It’s like being in 6th grade every day, the pervasive sense of self-consciousness and embarrassment.  I’m thinking of growing my hair out so I can hide behind it; my short hair shows too much.

Even losing weight won’t work for me anymore; my body is onto the game, so when I freak out and restrict, my weight no longer even shifts.  And I know that weight loss may make me feel more comfortable in the world, but it really only changes the words of the insults I use with myself.  It can’t stop them.

It doesn’t help that I’m wearing the same four pairs of pants over and over because shopping has been so incredibly unsuccessful lately.  Nothing fits right and seeing my thighs in the dressing room mirror typically makes me want to skip my next meal, so I’m shaky and uncertain about how to proceed.

So, I’ll just read my books and keep wearing the same pants and trust that the only way to get through is to go through.

But no more wasting pretty days crying in bathrooms.  I need deserve  sunshine.

I ate almost an entire candy bar last night. 

I can’t even remember the last time I ate a candy bar larger than one of those fun-sized ones.  It’s been years, that’s for sure.  But last night, my husband brought home a dark chocolate Snickers for me because earlier in the week, I’d first seen a commercial for them and actually made him stop talking so I could stare at it.

So, after dinner, I carefully cut the Snickers up into 8 little slices so I could share with my husband.  He had three pieces; I ate the rest.

Now, I know this seems like a pretty minor event.  But it broke about 98 different food rules I’ve had in the past and I’m somewhat giddy about that.

First, I never (NEVER NEVER NEVER) eat more of anything than my husband.  If we’re sharing something, I make sure he eats more than half.  It doesn’t matter how much I want; I’ve always eaten less because I didn’t want to seem piggy, as that’s a chief sin for fat girls.

Second, I don’t know how many calories are in a Snickers (because, again, it’s been years since I’ve eaten a whole one, long before I started dieting) so I couldn’t even accidentally calculate how many calories are in 5/8ths of one.  And I didn’t check the wrapper or get out a calculator to figure it out.  Sure, I could approximate, but to choose not to know exactly?  REVOLUTIONARY.

Third, I didn’t use the Snickers as a reason to eat with abandon (and with disregard for hunger) for the rest of the night because…I didn’t feel like I’d done something wrong.  Even though I’ve been doing the non-dieting thing for 6 months now, I still have little stabs of guilt about certain foods, still feel like certain things are “good” and “bad,” though I do actively try to talk through those feelings with myself.  But I didn’t have to last night; I ate my Snickers and went on with my evening feeling nothing other than, well, happiness.  Happiness because chocolate is good and sharing chocolate with someone you love is better and not beating yourself up about it is the best.

I’m doing better all the time, in little ways I don’t even recognize until I stop to think about them.  For example, yesterday I had a certain workout planned but didn’t want to do it, so I did an entirely different one and didn’t reschedule the missed workout for my rest day.  That’s huge.  And I cooked a big batch of Swedish meatball soup on Tuesday and had it for supper two nights in a row even though I don’t know the nutritional content of it.  I’ve been putting jam on my peanut butter-topped English muffin instead of sliced banana (the “healthier” choice) because right now I like jam more.  I’m seeing myself in the mirror and not immediately looking at my thighs or hips, but looking at my pointy little face or strong shoulders or flippy hair and smiling at what I see.

It’s just not about food or my weight or my body or how I measure up against Random Starlet in a magazine.  It’s about thinking I’m worth something regardless of any of that.

And I think I am.

So, I seem to have semi-abandoned the fromagerie here in the past couple of weeks.  I apologize for the sporadic posting, but honestly?  I haven’t had much to say.  Everything seems to be a variation on two themes:

Theme One: I like working out and eating intuitively!  Yay!

Theme Two: Why, why, why is working out and eating intuitively so hard?  Please feel sorry for me as I am far too woeful to adequately pity myself.

I’m kind of tired of both. 

I started this blog to create accountability for myself.  I’m a half-assed journaler when it comes to paper-and-pen, because I write too slowly and subsequently get bored and annoyed.  But typing?  Why, I can do that speedily!  So, this was to be a place to vent and whine and buoy myself up, and my attempt to end dieting would have gone down in serious flames by week six if I didn’t discover the amazing community of fat acceptance and body acceptance blogs and sites scattered across the internets.

I am a million miles away from where I started.  I know so much more now, and while I sometimes miss the simple hopefulness of dieting, I know that the reality of accepting my body as it is and living my life in celebration of what it can do and be, instead of waiting for it to become a different body, well… that’s joy.  Which kicks diet-related hopefulness’s ass any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

But I don’t have a lot to say about it right now.  I want it to be easier than it is, but it’s not.  And I suspect if I stopped paying so much attention, stopped taking my temperature every five minutes, it might become easier.

Basically, I’m trying not to think about my own body quite so much these days, except to notice its accomplishments and the smokin’ way it fills out a pair of jeans.  I’m mostly thinking about bodies in general, and the politics of bodies, and I’m attempting to get better informed so I can speak with some authority to the ever-growing ranks of dieters in my Real Life.

So, that’s what’s up.  I think “sporadic updating” may be the new normal for a while, though I will continue to lurk like crazy throughout the Fatosphere because I’m creepy like that.

Thank you for reading and for giving me countless pep talks and excellent advice.  You all rule.

I’m coming down with a cold.

Is it wrong that I secretly love being a little bit sick?  Not genuinely ill with the need for medical intervention, but a good case of the sniffles?  Love.  It.

I push myself slightly too hard in life.  I don’t give myself enough slack, enough relaxation, enough rest.  I do chores instead of playing with my dogs.  I clean the kitchen instead of sitting on the back porch letting the sun warm my face.  I always feel like I must be Doing Something.  Even while watching television, I’ll have a book or a Sudoku on my lap.  I manage my anxiety by not allowing room for it.

But a good cold?  It grants permission to let go.  A little cough, a runny nose, a nagging headache — I get an excuse.  I get to put on my oldest t-shirt and thick, fuzzy socks and my husband’s boxers.  I get to make a little bed on the couch; I drape a crisp sheet over the cushions and top it with a soft blanket and drag my pillow off the bed and I crawl in.  Little Dog curls up against my stomach and Big Dog comes by every hour to touch his nose to mine, making sure I’m still alive.

I get to sip gigner ale through a straw and snack on crackers with jam.  I sleep.  I watch TV until my eyes grow tired and then I sleep again.  I get forehead kisses and I use real Kleenex instead of blowing my nose with toilet tissue (a remnant of a frugal childhood). 

I don’t have to worry about chores or workouts.  I get to take a few days off and rest. 

I’m just going to be still.

And I’m probably contagious if anyone else needs a break, too.

Today is October 16.  It’s been six months since I started my No More Dieting adventure.  I promised by today I’d deal with the clothes that no longer fit and my unfortunate scale addiction.

The wrong-sized clothing:  I’ve packed up all the clothes in my closet, dresser, and storage containers that don’t fit me as of right now (or that fit me, but make me feel hideous or uncomfortable).  They’re waiting in the mudroom for my husband to take them to be donated.  Some it hurt to see go, because damn.  I really liked some of those pants.  But there is also peace.  I don’t have to think of my body as in transition.  My body just is the size it is right now.  If that changes in the future, I buy new clothes, but I don’t have to compare my body now with how it used to be.  Plus, yay for extra closet space!

The scale:  Yeahhhh.  About that.  I plan to ask my husband to tuck it away tonight, but I’m really struggling with giving it up.  I’m weighing almost every day, but the number doesn’t make me fell one way or another.  I take it as interesting information, as in, “Hey, look, the scale says I gained seven pounds since yesterday!  Ha ha ha!  That’s crazy!”  It makes me feel neither good nor bad; it’s just a number.

But I’m still hopping on there every day, and why?  If it’s not giving me information I need, then it’s just become a bad habit, and a potentially harmful one at that.  So, I recognize I need to take a break from it until the habit is broken, and I suspect the break may just become a way of life again.  I remember those first few months when I never, ever weighed — there was actual relief.  I want that again, that feeling of just living in my body without measuring it.

So, I’ll hand off the scale to the husband tonight, and I’m sure he’ll put it somewhere high that I can’t reach (one of the many advantages of being a foot shorter than one’s partner), and then I can start the next phase of No More Dieting in a positive way.

Here’s to another six months!

Saturday night, I channeled my inner Frat Boy and did an awful lot of drinkin’.  I also ate 97 different kinds of snacks; at one point, I believe I had a snickerdoodle in one hand and a tiny meatball on a toothpick in the other.  Yay for snacks!

Anyway, I woke up yesterday feeling like I was two sizes larger than my skin, and hot, hot, hot, as my body kicked things into high gear to metabolize all the various substances I’d poured into it. 

Normally, after a Big Night Out, I have day-after regret.  Not guilt about being “bad” or not dieting, but just wondering why I did something that left me feeling so icky, why I didn’t think ahead to how I’d feel the next morning.

I didn’t this time.  Not sure why, but mostly I think it was because I was too busy feeling…proud.  Why?  Because it was so apparent my body was working hard to address what I’d done, to achieve some kind of equilibrium again.  My body temperature was up, I couldn’t get enough water, and I was hungry for veggies and breads.  My body, in her wisdom, was trying to set things right again.  And I just kept thinking, “Body!  You are AWESOME!“

I focused on my demand-feeding and trusted that what my body was asking for was what I needed, and so a giant salad and homemade bread found their way onto my plate.  I wasn’t punitive about food, I didn’t try to “adjust” for the previous night’s consumption.  I just listened and ate.  Listened and ate.

Just taking the time to ask the questions again, to follow my appetite and my satiety levels, it makes me feel so much calmer.  I still too often equate “no food plan” with “out of control,” but then I return to the demand-feeding and it’s like everything just shifts back into place.  I feel more centered.  I feel kinder toward my (AWESOME) body.  I give my tummy loving pats and I smile at myself in the mirror.

I know that demand-feeding is the only thing that works for me, and although I occasionally slip away from it, it’s getting easier and easier to come back.

Progress.  That’s all I can ask for.

I haven’t tracked my food in three days.

I had planned an extra run Wednesday in addition to my “recovery” workout, but I cancelled it after reading your comments.   You guys rule. 

All your words gave me so much to think about.  I’ve been reading them over and over, amazed at how incredibly spot-on you all were.  Your experiences and insights are gifts to me, and I thank you for them.

Things are not easy yet, but I have hope.  I’m making an effort to put the bad habits away again (and honestly, the fact that my Spartan diet and exercise regime was no in way changing my weight?  Total blessing, because who knows how much harder this would be if that had happened), tuck them into the bags with all my old clothes that no longer fit, and hopefully haul them away.

I like the idea presented in the comments that perhaps I’m just experimenting, trying to figure out where I feel comfortable and where I tumble down the Crazy hole.

I feel comfortable working out really hard; I feel crazy when I blow off rest days.  I feel comfortable eating often and with lots of protein and veggies; I feel crazy when I pay attention to calories, portion sizes (measuring a tablespoon of fruit spread is incredibly depressing), and ratios.

That’s all good information to have.  I can work with that.

What’s happened is I’ve turned from my inside to the outside again.  I get nervous and scared about any number of things, and that makes me doubt myself, makes me suspect that I am a self-deluding lazy unlovable procrastinator who is a failure and also maybe smelly.  And in light of that, I stop listening to myself and start looking for external cues.

Yeah, that doesn’t work, does it?

I know that. 

So, back to Demand Feeding 101.  And while I’m going to continue with my workout plan, I’m going to, you know, follow it by taking the rest day.  It’s built in there for a reason, right?

Thank you all again for your smartness and niceness and general awesomeness; I am in your debt.

I’ve been lying to myself.  And sort of everyone else.

Man, I suck.

Here’s the thing.

I’ve been working out super-crazy-intensely hard these last three weeks.  I’m following a specific plan and it’s a minimum of an hour a day, six days a week, and I’ll be honest:  I haven’t been taking the prescribed rest day, and have been subbing in a run instead.

My legs feel like lead.  I’m sore all over.  Mostly I’m tired.  I don’t feel injured, but I’m teetering right there on the edge of overtraining. 

Through this all, I’ve been really “careful” about what I eat.  “Careful.”  What’s that even mean?  Well, to me, it’s a hyperawareness of the nutritional content of my food.  I’m making sure I’m eating enough,  but I’m implementing rules about protein and ratios and when I eat and all that jazz.  It seems kind of…diet-y.  My goal isn’t to lose weight (What is my goal?  Why am I doing ANY of this?), which is good because I’m totally not.  I’m okay with the number on the scale.  I only get annoyed when pants fit weirdly and I think, “DAMNITALLTOHELL.“

I wonder if my workout plan and my “careful” eating is a supersecret diet*, but one I’m not ready (Willing?  Able?) to give up.  I can’t tear up my checklist of workouts.  I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.  I feel like a petulant child about it all, but I’m so freaking sick of having to give things up that bring me small measures of comfort.  Even when the comfort kind of hurts.

It’s such a fucking choice, isn’t it?  You either feel the hurt and can’t do anything about it because the things you know how to do also kind of hurt, or you do those things anyway because it’s better than just sitting there not doing a damn thing and you just hurt yourself more, but at least you’re distracted and too tired to care.

I was driving to work this morning and all I wanted to do was pass my exit and drive until I ran out of gas and then crawl off into a field by the side of the road and sleep and cry and sleep some more, and then start over with a new life somewhere, maybe as a wisecracking truck stop waitress or a stocker at an all-night grocery in Wyoming.

Everything is too hard.  I’m not even myself anymore.  I don’t know what I am.

So I find motions to go through.  I follow plans.  I check boxes off and I believe that something life-changing will happen if I just get in better shape or eat more protein or run more miles.

It doesn’t, though.  It all stays the same. 

I’m so tired of things being the same.  I’m so tired of me, this fragile, broken-down shell of a girl who keeps lying and keeps hurting herself and doesn’t know how to fix things.

How do you fix things when you’re the problem?

*Again, though, not wanting to lose weight.  Possibly wanting to magically become tiny.  And maybe prettier and definitely with better clothes, nicer hair, and a clearer complexion.

TR has a post up about counting calories (well, specifically about not counting them) and it’s good stuff. One thing that particularly jumped out at me was a comment by Rachel of the brilliant The-F-Word; she discussed how difficult it was to change her mindset about what a calorie really is.

My little over-the-noggin light bulb lit right up.

That is still my single toughest struggle: how I think about the foods I consume.  I can tell you on any given day how many calories I’ve had to within a 100 or so, regardless of if I’ve measured or counted or whatever.  I just know.  Put me in front of a meal, give me 15 seconds to eyeball it, and I can give you an accurate estimate.  Quite the talent, but not really fun for parties, you know?

Most days, I eat the same breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and evening snack, so whether I want to know or now, I know how many calories I’ve had by dinnertime.  And are there nights when I’m tempted to pass on certain foods at dinner because I’m uncomfortably aware of the calories?  Oh, yeah, of course.  I try to push through it, but I’m not always successful.

I wish I didn’t know how many calories are in my food choices.  I wish my first impulse at the grocery store wasn’t to flip an item over and check out the calories per serving.  I wish I could drink a glass of orange juice without that little Dieter in my head talking about how I should just eat an orange instead because it’s 1/4 the calories plus has all that magical fiber that will fill me up for HOURS.

All calories are still not equal for me, and that trips me up on an almost-daily basis.  I still think of certain calories as being better than others, more nutritionally-dense and vitamin-chocked and therefore superior, instead of just thinking of calories as fuel for my body.  I’ll get energy out of whatever I consume — my body can run off orange juice or an orange.  Both actually work.  But my head still gets in the way.

I’m accepting that I’ll never be an ex-dieter; I’m always going to be recovering from dieting.  But I’m so grateful there are so many excellent resources out there reminding me of where I still need work.