Life Goes On Around Me

It's 12:14 AM. My son and his girlfriend are baking a cake in the kitchen. I can smell it now. Time to go to bed and apply the Vicks under my nose!

Honesty

It's time for me to bring this to the light. I've been experiencing eating binges at night for several nights in a row. Not a good thing and I don't want to "cover it up" any longer.

WHY I've had the restless sensations and tried to eat them away is a mystery to me right now. I intend to take time to journal my thoughts and emotions over the last few days (if I can remember them all : )

I refuse to drop off this journey I've been on. I am reminded that this is not a sprint, it's a marathon. There will be days like this ... I shouldn't be surprised. And I will not allow myself to feel ashamed.

It is not really about the food. It is more about my thoughts and ignoring my emotions. Ugh ... funny, how thoughts and emotions can present more of an obstacle to me than the actual food. I never would have believed it.

Winners and Losers

Next short term goal ... to pass the 30 pounds lost mark. Weight Watchers awards a blue ribbon for each 10 pounds members lose. I expect to have more than 10 before I'm through.

When I was a kid I was not athletically inclined. I don't have a collection of ribbons from various sports I participated in. I can remember how devastating it was for me when our junior high PE classes competed in track and field events. The worst one had to be the long distance run. It was bad enough that I would come in last but all the kids would be standing along the final stretch and they would call out very cruel remarks as I huffed and puffed along. Even my PE teacher was not an encourager to me. She didn't pull for the underdog ... kids like me.

Not so in Weight Watchers! You are NOT in competition with ANYONE else. You are NOT shamed or ridiculed, ever! Each week I am greeted with smiles, encouraging and compassionate remarks.

Whoever came up with the little chant "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" must have been born with natural athletic abilities or a hyper metabolism (one who could eat whatever they wanted and not gain excess weight).

Hmmmm ... didn't even know that all that was pushed down deep inside me.

I'm a firm believer in journaling.

To Him Be The Glory !

It was weigh in time tonight ... so excited to have hit my goal ! I received my key chain from Weight Watchers for losing 10% of my weight! Very cool to be to the point where reaching a goal is more important to me than eating any old thing that I get a hankering for.

It's not by any of my efforts. It's all G-d and His marvelous work IN me : ) I'm being remodeled from the inside out!

Mind Your Thoughts

Disappointed ... that's how I felt on Monday. I had started out the week before with the hope that I would lose one pound and achieve the goal of having lost 10 percent of my starting weight. After this weekend I assumed I had not done it.

I was disappointed in myself. Disappointment, left unattended, drops into depression. Depression is where I lose hope. I think that I CAN'T continue on this path, that I will NEVER lose the weight, that I will NEVER change, that I am a failure, that there is NO HOPE.

One small phrase, spoken unknowingly ... turned my thinking around. I was talking to my brother on Monday. I told him that I was disappointed with myself and he said, "Well, I'M NOT disappointed in you." Then went on to say that he knew how hard it is to lose weight. He reminded me that he is also watching his weight. He has his struggles too. He encouraged me that we all have times where we are going to "just need to eat" and that it's OK. We can do it and not beat ourselves up about it.

He ate pizza, wings, apple pie and ice cream the day before for his birthday. He said that he wanted to and did.

My thought patterns are a HUGE piece of this journey toward good health. As I am learning to choose what I put into my mouth, I must also choose what thoughts I allow to stay in my head.

Back Tracking Observations

This is why I value journaling ... remembering and listing all that I experienced this weekend revealed that I was very distracted! It wasn't just one circumstance or one event, it was several. No wonder I felt lost.

Observations:

• I jump to "worst case scenario" instead of choosing to think positively
• My anxious thoughts cause myself unrest and a loss of my serenity
• As soon as I feel something strongly (no matter what the emotion) I want to stop right there and journal about it. I want to look at it from all angles and see if I am having thinking errors. For instance, I assumed that my brother was "missing" for a bad reason. I still don't know where he was or why he didn't come to take my parents to the airport. That is his personal business, but I am now aware of how I immediately jump to the worse thoughts.
  
• When I was anxious, (and as I let them grow unattended) I lost my focus and I ate to comfort myself.
• I was feeling depressed over disappointing myself (concerning the unfocused eating).
  
• I also told myself that I should have gone to the 90th birthday party (and let myself dwell in those thoughts) when the truth was that I could not afford to go. That is the reason I did not go. My financial situation had not changed no matter who all of my relatives went. I don't love my grandmother less because I didn't go.
  

Back Tracking

Just coming out of several days of being lost ... lost where, I don't know ...

It's important for me to try to figure out why or where I lost my focus. Let's backtrack

• I got a text from one of our adult children who wanted to meet with hubby and I. The topic would be the sharing of their inner feelings about our relationship.
• I was not able to attend my grandmother's 90th birthday party out of state, due to a lack of finances. I thought I had accepted the fact that I would miss it, but THIS was the weekend of the party and I discovered more and more of my relatives made the trek out east and I succumbed to sadness that I wasn't there too.
  
• My brother was not home to take my parents to the airport, so I took them (which was not a problem) but no one knew where he was and they were very surprised that he was "gone." They had expected him to take them.
  
• Since my brother was not at home, I was asked to care for the plants and pick up the mail
  (again, not a problem) except that I was doing it because no one knew where my brother was and why he was "missing."
  
• I received twelve consecutive calls from the medical center where my family receives our health care, one evening. The medical center is also a hospital, trauma and ER center. We were not at home and a message was not left. I called all of my adult children that live in our area, to make sure that they and their children were OK.
  
• I wondered if it could be a medical emergency concerning my brother. I called the switchboard. He was not a patient on the admission list. I was transferred to the ER. I was told that no patient in there had made multiple calls and they were not calling to try to reach a family member.
  
• The next day, the same thing happened. Twelve consecutive calls came in. I got home minutes after the last call came. I sat and waited to see if another call would come. It did. It was an automated call reminding me of an upcoming appointment! My husband said I should be much relieved now, but I wasn't. I was glad to know no one was having an emergency but I had already exerted so much concern over the "possibilities" that I did not immediately feel relief.
• I did not go to water plants and pick up the mail on Saturday and felt guilty about it. On Sunday, I was determined to go. That afternoon, before I left home, my husband told me to call and just see if my brother happened to be there. I did, and he was. I had the same reaction as I had with the phone calls. I was glad that he was alive and well, but I did not have immediate relief, even though he said he had watered the plants yesterday and had gotten the mail.
  
• I was very surprised to find out that two of my cousins surprised everyone and flew out for my grandmother's birthday party. That made me even sadder that I hadn't gone.