My life with Ed.

I have met the most amazing lady.  Her name is Lois.  And she introduced me to Ed.  He is not amazing.  He sucks to tell you the truth. 

Let's back up though. 

Little things have been leading me to face the fact that I am not only someone who eats a lot.  I binge.  More specifcally, I am a binge eater.  I have binge eating disorder.  And for the first time in my life I feel like there is hope for recovery. 

This looks different than losing weight.

This looks different than being strong.

This looks different than dieting.

This looks like recovery.

This looks like honesty with myself and others.

This looks scary.

This looks like hope.

This is the beginning of looking at my life with Ed.  With the help of Lois, my new counselor.

Daily me.

In an attempt to be more faithful and to celebrate the little things, here is a pic of me from yesterday.  Please excuse the messy bathroom.

I was headed to my daughter's school where she received an award for character. I have to remind myself often that even though I wish she weighed less that she is an amazing kid.  Even if she were to stay this way her whole life, my hope would be that she would love herself and not let her weight keep her from experiencing life (like her mom). 

I rarely dress in anything other than jeans and a top, but I also know that when I feel better about myself, my eating is not as destructive.  Likewise, the more my self-care goes downhill, so do my food choices.  So, I'm dedicated to making more of an effort and convincing myself that I am worth it.  Still in a fake it 'til you make it mode, but anything is progress. 

Where I am today.....

Where I am currently.  Truthfully, I am currently all over the board.  But kinda in a good way.  For the first time in my life, I am slowly working on taking a good long look at the "why" of my eating issues rather than just being worried about the number on the scale.

As a family, we are going through the Trim Kids eating plan again.  The weight started at 270.3 on January 2nd and is slowly, slowly heading downward.  The best news is that I am 6 days binge free.  But more than that, thanks to these things called blogs, for the first time ever, I am starting to feel not alone. 

I have been reading multiple posts written by binge eaters and have seen myself in their words so clearly.  I could have written these things.  That is my life.  There is more to it, but that is for another post and more thoughts. 

On a final note of my current state, I have attended a couple of Overeaters Anonymous meetings.  A good friend of mine has made amazing progress emotionally and physically in the last year and seeing the change in her, not in her weight, but in HER drew me to go and check it out.  I am currently keeping an open mind and still kind of in the checking it out phase. 

All I know is I can not live like this.  This can not be my life.  Period.

Screams in the Silence

That silence that has existed since I last blogged?  That's not silence at all.  It's screaming actually.  It's the sound of failure.  Not just falling off the wagon, but jumping off.  With both feet.

The last two months have looked like this: eat, eat, binge, binge, eat, eat, eat, binge, eat, binge. 

Like crazy amounts of eating.  I feel like I'm on a roller coaster that is spiraling out of control and I just want to grab onto something steady and it's not happening.  The ability to regain control is just out of grasp. 

But it needs to stop.  The scale said 261.9 this morning.  So instead of my Christmas present to myself being a weight in the 220's which I was well on the way to accomplishing, I'm committed to seeing 25-something on Christmas morning.  That will have to be success for now.

Grrr......

Trusting the plan....

This week has been sort of a strange one.  As the sidebar shows, my weight is continuing to decline. (Yippee!)  I am starting to really notice the change and others are starting to see it as well. 

But then came this week.  I weighed Saturday and was super excited.  Then, throughout the last few days, my weight had gone up about 2.5 pounds.  It threw me for a loop because honestly, I'm tracking every bite of food.  I rarely go over my daily points and have used few weekly points also.  My mind kind of started to freak out. 

My first instinct?  "Screw it.  I'm eating."  Thankfully, I didn't follow my first instinct.  Instead, I have repeated the mantra "Trust the plan.  Trust the plan."  to myself A LOT.  I was able to hold my self-destructive habits at bay and trust the fact that if my points were in line, that eventually the scale would right itself and everything would be fine. 

And wouldn't you know it?  This morning, my weight was back where I started at last Saturday.  So, while this probably won't be a stellar number weight loss for the week, I survived the chaos and did not binge or completely self-destruct.

I'm now 76 days binge-free!  100, here I come!!!

Progress, Round 2

250 lbs

 

 

Don't you just hate when....

You are making dinner and it turns out terribly.  Not because the food or recipe was bad but because everything that could go wrong went wrong while you were making it.  Yeah, that was tonight.

Our menu for the evening was Oven Baked Fish Sticks, Spaghetti Squash (with pancake syrup, butter, and cinnamon...yum!), and a fruit salad.  Well, I burnt the fish sticks because the squash wasn't cooking as fast as I thought so I ended up leaving the fish in too long.  After all that, I didn't cook the squash long enough so it was still crunchy.  And it's the end of the week and I was out of most fruit, so we ended up with applesauce.

The thing about eating on plan consistently is that there isn't a lot of extra food consumed.  So when I have a meal, I am seriously looking forward to it.  Tonight's dinner of burnt fish sticks and a container of applesauce was not exactly scrumptious. 

Oh well, life goes on.  I'll do better tomorrow. 

And, oh yeah, 61 days binge-free!!  I am rocking this thing!!