Seeking Sanity

Practicing Insanity

The definition of insanity

Most likely you have heard before that the definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing over and over, while thinking that this time, you'll get different results.

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Well, during the last two weeks I've started getting the feeling that hopping right back on the calorie counting wagon would be literally practicing insanity. I mean, I have tried it over and over again, and each time, eventually I burn out.  I get tired of measuring, counting, logging, every single thing I eat.  Sometimes I've managed to hold out over a year, other times a few months, and sometimes I've not even made it a week before giving up.  So I really was not surprised at all when I started to lapse on my calorie log here and there, to "just have that now, and I'll log it later",  only to find that in a short time I've had so many little somethings that I can't possibly remember everything in order to log it.

Sometimes, I would do the best I could to recreate the log after the fact, other times I would fall into my "all or nothing" mindset and figure since I'd blown it I might as well eat all I wanted and restart tomorrow.

Now, don't get me wrong, the past two weeks haven't been disastrous, diet-wise.  I've actually done pretty well, there was a slight rebound of weight before I even started to struggle, and after that it basically leveled off.  That is normal when someone loses a whole bunch in the first couple of weeks of a diet, the weight often rebounds back a few pounds in week two, three, or four.  Today I weighed in at 271, which is 2.8 pounds less than I was two weeks ago, the last time I reported my weight. It also puts me 20 pounds less than my highest weight, and over 15 pounds lost in 2018.  However, even though I haven't done too badly, I see myself heading in that direction with my behaviors and mindset, and it concerns me.

Obsessing over food

In addition to struggling to count and log, I also notice that if I have a day when I perhaps eat more than I usually do at lunch, I spend the rest of my day obsessing.  Worrying that I'll go over or that I'll spend the evening hungry and not allowed to eat anything.  All of this obsessing does me no good, if anything obsessively thinking about food just makes me want to EAT ALL THE FOOD!

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Clker-Free-Vector-Images
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This has made me think that surely, there must be a better approach, some way to learn to just eat normally.  A way that if I have a large lunch one day, I can still eat a normal dinner if I'm hungry again later without feeling like I've blown it.

Previous reaches for sanity

Of course this isn't the first time I've tried to find a more natural, normal, sane way of eating. I've tried Weigh Down Workshop, a program that teaches you to listen to your body, and never to eat even one bite if you aren't feeling clear signals of physical hunger coming from your body, and to stop eating the moment your body is satisfied enough to stop sending those signals.  That program worked somewhat, but didn't allow for any kind of tracking and even discourages you from refraining to eat something you want because its high in fat or sugar.  The attitude is very much that if you are physically hungry, you should always satisfy that hunger with whatever you are craving and not really give any thought to the nutrient content of the food.  That program was also a little inflexible about ever eating when you are not hungry, and there are times when you need to. For example, if you start work at 8:00 in the morning, and don't get a chance for lunch break until 1:00, and you know you are going to be ravenous by 1:00, I think its acceptable to eat breakfast before work, even if your stomach is not growling with hunger.  There were other things about that program that were of concern to me, but suffice it to say it just wasn't a great fit for me.

I've also tried go the route of reducing carbs, but being allowed to eat whenever I wanted as long as it wasn't high in carbohydrates, this worked pretty good for a while, but eventually I craved carbohydrates, I wanted to eat a darn orange or a peace of bread!

I also tried veganism, I didn't lose any weight.  There are lots of fattening vegan foods, even Twinkies are vegan. 

I've tried to out-exercise my appetite, that actually worked as long as I could carve out 1 1/2 to 2 hours for intense exercise every single day, but how sustainable is that plan? Not sustainable at all really.

In addition to these, I've tried South Beach diet (most successful diet I was ever on, but I didn't sustain the loss on that one either), and Medifast, the diet that made me want someone to shoot me so I wouldn't have to eat another freeze dried "meal".

What I need

All of this got me to thinking, I need a program that teaches me how to eat normally, but that doesn't expect me to already know how. I know I'm a compulsive over eater, who eats for all kinds of reasons besides physical hunger.  Trying to just eat healthier, or just to stop when I'm satisfied, doesn't work for me right now.  I want to learn how, but I can't go from completely disordered eating to intuitive healthy eating in one giant leap, I need structured steps to get me there.

So I started researching for some plan that provided those steps, with enough structure so that I might actually lose weight.

As I researched, I told myself that whatever I found had to be something I could keep doing all my life if I wanted the weight loss to be permanent, I decided that I shouldn't do anything to lose the weight that I can't feasibly see myself keeping up for the rest of life.

What I found

What I found was Weight Watchers.  There is enough structure in the points system to keep me from sitting down and eating half a pizza, but enough freedom to go ahead and have a couple of slices once in a while.

There are enough zero point foods, that if I do eat a little more at one meal, I can still have something to eat later, so I don't have to obsess over not being able to have dinner, and I really have no justification in thinking I might as well just give up and start again tomorrow.  I can just finish out the day on zero point foods, such as skinless chicken breast, any vegetables I want, and some fruit, and the next day my points renew again.  I also have a bank of "weekly" points that are optional, to be used if need them. So really, I should never really have to feel like I've messed up so bad I might as well throw in the towel.

However, these zero points foods are not really "free foods", we are encouraged to be mindful of how much we are consuming, and to stop and check our hunger signals every now and then.  To ask ourselves, "Do I need more, or do I just want it because I can have it?" The theory is that no one is going to sit and eat 18 oz of chicken breast, it is so filling, that even a compulsive over eater will probably turn away.  The same goes for the other zero point foods, they are "low risk" foods, not what people tend to binge on. Even if a person was to sit down and eat 18 oz of baked chicken breast, they are going to feel so full with all that protein, that it isn't likely they'll turn and eat something else afterward, and that 18 oz of chicken is 504 calories, not a lot when you think of how long you'd be full afterward.

The "higher risk" foods all have point values that need to be tracked and counted, but if you go a little over you have a bank of optional points to draw from.

The focus is all about mindset thinking about food differently, but with enough structure given to act as "training wheels" while you are learning. It gives enough freedom to actually learn, but not enough to easily crash. Basically, it gives you the support and helping hand you need to make it.

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I'm pretty sure its just what I need.  So a couple of days ago I signed up, and tonight was my first meeting. 

Not just about food though

I know I have a lot of work to do to learn how to eat normally. I know I'll need to really deal with the emotional reasons I eat.  I may need to seek treatment for my PTSD.  I know that being sexually abused by one person before I was old enough to go to kindergarten, and then continually abused for many years thereafter by another, and finally being raped at 14 by another has a lot to do with why I developed this unhealthy coping mechanism.  The experience having a flashback to being that preschool child begging to be allowed to get dressed, of feeling all those same feelings... that is quite often the thing that precipitates an eating binge.  I'll eat and eat until I'm numb and the feelings are deadened.  I know that I'll need to deal with all of this if I want to really succeed, but I think that Weight Watchers is going to help me on the physical side while I am healing on the mental, emotional, and spiritual level,



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Thinking about Labels

Labels, Not Only Used On Products

I've been thinking about labels today. Not the labels you see in stores, not the ones you look at to determine the nutrient content of your food.  No, I'm talking about a different kind of label, the kind that gets used on people. 

People bear labels too.

We all have bore various labels in our lifetime.  Some, we probably didn't mind, some we probably hated, and some may not have brought about any emotional response at all, but just seemed like a statement of fact.  Some of the following labels might be familiar to you; smart, funny, pretty, ugly, fat, healthy, skinny, stupid, sickly, gifted, challenged, disabled, dyslexic, autistic, disturbed, talented, musical, creative... the list could go on of course.

Labels I've had.

I've had many labels in my lifetime.  I remember one teacher who labeled me slow, and requested that I be sent for testing, the testing gave me a new label of gifted. Kids labeled me as weird.  Psychiatrists labeled me as troubled. At least one school developmental psychiatrist thought I had some form of autism spectrum disorder, though further evaluation never happened, let alone any kind of treatment. 

Later in life I had a psychologist or psychiatrist label me with social anxiety, low self esteem, and, after more sessions, with PTSD.  

The label I didn't believe.

Most of the labels I've been given by "experts" I've pretty much accepted. When a person tells you you have social anxiety and you know that it is true, why argue the point?  Or when someone tells you that you might have some form of high functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome, and it makes sense to you because you've always felt different, its easy to accept.  And when a teacher says you're gifted, but that you learn differently than most, its so much better than being called stupid that you just accept what they say.

However, the PTSD label I didn't believe at the time it was given to me.  That is because in my mind I saw PTSD as a crazed soldier who still thinks he is the middle of battle years later, in spite of the fact that all around him is ample evidence that he is home.  That really was all I knew about PTSD, the most extreme example of a flashback, complete with a total loss of any grip on reality.  I'm pretty sure TV was to blame for my impression of it.  Anyway, since I'd never been to war, and didn't experience flashbacks of that magnitude, I really didn't give much credit to the idea that I might actually be suffering from it.

Realization

In recent years though I've become much more accepting of the idea that this doctor I saw years ago was right.  In fact I now feel that I know he was.

This realization, or acceptance came primarily through learning more about the disorder itself.  Perhaps this learning took place just because I'm older, or perhaps because recent wars have caused many to become more aware of  PTSD, or perhaps its both of those, plus undergoing quite a bit of healing myself, that I'm now able to look back and see clearly how I suffered from this condition in the past. 

That's not to say I am "all better" or no longer have it.  I'm pretty sure some elements of it will be with me all my life, but I've learned to cope with it better, part of that healing came through talking about the traumatic events I endured as a child and teen, part of that healing has been through learning how to not dwell on events I can't change, part of its been through forgiving those who wronged me, and a large part of it was the divine work of God, that I can't really explain.

I don't want to get into the trauma in this post, I will say that some of the worse events happened to me when I was very young, before first grade, and that I used to flash back to those events in a way. Not that I was unaware of my actual surroundings or believed the events to be happening again, but just that in my mind they would play out in vivid detail, and I would once again feel all shame, hurt, self-loathing, and defilement... just as if the things were happening in the present.  For the most part now, that doesn't happen, I mean it still can if I let it, but I've learned how to stop reliving it.  I've learned how to reconnect with the present and turn my thoughts towards things that are true now.

I'm not really sure why I am writing this today, except perhaps that I let my guard down today and started to relive all of those feelings again, and then I realized what was happening and put a stop to it. 

Living up to the labels

I realize that a lot of my past self destructive behavior was an attempt to at times numb these feelings, and at other times to make the way the way this made me feel about myself make sense.  What I mean by that is this, the trauma left me feeling defiled, unworthy, ashamed, and unloveable, and I see now that a lot of my past self-destructive behavior amounted to making those things "true" about me.  As if I was subconsciously saying, "Well, I feel defiled and unworthy, so I might as well deserve those feelings.  I feel ashamed, so I might as well do things worth being ashamed of, I feel unloveable, so I might as well push all love far away from me.

This resulted in a lot of behaviors over the years, in my teen years it was shown through drug and alcohol abuse and promiscuity, as a young adult through sabotaging relationships before they could really start, and later through being overly conservative, restrained, and traditional, almost to point of legalism, through most of my adult years I also sought to literally stuff my feelings down with food, and insulate myself through a layer of fat.

Getting past the labels.

So yes, many labels can describe me, but I am coming to understand that none of them should or can define me. There is so much more to me and to what God wants for me than what any label can define. 

Today's Stats

Weight: 279.6

Morning Blood Pressure: 164/103

Morning Heart Rate: 73 bpm

Exercise: Walked about 1.3 miles, 35 minutes.

The rest of stats won't be determined for a while, I'll be babysitting my grandkids until close to midnight, and I want to publish this before then, so won't be listing  my total calories and all that today.  However, I am tracking on MFP, and I will include all of the days stats in my weekly summary post.

All images and photos used  above in this post are free images courtesy of pixabay.com

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