Just an Idiot

Well, I lost 5 pounds and immediately stopped journaling my food or watching portion sizes. I wish I knew what was wrong with me. Part of me just doesn't care anymore. To hell with trying to lose weight. It's too bloody hard. Another part of me says, "Never give up! Never surrender!" It says, "I want to walk, swim, shop." I have a doctor appointment today and a therapy appointment tomorrow. I hope that something will kick in and I can get back on the wagon.

I don't deal well with emotions or stress. I immediately want to eat to make it "all go away." Therapy says you need to "stay with" your emotions. That you are eating to suppress them and suppressing isn't good. Well, they are too bloody intense. So I try to find (healthier) activities to do instead. And they work. But then I hear that "you have to stay with your emotions" again. So I'm locked in this battle of not being able to handle those intense emotions yet not feeling like I can do anything about them because that would be "suppressing."

Weigh In 051508 630

Lost five and am down to 630. Did it mostly by writing all my food down in my journal every day.

Just Therapy

There's an article on CNN that talks about how blogging can be therapy. And really, that is what this blog is about. Many how-to articles on blogs tell you to keep your scope narrow. Pick a topic for your blog and stick to it. Well, that's not what I will be doing here. I've procrastinated far too long in starting a blog because I wanted to do it "right" and I couldn't figure out a way to keep on topic yet be able to post about the myriad of thoughts racing through my brain.

So, I've decided that the topic for this blog is "a super-super obese woman trying to lose just 5 pounds and everything she thinks about." That is, the topic is the who rather than the what.

Getting back to the article - this blog is really therapy for me. First, to express my emotions and thoughts. Second, as something to do rather than eat. There will be posts about everything from journal exercises, daily living with an eating disorder, book and movie reviews, stray thoughts, dealing with depression and anxiety, daily living as a super-super obese person, inspirational pieces, whatever comes to mind on that day.

If that isn't good enough for you, you can bite the big, white moon-shaped part of me that jiggles as I walk.

Just a Little Stress

The older I get, the worse the anxiety gets and it is getting farther out of proportion to the amount of stress I'm actually under. Two busy days at work have me going into full-fledged panic attacks at the slightest things. Hubby mildly snapped at me this morning and you would think I was being mugged at gun point. I was trembling, in near tears and could barely talk or breathe. At least I was able to tell him that I knew it was out of proportion so he didn't feel badly.

It might also be due to me really concentrating on getting my protein and grain exchanges down. They need to be under 22 total and I didn't do so well over the weekend. I had 22 both days. However, I got it down to 14 yesterday and I'm on track for today. Food has been my tranquilizer. It's no wonder, I suppose, that major anxiety has set in.

Just a Friend

I had a long and emotional phone call with my mother. We talk about once a week but we tend to stay on the surface - how our day has been, work, movies, etc. So it was draining. What it came down to was that she knows that my brother and I love her, we just don't like her very much. Honestly, she's a tough broad and yes, hard to like.

During late night replays of the conversation, I realized that it is because we know that she loves us - but doesn't like us very much. She's pretty negative about my brother - how he is being a jerk or not doing this right or not doing something he should be - so I can just imagine she's saying the same type of things to him about me. There's often disapproval in her voice when she talks to me and when conversations aren't about her, she begins to multi-task or just gets distracted in her own head. She doesn't listen very well.

With all that said, I also love her very much. She's taught me so many things: to never give up, how to make a guest feel welcome, to laugh, to laugh at *myself*, that you can handle anything life throws at you - one step at a time, to never take no for an answer when someone you care about is in need, to be engaged in your health care, to stop drinking caffeine, to get light in your house anyway you can, to get sunshine on your face whenever you can for at least 20 minutes a day, if you want to remember something - write it down, and to never play Scrabble with her because she will tromp your ass.

When she said that perhaps instead of being mother and daughter, we could just be friends, it was like a light went off in my head. I can deal with her much better if she is "just" my friend. There isn't as much past baggage. I don't have to try to please or placate her. And I can certainly open my mouth a lot more. Until this point, if I didn't agree with her, I'd just shut my mouth. With friends, I don't do that. I think I'm going to like this and it will help reduce my "existential angst."

Just 5 pounds

I weigh 635 pounds as of May 1, 2008. I've been to a binge eating program, an eating disorder clinic and am currently seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. The best I've done in the last two years is maintain my weight. While this is better than my normal twenty or so pounds put on per year, I haven't actually lost weight. I don't know how or if I can do it. It has been proven that less than 10% of morbidly obese people are able to take the weight off and keep it off. The only way I can accomplish this is to concentrate on losing just five pounds. That is something I *know* I can do. Thinking beyond that makes me feel helpless and hopeless.