IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

22 January 2003

Today's weigh-in: lost 2 lbs. Back on track at 76 lbs lost now.

Since my "vacation" in December, I've been struggling to get back with the program again. Win or lose matters not. What matters is how I feel and I'm discovering the psychology involved in all of this.

I'm pleased to see that I'm back on track again, pleased to see the numbers heading downward--very nice to have the weigh-er call out the loss in an excited tone (she never says a word when I gain).

But--you know?--this wasn't really a good week for me. For the most part, I stuck with the plan for most of the day, but something about coming home at night, knowing I have a night of work left after a day of work and I just would lose it. Oh, I wouldn't scarf down mountains of potato chips or dive into a bowl of cookies or anything like that. Fortunately, I cleaned out the coffers a week or so ago and so there is really very little which can be considered a "bad" food around here.

No, I would just overeat the good stuff. A couple of handfulls of dried cranberries (I'm addicted), a cup of fat-free chocolate pudding (which I bought to make a low-fat dessert when I took dinner to the heart patient recently), an extra apple. Things like that. All good food, basically (with the possible exception of the pudding--but I don't much like it, so I don't eat much of it). But the fact of being out of control changes how I feel about me.

In all honesty, there hasn't been that much of a change in actual weight, up or down. The clothes still all fit, some snugger, some looser, but I'm sure that the actual body appearance is exactly the same.

But there is a huge difference in how I feel inside when I know that I'm not in control. I feel fat, even if I'm 2 lbs lighter than I was yesterday. I don't see the same thin person in the mirror. I see the potential fat person again.

It's really pretty amazing.

Naturally, when you feel fat, you don't care how you look and it starts all those old tapes playing again. "I'm fat. I'm worthless. I might as well eat...."

Somehow in the middle of all of this "stinking thinking" (isn't that what they call it at Alcoholics Anonymous?), I managed to turn around the gain and begin to lose again. Gain 0.5 lbs last week, lost 2 lbs this week. I won't gain next week. That's a promise I'm making to myself (the upcoming Superbowl party notwithstanding!)

But how to get out of this mindset. How to get back to being the person I'd come to actually kinda like after all these months?

Well, Joan, who I've come to regard as the voice of my conscience, sitting on my shoulder prodding me to do good, do good, do good, suggested that since I am feeling overwhelmed with the messages on Pointers that we just share the same stuff between the two of us and another friend here in Davis. So we have our own mini support group of 3, which is decidedly more handle-able than the 100+ messages a day on Pointers.

Then this morning I did something I haven't done in literally months--I stayed for the WeightWatchers meeting. Someone told me recently "go to the meetings." But I was too good for that. I could do this on my own.

Bzzzt. Wrong.

I stayed for the meeting today. It was a topic I'd heard before, but you know what? I got strength from sitting there with all those people. Most of them are new from when I was last at a meeting. I enjoyed it.

A big incentive to keep coming back was hearing about the guy I'd sort of made friends with back when I was going every week. He'd lost a huge amount of weight and was feeling so good about himself. Today someone asked a friend of his where he was.

"He's gaining again," this guy said. "And he's ashamed to come back."

Those were really very good words for me to hear. Each week, the past month or so, I've struggled with whether to go to the meeting or not. Quite frankly, I expected to have gained again this week. I really didn't want to go. But I realized that I'm at such a danger point. I made myself go--and here I've lost.

What I got out of today was the realization that I'm not as "strong" as I've been telling myself I am. I need this community. I need the weekly weigh-ins. I need the infusion of inspiration each week. I may not like the saccharine atmosphere sometimes, but I need it.

Dr. G long ago arranged our schedule to allow me to attend meetings each week and I just haven't been doing it. But I'm going to take advantage of that accommodation he's made and begin being more faithful about meetings.

I'm also going to be more faithful about journaling. I'd gotten away from writing things down--our leader warned us how dangerous that could be if you are like me, and have real addiction problems with food (this may not be the case for everyone, but I am facing the fact that it is for me). With Joan's encouragement to share my daily food log with her and our other friend I will get back to writing things down and counting those points.

(And, of course, with a new Palm Pilot, journaling will be fun again!)