Masterclass in avoidance

(LighterLife Route to Management - Week11 Day7)

You know that Thought Record that’s been way overdue for weeks now? About the job choice and how that’s messing with my head? Well, I have successfully avoided it yet another night.

First, I went shopping. Easy peacy. Went everywhere. Considered SEVERAL pairs of shoes. Bought 2 jackets and a pair of jeans.

Then, I actually realised what I was doing, i.e. AVOIDING. So I decided I would go sit in a bar somewhere, order a drink and write the Thought Record until there was nothing else that could possibly come out of my head. Only I didn’t do that.

Instead, I took a bus home and on the way went shopping for food. I spent a good half hour at Tesco’s just browsing, considering this and that, putting stuff in my basket, moving on to next aisle, going back to the previous one and returning whatever it was. Unable to work out what I wanted to eat, but getting stuff anyway. Standing for ages in front of the wine shelf and finally picking a bottle. I carried home 3 bags of groceries.

Then I went home and I cooked. I chopped and I measured, I considered and I pondered over seasoning and sauce. And, logically following from that, I ATE, slowly and with a purpose. And I had a drink.

Then I decided to do my nails. First I took my time deciding whether to remove the existing nail polish or just paint over it with a stronger colour. That took a nice while combined with deciding which color to go with. Now my nails look very cool in ‘Black Cherries’.

Then I felt compulsed to check my emails, Facebook, Twitter, blog stats and my RSS feeds. That took a good while. I learned a lot about the lives of my friends and other people I tend to follow, and felt more up-to-date.

And now here I am, writing my blog. I’m SO CONSCIOUS that tomorrow I will get feedback from one of the potential employers, and yet I have no response prepared. I feel reckless and naughty.

THIS IS MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I am meant to start facing chocolate and other sweets tomorrow!!!!

Route to Management - Week 11

(LighterLife Route to Management - Week11 Day6)

It’s bread week and I haven’t mentioned bread. Curious, that. I’ve felt quite indifferent about bread.

Shopping for bread

I’ve spent a lot of time in various shops, staring at bread. Just staring. Really thinking about the options, trying to imagine the tastes, the textures, how I will feel about eating it. Then I’ve glanced at the next bread, and the same again. And I still haven’t quite worked out what I want. It’s felt strange - choosing food because I need to eat it rather than want to. So I ended up going from some wholewheat rolls to german style rye bread to crispbread to tortillas (in wraps for lunch) and to burger buns. I’d say that’s quite a decent variety. I got much further with bread variety than I did with CHEESE during Week 10!!

Physical reactions

At the start of Week 11 I felt extremely bloated and uncomfortable after eating some bread combined with my first few bottles of beer that I thought my stomach was about to stretch way beyond the loose skin that hangs about it. This seemed to really be a combination of bread and beer. I’m able to conclude this because I haven’t had any beer since and I’ve felt much more ‘normal’ even with some rather bloaty moments after too much rye bread in one go… Yes, the couple of wraps I’ve had have both given me a stomach ache. Now that could have been because of there was more oil/fat in the wraps than I’ve had in one go for about 5 months!! OR it could be the dressing which I’m not using otherwise, or it could have been the wheat in the wraps themselves. Somehow I tend to lean on the explanation around the high fat/oil content.

However, compared with the cheese week, which left me feeling lethargic and not much anything else, the bread has left me feeling a bit bloaty and a bit fatty, BUT at the same time a lot more satisfied!!!!! In any case, very different to what I expected. Hmm. So I binged one night on very high fibre rye bread, but in all honesty that was not the result of eating high fibre rye bread - it was a result of going too long between meals and having one too many glasses of wine. See, I’m getting annoyingly good at seeing the connection with things OTHER THAN FOOD!!!!!!!!!

Head stuff

Very heavy thinking going on this week, trying to make a job choice between money and stability. Money is - for the moment - winning. But I can’t be sure if it’s right. I’m swaying from one to another literally from one day to another, depending on which company I’m talking to, and it’s E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G. AND YET, I’m still in the mean-to-do-proper-Thought-Records mindstate which procrastination isn’t helping at all!!! I’m so due a HUGE Thought Record. SOON. But at the same time I’m recognising this is causing some of the eating/drinking behaviour, which is - again - a step forward. And I’m recognising that I REALLY NEED TO DO A THOUGHT RECORD. And I’m seeing myself doing anything and everything else in order to avoid it. And I’m beginning to be really intrigued about what it is that I’m trying to avoid thinking/realising….

Summing it up

What can I say about this week? It has been extraordinarily nerve-wrecking, just knowing that I’m approaching Week 12 and beyond. And just knowing I’m avoiding facing my feelings and thoughts is making me nervous, because one week ago I never thought I would last this long without a Thought Record!!!!!!!!

About bread: I think I’m fine having bread at lunch or even breakfast. In fact, I was quite happy with the extra FIBRE in my diet this week, especially since I didn’t really have ANY ‘mere’ white bread, unless you count one of the wraps which I think was pure wheat. It really made a difference to how my body was feeling and functioning. And I was feeling HEALTHIER than for a good while. But having bread for dinner didn’t really do much good - it was comforting, yes, but didn’t add to the experience, if you will. I’m still in favour of protein heavy dinners, they make me feel less heavy when I go to bed, and more energetic when I wake up.

Reading back on this it all sounds so, well, healthy. And rational. I don’t feel rational!!!!!!!!!! I still feel scared and uncertain and limited in terms of what I’m eating. And just NERVOUS. Also I have skipped an LL meeting which contributes to my lack of balance. It is such a big thing, the meetings. I just need to find my way through this job decision, which needs to happen within about a week anyway. Then I’ll be in a very different head space. Some days it’s ok, but other days I HATE that work is the most influential thing in my life!!!!!!

I’m more nervous about this job decision than I am about week 12 and chocolate…. SAD, isn’t it.

New behaviours

(LighterLife Route to Management - Week11 Day 4)

I’m noticing changes in the way I eat and drink. Not all of the time, but on the other hand I’m noticing changes in areas where I certainly wasn’t expecting any!

Keeping food in the fridge. I’m able to buy food, have some and leave the rest in the fridge without a burning need to polish it all off. Obviously this doesn’t apply to cheese, but it does apply to most things I buy these days. It still amazes me, having food in the fridge, like, all the time. It’s funny how I’m only now realising how I was never able to keep food in the fridge. I would mostly shop for whatever it was that I wanted to eat THERE AND THEN, proceed to load it to the fridge, then proceed to EAT IT, and then be left with an empty fridge again!! I’m quite proud of this change in behaviour.

Putting food on a plate before eating it. This is obviously a big one as well!! I don’t recall ever deciding to make a big effort to do this, but I’m actually finding myself plating my food sometimes even without tasting it at all, taking it from kitchen to the lounge and actually sitting down in front of it, napkin, utensils, glass of water and all, before starting on it.

Not finishing my drink. This I’ve mentioned before, and it’s been actually happening since alcohol came back during Week 5. It feels very powerful, oddly enough, not drinking every single bottle or glass bottoms up. This is occurring when my drink has gone a bit too lukewarm to drink, but also when other people are drinking faster than me and someone gets a new round in - I just push whatever I was drinking aside and take the new drink. And interestingly, I don’t feel guilty about it. I notice that I’m doing it. And that’s that. I don’t feel guilty about it, and I don’t feel I need to explain anything to anyone. No-one’s ever said or asked anything, so I’ve worked out no-one cares!!!! Similarly, I don’t care if other people are or aren’t finishing their drinks.

Then a curious one, again on drinking: I was in the pub one time and ordered a glass of red wine. The guy poured the last bits from a bottle which wasn’t quite enough to fill the glass. He was just about to go fetch another bottle when I heard myself say ‘Don’t worry about filling it all the way, I’ll take it as it is’. And I did. And I meant what I said!!!! I was rather amused by this, as the words just literally came out of my mouth without any hesitation. And it really didn’t bother me at all. WEIRD.

I wish I could bring some of the drinking behaviour into eating!! Especially the leaving food on a plate. I find that when eating out, I’m currently not actually leaving anything ‘behind’ but nearly always polishing off my plate. Very not good. I feel increasingly vulnerable again, with Route to Management soon ending and me not having taken enough ME TIME to work out what am I going to do during Day1 of The Rest Of My Life!!!!!!

It’s in the head, not in the fridge

(LighterLife Route to Management - Week11 Day1)

To me, the whole point of LighterLife is learning to deal with what life throws at you without resorting to food. This is done whilst losing weight quickly, easing back into eating normal food, and developing a personal arsenal of different life management tools. I think I often falsely say that it’s about learning to deal with food. But it’s not about food. It’s about dealing with life. Emotions, in particular, but LIFE, really, in general.

Following from that, what then are the right and wrong easier and more difficult ways of succeeding with LighterLife? I have given this some thought lately, once again frustrated over the fact that there are no ‘full stories’ available anywhere to learn from. Even this one, my story, isn’t currently a full one - it doesn’t even start from the beginning!! I occasionally wonder if it’s ok to ‘fill in’ afterwards? I suppose it is as long as I do it based on my little black book i.e. Thought Records and other diary type entries, and not just make it up or pad it with hindsight wisdom…

Anyway. The obvious thing is to immediately think that the easier way is to just stick to the program. And so the more difficult way - and not a little more uncertain in terms of success rate - is to flex it, it, or in the case of Route to Management, just make it up as you go. Well yes there is A LOT OF truth to that. BUT. I believe there’s more to it. I believe that the easier way is to primarily focus on why you’re eating, and the more difficult way is to purely focus on what you’re eating.

Don’t get me wrong on my use of words ‘easy’ and ‘difficult’. Going about this weight management and maintenance through dealing with the emotional and mental shit aka ‘issues’ that I have generated during the past 35 years of my life is extremely hard work. EXTREMELY!!!!!! In fact it is such hard work that if I thought all I needed to do to maintain my current normal weight is to focus on food, I’d be LAUGHING. But I don’t, so I’m not.

Of course I also focus on food. A LOT!!!! I plan what I eat, I look back on what I ate, and I find myself struggling with things like muesli and now cheese, and I find myself binging when I drink too much. Yet I still think it’s not about food.

It seems to me that most blogs about weight loss are born out of enthusiasm and excitement over the prospect of weight loss. And just before they become dead and static noice in the blogosphere (i.e. no longer updated), there is evidence in the entries about lapsing, slacking off, losing interest, etc. You know what I mean. And many of the reported failures seem to be about being too tired/angry/sad/happy to care, or being ‘unable to not give in’ to chocolate or cake or whatever. Reading between the lines, it’s about not being able or not wanting to deal with what’s going on in your head. Because when you do that, you make yourself vulnerable, and I suppose it is the humankind’s in-built function to avoid being vulnerable!

So I say the mind is the key. I can either learn how it works and be able to find other ways than food to deal with its reactions and demands, OR I can ignore it forever and be never able to work out why I still binge. I CHOOSE to work with it. And I would like to - one day - arrive at a place in my life where I don’t have to be so CONSCIOUS OF IT ALL OF THE TIME!!!!!!!

Route to Management - Week 10

(LighterLife Route to Management - Week10 Day6)

Foodwise, I didn’t like this week!!!!!!! I found it really hard to incorporate cheese into my life.

Eating out.

I found making ‘cheese choices’ easiest when I was eating out. It was easy to order pasta with parmesan cheese, or go with a cheese sauce on the chicken, or to order saag paneer (spinach with cheese), etc. etc. I didn’t have any cheese dessert because none of the places I went this week offerend a cheese plate, I wouldn’t have been able to eat the crackers because they belong to week 11, and cheesecake belongs to week 12 with the rest of the sweets!! But eating out, cheese seems not to be a problem. Apart from the fact that I did have stomach ache after the saag paneer but that was possibly because of the amount of OIL in the dish, not the cheese.

Eating in.

First outside the cheese department: I only had one binge and that was not cheese it was Weetabix. I had some bite-sized fruity ones (with RAISINS!!!!!) in the cupboard, only during porridge/muesli week didn’t realise it! Well no more of those.

CHEESEWISE: Apart from a feta salad - even though realised I didn’t really like the feta when I was actually eating it, but eating it all anyway! - I couldn’t work out how to ‘put some cheese’ into anything I prepared for work. I did buy a couple of packets of those ‘lunchbox cheeses’, i.e. 20-25 gram portions of several different cheeses, and thought I’d use them as part of my snacks, but they didn’t satisfy me - I didn’t feel any less hungry… In fact they were a letdown, I felt like I hadn’t eaten anything! Also after two snacking attempts I then just ate all the rest on one sitting. I didn’t even LIKE most of them, and it wasn’t actually THAT MUCH CHEESE even put together, and I was actually sitting down, consciously eating the cheese off a plate with knife and fork rather slowly and consciously. Which was ODD compared to what I think of binging, because the URGENCY WASN’T THERE. But I did eat them all. At the end I just felt FULL and a bit ICKY. But then I just proceeded to eat a lot less than I had originally planned during the rest of the day, and felt I was done with cheese. Of course the same happened then with the tub of shaved parmesan cheese which I proceeded to polish off with a salad. And it was nice!! but I couldn’t NOT have all of it - so a good thing it was an 80gram tub and not more! Also it was the only protein in the salad so again, calorie etc. wise it was fine. And I proceeded with the rest of the day as planned!

The learning from that was to definitely NOT to buy cheese, especially not mature cheddar, or parmesan, and foolishly think I will only have some of it… For now, at least.

Planning.

I kept forgetting to plan cheese into my days. I think I’m quite happy about the way I’m eating at the moment, and although I fully intend to work through these trigger weeks, it’s like I said earlier: I’m not that bothered about having ‘other things’ in my diet at the moment. Although now I’m beginning to think I probably should, in the spirit of learning to live with them!!!! But I’m starting to know whether it makes sense to have fish or chicken or both during a particular day, depending what I expect there to be going on during that day, i.e. if it’s going to be a really stressful and long work day, I will plan for lighter meals but with loads more snacks. And if it’s going to be an ‘easy’ day, I may plan for a very substantial lunch with less snacks and more time between eating. I can’t quite believe I just wrote that as if it was the most natural thing!!!

Grasping yet falling.

I’m also beginning to get a grasp of how much I need to and can eat during a regular day in order to not overdo it. Or underdo it, i.e. become too hungry. And I’m beginning to apply the knowledge. Just not all the time yet. It’s like the metaphor about falling down the same hole in the street, realising I’m doing it again, learning from it, but still occasionally going and falling right back in again… Or maybe I just feel a bit resentful of the trigger weeks because there does seem to be foods that trigger my binging. And I don’t like it!! I’m trying to be an adult about it, but still I don’t like it. It’s UNCOMFORTABLE. And of course that’s the whole point of it!!!!

Feeling.

I need to feel more and I need to sleep more. In whichever order, but I NEED BOTH. I’ve been really busy this week, workwise, and therefore really tired, but also stressed which always means tossing & turning. I haven’t done a Thought Record for ages (well feels like ages, and you can tell by the way my thoughts aren’t very organised in this post!!!!!!!) and there’s all sorts going on related to future work and the flat (back on sale!) and stuff that I should be dealing with, and I’m not doing that very efficiently or effectively. I believe that’s partly why the dealing with the triggers has been so frantic and has led to some overeating and some binging. I’m trying hard to not punish myself for it. I’m trying hard to get my head ready for a Thought Record. I’m ALMOST there.

Summing it up.

Well it hasn’t been as chaotic as week 8 seems now - THANK GOD - and I haven’t been as reflective as during week9. It’s been ok. Even though I ate all the cheese, I didn’t have any crazy binges with it (just the Weetabix which I should have seen coming). So I’ve survived cheese!!!!! But you know what. I ALSO drank less alcohol this week!!! The evidence piles up…

At the moment I can’t WAIT to get these trigger weeks over with!!!!!!! I know I said I was looking forward to them, but the fact that I’m finding I do have food triggers as well as emotional triggers, is really quite hard to deal with!!

The thought that keeps me sane and helps get through the bad bits is When Route to Management is over, I will choose which triggers to have in my life. Yes IT’S A VERY SCARY THOUGHT, but at the same time I find it very comforting. I feel that I will be getting the choice back. Of course I am currently choosing to follow Route to Management, so it’s a bit strange the way I’m thinking about it. But right now I’m really looking forward to the time when all my choices will be my own.