Giant Footsteps to Ballot Box

 

Voting is a privileged right but only if you defend it by voting tomorrow. Many of us think midterm elections don't mean much. But I'm here to tell you they mean a lot and now more than ever. President Obama needs to finish his term with a successful plate of goals gained. Democrats must hang on to their seats as well as add more seats to keep GOPs from slowing down or thwarting progress.

Obama needs a Congress to define, discuss and decide what’s best for the people and not to lose accomplishments already in place -- health insurance, women’s rights, and much more. Every vote counts and the president invites Republicans to join forces and vote for Democrats as switching party Americans sweeping out the GOP contender.

            Democratic leaders and their campaign workers pulled and tugged from every corner of contenders. They joined forces with Democratic supporters of Organizing for America and over citizens who’ll vote today to change the face of Congress and politicians in the nation’s cities and states. What’s left is to match diligence and to snap diligence crisp as lettuce with footsteps to ramp up winners.

Every Democratic seated is a one-up for saving presidential policy and slam dunking goals for Americans of all race, religion, creed, color, national origin -- rich or poor,  liberal, conservative, gay, lesbian or transgender. Democrats worry that the GOP would overturn hard-fought political gains during Obama’s six years in office, and that they would strive to block or to close doors on every new bill and to stymie work for middle class, an effort that would benefit everyone.

You, dear voter, has the next two years in your sight without myopia. All you have to do is vote in droves if you haven’t voted early. This election matters with extraordinarily high earmarks even though no presidential candidate is on the ballot. (Of course, it’s your right to choose your voting preference but it’s your responsibility to pick someone who’ll work for everyone, not just the privileged few)

Protect America’s future for ordinary citizens whose voice boomerangs from the ballot box. Some might say sleeping political foes lay schematics for daylight battles with the president and Democrats – all against ordinary Americans who pay their salary and health insurance.

Here’s a poem crafted from the past two years in extended gridlock in Washington and spiteful politics without focus on who gets trampled on during a clear day, too.

  Unhidden Agenda

You sit on your backside hatching

political plots with sparks of flame

As steam rises from your sanctuary,

little devils burst forth to keep

you on track while verbal paws push Prez’s

train off track.

 

Political vendetta, spite, or hatred?

Against women?

Holding binders of women to pick for leadership?

Or to bury breakout equality health care laws -- mo’ value for women & children?

 

Antics rival Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters’ --

Against working mothers & minimum wage workers:

Women’s rights packed in a U haul to grave yards

for burial deeper than the height of roof-top skylights shooting for stratospheric imprint

while politicians trample women’s rights & bury ordinary citizens in mudslides

Some elected waffle, twaddle, & filibuster over what matters to Americans’ needs & values  

 

Not a scintilla of change in hearts;

Out of Order to speak for women of color, about contraceptives, about other unsanctified advice.

No to refills or to new seats filled for the contentious with air-filled footballs    

.

 

 

Mood Eating Never Sleeps -- Unless

JOURNAL BLOG CONTINUED

March 1: My psych adjusted my medication today in attempt to rescue me from the dungeon again. I’m struggling with this new eating lifestyle and craving sugary stuff something fierce. When I’m emotionally out of balance, the problem worsens. Therefore, it is imperative that my emotions are in check. Depression is a bitch, and I asked him why some people have it and others don’t. The answer is simple: No one knows. That’s probably the same reason they don’t have a definitive cure. There are people who say what you eat affects your mood. I don’t know about that. Everybody’s body is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. I know this to be true: The mental self affects what one eats. Studies have documented it. I mentioned this earlier.

                                                            Restlessness Is the Enemy

 

March 2: It’s late afternoon, and I’m feeling restless without energy to get anything done except write in this journal. I’ve eaten an entire muffin, although I wasn’t hungry. A person on a weight loss journey should never allow herself to be restless. Eating brings solace or guilt because you’ve eaten the wrong food. I’m going to spend an hour meditating in hopes of calming myself. I know. I know. I’ve read that meditating isn’t just for that particular reason, but I’m out of options.

                                                            Disease Aids Weight Loss

March 3: Acid Reflux, that dreaded disease, has turned out to be a bittersweet enemy. It has changed the way I eat completely. I had occasionally eaten fried foods, Mexican food, and Italian foods, but I’ve had to give up tacos, pizza, fried chicken and other spicy foods, citrus fruits – like oranges and pineapple – and carbonated drinks. Most package juices and other package foods have citric acid, so I’m avoiding those, too. They make my heart flutter and give me heart burn and indigestion at their worse. I can eat and spend hours not being able to digest my food. At one time, I got so sick that I had to throw up to feel better. After months of trying to avoid the reality of these foods being like arsenic, I gave up. None of these foods along with heavily spiced, well seasoned, and greasy foods are on my food list. Last night, I decided to eat an onion bagel with wheat glutton in it, and got so sick I wanted to head for the hospital. Eating smaller meals is ideal for a person on a weight loss program. So is one with reflux disease, which requires me to eat early in the afternoon to digest my food before bedtime. Eating earlier gives me a chance to burn up some calories, too. Weight loss helps to curtail reflux, another added bonus to weight loss along with diabetes control and many other problems that obesity cause.

Oh, I have to watch what I drink too. No orange juice, sodas, and most processed juices. I can drink Ocean Spray CranGrape and Cranberry Juice without added sugar, and apple juice. If I don’t lose lose weight now, I’m going to yell, "Thyroid."

                                                Diabetes Aids Weight Loss

March 4: Being a diabetic has also changed my eating habits. If I eat sugary foods or consume sugary juices, my blood sugar will rise at an ungodly level, and I have to take more insulin to bring it down. Insulin is expensive so I try to buy as little as possible. That means eating fewer calories with sugary consumption. Diabetes is a cruel disease, but keeping blood sugar down is essential. That translates into fewer calories and weight loss eventually.

                                                            Lifestyle Changes Apparent

March 5: I’m doing pretty good with my food reduction lifestyle, and I’m not suffering. Breakfast: a weight loss bagel and milk. Mid-morning: a bowl of oatmeal. Lunch: Pear and Kiwi and Earl Grey tea. Mid-afternoon snack: a bagel with sugar free strawberry preserves, blackberry currant tea. Dinner: I had a half of chicken breast, green beans, carrots, and a salad. For a beverage I drank hot Lipton tea with antioxidants. I didn’t need a bedtime snack, so I drank a glass of 2% Lactose free milk. Most days I try to eat six small meals. If I eat fewer small meals, I still maintain portion controls. I never eat huge breakfast and dinners. If I eat fewer meals, I substitute 2 % Lactose free milk and tea along with a bagel for lunch. Breakfast: cereal or a Quaker Oatmeal cookie and 2% Lactose free milk. Dinner consists of a meat, two vegetables, and a starch such as cream potatoes, rice or macaroni and cheese – all in tablespoon portions.

                                                            Staying on Track

March 6: I’ve adopted a new way of eating and have begun to put more vegetables on the table. I’m not eating snack foods. Hooray. I’m eating seafood, when I can afford it, instead of all that red meat my husband cooks and eats.

                                                            Bye, bye Brownies

March 7: I have no Brownies in the kitchen, and he hasn’t baked any in three or four weeks. I’m mighty happy about that, and proud that I haven’t craved any. I’ve substituted Weight Watchers bagels when I can find them. They sell out so fast that it’s unbelievable, and no wonder. They taste good and have only 150 calories and two points if you count according to the weight watcher’s system. What impresses me is that they have only five grams of fat. Compare that to 290 calories and twenty grams of fat for regular bagels, depending on the brand.

                                                Dangerously Low Blood Sugar Readings

March 8: My biggest problem these days is keeping my blood sugar high enough to ward off those nasty headaches and the threat of passing out or going into a coma because it’s too low. I eat a weight watcher’s bagel or fruit at night if it’s too low because you don’t want to go to bed with a low sugar reading. It is dangerous for me because mine keeps dropping even without additional insulin. There’s a danger of going into a coma or dying in my sleep if it gets too low. I cannot monitor it while sleeping, of course. I’ve adjusted my insulin quite a bit, too. My doctor says when you lose weight, you need less and less insulin. The only thing I can do is check it, check it, check it. But that lancet hurts like hell. That’s what we use to prick our fingers to get the blood to place on the strip to read the blood sugar reading. The strip goes into a meter that reads it. I’m like most diabetics who get tired of taking their readings, but it is as necessary as breathing.

                                                Weigh-ins are the Big, Bad Wolf

March 9: I’m sweating bricks because I have to visit the doctor for a weigh-in in a few weeks, and it’s typical for me to not lose weight even when I’m doing everything right. It’s enough to make me spit blood. I don’t know why it happens. It reminds me of somebody’s cruel joke. Sometimes I feel like I was destined to be fat forever. Then I quickly correct myself and repeat that I am what I eat, as the saying goes. I won't accept it because if I do I will be what I eat and my body will show the food trail.

                                                Pain Causes Growing Pain

Mm

March 10: I must keep my pain under control because it makes me want to eat bad food. Yesterday, I craved doughnuts but persevered and didn’t buy any. After the pain subsided I was fine. The craving went away -- not forever. I could only wrestle with the poison -- what I call too much of bad, bad, bad thing.

                                                Poetry Is My Salvation – Sort of

March 11: I’m reading poetry and my literary journals tonight after I watch American Idol. I’ll do some floor exercises before that. I wish I had a treadmill in the house, but I don’t know where I’d put it with all the clutter in my office. I’d have to throw out a couple of bookshelves and a ton of books. Speaking of books, I’m beginning to regret buying all those books. I’ve got too many to ever read. Everywhere I go in my apartment, I see books. Don’t get me wrong. I love books but not too many, which is what I have. It makes me think I got drunk and went into the bookstore and bought these books. Some of them are kinds of material I don’t even like to read. (I’m kidding about the drunk part. I don’t drink) I’d donate them to the library if I could get somebody to come pick them up.

 

                                                Thank God, He Doesn’t Hoard Food

March 12: My husband is a hoarder, but he calls me a hoarder because of all my books. I’m glad we don’t hoard food like books and mechanic’s tools. We wouldn’t be able to find the food in our refrigerator. He loves to eat, and I get sick watching him eat. I’m usually not hungry, and he always is. I’m glad he cannot hoard food or it would be dangerous for me. I like to eat in the dark, in bed, in closets, in bathrooms. Oh, no, that’s the old me. I eat all of my meals in front of him. If he isn’t home, I choose to eat only vegetables and fruits rather than bother cooking meat. That is, unless I’m bingeing on junk food, which I struggle to avoid. One way is to keep it out of the house, but he sometimes brings chips, candy, and soda in. It’s dangerous for me as I try hard to shun his stash of empty calories.

                                                Fish Is Good for Me, Really

March 13: I’m a fishoholic. If I could I’d eat nothing but fish or other seafood. As it stands now, I’m eating fish about twice a week. I see no reason why I can’t have it every day, but my husband – the cook – is a red meat eater. Over half our food budget goes for red meat. I want to throw a tantrum in the grocery, and say, "I don’t like red meat." But they’d probably haul me off in a wagon to the mental ward.

                                                Taking Charge of My Emotions

March 14: A woman isn’t just what she tolerates/ she is what she embraces. This is a line from one of my poems called Baby Boomer. I thought it was important enough to repeat its here. For years I tolerated people telling me what to think, how to act, how to wear my hair. There were even people who told me that I could eat what I wanted and not gain any more weight. Once you reach a certain weight level, you won’t gain any more, they'd say. Well, they were wrong about that and many other things they tried to cram under my headlights. Now that I’m old enough to decide what’s best for me and not to care what anybody thinks, says or does, I don’t tolerate that kind of nonsense. I embrace what’s important to me and nobody else's values that are misguided for me.

                                                            Cry but Don’t Overeat

March 15: I saw my psychotherapist yesterday, and we talked about my emotional eating problems that lead to bingeing. Yes, I binge worse than a pig does on slop. She said my problem is that historically I had used food to feel good. Then I turned to food when I was angry, sad, or whatever negative mood I had and out of fear of a return to sexual assault. That led me to ferret out comfort foods, and those are the foods I binged on. The other thing is that when I grew up, my mother and the rest of us ate lots of sweets. We were miserable, and nothing healed what hurt us more than a pineapple cake or a banana pudding. Sugar is my worst enemy. The therapist said I didn’t get this way over night, and it wouldn’t change quickly.

                                                            Mounds Equal a Bad Day

March 16: Yesterday was a bad day, and it led me to eating Mounds candy bars. I ate three of them before I stopped myself. The candy made me so sick that I couldn’t eat dinner. I finally wound up eating eight shrimps and drinking a glass of 2% milk lactose free. This morning I had a stomach ache from the candy, and my bowels told the story.

                                                            No Drinking Binges

March 17: While people celebrated St. Patrick’s Day drinking green beer, eating corn beef hash, cabbage, and sauerkraut, I wrote poetry and prayed about not overeating for the day. Here’s my poem:

            Help Is On the Way

1

When you’re tired of the world

and its devastation,

I’m your golden arch

You use me to squash your appetite

for forbidden food

I soothe you when your

friends betray you

I calm you when you’re anxious and angry.

I make your life luminous in blackness

while you prattle, prance and pounce

against indifference and indignity

Every disturbance and danger

frighten you like a wasp in your path.

 

2

 

A gold leaf flies in your window

You so elegantly pen its existence

When it snows in spring,

you protest in bleak language:

"It’s a blemish 

in blasé nature," you said.

 

3

When the art dealer

forgets your Georgia O’Keeffe,

your Jacob Lawrence, and your Claude Monet

you blast him on paper

to trap your tongue

You forget: I’m your bond;

You have me to console you

if you’re feeling angry,

a little purple, or overwhelmed.

                                                            I Cannot Say Can’t

March 18: Today is my daddy’s birthday. I’ll always remember him for teaching me that there is no word Can’t. Until this day, I won’t write can’t until now in any of my prose or poetry. I don’t use it in my spoken language either. That leads me to relate the word can’t to my lifestyle change. I cannot say can’t, and I must succeed at all cost. I’m eating properly and feeling good about myself. Strangely, how eating the right foods makes me feel tougher. I’m not giving in to temptation, and that makes me stronger. I will always work to be strong.

                                                            Spirituality Is A Boon

March 19: Focusing on my spirituality keeps me grounded. I don’t mean religion necessarily, although that is important, too. We’re all spiritual beings, but I mean the spirit, the inner self, the self that makes life desirable. When I am focused and balanced with spirituality, I am discouraged from making bad food choices. My inner self teaches me to grab a hold to the good things in life, and that means good food – fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains – good people: ones who’re kind, respectful, and emotionally stable, good thinking, which means positive thoughts which keep negative or stinking thinking from ruining my day. For example: I can choose to think: "I’ll never lose this weight" or "I’m losing this weight every day – pound by pound." Positive thinking keeps me from gobbling up all the gook I can get my hands on. I promise to enjoy all spiritual moments.

I feel euphoric because my spirit is well, it’s like taking a drink of pure water. Don’t get me wrong, God factors into this goodness, for He is my everything, and I rely on him to make my inner self a spiritual place for me. For those of you who don’t believe in God, you can call it whatever name you wish. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: "Higher Power." Some people choose God as their higher power, and others say a pencil is theirs. There’s a word for everybody when talking about what they believe in. God help them if they don’t.

                                                Love is a Gem

March 20: Love is magical and gives me a warm feeling like a Russell Stover chocolate. You see, I have this habit of relating food to non-tangible things. I try not to think about love because I’m ashamed to admit one thing: I don’t know if I love me when I’m gulping down milk shakes or stuffing myself with ice cream and other gooey desserts. Loving myself means making good food choices – in essence, eating right. The way I see it: Self-love is a valuable tool in weight loss. Without it I’m self-sabotaging my life style change. I promise to love myself and to show it through my food choices.

            There used to be a saying: "Reach for your mate and not your plate." Well, it makes a lot of sense unless you don’t have a mate or a plate. And what if your mate has erectile dysfunction? It’s better to exercise, but for me I only get ten minutes of walking a day because of physical limitations. I’m still trying to get the money for water exercises.

            Love is a powerful emotion, but it doesn’t always translate into better eating habits like hate translates into bad eating habits. I don’t know why that is, but it just is. I promise myself to focus on love of family, love of God, love of everyone, love of country, although I don’t think politicians show much love for the people. I judge them by how they deal with important issues of the day. I won’t say they’re all alike, though. When I think of the cavalier attitudes and actions to our president Obama and the poorest and focusing on skin color, it makes me want to bur myself in food until I realize that I have no control on others. It's my responsibility to spread charity, to think for myself, and to act prudently both morally and sensible. All of this translate into proper food intake that keeps me healthy and sane.

                                                            Solitude Is Golden

March 21: Solitude. I always want plenty of it because it brings peace of mind. A peaceful mind means good decision making and a spiritual well being. Peace of mind bodes well for a binge eater like myself because most of us tend to eat away our frustration. When I’m feeling peaceful, bad foods never enter my thoughts. I only want to continue peaceful moments also because writers need solitude. It doesn’t happen every minute of the day, but I’m grateful for every minute I get. I will work harder to achieve solitude.

                                                Tracking Failures and Successes                      

March 22: I have this conversation with myself every day to stay on point with my weight reduction program. Every day is a challenge and when I log these thoughts, I have something to direct the future as I look back on past strengths, gains or losses. I’m reminding myself of every day I fail, every day I succeed, and every day I triumph. Looking at my flaws and training myself to learn from them is a valid way to keep track of what’s happening in my life, as well. I promise to keep taking a critical look at my eating habits. I’m sticking with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish or small amounts of chicken and red meat, which I rarely eat anymore. It bears repeating because repetition is what keeps me out of food courts. That’s just me. I don’t like it unless I can get a T-Bone or a Porter House, both of which Taft cannot afford.

            I’m doing well today, and I promise to keep walking ten to fifteen minutes a day despite my arthritic knees and hips. I’m not mobile enough, and that handicaps my weight loss program and my new life style. I move as much as I can otherwise. I must keep reminding myself that doing some physical activity is better than doing nothing.

                                                            Tears of a Fat Lady

March 23: Today I mourn the loss of my Thin Lady. Yeah, I know she’s been gone for decades, but I still miss her. As I sit in my recliner at night, I think about being thin and I remember how it felt. This is necessary to paint a picture for the future because I’ve been fat so long it will be hard to forget the old me. I’ve heard of people saying they are fat in a thin body. Well, I’m looking at it the other way around. I see myself as thin person inside, and I’ll always grieve about being fat, that is, until I’m normal size again. I believe, believe it's going to happen.

                                                            Fat, Fat, Go Away

March 24: It’s time for a mirror check. Most people jump on the scales. I do mirror checks, and pinch the fat. I measure with my index finger and thumb. I know how much an inch is, and I know I have two and a half inches of blubber around my waist. I checked, and it hasn’t changed much. Dear Lord, make it go away. I cannot take it much more. The stomach and waist used to be the first place for my decrease in size to show. That was when I was twenty. The hips were the stubborn spots. Now the hips and buttocks tend to look smaller when I check my slacks. I know, I know. This isn’t scientific. Weighing often would only leave me frustrated, so I weigh only at the doctor’s office every three months at one office and every month at my regular doctor's office. When the pounds start to fall pretty good, I’m going to buy a scale – not that bathroom type. It wouldn’t even measure me now because I’m over their weight capacity.

March 25: I’m sorry but I don’t feel like eating today. I mean, really, I don’t. These days come along once in a while, and I hate them because I feel that I’m getting into binge water. Starve then binge. That’s how it works. I promise to force myself to eat even when I don’t want to because not eating is dangerous for a binger. But that meal isn’t coming today. All I can get done is some soup, a bagel, a pear, a cup of tea, and a glass of milk.

March 26: Some nights are harder than others. Even when I’m not hungry, I still crave high calorie carbohydrates. Yeah, they’re forbidden for me even though experts say it isn’t good to punish yourself. I have to because I cannot quit until the whole thing is gone. I couldn’t eat any dessert without bingeing, and I admit that I am a sugarholic who’s powerless against it. There ought to be a law against creating something that’s so addictive. I feel like somebody addicted to a drug. I sit here looking at all of my books with plans to pick one up to read, but mind’s on eating a Mounds bar or some cherry doughnut holes. Lord, help me.

            I promise never to give up on working toward recovery from addictive sweets. How long before I lose my taste for them? How long before I stop craving them? Oh, how cruel to want something that’s bad for you. Everywhere I go I see people buying and eating junk food or sweets. I can skip the chips and dip, fries, etc., and I never crave them.

March 27: It’s a battle to wage, and I will win because I admitted that I am powerless over my desire to binge on fattening stuff. Therefore, I will fight the urge with all that I’ve got within my spirit. I will fight because I’ll never lose weight with this garbage in my system, and I refuse to die fat. It is my goal to weigh 160 pounds. That means I need to lose 100 more pounds.

March 28: Some days I forget to keep a journal of what I eat, and I eat junk food. It’s amazing how amnesia knocks me off track. It’s so easy to forget what I’ve consumed during the day or evening. The more we eat, the more we want to eat. That’s a binge eater for you. If I don’t remember what I’ve chewed up, it won't be easy to stay honest about my stomach content. Today isn’t a good day. I went to the bookstore and was tempted by everything before bulging eyes. I soon wound up eating a s’mores bar and regretted it all the way home. I cannot believe how poorly I’ve eaten these last few days where I continued down the road to Stuff ville. My emotional eating has resurfaced, and I must get back on track soon. I’d hate to start gaining weight.

                                                            Why I Write It Down

March 29: Journaling is a way to keep me on track. It’s like having a conversation with myself about rights and wrongs of losing weight. It’s my own personal reality check. Every day is a challenge and when I look back, I have written knowledge of whether I’ve met that challenge or bombed. It’s been difficult lately for I’ve lost my appetite. I have to force food into my mouth and down my throat. I have these meals, but I eat only small portions – just enough to take my insulin and to keep my blood sugar regulated. I also have to be careful about taking medicine on an empty stomach. Besides, not eating doesn’t make me lose any more weight than normal. It just sets me up for failure.

            I’m looking back at my flaws and learning from them. I promised myself to keep taking a critical look at my life and stay honest about those nasty eating habits. I suppose others who want to lose weight have similar ideas because we all know what happens when we’re not conscious of what we’re putting into our mouths. I will keep a food intake diary.

Breakfast: Special K, milk, and grapes. Lunch: potato soup and salad; Dinner: meat loaf without ketchup, peas and creamed potatoes. All servings are between a tablespoon and two tablespoons. Meat the size of a deck of cards, sometimes smaller. I eat two or three servings of fruit, drink milk, tea, and water for my beverages.

                                                The Battle Rages On

March 30: Some nights are harder than others. Even when I’m not hungry, I still crave sugary to

syrupy. I crave these foods like they’re nicotine, and thank God they’re not. But I believe that food

can kill. That is, if I keep eating deadly and stacking on the pounds. Well, I need to commend myself

here because I’ve kept 45 pounds off for a year. I chastise myself because I haven’t lost any more

because of my struggle with bingeing on sugary stuff. There ought to be jail time against creating

something that’s so addictive as chocolate and other sweets. I feel like somebody addicted to a drug. I

sit here looking at all my books with plans to pick one up and read. But my mind’s on picking up a

Mounds bar or some cherry doughnut holes. Lord, help me. 

Breakfast: bagel and pear; lunch: shrimp salad and bullion; dinner: peas and carrots, chicken breast.

                                                Shopping a Natural High

March 31: I woke up earlier than usual this morning and wanted to go shopping but then realized that I don’t shop because of disability to walk around shopping malls. I miss doing that. When I used to go shopping, I got a high from trying on all of those beautiful clothes. Now I listen to my daughter talk about her shopping sojourns. The only shopping I do is at the grocery store, which I abhor because I have to choose what aisles to avoid -- the candy aisle but the chocolate scent floats all over the place. Food is so costly now that it’s hard to buy enough to sustain a proper diet. Most of you know that the best foods to eat are more costly, but if you choose wisely and keep track of how much bad foods cost, you'll be able to calculate objectively or  open minded.

Breakfast: Glucerna Smoothie; lunch: bagel and apple, milk; dinner: Brussell sprouts and asparagus, chicken with brown rice and a salad.

LIGHT ON LIFE: MEMOIR: The Second Month Toward Year End

LIGHT ON LIFE: MEMOIR: The Second Month Toward Year End:                                                 Taking Back My Power February 1: I admit that I am powerful over my choice of food. Em...

The Second Month Toward Year End

                                                Taking Back My Power

February 1: I admit that I am powerful over my choice of food. Emotional eating takes a back seat to positive food choices. I eat small portions in several mini meals a day. I avoid chocolate and other sugar laden desserts. I am on the path to a healthier me. I am powerful in making decisions about food.

                                                A House Filled with Food

February 2: The greatest challenge for me, aside from the exercise setback, is living with my husband who eats all the time. Our house smells like food from breakfast to bedtime. I sign off eating early in the evening, but I wrestle with the temptation to eat until late evening. It’s difficult to overcome emotional eating. Sometimes I’m hungry, but I won’t eat. But smelling food makes temptation stronger. I believe smelling food encourages me to eat more so than hunger pangs do. (My husband is getting better now that he's stopped eating late night. Hurray)

                                                I Am the Enemy, Not Food

February 3: Food is not the enemy. I am the enemy. Food is the enemy only when the choices are bad. I am the enemy if I make bad choices. I write to the rhythm of music, and it’s music that calms me, reducing the urge to overeat. The right food is very important. Each day, I must go down the pyramid to decide the healthy choices of meat, fruits, vegetables, whole grains. And I must drink plenty of water. (I'm still working on the water drinking)

                                                Never Cry in My Milk           

February 4: I’m feeling good about myself now. I’m developing self-confidence, a necessary ingredient in weight loss, because without it, I’ll lose the battle of the bulge. It is time for all good dieters to jump up and shout if they have confidence in themselves. Twenty years of therapy have taught me that confidence is a mainstay for staying on a weight loss program.

                                                Climbing High on the Mountain

February 5: I want to live high on the mountain with all those thin people dancing around in my head. I want to see that thin woman that’s inside of me. If I pull, no, when I pull this off, it would be the greatest feat of my life (aside for falling in love and childbirth). I’m not about to lose anything but fat. Whoopie.

                                                Time Is a Huge Enemy          

February 6: Time stood still, it seems, while I gained weight, but it isn’t standing still during pound sticking. We all know how important a pound is to a heavy person, and a day is just as important. Every day, we mess up leaves us with another day to feel bad about ourselves. Every pound is like a hundred pounds but if we live long enough, we will get there. The years past and the pounds accumulate. Days and months go by, and we avoid looking directly in the mirror. I remember many days of passing the mirror and turning my head. I didn’t want to see what I looked like. Now I force myself to glare at me, so I’ll remember that when I try to put some poison in my mouth. Yes, I’m calling bad foods poison now. I can do that as long as I’m not depressed, a time when all rational thinking flies out the window.

            I’ve always been surprised with every new pound as if I’d been eating carrots and celery all month. To keep from feeling bad about myself and feeling anxious about the little or meager gains, I don’t weigh every week. I only weigh when I see my doctor to keep the depression at bay. Losing and gaining is such an upside down cycle that it is likely to make me eat more. I can pretty much determine whether I’m gaining or losing weight long before then. When I am more prosperous, I intend to buy an electronic scale. They’re expensive. But I still will not weigh every week. It’s tempting but I will not.

                                                The Mirror Never Lies

February 7: Every day I stare in the mirror at my breasts and wonder what size I’ll be when the weight falls off. Will I have a big butt still? Will I have a D cup? I always had large breasts, and they didn’t decrease with the first fifty pounds. I’ve been a D cup so long I couldn’t imagine what a C would be. Thank God I never had to consider breast augmentation.

I’ve had wide hips so long that I shutter to think of the new me. I’m sure I will need therapy to finally accept myself because inside I will still feel fat. I kid you not. It happened the last time I lost sixty pounds, and now I’m going for 120 pounds total. Imagine that. Half my body size. With that fifty I lost, I have 110 more pounds to go. Whoopi. Mentally, I’m already there but I still cannot imagine what I will look like at that size.

                                                Write to be Thinner

February 8: I write myself thinner. I focus on thinness and what it takes to get there. When I’m focused, I don’t eat when I’m not supposed to. I am in charge of what I put in my mouth. I am powerful in my choices of foods except for my inability to tolerate some fruits and vegetables, which I love. I write in my notebook that I’m important, loving, and special. It helps me know that I don’t need food to prove any of this.

                                                Fat Is an Injustice

February 9: Today I’m bitter. Bitter just for today. I hate hearing people say they eat what they want because some of us cannot. These people who have their way with food eat troughs of food and still stay thin. What kind of justice is that? I keep fat stored like I have an elephant’s diet. It simply pisses me off. With the new year in progress, I get bitter because I know that most people who eat like me should never have had an obesity tag. With the exception of highly depressed times, I never overate and I was always on a diet – albeit I cheated sometimes. I never loaded up on steak and potatoes regularly, and I never ate until my stomach bulged and hurt at Christmas and Thanksgiving like some people brag about. True, I haven’t always been consistent with good eating patterns, but I am now. And I intend to keep it up – small portions of everything that’s healthy – meat the size of a card deck and sometimes less, small amounts of carbohydrates such as potatoes, etc., plenty of vegetables and fruits that I can tolerate. No more than one carbohydrate at a meal. I don’t eat bread with dinner, and I eat whole wheat bagels or oatmeal for breakfast.

                                                   Bitter Days Come and Go

February 10: I am bitter because I am fat, because I was born fat, and because I haven’t had the pleasure of eating all those rich foods that most people eat. When I was a child I didn’t eat rich foods because we barely had meals. My parents had too many mouths to feed. I think about that, and it keeps me from overeating. When I’m bitter, I am reminded that everyone's body is different, and that’s why my food plan doesn’t seem to work as others’ do. My husband and I eat the same food, but he doesn’t gain weight. Yet, if I eat the least bad food for a couple of weeks, I’ll gain ten pounds. That’s why I’m bitter for today. I don’t want to eat anything I want. I just don’t want to look like I do.

                                                   Exercise Isn’t Always Fun

February 11: I haven’t always been inactive as I am now. When I am more prosperous, I am going to join the Y so I can get water exercises that are easier on my arthritic knees and fibromyalgia – a neuromuscular affliction that causes the body muscles to hurt all over. I do all I can with the floor exercises, and I’m getting more creative with the chair exercises.

            But I’m going to get some water exercises, which will be fun with the exception of having to wear a bathing suit. I’m not thrilled about that. It will be a challenge for someone who stays cooped up in the house for weeks on end. I’ll wear some sunglasses to keep from noticing the staring people who don’t know what it’s like to be obese. They can then stare and wonder why I’m wearing sunglasses. Now, there.

                                                Bookstore is a Haven

February 12: I was at the bookstore, and I ordered a mocha frappuccino. The lady punched in the amount and started to make it when I said, “I’ve changed my mind. Let me have a blackberry tea.” I was reminded of the danger of drinking a coffee-like drink with over 500 calories. I think that’s what’s in them. I didn’t need to activate my reflux, a side effect of being overweight. I get this flutter in my chest, and I belch so much that I can barely breathe. Coffee, spices, citrus, acids – that are in a lot of processed foods and drinks, etc., make me feel like my heart’s coming out of my chest. I had eaten a pear before leaving home to ward off the need for something sweet at the bookstore, and the pear kicked in the reflux. It was a blessing because this saved me nearly a day’s calorie consumption. I love the bookstore; it keeps me sane.

                                                Death as a Thin Person

February 13: When I die, I’m not going to be fat unless I die tomorrow. I will rest in peace and go to heaven as a thinner person. I am powerful over my food choices, and I will eat only what’s necessary to obtain a healthy lifestyle.

                                                Valentine Isn’t Just for Chocolates

            February 14: It’s Valentine’s Day, and I bought myself a rose instead of chocolates. I’m proud of myself because normally I’d buy a box of chocolate and eat most of them in one sitting. That was during the bingeing and depression days. I’m proud of myself. I still crave chocolates though. It will pass. How long will it take? I don’t know. Some people say, “Eat it in moderation.” There’s no such thing for me. I have to purge it from my system. It is cruel to avoid the things you love but once I convinced myself that they don’t love me, it became easier to skip them. I avoided going down the grocery and drugstore aisles with all those valentine hearts filled with chocolate. These are my favorite things, but every year that I bypassed them is a year that I convince myself that they’re not all that important. While not eating chocolate, I spent the time sending out valentine cards to people I love and people I thought could use a lift because I believed they wouldn’t get a loving note for valentine. (My husband bought me a fancy water bottle, and I love it. Beats candy)

            I also bought a beautiful floral mug with valentines all over it. Every time I think about candy, I’ll use this mug and my water bottle to distract me from it. The mug is a stark reminder of Valentine’s Day and all the candy it represents.

Feb. 15: write some prose with this. Go bye Valentine’s Day. You never loved me anyway. Or you wouldn’t indulge me with your fudge bars while I try to forget you.

 

Before I Die

 

February 16: There’s a movie out called “The Bucket List,” and it got me to thinking about what my list would include. First and foremost, as you might’ve guessed, is to get thinner. I mean to lose half my weight of 300 pounds. I want to smell more roses, and be without pain for a few days a week. I want to be a kinder person, and I want to live without anti-depressants and anti-mania drugs. I’d love to visit Paris and Africa. I’d still love to buy my mother a house, but that seems a little lofty considering that I don’t own a house. I’d love to publish my collections of poetry, short stories, and a memoir. I’d love to write a novel or two. My list keeps growing, but I try to keep it simple because I don’t have as much time as I used to have.

                                                Living Life Over

February 17:  If I had my life to live over, I’d paint rainbows on a canvass and marvel at their beauty. I’d bake bread for others but eat more vegetables. When the sun fades and the moon rises, I’d watch with pride and respect rather than haste time away with fretting. Oh, yes, I’d enjoy the smell of percolating coffee, garden dirt, the freshness of snow, musty air, and a spring shower. I would love life more and enjoy its fruits and never bemoan any losses because in hindsight I would have the option to pick up the pieces and move on. I wouldn’t worry because I would have lived through the worst hurricanes and heartbreaks of living. I would live as if tomorrow isn’t promised – for it isn’t.

            If I had my life to live over, I’d spend more time as a mother because I would raise my own child. I’d pick more berries and spend time digging in the dirt of my flower bed. They tell me it is therapeutic. I’d write a book before I got old enough to worry about how it would turn out. I’d eat more ice cream before lactose intolerance and weight gain struck. I’d eat better healthy foods. I would pray for fewer deep depression days. I would read the Bible every day and exercise every day. And I wouldn’t let other people live rent free in my brain space.

                                   

January's a Tough Month to Lose Pounds

Born Thin. Born Big. Born Small. Born Whatever. Love Your Size. Most Women Don't, Thin or Not.

January 1: Here we go again. It’s that day when everybody makes New Year’s resolution. I’m not a snob, but I don’t make resolutions. I set goals, and my goal this year is to lose at least 120 pounds by December 31. It would be great if I lose more, but I will settle for 60 by my July 23 birthday and 60 more by Dec. 31.. My new eating habits of more vegetables, fewer carbs and  meat the size of a deck of cards are going to work. To date I’ve lost fifty pounds and am struggling to keep losing. Losing weight is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Losing weight is like going celibate when you’re single and surrounded by gorgeous hunks.

            I’m thinking that the weight has already melted off. I took a course in the Dynamics of Goal Setting some years ago, and learned that you convince yourself that it has already happened. That works because there’s none of these failure thoughts to sabotage positive thinking. When New Year’s ends, I won’t be a pitfall because belief is one-half of the proposition. If it’s already done, and you believe, those old sabotages won’t have a place to fester. You’ll going full bore with positive thinking and action. There’s nothing worse than telling yourself, “I might as well have that chocolate pie because I’m never going to lose this weight. Rather, I’d like to say, “I’m skipping the pie because it’s a diarrhea culprit.

            I remember to put my goals in positive wording as I was taught in Self-Talk seminars where we learned that thousands of negative thoughts go through our minds and mouths every day, most of which were programmed since toddler hood. That’s why goal setting is important, but I know if I don’t write those goals properly, they are not likely to be successful. What’s written on paper is written in my brain space. It’s more powerful to write positive stuff to knock out that impromptu negative speak or thought. Off to a great year. I will survive the weight war – if I live. And I will not toast the New Year with champagne. Just kidding. I don’t drink alcohol.

            My goals for 2013 are the same as it was in 2008: Give up candy, especially chocolate; cookies. Target emotional eating through meditation, recreational and relaxation techniques, some of which I’ve written about in this journal. Call a friend or my mother, the weight-loss guru that is never ever going to be fat again. Not that she ever was from my perspective; she thought she was -- however. She used to binge on sugary stuff like me, but she says it made her sick one time to many. And she doesn’t touch the poison. Give up overeating. All I have to do is watch my husband who eats all the time but now he’s eating regularly with more vegetables and fruits because of a long-standing bowel disorder. It used to stuff me just to watch him. Now it would shame me to eat more than he. 

            I’m making good progress on the overeating part. My acid reflux is a big assist to deny myself large portions of food. I have no need or will to get sick, so I don’t overeat. I eat several small meals, vegetables, sweet baby carrots and half a corn on the cob. That nasty bowel disorder that’s aggravated by rich, chocolate, and other disagreeable food potions have forced me to choose between feeling better and not letting unfulfilled writing hours be spent in the bathroom because I chose to eat junk that’s killing me in too many ways.

            I will drink a lot of water – gallons a day. I am succeeding with this one. I keep a bottle of water on my kitchen table at all times. That reminds me to drink often.

                                                  Hypnotize Me, Please

January 2: I’d love to find another great hypnotist. When I lived in South Florida, a seventy-year-old hypnotist gave me the suggestion to lose weight. “You will eat only what you need to stay healthy. You will avoid all sugary foods,” he said at the start of the hypnotism. I was programmed not to eat fatty foods, to hate chocolate and other high-calorie goodies. The hypnosis worked for six years. Forty pounds stayed off until depression struck me for the first time. Then I started eating because I was depressed, eating because I felt bad, and eating for whatever reason I dreamed up. And, of course, chocolate reduced the depression. Now I choose anti-depressants though they’re no cure-all when the stress and anxiety piles up, so meditation works. Mantra: “I’ll remain calm and relaxed at all times.” Or when I’m doing self-hypnosis for weight loss, I use this one. “I will eat only what makes me healthy. I will skip the sugary shit because it’ll mess up my bowels.”

                                                Fat’s Never Funny

January 3: I hate fat jokes – mostly. Monique, a comedian of the full figure persuasion, made fortune trumpeting fat girls because she lost weight and got greater fame.. She even had a beauty contest for these ladies. She is funny and I don’t know whether people laugh just because she is funny, because she's making a difference in the fat war, or because people enjoy laughing at fat people. I know people laugh at fat folk; that’s for sure. Every time I see Monique on television I feel proud that she is not promoting thinness, so I’m conflicted about the issues, and I know that obesity kills. (And I wanted to be around for my child) In those fat days of hers, we were of similar size, which is why I took no pleasure in getting sucked too deeply into Monique’s brand of comedy. But the woman is good, and I love comedy so it’s hard to resist her jokes. I get belly-aching laughter from her fat jokes – my own shame. Then I feel guilty. I just wish I could be as blithe as she about being fat. Bless her heart, but I am high risk for a stroke and a heart attack, and I nearly died from a massive blood clot surrounded by multiple smaller clots on April 19, 2012. I have to keep working to get off the weight, or I won’t live to laugh at any body’s jokes. I love comedy, too. My goal of three laughs a day is going well except on day when I’m severely depressed. Laughter beats feeding chocolate to a bad stomach reaching to irritable bowels.

            I never thought it was funny being fat even when I was much thinner. I’m like my daughter; I don’t even care to see movies that belittle heavy people: Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy movies. My husband sits there and cracks up when they dress up as morbidly obese women in their comedies, but I’m an old grouch.  I remember when Rosie O’Donnell referred to Star Jones as a fatty, even though Star had lost all that excess fat. This kind of ridicule stopped me from eating in public. When I was much younger I didn’t eat large portions of food in public because I imagined people saying, “That’s why she’s so fat.” At home my brothers used to tease me to get the extra biscuit off my plate. I cried back then, but it’s too bad they couldn’t have spied on me and deterred me forever.

                                                The Poetry Pick Up

January 4: Today is poetry day, and I’m writing my heart out, turning out the worse stuff imaginable. I’m being facetious. It isn’t stellar verse right now because it must go through ninety thousand revisions. I’m being facetious again. But many revisions must be done before my poetry is finished. When I tire of writing, I grab a stack of poetry books by other writers and read. I started with Robert Hayden, a 20^th century African-American poet first. Then it was on to Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Poetry is like reading a postcard on living, and it is as beautiful as relics in a museum. It makes fireworks go off. It’s like a cookie cutter at Christmas, and it ushers in feelings of nature, love, freedom, family, faith, dreams, and courage. Poems make me laugh or weep. One of the biggest problems with poetry is that much of it doesn’t deal with the ugly side of life, although that is bountiful. That voice appears to be stifled, or it’s gone underground. I read somewhere that tears have tears and poems wipe them off, but if the bad things don’t exist, why the tears? Ugly disappeared without a whimper. Such a pity there is no ugly in most poetry because that would bring the whole truth in a world full of ugliness. There is no beauty without ugly, and I remember that when I write poems because that adds more beauty to poetic life.

My evening is so full I had no time to think about food. When I finished my readings, I again took pen in hand and penned my own poems – one about prison and the other about Heaven, the ugly and the beautiful.

                                    Eating Biblical Words

January 5: Bible reading night. I love to read the Bible; my mother and grandmother instilled that in me. My grandmother used to sit on her front porch until the mosquitoes called, and then she’d slip inside for an evening of scripture reading. My mother reads the Bible every day, too, and has since I was a child. I read for spiritual reasons, but I also read for abstinence, abstinence from fattening foods.

My favorite chapter is Psalms, and there are verses that I know verbatim. Psalms 23^rd, 69, 70, 71, & 23^rd. When I’m done with Psalms, I go on to Proverbs – most chapters there I read are about women. I’ve often heard women complain about all of the negative things in the Bible about women. Well, I’ve found that Proverbs 3:15, 8:1 and 14:1 are positive things about women. “She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou cannot desire are to be compared to her” (Proverbs 3:15)

                                                            The Winner Is Omission

January 6: The Great Omission: I’m now obsessed with the loss of chocolate. The more I think about it, the more desperate I become. I panic because I’m not sure I’ll succeed in quitting this poison. I think about it all the time. Will I be able to rid it from my system, take its sweet taste from my lips, and smother its alluring aroma.

            Well, there’s that sugar-free chocolate and other sugar-free products that give you diarrhea if you eat too much. If you binge on regular chocolate or sweets, how in the world can you avoid doing it with these chemically sweetened things. Besides, I’m not enamored about spending an evening in the bathroom because of love for a sinful indulgence.

            We’ll see how long it takes to recover from chocolate addiction. It’s only one I have left. It’s been my favorite binge food for decades with a three-year hiatus. Before then I ate it on and off. I dread this transformation. It hurts already. Hold that Brownie.

                                                            Will Power Isn’t at Fault

January 7: Will power: I don’t know about anybody else, but this big word isn’t the most important to an emotional eater. Getting rid of the bad emotion is more important because of psychological needs trump this thing called will power. Today, I admitted that I was in charge of what I eat. I admit that I have the power to choose what I eat as long as my emotions are in check. I have an emergency need to keep my emotions balanced because I’m not willing to die from overeating. I’m counting on my anti-depressants to work over time.

                                                Bleakness Bites My Butt

January 8: The world looks bleak to me. I didn’t feel like getting up, showering, eating, or writing. My pain is kicking my butt, and I’m struggling not to become an addict, or else I’d take a ton of pain medication. The worst part about this is that you build up a tolerance, and it takes increasingly more to keep the pain under control. My doctor says she doesn’t want to make a drug addict out of me. I don’t want to be one either. I think about conservative talk show host Russ Limbaugh and Green Bay Packer great Brett Favre and millions of others who find themselves hooked on legal drugs for uncontrollable pain. Regardless of all this, pain makes it harder for me to walk and function normally as all those people I see walking in parking lots at grocery stores while I sit in the car waiting for my husband to shop. Pain makes my emotions get out of control, and it raises my frustration as I struggle with pain and bingeing because of that and emotional issues.

                                                Rejections Are Beneficial

January 9: The rejection letters have stopped, and I’m disappointed. I’m lonely without having those letters telling me that I don’t have what publishers or agents are looking for. The more they reject my work, the more convinced I am that readers would benefit from it. Poetry publishers have often been unable to articulate what they want or need, but they say this: “We know it when we see it.” Reading and writing poems, for me, are like eating a gallon of French Vanilla ice cream. I’ve often thought that other heavy people could get into poetry reading, and I truly believe it would distract them from eating junk between meals. Feasting on poetry is like bitting into a Godiva chocolate bar, the richest that I’ve ever tasted, and sitting in a purple-watered Jacuzzi. Or how about consuming love poems and love stories – an antidote for readers who crave mood food. Love or myself – that’s what weight loss is all about. Some of love stories and poems weigh in on weight loss issues – some of which I journal. A lifetime of weight roll over from fat to thin and from fat to obese is a “tough row to hoe,” as Southern farmers used to say.

                                                Depression Beats Me

January 10: I admit that I am powerful over my choice of food: For the next thirty days, I am going to use some repetition therapy to drill one point into my head. I must believe it to accept it as gospel and worthy.

            I was so depressed that I went to bed with Poets and Writers to keep from crying all day. It was an awful day partly because I had been off anti-depressants for two weeks. I gave my medication money to my daughter to keep her from getting kicked out doors. Actually, I was short of the med money, so I figured why not. Ordinarily, I would’ve borrowed enough to make up the difference.

                                                A Scary Day at the Hospital

January 11: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. I am powerful over my choice of food. I AM powerful over my choice of food. Yes, I am going to wrap my head around this. Writing gives me the tool.

            For over a week, I was nerved out over that planned trip to the hospital to have an upper GI endoscopy, meaning they put a camera down the esophagus to view the gastrointestinal system. In my case, the doctor wanted to look at a benign growth or polyp, as they call it. He wanted to see if it had grown any since August. I was unnerved because I hadn’t forgotten the pain of the previous procedure, and I hadn’t forgotten the three days of not being able to swallow without pain.

            At the hospital, I was so nervous that I could barely answer the medical or medication question. At times I zoned out, and they had to ask the same questions more than once. “Are you all right? You look as if you’ve gone into another world,” the one nurse said. She was right. I was trying to put myself in a comfort zone so I wouldn’t think about the misery I’d soon be under. As it turned out, the doctor decided that I needed more anesthesia so I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the procedure as I had previously. This time I slept right through it. But the worst was yet to come.

            I forced myself to eat small pieces of chicken and to drink apple juice that night. Boy, did it hurt my throat. I then gargled with tepid salt water and drank nearly hot tea for most of the evening. Nothing worked. In the middle of the night, I got up to gargle often. The upshot of the ordeal was that I wasn’t able to eat too many calories. I had completely lost my appetite.

            He said I would have to repeat the test in a year. Since my regular doctor, he, and another GI guy agreed that I shouldn’t have surgery unless it was a matter of life and death, they decided that they should simply monitor the polyp. They wanted to make sure it didn’t get any bigger. I wanted it out because I was already tired of fighting that along with the gastric reflux that keeps me from eating normal foods. At that time most fruits and some vegetables I couldn’t tolerate. That wreaks havoc on my food maintenance program because I generally substitute fruit for those high caloric sweets that I binge on when I’m depressed. Luckily, I had no comfort foods in the house, or I might’ve blown it and binged to feel better. Depression and binge eating stymie eating right and keeping food consumption in check. That’s probably why depression and bioplar – the twin affliction of depression and mania – are reportedly contributing to the obesity crisis in America. That’s according to studies as reported by the National Institutes of Health. I’d known that all along, and I was elated to know that it wasn’t entirely my fault that I binge. The upshot of this is that I have to keep my bipolar illness in check and stay on my medication to accomplish that. 

                                                Toleration is a Friend

January 12: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. Today, I ate a bowl of soup and a bagel. That’s all I could tolerate. Not good eating for a person on a food maintenance program. I’m not hungry because my throat is still killing me. It’s a shame that it takes away my appetite. On the other hand, I’m not unhappy about it. At least, I won’t gain any weight this week.

                                                Power Is Everything

January 13: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. Today is a good day because I ate sensible with my meat, vegetable, starch, and fruit. I didn’t even crave dessert. I didn’t even have a depressed moments either.

                                                             Good News? Really?

January 14: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. I’ve done very well by eating right and not bingeing on any bad foods. I deserve to pat myself on the back.

January 15: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. I’ve done a poor job today because I ate two muffins at dinner and some Doritos. I thought I would die when guilt was painted like brown on Uncle Ben’s. I promise to redeem myself tomorrow. When I go to that doctor, if I’ve gained I’m going to shoot myself. If I lose, I’m going to shout.

            I joined Diettalk chat room today for much-needed support with my insidious problem. I’m not doing too well. It’s a lonely world out here, and I’m not mobile enough to join an away weight loss program. So I’m going to rely on the internet for support. It will be good to learn if they struggle as much as me. I feel so bad because I cannot seem to work this bingeing thing out. I went to a therapist once, and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Have you tried Weight Watchers?” Yes, but it didn’t stop me from cheating and bingeing. It’s an emotional eating problem, and I’m fighting it with all I’ve got. I’m going to lick this problem before this year is out. Watch me.

                                                A Backward Dilemma

January 16: I admit that I’m powerful over my choice of food. I went to the doctor today and found out I had lost five pounds. What a victory? And I went and ruined it by buying and eating two large scoops of chocolate ice cream. I told myself that I deserved a reward for working so hard. It was the stinking thinking. My brain must be on crack. It acts like it anyway though I’ve never even tried marijuana let alone crack.

            I didn’t take time to shout because I was busy buying ice cream. My husband was with me, but he never said a word. He’s not the type to chastise me or even to gently nudge me. Sometimes, he’s part of the problem because he’s always tempting me by eating bad foods himself. I used to eat almost as much as he eats, but I’ve progressed to eating a third of what I used to eat. Thanks God for that. I’m pleased with myself, although I still mess up sometimes.

            I’m not going to mess around anymore. I will not buy any poison at the grocery store or anywhere else. I promise.

                                                Words for Weight War

January 17: Write myself thin. It’s been twenty-seven years, and I’m still fat. It’s not from a lack of trying. I am motivated to eat right, but the exercising is a huge problem because of my arthritis knees and all over pain in my body. My knees kill me from just walking. Doc wants me to bear the pain, but I’m sick of being fat, which means that I want pain pills to help me feel better. That would allow me to get in some exercise time. Before my pain increased, I used to walk a lot and did floor exercises. Now my knee joints move around involuntarily. She says it is excess water and inflammation. I don’t care what it’s called as long as I am rid of this excruciating pain. I also can feel it moving in abnormal ways when I bend or exercise. It’s the strangest. The doctor says it is water on my knee and inflammation that causes it. Water exercises would help if I could afford to pay for pool use, and if I wasn’t embarrassed to wear a bathing suit out there with all those thin women. I’m grateful to God that things are no worse than they are.

                                                That Swift Kick Is Great

January 18: A horrific cold is kicking my butt. One good thing about it is that I’ve lost my appetite. That’s good and bad. It’s bad because I need nutrition to live and fight a cold. It’s bad because I’m a diabetic and I have to eat and take insulin. It’s good because I don’t have to fight the urge to keep bad food poundage off my behind. I’m writing myself thin. The more I write, the more I realize what I’m doing wrong. Writing makes me focus on the right things and provides with solutions to this madness. Some days, I have to write in a notebook because I don’t feel well enough to get on the computer. But I write, nevertheless.

                                    Hanging Out with Fruits and Veggies

January 19: The month is over half gone, and I’m still struggling with my eating patterns. Eat four small meals a day. That is difficult because we don’t cook more than once a day. It takes some sharp planning to make those small meals available. I’m doing better with desert and between meal snacks. Eat fruit for dessert. Eat carrots and celery for between meal snacks. They are my friends, and I’d better hold that thought.

                                                Feeling Purple Is Hell

January 20: I will forge ahead with my eating pattern. I will follow the ritual to the end. Struggle should never be part of a weight loss program. But we are human, and we’re likely to step outside of the program parameters. That would be bad news. As I’ve said before, the emotional eating program is a bigger issue than will power. I truly believe that. And to prove it to myself, I kept a journal of how will power worked when I was not having emotional blows in my life. During emotional lows, will power went right out the window. I couldn’t believe it at first, so I continued testing myself until it made me a believer. Now I know how to be extra cautious when I am feeling a little purple. I make sure there are no guilt foods around the house. If my husband brings them in, I keep preoccupied so that I’m not tempted. It’s the Brownies and the potato chips that are his favorite comfort foods. Mine is chocolate ice cream, but he won’t bring that in because he doesn’t like ice cream in the winter time. Me? I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner in fall, spring, summer, and winter. That’s dangerous stuff.

                                                Limitations Don’t Rule Self-Confidence

January 20: Today, I have to deal with self-confidence. I try hard to always feel good about myself and to have confidence in what I can do. That’s tough because there are so many limitations on what I can achieve in my life now. With health problems, we have to have confidence that we are doing the best we can. That’s a sharp difference in what had occurred in my younger years. I didn’t have to put parameters on what to believe about myself. I have to remind myself that I can only credit myself with what I can do and not what I wish I could still do.

                                                Traveling Toes Are Spiritual Ones

January 21: It isn’t about will power; it’s about inspirational power. I reach deep inside myself to bring out my inner spirit to inspire me to eat what’s good for me. I’m not worried about how much will power I have. I know that inspiration and spirituality will get me through the day. I dream of being a thinner woman. I must get there before I die. This life is bitter with all the pounds weighing me down. Why, oh, why did I eat so much. I’m looking at a baby on TV and I wonder if weight will become a problem for him before he’s an adult. I had a weight problem long before I became an adult, and I knows I didn’t decide to eat myself fat. The world wasn’t built in a day, and losing weight takes more time than I have left. I think that every day, hoping that it will rev up my spirit to work harder and to yield not to temptation less.

                                                            Spirituality Brings Solace

January 22: I don’t weigh myself until I go to the doctor, which is about every two or three months. Then I can pretend that I’m not gaining weight and be surprised when I learn that I’ve lost, and I scream if I’ve gained. If I weighed every week, I might get too frustrated about a lack of loss and eat more because of it. I’ve gone through December with a ten pound weight gain, and I had Christmas and New Year’s. It’s time to weigh in to determine if I really have lost. If I’ve gained, I don’t know what I’ll do next. Cry. Beat myself up. Scream. Jump right back into to the weight program, and call on my spiritual self to bring me solace.

                                                Fat Didn’t Jump Up and Bite Me

January 23: I know I must be patient with myself because fat didn’t show up in a flash. There are years of layers stuck on my body, and it may take a year to get some of it off. I dream that it would all melt off in a year, and I pray it does now that I am trying harder. My exercise program is lagging behind my eating because pain in my knees and back worsen when I walk. The most I can do is floor exercises, and that doesn’t get my heart rate up enough. Maybe when I lose more weight, I’ll have less pressure on my joints and my back. Then exercise won’t be as painful. I can only hope.

                                                Brownie’s Trap is Rotten

January 24: I’m not crying in my milk. I am going to laugh all the way to those scales at my doctor’s office. That’s what I thought until I realized that I had laughed too soon. The scale showed a no-gain, and I was broken. That was the absolute worst thing that could happen aside from having gained a pound or more. I’ve eaten too many Brownies. But I am counting the days that I’ve beaten the Brownie urge. I love myself when I’m losing, and I hate my ass when I’m gaining.

                                                Too Bad Birds Don’t Talk

January 25: I saw a redbird today, and it was the first time in twenty years that I’d seen one. He was gorgeous. He represents the freedom I will feel when I’ve lost all of the excess weight. When I’m done, I’ll remember him. The bird represents my native state of North Carolina, and I didn’t think I’d ever see one in Wisconsin. It just shows you that I’m not a bird watcher. He looked at me, and I stared right back until he flew off the railing of my balcony.

            I tried to imagine what he might’ve said to me. Would he say, “You’re fat,” like little kids do. Or would he have cheered for me because I’ve tried so hard. I write this willfully, and I appear naked in my thoughts. Whether it makes sense or not depends, I’m not entirely sure at this moment of weakness.

                                                Feeling Good is a Good Thing

January 26: I’m feeling good about myself. My self-confidence is at an all-time high today. It is time for all good dieters to jump up and shout not just for the pounds, but for the concerted effort. I’m celebrating the change of my eating pattern for eating is important to achieve the ultimate prize. I see me as a thin person already.

            I want to live high on the mountain with all those thin people dancing around. When I pull this off, it’ll be the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Whoopie. I’m not about to lose anything but fat.

                                                Rip Van Winkle Didn’t Get Fat

January 27: Time stood still while I gained weight, it seemed. I know it didn’t but why wasn’t I looking? We all know how important an additional pound is to a heavy person. Every pound is like fifty pounds because if we live long enough we’ll get there. The years past, and the pounds accumulate. It’s as if we were Rip Van Winkle, and we gained weight while we slept. Actually, we eat through the years, and the pounds climb minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, and year by year. When we arrive at our current weight, we’re shocked. I’ve always been surprised with every new pound as if I’d been eating carrots and celery all the time.

                                                            Boobs, Please Don’t Go

January 28: I stare in the mirror at my breasts and wonder what size they’ll be when I’m thinner. Will I go from a “D” cup to a “C” cup, or will I remain a “D” cup, which I’ve worn for more than twenty years. One time Oprah did a bra fitting show, and I went out and bought a “DD” cup and it fit well. I refused to wear it, and kept wearing my “D” cup because it felt comfortable enough. I just couldn’t bear the thought of walking around with “DD” boobs. Now I can’t imagine being a “C” cup but I would not hesitate to put one on and smile. But deep down inside, I’d rather keep them big.

                                                Old Clothes an Inspiration

January 29: Those old clothes in my closet are still new because they’ve had so little wearing time. Shortly after renewing my wardrobe years ago, I had a rapid weight gain from drinking and eating too much rich food while partying with my husband to be. I gained forty pounds in six months but refused to let go of the clothes. I bought clothes until I could no longer afford them. Then I went to stretch pants and sweat shirts.

Once I went to a woman’s seminar where the speaker said we should get rid of those old clothes because they’d never fit again. “Get rid of those old clothes; you’ll never be that size again,” she said. Oh, hell no. I’m never going to concede that. Getting rid of those clothes would be like giving up on my biggest hurdle.

            My daughter said these clothes will be out of style by the time I lose the weight. Not hardly. Every outfit in my closet looks like something I’ve seen people wear now. I never bought clothes based on fads. To prove my point about the clothes not going out of style, I’ve worn old outfits and have had people compliment me on them. Sometimes they even ask where I bought them from. That’s tacky to ask, but I’m happy to answer that I’ve had it for years.

            Hell no. I’m keeping my old clothes because I will wear them again. In fact, I have a brand new outfit that I’ve never worn. I bought it too small several years ago to motivate and inspire me. I’m going to wear that nice periwinkle dress with the long jacket before the year is out. I promise you, dear journal.

                                                Reminder of Thinner Days

January 30: How did I wind up here: Sometimes. I look in the mirror and think the fat came while I slept. I can barely remember thinner days. Every new year I’ve told the same lie. “I’m going to get fit this year.” Well, this time I already see myself as thin. “You have to see it to believe it to achieve it,” as some wise person said. I am now setting a goal of eight pounds a month. 

                                                Healthy through Words

January 31: The month ends with improvement. I’ve not eaten any Brownies since New Year’s Day. I’m following a good-eating routine, and have not overeaten or binged all month. I stay busy writing, reading, sitting with a heating pad to keep the pain down, or I meditate. I’m not big on cleaning because it’s difficult for me.