Optifast - Day 28

Well hello again!  Sorry it has been so long between posts, a lot has happened since I last wrote.  Life can sometimes be like one big catch 22 can't it?  I think I might have finally broken the cycle of emotional eating, but sadly the discovery came at the expense of some extremely emotionally, heart ripping news.  In my last post I wrote about my mom's Pancreatic cancer.  I do apologize for being so candid about that, since this is a blog about my weight loss journey, but somehow I think for me, it all ties in together...my emotions and eating that is.  Well, long story short, last Wednesday on my way to class my mom called me and told me that she had made the decision to discontinue all forms of treatment for her cancer.  She's just too tired and too weak.

 

My father and I disagreed with her decision, but then again, she's my mom and like dad, I don't want to let her go, but I know we can't force her to live in a body that is not cooperating with her, so short of a miracle, it's just a waiting game now for my wonderful parents and myself.

 

So where did that breakthrough come in, you ask?  Well, all of my life I have fed my emotions, usually to the point of a 'food coma' and then falling asleep.  While I was driving and listening to my mom tell me what she had decided, I passed three or four fast food places and even though I am on my diet, I thought, nope, don't want it.  I know I could have cheated, who would have known, but it's not because I was on my diet that I didn't cheat, it's because for the first time in all of my life, I allowed myself to "feel the emotion, not feed the emotion", as my new saying I coined two weeks ago says and for the first time in my life and like many people do, I lost my appetite for anything, for about two days...literally needing to force my five supplements on me...and  I cried.  I told her I understood and while I didn't like it, I accepted her decision because she needs to do what is best for her, but it doesn't mean I didn't feel the heartbreak, because I did.  I still do...she's my mom.   

 

I have to tell you, it's an interesting feeling, this feeling.  I thought I knew what it was like, but it is different when you're not feeding the anger, or the sadness, or the happiness.  There is so much more power to that emotion than I ever thought and yet, when it is finally released for that moment, there also seems to be that much more completion in that moment.  These are my own steps and feelings of course, since I don't know how everyone else feels about it, but it's how I feel and of course, this is my journey, but if one person reads this that has my same exact problem, then I hope it helps that one person, because, feeding my problems and masking them behind food, is what got me to the weight I was at before I began this weight loss program and this journey.  It's been an interesting one and not always easy, but it's been an eye opener and a soul searching one as well. 

 

I'm not sure what the next entry will bring, but for now, I've still got this...

Optifast - Day 18

I think I am beginning to narrow down my struggles, though I admit, the timing of this process was not the greatest on my part, but also done on purpose to help me overcome the greatest of my obstacles, emotional eating.  I have always been one to emotionally eat when a crisis has arose and since I began this process I have faced my first challenge, my family.  As a single woman, I live about 110 miles away from my parents in the next county to the north.  Sure, that isn't far, but I don't get down to see them every weekend due to my own commitments.  On May 19 of this year, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer, which had spread to the liver and has also moved a bit into her lungs.  This alone helped me pack on about fifteen to twenty pounds, sending me to a starting point of 240.3, but not my highest weight, which I believe was about 255 sometime in my late thirties.

I am an emotional eater.  Yes, I am sure people say this is an excuse, but to be honest, I believe it to be a true affliction.  It's a void filler, a comfort choice and sadly it's only one of my many options.  I abuse food...not healthy food, but comfort food...anything that tastes good and is readily available, like fast food.  It's my choice and my choice alone and I am sure if I found more constructive ways of dealing with my "emotional pain", I wouldn't be emotionally eating, but this is how I learned to incorrectly cope.  That said, I am doing what I can to make amends, because, to make matters worse, I am a survivor of a pediatric heart surgery.  Born with Tetralogy of Fallot, I should be an advocate of heart health, well okay, I am, but what I should actually be, is an advocate of heart health, who lives a healthy lifestyle...and now this is what I am trying to achieve.  

I am not without my dark moments in my life, many of us have them, many of us just emotionally eat.  My eating was driven by past pain.  Now it is being driven by watching my mom who admits to not being much of a fighter, during the fight of her life.  She was the spunky one.  The one who prayed for everyone. The one who took care of everyone and now here she is, fighting for her own life and sitting in a chair not saying much to anyone anymore.  When I see her, it's like seeing a shell of person I once knew and now being on this diet, I am learning to "Feel the emotion, not feed the emotion".  A saying I came up with last week in order to deal with not being able to reach for the nearest comfort food.  

I started this program at this time on purpose, because I wanted to, pardon the expression, "kill two birds with one stone".  I need to lose weight and I need to finally learn how to face pain and not just shove it deep inside.  I don't know how chemo is going to turn out for my mom, but I do know that I have to trust that no matter what happens, that my dad has been the best caregiver any spouse could ever ask for and that I have done what I could as their only child to give him the breaks he needs when I visit, as well as be a good daughter to my mom for whatever time she has left on this earth, whether it be months or years.  I want her to stay with us, I want her to live for years. Heck, I keep praying, wishing and putting out to the universe for that miracle and that she will be better, but the one thing I am learning from this program is that the only thing I can control is me, not the world and everyone in it.

I can only control what I do and the choices I make and being in this program is one of the choices I have made.  I need to get healthy and I need to be in a place so my heart has a chance and I have a chance.  It's a possibility that type 2 diabetes lead to my mom's condition, though not proven, but since I am also on the brink of that, I need to make sure that I detour my path and get back on the highway to healthy. This is how I start.

This has been a hard week.  I have craved again, I have wanted to eat and once again I succeeded at not succumbing to my desires for "real" food.  Two months and 5 days until we transition back onto real food.  On the bright side, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party will be that Friday and despite being an Annual Passholder, I am going with friends and will be able to test my ability to make good choices.   Then two weeks following, I will be able off to the Magic Castle for a wonderful night with a few of the same friends for a night of fun and actual eating and choosing well again and I believe I will be able to do it this time and maintain my weight.

So these are my thoughts for today.  These are my words for another blog.

Until the next time.  I can still say, I got this...

Optifast - Day 10

I had hoped to write after my second class, but in hindsight, I am glad that I didn't.  The first week didn't go without it's cravings and temptations, but turns out I faced my hardest day yet.  Day 9.  I don't know what happened, but yesterday was a rough one for me.  I had an eye appointment in the morning, which put me a wee behind schedule on drinking my drink.  I thought perhaps I could just drink it in the car on my way to work, which was working out fine until I forgot half of the supplement in the car and decided not to go back for it...big mistake.  I don't know it if was my mind or my body, but I truly believe this threw me off for the rest of the day.  I didn't think there was much left in it, but when I got back to the car at the end of the day, there was still half a box left.

When I got into the office, I had some tea, like I have been doing, then some water, but not enough to sustain me.  If I want this program to work, I need to start sticking to the details and making them work for me, like finishing my entire supplement "juice box", as I call them, since that is exactly what the ready mades look like.  I had spare supplements in my cubby hole that we received in our trial week before class started, but I thought I would be okay...another big mistake.  I have to stop worrying about how much weight I want to lose and start focusing on the weight I am losing each week. I was afraid to put on a few calories, so I did not want to make a whole new supplement which I should have, because the rest of the day I was craving food. Nothing in particular, but something as simple as a saltine cracker...I thought, what if I ate just one, but no. no no.  Food is not an option for me.  Other people can cheat, but I don't want to, I want to stick to the book with this program... and fortunately I stuck with my evening plan, I made my tomato soup, added some garlic powder and in the meantime also made my optifast chocolate "pudding", which seemed to cure my foodie blues.

I am fully aware that the end result for this process is going to be a good thing, but getting there can be one of two ways, fun, but not so easy, or hard and hard and I am determined to make it fun and not so easy. I am determined to find different ways to make this process interesting and exciting for me.  I have just under 14 weeks to go, or something like that and just over 10 weeks until we transition back to food, but for as busy as I am and for as many things as I have coming up, this can come quickly and I look forward to what is in store in those 10-14 weeks.  I know anything will be better than being 240.3 pounds (Kp's scale) which is where I started.  This morning I weighed myself and I was 230.0 (my scale) pounds exactly. In a week and a half I have lost 7 pounds, without this program, I would be at 2 pounds a week, so I have to remember the strides I am taking and keep shooting for that.

This program isn't necessarily for everyone, but it is for me and I know I can do this and I know I will stick to this....it's time for a change and to not just talking about it.  For once I am going to finish what I start and I going to show myself that I can.

Until the next time.

I got this.....

Optifast - Day 6

I can't believe that tomorrow will be one week since I started the program, which means one week closer to being done.  So far according to my scale I have lost a few pounds which is fine by me, since I know I haven't drank the amount of water I should have, but I am confident that this program is going to work wonders for me and I am excited.

I had some challenges this last week, like the movies with friends who like me love popcorn, hot dogs and candy, but of course I couldn't have any.  Then of course there was Sunday at the Races with the group, which was fun, but again another test when everyone is nibbling and eating lunch in front of you, but again, I survived the food and alcohol temptation, which was quite an awesome feeling.  There is something to be said about a good feeling of accomplishment.

My next test will be this Saturday at a 40th birthday celebration, but then again there will be tests everywhere.  Emotional eating, birthday's, cravings, etc.  800 calories a day with the same food all the time isn't going to be easy, but we will make it work somehow.  It has to.

I am curious to see how class goes tomorrow since last week was more of just an introduction than anything else.   The instructor last week said that this week we are going to share...hmmm

Optifast - Day 3

I am finished with day three and I swear I thought I wasn't going to make it through day two, let alone today.  The hardest thing is seeing the food lying around the house, but also the smell of food, which is really what gets my taste buds going.   I am not necessarily a foodie, but I do love food and I love good food and food that tastes as delicious as it smells.  I have to admit, going from how ever many "gajillions" of calories a day that I was eating to just 800 a day has been close to insane for me and I literally mean mentally exhausting.  I feel like I am losing my mind and my cool, as my body adjusts to this new "diet", though I am reluctant to call it that, I prefer lifestyle change.  As the quote said the other day, I don't plan on finding the weight after I lose it.

I have allowed myself to get to this point by emotionally eating, not paying attention to my health,  not exercising, etc., but I know I am not at a point of no return, no one is.  I know I can do this, I know that even though these last few days have been a struggle, that the end result will be worth it.  I sometimes think of my mom who is battling Pancreatic cancer and strangely I draw strength from her, because it's not comfortable for her do so, but she pushes through and tries, since the tumor is in a position that makes it uncomfortable for her to digest.  I suspect it will also be some time before her taste buds begin cooperating with her,  since she just finished round 2 of chemo, but I also want to give her one less thing to worry about and since I am a woman, who had heart surgery as a child, I am also doing this for her, aside from myself. 

I survived today, as dramatic as that sounds, but I did.  I went to the movies with Troy and Jason and while they munched on Popcorn, soda's, candy and Hot Dogs, I ate my Optifast Peanut Bar and drank my Tazo Tea.  I am a sucker for popcorn, but I made it. I didn't think about it and I was okay.  It was hard at first, but I did it.  Tomorrow Sis Laura and I are going to Del Mar to attend the races with Dad. It'll be weird not seeing mom there, but I know she has to get better.  

I know tests will come and go and I will face them like I do everything else, with strength and courage.  It seems silly and dramatic, but this is a new feeling for me, a dawn of a new era for me. I am 41 years old and I feel like for once I am finally taking control of my life and for the better.  I want to be a part of the world again. I left it fourteen years ago when I broke up with my last boyfriend and since then I have hidden behind food and sadness and depression, holed up in an invisible room afraid to let anyone in.  I miss companionship. I miss being held by a man. I miss kissing and cuddling and dates and so on and while I know that people of many shapes and sizes can find significant others, my inability to appreciate myself has kept me from this. Not just because of my weight, that was just a factor I used to hide from the world, or more appropriately, an excuse I used.  Many things have kept me from the world, but like many who "fast" to find spiritual awareness, perhaps this journey to help my heart and myself get into a better place, will also help my mind and my soul get there too.

That's why this is a journey and it's one that I think will push me to the brink of finally having no other choice but to learn how to finally love myself for who I am and all I can be and for all I already am.

I've got this.