Thoughts on food and weight

I had my Duodenal Switch weight loss surgery 3 years ago.  Last year at my two-year follow up, they said, "You are at goal, you should stop losing weight now."  Then in the week following, I lost another 5 pounds, so they put me on digestive enzymes.  I lost ANOTHER 5 pounds while we adjusted how much of the (ridiculously expensive) enzymes I needed.  I maintained for 2 weeks.

Then we went into the Christmas Season, full of treats and lots of eating.  I felt I had free reign to eat "whatever I want", since I was in danger of continuing to lose too much weight.  Well, by January 1st I had gained back that extra 10 below goal weight, and was back to "goal."   I backed off the enzymes, taking none for a few weeks to see what happened.  I maintained, so I stayed off them.  But I was still in the "I can eat anything" mind-set.  I had incorporated a lot more sugar and starches into my diet than I had been eating in the 2 years prior.  Slowly that has had an effect.  In addition to the added carbohydrates I was taking in, I was also being more social, going to more parties and therefore drinking more booze.  All of these extra "empty" calories has lead to a gain of another 15 pounds over the last year.  Meaning, I am 15 above goal and 25 above my lowest weight!  I cannot let this continue!

 I decided I would go off starches for the week, just this week Monday through Friday.  I forgot what it was like to feel like an addict.  I have been "having what I want" for so long, than I didn't notice it might be some addictive behavior.  BUT, I notice that I am seriously craving the starches now that I have deemed them off limits.  Even when I am NOT at all hungry, I am fantasizing about bread!

I have always HATED feeling like I am on a diet.  Right now I am feeling like I am "dieting", though I have no quantity limits in mind for my eating.  I can eat as much meat, eggs, cheese fish, and veggies as I want.  I am also allowing myself 1 -2 pieces of fruit and some beans / edemame /  soynuts and other nuts.  These have higher carb content, but also have good fiber, and other than the fruit, have decent protein along with the carbs.  Most important to me is staying away from bread, rice, pasta etc.  But I sure love bread, rice, pasta, tortillas.

So, I am noticing a bit of obsessing, and acknowledging to myself, yes, these things *are* addictive to me.  I think I can have them back in my food plan once I am back at goal.  I just need to be a little more moderate than I have been, and pay closer attention to my protein, veggie intake, and keep bread etc to just 1-2 servings a day, rather than 1-2 servings per meal, as I was in the habit for a while.

Also, I need to get more exercise.  I am getting a little bit of walking in, but no real cardio to speak of.  And definitely no strength training.  I have a few friends that are available to go to the gym, so I will probably take them up on it.  While I would rather work out in the morning, but being obligated to someone else helps me not flake out, so that might be worth going in the evening.  In the end, going is better than not going. 

In the past, I would have really beaten myself up over gaining a bit of weight.  But things are different for me now.  It's really quite common for most weight loss surgery patients to gain back 10-20 percent of the weight lost.  I also know I still have my tool, and I can use it to drop those pounds easier than the average woman on the street.  Surgery is not an "easy fix", it still requires I take care of business for the rest of my life.  Yes, there is a wonderful honeymoon period when everything is easy, requires little effort.  Well, my honeymoon is over and now it's time to behave like the average person .... most adults have to watch what they eat.  Hopefully most of them just have to pay attention, be moderate and not go crazy and they do just fine maintaining a healthy weight.  They can have occasional indulgences with little ill effect because they are diligent most of the time with making healthy choices.   I can do that too.  Once I am back at goal, I am completely confident that I won't need to constantly "diet".  I will need to be mindful and make healthy choices most of the time.  And occasionally I can have a treat.  I have always said what I wanted was to be normal.

Well, this is what normal looks like.

Where did the damage come from?

I am starting to explore some of the turning points in my life that lead to the major self-esteem issues I had (and sometimes still wrestle with) and how those led to an inability to love myself.  I not only didn't love myself, but when I first started looking at the issue, I realized I loathed myself on a very deep level.  I have thought a little about the reasons why, but I find the writing of this memoir requires I look a little deeper.  In the end, I think this will be a further healing process. 

I am noticing there are some very specific points in time where major shifts in my self-esteem happened, and those will be easy to write about, but I think a huge lot of this stuff is much more subtle.  I moved a lot as a kid.  Most of the moving happened before I entered high school.  In fact, I moved about 20 times before the age of 16.  I attended 7 elementary schools (well, technically only 6, but I attended one twice, from different  homes with not much if any overlap in school friends.)  I attended two middle schools, and one high school.  I have lamented to my mother over the years on the irony that she married a military man and we finally stopped moving around so much. 

I seem to remember that I always felt really shy when I went to a new school, but I always seemed to find a friend fairly early on.  It was usually not the "popular" kid in class, but most often also not the "loser".  It was usually the "nice" girl.  The one that liked everyone, and most everyone liked but wasn't "popular" for whatever dumb reasons kids have for selecting who the cool kids are.  I always had one good friend, and a few acquaintances that accepted me, but I also always had those that didn't like me because I was an interloper.  Often it was one of the fringe of "hangers on" that the nice girl was friendly with (just because she's so nice) but didn't particularly like so much.  This is the pattern that repeated over and over throughout elementary school and into junior high. 

And then there was the "problem period" of my life.... here is a summary of events from those few years:

• I mentioned above that Mom married a military man.  I was about twelve, then.  It was her 3rd marriage.  He was a tough military man, and had two sons that visited every other weekend.  (I also have a half sister who is never "half" in my mind.)
• Also around that time my birth father had made a reappearance in my life, but mostly his crazy family arranged it, trying to get him released from the state hospital for the criminally insane he was in.  My father is schizophrenic and made poor choices based on delusions and fear.  It was clear he needed help, not jail.  But that means he had to go through a parole-like hearing in order to get released.  His family thought having his kid in his life looked good for that.  Of course they pretty much ignored my existence for about 10 years leading up to that time.  
• Around the same time my grandfather, the main male parental figure in my young life, and whom I was very close to, was diagnosed and died from lung cancer.  He was in his mid-50s when he died.  
• Also around the same time I was becoming estranged from my 1st step-dad.  He was the only real dad I had had in my life until that time; I even used his last name (though it wasn't legal/official.)  I had a difficult relationship with his new wife, and hated visiting because it was miserable.  I didn't want to visit anymore.   It seemed from then on I was never invited over again, going so far as having to invite myself to Christmas.  It took until just last year to begin to have a relationship again after many years of none.
• Oh, and let's not forget that that is the age of puberty onset and I was on the emotional roller coaster from hell.

So to say that my childhood was unstable would be accurate, if a bit of an understatement.  It was mostly a good life, in that I was loved and fed and clothed and housed.  Times were surely lean occasionally, but I never felt "poor".  I think I always thought it was just how life was.  I didn't understand families that had always lived in the same house.  That seemed weird.  Even as an adult I have moved a lot, getting restless being in one place too long.  I long for a family home that I have no desire what-so-ever to leave.  I am not sure such a place exists.  I also have direct opposite desires of maybe being a full time nomad, inspired by reading of others my age living that way (and envious of the wonderful adventures that presents to them.)

There were definitely a huge number of other factors that lead me to such a low self-worth and lack of self-love, but the utter chaos and instability of my childhood are definitely big factors.  I am doing some brainstorming and poking around the memories to find specific experiences that I can write into my story that illustrate those seeds of negativity being planted in my subconscious and conscious mind.  I don't think this listing of facts really gets to the depth of the kind of feelings such instability can bring up in a kid.  I think my "it was normal' assessment is more my grown-up mind talking, not the little girl that was actually living it.  I am working to get back more into her mindset and to re-live some of those feelings, so I can commit them to written words (and hopefully then more fully exorcise them.)

Love: It fades, but it's a choice

Everything I have ever read or heard about marriage says that you have to work to keep the love alive.  It just doesn't stay new and sparkly and lively all on it's own.  It takes care and feeding and nurturing.  I takes *choosing* it every single day.

As I continue to take this journey of life, I have come to realize this is even more true when it comes to loving myself.  When I finally started loving myself, the work wasn't over.  I don't just get to close the door on that particular path of personal growth and consider myself "done".  I don't believe we are ever done with personal growth, especially in the area of loving ourselves or good self-care.  I think we can get better and better to stepping back into the light when the demons take hold.  I think we can learn to hear, but not believe the inner critical voices that tell us negative things about ourselves.  I have learned to transform that bitchy voice that tells me I am not good enough.  She used to have my voice, but now she sounds like a generic old hag... she is someone else, not me.

But not listening... not believing the inner critic.  It takes *work*.  I have to make a conscious choice sometimes.  When I am doing really well, I can dismiss the thoughts so easily, I hardly notice I had them.  But some days I have to be my own cheerleader.  Some days I have to ask my best friend to give me a pep talk.  Asking for help doesn't mean I can't take care of "my stuff" on my own.  Asking for help *IS* taking good care of myself.  It means I know when I need support.  How much more loving can I be than that?

Love is a choice.  People have flaws.  When I love someone, I can see past the flaws to the beauty, strength, joy, humor and love that lay beneath the flaws.  I can forgive the little annoyances because the rest is worth it.  It's sometimes a little harder to apply the same standards to myself as I do the others I love in my life, but that is my goal each day.

I choose to accept that I am not perfect. I can embrace my beauty, strength, joy, humor and love even while working to improve upon my flaws.  I choose love.

Privacy vs. Secrecy - how much to tell "in public"

I am writing a memoir.  Some key aspects of my journey include some darkness and potentially controversial topics.  I don't think I can tell the full and real story (or have an interesting story) without including these details.  I think the healing process for me is about exposing the secrets, about not being ashamed, embracing myself as I am and accepting the dark with the light.

Everything I read about online privacy says, "Never use your real name for anything but professional connections."  "Never mix your personal/social identity with your legal/professional identity."  The things I think that most people would be trying to keep private from their professional associates... are exactly what I will be putting in my book.  A book I hope to publish for the world to read.  Nothing is private if it's published.  So I am in a quandary as to whether it makes sense to keep things private.  I am seeking transparency, but right now I am feeling fuzzy as to the potential negative consequences.  I am not sure they matter.  This book is important to me.  If I can't write the truth, there is no point in writing it.

I think the key for me will be in the editing process.  I will need to make sure that I am REALLY clear what I am sharing with the world, and that the context is exceedingly apparent.  There will still be many who condemn me.  I may even lose out on some professional opportunities.  That said, I guess I am an optimist (and hopefully not a Pollyanna) , because I just have an underlying faith that it will all work out ok.

Creating a sacred space

One of the major themes of my memoir is learning to love myself.  I have done tremendously with that, but there are still some areas where I do not demonstrate love or respect for myself.  The largest manifestation of that is the chaos that my bedroom is currently in.  There is a huge amount of clutter and mess.  It is to a scary extreme, and yesterday I gave my mirror image a pep talk.  "Kimmie, this is not the picture of a room of someone that loves themselves.  You deserve to treat yourself better than this."

I don't have a place to write.  I cannot get to my desk due to all the clutter around it.  I bought a new desk chair, because I was previously using a camp chair, but the chair is still in the box in the back seat of my car because I have nowhere to put it.  I want to fix this.  I really want to create a sacred space for myself.  I want a desk that feels good to sit at and write for long periods of time.

I have vowed to not beat myself up for creating the mess, or for letting it get so far out of control.  Today, I gently praise myself for taking a few steps to rectify the situation.  I plan to plug the speakers into the computer, and turn on some upbeat music and to get started.  I will work for a while, then take a break, then work some more.  This is the most loving way I can spend my day off of work.  I am giving myself a gift, rather than "working hard." 

Self-improvement and personal growth are processes that are never "complete".  I will always be a work in progress.  That is a blessing and gives me motivation to keep moving forward. Life is not, nor will it ever be, "perfect", but I can continue to make it better and better.  Sometimes I backslide, but I think that is normal and sometimes even healthy, as long as I can get back on the path of growth.  Loving myself is about forgiving myself for being imperfect.  Loving myself is about rejoicing in my humanity, warts and all.

Building a habit

I am not sure exactly *how* I wish to use this blog yet, but I am aware that it building a habit of writing regularly is very important.  I think at first, it will be a lot about the writing process and the feelings that writing my memoir brings up for me.  I expect I will also include snippets of writing that are part of my book writing process.  I cannot guarantee that those bits will all end up in the finished product, but they will be an important part of the process of weeding through the memories and writing the stories.

I have used online journals and blogs in the past, but always with very limited access, with only a few select friends able to see my postings.  This is different.  This is public, with my real name attached.  Fully "Google-able" and fully transparent to the world.   A memoir requires sharing a great deal of personal information about myself.  I am finding that prospect exciting, inspiring, and frightening... leaving me with a satisfied feeling of authenticity, but also a bit vulnerable.

A new phase of my journey

Starting this blog, and my memoir is a new phase in my journey.  I am excited to get started, and also a bit daunted.  I am committed to taking this new path.  I know that, like other journeys, it's all about one step at a time.