Filling Myself Up

It's time to completely change gears from what my previous posts have been.  I have been using this forum, primarily, to share with others who have asked what I have done to be successful to this point with losing weight and getting active.  I strongly believe that the most important work I have done/am doing has nothing to do with what or how much I eat or exercise.  The most important, as well as most difficult, work has to do with the emotional side of obesity.  The WHY I eat and don't exercise.  There is an underlying story, plain and simple, that makes people get and stay fat.  Most of us are gaining something by staying heavy.  Whether it's protecting us from true intimacy or facing a past trauma, the weight is a protective shield from the rest of the world.  The only way to get the weight off and keep it off is to face that something head on, deal with it in the context of how it causes you to relate to food, and change.  That cause and effect relationship cannot remain intact if true change is going to happen.

Sometimes the people who love you the most sabotage your weight loss efforts.  They may fear that you will "outgrow' them as you reach your goals.  And sometimes you sabotage yourself.  I have definitely fallen into the latter category.  It took a long, long time to figure out that self sabotage was what was happening, not a real plateau, and the motivation behind it.

Typically, self sabotage is based in fear.   For me, I feared that I would no longer be what my husband wanted me to be.  All of the beautiful women in his life (mom, aunts, etc.) were heavy women and he, therefore, was attracted to "round".  I came to realize that I was losing much of my round.  I spent several months frustrated with my lack of weight loss progress not realizing that I was doing it to myself out of that fear.

So, what to do?  Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.  My huge breakthrough moment happened when I finally had the courage to tell my husband what I thought was going on with myself.  Lo and behold, I was way off base.  Of course.  He was indeed attracted to round, he said.  Because that's the shape that I was.  Now he is attracted to the shape that I am now.  Because it is the shape that I am.  If I end up skin and bones, he will be attracted to skin and bones.  Because it is my shape.  Cue the angel chorus!  Once this was all on the table, I was able to move on.

I knew I had hit the nail on the head when, not hungry, I headed to the pantry.  I was about to grab whatever was sweet and handy when I thought, "Wait a minute.  I am loved and I don't need food to fill any hole within myself."  It sounds terribly hokey but it was huge.  Jillian Michaels Podcast "Living for a Greater Purpose" (6/2/12 beginning at 15:10) addresses compulsive overeating.  It is from the perspective of diagnosing someone who is addicted to food and needs psychological help.  BUT I found it to be highly applicable to anyone who has an unhealthy relationship with food.  I was also relieved to learn that I am definitely not actually addicted to food.  Just desperately in love with it!  It also specifically addresses the idea of using food to "fill yourself" when not hungry and using food to numb emotions.

My own odyssey of using food to numb or create emotions definitely did not begin with my insecurities relating to my relationship with my husband though I hope it will end there.  Predictably, it goes back to my childhood:  I grew up in a family that did not, and does not, discuss problems.  I was never told I was beautiful, loved or worthwhile.  Though I was a skinny kid (for a time), I was never told that I was a healthy weight and was never encouraged to maintain that active, play outside constantly lifestyle.  There was not physical affection in my childhood.  What was present was money for the vending machine nearly every day that I asked for it.  So food=love?  No big surprise that I'm in this boat now.  

It's easy enough to blame and dwell on it, but it's not the answer.  It doesn't get me to where I am determined to go.   Instead, I am rolling up my sleeves and doing the dirty work of looking at my issues head on, working through them and moving on.  Adaptation is what we are built for and I definitely need to do some adapting.

Honestly, I have done 90% of my emotional work while running.  Being out on the paths with nature as my only companion and Jillian Michaels talking in my ears, was exactly what I needed to get into my own head.  I suspect this- not abusing my poor old body- is why I enjoy running so much.  There aren't the distractions of every day life-or the TV in front of the elliptical-fighting for my attention.  It's just me and my issues.  Maybe not a very comforting thought but definitely a necessary one.  So I'll keep after it, knocking them off one at a time, until I don't need to hide anymore.  Now THAT is the real reward!