Step One: We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Journaling prompts from Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps.
There is a lot of addiction in my family. It's funny, though.. I never really noticed it growing up, or even during my twenties. I mean, there were a few obvious instances of addiction, but I didn't understand that a lot of my family's weirdness was actually addiction.
Even though this blog is anonymous, I'm not going to say my mom has this, my dad has this, etc. Instead, I'll lay it out for you like this: out of twenty-five parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and adult cousins (I'm not counting my kid cousins), eighteen have major addictions. Four food addicts, twelve smokers, two or three sex addicts, seven alcoholics, nine drug addicts (including one fatal overdose and one HIV death from IV drug use), a workaholic, and more codependents/co-addicts than I can count. If I include my grandparents' siblings and their parents, we get more sex addiction and alcoholism, and who knows what else.
Like I said, it's only recently that I've been able to see the disease and dysfunction throughout my family. I never thought that my family was so full of addiction, but it is. Clearly there is not much education about emotional health, proper coping skills, and life skills in general. It's reassuring to see that my weight problems and life unmanageability isn't something inherently wrong with me, but that I just never had a chance with such poor role models for healthy behavior.
Obviously, my family doesn't give me a free pass to behave however I want. I can say "I'm this way because of my family," but I can't say, "I can't do anything about it." It's helpful to know some of the origins of my behaviors because it helps me move past those behaviors and learn a healthier way to live.
Serenity Prayer:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Check-In
I didn't have high hopes for the scale this morning, so I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped on it and saw 299.8 pop up! That's a pound down since Sunday. Not bad!
Yesterday, my food was not so great but still came in under, calorie wise. We were out of town all day so that complicates things. I haven't yet figured out how to bring something healthy for lunch. I had my usual breakfast drink on the drive, then a slice of pizza for lunch. I thought the pizza would have made me worse off than it did, though, so I was happy to come home and put my food into the calorie tracker and see that I could still eat a decent dinner. My husband had made Korean shredded steak tacos with the crockpot, so even with that junky pizza, I was able to eat a big enough portion of dinner to keep me full all night.
If you want to track my progress on a day-to-day basis, you can check out my profile on My Fitness Pal.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Step One
Step One: We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Journaling prompts from Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps.
My life is unmanageable. I am powerless. I need help.
I have many emotional consequences to my overeating. I have felt extreme hopelessness and despair - almost to the point of being suicidal. I have felt like I am two different people - the 'normal' woman and the fat woman. My emotions swing from extremes with little provocation. I often fantasize about a better life and sometimes lose touch with reality. I have very little self esteem. I've tried so hard to control this addiction and failed every time - leaving me with overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame. That leads me to isolate and feel lonely. I'm exhausted and afraid of the future.
The physical consequences of overeating are pretty obvious, though thankfully aren't as bad as they could be - yet. I'm over 150 lbs overweight. This causes tremendous stress on my heart - I'm terrified I'll have a heart attack any day. My blood pressure is elevated and I'm probably pre-diabetic. Thankfully my cholesterol isn't that bad. I have no energy. I have no stamina for physical exercise. I get winded all the time. Back aches are frequent. My feet, legs and his hurt often. Knees, too.
My addiction and weight problem cause a lot of problems in my marriage. I feel repulsive and reluctant to have sex. I feel like he doesn't want to be seen in public with me, that he's ashamed of me. I can't do a lot of activities with him that I'd like to do. I feel so unlovable. How do you have a relationship with someone when you don't feel worthy of it? When you feel less than, in every way?
My weight also causes problems with my kids. On the most extreme level, I'm afraid that I'll die and leave them without a mother. To be less dramatic,I can't be as active with them as I'd like. I run out of energy too quickly when we're playing. Because of my self-consciousness and certainty that people don't like me, I don't get them as many playdates as I think they should have. It's very difficult for me to form friendships. I'm also scared the kids will pick up my bad habits.
My lack of energy also makes it hard for me to keep the house looking like I want it to. I fee like a terrible housewife.
Serenity Prayer:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Journaling prompts from Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps.
My life is unmanageable. I am powerless. I need help.
I have many emotional consequences to my overeating. I have felt extreme hopelessness and despair - almost to the point of being suicidal. I have felt like I am two different people - the 'normal' woman and the fat woman. My emotions swing from extremes with little provocation. I often fantasize about a better life and sometimes lose touch with reality. I have very little self esteem. I've tried so hard to control this addiction and failed every time - leaving me with overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame. That leads me to isolate and feel lonely. I'm exhausted and afraid of the future.
The physical consequences of overeating are pretty obvious, though thankfully aren't as bad as they could be - yet. I'm over 150 lbs overweight. This causes tremendous stress on my heart - I'm terrified I'll have a heart attack any day. My blood pressure is elevated and I'm probably pre-diabetic. Thankfully my cholesterol isn't that bad. I have no energy. I have no stamina for physical exercise. I get winded all the time. Back aches are frequent. My feet, legs and his hurt often. Knees, too.
My addiction and weight problem cause a lot of problems in my marriage. I feel repulsive and reluctant to have sex. I feel like he doesn't want to be seen in public with me, that he's ashamed of me. I can't do a lot of activities with him that I'd like to do. I feel so unlovable. How do you have a relationship with someone when you don't feel worthy of it? When you feel less than, in every way?
My weight also causes problems with my kids. On the most extreme level, I'm afraid that I'll die and leave them without a mother. To be less dramatic,I can't be as active with them as I'd like. I run out of energy too quickly when we're playing. Because of my self-consciousness and certainty that people don't like me, I don't get them as many playdates as I think they should have. It's very difficult for me to form friendships. I'm also scared the kids will pick up my bad habits.
My lack of energy also makes it hard for me to keep the house looking like I want it to. I fee like a terrible housewife.
Serenity Prayer:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Check-In
Today I'm at 300.8 lbs. I'm excited about this - in the last two and a half weeks I've lost 8 pounds. I'm hoping to cross into the 200's by Monday. Cross your fingers for me!
About Me
I've been overweight since pre-adolescence. It was a problem for me in school, but nothing like it is today. In my late teens, my weight started to creep up from about 180 pounds, and my twenties were mostly spent getting up to close to 300 pounds. I hit my highest weight at 33, an embarassing 312 pounds. During that time, I also got married, had four kids, and lived a mostly normal life. But there were many things wrong, most of which I was unable to see.
In August of 2011, I became aware of my husband's addiction. I'm not going to go into specifics because his story is his, and the specifics are irrelevant here. The important part is that the shock and trauma I experienced were enough to set me on a path of self-discovery. I came to realize many things about my childhood, things that I thought were normal, but aren't. I spent a lot of time in therapy and support groups, learning why I do things the way I do, why I think the things I think, and why I choose the people I choose. I've made many drastic changes in the way I function in all my relationships and how I respond to life. It's been an incredible journey, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this work, difficult as it is.
Despite all the progress I've made in becoming a (mentally) healthier, happier person, in spite of the peace and serenity I've found, the thing that hasn't changed is my eating behaviors. I've come to a place where I finally feel safe and stable enough to tackle this issue though. It's not easy - eating and my weight have served many different purposes in my life, and it's hard to let go of those. However, I do feel like I've truly outgrown those maladaptive behaviors, and that now I can move on to become a (physically) healthier me.
In August of 2011, I became aware of my husband's addiction. I'm not going to go into specifics because his story is his, and the specifics are irrelevant here. The important part is that the shock and trauma I experienced were enough to set me on a path of self-discovery. I came to realize many things about my childhood, things that I thought were normal, but aren't. I spent a lot of time in therapy and support groups, learning why I do things the way I do, why I think the things I think, and why I choose the people I choose. I've made many drastic changes in the way I function in all my relationships and how I respond to life. It's been an incredible journey, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this work, difficult as it is.
Despite all the progress I've made in becoming a (mentally) healthier, happier person, in spite of the peace and serenity I've found, the thing that hasn't changed is my eating behaviors. I've come to a place where I finally feel safe and stable enough to tackle this issue though. It's not easy - eating and my weight have served many different purposes in my life, and it's hard to let go of those. However, I do feel like I've truly outgrown those maladaptive behaviors, and that now I can move on to become a (physically) healthier me.
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