Jodi, fat or not

I had a whole post written out about all the fun things I’ve been doing.

I wanted to tell you about the new parks I’ve been exploring around my office.

Like the impossibly beautiful Verona Park and hilly, flowing Brookdale Park.

Or the great weekend I had, where I walked a total of 12 miles between (my favorite) Saddle River County Park and then with my best friend touring Duke Farms.

And I want to ramble about the yoga classes I’ve been taking, how deliciously sore my legs and arms get after an hour of shaking through poses like warrior, pigeon, and triangle.

But it doesn’t feel right when, unfortunately, a big cloud seems to block out all of that.

I can’t shake the desire to binge.

For two weeks, since one of the worst binges I can remember, I’ve had to fight every moment not to let it happen again. I haven’t been able to resist completely and thinking about food has consumed me.

What was once something I struggled with occasionally has become a daily battle.

The feeling is so familiar. At any moment I could get in my car and head to the nearest drive through, or to the candy isles of the grocery store, and not be able to stop myself.

The fear with binge eating isn’t even so much about gaining weight from it, although that’s absolutely a factor, but it’s more that I never seem to feel full enough. There’s a feeling of emptiness lurking in me somewhere that I know eating won’t solve but I can’t seem to quiet another way. My body is screaming to be stuffed to the point of sickness. The cravings are so loud and have so much control, it’s terrifying. The desire to be self destructive makes it almost impossible to function.

It’s all I can think about. It’s the only thing that feels authentic to write about.

I’ve had a lot of days where it feels and seems absolutely crazy to me that I was able to lose any weight at all, let alone 90 pounds, because of how much control food seems to have in this moment.

I’m feeling completely overwhelmed. I go through moments of panic where I have no idea what to eat, anything I choose seems wrong, or not good enough, moments where being on some kind of Jenny Craig like plan would be preferable just so I don’t have to think about feeding myself.

I know that those thoughts are fueled by weight loss fears. The desire to get. it. off. QUICK.

In those moments I can remind myself that (1) that’s not how being healthy works, and (2) weight loss is not a goal, so get over it.

But there are other moments when it seems like the only thing that can fix the anxiety I’m feeling is a week’s worth of ice cream.

I’ve been journaling through Christine Inge’s “No Bullshit Guide to Making Peace With Food”, I’m reading “May Cause Miracles” by Gabrielle Bernstein and my scale is tucked out of sight under my dresser but I’m still shocked by the power of a disordered eating mindset.

To be truthful, I thought I was past this. I thought I was done with these moments.

I’ve worked hard, haven’t I? I’m feeling very “why me” and it’s not doing my self esteem any good.

There’s nothing I can do but be honest and open about it, and I’m grateful I have this blog to get all my thoughts down.

The other day when I was driving, I had this thought:

“If I had known how fucked up I would feel about food when I started losing weight, how many of the same issues I would still have and how many more issues seem to show up on the regular, would I have still pushed so hard?”

I didn’t have an answer then and I still don’t.

I can only tell you this for sure, losing weight fixes absolutely nothing.

So that’s where I’m at right now. On the surface, I feel like I’m doing everything “right” but somewhere, something is off. I want to be healthy and feel healthy all at the same time. That shouldn’t be a pipe dream.

My only focus is staying in the present and taking each moment, each desire to binge as it comes, and facing it head on as best I can. In those moments where I can convince my head to trust my body, I do ok, so I’m working on building back that relationship.

Love will get me there.

Every time I don’t want to post, because I’m scared of how I’ll sound, because I’m embarrassed at what (at first) seemed like failure, because I feel like a fake, I get so much love for being honest.

Your comments, emails, texts, everything, has gotten me through and back on a better path.

I’m feeling so much love and gratitude, it’s a wonderful thing.

The last few days have been emotional for me, lots of teary nights spent writing in my journal using the prompts from Christine Inge’s “No Bullshit Getting Started Guide to Making Peace with Food.”

My mind hasn’t been quiet in days, a constant chatter of thoughts, some positive, yet some negative, but if anything this last week has shown me that there is love and light in the darkest places.

I’m doing this – living – the best way I know how, following what feels true and authentic, and giving power to my voice.

What always comes to the forefront when I binge is that somewhere along the way I ignored my needs. I stopped listening to what my mind and body were saying, fear took hold, and the rest is history.

The last few days of eating have been nothing special, lots of my usual fare (read: oatmeal and salads, mmmm), but I’ve been paying attention to my cravings, to when I’m hungry, reconnecting with an intuitive way of eating that I’ve worked hard to learn over the past couple of years.

I don’t care if this sounds small or trivial to some people, but recognizing hunger cues is huge for me and not something I take for granted.

For most of my life, I never felt hunger. I always made sure there was food, it was a constant. It was everything.

It’s a gift for me to feel the signs of hunger every day around 12:30 p.m. and know that it’s time for lunch. A gift that I get to take time to cook food I find nourishing and delicious. A gift that I spend time listening to my body, honoring its needs for movement and fun.

It’s not that long ago that I didn’t take care of myself, that I consistently numbed what I was feeling with bags of chocolate.

Even if I don’t always feel it in the moment, there is not one day that goes by that I’m not grateful for the pain that I sometimes feel because I decided to take on my life. Sometimes it sounds so stupid when I say it, but learning how to feel hunger and actually feed myself has been a transformation of my soul.

Genen Roth, in “Women, Food and God” may explain this a bit better:

“…compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. No matter what we weigh, those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can’t stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all of this is by the simple act of bolting — of leaving ourselves — hundreds of times a day.”

 “Weight (too much or too little) is a by-product. Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life. Even with aching joints, it’s not about food. Even with arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure. It’s about your desire to flatten your life. It’s about the fact that you’ve given up without saying so. It’s about your belief that it’s not possible to live any other way — and you’re using food to act that out without ever having to admit it.”

“Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away. When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart. When the shape of your body no longer matches the shape of your beliefs, the weight disappears.”