Yesterday was a much better day. I am really taking this “I choose me” thing yesterday to heart. Not when I find a new house. Not when I sell my current house. Not when I decide to run again. I choose today. I choose me.
Eating was much better yesterday. I didn’t count, but it was better. I had my usual Starbucks drink for breakfast. Around noon, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Around 3, I had a turkey sub from subway. Then for dinner I had a smoked sausage on a wheat bun and an ear of corn. Then an ice cream cone. No snacking between meals, no cramming as many triscuits into my mouth as possible during American Idol, just responsible controlled eating. Go me!!
Things are progressing well with the potential to purchase a house at auction on Saturday. We have the financial okay from our lender, and we are getting the landscaping done on our current house in order to put it up for sale. This is all very exciting.
Last night, I finished the book I was working on, Fat Girl by Judith Moore. I hate to say that I wasn’t impressed. It just made me feel like crap. Moore discusses the reasons and complications of being fat as a child. I really had to make myself finish it. She had a terrible childhood. Abandoned by her father, living with her crazy abusive mother, dealing with the grandmother anyone would despise, and being on an almost constant diet from early childhood. I can imagine how a terrible childhood where eating was so strongly discouraged and so much of self-worth was put on weight could destroy any hope of healthy eating habits. I guess I’m saying that she has an excuse. She lived through so much crap related to being fat. She has an excuse to have issues with food.
And where does that leave me? No reason for food issues. I had an amazing childhood. I was competitive for academics and attention, but no more than other children are competitive. I have an amazing family. I had great friends from elementary school through graduate school. I have never gotten any outside influence to tell me that I am any less of a person because I am fat. Any message I have like that has come from inside me.
I believe that my food issues are about sin. I am seeing that through reading Sex God by Rob Bell. I’m not that far into it (I’m not feeling “heavy” reading right now), but in the opening chapter, he talks about how any relationship, to person or thing, is a reflection of my relationship with God. No matter what my issue, no matter what I think it is about, it is really about me and God. My relationship with my health? I am gluttonous and lazy. And the result of that is insecurity and a feeling of being unworthy of love, from God, myself, or anyone else. I am still having trouble giving that up. I want to fis it on my own. I want control. Strange that I feel out of control…
Thinking back, there have been times that I felt in control of my eating and my weight. The first time I can remember was my senior year in high school. I think it was at that point in my life that I realized that there was food that tasted good and was good for me. For lunch most days my senior year (unless there were Taco Boats), I brought a turkey sandwich, a banana, and s vanilla pudding snack pack. One of my friends would get an extra 2% milk as she went through line, and I was set. I loved my lunch. I never felt deprived or cheated.
College created so many healthy challenges for me. One of the biggest was the cafeteria. I didn’t gain much more than the freshman 15, but that’s because of all the hills I climbed walking to class. I never binged in the cafeteria, but there were some nights that my roommate and I would finish off a bag of Frito’s Scoops and a can of cheese during some sappy movie that the roomie made us watch. My junior year of college, things changed for me. I was finally starting to get over a break-up that happened a year earlier (hi Tony!), and the way I got over that was exercise. The roomie and I would walk on the treadmill every day to watch a Wedding Story. (It’s amazing what love-starved girls will do to get to verbally abuse the weddings of others.) Some days, I would go to the park and run. And most days I worked out in the weight room between classes, when no one else was there. I loved it. I loved the feeling of being in control of my body and my eating. I controlled my eating a month at a time. One month I gave up Taco Bell. The next month, I added french fries to the list. The next month I added all fried foods, then white bread then elevators. (Not really food, but it helped.) When Nathan and I started dating, I was 170. That is the lowest in my adult life. And I looked great.
How did I get from here to there? I don’t know. Four years later, I went to Weight Watchers at 221. A year (and a wedding!) later, I was at 175. Somehow, three years later, I was 226 and back at Weight Watchers. 6 weeks later, I am here, and 224.
Wow. I posted my weight. That is huge. (Not the number, but the fact that I said it. Oh wait, yes, the number is also huge.)
Food plan:
B: Starbucks
L: Turkey sandwich, banana, vanilla pudding
D: something not fried at the Movie Tavern
Have a great Wednesday. And will someone send me the highlights from tonight’s American Idol?
I’d love to stay and chat, but we have to get packed! I can’t wait to post lots of pics from our Tennessee/North Carolina trip and maybe a picture of our new house. Say a little prayer around 11 EST tomorrow. I really don’t know how things will turn out, and I keep hoping that I will be okay whether we get the house or not. I keep hoping. But 
Then Saturday morning, we’re bidding on the house we will hopefully be able to purchase for a reasonable price. Keep us and the house in your prayers! I don’t want to do something irresponsible or stupid.
