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And so the struggle has waged on for 24 years inside me. Eat the food. Diet. Get emotional. Eat the food. Become sad I turned to the food. Eat more food. Feel shame. Hide the food. Hide the shame. Fail to lose weight. Fail to stay thin. Fail to achieve my goals and dreams and hopes for my own health and body.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s and married that I realized there's a diagnosis for this. It's called binge eating disorder and I meet so many of the symptoms. My husband who has his own struggles, but none of them his weight, is kind and encouraging and suggested a few times a therapist might help, but I've never known anyone (personally) to find more help in a therapist than becoming honest and open with the people around them and learning to have at their struggles on their own.
And that's where I've been. The last 14 months I've been on Weight Watchers and I've lost 35lbs! That is a great, fantastic achievement and I'm proud of myself. The weight came off slower than I'd hoped and when I started and hoped to lose 94lbs total I thought the goal could be achieved in 2 years, not 3 and the slowness became discouraging. But still, mind over matter, focus on the positive, keep going! That was my mantra. And I rocked it. I had friends online who were great accountability and my family got on the program so my Mom was great accountability and all was going well. And then the winter season came and the holidays and you know how that is. And then when I started 2013 with a fierce resolve and did quite well, after one week into the new year my kids started getting sick, and then me and then Josh, and then we were well for about a week and then it all cycled through again and then the AFib and then I got sick and now E is sick with another ear infection and J woke up with a cold. And those aren't excuses when you're highly motivated, but in my discouragement I let myself give into the deceptive comfort a brownie may bring and I could never get on board again. I couldn't find my focus and my drive.
And you guys? That left me raw. And broken. And sad. And at war with myself... And basically all the things someone who struggles with overcoming an addiction feels in those moments of weakness and wanting to triumph and feel victory. And I sat in my kids' room and I just sobbed because I have worked hard this last year and I have learned so, so much about myself and my body and dieting and even more I've spent 12 years dieting and learning and I JUST CAN'T MAKE IT!
I thought about other Mom bloggers... their words danced in my head and I heard them saying things about how in these little years an unkempt house, cereal dinners, and the extra baby weight is just all part of it and to embrace it all. I heard the more mature, seasoned Mom bloggers talking about learning to love themselves and I feel that; I get where they are coming from - I do, BUT for me this is about more than just looking good or feeling pride in my appearance it's about overcoming and triumphing and seeing a lifetime of struggle not end (it will never end because this is my struggle), but be overcome in this battle of my mind and emotions and body.
I talked to Josh a lot that day/night/next day. We talked about how Weight Watchers wasn't working and my dreams of success and how I just felt like if I could get to my goal and taste the sweet victory and then apply all of what I've learned on myself and go back to Weight Watchers as a Lifetimer for the long haul... if I could just GET THERE I'd feel victory. But the problem then in that moment of pain and defeat was I felt I'd never get there. There was still 60lbs to go and I was making no headway. I needed new challenges and motivation.
So after a lot of thought, we decided I should call a Nutritionist I saw in 2007 when I did an extreme diet and lost 40lbs in 8 weeks that summer. Then, I did a liquid protein fast. It worked and I was thrilled to taste success, but at just 18 and never really having been thin before and having no idea how to manage my weight (see being thin meant I suddenly thought I could eat what I wanted) I gained it all back slowly until 2009 when I was back in that place and then passed it. The diet was hard and Josh met me before I started so he walked with me through it. And he hated it because it seemed crazy, but he was happy for me for feeling good about myself. But when I stopped? He took me for Italian and I ate a huge plate of lasagna, a caesar salad, and we got dessert too, I think. Anyway, I called that Nutritionist and we found a new, healthier approach where I can still eat and just restrict myself harshly and get his help along the way and monitored and I can lose .5-1lb a day. It's a new start beginning next week and it'll be HARD. It'll take 8-12 weeks, but then I should be there. I should meet my goal.
In a way, rapid weightloss feels like cheating. Other people work years and years and lose the weight slowly. The truth for me is I have worked years and years I'm just speeding it up at the end. And this isn't surgery, it's still work... it's hard work. Harder work than I've committed to since 2007 and it'll get me there. And so really, rapid weightloss isn't cheating, but it could cheat me. In 2007 when I was naive getting there too quickly and not understanding was what made me unable to stay there. Now, I'm hoping I can go on this 3 month journey and end it ready to apply all I've learned in the last year on Weight Watchers about myself and my body and weight and maintaining. Like, for example, I'm the person who HAS to always watch what they eat or they gain weight. If I stop, I don't maintain, I gain. It's just how it is and so forever I have to track my eating and be smart and make good decisions.
And outside of that... outside of learning about the dieting and maintaining I'm hoping for a mental bootcamp of sorts. I'm hoping I can take this time of struggle and hunger and transformation and not only be transformed on the outside as far as my weight is concerned, but also transformed inside. I'm laying my yolk and this burden on Jesus and asking him to help me overcome this sin in my life... this struggle with turning to food and making it a place of comfort. I need so desperately to learn to see Him as a comforter when times are hard and that is really the crux of this journey. If I can't learn that, I'll never get there and stay there because through Him, I am made free and the chains that bind me to my sins and my struggles can be broken. It takes work on my part too, but He can help me and He's already started helping me by showing me a way and giving me a wonderful community of support.
So why am I sharing and being so raw and vulnerable here in the Internet where anyone could say anything hurtful in response to this? Well, first because so many people I met online through Weight Watchers were such a great support system to me. I've deleted Twitter from my phone for lent so I didn't announce anything about this there yet, but I just wanted everyone to know and hopefully still support me and I still want to support you in your diet journey too! I'm also saying it all because this blog is my second blog... My first was about my family and my only identity there was "MOM." I'm trying to find who I am outside of that role and the wife role and this new blog was created a year ago to cultivate creativity and encourage me to pursue things I enjoy more like crafts or cooking or simple writing just so I could share. I believe this will be a big, personal journey for me and this blog may become a place a share the walk (you know - in lieu of recipes - lol) and now you'll know why and I'll have something to point back to to say HERE. Here is where this started. Here is where I made the decision to be extreme and also to seek Jesus and change my life.
Thanks for listening.
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2 comments:
Ashley,
Allow me to write you a short novel. But really though.
I think it's way cool of you to just be upfront and honest about this. When you talked about everyone sort of having a struggle, even if it may be more private, I got to thinking about what mine is (I have many flaws that I'm aware of, but I was trying to pin point a major sin struggle) and I began to read your post as though it was about my struggle and it's funny how similar I feel about mine. My biggest, current struggle is school, and has been for the six years. (Stay with me here, I'm going somewhere with this.) To make a long story short, I was teased endlessly growing up by my family of being a bit ditsy and well...the message I was received was this: stupid and incompetent. I always felt like the butt of all the jokes. When Kent and I were dating, I remember one day he called me smart, and I cried. And he was like, what the heck? (Haha.) And that is my secret struggle - to repair a once hurt ego. I don't know if you would call it pride or self-reliance or what. But it hasn't done me much good. I've surprised myself in college with how well I've done in individual classes (80+ credit hours and a 3.5 GPA!)...but staying on track to graduate, not so much. And that has ripped at my self-esteem time and time (and time and time and time) again. I start to think, who cares if/when I graduate? It's not even going to matter because it took me 8 years to do it. However, at this point, it's less about my ego and more about finishing what I started and hopefully securing a profitable skill so I can support my future children if anything ever happens to Kent. And that's important to me because I grew up not knowing where my next meal was going to come from because my mom just couldn't support us, although now I know it was for more reasons than just what job she had.
All that, to get to this: Last night I was studying for test and when I'm studying my subconscious is often times going wild, to the point where it starts to become conscious. I stopped in the middle of memorizing what I felt like was a million ionic compounds and said to Kent, “I’ve been thinking about running. About marathons, and how hard they must be to get through. I’m thinking, wow, those people can’t see the finish line when they start, there could be unexpected turns that lead uphill, they could fall and have to pick themselves back up and keep running with bloody knees because they trained too hard and too long to tap out because of a little fall. And then I was thinking about 1 mile Fun Runs. You can see the finish line from the start line. You probably only jog at the beginning and then you walk so the chances of you falling down are very unlikely. You never find yourself gasping for more oxygen or in desperate need of encouragement or a cup of water.” I think you know where I’m going with this. I asked Kent, “Which races do you think is more rewarding to finish? Which victory tastes sweeter?” And then I realized I’d been comparing my journey through school to people who breeze through it, whose parents pay for it, and who already know the exact profession they want to commit to. That is not my journey. But which graduation day probably tastes sweeter? It would be crazy for a marathoner to look over at a runner in a Fun Run and try to compare his or her self. Like, “Gee, THEY don’t seem out of breath, THEY aren’t sweating or bleeding, THEY don’t have hours and hours more to go, not fair.”
And Kent told me that kind of sounded like a thought God planted in my mind. And now I’m kind of wondering if He didn't plant it there so I could share it with you today. Sure, some people don’t have to watch what they eat, or when they diet they shed pounds like no body’s business. But whose goal weight hitting day is going to be most rewarding? The person who worked their butt off for it, that’s who! ;)
It's amazing that you shared this. I've been thinking a lot lately about my struggles and how I need to find the motivation to change my thought process. Your words here sound very similar to my own that have been echoing around in my head lately.
For me, the struggle has been a (likely) depression. I have not been diagnosed but I have not felt happy for months. I've thought about blogging about it but it felt raw, broken, emotional - exactly the words you used. I've had a semi-rapid weight gain. I went from 140 to 160 in just a few months. I haven't lost any weight despite only eating one meal a day. However, all the food is just JUNK.
Today I signed up for the YMCA and went for my first workout in six months. It was so hard to find motivation to get out and to take the first step to losing weight, finding motivation, and get myself in the mindset of "I can do this". I also feel embarrassed. I started a food journal just a week ago and I had literally NO fruit since then and only two vegetables.
To summarize this a bit, I've been struggling lately too. The struggle in my head and heart has begun to show in my physical appearance. For the first time in a long time I know I need to make a change.
Ashley, thanks for having the strength to be honest in this place. I hope you only get positive, encouraging responses back. I hope this comment shows you're not alone. I'm so proud of you for taking steps to help you feel better about yourself. I know it can be so frustrating when you don't see improvement (or enough improvement) after a long time commitment. I hope the diet your nutritionist has laid out for you will help you find the motivation and see quicker changes.
You are an amazing and strong woman and thank you for helping me admit (for the first time beyond my sister and husband) that I also am dealing with a struggle and it shouldn't be debilitating. Being honest with one another could be the first step to everyone getting a little closer to their goals and knowing they aren't alone.
I would love an accountability partner to help keep me inspired throughout these next couple of weeks while I try to get involved in society again and find a way to create joy in my life. Feel free to text or call me and we can encourage each other.
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