3/3/2013: A Couple of Rough Days

Steven and Carla came into town on Thursday to join with the family and friends of Kyle Hickman and celebrate his life.  Kyle was Steven's best friend He was shot and killed by a friend of his, who then killed himself.  The memorial service was yesterday and story after story was told about Kyle and how he has touched so many lives.  I knew Kyle through Steven.  I'd met Kyle many times, of course, when he'd come by the house as he and Steven were growing up, by I knew him through the stories Steven has told me over the years.  It was fascinating to hear the stories others told yesterday and it gave me a better appreciation for why Steven and Kyle were such good friends.  Steven has been hit hard by Kyle's death.  I'm worried about him but have no idea what I can do to help.  The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming at the moment.  I've told Steven I am here for him, no matter what.  I think he knows that.  Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can do.  I was able to have a conversation with Kyle's mom yesterday and my heart was breaking for her.  I pray for everyone whose lives were touched by Kyle, that they all will heal from their sorrow and heart break and that the love and memories they have for Kyle will keep them warm for the rest of their lives. 

After the service Jack, Carla and I headed home so Carla could pack and we could get her to the airport in time for her 6:00 flight.  In spite of the sad reason for her visit, it was good to touch base with Carla again.  She is struggling with developing healthy routines while she is in Vale, so we talked a lot about habits (thanks for the book tip, Jen, it's helped a lot already) and how to substitute one behavior for another, while keeping the same cue and reward.  For one particular time of her day we were able to identify the cue, coming home from work after a long day; the behavior, eating until her tummy feels full; and the reward, feeling comforted and hugged by her full tummy.  We know she will be coming home from work every day, so the cue is not going to go away, so we needed to think of another behavior that would help attain the same sense of comfort or stress release that she gets from having a full stomach.  Of course she needs to eat at the end of the day, but one of the habits Carla developed when she was dieting was eating a ton of very low calorie food, so that when she was done eating she would feel stuffed.  That stuffed feeling was what she craved, so she never got used to eating just to fuel herself, even when she was eating fewer calories she was eating a ton of food so she could get satisfaction from feeling full.

Carla loves to make art projects, and she is quite talented.  She made her boyfriend a walking stick for Valentine's Day that turned out really well.  When she is working on projects like this she is transported to a different place and completely relaxes and de-stresses.  She gets the same sense of calm by being outdoors.  She doesn't do well being trapped inside.  So she decided to replace the behavior of eating until she was full with working on making walking sticks to sell.  She'll still come home and eat, but she will eat a predetermined amount of food that satisfies her body's need for fuel.  Then she will spend her time sanding sticks, carving inscriptions, varnishing, etc...  Doing what she loves to do.  This will give her the same reward that she got from eating too much.  A sense of calm and comfort.  I look forward to hearing how it goes.

It is interesting how comforting the sense of being full really is.  I am almost never full.  I just don't eat that much food anymore.  I eat the calories I know I need and stop eating.  I'm not saying I never eat food that isn't particularly good for me, I still eat my dark chocolate and tootsie pops for little treats, but I almost never eat until I'm full.  I can count on one hand the number of times that I have done that in the last year and one of those times was Friday night.  I was so worried about Steve and so sad about Kyle that I just started eating and didn't stop.  About the same time that Jack said something to me about it, I realized that my stomach was starting to feel full and that that was the feeling that I was looking for; that fully tummy feeling.  Something about having a full tummy is very comforting.  I don't know what it is.  I don't look for it very often, but every now and then, when I am feeling very, very stressed or sad or both, the full tummy feeling is exactly what I want.  The biggest difference between now and previous periods in my life is that when I do eat too much, I stop as soon as I feel full and then I'm done.  I wake up in the morning, weigh myself, put on my running shoes, and go to the gym.  Yes, it would be better if I never used food to medicate myself, but my new attitude about food and exercise keep those moments from really damaging me.  They do not turn into an entire day of binging; every "binge eating" moment that I have had in the last year lasted a very short period of time, perhaps 30 minutes or an hour.  They have never spilled into the next day.  I never wake up and say, "Oh, I blew it, I may as well give up."  I've woken up the next day, wondered why I needed to feel full last night, and got right back into the habits that I know truly make me feel good; exercising and eating a reasonable number of calories.  The real reward is feeling good, all day, every day.  The fact is, when I over eat I feel good for a fleeting moment, while I am eating and for that moment afterwards when my belly is full and I feel like I am wrapped up in a whole body hug.  But that feeling is fleeting, sort of like riding a roller coaster and experiencing the joy and excitement of going down a big hill.  You know how that is exhilarating but fleeting.  Overeating brings the same rush, but it's not happiness.  When I exercise I may not get that rush that I get from overeating, but the feeling of comfort and happiness that I get from exercise lasts all day and night.  It brings real and lasting happiness into my life.  Part of it is how I look.  I don't have to squeeze into my size 16 jeans and feel fat.  That's nice.  But it is more about how I feel.  I'm full of energy, joy and zest for life.  That comes from the exercise.  I would rather have that then the fleeting cozy comfort of a full belly, any day.

Julie had a great first week on her new plan.  I get great joy from reading her blog and texting her and hearing how well she is doing with her renewed commitment to her lifetime achievement initiative.  She is examining her relationship with food and thinking about the number of food decisions she makes everyday.  She blogged about how she decided to take my advice one day and make her food decisions for the day in the morning.  When she went to lunch with a friend, she did not even open the menu, she had already decided what she was going to order.  She said she did not have to struggle with the decision not to order the higher calorie options, she could just enjoy the company of her friend.  I thought that was awesome! 

I hear that again, and again, and again.  I talk to so many people who are trying to lose weight and they all want to know how they can stop thinking about food all of the time.  It's a real struggle and certainly something I struggled with as I was changing my habits.  I really had to change my relationship with food.  It had to stop being something that brought me pleasure, either by feeding myself or by feeding other people, and become something that fueled my body.  Nothing more or less exciting than the gasoline that I put in my car.  I use that analogy a lot now.  What happens when you keep pushing on the gas dispenser lever after your tank is full?  Gas spills on the pavement.  Do I do that, keep trying to put more fuel in the car after the tank is full?  No, that would be stupid.  Well, it is just as stupid for me to keep putting food in my mouth beyond my body's capacity to turn it into energy in the next several hours.  It spills out, too.  It spills out in the form of fat on my hips, my belly, under my chin, and onto my thighs.  It really is that simple.  It's easier to see when that gasoline that we pay $3 - $4 a gallon is spilling onto the ground.  But heck, food is more expensive than gas these days, so even from a purely economical perspective it's nuts to eat more food than we need.  And it's not good for our bodies.  Plain and simple. 

But beyond trying to develop this attitude about food = fuel, I do think it is important to limit the number of decision we have to make about food every day.  If a person is struggling to lose weight and has a history of over eating or eating the wrong food, every opportunity to make a food decision is difficult.  Most food decisions end in no, you can't do that.  It feels like punishment for being fat.  It feels like denial.  It just feels bad.  "Oh, I really want that but I can't have it."  That does not feel good.  It's a struggle to get through a day if thousands of times a day you think about that snack machine in the break room and thousands of times a day you say no.  You don't get a mini-celebration for each successful decision.  Instead, the one time you say to yourself, "Oh, OK, you can have one candy bar," you punish yourself for slipping.  For being bad.  Hell, even I call it being naughty.  It's crazy.

So, it makes sense to limit your decision making to once a day.  Before going to bed at night or before you start eating in the morning, make all of your food decision.  Write it down.  Carry the list with you, if you have to.  Instead of making thousands of decisions a day, you make them all in the morning.  If it's not on the list, you don't eat it.  Done.  It frees you up to think about other things.

This methodology certainly helps me with being consistent about exercise.  I have my exercise schedule on my bathroom wall.  Before I go to bed I consult it and mentally check off what I am going to do the next day.  Then when I wake up, I put on my shoes and go.  The decision was already made when I made my schedule.  All I need to do is execute.  It makes it so much easier.  Yesterday was a perfect example.  For the second Saturday in a row I did not have time to exercise during the day and I was leaving for the gym at 6:00 in the evening.  But that was OK.  I knew what I needed to do.  It was on my chart.  I had to do it.  I was tired and emotionally rung out, but I also knew I needed to exercise.  Yesterday, more than I wanted to rest on the couch, I wanted to mark off my chart.  So I went to the gym.

Yesterday at the gym I did a little mini-tri.  I swam 1500 meters, rode a stationary bike hard for 30 minutes, and did a 2 mile run at 5.5 miles per hour.  It was tiring but satisfying, and I got to mark swimming, biking, and running off of my chart.  The only thing I missed in week 7 was one of my lower body workouts and given the snowstorm and the kids coming into town, that's not bad.

I weighed 153.0 this morning.  I am totally OK with that.  In fact, I told Jack yesterday that I seem to be totally OK with anything between 150.0 and 154.8.  I am not OK with 155.0.  The one time I saw that number in the last two months I immediately started dieting.  But as soon as I saw 152.0 again (two days later) I was fine.  I have no sense of stress or of feeling "overweight" when I am in this 150 - 154.8 range, so it seems like this is where I am going to live.  I am seeing a gradual change in my body shape as I continue to exercise.  Muscles are becoming more defined, rolls are becoming smaller, and I feel stronger and more fit.  But I don't live for those moments when I see a noticeable change and I don't seek them out.  I am exercising as part of my life, it keeps me young and happy.  That's the real benefit.  Daily exercise gives me the capacity to live a full and vibrant life.  There is nothing like it.