ok, be warned, this is not a pretty post, if you want to skip it, feel free.
I need to have a whinge about myslef.
I think I'm fairly intelligent. I always did well at school, I enjoyed uni and did well there too ... then why am I so freaking stupid when it comes to food?
I continually frustrate myself when it comes to trying to eat well and as a result lose weight.
I know that I have emotional triggers for my eating. I know I particularly eat when I'm stressed and when I'm bored. I know what stresses me ... mainly the kids & family crap, and I should never be bored - I have heaps that I should be doing.
So what frustrates me the most is that while I know these things, I still can't seem to control it. I'm a bit of a control freak. I don't like delegating things unless I know 100% that the person is going to do it, and do it well (which normally means doing it the exact same way I would do it!!). I don't know why I can't just keep my eating under control, have the will power to stay away from the junk and the sugar.
I want to be healthy. I don't want to be stick thin, never did and never will, I just want to feel healthy. I really really really do. So why isn't that enough to stop me eating junk?
For the first time in my life I'm exercising 6 days a week. And real exercise, you know, not an easy stroll around the neighbourhood, but sweat inducing, muscle building exercise. I know that I'm fitter aerobically than I ever have been, and I've come leaps and bounds with my running, I'm stronger than I ever have been, and I know my body has changed shape (just a teeny tiny bit) and I'm feeling better about that aspect of my health and fitness. and I'm really proud of those changes I've made. But it all seems pointless if I don't fuel my body properly to get the most out of the exercise.
People talk about acknowledging the reasons why you're overweight. I don't have any reasons. I haven't ever been abused, verbally, physically or sexually, I come from a happy family who loves me, I have a marriage which is wonderful and a husband who is mostly supportive and encouraging of everything I do, we are financially secure and stable. So what's my excuse????? Not that I believe in excuses ...
I get stressed about the children. The constant whinging and tantrums and fighting drive me mental. I think I started to experience a bit of PND after Maeve was born, which is the reason I joined the gym, and that has made a huge difference. I use the kids and their behaviour as an excuse. An excuse to do what's easiest rather than what is best for them or me. I have a huge guilt complex about not being a good enough mother. I think this stems from the great difficulty we had bringing these 2 little people into this world and then feeling terribly guilty at how hard I find motherhood sometimes, how I should be cherishing every single moment and just being grateful that we have these 2 little miracles. Like any mum, I know this isn't logical, I know that every mum finds motherhood challenging ... I guess I just feel I don't handle the challenges in the best way sometimes.
I've always struggled with my self image and self esteem. Now, as a child growing up I knew my parents loved me, I knew I was valued and all that, but socially I always struggled to feel accepted and liked and happy. That's something which has followed me to adulthood - I find it extremely difficult to make new friends, to feel accepted for who I am, to show people who I really am.
But what's all that got to do with food and eating??? I don't know. I tend to believe there's no reason for excuses like that, get a grip, build a bridge and just get on with it. Stop the whinging and just exercise some self control for a change.
So I'm hoping by dumping all this out there, I'll feel better. I've been beating myself up over it for a couple of days (which then makes me depressed and then I eat more).
If I had gotten my act together when I first started going to the gym 9 months ago I wouldn't be in this position now. I'd be thinner and healthier and I'd be able to run faster (now, that's what it's all about!!!).
I owe it to myself and my family to change my eating habits. I'm going to really try. I know I've said that before, but I really want to try, I'm sick of feeling this way about myself.
Anyway ... enough beating up on myself. To try and ease my guilt complex as a mother and cope with being a single mother for the last few days while A is away in Melb for work, I'm toying with the idea of taking the kids to see Meet the Robinsons at the movies. Maeve has never been to a movie before, so it could be a very interesting experience!
I'm excited about the 10k on the 22nd. Well, I go from being excited to being scared, to wondering what I've got myself in for! Did a run on the treadmill before my spin class this morning at the gym - managed 2k at a 6min/km pace - I was pretty pleased with that. I found it really elevated my heart rate for the spin class as I was sweating like crazy during spin and I normally don't. The instructor really made it tough for us today. Not much seated stuff at all and a horrible horrible hill climb during which he got off his bike and came ans stood in front of me and was like "come on sarah, you can do it, keep going" (trying to figure out if he was doing that because I was doing a good job or a terrible job!!). I enjoyed it though.
I'll probably go out for a run tomorrow and then think about doing 2 runs over the weekend. Thank goodness A is home tonight. Easter Hat parade at Max's kindy tomorrow.
Sorry for the long post ... again.
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5 comments:
Heavy stuff, Sarah.
I think the line in your post I most agree with is "enough beating up on myself".
You've been at this running gig for about ten weeks now - just stick with it and you should be fine. I was a yo-yo dieter for many years, but when I got sucked in to running I started to see a steady decline in my weight that has stayed off.
I still have periods of overindulgence, and I pay for them, but overall it's been my way to get the whole weight thing under control - I hope it's yours too.
Hey Sarah, great post. I think it is wonderful that you can be onest about your feelings and aspirations in this way.
Yes, it is pretty hard. My wife and I find it hard with just one little girl (2.5 yrs) so with two ... good god! We struggle with the whole 'am I a good parent' thing too. I think that's a good sign.
Keep up the running. Little by little it get's easier, more enjoyable, more rewarding. My wife wants to get down to 6min/km too. But even if that never comes, she has had soooo much fun just doing it. (Like me!)
All the best, Paul
Sarah, I so understand what you're feeling about emotional eating. I don't know if this will help, but this is my experience from my own weight loss journey. Everyone's journey is different, and you might not find this useful, but here it is.
When I had a bad day in the past I used to give up straight away. I'd eat the packet of chips or whatever it was, feel like a failure, and give up on my diet. Then I'd hate myself for being a failure and eat more. It was a horrible depressing cycle and I didn't know how to get out of it.
This time around, I learned to write everything down that I eat. It was really hard to write down the horribly bad days at first, but I decided that only I saw my food journal and I already knew that I'd eaten the food.
I promised myself that I could eat anything I wanted to, as long as I wrote it down. If I wanted to eat emotionally, I would do it, but once I'd stopped, I'd get straight back on the wagon and eat healthily.
Of course, I would eat all the wrong food, and not write it down until the deed was done. The calorie totals were scary every time but I kept my promise to myself to write it all down. To my surprise, I started to notice that my bad days were getting less bad. I discovered that I stopped the emotional eating much sooner because I wasn't beating myself up as a failure. I learned to call bad days non-weightloss days, that if I started writing things down sooner I'd stop sooner, and that what mattered was how I ate and exercised across a period of time (eg a week) rather than how I ate for one hour.
There's lots of other stuff I've learned that helped me - I can resist a craving for 10 minutes, by which time I'm usually over it, I can take smaller portions of treat foods (5 mini eggs instead of 20), and that lots of treat foods fit into my daily calorie budget, especially when I'm running.
I still have days when I feel as though I eat uncontrollably. I just make myself move on once they are done. The overall trend on my weight is down, the trend on my fitness level is up, and even if it takes me twice as long to lose the weight as it takes anyone else, I'll get there in the end.
With your positive attitude and your love of running and exercise, you'll get there too.
Sarah, Don't apologise for writing how you feel. If you can't do that in a blog, you can't do it anywhere!
From my experience, you can lose weight, but it's difficult; you can survive (and love) your children, but it's difficult; you can learn to run further and faster than you ever thought possible, but (you guessed it) it's difficult. Note, though, that the most important words there are not "it's difficult", but "you can" :-) :-)
Keep writing.
Gnome
Sarah - don't know how you're going with this now, but for what its worth I have learnt that eating healthily is not a switch you just turn on and change your life. Its a long journey of slowly changing habits. Like Kathy said, the first step is to not see it as a sign to give up, and everytime you slip up, it creates a learning opportunity to be one step closer to perfect clean eating. Of course I'm sure no-one ever achieves perfection. But two years down the track for me, and I eat a hundred x's better than before, but still slip up. Its just that the slip ups are smaller and further apart! Just keep your goals in sight and keep at it.
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