Weight Loss & Other Struggles

This season of my life has been a roller coaster, to say the least.

Since August:

• I have started eating SCD-friendly 90-80% of the time
• My husband and I separated September 13th
• This semester’s work load was the most intense and demanding that I have ever had

That’s a lot of change and stress all at once. Though as Eleanor Roosevelt has been quoted as saying: “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” Long story short, I choose to use healthy coping/healing strategies out of my metaphorical tool-belt to cope:

• journaling daily–twice a day sometimes
• breath prayers
• daily quiet time, alone
• leaning on wise friends and family
• reading & listening to wise people (like Brene Brown…mostly her, actually…)
• walking outside, alone (even when it’s cold!)
• counseling
• candle-light bubble baths
• watching and doing things that make me laugh
• working out a couple times a week (with my Mom cuz Lord knows I would not go unless I have made plans with someone else to meet them there)
• going out & making new friends (cuz I enjoy meeting new people & it brings me energy, I do this even though some days I don’t feel like it)
• smiling at myself in the mirror every day…I smile like I would smile at a friend who I was happy to see
• etc

So, I’m doing all of these things and guess what? I’m loosing weight, or at the very least, I have lost weight. (In case you’re wondering, it’s 25 lbs since August 2012, 10 lbs in the last 90 days, 4 lbs in the last 30 days, so nothing fast or dramatic, or so I thought.) Now, this may not seem like a bad thing to you, but for me this is not great. It’s not even good, really. Here’s the scenario: I’m a perfectionist and I’ve hated myself and my body for not being perfect for more than half of my life. And, like many folks, I like it when people say nice things about me to me! So, here I am, trying to love myself as I am and quite comfortable in that because I was there, I freaking SWEAR, but now I’ve lost enough weight for people to notice and I’m getting feedback. I’m getting positive reinforcement for this weight loss–which I am not aiming for nor happy about–and it is causing me to want to loose more weight so that I keep getting this positive reinforcement.

I did this to try and help myself out…

Now, if you know anything about eating disorders, this is a RECIPE for me to develop one and I can feel myself on the cusp of doing just that. Now, the fact that I am aware of this is really, REALLY good because I can ramp up my efforts to be self-compassionate and self-caring so that I am sending myself positive reinforcement and won’t need to rely on others’ positive feedback. That’s step #1. Step #2 is doing this–telling others. Because hiding it is just a way to allow it to grow. Not everything that grows is healthy. One of my professors taught me that this semester and it is so true.

So, dear friends, if you see me and you would like to give me some sort of feedback on how good I seem to be doing, just steer clear of weight-talk if you can. I know it’s like a knee-jerk reaction to say, “Oh, wow! You’ve lost weight! You look great!” and I’m not blaming you for not knowing what you did not know–that those statements are reinforcing a belief that I was not great before I lost weight. Maybe, instead of weight talk, you could just hug me. Lord knows I can always use a hug. They send me the message that you care for me–my whole self. And that is a message, dear friends, that I think we all need.

In case I don’t post again before Christmas…