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Both of these pictures were taken in May of 2008, on a trip to San Francisco with my sister (pictured) and my mom. I weighed probably between 285 and 290 pounds at 5’9″, and was probably about 45% body fat.
I don’t have many pictures of myself at this weight – I never was a big picture-taker, even though I wanted to be. As logic and practicality play a big part in my thought process, I never could believe that anyone would ever want to look at pictures of me. It simply didn’t compute. I never judged other people, but because I was fat, that meant I was less than human.
Later that year, I started a very extreme calorie-restriction diet. I was eating less than 500 calories a day, and only exercising a little bit. I did loose 18 pounds in three weeks, but I gained it all back plus a $23,000 surgery for gallbladder removal due to gallstones. (Yay for insurance!) When I gained all the weight back, I decided that I needed to approach things differently.
When I took a serious and sometimes harsh look at myself, the logical side of my brain had no other recourse but to decide that it was MY fault. I was making myself fat. I was treating myself with indignity, with neglect and guilt. It took a long time, but I accepted responsibility for myself and the things I don’t like about myself. Not one single being on this planet can make me thin but ME – and I’ll tell you what, that thought scared the snot out of me. How could I have that much power? What was I supposed to do with it?!
I started on this journey by simply accepting myself. I say simply with a wry grin – I know it’s not easy. We all have our baggage – but I decided that it was silly to continue hanging on to the negative when the choice to be happy was in my hands. What was I doing?! Why was I clinging to the negative? Because it was familiar to me. With depression, anxiety and therapy under my belt, that negative place was familiar territory to me. I knew it, I knew where the pits and potholes were, and I was never surprised by anything there. But that place isn’t where I wanted to be – it was just the place I felt safest.
So I ventured out. I chose my joy, and I started to like myself. I embraced positive things in my life, and after about 6 months I embraced the thought of seriously getting healthy. I didn’t have noble reasons - my motivating factor was not to get healthy for my family or anything like that. I wanted to be attractive. When I was able to come to terms with a reason that felt so selfish to me, I was able to get started.
I started with Jen in September of 09. With her encouragement, I started looking at food in a different way. My goal is to break off my emotional relationship with food, and I will get there – but it’s a process. A huge step forward in that process for me was when Jen introduced me to Eating Clean.
My logical brain rejoiced. It all made sense to me - you put crap in, you get crap out. Period. My sugar detox was not as terrible as some I’ve read about, mostly because Jen had had me restricting sugar before I jumped into eating clean – but once I had that out of my system, my body breathed a sigh of relief. It truly is the only way I can describe it – and I know it sounds silly and cliche, but it’s true. When I eat something “unclean” I feel heavy, burdened and bloated. I had more energy than I ever thought I could have. My general mood lightened, and I slept better. If I don’t drink at least a gallon of water a day, I feel dehydrated.
Yeah, I struggle. I struggle every day, and I’m sure I will for a long time. And everytime that dark place looks inviting to me, everytime I feel the need for comfort that I think only that place can give me, I tell myself that I’ve already succeeded. At this date, I’ve lost 40 pounds, and nearly 15% body fat. I’m not done, but I also know that what I have accomplished is no small fish – and I absolutely refuse to belittle my acheivement by negating everything I’ve worked so hard at, or by thinking I can’t do more.
I can, and with help, I will.
Like many others, things in life have sort of pushed our kink to the wayside. We both have admitted that we miss it – and admit that we never really got a chance to delve into it before our respective baggage got in the way. Now that most of that baggage is either gone or simply accepted, we have the chance to explore each other more.
I also have to admit something else – I’ve never really been convinced of D’s ability to control me. For eight years, he has taken the absolute best care of me. For that reason, I guess I could never really see him being….well, mean to me. The caring side just didn’t relate to the mean side for me.
I may be putting words in his mouth, but I think he struggles with this, too.
So for our third Tryst, I decided that I wanted to do -something-. Even if it was small, I felt like we had to take that step, so that we could both get over this speed bump we were both kinda staring at all “ba-roo?” like.
D agreed wholeheartedly. Then, whilt perusing the merchandise of a vendor at Tryst, he found a flogger he really liked, so I bought it. Our first. Aw.
Friday night didn’t work out – I was all up in my head about something completely unrelated, but D took it like a trooper. I was scared because he gets dejected so easily, but somehow he didn’t do it this time and was er, raring to go on Saturday night.
It was our first scene at Tryst, and I felt like a total newb. Forget the fact that I had been heavily involved in a local D/s group since the age of 21, and have done things and had experiences way more hardcore than what we were planning, I was scared out of my pants. We waited patiently for the peice of equipment D wanted, and then got down to business.
It was mostly a spanking, me being cuffed to a cross. Five days later, and my ass still hurts.
I used to be able to ride the pain. I’ve had tops call safewords on ME, because I wore them out. But it’s been so long…and I just couldn’t get my head around the pain. It almost happened a few times so I know it is possible – but I’ve lost the ability to adapt.
But I will triumph! *holds fist up with tearful sobs a-la French Kiss*
Even though I couldn’t ride the pain, I think it turned out well. Better than I expected, actually. I’m fairly certain he can hurt me good, thought I’m not sure he can be truly mean to me like my darker fantasies.
Plus, he giggles like a little girl whenever I whine about my butt hurting.
Yes, I’m at camp.
Yes, I feel like I’m home.
But one can still have emotional breakdowns at home, and I did just that earlier this afternoon.
People were talking about hooking up for play and other things, and I suddenly felt like the unattractive and undesirable elephant in the room that people were including out of pity. Ugh. I know it’s not true, but the feeling certainly was convincing enough to send me into a bout of tears.
I’m an ugly crier.
Of course, something else reared it’s head – something that I thankfully have not felt too much of lately. Self-doubt. And I was doubting my ability or usefulness in an opportunity that has been offered to me – something I just found out yesterday. Sparklebutt wants me to help her train clients – I’m assuming mostly nutritional stuff, but still. Me. Me, the still overweight. Me.
I don’t feel hopeless – I’m pretty certain that I can do it. I just…I don’t know. Maybe this is part of the bad stuff I’m so comfortable with, which may be why I am entertaining these thoughts with such…enthusiasm.
I’m excited…and at the same time, scared out of my mind.
“When you stumble, make it part of the dance.”
Ah, man. I’m trying. I swear, Universe, I’m trying. But this copper detox is nigh unto killing me.
The first month I started taking the meds for the copper toxicity, it was fabulous. No rage, no cramps, no nothing. However, it was fabulous because I still had birth control hormones in my body. Now, I’m au naturale…and sweet jesus, my period is cause for a padded room.
The past 3 months have been increasingly awful. For three days of each month, I’ve turned into…something terrible. Irritable, and quick to go into a complete and blinding rage that I am NOT accustomed to even feeling. I even warned the boys at work yesterday – and yesterday was the worst day I’ve had.
Today I got a taste of my own attitude thrown back at me (over a radio system, no less), and I immediately felt like a douchebag. It was totally deserved, and I cried. I cried at work. I’m sure that five minutes after the first tear rolled down my cheek, it was all over the freakin site, because my boys are worse than old ladies at gossip.
I cried because I know this isn’t me. I cried because I want to say that I can’t help it – but I feel like I should be able to. I shouldn’t give into the copper so easily, but in the moment….there’s no voice of dissention in my head. It’s all rage-ified. Frog with kungfu grip.
I’m actually still crying. I haven’t had a bout of tears like this in a LONG time…and again, it just reminds me that THIS ISN’T ME.
I broke down today and asked Sparklebutt for help.
She and I had a meeting last night because she wants me to setup a site for her. I hadn’t seen her for nearly a month, so I think I started to feel guilty about all the little things that I had let slide (and also in regards to my last post). She was talking about how she wanted her new venture to have clients that were serious, and not a waste of her time – because the non-serious clients would take away time from the serious ones. I totally agree with that, especially in an business like this – you’ve got to be able to give the one on one time in order to be successful. But, because of how I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been feeling less and less like her star pupil – which is exactly what I WANT to be.
I didn’t talk about it while at the meeting, but I felt bad enough this morning that I sent her an email.
I felt like a burden, which…is silly, I know. She was awesome about it, of course. Called me right away and gave me some ideas.
I also talked to Moose about, who was also awesome about it. He’s trying to set some goals for himself too, so he suggested that we start by talking a walk together tomorrow. =) It’s nice to have such a good support system.
My word for the day is lost. Not…really bad, but enough that I’m definitely feeling the effects of it. Perhaps overwhelmed would be a better word.
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out ways to get past this plateau. I’ve looked into different workout plans, different meal plans, and even ketogenic diets and carb cycling. I really want to pick Sparklebutt’s brain, but she’s crazybusy. And now – I feel like I’m staring at all these options, without a single clue as to which is the best for me.
I’m leaning towards this: I think I’m not eating enough. I’m probably averaging around 1400-1500 calories a day, but I don’t think that’s enough for me – I think I’m in partial starvation mode. So, I’m trying to up my count with protein-based foods, and trying to pay attention to when I eat starchy carbs. Plus, I think I need to be lifting more – I’m not sure that the workout that I’ve been doing is enough for me to build muscle. So, I downloaded a few workout schedules to help me out.
Like I said…a little lost, but able to see the other side. A little.
I feel re-committed to my journey. I just went through my entire wardrobe and have six garbage bags full of fat clothes that I am going to be donating. It feels…freeing. Like I really am shedding my caterpillar skin and becoming a butterfly.
I’ve always believed that there is a difference between knowing something and believing something. The time it takes to move from knowing to believing can vary, at least for me. I’ve seen the evidence of this during my eat-clean journey on several different occasions, and I just had another one.
I’ve lost almost 40 pounds on the scale, and even more in body fat. However, for the past two months I’ve been hovering around the same weight. I know why, and I know what I have to do in order to move past this – I just haven’t. I do really well with my food during the week, but it seems like I have a switch for the weekend, and it feels like I basically eat my way through the weekend. So, any weight that I’ve lost during the week gets put right back on, and I have to loose it all over again – a complete and utter waste of my time and energy.
Today when I checked the scale, I finally believed. I believe that I don’t get to eat my way through the weekends if I want to see the change I want. I believe that having to loose the same weight over and over again is a waste of my time, time that could be spent doing something way more enjoyable. I believe that I don’t have to deprive myself, but I also believe that I have to be more diligent – because obviously, what I’m doing now isn’t working to get me to my goal.
More importantly – I believe that this is part of the process, so I refuse to berate myself for it, as long as I do what I say I’m going to do.
Most importantly – I believe I’m worth the effort.
Today, I found a clean alfredo recipe in the new Clean Eating magazine and gave it a whirl. It called for yogurt, so I was a little skeptical…but it turned out pretty good. I was so proud of myself, because my dinner could have been straight out of the magazine.
That would be a grilled eye of round steak and whole-wheat pasta made with milled flax seeds and the clean alfredo sauce. I haz a happy tummy.
I also went to the doctor today, to do a check up on the copper issue. So far, my reactions have been pretty much as expected – I’ve had three periods without birth control. The first one I had NO pms stuff at ALL, the second I had a few, and the last one I had a few more. He expected this, because the first month I still had all the hormones from the birth control pills in my system, PLUS the zinc to help out – but as the hormones have leveled out, now the messed up chemistry is coming into play. I have to go get my levels checked again – it will be interesting to see what they are after three months.
And apparently, not taking the molybdenum makes me a raging emo bitch. Yay!
I also talked with the doctor about the clean eating – he was very impressed. We talked about how food can impact brain functions – cognition, memory, etc. He said that there are studies that say that patients with Alzheimers who are taking nutritional supplements have reported a decrease in their symptoms.
Lately, I have been noticing more and more how food affects me. Not only physically (cause that’s kind of obvious), but also mentally. I have a desire to eat better, instead of waiting for the next cheat.
The doctor said something that really struck me, too. He said that I was cleaning out my body of toxins, and that once you do that, you become more sensitive to the toxins. It’s completely true, too. Once I started eating clean, “regular” food started to really affect me in a negative way. Hell, the first Blizzard I splurged on sent me into a 12 hour coma. I need to keep up that sensitivity, because that is the barometer of how healthy the things are that I am putting into my body. I can’t spend the weekends as a giant cheat, because that’s why I’ve plateaued.
Gotta bust through it.