Breakthrough?.. Maybe!

This is a REALLLY long post lol

I have not posted for 6 months..Why? Because, I have been hiding from the reality that I have been failing miserably and living recklessly. To say that I have regressed back to my "pre-Fitness Ridge days" would be an understatement! I have completely let go. I haven't been active AT ALL... I have been eating very poorly... nothing nutritious... WAY too many calories... my weight is back up to what it was when I "tested in" to the resort. I feel worse than I have EVER felt physically in my entire life including how I felt when I decided to go to Utah in the first place.

Thankfully one thing I have taken from my Fitness Ridge experience (and held on to) is the change in my mindset. Even with how badly I have been feeling physically, and how much I have been misbehaving, I am not attacking myself. I have still been experiencing the usual bouts of guilt and frustration, but I haven't been engaging in as much of the negative self talk or self loathing that I used to when I was off track in the past. It creeps in occasionally, but I think I have come a long way! I actually feel like I can honestly say I like myself. I have not gotten to the point of learning to love myself yet, but compared to how much I hated everything about me; liking myself is a HUGE accomplishment!

I think that in the last week I might have had a breakthrough! I decided recently that I am going to start going to counselling to try to repair some of the "issues" that i have going on in my head for the last decade. I haven't made the appointment yet, but I am definitely going to do it very soon. In the mean time I started thinking a lot about the way that I live my life. After I had decided that I was going to start getting help with the mental and emotional aspect of my problems, I started to pick apart my own brain. I have really been digging deep.

I thought of something that Jen Morton (the life coach from Fitness Ridge) had said to me during my appointment with her. I have always thought that I just really liked food (a little too much) and struggled with portions and was too inactive to cancel out the calories with exercise. When I explained to Jen how much power I give to food, and how just "important" food is in my life she mentioned that maybe I possibly have an actual food addiction or compulsion. I have been tossing the idea of that around in my head since that conversation.

Until recently when I looked back on my past, I thought that I had been dealing with the same struggles since childhood. I used to think that all of my self esteem issues and weight struggles had been with me from a young age. Over the last week I realized that this is not the case. It's true that I was an EXTREMELY shy child and teenager. Its also true that I had low self esteem. I have come to realize though, that my obsessive behaviour regarding food and weight and physical appearance, began within the last 10 years.

At the age of 21 I ended up in a relationship with a competitive body builder. The relationship lasted 8 years and produced my wonderful son. Unfortunately the last 6 years of the 8 were not a happy time for me. Being young and impressionable I began thinking that I wasn't good enough. This was fuelled by the fact that he had actually said "People expect me to be with a certain type of girl and..." I didn't meet that "expectation" Over those years I had these ridiculous and excessive diets and training methods ingrained into my head. I developed an unrealistic expectation of what the average person should look like. I don't know if it was fear or lack of self worth that prevented me from walking away sooner, but it took me 3 months of regular counselling to finally figure out that I did deserve better and that I couldn't live the rest of my life in that situation. I finally did get out of the situation a couple of years ago and it has been a real struggle to reverse the damage that was done to my self worth and to fix the way my mind works. Thankfully I ended up with the most amazing man who adores me and makes me feel really good about myself. I don't know what I would do without him.

Realizing that my issues began when I was 21 and have not so much been a lifetime struggle is what has lead me to what I believe is this recent "breakthrough". I have only very recently realized that my behaviour is not normal. That it is extremely obsessive.

I have finally realized that it is not normal to live and breathe thoughts of self image, weight loss and food nor all the successes and failures related to them. It's not normal to wake up and have my first thought be anxiety about whether or not I would eat a proper balanced breakfast or give in to my craving for a Sausage McMuffin.. and if I DID give in would I get the cardio in that I need, or would I end up sitting on my ass all day? If I did do the "right thing" I would ride the high for a bit and then beat the shit out of myself when I very quickly reversed the effort by binging and not working out for days or weeks... MANY times an hour my thoughts drift to my appearance, my diet, my cravings, my successes, my failures, and what the days ahead will hold. I have FINALLY realized that this is not the way to live life!

Food has become too much of a focus. I eat when I am happy, I eat when I am sad. I eat when I am mad. If I am going on a trip my first thought is about all of the drive-thru's and restaurants I will get to hit. When I am invited to a party or wedding my first thought is "I wonder what they're going to have to eat there!" When I go camping my first thought is of all of the food and drinks I get to bring! When I visit my friends one of my main focuses is what we should buy to munch on! I SHOULD be focusing on how much fun the trip will be and what kind of adventure we will have. How great it is to watch friends and family get married, and how fun the reception will be! How much I love camping, the smell of campfires and all of the hikes and fishing we could do! How much I love spending times with my family and friends!

One habit I had gotten into over the last decade is taking "before and after" pictures. I have a specific bathing suit that I would put on for these pictures and I would take a new picture weekly during any of the times that I actually stuck to a plan for more than a few days. I would obsess over every detail of these pictures comparing them to the newer ones. I have hung on to the collection all of these years. Until today..With great anxiety I tore up every single one! The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that keeping these pictures were doing damage. Every time I decided to "get back on track" I would pull these pictures out for motivation. Motivation? Ive realized it was completely the opposite! I was in my 20's in these pictures.. the only thing that they succeeded in doing was making me feel like a failure! They made me compare myself to a girl who doesn't exist anymore! As long as I had them in my possession the "me" that exists today would never be good enough! I realized that they needed to go. That I needed to purge my life of all these past attempts and focus on the now and loving the "me" that I am.

Not only did I get rid of this collection of pictures (there were at least 50!) but I also got rid of all of my other weight loss and diet "shit" that I was holding on to for years. My "6 Week Total Body Makeover" binder and plan that I paid $200 dollars for back in 2007. Although I dropped significant weight on the plan, it wasn't a lifestyle! In to the trash (and recycling) went countless other weight loss books, diet magazines and articles. I even tossed the work books I had kept from my Fitness Ridge experience (other than the cookbooks):S Although it is full of great information, it is all stuff that I already know. I knew it before I went there! I hang on to all of this thinking that one day something is going to magically fix everything! I now know that I have to have a healthy mind before I can maintain a healthy body.

I don't want to live this life anymore! I can not even IMAGINE how much money I have spent over the years! Weight loss supplements, Weight Watchers memberships (multiple times), NutriSystem, 6 Week Total Body Makeover, Self Help books, Liposuction, Mytrak tool and membership (its like a Body Bug) Magazine subscriptions and 2 trips (totalling 5 weeks) to Fitness Ridge! **I must note that I still think Fitness Ridge is one of the most amazing places on Earth for self esteem and meeting amazing people** but the rest is a joke! I'm done!

Here is what I have decided to do! I have decided NO MORE DIETS, NO MORE GIMMICKS, NOOOOOOOOO MORE!!!
I am going to begin the counselling that I have planned.
I am going to cut out processed and fried food.
I am going to eat balanced nutritious food.
I am going to take the "power" away from food.
I am going to eat when I am hungry.
I am going to stop eating when I am full.
I am going to stop counting calories.
I am going to try something new (karate? art classes? learn to swim?)
I am going to take chances.
I am going to stop weighing myself (I will go by how my clothes fit and how I feel)
I am going to try to be as active as possible, but in a realistic sensible way (playing with my son, riding bikes, hiking, doing yard work, parking in the furthest spot, going for walks etc)
I am going to start living life!!!

This is the most optimistic I have felt about life in a really long time! The thought of being free from my mental prison is exciting! I am ready to make the change and be done with all of this bull shit! It will take a lot of work, but there are more important things in life than food and my appearance!