Blind spots

I have come a long way in terms of establishing a more comfortable relationship with my physical self. While I'm not as proactive as I ought to be, in terms of physical activity and healthy choices, I'm kinder to myself than I once was. I nurture my body by treating it to a massage or pedicure now and again. I take vitamins, I take my diabetes meds, and I take care to dress in ways that I hope are flattering. Perhaps the biggest change of all is that I don't hate my appearance any longer. While I'm not excited, exactly, about the way I look, I'm at peace with it now.

I remember in college, having episodes of self-loathing so intense that I had to force myself to walk out of the restroom and back into the classroom after break. I felt so ... unacceptable the way I was, and I was just embarrassed by my own existence. Of course, I look back at photos of myself from that time, and I'm amazed at how completely wrong that perspective was. I was a perfectly, unremarkably fine looking young woman. Not a supermodel, but also certainly not the one-woman sideshow I'd imagined that I was.

So it's gotten better. I typically don't spend a ton of time worrying about how I look, other than that I try to choose fun outfits for work, and I like it when my hair looks a certain way... all the stuff that we all think about, and usually only for about an hour in the morning. But there's been this ongoing thing with this co-worker that has made me feel much more self-conscious, and I'm struggling with how to handle it. He's a bit younger than I am, and very attractive (as verified by some of my other female co-workers) and very well put together. And he's been paying attention to me in ways that feel both good and bad. We see each other only at a weekly meeting, and we sit next to each other and just chat for a minute or two before the meeting begins. Last week he asked if I'd gotten my hair cut (which I had). I said yes and he said "See how good I am?" and gave me a thumbs up. This week, he asked if I'd been working out. I said that I had, a bit, and he nodded and gave me another thumbs up.

I was flattered, of course, but also... yeek. It feels uncomfortable to think that someone male is paying enough attention that those changes register with him. Further, it feels uncomfortable to have him say something about it. I wonder what his motivation is, and that's where things get weird for me. The most obvious interpretation is one of interest. Dude wants to let me know that he finds me attractive. But even typing that feels all wrong. I feel like it couldn't possibly be about me, as if he doesn't actually find me pretty, but he's bored and is just doing a little idle flirting to pass the time at a boring meeting. Or worse, that he's teasing the class fat girl somehow. I do have some experience with being that class fat girl, and being the recipient of some ugly attention from the boys in the class. But adults don't do that to each other. I understand this, and I understand that those experiences, nasty as they were, were over 30 years ago. They're not relevant to this situation. And yet, up they come.

The tough part here is that I'm usually pretty good at reading people and at knowing what's up with them. But I can't tell here, and I can't tell for a variety of reasons. One is that this particular guy is pretty guarded and quiet, and I don't see him except for at this weekly meeting. So I have little information about him, except for the pre-meeting snippets of chat. But the bigger thing, I think, is that this whole interaction hits a decades-old sore spot for me. Much as things have gotten better in my relationship with my physical self, I still feel like there's a blind spot there. I don't always see the pitiful, awful looking girl I used to see, but nothing coherent has taken the place of that image yet. That's an uncomfortable feeling, and it's highlighted by these interactions.

So what do I do? Continue to nurture myself, I suppose, in the ways that I already know how to do. Continue to slowly lose weight and seek out activity, because those are healthy choices to be making. And begin to assemble a new, updated inner vision of myself, maybe even giving private thanks to this gentleman and the dis-equilibrium he has created, since in it is the opportunity for change.

Uncomfortable

I can't sleep. It's 2:53 a.m., and I've been awake in bed for a while, simmering and cranky and feeling just uncomfortable in my own skin. My hair is touching my neck wrong, my skin feels too dry, my knee and foot ache, my back itches, I am pre-menstrual and bloaty and BLEAH.

The timing is odd in one sense, given that this has been a kind of self-indulgent weekend thus far. I got my hair cut and a pedicure, both of which usually make me feel a fresh and smooth and perky. Hormonally, though, I get it. PMS hits me in a variety of ways. There's not always an emotional component, though when there is it's usually this restless crankiness or a sort of sad, lonely feeling of disconnection. Physically, though, it's pretty predictable. I get carb cravings like you wouldn't believe, and I pack on some water weight that stays with me for a week or so.

I have to say, much as I don't enjoy this, it's way better than it used to be. In college, I had all of this, plus crazy cramps that were occasionally completely incapacitating. Discovering ibuprofen (recently over-the-counter when I went to college in 1984) improved the quality of my life one week out of the month by giving me some control over the pain issue. But I continue to feel this sense of wanting to crawl out of my skin (and then go drown my cranky inner child in ice cream and margaritas).

Feeling comfort in my body has always been an issue for me. I've certainly come a long way. I think of my young self in middle school and high school, struggling to come to terms with this woman's body that feels awkward and uncontrollable. I was one of those girls who ends up with a womanly body earlier than most--in 5th grade I was nearly as tall as I am now, and I had the breasts and hips of a much older girl. I understood that as fat, though looking back, it really wasn't. But I also needed glasses, and got acne, and got braces, a good two years before my classmates did. So while they were mostly still knobby-kneed kids, I was coping with the life-explosion that is puberty, and it just didn't go that well. I didn't know how to dress or care for my new body, and I ended up mostly trying to hide it and myself. I have such visceral memories of feeling terribly uncomfortable in clothes that didn't fit, in a body that didn't seem to fit.

Those memories give me perspective. It still isn't easy, and sometimes my relationship with my body is more adversarial than I'd like. But there's so much more that I know now. I STILL have acne (sigh...35 years later), but I know what to do about it and how to keep it under control. I know that the shape of my body works with some clothes and not others, and I know where to go to find things that will likely work for me. I know what kind of makeup I like, and that I like my toes polished and my fingers not. God knows there's still plenty of room for improvement, but remembering what it used to be like is kind of a comfort on this uncomfortable night.

Are you there, blogosphere? It's me, Luna.

Ahem. Well... It's been a while, eh? A couple of years at least, during which time my life has changed in some important ways, and stayed the same in some others.

Some of the changes:

• My father passed away
• I finished graduate school
• I landed a permanent job as a psychologist
• I bought a house
• I got a dog

So, some good developments, some rough ones. I reviewed the last several postings from when I was last here, and I was writing a lot about my father's health issues. Those finally got the best of him in August of 2008. My mother passed away in 1996, so my father's passing left me a 42 year old orphan. I felt every bit the orphan and not so much the 42-year-old, or what I imagined a 42-year-old ought to feel like, particularly one who had recently purchased a house and gotten a permanent job.

I feel...more stable now. It's been two years since that turbulent time in my life. The house, shared with the world's coolest pit bull terrier, feels like mine. The career, shared with the world's coolest colleagues, feels like mine. My life, mostly, feels like mine. Things generally feel comfortable and familiar.

Among those familiar things is my ongoing struggle with weight and health. My weight has been fairly steady in the last two years, topping out at about 238. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, which I suppose merits a spot on the "changes" bullet list above, but I'd rather bury it in a paragraph and deny the fundamental significance of it. As a result of the diagnosis I've been forced to focus more on my health (despite half-hearted attempts at denial), and I've slowly begun to lose some weight. As of yesterday, I'm at 219.5. My progress has been slow, by design...I've been losing about a half a pound every week or so. This seems to be working for the time being.

I've been thinking about small ways to support a healthier lifestyle. I walk daily with my dog, which she loves. I have been taking care to nurture my physical self as well, to remind myself that my body is worth doing nice things for. I get pedicures, I buy good bath products, and I try to remain on friendly terms with this physical self that I inhabit. After so many years of war, small acts of kindness toward my body are significant and help to maintain the truce we've agreed upon.

And I have missed writing here. I don't know exactly what direction future posts will take, but I know that I need a place to think about all of these issues: food, body, diabetes, activity, health... all the big things I've always wrestled with.

So I'm back, continuing this journey, with the understanding that the train never pulls into the station, and so I'd better make the trip worth it.

Seasonal Slump

It's been a chaotic few months, and something about the waning of winter is encouraging me to pull myself together and get things in order a bit.

I don't feel like I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, exactly, but I do feel like there's a part of me that just doesn't cope well with the dark and cold of winter. All I want to do is eat and sleep, and I find that I'm draggy and tired all the time. This is probably pretty par for the course around here, as our winters (and this one in particular) take a lot of fortitude to endure. But I don't make it easier on myself; when I'm low in energy and/or mood I tend to indulge myself with lots of tasty carbohydrates, which just make me more draggy and tired.

Last weekend I decided to cook. I made a pork loin marinated in citrus juice, garlic, cumin and oregano, and it was really nice. I also made an egg casserole kind of a thing that was good but very, very rich. I've been taking these things for lunch all week, and lo and behold...I'm feeling a little better. A little more in control. And thank goodness.

I was sitting with a cup of tea this morning and thinking about what I really want for myself. I realized that it's more complicated than just lookin' hot and feelin' groovy. That's a part of it, sure, but it's also about feeling calm and in control, and about respecting myself. And about having a body that's functional, so I don't have to worry about being able to go on a hike or climb several flights of stairs, or...well, you get the idea.

So often I just feel like a cork bobbing on the open sea, with very little to say about what happens to me, food-wise. I totally lose sight of the fact that I have a choice about what I eat, and not to choose is still a choice. It all just feels so thoughtless and automatic. I go to the cafeteria at work, and I pick what to eat based on where the shortest line is. Oh, and I get something for dessert, because the Little Debbie rack is right by the cashier, and I like those, and why not? And I drift through the grocery store, just impulse shopping.

So I think the trick for me will be to live a little more intentionally. I'm headed over to the grocery in a bit, and I'll go with a list. Winter's over yet, but it feels good to be thinking these thoughts and planning for the sunshine and warmer weather.

Adventures in Feminine Hygiene: The Sequel

So, I'm finishing up my second cycle with the menstrual cup (aka the CooterCap), which I first wrote about here. I have to say, I LOVE this thing. For me it is absolutely leak-proof, and surprisingly it's less messy than tampons as well. I also love the idea that I'm not putting bleached and otherwise chemically-processed fibers into or in close proximity to my body, and then I'm not throwing them out where they can sit in a landfill or the bottom of a lake forever. Oh, and the one-time investment? That too. It's all good.

The accounts I read prior to trying it out all talked about a learning curve, and there's definitely been one. I'm just now getting comfortable enough with insertion and removal that it's not a bit of a production, as it was when I first used it. And I can imagine that for anyone not used to having fairly...uh, intimate contact with her body, it might take a bit longer to get really in the swing of the whole thing. But for me, keeping at it has paid off. It's become easy, convenient and comfortable. I wish I'd gotten one 20 years ago.

So. I highly recommend the cup--it's a nice thing to do for your body, your wallet and the environment.

Visit with Dad

I went out to visit my father this weekend. He's been having cardiac issues and isn't taking very good care of himself, which landed him in the hospital last week. It was scary. My relationship with my father has always been complicated, and it's no less so now. It was so difficult to see him looking frail and scared; as someone who's never been seriously ill, I can only imagine how frightening that is. He is 81 and has never made healthy choices--he smoked until he was about 55, never exercised after about age 30 and is a perfect Type A personality. Oh, and eating habits? Red meat all the way, baby, with some pasta and bread now and again. But vegetables? Ha. If it grows in the dirt, it's not going in his mouth.

So years of hard livin' have caught up with him. He needs a valve replacement and is beginning to suffer from congestive heart failure, as well as arthritis that is beginning to create some mobility issues. My angry, temperamental, larger-that-life father has become a frail, vulnerable little old man who doesn't make great choices for himself, and I just don't know how to be with him.

What happened last week was that his kidneys temporarily quit working (the dye from a CAT scan he had was toxic enough to shut them down) and he ended up with fluid collecting in his lungs. He got more and more short of breath, to the point that he was having trouble walking from his bedroom to the kitchen. Finally a friend of his came by and saw the shape he was in, and he bundled my father up and took him to the hospital. A week of oxygen, balanced meals and diuretics in the hospital, and he was feeling much better by the time I got there this past Friday.

During my weekend there, my brother and I tried to get some more support for him around the house, which he's always been resistant to. He has finally agreed to have home health people come in three times a week to do a little cooking, help him run errands and make sure he's not sitting in front of the TV with his lungs filling up again. I repeatedly found myself lecturing him about needing to make better choices about his health, be proactive about some of these changes that need to get made, etc.

And that made me feel like a big hypocrite. I mean, how proactive am I? How healthy are my choices? The only difference between us is that I'm 41 instead of 81. Well, that and the smoking, and the personality variables, and...OK, so there are plenty of differences. But I see myself in him too--a person with a demanding life who just wants to come home from work and eat tasty, comforting food that she doesn't have to think about. Who doesn't want to have to motivate herself to go to the damned gym after working all day. Who is good at ignoring the signs that her body sends that it would like to be healthier and fitter.

All this has also been strangely motivating. In the last few weeks, whenever I've been dragging my feet about getting to the gym, I picture my father, with his bad joints and poor cardiac health, and it gets me there. I'd prefer not to be coping with these issues when I get older, obviously. I'd like to be one of those 80 year old ladies who's able to work in her garden, walk her dog, travel and generally feel energetic and engaged in the world. And that's not going to happen for me if I just sit here and ignore the fact that my knees hurt and I get short of breath easily even now, at 41.

What I did on my Winter Vacation

Well, I’m back. I made it through the holidays and through a surprisingly pleasant week-long visit with my father. Since I’ve been back in my own space and my own life I’ve been coping with the January blahs…it’s UNBELIEVABLY cold here, and gray, and I’ve struggled with the desire to eat nothing but carbs, drink like a fish and sleep too much. Actually, I’ve managed to keep the drinking and sleeping under control, but as usual, it’s the demon carbs that have proved irresistible.

Here’s a funny thing. I ate a lot around the holidays and gained about five pounds. I’m up to about where I was when I started this blog, which I’m not thrilled about. Interestingly, though, I’ve had several people in the last few weeks say “Hey, have you lost some weight?” I’m really not at all sure how to understand this…at first I was thinking it was due to Pilates, but I only went three times before my gym-buddy and I abandoned it for the holidays. So I don’t think it’s that. I don’t have an answer, but it makes me feel as if all is not lost.

I do, however, feel like most of the momentum I had throughout the fall is just gone. I’ve been completely unable to get myself to the gym, despite knowing full well that I’ll feel better, sleep better, have more energy, feel prouder of myself, etc. if I do. I’ve been playing games with myself, like telling myself that I can’t listen to any of the music on my iPod unless I do it at the gym. And like the stubborn child I am inside, I reply “Fine.” And the iPod sits on m desk, while I sit on the couch and watch TV.

Life is fairly stressful these days…my father continues to have health problems that appear to be getting worse, and I feel unsure of how to help. More to the point, I feel unsure of how to be close to him and how to be supportive while he’s feeling worried and scared. I know that I would feel more in control if I were to eat better and exercise. I also know that that control would be an illusion, but it’s one I’d welcome at this point.

Thank you to those of you who have sent me holiday greetings or otherwise left kind comments. Squilla, I was happy to hear that you’re alive and well in Australia, and your man is there with you now. *S*, thank you for your regular presence here—it’s always nice to hear from you. You too, Meegan, and Erin. I’ve been reading all of your blogs, even though I’ve been commenting only sporadically. Maybe what I need to do to to foster some re-engagement in the process of caring for my physical self is to blog more frequently and to get back in the habit of thinking about my physical self. That I can do.

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful 2008, with much happiness, good health and inner peace.

Happy Holidays

I leave tomorrow for a week--I'll be at my father's house in Denver. I'm hoping for a little more sun than we've had in the gloomy Midwest.

And for all of you, whether you celebrate Chanuka, Festivus, the Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa or a special day of your own devising...I hope your holidays are bright and happy. Thank you all for being a lovely part of my 2007. Here's wishing all of us a peaceful, joyful and healthy 2008.

Adventures in Feminine Hygiene

As I’ve gotten older, my periods have gotten lighter and lighter. I even have an IUD (the copper kind, not the progesterone kind), which is infamous for resulting in very heavy periods. Not for me. My periods are light enough now that my faithful friend the OB tampon just doesn’t work well for me any more, and as a result, I’ve started using ultrathin maxi pads. Ick. I’ve never used pads; from the very start of my menses, some 30 years ago now, I’ve used tampons. But now there just isn’t enough flow to warrant their use; they’re uncomfortable and leave me all dried out and…well, it’s just not working. And the pad thing? Not loving it.

So. What else? I’ve known about and been sort of interested in the idea of the menstrual cup for several years, but I had never tried one. I bought a box of Instead, the disposable ones once, and they just don’t work for me, though I know people who use and like them. Besides, part of what I’ve liked is the idea that I could use something repeatedly rather than discarding one or more of them daily. There are cups made of silicone or rubber that you insert, remove, wash and reinsert. It seemed like it might be time to try one, so I ordered one from this website and received it last week.

It’s a MoonCup, and it looks like a cute little silicone bell, or a little hat (a friend of mine, who disapproves of all the Goddessy names given by the manufacturers, dubbed mine the CooterCap. Fine with me.). I have read about how it takes some time to get used to using them, so I wasn’t expecting my CooterCap to become my BFF the moment I unwrapped it. But still. My first couple of interactions with it have been less friendly than I expected. Granted, I don’t have my period now, and many people have said that it’s hard to practice when you’re not menstruating, so I assume that’s part of my problem. The first time, I was able to insert the Cap OK, but then I couldn’t get it out. I’m not a person who has any problem interacting with her anatomy on a fairly intimate basis…so I wasn’t afraid to stick my fingers in there and get to tugging. But it had formed a fairly strong bond with the wall of my vagina, which I think is the point—that’s how you prevent leaks. It took a few tense minutes to figure out how to break the seal and extract the CooterCap, and then it kind of boinged out of my hand and across the bathroom.

Hm. Trial two, which was a couple of days ago, didn’t go that well either. Insertion went smoothly—you’re supposed to fold the Cap up in a particular way, slide it in and then let it open once it’s inside you. I folded and slid, and then felt it open up, as promised. And, OW. It felt like someone was poking me from the inside with their knuckles. Damn. Fortunately, removal was easier this time.

So, despite these difficulties, I’m looking forward to trying to use the CooterCap during an actual period. I’ve read repeatedly that it takes 2 or 3 cycles before you really get the hang of it, so I’m remaining optimistic. I really do like the idea of less waste, a one-time expenditure (though at this point, near the tail-end of my menstruating career, how much am I really saving, for either the environment or my wallet?) and the potential for a method without the drawbacks of either pads or tampons.

I’ll report back…And in the meantime, if you're interested in learning more, there's a nice little tutorial here.

Thin Dreams Die Hard

I’ve been consumed lately with the un-fun task of getting my grandmother’s estate underway and debating with my siblings the merits of keeping farmland vs. selling it off. Ugh. In the midst of all this, a friend sent me a link to a post over at Shapely Prose, and it really hit home. It’s all about the things we tell ourselves will be different when we’re thin. Have you done this? God knows I have. For years I’ve had this running list in my head:

Once I’m thin…

• I’ll find a fantastic man.
• I’ll be more outgoing.
• I’ll travel more, and to more exciting places.
• People will find me more interesting.
• I’ll smell better.
• I’ll be fitter.
• I’ll be outdoorsy and will learn to love kayaking, hiking, snowshoeing, etc.
• I’ll be happier.

Wow. WTF? I could go on and on with this list. It’s absurd. The post at Shapely Prose talks about self-acceptance, both of body size and of the strengths and limitations that make up a personality. It talks about understanding that the things we’re not good at, or are afraid to do, or don’t like to do, are not necessarily because of our weight. They’re because of who we are, for better and worse.

Me? I’m not especially outgoing, and that’s not going to change if I’m a size 10 instead of a size 20. People already seem to find me interesting. I have already traveled to some pretty cool and exciting places, thanks. I’m pretty sure that the outdoorsy thing just isn’t me—I’m darn fond of a comfy bed at the end of the day, and I don’t really like being hot, or cold, or not having access to indoor plumbing at will. Give me museums, cities and culture any day. Those things may be a little easier on the feet at a lower weight, but would it change what I like, what I choose to do and what I’m good at if I lost weight? Of course not.

And yet. It’s hard to give up the fantasy. It’s hard not to continue to believe in parts of it, like the one about the fantastic man. Do I know big women who have found wonderful men? Of course. And I also know that it’s my feelings about my fat, rather than my fat itself, that gets in my way. I know this. And yet.

What are some of your thin fantasies?

The Best We Could

So. It’s been a couple of weeks, and eventful ones. The day after I wrote the post before this one, I got a call from a cousin telling me that my grandmother was not doing well. I drove down to central Illinois to see her, and I was shocked by how much she had faltered since my last visit, which was only three weeks before. The retirement home staff told me that a good friend of hers had passed away a few weeks earlier, and she had essentially decided that she was finished. She had stopped eating and stopped taking her medication.

So I called my brothers and my cousin, and eventually everyone got down there to be with her. She died on the following Monday the 19^th. I miss her, but it’s hard to be sad for her, in a way. She was 99 years old and had been ready to move on for several years. She had told me many times in the last few years that she has outlived everyone—her siblings, her husband, her two daughters and most of her friends. As we sat together in the hospital that last weekend, she said “I’m 99 years old. I’ve had a good life and a good family. I don’t want to be 100.” She died as she lived—a tough, stubborn woman who knew what she wanted and made it happen.

I always had a kind of difficult relationship with her. I have one cousin; she’s four years older than I am and has always made more conventional life choices than have I. Even when we were kids and teenagers, she was learning to cook and sew, and I was reading and drawing. Her family lived in a small community nearby, mine had moved away from the Midwest when I was a baby and had always lived in the suburbs of big cities. With the benefit of grownup perspective I see that my cousin was just more familiar to my grandmother. They made sense to one another. But growing up I always felt unappreciated and unseen.

Once my mother died, I tried to get closer to my grandmother as a way to stay connected to that side of the family. I remember trying really hard to think of things she would want to do with me (cards? Scrabble? Looking through antique books? Drives in the country?). I once spent a bunch of time researching a particular kind of glassware that she collected so that we’d have something to talk about when I came to visit. None of it worked, really, and ultimately I just had to learn to be content with our imperfect connection. One day we were talking on the phone as I was nearing the end of graduate school, and she said to me “I don’t really understand what you do, but I’m sure proud of you.” That brings tears to my eyes even now. I still wish we had learned not to be such strangers to each other, but I think we both did the best we could.

Vulnerable

A friend asked me tonight if I’m feeling vulnerable lately. Me? Vulnerable? I immediately listed off all of the ways that I’m not at all vulnerable: a stable, well-paying job, a bunch of good friends, wonderful siblings, a fine apartment, etc. But I heard myself blathering around the question and tossing out all kinds of words meant to express that OK, perhaps I am feeling something, but it’s not vulnerability, for heaven’s sake. Maybe disorganized, unmoored, at sea, not grounded…any of those. My friend kindly let the euphemism-mill slowly wear itself down, and what was left was that word.

So yeah. Vulnerable. I guess so.

It’s a couple of things, I think. The holidays are coming, which are never my favorite time of year. They remind me of how much I miss my mother, who died several years ago. Since then, I pretty much hold my breath starting about now and wait for January 2. More immediately, my father and grandmother are both experiencing health problems and are both old enough that anything could signal the beginning of the end for either of them. My relationship with both of them has been complicated, so my feelings about their mortality are complicated too. And though I am 41 years old, an independent and gainfully employed adult, I suddenly don’t really feel old enough to negotiate a parentless and grandparentless world.

Vulnerable is exactly the word.

Boys are Scary

Just in the last few weeks I’ve had some interactions with men that were sort of …flirty, I guess. This is a surprise to me, and I don’t ever quite know what to do in response. Or if I want to respond, even. It’s a very confusing issue for me. In one instance, a friend and I had stopped into a small jewelry store, where most of the stuff was made by the proprietor himself. He offered to fix my friend’s necklace while we browsed, and as he worked he turned to me and said “I’m Guy.” It took me a moment, for some reason, to understand that he was introducing himself to me, but I got it together and introduced myself back. He asked what I did, and we talked briefly about doing therapy with young soldiers recently returned from Iraq. Turns out that he has a MS degree in counseling but has been doing jewelry for years. We chatted a little longer, he finished my friend’s necklace, I bought some earrings and we left. My friend pointed out that he seemed really interested in me, which I had not really understood in the moment. It just seems so improbable. The second instance involved a man I run into professionally now and again, as we seem to end up at some events together. The last time we met I didn’t have a business card to give him, which he remembered this week when I saw him. He said “Yeah, last time I gave you a card, and then I went back to my office and checked my email over and over, thinking Why isn’t she emailing me??” Again, in retrospect, it seems flirtatious, but in the moment there’s something in me that just doesn’t read it right.

So what gives? My lack of self esteem regarding matters of my appearance isn’t something I think about much or care to dwell on, because it feels unchangeable. I just can’t believe that someone would look at me and find me attractive. I can believe that someone could fall in love with my personality and come to find me attractive, but to be attracted just to my physical self? I just can’t picture it.

When I’m working with someone who has a belief that seems ironclad, I always have to wonder about the function of that belief. So what’s the function of my continuing to believe that I’m fugly? It’s about safety. It’s not like I have some horrible history of abuse at the hands of my father or other men in my life, but nor have I ever felt especially able to be vulnerable. Closeness feels really, really risky. And it sounds like such a cliché, but my father was always (and continues to be, even though I’m now over 40, for God’s sake) really critical of my physical self. Seems like it’s hard to detach myself from that mirror, or to trust that to open myself up to someone else will not leave me feeling criticized and humiliated.

So, how dumb, right? I meet up with men who make it fairly clear that they think my physical self is more than acceptable, and it still freaks me out. It’s as if I think they must not be able to really see me, but if they got to know me they would peer closer, and all my flaws would suddenly become apparent. And so, here I am once again. It’s not the physical at all, but the more global fear of being known.

Sigh. I was visiting with a friend earlier this evening, a woman who’s also a psychologist and who is currently coping with some significant depression. She said “I feel like a mental patient.” I said “We’re all mental patients.” And I think we are, in one way or another.

Feeding the Hunger

First the good news. After my Pilates class yesterday, I couldn’t tell what muscles I’d used, as I felt like I had spent an hour rolling around on the floor like a hooked fish. But today I can tell. My abdominals are pleasantly sore, as are the insides of my thighs and the muscles in my butt and lower back. This is good news to me, as I often feel like I’m not doing the exercises right and I’m using all kinds of compensatory muscles since my abs are so weak. So it's cool to have evidence that I'm actually using the right muscles after all.

As I have alluded to in past posts, though, I’m really pretty out of control with eating again. This is starting to feel really crappy. Yes, I seem to be losing some inches because of the exercise, but I’m eating unhealthily, and it feels nasty. I know that when I limit my carbs I have more energy, I don’t fade in the middle of the afternoon, and I sleep better. I also just feel more in control, which inspires more global feelings of well-being and self worth. I haven’t been bingeing lately, exactly…I’ve just been making consistently poor choices for meals, snacking a lot, eating huge portions, etc.

So what’s the deal? It’s weird to me that I’ve managed to start working exercise into my life, which has been a HUGE stumbling block of mine for the longest time, but I can’t seem to manage that and healthy eating at the same time. I think a bit of the problem is a logistical thing: The exercise takes a lot of time, and the cooking and eating well takes a fair bit of time, and I haven’t worked out a schedule for myself that allows me to do both. On the nights I’m at the gym I don’t get home until after 8, and my tendency has been to do the fast food thing as I drive between work and the gym (I know. How gross is that? A Quarter Pounder on the way to work out). Sometimes I’ve managed the foresight to pack some extra string cheese or something in with my lunch, and that gets me through the workout. What I need is to plan to cook on the weekends so that lunch and a late-afternoon pre-workout snack is an easy thing to grab.

But. As usual, the real issue doesn’t have anything to do with making time to cook. It’s a psychological thing. It’s about feeling pouty and put-upon and just not wanting to have to restrain myself in any way. It’s about wanting to be accepted the way I am. It’s about wanting to stick it to my father, who has, for nearly 40 years now, been waiting to see me lose the weight (there were a few years there at the beginning where he thought the chubby baby thing was cute).

And you know what else? There’s this one bit of unfinished business between me and my ex-boyfriend, with whom I broke up a year and a half ago. I’m a signer on a bank account of his, and I’ve never taken the initiative to email him and say “Hey—you probably need to find someone else to do this for you.” I’m assuming that this will involve meeting him at the bank, and I caught myself thinking the other day that I ought to wait until I lose some weight, so that I look really good when I have to see him. So. Avoidant soul that I can be, I’ve set it up so that as long as I’m fat, I don’t need to address this issue. I don’t have to endure the anxiety of sending an email, of calling the bank to figure out what, in fact, needs to happen, of perhaps having to see him, after all this time… And the big bonus is that I get to keep eating!

Sigh. Whether or not I choose to face the ex-boyfriend bank account issue at this particular point in time, I think it’s time to start working toward healthier eating again.

Pilates Sucks Ass

Pilates class number two this evening. Last week was beginner’s luck, or the honeymoon, or the calm before the storm, or some other metaphor that would capture just how incredibly, suckingly sucky class was tonight. I felt like a giant, fat flailing infant, unable to even hold my head up correctly. The instructor didn’t talk to me at all tonight, which made me feel as if she had totally given up on me and was just going to let me roll around back there as long as I appeared to still be breathing. I said something to that effect after class to my friend J, who came with me. She wisely pointed out that I was all embarrassed last week because I got a pointer from the instructor, and this week I was all sad because I didn’t. What do you want? she asked. Good question. What I want is to be 70 lbs thinner and really fit. Failing that, I guess what I want is the courage to keep showing up and sucking, until I suck no longer.

Here’s one bit of goodness, though, to keep me slogging through the suck. I went shopping for grey pants Sunday. In the past, I’ve been about a size 22, but I could get into certain 20’s if they were stretchy or cut right. On Sunday, I tried on about 10 pairs of pants in a bunch of different cuts, fabrics, brands, etc., and I was a size 20 in all of them! And not even a tight size 20, but a comfortable, right-in-the-middle-of-the-range size 20. Woo-hoo! It’s not a lot of change, but I’ve also been eating like crazy (fodder for a future post, I believe), so it’s gotta be the exercise. Exercise, you’re a nasty beeyotch, but I might decide to keep you around.

Pilates Sucks, and Pilates Rocks

I went to my first Pilates class tonight. It sucked, and it was pretty cool. It feels like it’ll take forever to get the hang of—I could never remember to keep my abs tight, clench my thigh muscles, make my spine long and breathe in and out when you’re supposed to, all at the same time. Oh, and this thing called ‘bucket breathing,’ where you’re supposed to be inhaling into your lower back or something. Huh? At any given time I was probably doing one of those, or maybe two (except I’m pretty sure I was never bucket breathing). Not to mention the fact that my abs are so weak that I’m not sure I even worked them out very much—for me, it’s sort of like trying to exercise your hair. It just doesn’t move.

Sitting her right now I can feel that my thighs are going to be sore, and my lower back, and my ass…but I can’t really feel anything in my abs. I wonder if it’s going to take a few weeks to even get those muscles to the point that I can really work them.

A few things were hard for me:

1. I was the biggest woman in the class by quite a bit. There were clearly women that hadn’t been doing it for long and seemed a little lost and prone to flailing around, but nobody was very large at all. Except for me. I tried to put it out of my head and just focus on being there (and on that whole impossible list of things we were supposed to be doing all at once), but I definitely felt a more than a little self-conscious.

2. I hate being imperfect at things, and I was definitely imperfect at this. I felt like I was going to fall over and hit my head, even when I was lying on my mat. I had to keep reminding myself that it will become more natural over time, and in the meantime I just have to keep trying.

3. I have trouble asking for or accepting help. The instructor came over early in the session and corrected my posture on an exercise, and I felt like a total reject. Then, later on when she was correcting others on things, I began to worry that she had decided I was a total lost cause and she wasn’t even going to try.

Neurotic much?

But I’m going to go back, because I could see how this would result in some great toning, and I’d be really proud of myself if I could get to the point that I could really do the exercises. Unfortunately, I can only make one class a week because of my work schedule, and that seems less than ideal. Oh well…I guess it just means that I’ll be in flailing beginner mode for longer than I’d like. Core strength, here I come!

Great Workout Mysteries of the Universe

Since I’ve been working out with some regularity, one thing about it has been just baffling to me. At least for me, there are days when I go, and I’m happy enough to be there, and I sweat and work hard and I don’t much mind it, and I feel good when I leave. Then there are days when I work at the same level of intensity, and it’s insanely difficult. I feel miserable every second, and it sucks and it is so hard, and I am pretty sure I’m going to quit any second…and then it’s over and I feel good.

The thing I don’t get is why it’s hard sometimes and not others. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with how energetic or positive I’m feeling, how much sleep I got, how busy my day was, what I've eaten, etc. It doesn’t even seem to have to do with getting into a groove where I’m exercising a lot. Take yesterday, for example. I hadn’t been to the gym in at least a week. It was a busy work week with a lot of evening stuff, and I had my period and felt crappy all week, and I just didn’t get there. So I went to the gym yesterday thinking that it was going to suck and be difficult because I was kind of out of the groove, but I would just suck it up and it’d be fine again soon. So I get there, and it’s crowded, and immediately my iPod freezes, so I don’t even have music. Then the headphone jack on the elliptical machine I chose was broken, so I couldn’t get audio for the TV screen. So, I watched (but couldn’t hear) some show called Good Pets Gone Bad (people who survived animal attacks—everything from housecats to trained bears. Seriously.) and did my 30 mins on the elliptical.

And here’s the part that surprised me—it was the easiest 30 mins I’ve ever done. I wasn’t draggy and cranky and miserable, the time didn’t crawl by and I wasn’t making bargains with Jesus to get me through it. My heart rate didn’t even get up as high as it usually does. Normally I get myself up into the 150s and stay there for the 30 mins, but this time I peaked in the mid 120s. Weird. Did fitness come to call while I was taking a week off? Is this how everyone experiences their own improving fitness?

Prior to now, progress has been more subtle—I turn up the resistance on the machine every couple of weeks and/or add 5 minutes onto my time and/or increase my speed, then it feels hard for a while and then in a week or two I’m ready to increase one of the variable again. This, though, was just a really notable change., and at a time when I was expecting the exact opposite. Interesting.

Readiness

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is readiness. I look back on successful attempts to change anything in my life, and it seems as if there’s some hard-to-define but important attitude shift that makes it possible to at least get started and endure the preliminary discomfort of making sacrifices and adopting new habits. And there are so many more unsuccessful attempts, where that attitude shift wasn’t there, and I spun my wheels for a while and then just gave up.

Take now, for example. I’ve been pretty focused lately on getting myself to the gym as many nights a week as I can. Something in me just clicked and allowed me to march myself into the gym, pay the signup fee, buy the clothes and the bag and the water bottle and the iPod and risk looking like a big, chubby, uncoordinated dimwit 3-5 nights a week as I attempt to work out. Something has made that possible.

And, just as interestingly, right now I seem to lack the indefinable something that I would need in order to get my eating into a principled and controlled place. I haven’t been at all careful about what I eat, and while it’s certainly not as bad as it’s been at times in the past, I’m aware of eating less well and healthily than would be ideal.

So what is it? I think after a time it becomes momentum, where the changes take on their own weight, and the change barrels down the hill on its own. At least for me that seems to be the case—whether it’s weight loss or exercise or some other life-change, I can feel the different behaviors become habits after a time. But what about the very earliest stages of change, where you not only decide you want something to be different, but you actually act on that desire and see it through until the momentum can take over? That’s the part that feels like kind of a mystery to me.

In my Great Weight Loss Experience of 2000, I remember approaching the whole thing like a time-limited experiment. I chose to use the Atkins approach, and I remember thinking that I’d give it a couple of weeks, eat according to their crazy plan and see what happened in my body. And then I could stop if I felt like it. Two things happenend: 1. I lost 12 lbs. 2. I felt good. At that point, both of those things gave me the motivation that I needed to continue. But I don’t for the life of me remember what gave me the gumption, the courage, the motivation, the whatever, to make all those changes before I knew what was going to happen.

So what’s the difference between then and now? I could embrace a particular kind of eating back then, but now I just can’t be bothered. And yet I seem able to make another kind of change in my life by exercising regularly. I’d hate to think that I have some finite amount of change-readiness in my psyche, and I can only take on one thing at a time. Or, worse yet, that I am only able to choose one healthy lifestyle behavior at a time. All I know is that there’s some kind of a click, and sometimes I get there and sometimes I don’t.

Oh, and I weighed myself this morning, and my digital scale told me I weighed 4 lbs. Either it’s time to buy a new scale, or this gym thing is REALLY working for me.

Helloooooooo!

So, I’m back. I’m not sure what this extended absence was about, exactly…other than just feeling distracted and focused on other things in my life. It’s funny, though—while I didn’t feel like keeping up with my own blog, I was still motivated to keep up with all of you whose blogs I read regularly. I continued to stop by and read what was going on for you, though I didn’t comment much. I guess I needed a little vacation from writing.

I missed you all while I wasn’t writing. It makes me realize that I have a nice little group of friends here in the world of self-improvement blogging, and that my own active involvement helps me stay connected to people I’ve really come to like and feel close to (you all know who you are *smile and wave*).

So what have I been up to? Getting used to my new job, mostly. I’m very lucky to be working exactly where I wanted to be, though the position itself is not what I would’ve designed for myself. It makes me realized that I had gotten very comfortable with the types of people I used to see for psychotherapy, and those folks exercised skills in me that were already strong. This new group? Wow. It’s a whole different ballgame, and I’m working muscles that haven’t gotten much of a workout before. These are younger guys, mostly, and all newly returned from combat in Iraq. They’re not sure that they want therapy, or what it might do for them, and they’re still pretty sure they’re going to be able to cope on their own. Yet many of them are pretty miserable, and things in their lives aren’t going well. The guys I used to work with, in the residential rehab facility? They were pretty sure that they weren’t managing on their own all that well, and they were mostly willing to accept help. So, it’s new, and it’s weird, and it’s got me in that place of discomfort we all feel before we start to grow and stretch and ultimately become better at what we do.

I see that I’ve been using lots of physical metaphors here. That makes sense, I guess, because the other new horizon I’ve continued to explore has been getting fit. I think one of my last entries here was about joining a gym, and much to my own surprise, I’ve continued to go on a pretty regular basis. I’ve been managing to get there 3-4 times per week, and I’m starting to miss it on days that I don’t go. I’ve gotten into a routine that makes me puff and sweat some but is also kind of meditative somehow, and I like it. I’ve been using this elliptical-like machine, and I’ve been increasing both resistance and length of time I’m on it…I’m so ridiculously out of shape in terms of cardiopulmonary stamina that it’s taken me a while to be able to work hard enough to make my muscles burn, but I’m finally getting there. I do a half hour on the elliptical, and then I go walk a mile on the treadmill to cool down, which usually takes me about 20 mins. I’m still way, way too shy to hire a personal trainer; one of them just sort of randomly made eye contact with me yesterday, and I about ran and hid. Well, one day…when I’m feeling braver. I need some help with beginning a weight training program, so when I’m ready for that I’ll have to hire an expert.

Interestingly, in all of this, my eating has become completely out of my control once again. I’ve hardly tried to rein it in, but it’s getting to be time. I’ve got a comforting little exercise routine, and while my job continues to be stressful, eating everything that I can get my hands on doesn’t actually help. You’d think, after all these years, I would not have to prove that to myself again and again. But some lessons seem to take a while to sink in.

So, there you have it. Thank you all for allowing me to stay connected to your lives, and welcome back to mine.

Checking in and Catching up

OK, I totally forgot to weigh in on Sunday or today. I think I’ll just scratch it for the week and get back on schedule next Sunday.

Last week, though, was a good week for New Body Experiences. I went to the gym twice to work out, which makes me feel like a rock star, if a rotund and easily winded one. The first time I used the elliptical machine for 27 minutes and the second time I lasted for an even 30. I have a ton of questions about things, like how to cool down afterward, what kind of stretches are good, etc. So I think it’s time to use my complimentary personal trainer sessions, which perhaps I’ll do in the coming week. Here’s the weird thing for me about this whole experience: while I’m actually exercising, I HATE it. I feel icky and clumsy and puffy. But afterward I kind of look forward to going again. Crazy! Some of it is just the novelty of the experience, the fact that the gym I chose is kind of swanky, etc. But I’m hoping to get to a point where I actually crave the exercise itself and miss it when I don’t do it. I’ve been at that point at other times in my life, and it’s great. Well, we’ll see.

The other thing I got to do was try Tai Chi. In my new job, I’ll be co-facilitating a relaxation group for vets recently back from Iraq, and my co-facilitator is a nurse who does a lot of meditation and martial arts. I sat in on one of his groups last week, and he was teaching Tai Chi. It was interesting and made me think that I might like to take a class in it. I’m finding that it’s kind of fun to experiment with moving my body in different ways, even if those ways feel odd and ungainly.

And in other, non-body related news, I am finishing up my post-doc this week, with many sad goodbyes, even though I’ll just be in another part of the hospital. I had my final Monday night dinner at the halfway house tonight, and they bought me a card and fixed lasagna in honor of my ethnicity. Cute, and kinda sad. I’ll miss those guys. I said goodbye this morning to a patient I’ve worked with for about a year now. She’s a 75 year old lady that has been processing some very difficult stuff from early in her life, and it’s been an intense working relationship. She said this morning that our parting was “like losing a little sister,” which just broke my heart. This is the hardest part of what I do. Even when there’s great satisfaction in what you’ve helped someone accomplish, the ending can be so, so hard. It’s going to be an emotional week, and a food-laden week, too. I just don’t feel like watching myself and worrying about what I consume, and I’m not sure I’d have the resources for it if I did. I’m just going to be in the moment and see what comes this week. After that…we’ll just have to see.