Today I threw away my popcorn maker. For it has been the source of my latest in a long-line of unhealthy obsessions.
I am not someone to do things by halves. I do not enter into things lightly. No. I am not someone who feels guilt because they have consumed a Mars Bar or a row of chocolate. No. Instead I am racked with guilt after consuming 4 x 250g blocks of chocolate. Hamstrung by my weakness. Until the next day when I do it again.
I am someone who goes shopping deciding to buy only two blocks of chocolate (after all, even I know that each has over 1200 calories). But then I get home and the worry starts. I only have two blocks of chocolate (never mind that it is enough to provide a treat to an entire classroom of children). The panic sets in. It isn’t going to be enough. What if I run out?
Those-who-know-me have lived through my crazes. My fads. For a while I ate nothing but those pink lolly Big Boss cigars. Then there was a jaffa phase. M&Ms have featured a few times. The peanut ones AND the crunchy ones. Coco-pops, milo and 100s & 1000s (sans milk) was another favourite. Often I will eat nothing else but my latest sweetheart. For weeks I mainlined chocolate icing on biscuits. For breakfast, lunch, dinner and whatever else came between.
Sometimes there is a reason. After I have been on no- or low-carb diets I end up eating nothing but carbs for weeks. To hell with protein, vegetables and fruit!
My latest love has been popcorn. I started just after fat camp. I air-popped it in my popcorn-maker so that part is healthy. But then I smothered it in melted butter and this soup mix flavouring. I like tasty. The spicier or sweeter the better. My taste evolved over the 6 weeks I have fought (or enjoyed) my popcorn addiction. Recently I have had to make two bowls at once. Big bowls. One savoury and one sweet (butter with icing sugar generously sprinkled – strewn – over the top). Initially a ‘treat’, it became a staple. I replaced my evening meals with popcorn. As I was on a non-drinking thing I decided I needed something to occupy my time at night, so popcorn it was. Without alcohol or other evils, my daily intake of calories (despite the butter and additives) wasn’t too bad.
But like all good addictions, my need grew along with my tolerance. The bowls became bigger and more flavoursome. I tried to ‘quit’. To eat real meals and use popcorn as an ‘after’. To try and get some protein and vegetables into my diet (I am not – after all – a teenager, so I should know better). But alas, my level of popcorn consumption remained. I was consuming double the calories from my two ‘meals’. So, I went back to the meal-replacement scenario, forsaking dinner.
I kept telling myself that this bowl will be the last. I stopped buying it. No popping corn. No butter. No icing sugar. Then I craved it. So I bought it. But, as with the chocolate fetish (and others before it), the panic set in. I found myself at home with half a bag of popping corn. Again – enough to feed a small country, but I become obsessed that it wouldn’t be enough. That I would run out. So I had to go and buy more. Before I even started eating the rest of it. I didn’t often need it as 1/3 bag of popping corn gives me two very large bowls. But I panicked.
Even as a non-practicing holder of undergraduate degree in psychology, I realise that this fear isn’t about popcorn. Or chocolate, or alcohol. I could make some guesses about what it means or where it stems from. But hell, that would rob me of years of therapy. Or my next fetish. So, instead stay tuned.
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Fat Camp
I have this song in my head. It’s one from Play School that I used to sing to my niece when she was little, “We’re going on a bear hunt…”. Instead the words in my head are, “I’m going on a fat camp….”.
I tend to blame almost everything on my weight. (Although not global warming or the international economic crisis, ‘cos that would be just plain silly!)
But stuff that is wrong with my life I believe can usually be traced back to my weight problems. When they started back in 1983 the issue was a different one to that I have now. I became very thin. At that point, a relationship was established between my mind, my body and food that I have been unable to overcome.
Fast forward to 26 years later and the problem is the opposite. Over the intervening years I have lost and gained 10, 20 and 30 kgs a number of times but I keep going back. There is no middle ground for me. It is all or nothing. Eating badly isn’t just a chocolate bar. It is family block after family block. It is hours, days and weeks of binging.
While my weight is the (sole) biggest issue in my life, it is the impact that it has had on my life that devastates me.
I have always been single, never loved or in love. I blame this on my weight and how I am perceived, not only by others, but also myself.
Confidence that I lack in the workplace and while with friends is generally because I feel fat, unattractive and unworthy. A failure. It plays on my mind and undermines other aspects of my life.
And, even though I know that guilt and self-loathing will follow, I can’t stop myself. Overeating and drinking is usually the only thing that provides any comfort. The irony is not lost on me – that if I ate and drank less, I might have a man or a family beside me providing that comfort. Instead I fill the abyss with calories.
The spiral is ugly. The fatter I feel, the less I exercise. For someone who was once athletic, I know this is a waste.
I fear I am now perceived as a frumpy middle-aged woman. And more than self-loathing; I now feel extreme regret. That I have lost 26years of my life that I can never regain.
While I feel stymied – unable to act, I am forcing myself into a lifestyle change that I hope is not too late.
I am going to a fat camp. For one month. I wish it were longer. I wish I could emerge like a swan from the prison that has been my body and my life for 20 years. Instead, I have one month and I can only hope and pray for change. Physical and mental.
I realize of course that I shouldn’t call it the fat camp. It is, in fact, called The New Me Retreat (www.thenewme.com.au). Run by the winner of the first series of The Biggest Loser (in Australia), Adro Sarnelli, it is based on the series’ premise. A house of people and lots of exercise. You have to be 20kgs overweight to go. You can only go for a minimum of 2 weeks.
I’m not sure what to expect. (When I was wealthier and lived overseas) I visited a health retreat in Queensland – a couple of times. While the experience was amazing and made me reconsider the direction of my life, the focus was more on recharging one’s batteries. Though health and fitness was on the menu, the experience was luxurious and featured pampering treatments and meditations.
I am expecting the fat camp to be different. Hard. Challenging. While excited, I am also approaching the month with dread and nervousness. I can already imagine the burning in my lungs as I struggle with a hill or sprints. And, my expectations are high. I am expecting a change. In me. “A New Me”. Someone who, at the end of this experience (which includes the weeks and months after), looks like they should and is motivated to keep it that way. Someone who loves life. And themselves.
I tend to blame almost everything on my weight. (Although not global warming or the international economic crisis, ‘cos that would be just plain silly!)
But stuff that is wrong with my life I believe can usually be traced back to my weight problems. When they started back in 1983 the issue was a different one to that I have now. I became very thin. At that point, a relationship was established between my mind, my body and food that I have been unable to overcome.
Fast forward to 26 years later and the problem is the opposite. Over the intervening years I have lost and gained 10, 20 and 30 kgs a number of times but I keep going back. There is no middle ground for me. It is all or nothing. Eating badly isn’t just a chocolate bar. It is family block after family block. It is hours, days and weeks of binging.
While my weight is the (sole) biggest issue in my life, it is the impact that it has had on my life that devastates me.
I have always been single, never loved or in love. I blame this on my weight and how I am perceived, not only by others, but also myself.
Confidence that I lack in the workplace and while with friends is generally because I feel fat, unattractive and unworthy. A failure. It plays on my mind and undermines other aspects of my life.
And, even though I know that guilt and self-loathing will follow, I can’t stop myself. Overeating and drinking is usually the only thing that provides any comfort. The irony is not lost on me – that if I ate and drank less, I might have a man or a family beside me providing that comfort. Instead I fill the abyss with calories.
The spiral is ugly. The fatter I feel, the less I exercise. For someone who was once athletic, I know this is a waste.
I fear I am now perceived as a frumpy middle-aged woman. And more than self-loathing; I now feel extreme regret. That I have lost 26years of my life that I can never regain.
While I feel stymied – unable to act, I am forcing myself into a lifestyle change that I hope is not too late.
I am going to a fat camp. For one month. I wish it were longer. I wish I could emerge like a swan from the prison that has been my body and my life for 20 years. Instead, I have one month and I can only hope and pray for change. Physical and mental.
I realize of course that I shouldn’t call it the fat camp. It is, in fact, called The New Me Retreat (www.thenewme.com.au). Run by the winner of the first series of The Biggest Loser (in Australia), Adro Sarnelli, it is based on the series’ premise. A house of people and lots of exercise. You have to be 20kgs overweight to go. You can only go for a minimum of 2 weeks.
I’m not sure what to expect. (When I was wealthier and lived overseas) I visited a health retreat in Queensland – a couple of times. While the experience was amazing and made me reconsider the direction of my life, the focus was more on recharging one’s batteries. Though health and fitness was on the menu, the experience was luxurious and featured pampering treatments and meditations.
I am expecting the fat camp to be different. Hard. Challenging. While excited, I am also approaching the month with dread and nervousness. I can already imagine the burning in my lungs as I struggle with a hill or sprints. And, my expectations are high. I am expecting a change. In me. “A New Me”. Someone who, at the end of this experience (which includes the weeks and months after), looks like they should and is motivated to keep it that way. Someone who loves life. And themselves.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Diet, schmiet!
To stave off my apathy I decided I should write about something close to my heart. Dieting! The fact that I am; my need to; how much I hate it etc. As I opened my laptop I suddenly remembered that this brainwave had come to me on a previous occasion. So, I will share with you, an excerpt from a year or so ago!
Diary entry – sometime early in 2008 – could be anytime (given the number of times I ‘started’ a diet!)
I thought I would document diet attempt no. 1,765,907 (at least!). Okay, so I am not actually starting today. It is day 0, or maybe -1. This is the day that I cram as much crap as possible into my body before I start ‘dieting’ tomorrow.
Okay, okay…. Now I have dieted enough (!) to know that one shouldn’t ‘diet’, it should be a way of life etc etc. Blah blah. I am (if I do say so myself) very ‘evolved’ in the world of dieting, health and fitness – as are many women. Ask us about the inner workings of a car engine and we draw a blank, but anything to do with calories, carbohydrates, GI, Atkins, Zone, South Beach – and so on – and we are literally walking encyclopedias!
I am pretty sure I started dieting in high school (not primary school, though that was when my brother started teasing me about my weight). Of course, I started with the tried and true methods – the liquid diet (where one only drinks liquid all day). It only goes for a day so is really quite sustainable – highly underestimated as a scientifically-proven, balanced eating plan?!! However, naturally the kilo or two you lose that day reappears the next day. Which is probably why I moved onto the far more responsible and effective diet, the Israeli Army Diet. I think that was what it was called anyway. You eat apples for two days, cheese for two days. Or something. Not sure I got past one day – possibly my dislike of apples was a problem.
Anyway, just before I turned 15 I became more serious about my chosen sport (basketball). I had an encouraging coach who boosted my self-esteem and had faith in my abilities. Even so, I can’t recall now how or when I started “The Diet” (ie. aka, the diet to end all diets!). But, I exercised more – lots of sprints to prepare for our training sessions and started cutting back on food.
Again this was before I had any idea about food (and before I bought my first pocket-sized Calorie Counter), and I think I survived on corn chips (CCs had just come out – circa 1983) and orange mineral water. Over the month of December 1983 I lost about 1 ½ stone. My parents started to get worried. I had gone from 10 ½ stone to 9 stone. (See, given that I am 177cm tall, I wasn’t actually overweight to begin with). They took me to a doctor (who helpfully told me that if I wanted to be a model – obviously ALL girls of that age aspired to be models – I could be, because, he encouraging told me, ‘there were plus sized models’). Despite his extraordinary help (NOT!), I became more obsessive about it all, lost another 1 ½ more stone which started the spiral that has been my life since then.
I won’t bore you with details but, I eventually got to about 47kgs – skipped parts of school to go and sprint around basketball courts. Baked obsessively, ate stuff, exercised for hours after etc etc. For the next couple of years, as I finished high school and went to Uni, my life was all about food. I eventually learned how to vomit, and becoming bulimic was (of course) handy as I started to eat more. Not so handy, however, in that I started binge eating for the first time in my life (having always had a good appetite, but not obsessively so) which lasted on and off for years and still haunts me today sometimes when I don’t feel in control.
Of course, having hit 47kgs, I have managed to also hit 120kgs over more recent years. I recall the day that my life became less about food and dieting – remembering that I hadn’t counted calories that day and what an achievement that was! Of course, the binge eating has lasted and it depresses the hell out of me to realise now that I have hit 40 and it is 2008, that I have spent 25 years dieting and ‘not dieting’. Imagine what else I could have occupied my mind and my life with had it not been about that.
I have lost and gained at least 20kgs so many times over the past 15 years I don’t care to even think about it. I have done Weight Watchers – successfully a number of times…. Only to regain – either quickly or slowly. I know all of the answers – lifestyle choices, sustainable habits, food, exercise – cardio, weight-bearing etc and yet I can’t seem to act on my knowledge. I often joke that I am motivated – HELLO, I am 40, single, childless and have never been in a relationship - of course I am bloody motivated. But I don’t seem to have the level of commitment I once had as a 15 year old – to stick to anything (including normality).
My most recent diet was some vague version of one of those low-carb diets. It worked. I lost some weight and felt better. Then came Christmas, I suspect the weight is all back on. I don’t really know because you see, for the past 5 or so years, I don’t want to know. I am tired of numbers – calories, kilos etc. Tired of my life being ruled by the scales and what they say. I remember my last successful stint at WW – despite having lost 21kgs I was desolate when I hit a plateau and each week I would weigh in to no avail and I would spend the rest of the day in a state of depression.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Back to the future. So, here I am, possibly a year later and in the same predicament. I consider options like lap-banding, in times of desperation. I was told that you can lose about half of the weight you need to through the operation. For me that could be 20kgs. A great loss, but I have done that before through dieting and think I would prefer that option rather than the more severe notion of surgery!
So, this time I am doing the meal replacement thing – shakes twice a day. I am almost 2 weeks in and am already waivering. I have never been a believer of meal replacements. My problem isn’t really my meals (though possibly the size of them is an issue!). It is the other eating – chocolate for television. Comfort food. Food for when I am sad, lonely, depressed, happy, or just because I deserve it. However, I have decided that I need a kick up the backside and so I will do this for a while. Still no weighing of course, so I will wait until I feel a difference in my clothes and then consider something a bit less severe.
I am doing pilates twice a week (once with a small group and one private lesson). My lessons involve a lot of strength work as well as ‘core’ strength, so it is really my cardio exercise I need to focus on. I am aiming for three times a week. At the moment I am hoping to keep up a program of interval training – alternating walking with very slow running. I am only doing 20-30 minutes, but if I can keep that, I can increase the time and amount of time running.
Am I sufficiently motivated to continue? I am not sure, but I really hope so. I suspect my BMI is over 35. I am now 41 years old. Time is literally disappearing. One of my new year’s resolutions was to actually STOP focusing on trying to meet a man. “The One”. I have decided though, that I am not ready to accept a life alone. Without a family. Without having had a child. So, another resolution involved looking into sperm donor programs and the possibility of having a child by myself.
So, surely that should give me the motivation I need. I am certainly hoping so and will keep you up to date with my progress.
Diary entry – sometime early in 2008 – could be anytime (given the number of times I ‘started’ a diet!)
I thought I would document diet attempt no. 1,765,907 (at least!). Okay, so I am not actually starting today. It is day 0, or maybe -1. This is the day that I cram as much crap as possible into my body before I start ‘dieting’ tomorrow.
Okay, okay…. Now I have dieted enough (!) to know that one shouldn’t ‘diet’, it should be a way of life etc etc. Blah blah. I am (if I do say so myself) very ‘evolved’ in the world of dieting, health and fitness – as are many women. Ask us about the inner workings of a car engine and we draw a blank, but anything to do with calories, carbohydrates, GI, Atkins, Zone, South Beach – and so on – and we are literally walking encyclopedias!
I am pretty sure I started dieting in high school (not primary school, though that was when my brother started teasing me about my weight). Of course, I started with the tried and true methods – the liquid diet (where one only drinks liquid all day). It only goes for a day so is really quite sustainable – highly underestimated as a scientifically-proven, balanced eating plan?!! However, naturally the kilo or two you lose that day reappears the next day. Which is probably why I moved onto the far more responsible and effective diet, the Israeli Army Diet. I think that was what it was called anyway. You eat apples for two days, cheese for two days. Or something. Not sure I got past one day – possibly my dislike of apples was a problem.
Anyway, just before I turned 15 I became more serious about my chosen sport (basketball). I had an encouraging coach who boosted my self-esteem and had faith in my abilities. Even so, I can’t recall now how or when I started “The Diet” (ie. aka, the diet to end all diets!). But, I exercised more – lots of sprints to prepare for our training sessions and started cutting back on food.
Again this was before I had any idea about food (and before I bought my first pocket-sized Calorie Counter), and I think I survived on corn chips (CCs had just come out – circa 1983) and orange mineral water. Over the month of December 1983 I lost about 1 ½ stone. My parents started to get worried. I had gone from 10 ½ stone to 9 stone. (See, given that I am 177cm tall, I wasn’t actually overweight to begin with). They took me to a doctor (who helpfully told me that if I wanted to be a model – obviously ALL girls of that age aspired to be models – I could be, because, he encouraging told me, ‘there were plus sized models’). Despite his extraordinary help (NOT!), I became more obsessive about it all, lost another 1 ½ more stone which started the spiral that has been my life since then.
I won’t bore you with details but, I eventually got to about 47kgs – skipped parts of school to go and sprint around basketball courts. Baked obsessively, ate stuff, exercised for hours after etc etc. For the next couple of years, as I finished high school and went to Uni, my life was all about food. I eventually learned how to vomit, and becoming bulimic was (of course) handy as I started to eat more. Not so handy, however, in that I started binge eating for the first time in my life (having always had a good appetite, but not obsessively so) which lasted on and off for years and still haunts me today sometimes when I don’t feel in control.
Of course, having hit 47kgs, I have managed to also hit 120kgs over more recent years. I recall the day that my life became less about food and dieting – remembering that I hadn’t counted calories that day and what an achievement that was! Of course, the binge eating has lasted and it depresses the hell out of me to realise now that I have hit 40 and it is 2008, that I have spent 25 years dieting and ‘not dieting’. Imagine what else I could have occupied my mind and my life with had it not been about that.
I have lost and gained at least 20kgs so many times over the past 15 years I don’t care to even think about it. I have done Weight Watchers – successfully a number of times…. Only to regain – either quickly or slowly. I know all of the answers – lifestyle choices, sustainable habits, food, exercise – cardio, weight-bearing etc and yet I can’t seem to act on my knowledge. I often joke that I am motivated – HELLO, I am 40, single, childless and have never been in a relationship - of course I am bloody motivated. But I don’t seem to have the level of commitment I once had as a 15 year old – to stick to anything (including normality).
My most recent diet was some vague version of one of those low-carb diets. It worked. I lost some weight and felt better. Then came Christmas, I suspect the weight is all back on. I don’t really know because you see, for the past 5 or so years, I don’t want to know. I am tired of numbers – calories, kilos etc. Tired of my life being ruled by the scales and what they say. I remember my last successful stint at WW – despite having lost 21kgs I was desolate when I hit a plateau and each week I would weigh in to no avail and I would spend the rest of the day in a state of depression.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Back to the future. So, here I am, possibly a year later and in the same predicament. I consider options like lap-banding, in times of desperation. I was told that you can lose about half of the weight you need to through the operation. For me that could be 20kgs. A great loss, but I have done that before through dieting and think I would prefer that option rather than the more severe notion of surgery!
So, this time I am doing the meal replacement thing – shakes twice a day. I am almost 2 weeks in and am already waivering. I have never been a believer of meal replacements. My problem isn’t really my meals (though possibly the size of them is an issue!). It is the other eating – chocolate for television. Comfort food. Food for when I am sad, lonely, depressed, happy, or just because I deserve it. However, I have decided that I need a kick up the backside and so I will do this for a while. Still no weighing of course, so I will wait until I feel a difference in my clothes and then consider something a bit less severe.
I am doing pilates twice a week (once with a small group and one private lesson). My lessons involve a lot of strength work as well as ‘core’ strength, so it is really my cardio exercise I need to focus on. I am aiming for three times a week. At the moment I am hoping to keep up a program of interval training – alternating walking with very slow running. I am only doing 20-30 minutes, but if I can keep that, I can increase the time and amount of time running.
Am I sufficiently motivated to continue? I am not sure, but I really hope so. I suspect my BMI is over 35. I am now 41 years old. Time is literally disappearing. One of my new year’s resolutions was to actually STOP focusing on trying to meet a man. “The One”. I have decided though, that I am not ready to accept a life alone. Without a family. Without having had a child. So, another resolution involved looking into sperm donor programs and the possibility of having a child by myself.
So, surely that should give me the motivation I need. I am certainly hoping so and will keep you up to date with my progress.
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