A Different Kind of Darwininan Paradox

I was reading Jeanette Fulda's post today about how she wishes she could get a secondary stomach that would take care of all the junk food that she wishes she didn't eat. Anyway, I was thinking about food obsession and how pathologized it is. Pasta Queen goes on to say, "I realized I have a serious problem with food."

We were born to live and then to procreate and then to die. Okay. That's weird. But then, if you think about it like that, it doesn't seem so weird that we're totally obsessed with food (and sex!) So, like let's say I wasn't born back in 1982, but instead in 3382 B.C. Everyday, I would wake up, walk around all day and look for food. I'd hunt, gather, pillage, kill, rape, etc. etc. All I'd care about was finding food and sex. Some might say I was obsessed, I was a hedonist, a pathological narcissist, or really, really self-centered. But back in the day yo, it was all about being obsessed with food.

But now, food is plentiful. And we as humans who are predisposed to be obsessed with food as to stay alive and propagate the species, we are the new Darwinian paradox. We are obsessed with food and thus the obesity epidemic. Are those who have lost the gene to be obsessed with food more advanced? You know those people, they never think about food until they need it, thten they eat exactly what their bodies need and stop... they've caught up with the new-fangled American abundance of food. They are the fittest!

Latkes of Fun!

It's nine degrees out. That's almost no degrees. Imagine that. Barely any degrees. Last night I went to a latke party. Imagine, a party that centered around deep fried potatoes. I wish that I'd taken pictures. Erin made piles and piles and piles of latkes and had different latke stations. There was a south western latke station-- these were sweet potato latkes served with black bean dip, salsa and cilantro dip. An chinese latke station with soy sauce/ green onion dip. An Indian latke station where the latkes were curry flavored and there was mango chutney other kinds of chutneys. An mid eastern latke station with humus and tahini and babaganoush. And finally a plain old latke station with sour cream and apple sauce. She also had made Manishevitz Sangria. It was delicious. I was really, really, really nervous about going to this party. Holiday parties are tough, but ones that are all about eating the most fattening, artery clogging food ever invented, well that's damn near impossible. I knew that I needed a plan. So, before I went I listened to the think and shrink recording twice, and then I wrote down my plan. I was allowed to have 2 whole latkes and 2 whole drinks. That's all nothing else. If I thought that I was going to be needing more or wanting more, I would walk outside and do some deep breathing and see myself at my goal weight, see myself feeling healthy and fitting into a bikini next summer. I also made a goal of talking to five new people. I also called my sister ahead of time and let her know my plan so she told me that she'd be available by phone all night if I needed her. She even sent me several texts with encouraging messages, like "you are healthy and strong!" "your deserve a healthy body" "you know how to eat normally!" The party was fine. I stuck to my plan. I wanted to try all the latkes so I cut them in half and wound up trying four different kinds. I forwent the chinese latkes deciding that those weren't as interesting as the others. Anyway, the party went totally well. I didn't need to leave once, having the plan worked well. I made lots of conversation and talked to people who I hadn't ever met before. It was great. The other thing is that it certainly didn't hurt that Erin and Rob and Jessica and Lisa and Steve and Ashely all pulled me aside and told me how great I looked and asked me how much weight I'd lost. It was pretty aweseome. I felt so pretty too. I was wearing a new pair of jeans and this very pretty satiny flowy red blouse. I was shocked but when I went shopping, I was actually down 4 sizes! I couldn't believe it. I think that feeling pretty and getting all those compliments definitely helped. I know that I'm still 50 pounds overweight, but feeling pretty is such an amazing help for my mood. I think that I need to spend more time doing things that make me feel pretty, like tweezing my brows, shaving my legs, giving myself manicures and pedicures and putting on lipstick. Feeling pretty helps me to feel happy, healthy, and worthy. It makes me feel like I'm worthy of love and attention. Before, when I was binge eating, I didn't feel worthy. I hid in big clothes and didn't care for my body and didn't do things like dress pretty or do my nails or anything. Now, I spend more time trying to do those things. It's all connected somehow, binge eating, a sense of worthiness and self care. I think that when I don't feel good about myself, I binge eat, when I binge eat, I feel worse about myself, when I feel worse about myself, I binge eat again. It's a vicious cycle. The only way to deal with it is to actually PULL myself out of it, kicking and screaming. It's hard, but it's possible. If I do lapse and have a binge, I have to remember that my body deserves love. This has been very helpful with the hypnosis downloads. I have to remember that I am worth taking care of, even if I mess up sometimes -- hey, I'm human! I can feel pretty and be happy and take care of myself even if I am 50 pounds overweight. None of that matters, it's what I feel on the inside. Of course I've heard this before, but I'm somehow actually beginning to feel it now.

Splash!

I woke up today with a splitting headache, but I'm actually getting out of bed today! My taste for coffee has come back (I've had nothing but tea for the past 5 days), I got out of bed and made myself a nice steamy cup of coffee, downed some ibuprofen with it and now I'm sitting at the kitchen table, petting the kitties on my second cup feeling calm and peaceful. I think I have what my mother calls a "snow headache." She has always said that she's psychic and knows when it's going to snow because she gets a headache. Personally, I think it has something to do with the barometric pressure. Oh Mom! Or should I say "madame Mom." I once went to a psychic, a gypsie lady back when I was in college. It was because I was in love with a boy named Greg. We went out a couple of times and even fooled around once. But then he totally dumped me and it made me sad. Very sad. And so I went to a store front psychic, a gypsie by the name of Madame Maria. She wore a long velvet purple skirt. So of course I thought she was authentic. She told me that she could see I was having money problems (I was 19, so of course I was), she also told me that there was an important older woman in my life who lived far away (duh, I was a college student) and then she told me that she could tell that I was in pain because of a man. Then she said that this man loved me very much, but there was an evil spirit who was blocking his love from me, and that I needed a magic crystal to remove the spirit, and if I slept with this crystal by my head for 45 days, he'd come back to me and we'd get married and have children and be rich. Well, that sounded great to me. So I wrote her a check for 75.00 and got my magic crystal. Anyway. My check bounced. And so I tried to go back to Maria to make good on my money, but her store front was gone. I slept with the crystal on my head for 45 days. But I then realized that Greg was romantically involved with Steve, this guy in chem lab. Yeah, me and Greg weren't getting married. I did some research on gypsie fortune tellers and learned about cold questions, where they throw out these random facts that could apply to anyone, "Oh, I see that you want to move," "Oh, I see that you have money issues," "Oh, I see that you're having problems with love," etc. etc. etc. I can't believe I was so naive, but of course I was young and if people weren't naive, those fortune tellers just wouldn't exist at all.
Anyway, I pulled on a pair of jeans this morning and my goodness, they just about fell off of me. 5 straight days of soup and robitussin has stripped some pounds away. I have been trying not to weigh myself super often, but I was so curious, so I hopped on the scale. 7 pounds down since my last weigh in. I'm sure that 5 of those are sick pounds and will come back, but this is now a 32 pound loss since I started in August.
I'm nervous about those pounds coming back, but I think that as long as I continue to listen to the think & shrink download, I'll keep up the good habits. From what I've heard about hypnosis is that it does take a good amount of consistency to maintain the change, so... I'll keep going. At this rate I should be at my goal weight by the summer. I can't imagine what it would be like to wear a tank top or shorts or, dare I think, a bikini? whoah.

Sick, but trudging along

I've been in bed for the past two days, chugging Robitussin and chicken soup and gatorade. Sometimes I like being sick. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I give myself permission to really take care of myself. I don't push myself to exercise, don't push myself to work, to read anything intellectual, to do anything really. I've just been in bed watching tv (I love the Price is Right btw), surfing the web and petting the kittens. I believe that the Universe has a way of showing me what I need to see when I need to see it. I've been feeling so think that caring for myself is what has been missing in my life. I do things like go to school, go to work, work out, and eat right, but I don't do a whole lot of nurturing myself. Taking long hot baths with vanilla oil in them, doing my toenails, drinking tea leisurely while reading the gossip column, rubbing lotion into my feet and stuff like that. Maybe all the reasons that I gained so much weight have to do with the fact that I didn't know how to nurture myself. Or didn't take the time to, so I would steal the time by binge eating. Loving myself is the most best thing that I can do. Because I can't rely on anyone else to do that right now. Anyway, back to hot tea and the Price is Right.

Sick

I woke up yesterday feeling crappy and as the day went on, I got sicker and sicker. And then in the middle of the night, my sinuses filled with fluid and I woke up this morning feeling like crap. Now I have to drag my ass out of bed, trudge through the snow (oh yeah, it's snowing) and spend the day in classes and working. I definitely don't like being sick. Today is a day to spend the day in bed. But I can't. This week is a week to spend the week in bed. But I can't. Tylenol cold seems to work well if I can get a hold of it. Maybe I'll stop off and get some. 

The holiday parties are a startin...

So I went to my first holiday party yesterday. This morning I woke up with what feels like a cold. It was the party of my supervisor, who I also assist. She has this gigantic warm, beautiful house and a beautiful husband and 3 perfect children. This party was catered by these organic gourmets. It was just beautiful. But sometimes... when I go to these perfect parties, with perfect people, and perfect food... I can feel really, really lonely. I bought a new dress for the party in a size that I haven't been in 4 years. I felt so beautiful in it. But then when I got to the party, I was faced with the reality of "You're still fat. You're still more than 50 pounds overweight." And those 50 pounds were weighing me down. I looked at my arms, which looked like big stuffed sausages poking out from the petite spaghetti straps that I was wearing. I saw the belly, that was definitely NOT managed by my spanx (spanx is no miracle). And everyone there was wearing these beautiful dresses and impossibly slim. I felt gross. I came home last night feeling lonelier than ever. The party itself was nice. I didn't overeat and I met nice people. It was inocuous and my supervisor introduced me proudly to all her friends. But inside, I felt a wreck.

Finding Love

I know that loving myself is important. And I work at it. I do. I remind myself that I am a good human being and that I am caring and compassionate and intelligent and do good things in the world. However, I feel sad that I've not found love. I know intellectually that 26 years old isn't old and that I don't need to be married right now or have kids. But it would be so awesome to just have a partner in crime. Someone who totally supports me and can hold my hand when I cry, put me to bed when I've drank too much, make me chicken soup when I'm sick and come with me to parties when I just don't feel like going alone. I don't think that's too much to ask for. I guess I've never really felt like I deserved love. Like I've always thought that love was reserved for pretty skinny girls. When I finally did get my first boyfriend, he treated me like I was so lucky to be with him. And I felt like I was. I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. But I wasn't very lucky. He wasn't kind. He was critical. He kept on telling me that he expected more from me. That he needed me to be better. And I tried so hard. I spent a long time trying to do things to please him, like I cooked for him all the time, I tried to lose weight (starved myself then binged eated), I bought him presents and also drove him everywhere. He mostly insulted me and yelled at me. But I thought I was lucky. I wasn't lucky. Since then, there have been 2 others, one that lasted a month, and the other was about 2 months. But they're not real. Not like a real boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I want that.