This video is for you... all new insights (so even long time readers might learn something new!)...
I have a lot to say on the subject but I'm home alone with Baby... hopefully I'll get up a written post on the subject when I get some time tonight.
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This video is NOT as good as my first one but it's still chock full o' info.
What was missing from this video that I had in the other was more of a discussion about how my work in therapy allowed me to make more peace with the relationships that had been damaging as a child. And as those relationships improved and allowed for more open communication of feelings I was no longer stuck recreating that dynamic within myself. And without that I know for sure that I wouldn't have been able to be as successful losing or maintaining my weight loss.
The other part missing is the part where I talk about emotional eating and poor health choices modeled for me by my mother and how much harder it is to establish healthy habits when you aren't exposed to them as a child. Not only was emotional eating and self sabotage modeled for me (unintentionally of course) but never seeing people exercise or control their eating (healthfully) set me up to feel that those are things you shouldn't really have to do. Which is, of course, precisely why I want to succeed so that I can raise my daughters up with a positive role model in that regard.
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27 comments:
First, I want to share something I wrote about my own post-baby belly.
http://eternallizdom.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-unexpected-moments.html
I get what you are saying though, I think. You've hard to accomplish some serious goals. And to maintain them. And to really change your lifestyle. And now there is this last little bit that is still different. That doesn't seem to match the amount of work you put into it.
So when do you stop complaining and criticizing and when do you accept that our bodies change, especially through pregnancy and childbirth? It's hard to find that "sweet spot," I think.
Thanks for sharing!
Liz,
I'm going to go read your piece but I can say that before I lost all this weight the stretch marks and skin bothered me but not as much as they do now. In part because, of course, I have more excess skin... but more because before I could just lump it into "I don't like the way I look" and know I wasn't really doing anything to change it. Now I have and it is much more frustrating to me to have this part of myself I don't like that is a reminder and reflection of how much I gained... it almost feels like a punishment.
Teapot,
my niece used to call me that for a while!
Liz,
I know everyone else's stomach looks fine to everyone else... yours is fine! LOL... seriously much better than mine.
I wrote this about the stretch marks last year.
I definitely come and go on how well I can handle it. I think for me I really will feel better getting the hanging skin removed. When I started losing weight I was wondering how it would look just empty skin.. I don't love it.
Oh I just so identify with emotional eating and feeling unloved and unloveable. Why I let my seperation with my husband do that to me I will never know. But I to this day STILL feel like that. I don't know what will change that for me. You would think that I would have had the opposite reaction and NOT eat, but no, I ate and ate and ate. I have now gained back the 45 pounds I lost. Yes 45 pounds. I can't even fathom starting over again and trying to lose this weight. I have given it several tries, but never last more than a day.
I feel like that I will never be able to do this again. Like I have no control and that the only thing I think about is food. It is on my mind all the time. I can't stop myself and that makes me feel even worse and like I have just verified the fact that I am a loser. and not in a good way.
It is so frustrating for a couple of reasons... first because I can't do it and second because I waste entirely too much time in my life worrying about my food and my weight. For crying out loud!
I know that I need to change my mindset and I know all the tools I need to know to be successful. I know the healthy foods and I know all the ratios etc... I just can't put them into practice. I have tons of exercise equipment .. it is pathetic.
I wish that it would just go away! Grrrrrrrr.
I guess you didn't need all that info did you. hmmmm
Jennifer,
Of course I needed to know all that.. it's only fair ;)
I didn't even think of myself as an emotional eater because I never binged or ate so much that I gained an unreasonable amount. But since moving here and being depressed with no other outlets... wow... it became very apparent that I definitely eat sweets when I'm unfulfilled. I also had completely forgotten about my childhood eating (including hiding food at my dad's) until this week. That Oprah webcast with Bob (download it!) was really good and really made me think more deeply about some stuff I hadn't thought about... much less Oprah and much more Bob it's worth watching.
Not to be a walking press release for the Beck diet book, but I'll just say it: Jennifer, get the Beck diet book. Mrs. F, buy the Beck diet book for your mom. I have had a lifelong struggle with emotional eating and letting food control me, and I'm feeling saner than I have in YEARS (Ok, decades). If you want to know what it's all about, google it, or head to my blog, which is serving as my journal as I progress through the steps: http://beckdietdailies.blogspot.com
Everyone knows how to lose weight. Eat less, move more. The book talks about the psychology of it. I highly highly recommend it.
Mrs. F, your story is SO inspirational for me. The baby basically destroyed my body, and as you know, I've been pretty down about it. I'm positive once I can master these skills and I start really trying to lose weight again, it will be the last time. Believe it, as you would say.
Also, look for a special shout out on my blog tomorrow. The run hl run one.
Sorry to hog the comments...
Heather,
please... I do not mind a long comment.
I just went over there. Interesting how differently we all act out our food issues. Like the hungry thing is not an issue for me... I can totally not eat... but I do think that is a thing for my mom hopefully she'll weigh in. I do know that she doesn't have a full sensation when she eats.
Mrs F,
Hi, i think you're great, I'm a reader from Australia. I love hearing your perspective on things. It's so cool to have a really intelligent blog to read. I'm addicted. (I voted!)
I'm 5'4, I've been 90 kilos and 48 kilos. I maintain in the high 50s. I''m 34 and I've been in therapy for 5 years. So i relate to a lot of what you have to say. Which is especially cool given that i don't have kids. I'm also an apple with abdominal fat issues. It's just that thing where you always feel a bit untidy! And hey, i have frizzy hair too.
Anyhoo, congrats on the 4th place and i wish you a speedy recovery. (You seem to be doing a bit better now.)
-Peta
Hey Peta,
"I'm also an apple with abdominal fat issues. It's just that thing where you always feel a bit untidy!"
Exactly.
And hey, i have frizzy hair too. "
And that doesn't help with feeling untidy either. ;)
Good grief I was just watching an old video of mine and just about had to laugh at how ridiculous my hair was...
These are very interesting things to think about.
Right now I'm too tired to cook or eat (I've been working 9-7 for the last um... while, and at least 6hrs each day this weekend)
I don't know what my food issues are really. I feel like when I just dont pay attention I eat too much. My body wants to be fat? I don't know, not being in therapy, I haven't really explored it.
It's so much effort staying on Weightwatchers, and exercising, and counting my points, it feels like I have to re commit and get the energy back up every. single. day. It's exhausting.
Elizabeth,
did you read that article I linked to a while back about maintenance? I'll try to find it... it had fascinating research about how your body will always try to get itself back to your highest weight... so there might be something to that.
Now I know you don't a lot of time but I really do recommend the Oprah/Bob Green Webcast... at her site... which you could watch in bits. It really made me think more about stuff and I think his approach is really smart.
Elizabeth,
and sometimes I think it is legitimately too much.
Weighing in, what a way to put it...I do get a full feeling but since I rarely eat because of hunger "full" doesn't turn me off. The new information that I'm just beginning to process is that I feel more comfortable overweight than not overweight. Part of it is hiding, part of it is a distraction (it fills up a whole lot of thinking time)and a part of it is the childhood need to prove that what I learned was correct, I can't do anything right. My healthy self is doing a full hour of cardio every day. Yeah for my healthy self!
Mom,
yes yeah for your healthy self!
Now were you told you had to clean your plate?
Elizabeth,
I should just email you this but ALSO I will say that if I just ate as much of things as I want my natural stopping point is WAY more than I eat now. I can really throw back food and it took a lot of time for me to internalize what the right stopping point/serving was where I no longer have to think about it anymore.
Lucinda, get the book! Really. I swear on everything holy.
We were members of the three bites club as opposed to the clean plate club. Thank God.
Also!
I totally could have sworn you were going to have a whole litter of three or four that last time you were pregnant!
Elizabeth,
that's what I'm sayin'
Oh, Mrs. F....I think I've grown up so much since reading your blog....I was one of those lucky ones (you can hate me for a bit here) who did not gain a tremendous amount of weight w/ either pregnancy (however, I was not at my ideal weight when I got pregnant w/ my son and look back at pictures of myself post pregnancy and say-ugh!) but I count myself very lucky to not have the stretch marks or extra, saggy skin (we won't discuss my boobs though since breastfeeding)...and speaking of breastfeeding-the myth of losing your post pregnancy weight from breastfeeding didn't exactly work for me-I was the opposite on that-I stayed heavier until I quit breastfeeing??? But, I can relate to emotional baggage in general and I'm just beginning to understand this more as I've grown older and matured and become a mom myself- I have more emotional stuff from my parents then I ever realized as I always thought they were perfectand that I had the ideal childhood and in many ways I did. However, I'm also now realizing that I did not exactly have an accurate depiction-even though my house was very loving and there were no problems on the surface, I do think it was a somewhat suppressed household and I have a controlling mom who can be somewhat critical and still treats me like a child (and I'm the middle child and only girl so my brothers can do no wrong and I get all the criticism-the scary thing is I find myself repeating this same thing w/ my own children-is this somewhat common for moms to 'favor' and by favor I mean cut a little more slack for their boys over their girls and vice versa for dads?) So, that has made me a person who is very sensitive and puts other feelings over my own to the detriment of my own well being at times-I tend to not have a backbone and stand up for myself when I should and feel the need to apologize and ironically enough I chose a husband that like my Mom-likes to criticize and be controlling as well (his own emotional baggage from childhood and I think for him, it is a self preserving mechanism-he had to learn at an early age to fend for himself and didn't get the love and nurturing he deserved and thus, he has a hard time showing emotion and can be super critical and say things that just frankly hurt A LOT). For whatever reason, I'm able to stand up more to my husband than I ever would to my Mom but this doesn't make it easier on either of us and makes our relationship and marriage a struggle a lot of the time. Now, that I am a Mom, I'm working really hard on addressing all of this emotional stuff because I don't want the pattern to keep getting repeated. I guess I have matured A LOT over the past year and I think your blog has helped me even more w/ addressing some of this....so this is a long way of saying thank you for being so open and sharing so much and being so forthcoming...you have made me examine so many things in my own life and I think I'm growing emotionally stronger because of it.
Oh-one more thing- the saggy belly component-even though I can't necessarily relate to this exact same issue, as a lot of women, I can relate to having body image issues...and I can only imagine how tough and frustrating it is when you work so hard and have lost the weight and maintained it but have one part of your body that no matter what you do, it won't change w/ any amount of diet or exercise- I'm not usually an advocate of plastic surgery however, I do feel there are times when it can vastly improve someone's outlook and emotional well being so I will leave you w/ this little tid bit....one of my good friends from childhood that I grew up with and am still friends w/ to this day gained 90 pounds when she was pregnant w/ her daughter (and was a meterologist and on tv everyday-can you imagine?!?!)...anyway, her stomach looked pretty much like Kate's did from Jon and Kate plus 8....she got back down to a size 2 after a lot of hard work but she could not lose the flabby belly and stretch marks (and I should mention that she had weight issues all through her childhood) ...she ended up having a tummy tuck several years back and the results were amazing...I was truly astonished when she showed me her belly post surgery..it took away a lot of the strech marks (of course, not all of them) and her belly just looked incredible...it completely changed my mind about plastic surgery....to this day, she still says it was the best decision she ever made.
Sorry for the long comment but you are getting used to that right? :)
Renee, the best decision I ever made was having my eyes lazered! (that's kinda like cosmetic surgery right?)
Well, either that or sleeping with that hot grad student back in college, it's a close tie.
TMI? Or late night hilarity? You decide!
Renee! I thought you were going to bed!
Thank you for sharing your story and for being so kind. And try as we might we all marry our parents... I have a lot to say about that... but I'll do it in person. We're drawn to repeat that pattern because we're most comfortable in the same kind of dysfunction but it can also be very healing if you're aware of it and can work through it.
Oh I'm doing it. I just need to raise the funds ;)
Elizabeth,
I vote for late night hilarity!
mrs. f. - i don't think you should have to explain yourself about why you would want a tummy tuck. isn't it obvious!? i don't have any kids yet, and i'm already planning my post-babies tummy tuck and boob lift (in my head i mean, not in any real way). you've worked so hard to be thin, and you can't still have to be worried about certain parts of your body showing... that's not cool. get the skin removed, and then buy an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini. :)
eurydice,
thank you :)
I can totally relate. I would love to go into my whole life story, but I won't. I emotionally overeat. I have sought therapy and while I know my "issues", I was never able to reconcile it all and start doing something about my fatass.
Christy,
Sometimes things have to just all align at the right time. But I do believe that when you are ready you'll be able to succeed. Which of course doesn't mean it will be easy but that you can do it.
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