Aaron go brah??

The leprechauns made little hats today in pre-k. Both kids tried it on (slideshow at the top).

Case in Point

Hello: my name is Shawn and I'm a sweet-oholic. It's been 3 days since my last spicy jelly bean, and 6 since those chocolate covered almonds. Both are my current obsessions, and I'm hard-pressed to make it through the day without thinking about one or both. At least the jelly beans are fat free. Problem is everyone seems to be out of them. They have plenty of Classic and Speckled. So far I've been to 4 different stores, not on the same day. The only thing that prevents me from hopping in my car and trying another store or, worse yet, going to Trader Joe's for the almonds, is that I'm running on empty and don't feel like getting gas tonight. Sigh. Well, at least I'm stocked up on my Weight Watcher English Toffee ice cream bars (which I can usually stop at 2)...

Feeling Pensieve

I found myself thinking about Harry Potter today and the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office. How cool would that be to be able to extract thoughts and store them for later analysis? Maybe you could get a perspective that you don't have ordinarily get when the thoughts are jumbled and crowding one another to get to the forefront and be acknowledged. Knowing me I'd watch the memories and think something like "I look fat in that" or "I wish I'd told so-and-so about the crumb on their upper lip..."

Another thing I was pondering was identity, and how some people have a harder time than others finding their own or feeling comfortable with them. Like me. For longer than I can remember, I have been consumed with thoughts about food, thoughts about weight. What a lot of time to spend thinking about something so prosaic, so necessary to life, but surely not so...weighty. What could I have done with my thoughts if they weren't spent on weight and self-image?

But I am an obsessor. And my obsessions become my identity for a time. When that phase is passed, I go through another identity crisis until I find the next obsession. The last decade has been invested first in fertility matters: trying for a baby, failing to have a baby, having a baby (at last!), mothering and wanting another baby, failing to have another baby, etc. I am quite the subject matter expert on a number of topics relating to the subject of family building now. After completing my family, I was sort of at a loss: what now? Finally I settled on focusing on me and getting my body back. I think maybe part of my angst lately is due to the future: what comes after losing the weight? Maybe my mind is thinking (shut up!) that it doesn't know what to obsess about next, so why not stick with this weight loss roller coaster. Does my weight loss goal need to include a "what comes next" piece in order for me to feel comfortable enough to reach it? Hmmmm....

Another thing on my mind. I was at a seminar yesterday about managing change, and I managed to make most of it about personal stuff rather than work stuff, as was intended (oh well, at least it wasn't a total waste of time). The seminar leader mentioned the steps of grieving and said sometimes people get stuck in one phase or another and have a hard time moving on. Well duh...and yet. Here it is coming on three years since my mom's illness and death and I found myself tearing up on the drive home today. I was thinking about when she was my movie buddy; how we went to see "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and laughed so hard we almost peed our pants over the opening scene where Hugh Grant says the F word over and over. And thinking about that, and other movies we laughed at, finally pushed aside those other memories of her with shorn hair and chocolate on her mouth. I miss my mom. So I guess I'm over anger and moving on...

How Bad Do You Want It?

And it turns out the answer might be, "not so much." That was the startling revelation at my last WW meeting. It's March, which is typically the time of year when all the newbies start falling off the wagon, so the leader handed out these little report cards for us to keep. It was a tracker to make sure we're doing program all week, and it was arranged from Sunday to Saturday. Now, my weigh-in day is Saturday, and the first thing I thought of was, "oh great! I can start this tomorrow!" So of course the next thing the leader said was "And we're doing this backward so we can start TODAY!" Dang! Foiled again!

So she was saying all this stuff and then she goes "who here wants to lose weight?". Now I know that I avoid going with the crowd: I don't like to clap when others clap, I refuse to do all those goofy participation dances; in short, I hate that crap. But I can't help but wonder at my first impulse, which did not feel like knee-jerk dissension: I did not want to raise my hand.

Now what kind of crap is that? Here I've been going to these meetings for over 6 years now, with varying degrees of commitment  and success; I go to the gym...a lot. I have gotten down to goal once and to to under 10% many times, and for some reason or another I just can't seem to stay there. What is holding me back?

The first thought that pops in my mind is that I don't have a realistic goal. I've been trying really hard to adopt the idea that I want to be healthy and want to be at a weight that is better for me. How can that not be a realistic goal? I like the way I feel when I'm smaller. I feel more confident, I feel healthier, but still, there is something about the attention or the compliments or some other self-defeating trip switch that goes off once those events occur that makes me fall off the wagon. I'm at that point where I stay about the same, give or take 5 lbs, in some kind of holding pattern for months. I'm in month 4 now of being close to 30 lbs down. I'm in month 4 of being between sizes and sort of fitting into my size 10s. I'm in month 4 of sort of eating core and having little mini binges. Uh oh: I feel some chastisement and self-flagellation coming!

So the question remains: what's in it for me to be fat? Is it like it would prove that I can't do this? I know I can. Unfortunately, having done it once doesn't make it easier the next time(s), it actually makes it harder. I've been tossing this topic around in my head for weeks without actually putting pen to paper (so to speak), so it's a loaded one for me, obviously. I'm on the brink: don't fall!