Saying Goodbye

Last night I had plenty of time to think about this weight loss "journey" since my stomach was cursing me and making sure I was aware of the pain it was in. I think eating out 3 meals in a row was too much for it. Even though I never went overboard, it was still stuff that I don't normally eat. I felt like it was saying, "2 meals, ok I can handle it. 3? And the 3rd is a 2nd Mexican meal? Ohhh, it's on now sister." I knew it was right, so I just took some Pepto-Bismol and laid awake most of the night.

It occurred to me, maybe somewhere around 3:15am, how different my body is now. Most of this weight loss is about making mental changes and seeing physical results, and I think we tend to forget how much we change physically as well. My stomach simply cannot handle the type, or the amount, of food I used to put in it. It makes me physically nauseous, not to mention what I do to myself mentally for "messing up." So here is the thousand dollar question: WHY DO I DO IT??

In WW recently we talked about something like this. The point of the meeting was we don't do anything in life that doesn't seek to fill a need. If I ask a friend to go out with me, maybe I'm feeling lonely or I need to talk about some things. Whatever it is, everything we do and all the choices we make have one purpose: to make us feel better. Now, everyone knows that not all of our decisions get that result. Lord knows some of my ex-boyfriends prove that point (but that's a whole different blog, in and of itself). So my WW leader wanted us to think about our bad eating habits, and try to identify what need that habit was trying to meet. Then she wanted us to identify how we could get that need met without food. I really struggled with this. I know I eat when I'm bored. That is a huge one for me. I simply do not do well being bored. I will complain about how busy my life is, but the simple truth is I like it that way. I don't like having a whole lot of time to sit by myself and think. Is that healthy? Ehh, probably not, but I know that is when I am susceptible to overeating. Being emotional or really stressed out is another big trigger for me. So I have identified those and try to be aware of them.

But last night, when I was whispering sweet nothings to my stomach and apologizing over and over, it really got me to thinking about why I was feeling so sick. I ate 3 meals out, but I didn't have a free for all and eat anything I wanted to. But as I sat at the Mexican restaurant last night, I knew I was going to feel sick after we got home. I knew my stomach was going to be upset. Yet I still ate a cheese quesadilla. Why?? What need was I trying to meet? Believe me, I thought about it for a long time last night and I simply don't know. It finally hit me this morning, as I was still feeling like crap. Greasy fries and Mexican food are old friends of mine. Except they make me feel awful in every way possible.

There is somewhat of a grief process I need to go through. People who have always had a healthy relationship with food will probably not really understand this, but the relationship I had with food, and the reason I have been overweight my whole life, is because it fulfilled a need. And food and I were goooooood buddies for a very long time. Now, I am having to let go of that relationship. While I am certainly working on fulfilling those needs somewhere else, it is still a loss, and it's still a work in progress. It's hard for me to accept that while I used to enjoy going out to a restaurant and just eating whatever I felt like, physically I simply cannot do that anymore. And let's not get into what I do to myself mentally when I overindulge like that.

So it's really time to say goodbye. Slowly but surely I am realizing that the things I turned to that I thought brought me so much comfort never brought me comfort at all. French fries are not my friend. Hamburgers and pizza and ice cream don't love me, they just want to sabotage me. Real friends don't make you feel like crap, mentally and physically. So I really just have to let those relationships go and work on building new ones. And maybe this is pathetic, but it makes me a little sad. Those foods were friends, or at least I thought they were my friends, at some of the darkest times of my life. It feels like I am losing something, even though I'm only losing something that's bad for me. So goodbye, old friends. I guess it's just taken me a while to learn that you never really were my friends at all. And that makes me sad.