A week without logging

I have been aware that food logging is a valuable tool for managing not only my weight but any issues I face with food for a long, long time. It was mentioned to me as a calorie tracking tool when I was (well, this is shameful) 10 years old. Like most people, the idea of counting all calories consumed, every day, forever, failed before it ever began. As in Benny and Joon, "The answer is in the question." Can I successfully count calories forever? No. For lots of reasons. It's tedious and daunting, and so without my emotional buy in, it will not help me feel helped. It's also really, really easy to miscalculate, because most people don't have a lot of training on judging what a serving is, and carrying around a food scale is impractical. And, I was TEN.

The other problem with food logging, is that without some training, some counseling, and a lot of introspection and self-knowledge, it can easily devolve into just counting calories or servings of food types. Here's the problem - not all calories are created equal and neither are all people, with respect to those calories. Diabetics need to concern themselves very closely with carbs. If making a trade off, protein and fat will always be better for someone with any insulin issues - this was illustrated when someone close to me recently made a birthday cake for a diabetic and told me that she had substituted apple sauce for oil in the recipe. I quietly informed her that I'm sure it tasted good but that she had added carbs to the cake. Meanwhile, someone like my brother who is almost entirely gluten free can eat carbs, but needs to carefully consider what kind (rice, amaranth, oats, and almond flour much better than wheat flour or wheat products). If you lined up my diabetic friend, my brother, and I, and put us all on an 1800 calorie plan, where we got those calories would make a huge difference to our successful eating, but I doubt any of our food logs would match. People have particular needs because of their pathologies, because of food allergies, because of preferences (I don't care how gluten-free and protein-full cottage cheese is. I just can't do it, folks.) and because we're all special and unique like snowflakes. (smile)

Calories are special too. For me, 280 calories could be over my discretionary calorie allowance, could be what my trainer is recommending as a small bump in fat servings for a week (a really good week of almonds, bacon, and some olive oil, I might add), or could count as a way to estimate two carb servings. In my case, I need to also be very, very careful where those 280 calories come from, not just because of my food allergies (which are weird, and more extensive than I'd like. I am lucky in that strawberries and peanut butter aren't off limits, and I have it all figured out as to how to eat dairy in a way that works for me. But, I do sometimes wish I could be a grown up and drink wine or eat dried fruit. ) or my suspected insulin resistance, but because food is my kryptonite.

Like most people, I suspect it would always be better to get 280 calories of broccoli than 280 calories of M&Ms, and yes, I'm gluten sensitive, so brown rice or spaghetti squash is always going to be better than bread. But I also have to think about if the thing I'm thinking about eating is going to set off a desire to eat something ELSE. I do eat bread, about twice a week. This is less than most people eat bread in a day. and I have to carefully place it in my path because if I eat it early in the day, I will metabolize it faster, but it might also fire cravings for other bad carbs. I do eat pizza, sometimes, but I have to decide ahead of time what the "rules" are for eating off plan, and if possible, store up some discretionary eating and extra cardio to "pay for it."

The real price I pay is when something sneaks up on me and clobbers me with its enticing smell, or beguiling voice telling me that popcorn for dinner sounds like a really good idea. I have to work very carefully to avoid these moments, much the way I see alcoholics trying to remove temptation from their lives, particularly early on in their sobriety. Those addicts can choose to seek out new friends and activities, so that they will find themselves confronted with their drug less and less. They can't live in a bubble forever and will eventually be offered a glass of wine or to go to a party, of course. But they can side step it for awhile - for long enough to log some time in a new normal. I've written about this before - I can't. I can't go to a wedding without being confronted with food, or most recently, a birthday party with a lovely funfetti cake. I can't go on a date or to a friend's awesome awards ceremony without food at least being a consideration. What I can do is decide that I'll have twice as much salad on my plate as pizza, on that date, and only eat two slices, to say no-thank-you to the cake, and then get busy doing something else, and to ask someone who is getting up to bring me ONE breadstick at the awards ceremony and then drink two bottles of water and remind myself I don't need to eat dinner twice. (Having someone else get the breadstick was key, by the way, because it meant I never had to be faced with any other food choices, or a plate to fill. I've said it before - I am lucky to have awesome friends). But here's what I can't do, even if I do all of that. I can't NOT bring food into my house, and I can't not eat.

I wish I could reach down and find some supernatural ability to not eat for, like, 28 days. Like the movie I imagine I would magically, and with heartwarmingly hard-won victories and new choices, find my feet on the path of recovery if I could manage this for a month of rehab. I also imagine that if eating weren't such a necessity I'd feel released. It would be a relief because it's actually exhausting to think this hard about food every day, every meal, every snack, every choice, from the moment I wake up (with my low blood sugar screaming in my head, "Wake up! Eat. ASAP!") until I go to sleep. The only thing more exhausting is the numbing, woolly-headed feeling and accompanying guilt brought on by NOT thinking about it and discovering I ate the whole box of Cheezits. So, I choose the lesser of two exhaustions but sometimes wish I had a less thorny, less insidious, less ever-present kryptonite.

So, for those keeping score, I am eating around the following limitations and restrictions:

• Gluten sensitive. In case you didn't know, gluten is hidden in absolutely everything. (Not just things with wheat in it! Tea! Mixed spices! Fruit bars! Protein shakes!)  For me I try to have this work out to one serving or less of gluten a day, or 7-8 a week. I sometimes am way under or sometimes a bit over. (Right now, it's a bit higher because while some things are easy substitutions - e.g. eat rice instead of bread - others are more difficult and things like gluten free chips, waffles, and granola bars are expensive and I'm on a tight budget these days.) But if I'm doing well with it, it makes a big difference in my energy level, skin, and allergies.
• Allergic to MSG - no Chinese take-out for me. Boooo.
• Allergic to preservatives - this means I can almost never eat dried fruit or off a buffet. It also affects me in certain cheeses, dried fruit, and wine. So, when I eat at your house and you make something cooked in a bottle of Merlot and garnished with Craisins I'll have to politely decline.
• I do much better with dairy if it is partially broken down and lower fat, such as yogurt. (Y'all can pry the greek yogurt from my cold, dead hands. I'm unlikely to EVER give it up even if it turns out it's not as miraculous as I think it is.)
• I can only eat 4-5 servings of carbs a day, and honestly, it is better if half of them were during or before lunch.
• I avoid most soy, because, let's face it, I don't need any more hormone issues. (But I love miso soup so I haven't completely removed soy. Also, in case you don't know, soy is secretly in everything too.)
• And I hate Dill and Mayonnaise with the passion of a thousand burning nuns.

Oh yeah, and eating itself is a problem, because it might set fire to the fuse and cause me to rapidly want to consume moremoremore.

This is where planning comes in. I can read all the books I want on strategies to beat cravings (and I do) and I can go to therapy and meditate (and I DO) but the very best thing I can do is to take charge of my food AGGRESSIVELY. This means a campaign of austerity including planning meals, planning what I will cook, and then shopping for that and only that. When shopping it means being thoughtful and ascetic and feigning ignorance of the existence of trigger foods. Then, as quickly as possible, I need to cook said food, because if it sits uncooked, popcorn for dinner starts to sound like a most excellent idea. Once the food is cooked and in my fridge, it should be idiot-proof, but of course there is the matter of avoiding temptation outside my house, and exercising a lot of control inside my house when it comes to portion size, added calories, and making sure I'm getting my 1-2 servings of fruit, 4-5 servings of vegetables, 4 servings of carbs, 2-3 of dairy, 7-9 of protein, and 2-5 of fats. It's a big job, and cruel task-master, keeping track of all of this. (Note: I measure portion sizes, and meet those servings, but only measure calories on certain items. I'm not against measuring calories anymore, but this works better for me to function and not feel overwhelmed.)

So, of course, this is where tracking my food comes in. I've been using various methods to log food for 4 years. FOUR!!!! I've done it online, carried a couple of different journals around, used logging tools created by my dietician, and all kinds of permutations of these activities. One of the best things I ever heard about the value of food logging came from Weight Watchers. I have to say, Weight Watchers should probably have a disclaimer that says, "does not work for those with insulin resistance" because they do treat all carbs as if they are created equal (4 points of M&Ms are just as good as 4 points of yogurt!), alas. Still and all, I would re-pay every cent I spent there to have learned this way of thinking about logging: Logging your food means acknowledging accountability as your best weapon. If you see patterns emerging, you can tackle them. If you find meals that are working for you, or food choices that help you with portion control, you have a record. But most of all, if you mess up, you write it down in full, and then you walk away with clean hands and a fresh start because you held yourself accountable. You don't have to keep beating yourself up about it. If it means releasing judgment, if it means not always hating myself for something I did three weeks ago then I. Will. Do. It.

So, I log food. Every day. At its best, its invaluable for not only accountability but for planning. Because as I'm writing down that I had some lovely (gluten free) oatmeal with breakfast, I'm thinking about what carbs would make sense in the rest of my day - a cup of rice at lunch gives me 2 carbs, and leaves one more for dinner, maybe a pita with some hummus to get a serving of fat in? Planning and anything I can do to support it is a great predictor of success for me, even if it also increases my control-freakishness. And even when logging is not at it's best, at the very, very least it lets me check in with my trainer and he can either nod approvingly, or he can say, "Umm, two beers? Two?!"

Why then, would I not log last week? Well, for one, I was out of paper. And didn't have it in my bank account to go get some. But, then, I started wondering . . . what would happen without my clipboard to keep me in line? This article suggests that logging is a way of evaluating ourselves, and thus, supplying our own behavioral modification. I became really interested to see what new patterns would be at work, and what old pitfalls would await me.

Here's what happened.

• I still did 5 hours of cardio and nearly 3 of lifting
• I had two drinks
• I ate pizza, but only two slices
• One day I was really hungry and had 3.5 servings of dairy instead of 2-3
• I drank two diet sodas instead of one during the week
• I ate half a small bag of M&Ms but then got such a sugar-rush headache I threw them out
• I ate all the vegetables in my fridge. Like ALL of them.
• The two loaves of bread in my freezer remain there
• I did limit myself to that one breadstick at the awards banquet
• I yelled down a serious voice in my head advocating for for yo with reeses pieces on it and had half a mango instead.
• I was still anxious at each occasion where I ate food not prepared in my house
• My only big unplanned eating was a bowl of popcorn with some butter. 3 of the 4.5 cups of the popcorn count as one serving of carbs on a day when I was low on carb servings, but the rest, the butter, and eating them at 8pm were less than ideal

Now, the nature of logging as you go through the day means you have a tighter rein on what you actually ate. So, it's possible that in there, I ate an entire box of Cheezits and forgot, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I ate off-plan, but not radically off plan in any given deviance, and most importantly, when I ate a big bowl of popcorn, or a breadstick, it didn't set off a chain reaction of eating everything in sight. Again, I could be mis-remembering, but since I also lost 2 pounds last week, I don't think I am.

I'm cured! Ha! Not really. Addicts are always addicts, and I will go right back to logging this week, but it's good to know that I'm headed in the right direction and building new habits in a way that is starting to take hold in my brain. New neural pathways are catching fire. They may not be able to burn faster or hotter than the old patterns YET but they are present. It took 10 weeks of grocery shopping carefully (eating healthy on a budget is the subject of another post coming soon), doing something like 95% of my own cooking, and lots, and lots of quiet time to myself to get here. (I would guess but don't know for sure that doing the cooking myself is almost as important as planning the meals and measuring the portion sizes - being intimately connected with my food makes it much easier to know what I'm eating and be very accountable but also to be very mindful when I'm eating our of my fridge.) But, there is a new consciousness taking root from all of this time I've had to do this thoughtfully, all this getting right with myself, all this meditation, reading, logging, and creating a new level of accountability for myself. It now seems like with enough attention, with enough mindfulness, and with enough professional supervision and input, I could handle birthday parties and banquets very differently some day. So, you know, check back with me in 4 years. (smile again)

Unemployment is good for working out

I love games. I pretty frequently lose them (unless I'm on team "Winning!" for Taboo . . . hee hee!), but I enjoy how games mentally challenge me.

I also love, love, love my brother even though we are often competitive with each other. Who's mom's favorite? Which one of us is smarter, funnier, or most beloved? We are mostly kidding about these things (but not entirely). So, when he and I came up with a makeshift and ridiculously funny game, we both went all in.

I'm not sure how this came about, but when he got his iPhone he and I were showing each other tricks, tips, and apps. I showed him how to set up folders and move apps on the screens, he showed me how to set up my navigator. I told him to get Words with Friends, and he told me to get Dictionary.com. "Why?!" I said. He said, "Well, this might sound stupid, but I like getting the word of the day. Then, even though I'm a jock and a bartender, I try to use it in a sentence three times. I don't care if people think it's weird. I do what I want."

I was pretty impressed with that so I downloaded it immediately. And somehow over the next week, what evolved was a game of our own making. We started texting each other with sentences using the word of the day. And somehow this turned into, a sentence using the word of the day making fun of something or someone in our family. This, in turn, evolved into whichever one of us got the best sentence FIRST using the word of the day gets the "point." Now, we don't (to my knowledge) ever count points across weeks or months. But whoever gets the point gets the pride of that . . . until the next day :)

The effect of this is that I get to text my brother nearly every day. a couple of weeks ago the word was "excogitate." I managed to use it in a sentence referencing another running inside joke we have going right now. So, we were both laughing at my text. Then he asked how I was. And we started talking about working out - a common theme in our conversations. He said, "Unemployment is good for working out."

He should know. He played this game for nearly two years. And I saw how hard unemployment was on him. It was a similar situation in that his job was eliminated through no fault of his. He combated the difficult emotions of joblessness through humor. He would quote the movie "Knocked up" and say, "Yeaaaahhhh. I'm uh . . . no work today!" He laughed at the lifestyle of wearing sweats every day. But I know he was also anxious, antsy, and upset about the situation. So, he made jokes. He became sarcastic, and he poured even more of himself into working out. And that's saying a lot since he had been running, lifting, and practicing Jiu-Jitsu before he was let go. He had not one, but two low-cost gym memberships during that time. And he used them both.

So, when he said, "Unemployment is good for working out." I thought about it for a minute and then knew, that of all people, he would best understand when I said," And vice versa. It helps me not get crazy or depressed."

It will not be a shocker to any of you that while I don't exactly look forward to my dates with the treadmill, I have come to appreciate my time being active. Where it used to be a chore and necessity, I now really, really need that time. It is time out of the house. It is time away from screen. It is time away from my fears that I will end up living under someone else's roof.

So, it turns out, that I am not a sloth, regardless of what my physique might suggest.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to another friend who was checking on me and I said to him, about not responding right away, "Sorry, you caught me at the end of my run." He asked if it was a good one. As it happened it wasn't, but what I said was, "There are no good runs. Only running assignments I accomplish and those I don't." This is still true almost every day. I don't enjoy how my body feels when I'm running. Pardon me while I sound like an old lady - my feet hurt, my back hurts, my knee hurts, and it takes a lot more focus than someone like me with some ADD tendency often has to get my breathing in rhythm. I often have to close my eyes and try to go inward to somewhere that has nothing to do with the people on the treadmills next to me, the TV screen above me, the (not really so awful) pain, and the voice inside my head saying, "Stop!"

But the other thing that is true is that I'm grateful for it. Where I used to be assigned 90 - 120 minutes of cardio a week and 3 hours of high interval resistance, I'm now still doing the resistance but adding to the cardio . . . on purpose. Yesterday I swam two miles and ran two miles. The day before I lifted and then swam two miles. On a treadmill I'm not second guessing a cover letter. On a treadmill I'm not wondering about an interview. On a treadmill I'm far too busy to add and re-add a budget. I can fight for something tangible on a treadmill.

I wish I had understood this before I lost my job. The truth is, this is, in very real ways, the cure for many of my very real health issues. Working out can only positively impact PCOSor anyone working against insulin by stabilizing their health through regular exercise, and particularly a good blend of cardio and resistance, interval and/or anaerobic training.  Asthmatics who exercise stand to reduce stress (which can trigger respiratory issues), increase lung function, and sleep better. Whatever issues with focus I have are measurably improved by burning some energy off, and even my migraine issues are improved by exercising. While running may not be the very best thing to do for my knees (swimming IS but is not the very best thing I could do for my hair. Yes, that's right, I am a real girl somewhere underneath all of my facade and I have this one vanity) I figure this: my knees are wrecked enough that they're not going to last the rest of my lifetime. But they're working now so I should take advantage of it (because I can still remember palpably how frustrated I was when confined to an arm bike for weeks and weeks while my knees couldn't bear weight).

"But Christie, you were getting 5 hours of exercise a week before." Yes. Yes I was. But it wasn't enough. I've written about this before. Everyone else in the world gets weight control results from 3-5 hours of exercise a week. I don't. That's just the way it goes. So, if my weight goals weren't responsive to 5 hours a week, it stands to reason that my other health goals weren't being completely serviced by 5 hours a week. Also, let's be honest - 5 hours a week was the goal but between being on the road or on a plane or in a hotel it was often closer to 3 or 4 hours a week. And as I said recently to my trainer, "The thing is, before, if my exercise was on, my food wasn't. Or vice-versa. It was never both being right at the same time." I take responsibility for that. I also think, in analyzing it, I wasn't ever going to be able to fully take on changing that if half my life was spent in transit, without any schedule that resembles normal human life, and unable on many occasions to plan or cook my meals.

So, I'm aimed at 5-6 hours of cardio each week now, in addition to my other "assignments." as much as possible, I try to keep it low impact cardio, and I'm really not thinking of it being "extra" cardio right now. To me it seems more like having missed school and needing to make up for it. As a child, I  was hospitalized for asthma related complications and illnesses at least 2 times a year. My shortest hospitalization was 4 days. My longest was 4 weeks. There was always some homework I could do once I had gotten a little better and wasn't fighting for my life (literal, not exaggeration. I know how to handle it, but fighting for a breath and having your oxygen levels drop despite medication is scary) but I also often had a busy schedule of blood tests, chest X-rays, respiratory therapy, and treatments. So, then, I'd go back to school and have a lot of homework to make up. I feel like that now - I'm making up homework from when I was sick. The difference is I wasn't consumed with chest x-rays or IVs, but with work before now. I did miss hours, and hours of agreed upon "homework" though.

So, when someone said to my 2 miles of running and 2 miles of swimming last night, "Gawwwd. that sounds awful," I was able to say, "I know. But it helps me not freak out right now so it's a good thing. It's hard to get too crazy when I'm this tired."

As I peer through the window of hopeful employment this month I find myself often thinking about the logistics of different positions and quickly on the heels of that thinking, "would I still be able to count on myself to get my workouts in?" I may not, when I go back to work, keep my gym time as high as 9-10 hours a week, but I'd like for it to be higher than the minimum required 5 hours. I sleep better, I like myself better, and the treadmill and I, if no yet friends, are now showing grudging respect for one another. That would have to be considered important even if I was spending 40 hours a week working instead of 30 hours a week job hunting and interviewing.

Think of this as your desert island time

The set up is like this . . . last Wednesday had all the makings of an excellent, good news, shiny day. (And having recently availed myself of Firefly via Netflix I mean "Shiny!") Instead, it turned into a day where I worked very hard to stay professional and calm, and as a result found myself sitting in the back of my car, trying to meditate my way through not losing my shit.

In between the things that happened were an interview where the job offer that had been previously discussed was divided by 2, and the territory for said job had magically relocated too. (Note: even if the salary offer wasn't an issue, which it was, the fact that 4 hours of phone interviews had given me one set of details on salary and territory and the in-person interview gave me another was the bigger red flag.) I held things down and asked some pretty intelligent questions about this, I thought, without getting accusatory or defensive. So, that was good. But then, I got back into the parking garage and found that the jacknut parked next to me was literally about 3 inches from my driver's side. Couldn't even get my arm through to open the door. So, I had to see if I could crawl in from the passenger side. I tried a couple of tactics, all the while dreaming of notes with flaming hot prose left on their windshield. So, I ended up sitting in the backseat, trying to breathe out the rage and find the cool, calm, center of the universe.

I had posted lots of rainbows-and-hearts type things on Facebook about this interview, so of course when I got myself together and crawled my way into the front seat,  I posted something cursory on FB. I didn't want to be over-the-top negative; I did want people to know that things were not as promised and not hold out on details for the people who were wanting to know.

This caused my sister and a couple of my best friends to call me. I kept it together with my sister for half an hour, but finally found myself in a parking lot just saying, "Why can't I just have a year where everything is ok?" One of my friends then let me swear, pretty much non-stop for 10 minutes and then obliged me when I said we needed to talk about other things. We spent another 10 minutes talking about him and other things about me and making jokes.

The other friend asked me what happened. And I told him . . . calmly. Not without emotion, but with some perspective. We talked about my job prospects, and his work situation (job talk in the near future! Yeah!). And he asked me if there was anything else going on in my life.

The hard truth is . . . not so much. I see friends. I go running. I went on a date. (well, by now a couple) I've never been so on top of the TV shows I like. I write. A lot. I read. And in terms of job searching - I have 5 places I check on the regular, I file what I find, I write and adjust cover letters, I submit letters and resumes online. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I said to him, "I'm not chasing after a kid, but I'm growing to really appreciate how hard it is to be at home all the time. I feel very much not a part of the world, and so it's hard to have anything interesting to say when people ask me what I've been doing. It's a lot of the same." Over and over, I would add. (I have to say, I have two mommy friends in particular in mind as I write this paragraph and hope they know that I'm not saying I understand the full scope of how hard that job is, just a small glimpse)

My friend said to this, "Think of this as your desert island time . . . so rare are the down times that when they come they really annoy you!"

It is ironic, actually, that what I was fighting for in my last job was the ability to keep being successful but not have to sacrifice my personal life to do so."Be careful what you wish for" is cliche, and also doesn't adequately describe what I feel about this. I think this time is . . . harder work than my job. But maybe better for me in terms of my long term goals and needs and wants. I'm not sorry for what I wished for because it is still what I wish for - a job where I can use my strengths to my best advantage, make a difference, and be successful, but also go home and feel like I can service the rest of my life.

So, back to last Wednesday. I was annoyed that I spent 7 hours to hear what, had I heard in the first half hour, I would have said no to. Annoyed that I had to crawl into my car from the back seat. I'm annoyed that I had to invest 5 hours to get to was such a bust. I'm really annoyed that I'm becoming a boring person that pretty much only has this to talk about. And annoyed that I'm the horrible friend that had this discussion with my friend on his birthday. Ugggghhhh.

I'm also annoyed that because of the nature of this position, this could be a mind game. It could be (I don't think so, but I can't help but wonder) that they were expecting me to come back and sell them on me being worth the potential offer that was discussed initially in my phone interview. Of course, it could be, just thinking about the wording, that the phone interview person was just not being clear on how their compensation works . . . either on purpose or by accident.

If this is my desert island, well, it's filled with a lot of doubts, second-guesses, and questioning myself. But, as a very wise therapist pointed out yesterday (not related to this story, actually, which makes me believe that it's even more true) that is what my desert island is whether I'm interviewing, or employed, single or coupled, living alone or with someone. I often make decisions competently and confidently, and then second guess them. I sometimes aim lower than I should, and while it doesn't happen all the time doubting or blaming myself is something that has importantly defined some of the situations that have most shaped me. So, maybe this isn't the island I asked to be on, or maybe it is. But, I was living some of this island life before I was let go.

But now that I am on the island, coconut in hand, it's interesting to note what is different and what is the same. Once, in a very bad movie (that I nonetheless enjoyed) Harrison Ford said, "It's an island, if you didn't bring it with you it's probably not here," or something very like that. There's some truth to that. What I had with me, came to the island. In that sense my insecurities don't have a lot to do with my situation. And, the culture and realities here are importantly different. It's filled with a chance to sleep 8 hours every night, but also not always of peace of mind to implement that. It's filled with a lot of alone time . . . though I suppose that's the point of a desert island. If it was an island where I had more means, it would be a time to redo some of the rooms of my house and take some online courses, but as it is, it has been a chance to read a lot, and educate myself on a couple of new things. (Both of them pretty cool!)

Much like a desert island, I ration food, and other resources. And, my days are very repetitive and a little bit . . . boring, and lonely. It's clear that while I was making a zombie survival plan I should have also been making a plan to survive the desert island. You know - what would you bring, who would you want there, how would you make it through. You know the game.

Let's I was in the way of being stuck on the LOST island, for instance. My scary unseen monster is the day my bank account hits zero, and I have to live in my car. (Yes, that is hyperbole. Because as we all know there's a beautiful room waiting for me in Boston) Or ask people for money. (Of the two, the later is VASTLY worse.) The "others" on my island of unemployment island are . . . well, ok, I haven't figured that out yet. And, the force controlling everything that I'm trying to reconcile myself with, well that's obvious.

So, the survival plan so far has been, as my friend said that night, keeping my options open. (He actually said something porny-er but, you know, I'm reporting the part that applies.) In this case, it takes a lot of work and energy to create those options, but, this is ok because I am excited about finding them, and settling on the right fit. What I need on the desert island to keep that going are the people who help me see myself, and think out loud. I suppose this is like the zombie survival plan in that way. It's the people. In this case though, the skills I'm looking for may have a little more variation. If it were a real island, of course, my top priorities would be someone who knows about living/eating in the wild (food and shelter),  someone who can patch people up (medicine), someone who can fix the radio or get us things we need out of the scrap metal or plane crash (electronics and technology), and ideally, a barrista who happened to wash ashore with their trusty espresso machine. (Let's be clear though, if it's a choice between saving the barrista and the espresso machine itself . . . well, I'd at least have to think about it since I ran a cafe in college and could make my way back to making a decent latte if needed.) Those things don't change in my survival scenarios. You know, just the basics.

But, desert living, I've discovered, is different than zombie living.  A lot less flesh eating, a lot more people wanting to eat lunch with you. A lot less running for your life, a lot more making yourself go to the gym to run. So, on this island, I need my people. I need David who keeps me practical without letting me get grim. I need Wil's special brand of hope and pessimism, of intricate, even artistic language, and the ability to be blunt and efficient. I need Rob, because there is nowhere in my life where I don't need the person who knows me best, and has known me for 32 years. Also, who else can I find myself in 7 off-shoot conversations from the original topic? And more to the point, Rob and I are very different, but the same, so he is sometimes my conscience and heart, and yet can also make me laugh like no one else. I need my girls because they love me for exactly who I am, and it is rare that I'm with any of them for more than 30 minutes before things get pretty irreverent. Rebecca, Elisabeth, Gabrielle, Krystel, and Annette are high on this list because they keep everything real whether it's good or bad, celebration or consolation time, dance party or dealing. I need Heather, because where Rob is my heart, Heather is my head. She and I think much the same, and yet subtly differently. In the last year I noted that when I'm at her house, my working vocabulary goes up and I feel more intelligent and more clear in my thoughts. (Importantly, this doesn't mean I don't also need her affection. Just, if I'm giving out jobs, well, she excels at that one) And I need Susan who is much like Rob, in that we seem to be able to share everything without reserve. She has so much heart that some of it has to be on her sleeve, and in her over-abundance, she gives a lot of it away. She helps keep me grounded in faith and belief while also supporting me in every other way she knows how. And, I need a trainer on this island, so it's lucky that I have the best one.

I know, espresso, trainer . . . this is a very swanky desert island. That's just how I roll. I should just go for broke and wish for ice, limes, and tequila, eh?

The thing I'm trying to do is to leave the desert island, but take some of this with me. To have brought whatever I brought here is inevitable but to take out only what is useful is, I think, the task at hand. I'll take these friends without question, because they take me without reservation. I'll take the trainer, and the espresso and tequila (not together!) if it's available. But there are some other deeply important things I'd like to pack when I board to leave. this is crucial, because what I actually want is NOT a year where everything is "ok" but a year in which I have the same ups and downs as everyone else yet still feel, on the whole, that my life is better than ok, stunning and moving even.

• The belief that I live in a time, and have the skills and strength to choose and shape the future I want
• This new found faith and belief. But even more than that, the wonder I feel at being able glimpse the tiny bit of the pattern I see
• The understanding that it's not accidental that I "fall" into creative pursuits - this blog, other writing, singing, photography. That it is what most feeds and energizes me, and so it has to be part of my lifestyle. Not an afterthought
• The time and quiet to read as voraciously as I can, and have in the past. I missed you old friend, glad you're back.
• The understanding that my values of being there for others, showing love, and offering help where I'm able has to work both ways. There is a way in which always being the giver is . . . ironically, selfish. If I truly believe that being here for each other is what we're here to do, I have to be willing to participate in the whole cycle, not just the part I'm comfortable with. Independence is one thing, pride just damages that cycle.
• This new found ability to be passionate without apology
• All the honesty I brought in, has to come back out with me.
• Patience and Forgiveness. These are still underway but maybe will be formed enough to survive the trip when it comes time?
• The understanding that I can think one thing, and feel another
• The certainty that I am loved, and at the end of the day, that is enough.
• The ability to let go - total responsibility and accountability for the things I can and should do, zero judgment or blame for the things I cannot control
• As much gratitude as I can carry. I may need a bigger suitcase for this, honestly.
  
  
  

And you know, if customs isn't a problem, I'll take some coconuts too.

changing things up

I've written about this before - if people want things to change, they have to do things differently. Or to put this in addiction terminology as I understand it, "If nothing ever changes, then nothing ever changes."

Sometimes, I am fairly stunned by how fast I can see this in others, and not in myself. Then, of course, I kick myself for being a judgmental ijit. I'm sure we are all masters of seeing ourselves in other people, of casting the first stone, but people, I have aim.

I've also talked about the fact that I'm someone who requires some professional supervision from time to time - I have a trainer, saw a dietician for awhile, and see a therapist about once a month. And yet, I hate help. So, while I'm pretty broke at this point, I'm also aware that keeping my head on straight, working from my strengths, and making sure I can walk into my next job with all of that up and running is a clear priority. This means I still go see my therapist.

Now, I'm not in the habit of paying people and then ignoring them. Maybe it happened that the dietician suggested adding spaghetti squash and cottage cheese to my diet, and I only did one of those. (Because, ewwww, the texture of some things just cannot be overlooked.) Maybe it happened one week last year where I logged workouts that didn't happen because I just couldn't tell my trainer and deal with his disappointment on top of my own. And maybe it happens from time to time that I question the method behind his madness. (But it's only happened once that he's told me to do an exercise, and I've tried and then just said to him, "I don't think I can.")

Therapy is the same but different. As a grown up, I can say honestly that I choose therapy not because I feel broken or concerned or depressed, but because I know the value of being able to analyze myself. And because from my cognitive psych research background (important note: this is NOT the same as having a professional background in clinical psych) I am deeply aware that it's hard to research oneself. All jokes about research = me-search aside figuring yourself out and making friends with yourself seems like maybe the best thing any person can do. And doing it alone means the research will be flawed. I explained it this way to someone yesterday,"Nobody asks you to talk about the mechanics of your own gallbladder by intuiting it. Why do we assume we can self-report on our own minds and brains?"

So, I don't assume I can do that with complete fidelity and perspective. And because my therapist is very upfront about his own biases, and because he works uber-hard to make sure we are understanding each other and asking the right questions, I feel comfortable presuming he is a good choice for an extra set of eyes and ears on the scene.

To me, it seems like it would be wasteful and stupid and ignorant and rude to pay him and then neglect what he has to say. Instead, I often choose to tell him when I'm questioning his suggestion. I just lay it out there.

This is all to say, I was fairly surprised today to find myself listening intently to what he was advocating, agreeing with so much of it, and then leaning so hard away from it. Hmmmm.

But here's the thing. I'm structured, and I do the things I do to stay comfortable. But that doesn't mean I am always doing what is best for me. That, if anything, was the very best definition of the meaning of the title of this blog when I started it . . that there could be a disconnect between doing the "right things, or the things I thought I was "supposed" to do and my feeling of satisfaction from them. Comfort can denote contentedness, but it can also denote stagnation. If I'm all about growing and changing, and honesty, and self-assessment and analysis then I should have the integrity to say that I sometimes . . . settle. Much less in the last three months than ever before, but three months weighed against 30 some years may not stack up just yet. I'm sure this is true for a lot of people, but my tendency to make decisions quickly, but then immediately try to pull the dust down all at once into something resembling order means that I'm not always looking at all of the information carefully with a focused view on what's GOOD for me. I'm busy running around trying to keep my corner of the world neat and tidy - it often feels like a full time job.

And here is the other thing - what I really believe is that we are very sophisticated, wet computers. We may not understand exactly how that computer gets programmed, and when I was in grad school I was very busy trying to understand a specific competence of the computer, and what parts of it were "hardware" and what parts were "software." But, I do believe that changing the output can often be traced back to changing the input.

If I want a different life from how things were in the fall, and I do - I need to be willing to put different things into it. If I want a job that respects me as a human being, that allows me to feel productive, satisfied, challenged, and supported to succeed, I need to be clear about that. If I want to have more success in balancing work and life, I need to feed myself with different expectations about that, and what it's ok to ask for. If I want things to be different, I need to be ok with things being different. Importantly, this means doing things differently than I have, feeding myself differently literally and metaphorically, and releasing myself from old patterns just because they are habit.

I won't lie. What's on the table here from today's session is pretty radical. On the other hand, the changes I'm hoping to make are pretty far reaching too. Viewed in that way, it actually starts to look promising and hopeful that I have had a "sabbatical" from working for two months. I can't say it's been a vacation, since it's been very, very hard to try and be this productive, this hopeful, and this focused without, well, a focal point. But it does mean that how and when this happened created an opportunity for me step away from external expectations and to know myself based on my own standards, my own principles, my own expectations. I want to live in that world where I create the right things for myself.

So that means not discarding taking big leaps of faith, considering different jobs than I did 5 years ago, eating differently, exercising differently, using my time differently, listening differently, drawing boundaries differently, and making decisions differently. Where normally I might go with my first emotional reaction to some of the things that have been proposed to me this week, I also have to remember that I would never let an introspective self-analysis of my gallbladder make a decision for me. And so, it might be worth considering the person I pay to help me see myself better might have a point.

Well, very thoughtful indeed today, readers and a pledge to try for some more concrete posts in days to come.

Putting myself first

On the mirror in my bathroom it says, "Make yourself a priority." There are also various sticky notes in various places that say things like, "This appointment is just as important as every other you make," and "Commit to yourself."

And yet, it's really easy for me to think, Hi, you. the laundry needs to be folded and there is more wrapping and cleaning before mom gets here. Or, Mom is here! It's rude to go to the gym while she reads a book!

Yesterday, mom chose not to go to the gym with me, knowing I'd be gone for at least three hours (running, swimming laps, and then working with a friend plus a shower take up a solid chunk of time). It was her choice. When I texted my friend that Mom wouldn't be joining us she immediately said, "I don't want to take time away from your mom." and I get that. I don't want to take time away from my mom either. But the truth is, wherever I am, I have to be willing to put time into this process every day. If I'm traveling for work, I still have to try and eat right and get up early to exercise. If I go to India, which is a dream I have (and where one of my client's mothers apparently gives her head massages and brings her tea every morning, I recently found out), I will have to walk and make sure I get plenty of protein and vegetables. If I was at my mom's house, I would have to fight to find the time for cardio every day. So, if she's at my house, the same rules apply.

It took reaching down to pull up on my sense of personal responsibility and my desire to work on my goals to text my friend back and say, "I really want to swim. No one else is going to get my cardio done for me."

It feels . . . selfish to me to put myself first. It's a new experience. I've always been asked to put others first. As a caretaker in my family, my needs were always subservient to those of others, and expressing them was always received badly. And so that is the space I learned to occupy in the world. I see it in all my past relationships, in how work expands and fills more of my week than it should, in everything I've sacrificed to be where I am. Saying no is always hard for me, unless I'm saying no to the voice that says, "Get your workout done. And while you're at it, eat some broccoli instead of some popcorn."

But the truth is, no one will work out for me. My job will not take responsibility for the weight their crazy schedule and too-high expectations caused me to gain 4 years ago. My mom can't eat broccoli for me or take popcorn away from me. And if not everyone can understand that I can work out 6 days a week, 5-7 hours a week, and eat everything right, and still get minimal results, then the least I can do is to understand it and act on it. Compassion to myself means knowing the scale won't always move even if I do what I'm supposed to, but it also means lovingly getting my butt out of the seat and to the gym. Loving myself means forgiving the bowl of popcorn for dinner but also trying to do better the next day and pack my protein and veggie lunch to take with me on the road. Patience is a gift I can give myself by not judging how slow my results are, but also by planning for the long haul and knowing that taking the long view means owning that working out this much or more will be my life forever.

I have a lot of understanding, compassion, love, and patience to give other people. I tend to have endless supplies even when times may be really hard for me or when I may be angry with another person. I need to learn to apply some of it to myself. Because the truth is that if my metabolism and hormones fight even my best efforts, then putting in less than my absolute max will serve me not at all. And the other hard truth is that if things are this hard now in my 30's, my elder years will only get worse. Without work and discipline and giving myself enough love and time I could easily become a 500 pound woman that needs to be cut out of her house. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that.

It took alllllllllll yeaaaaaaar to get to the point where my gym schedule orbits cleanly through my other obligations. Even now there are little hops and skips when I'm sick or traveling. The difference between now and a year ago is that now if the record skips, I know how to bring the needle back down to play through. A year ago, missing one workout usually was the beginning of a long string of missed workouts. Now I know that if it is missed I must get back up on the horse the next day before I find myself on a slippery slope, and ideally, "make up" the missed workout. (This is a little like doing extra-homework to catch up when I was out of school for pneumonia in elementary school.) My workouts now matter to me in a different way than they did. I know that without them I will feel less pleased with myself, regardless of the scale or my jean size. I know I will have more stress. I know I will tend towards more depression. I know what my workouts give me. Which is why there is also a sticky note in my house that says, "It will feel good AFTER you go." That is a true story. Before walking out the door, it'd be my pleasure to stay on the couch reading. After going to the gym I know I will feel more productive, happier, more energetic.

There's another result of working out: I have discovered it directly effects how well I eat. You'd think that working out and being hungry from it could lead me to fries and Cheezits, but it has the opposite effect. I come home from a work out determined to eat my brussel sprouts and chicken, and further, to plan and pack an awesome lunch for the next day. And here's the truth - while I could eat nachos and pizza all day long, I really do like brussel sprouts and chicken. So, if I know I like them, and feel better eating them, then why not do the thing that leads me to eat those things more and let go of the pizza and nachos. It turns out, shopping differently (ignore that Cheezits exist! There is no aisle 5!) and cooking the brussels and the chicken are just preliminary steps. The thing I really need to do is go to the gym and strengthen not just my lats and hamstrings, not just my core and abs, but also my resolve. So, I go. sometimes it feels like I'm dragging myself there by the ear, like a child who has sassed a crabby grandmother, but so be it.

So, I went to the gym yesterday, and it was so good to know I had done it and met my goals for the week. and as my mom naps on the couch this morning, I will continue to get ready to meet my trainer. It's what has to get done in order for everything else to line up as it should. I still have to make myself do it often, but I can see the day where it will make sense for it to be just as natural and expected as brushing my teeth. Off I go!

Toes up! Knees unlocked!

Yesterday I was reminded that paying a trainer isn't just about having someone to work out with, or tell me what I should work on for the week. Those things are nice, but when I think of paying someone to do those things, it feels like a massive luxury. When I remember the full range of knowledge my trainer brings to the table, it feels more like a reasonable expense.

Not only does my trainer have a degree in exercise physiology and kinesthesiology, not only can he consult on my nutrition as he reminded me last Sunday, but he also can help me problem solve when my body is falling apart. In 2010 I called him on a Friday from Phoenix and said, "Ummm, I dislocated my knee. I'm taking this Sunday off and will see a doctor on Monday." After seeing the doc and getting referred to PT my trainer was like, "Yeah, we can work out. No big deal." He built workouts that allowed me to keep progressing in as many areas as possible, and I was glad that I spent only one week laid up on the couch. I was grateful to have part of my life NOT be interrupted by that injury. All injuries seriously suck, but after going through a year of trying to avoid surgery on that very knee in 1997/98 and then having the surgery, followed by another year of rehab (1998/99), having that reconstruction fail me wasn't just physically painful, it was emotional for me to. Having my trainer work around it without a blink was actually reassuring and kept me motivated.

Six weeks after that knee took it's trip out to the side, my other knee took three trips out to the side. I can't say he and I soldiered on without blinking when it was crutches and two bad knees. I certainly can't say we just shrugged it off when my MRI results were in and the total wreckage news was delivered upon us (I tore my ACL, mediapatellar femoral ligament, and meniscus. I wrecked it good. Go big or go home!), but we did keep going. We kept going by doing a lot of things sitting down, a lot of exercises that strengthened my back, shoulders, arms, and abs and a few things laying down. we kept going by making fun of my crutches. We were limited, but we kept going. I had a few friends who said, "Wouldn't it be better to save your paid time with the trainer until you can do more?" Sure. But at a time when I felt helpless, weak, and useless it was important for me to have a few opportunities to feel strong, powerful and capable.

Any trainer who can work around two injured legs is a keeper, but yes, he is also fun to work out with, capable of guiding me nutritionally, and he makes me laugh. What amazed me today was how he set about fixing my running issues . I texted him on Thursday and said, "Something is wrong with my running - backs of my legs right under my calves feels hard and bruised to the touch, but there's no bruise. feet cramping so bad they're going numb. Please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong when I see you Sunday."

I walked in yesterday and he had a plan already in place, a plan that involved me working out without shoes. We rolled the muscles of my feet and calves with a lacrosse ball, and then he explained to me that the muscles and tendons in my lower leg connect up to my thigh and hip flexors, but also down into my feet, pulling on the achilles tendon. He told me that some of the ways I have compensated for my knees or have learned to walk with the joint laxity I have are causing me to put more pressure on my arches and toes. This in turn causes me to tense the muscles in my calves, and below, while relaxing the muscles on my shins. That pulls me forward, putting more pressure on my toes, and taking weight off my heels. Additionally, my knees are so loose that they often hyperextend . . . which means they bend backwards. That pushes my pelvis in the wrong direction, tightening muscles in my lower back, pulling up on my IT band and all the muscles and tendons of my legs . . . contributing more to the damn feet.

So, basically, I'm put together all wrong and so I walk wrong. I put pressure on my toes and arches, and I lock my knees out hyperextended which pulls my pelvis and lower back into the wrong place therefore pulling on the muscles in the backs of my legs and puts more pressure on my feet in the wrong places. I try not to blame my parents for constructing me wrong. After all, I was their first; they didn't know what they were doing. But a lot of issues seem to stem from these bad knees which are a result of faulty construction - it'd be nice to pass the blame off. But it won't help me walk right. And without walking correctly, it's unlikely that I will run correctly.

The workout was mentally difficult for me. It wasn't that physically strenuous, because we were focusing on a lot of exercises where I could stand with my knees straight-not-hyper-extended (which feels bent to me) and my toes flexed up towards my face. Every time I wasn't lifting something I got the treatment that tall willowy blondes get when they walk down the street. I got looked up and down to make sure my posture was good, my weight was on my heels, and my knees weren't locked. I was reminded over and over to "unlock [your] knees," and "take the weight off [your] heels." It's pretty frustrating to realize after more than three decades on the planet that I don't know how to stand properly. Arg! Retrain! Retrain!

I am hopeful that re-training myself will result in more comfortable joints, better ability to do more, and a return to running. Best of all would be not having my feet turn into hobbled nubs of themselves as they cramp so hard that my toes curl under.

I was also pretty impressed that without watching me walk or run, without "examining" my legs or feet, just through a text, my trainer could figure out what was wrong, and put me back on the right track. It was reassuring to find that I could walk in and have a workout designed specifically for the issue I was having. If you're interested here are some of the things we did: dead lifts while making sure I was weighted on my heels and not my toes, planks while lifting each leg for one second, keeping toes flexed and knees straight. I also did renegade rows. This is down in a plank position with toes bent to support me but arms are straight down from the shoulder and holding 25 pound weights. As I bring each arm up one at a time I curl into my body holding the weight. We did an exercise that reminded me of bobbing and weaving along the rope in karate - my trainer stretched a theraband our and had me squat (toes up!) and bob and weave for 60 seconds. We did a combination movement of one legged touchdown (enjoy the music on that one!) and lunge where I had to stand on one leg (toes up! knees unlocked!) and send my other leg out behind me and then touch the ground, then stand upright and swing that leg through to a lunge bending the toes of my back/planted foot and keeping the weight off the toes of the front/lunging foot. (I was sweating a lot after that one not because it was so physically strenuous but because the effort of keeping my feet even and my toes where they were supposed to be was enormous.) We did a few other exercises but you get the picture - with no shoes on we could always be looking at what my feet were doing, as well as keeping an eye on whether or not my knees were locked out. We finished by stretching and foam rolling my trouble spots. I won't lie - it was painful. In fact, it was a bitch. But I walked out of there feeling looser all over and more comfortable moving. And it's also good to know that something so simple can help.

I was relieved to find out I hadn't just been wimping out - that this is a real problem. (I always secretly worry that I am a wuss and that the pain I feel is "not that bad" and that I should just "suck it up.") One that I can fix. So, if you see me mumbling to myself about how my feet ar turned out, keeping the weight on my heels, making sure to walk so that I hit three points on my feet (heel, ball, toe), or my knees being unlocked, I'm not crazy. Well, I might be crazy, but it's for a reason.

ungood week

Have you ever had the kind of week where it's just like . . . . ughhh, please be over?!

I can't really say that anything horrible happened. There were no flat tires, no weight gains, not major work crises. My boyfriend and I are slowly sifting through some of the issues between us, and getting back to a place where it feels good to be together. Everything just feels like . . . work right now.

I know what a privilege it is for me to work this hard. I know that what I do in the gym matters. I know that planning my meals makes a difference. I know how lucky I am to be able to feed myself with healthy food in this country that has so many families struggling to feed themselves and resorting to processed cheap stuff. I know that I shouldn't complain about having a job that pays the bills. I know also that having someone who loves me and who is willing to work on the things that need attention and revamping is no small thing. I just feel so, so tired that everything is so time consuming right now. It's hard to keep being psyched about all of it. I feel like I keep moving my focus and gaze; I'll put a spot light on my eating for a week, and it will go well, and then I'll move the spotlight to my exercise the next week, and that will go well but the eating will slip a little, and then the next week my focus will be on my relationship and my feelings, and then my eating and exercise will start to go all wonky . . . I feel like there isn't enough of me to attend to all of the parts of me right now and that is frustrating. It's all well and good for me to tell my boss, "If everything is a priority then nothing is a priority," but I struggle when that prophecy comes true in my life.

If I'm allowed to whine a little bit more, I just want to sleep. I want a whole day where I do nothing but sleep, drink really tasty flavored Perrier, and read. And then sleep some more. I want a day where I get to eat pizza and not think about it. And I want a day that's all about me, not about anyone else and what they need from me. I don't want to be greedy so all of those things can happen on the same day. I'll condense so as to allow others to have their magical days - I assume magical days are a zero sum game and that there's only so many to go around, you see. The thing is, in order to have this magical day, I need an eight day in the week, because there are 5 days a week where I need to work really hard, and 6 days a week where I have to work out really hard. And then I'm all out of days.

A lot of what is fueling my down mood this week is that my running has been sucking a lot of suckage. When my friends were here, just two weeks ago, I jog/walked 2.5 miles in less than 30 minutes. This week, getting through 2 miles has been awful. There is something wrong with my calves, but since I'm not a "real" runner, I don't know what it is. the backs of my calves feel hard and puffy, and if I touch them, it feels like they are bruised. But they're not. (Does anyone know what this is?) It weirds me out that I can feel pain as though it's on the surface but not see the cause. Worse, this seems to be resulting in a return of my bad, bad foot problems that had been disappearing. The last couple of runs, my feet have cramped up so bad that they went numb and tingly.I am missing the feeling of simple, brute accomplishment I was getting from completing run and progressing in speed and endurance. No, I still don't get the "rush" my runner friend is always on about, but I do feel like I've done something real and tangible after I run. With everything else in my life being such a long, drawn out THING right now, I don't often get to have a good result right away - you can't get that from eating chicken and broccoli, you don't get an instant warm fuzzy from having a hard conversation with a loved one, and let me tell you, while database reviews need to get done at work, there is nothing immediately gratifying about them. So, I kind of - gasp, dare I say it - miss having a good run in my life right now.

It's a weird but true fact that when things are going well, I just expect them to keep going that way. I don't always think about what it takes to keep things going well, though I try to think deeply about what are the things that made a day or a week good. I think in this case, I just have to look at the things I have committed myself to, make sure they are still the things I want to do, and that they leave room for other things I love, and decide if I need a break from anything. Certainly part of this is about work - because I worked a ton on the road in September, I have a ton of office work to catch up on, and still not quite enough time to do it because October's normal travel schedule wasn't built around the idea of making up for the lack of office time in September. It's hard to work long days, every single day, for two months straight. It's harder still to have no days where I sleep in, and to be constantly trying to force an hour or more of exercise into my schedule during this busy time. It has often meant I roll out of bed very early, head into the office and then take a lunch break at a weird time in order to walk, run, or lift.

I find that when I'm tired and run down, my commitment to a lot of things wanes. I feel less excited about time with friends, about getting work done, about working out, and certainly eating right becomes very difficult. I definitely have found that my appetite is often not the predictor of when my healthy eating habits crack, but rather how tired and run down I am. It's hard to balance the need to keep going, do more, against the need to slow down and rest so that you don't crack in your resolve.

For that reason, after a long day at work yesterday, I chose to place more importance on spending time with two of my good friends and really slow down, not worrying as much about schedules and committments. I probably should have been in the gym, but it felt like it was really needed to stop being part of the machine. So, I had a beer, and a salad, and a run through Colorado's #1 haunted house (and yes, I mean a run. There were places that were sooooo creepy) and then back to my friend's house to listen to music and talk about plans for the upcoming Halloween party. Then I slept for a full eight hours, and soon I will go get my hair done and head out to a casual wedding reception. I know I need this time by the level of frustration and disenchantment I have with everything right now - as a for instance, I was so tired yesterday that I thought, "Ummm, maybe I just won't go out for food and the haunted house." And then I stood outside myself and thought,"Wait, you really want to do this, you're just tired. Go!" I also know the challenge is to not turn this little 1 day break into a bad habit of not doing what I need to do.

But for today, hallelujah, I feel like I got enough sleep and I'm looking forward to the fall weather and a chance to see a few people I like, and then who knows, maybe some more sleep. Fingers crossed that getting some rest and talking to my trainer will help me find the answer to how to get my mojo back in running - who knew that losing that groove would effect me so much?!

Honesty, Part 2

Six weeks ago, as a new blogger I wrote this post about honesty with myself. I'm fundamentally very, very attached to my honesty and my ability to say what is true, even if it isn't received well by others. So I explored how that would feel if I turned that honesty on myself. It felt a little uncomfortable, but not painful. In this post I got a small taste of how others must experience me - the uncompromising high standards are probably intimidating. I guess my honesty is too. A good friend pointed out yesterday that anyone with issues probably feels a little concerned or intimidated by the fact that I am very open and honest, because they know their issues will be exposed.

It was an eye-opening conversation for me. On the one hand, I'm not going to stop being honest, but on the other hand I don't want that penchant for speaking out about hard things to be mistaken for a lack of empathy, or worse, some kind of blind spot about my own issues. I take it as a given that my issues are up for grabs too - I mean, I started a blog about them - but I also recognize that if I appear intimidating, then it's probably doesn't seem like I'm approachable on those subjects. My sister told me that when she reads my blog she feels like she's trespassing on my private diary (I reassured her that I have a journal I wrote in just for myself and I'm aware that this is published and read by others) but at the same time, writing about me isn't enough to make sure I'm just as open to being honest about me as I am about others. I have to speak it too.

I often give people the impression that I'm very open. I think this happens because I answer questions very openly. There isn't much I won't talk about in terms of theme or subject - my childhood, my dad's death, sex, you name it. I'll answer it. This often gives people a false sense of knowing me deeply and/or that I am an open book. I remember last year during my scary-but-wonderful singing class my teacher trying to help me perform with more emotional openness saying, "I don't believe this performance. You need to show me more inside." I responded saying something to the effect of I didn't know how to do that and she said, very lovingly, "But I know you! You're an expressive person when you talk. You're very emotional and open!." She wasn't wrong but what I thought was, "Yeah, you THINK you know me, but there's a lot you don't know." Because I am expressive and talk a lot about feelings and reactions, because I talk with my hands and have animated facial expressions, because there are few taboo subjects with me, people frequently get a false sense of closeness with me. I don't mean to mislead them. I'm not trying to lead people down a garden path. It's more that I give a lot up front, but conceal important truths and feelings to keep myself safe. I described this once to another student in the class as being a real estate agent showing a house. I'll invite you in, tell you to look around, invite you to enjoy the open house food I've laid out and encourage you to ask any questions you have. But I'll just conveniently leave out that the house is haunted, or some other important detail.

The need to be more honest to other people, about myself, out loud, was never more clear than when I met with my trainer yesterday. This was the first time seeing him since I saw the dietician last week. I was medically referred by my doctor after messing up my body and my eating with the diet plan that could never work for me (silly Christie, diets where people lose large amounts of weight are for other people!). I didn't think anything about going, but after getting my new eating plan from her, I wanted to share it with my trainer. I texted him as I was leaving the office and said, "Saw the dietician today! Have lots to share - looking forward to Sunday."

When I ran into my friend who also works with the same trainer, she said, "So, you saw a nutritionist?" Since I don't really know the difference between a nutritionist and a dietician I said, "Yep. I really like her." And my friend said, "Well, that's great. Just a question for you. What about (insert our trainer's name here.)" In my brain it made this noise, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." All of a sudden I realized, CRAP! I totally didn't talk about this with him! And he might want in on this to make sure we're all on the same page.

I was medically referred, yes, and there's nothing wrong with me going, but if my goals with him are weight loss, then he needs to know about my medical status and diet; just like when I met with the dietiician I brought info about my diagnosis and medications, as well as about my workouts with him. That door has to swing both ways since the goals are the same in all three consultations. I had given him the impression that everything was transparent between us by conveniently leaving out that the house was haunted, or more specifically, that I was medically compromised and that's why I needed to see someone.

Actually, being more honest about it means saying this: I changed my eating drastically without telling him or my doctor when I went on that plan. I don't have to search hard to find that the reason I did that is because I didn't want to hear cautions or reasons not to go on that plan. I wanted to focus on the 50+ pounds my friends had lost. I wanted, no I needed, to believe that that could happen to me too if I was just committed and disciplined.

My trainer said to me, "I'm not sorry you went, and it sounds like the information and structure you got is helpful. I want to talk to you more about it while we work out. But I also want to make sure you know I could have done that for you too." He thought for a minute while he was setting up kettlebells for me and finished up with, "When I got your text I was a little surprised."

I looked him straight in the eye and said, "I know. I realized that after. I'm sorry. I know you can do this too, but I need as much structure as I can get. My doctor medically referred me because I messed up in July and August. I went way too low with my calories so I lost fast and then stopped losing at all, and that's a warning sign. And my labs were awful. Ahe waved them in front of me and basically said, despite being the nicest, sweetest little Indian lady, 'what the hell are you doing? This is a mess!' I think you should be pissed, but be pissed that I changed my eating drastically then and didn't consult you. It just feels like I'm always on the extreme ends of the spectrum with my eating, and I don't know how to find the middle point on my own." That was all deeply honest, but if I was plumbing the depths of this story I would also have said this: I am a food addict, but self aware enough to know I sabotage myself. That means there's hope for me to find recovery, but it also means when I mess up I feel not just like someone out of control, but like a bad person. It's very painful for me to go through these last few months having to fee my feelings during things that are really hard in my professional and personal life, and all I want to do is buy frozen pizza and Cheezits and pull the proverbial covers up over my head. But if I do that, I'm faced with the feelings of failure and being unworthy of love. I need help. From wherever I can get it.

I think he senses what a struggle this is for me, not just the weight loss, but talking about it because what he said was very firm, but compassionate. "I wish you had told me your labs were bad. In one sense, talking with your doctor is separate, but in another sense, if I had known that I could have done things differently. You don't have to tell me about your labs and doctor's appointments but if you do we can work together better. "

I said that I wanted to share my food logs with him, and have him be involved in that. He gently said,
"You can tell me the medical doctor stuff too." He's not wrong. By leaving things out of the conversation, I wasn't dishonest, but I wasn't honest either. I was avoiding his help because I didn't want to hear that what I did was wrong, or that what I wanted wasn't possible. I didn't know that this plan wouldn't work for me, but I knew that not talking about it with him was a bad idea. So much for the idea that I'm completely open and honest when it counts.

If I want to get better, if I want to like myself more and be more worthy of my own love, I need to be willing to, as a 12 step program says, "make a fearless and searching moral inventory and quickly admit wrongs." I was wrong to pay my trainer to help me get stronger and thinner but not tell him I had changed my eating. I was wrong to not tell him when my doctor discovered my body was crashing and burning on the inside. I was wrong not to tell him that I had been referred to a dietician. I was probably also wrong to not tell him the full truth about me as I know it now and to hold back on saying, "I'm really messed up on the inside, and for the first time I see a way to try and make it better." I was wrong to let him spend the last 3.5 months thinking he knew what was going on with me, and thinking that I was being open with him. Clearly, I'm not as strong on honesty as I like to think when I can so easily leave things out of the conversation to avoid things I don't want to hear.

Yesterday was a wake up call for me. When we sat down and he looked through some of the items from the dietician he said, "Well, I would like to be involved in this stuff with you even though i know you have a plan laid out with her (the dietician) too. "

I said, "Yes, I need you to look at my food log every week. I need all the accountability I can get because I mess up and it becomes a slippery slope really quickly and then I feel like I'm failing at life."

"Well, if you want to use me for accountability, you need to tell me these things. Just sayin'"

So true. Good talk.