Hunger

I've never known hunger. Not real hunger anyway. The kind of hunger that doesn't know where the next meal is coming from. The hunger that feeds on itself until the bones show. I'm lucky that way. I've never had to worry where my next meal is coming from.

This type of hunger seems rare in America. We have government assistance for people who don't have the money to buy food. No one should rightfully go hungry and yet they do. I like to complain about the things that go wrong in my life. One of the big issues I deal with being my proclivity to overeat. Lately I seem to let myself get very hungry before I eat. This has left me to wonder, how would I feel if I didn't have food or the means to buy food? The hunger is often so strong I think it will consume me. But 30 minutes later I'm eating and then I'm full and the hunger is sated.

Tonight the man at the deli at Shop N Save asked me if I'm "the girl that writes that healthy article" after I ordered my muenster cheese. I don't know his name, though I've read his nametag before and promised to remember. He is the one who always smiles when he sees me and says, "It's good to see you" and "Have a blessed day". He has every reason to be miserable(by my estimation). Customers are rude, impatient and crabby. But I've never heard him complain. I think about Angela, the beautiful African American woman who has worked behind the deli counter for years, her hair parted down the middle and wrapped into braids. I think of all the times she has smiled, told me about her grandbabies and brightened my life with her kindness. I frequently see her waiting on the bench in front of the store waiting for a ride home. She doesn't have a car. She never complains. There are countless others who wait on me, people I love that work at that store. I go there practically every day to pick up something or other. Not all of them smile. I believe some if not most have their share of suffering. And while they may not be hungry for food, I know they hunger for more...more money, more security, more hope. I suppose it is the human condition to hunger in some fashion or another.

We all want more. What we have is never enough. And certainly my life has taken its share of twists and turns and I am currently not where I want to be. But today I realized I really don't have any problems at all. I have a house, heat, healthy children and a good job. And, I have food to eat. All the food I could ever want. I don't know what it is to be in want, much less need. Certainly my life isn't perfect but compared to some, I am extremely wealthy. God forgive me for complaining.

I'm no quitter

I recently finished a book titled, "Thin Wire: A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Heroin Addiction." I feel a little obsessed about heroin addiction but it seems the closest thing to my food addiction. This book was written by mother and daughter and seemed more of a "How not to treat a heroin addict". But it was their words and their story and they lived it so who am I to judge? The reason I really like reading those kinds of books is that when someone is writing about their own addiction, it usually means they survived. And heroin is a killer. I think it took great courage for Christine Lewry to write that story. Because she was definitely an enabler. But she never gave up on her daughter. That kind of love is amazing.

Christine's daughter Amber says at one point, "Drug addiction is no-one's fault but your own. No one makes you a heroin addict; it's always your own decision-that's the first thing I have to admit to myself."

Amber also talks a lot about the pain in her life and how heroin is a numbing agent to that pain. Each time she would detox and get clean for a while her emotions would come rushing in. It was very painful. It was part of the reason she relapsed, though she never said so in so many words. There is no doubt about it, pain is difficult to deal with and we all have our own ways of coping.

Amber was able to finally sever the ties from the people she did drugs with. It was the only way to stay clean. If she hung out with people who did heroin, she was unable to resist, even though she still thought about it a lot. I think about food a lot but I can never escape it. I am constantly bombarded with flashy advertising. A simple trip through the grocery store can set me on edge if I'm the least bit hungry or sad. Tonight it was donuts and I resisted, even though my middle son cried all the way out to the car. Yesterday it was Easter candy and I buckled and ate way too much. I ate it to numb the stress and pain of the day. And it worked. Sugar works for me which is why I return to it over and over and over again. The difference between sugar and heroin is that one is socially acceptable and the other is not. Both kill in high quantites. Both are poison.

I write this blog because I am not always strong. I write because I have to encourage myself to keep trying to take care of my mind and body. I write because I want to encourage others who struggle with food and mood. And I'm not going to give up just because I had one bad day or week or month. I'm going to keep relapsing and sobering up because that's who I am. And even though I am flawed and broken, I am me and nobody else. And I love me too much to give up the fight.

Dealing with Inevitable Regret

There are days when regret grabs me by the throat and chokes the stuffing out of me. Once I catch my breath I stare into the quiet and sigh. I remember when I was 18 and my father said, "I don't want you to have any regrets." A nice sentiment, but completely impractical. I wish someone had given me guidance instead on how to deal with regret. But here I stand with 20 years of experience since that moment and a mountain of regret. Is a regret free life really possible?

Hindsight is 20/20, but if we could make every decision with full knowledge of the past and the future would we still choose wisely? It depends on the decision of course and our mentality at the given moment. Study any disgraced politician who has been tarnished by scandal. They might say they wish they could go back in time and undo the damage, but when faced with the beautiful woman and her ample cleavage, would they make the right choice? Sometimes we are simply overwhelmed by temptation and caught in the snare. This is the human condition. We are all imperfect creatures.

So what can we do about it? Do we sit and pout? Do we cry and throw a pity party and wallow in our misery? Well, we can. But if we choose that option we will never escape our misery. I have learned that facing my mistakes is the better option. When I take that path I find peace of mind even if I will forever live with the consequences of my actions. Besides, what better way is there to learn than to fail?

I am weak-willed. When faced with a challenge I inevitably choose the easiest course of action. To that end I find myself facing middle age far from where I hoped to be in life. Lately I find myself moping inwardly and wishing I had made better choices earlier in my life. I wish I had a college degree. I wish I had taken better care of my body. I wish, I wish, I wish. As my mother used to say, "If wishes were horses we'd all be riders." The decisions I made in my late teens and early twenties resound through my daily life. Those decisions didn't seem to matter then, but they sure matter now. And I can't change them.

So what do I do about it?

I think I start by forgiving myself. I was at a different place in my journey then. I need to stop holding a grudge. Hating myself is not productive. I need to determine what I can do today to live my life the way I want to live it. And then I need to stop concentrating on my failures and focus on the things I'm most proud of. These are big challenges but the longer I put them off, the more I prolong my suffering.

I grieve my past but I cherish my future. Even if I only have today, today is what I make of it. Why not go out and make it wonderful?

Even if today, wonderful is simply holding my head high and refusing to cry over past decisions.

Today a woman at work who recently found out she was pregnant confided in me that at her first ultrasound they found a very large mass on her ovary that is not a simple cyst and has the very real possibility of ending her life. She is 3 years younger than me. Suddenly my problems don't seem like real problems at all.

Body Image, Behavior and our Ancestral Ties

Each of us carries the history of our family in our blood. Our skin and bones bear witness to our roots in a way words never will. I read the facial expressions of my children and see their cousins, my sister's children. Little noses. The curl of their lips. Their eyes when they smile. Pictures don't capture the soul but our brains record the movement, documenting and purging by the hour. I am frequently tickled and frustrated by their behavior. And then I wonder, who do people see when they look at me?

I remember walking into a school function some years back and running into one of my dad's cousins. I didn't know him or his wife but they laughed when they said, "Margaret, you look just like your mother." I was familiar and it made me feel warm to know I belonged to someone.

If we can't escape the genes of the people we were born to, can we dodge the habits and thought processes we have picked up while living with them? For instance, I remember my mother having great disdain for people who were late. She often said tardiness was rude. For that reason I will always struggle with guilt when I am late. It pushes me to be timely. As it relates to food, she would encourage us to eat fruit instead of chips or cookies. For that reason when I think snack, I think apple or orange. I am passing this practice on to my children. As I learn about nutrition I know my growing boys need protein and carbohydrates so I offer them nuts and cheese and fresh homemade bread. And then I wonder, what attitudes and behaviors am I passing down to them? Children are like little sponges, soaking up everything we toss their way.

I frequently discuss parenting with my friends and there is always a prominent theme: we all feel inept to teach when we feel so incompetent at managing our own lives. And yet we go about teaching, whether we want to or not. Our behaviors today are the attitudes of our children tomorrow. In much the same way they will pass on my behavior to their own children, should they choose to have any.

At last I arrive at the place where I want to make my point. So often we make the mistake of comparing our bodies to those of our family members. We seek out the familiarity of those we resemble. Normally that is a good and healthy thing. But I think we make a mistake if we don't take responsibility for our individuality. It is wrong to embrace the flaws of our ancestors insomuch as we refuse to acknowledge them as flaws. For example, knowing everyone in our family has a history of obesity should not lead us to the conclusion that we have no choice but to follow in that tradition. We are individually responsible for our behavior. Just because my parent taught me, consciously or unconsciously, to take comfort in double fudge brownies when I am sad, doesn't mean I need to carry on that tradition. It may be easier to point out attitudinal flaws like judgmentalism or racism, for example. But that does not negate the flawed logic of embracing food as comfort simply because it is a learned behavior. We need to see our attitudes, behaviors and physical traits for what they are outside of our family ties all the while loving and respecting those who share our genetic similarities. We also need to realize we are all on our individual paths and some are farther down the road than others.

I often make the mistake of comparing myself to other women. Maybe it's a woman thing. I will think, "She is prettier than me. She has smaller hips and perfectly proportioned legs while I'm stuck in stumpy leg land. It's not fair that my genes are against me and my metabolism is slow." I have to consciously practice changing my attitude. First, because my outer appearance does not define who I am inside, but more importantly because I am Margaret and no one else. I am responsible for my body, my attitude, my behavior. And while it is difficult to challenge deeply ingrained behavior, I have found great joy in discovering who I am outside the realm of my ancestors. But only insomuch as it sets me free from their flaws. I am perfectly content to love and cherish all of my inherited perfections.

Today I am thankful for my mother's face and my father's heart. I am hopeful that I will pass some measure of the love they have bestowed on me to my own children. After all, love is the greatest inheritance we can receive or give.

More on how I lost the weight and keep it off

I have several friends who have recently begun journeys to better health. One is having immense success in the midst of great personal trauma. The other met with her new doctor yesterday. I watch from the sidelines giddy with hope and filled with fear. Will they succeed? What can I do to contribute to that success? How do I best encourage them when I know the stakes and the uphill battle they fight. They are at the bottom of the hill, getting ready to charge the enemy. Will they duck and cover or will they take their bayonet and go for the guts?

It leads me to question my own journey(again) and how I got to where I am today. I ask myself why I have succeeded when so many fail. What have I learned that I can share with others? Or in the words of my boss, what is it about my journey that "makes me so remarkable?"

I want to be completely honest, I don't feel remarkable. I don't even feel special. If anything, I feel amazed. My weight loss is amazing because managing my body never ceases to be a struggle. That is why magic pills don't work. I am constantly adapting to my cravings and coming up with new ways to circumvent my desire to eat. Many times I lose the battle but I never stop fighting the war. Fail today, endeavor to succeed tomorrow. I suppose this is what inevitably makes me successful, the fact that I refuse to give up.

I had lunch with a co-worker yesterday, someone I respect a great deal. He asked me, "So, why are you successful?" Here's what I said.

I have to address the reasons why I eat. This means doing the dirty work of getting to know myself intimately. Know thy enemy. For instance, I know that I love to eat for the simple pleasure of eating. Food tastes good. Also, I like to eat when I feel physically bad(I've gained 6 pounds being sick this week). I eat when stressed out to calm down. It relaxes me. I have known about these desires for many years but refused to do anything about them. In all honesty, I had learned to accept the fact that I would never be thin because I "knew" I could never live without the foods I loved. I made the food more important than my physical health. And the sad thing is, the more I ate, the more dead inside I felt. That is why I call food addiction a lie. It never made me happy. Knowing all of that, how did I go about fighting back?

Education.

First I read about other people who had lost weight and managed to keep it off. Not Weight Watcher people(though I am not against WW), I just wanted to know if there was a way to not go on a diet, but to learn how to still eat AND lose weight. I began to read books about nutrition and the way chemical compositions affect the body. As I learned, I had little light bulb moments. "Oh, so that's why I can't stop eating candy!" or "Wow, there's that many calories in French fries?"

But I liked French fries. How do I stop eating them?

I made a choice. I liked French fries, but I really wanted to lose weight. In the beginning I allowed myself the occasional diversion to eat the things I really wanted to eat, like French fries. I even learned how to bake sweet potato fries in the oven and discovered something I like more than traditional French fries. OMG! YUM! I closed the door on many things I used to love to eat and learned there was a whole host of foods I could enjoy that didn't have as many calories, were actually good for me(fresh spinach!), and re-learned how to make things like pizza in a healthy way. This continues to evolve today.

Portion control

This is the one thing I will always struggle with. I don't like to stop eating. I call it my "feeding frenzy." I have to make a very deliberate choice to put small portions on my plate and not go back for seconds if I want to lose weight. Is it difficult? Yes. Is it impossible? No. Is it my favorite thing? No. But I have to do it to keep the weight off. It is the one truly difficult part of maintaining my weight loss.

Exercise

I know now that people can lose weight without exercise but I didn't know that in the beginning. So I just made myself do it. I didn't want to. It felt a little bit like a root canal, necessary but not wholly enjoyable. It was not fun for a very long time. It was something I just had to get through. I looked at it like taking medicine. I'm sick and I want to feel better. So I must walk 30 minutes a day. I will be glad when it is over but I'm going to make myself do it. End of story. I still marvel at how I slowly fell in love with exercise. I remember what it felt like in the beginning. It sucked. But now, on most days, I really love moving. I love how I feel while doing it and I love how I feel when I'm done. I learned this from experience, not from a book. I think this is how we all learn best, personal experience. But you'll never learn if you never try.

Today I am rooting for my friends. I am hoping and praying for their success. I hope they find satisfaction when they reach their destination, but also in the journey. I know that I feel better since I lost the weight and I know they will too. Not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually. Because losing weight does not fundamentally change who you are inside, but there are many wonderful blessings that grow out of that bitter, hard ground…things like self-confidence, tenacity and self-love. And those qualities are even more wonderful than fitting into your goal dress.