Determined To Succeed

Day Thirty-three.

Well, here we are again. We reached the end of another week and, as usual, my brain is toast.  Overall, it’s been a pretty good week except I am desperately trying to shed these remaining, stubborn-ass pounds. I don’t like being up in my weight but am looking forward to my martial arts workout today as I continue on my path toward better health (and a lighter weight).

There are a number of factors that have gone into my recent weight gain but ultimately what made me gain weight back was my eating, my soda drinking, my dessert eating, my snack binging and my non-portion controlling. That’s all it is, plain and simple, and I freely and willingly admit to it. I have always emotionally eaten and thanks to some good old-fashioned therapy I am finding out exactly why. Shame.

It’s amazing what we do to abuse ourselves out of shame. Some people lash out at the world while others, like me, try to hide it all and stuff it down to lock it away using things like food. Wow. I never realized how much I had packed away down there until I started opening up the boxes and seeing what there was inside.

I know I’ve told you guys about not having much money growing up, and because of that my mom and I frequently didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. But what I didn’t tell you about was the shame that caused. It caused shame because I could never have friends over to my place, and even if I did (which I would never have) I didn’t have what other homes had – video games, a VCR (yes, it was the 80’s after all) or even a color TV. I know my mom did the best for me she could and loved me very much but those things, combined with the almost constant verbal abuse spouted by kids (hey fatty, Buffalo Bill, etc.) made me just want to go hide. What it ended up doing, though, is creating someone who falsely depended on food to mask his pain and toxic shame.

Food was my solace. It was my way out and my drug of choice back then to make the world go away for a precious little while. And when it was Chinese food from my favorite place, Lung Wah Chop Suey on 53rd Street, I was in self-medicated heaven. Their egg rolls still have their taste etched onto the permanent memory of my taste buds, and the beef chop suey such a comfort that any place that serves a beef chop suey today has a special place in my heart.

That is what shame can do, and my over 400 pounds is what stuffing all that shame down with food can do.

Today is the start of the weekend and, as you regular readers know (and thank you for being out there) I worry about the weekends because I tend to let go a little more than I should. But I am so trying, especially now that I am better than I have ever been in my life, to purge the bad and dark energies and karma in my life to get to the real me again. And yes, it will be a me, in part, that is at or around 225 pounds.

I know I’ve told you all before that you can do it but I need to say today that you do need to get down to why you are really eating to do it. Are you sad, lonely, depressed, angry, upset, foolish, in denial, happy or tense? Dare I say there is an emotional reason deeply rooted in you that is causing you to act out and eat. This may all be conjecture on my part and certainly doesn’t take into account those of you out there who suffer from a medical condition that makes you gain and/or doesn’t allow you to lose weight, but I’d be willing to guess that for most of us we are masking something deep down that is the root cause of our eating.

My friends, it is time to be brave and address what is really going on inside. We spend so much of our lives trying to hide these things that we end up putting so much pressure on ourselves just to maintain the ruse. You are worth more than that, believe me, you are. And I am sure that whatever is causing you to feel shame, guilt, remorse, anger, fear, regret, all of it, once found can actually help you see why that cheeseburger doesn’t taste as good as you think it does.

In my life’s journey, and in my weight loss journey, I have discovered many things. But most of all, through trials and a helluva lot of errors, I’ve found that I am worth it as a person to be healthier and to live a long and happy life. We all need food to survive, and we should all enjoy the foods we eat because they are good and part of life’s most wonderful experiences. But food is not a drug and should never be used as one. We should not need it to be because, in the end, we must not let whatever feelings we truly have buried bury us for real.

Today is Friday, the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day. Go out and enjoy it and this amazing weekend. And if you have to work, have a multitude of errands to run or are going through something in your lives take heart. There is someone out here who understands and who understands the why and how of weight gain and loss. And who, like you, wants to truly get better about taking care of the one person we should always take care of first and foremost – ourselves.