Have you ever thought of yourself as having “an attitude”? You know, one of those attitudes that puts a nasty, sarcastic tone in your voice? I like to think I don’t get “attitude” with others, although Hubs tells me I do. The attitude that I’m more concerned about right now is the attitude that I have with myself. I think it is one of the reasons I’ve been over-weight since I was about 8.
Let me give you some background. I apologize now if this entry ends up being TMI. My birth weight was only 5 lbs,3 oz., and there was a note on my birth chart where the doc said to watch me closely because I was very small. (I think my birth-mother was a smoker which may account for low birth-weight.) Once I started eating however, I always had a very healthy appetite. With the exception of my newborn photos, I appear very chubby in every baby picture ever taken of me.
I matured physically very quickly, and by the time I was in school, I was the tallest in my class. I can remember that in grades 2-3-4-5 and even 6, we had class photos taken and we were lined up by height. I was always the tallest in my class. By the time I was 11, I was taller and heavier than my mother. I was over 5’ tall in 6th grade. After that, I stopped getting taller and everyone else kept going. I am 5’ 2” now. Even after I was no longer the tallest, I was always the heaviest. When I was in high school, there was only 1 person I knew who was heavier than I was. I’m not sure when I topped 200#, but I think it was early in college. I can remember going to a doctor and being put on a diet of 2000 calories a day. I did that for a summer and lost 17 pounds which took me down to 200. Once I went back to college, there was no way I was going to weigh my food and count calories, so I gave that up.
Here’s where the attitude thing comes in. One thing I remember very clearly about myself in my early years was that I always felt a strong sense of entitlement when it came to food. It was one of those “I can eat what I want to and you can’t stop me.” sort of things. I know I always felt like I was constantly being told by others what to do, and this was one thing that I wasn’t going to let anyone else control - damn it! If I want to eat an entire sleeve of girl scout cookies in one sitting, I can because I deserve them! Eventually, when my mother started trying to tell me not to eat so much, I started sneaking food. That will teach her!
So, it was about control and about entitlement. As I entered my adult years, I used food to reward myself for accomplishments. I deserved a treat because I did well at something. Maybe I got an A in a grad class paper or maybe I was complimented at school for something I did well. I know this makes no logical sense, but I used food to make myself feel better when I felt bad about the way I looked. I would complain about being fat, and not being able to wear clothes I wanted to wear, and then I would drown my sorrows in crap food - chips, cookies, Mountain Dew. I can’t even tell you how much Mountain Dew I drank in college!
When I look back on it, I realize I was a food addict. Being a food addict is worse than other addictions because you can’t just stop eating cold-turkey like you can stop drinking or smoking or doing drugs. You still have to eat, and you have to be around food all the time because it is everywhere in our culture. Then if you don’t limit your intake of the food that surrounds you, you are made to feel like a failure because you don’t have any will-power. So, then you eat because you feel like a failure!
The other attitude thing I had going on was the one where I said even though I am over-weight, I’m still “healthy” because I can move the way I want and need to move. I played tennis, I played golf. I was agile and could get down on the floor and back up again with no problems. Really until I turned 40, I didn’t have any specific physical ailments that I could blame on being over-weight. I didn’t feel inhibited by my weight = therefore, I was healthy, so it was ok.
Once I hit my 40s the physical problems started. There was the sleep-apnea, then the need for thyroid meds, and then came the cholesterol and blood pressure medicine. Next came the type 2 Diabetes, and then of course, the knee replacement surgery. Most recently, I’ve been diagnosed with degenerative spondylolisthesis - a condition of the mis-alignment of the lower vertebra of the spine. Even though it is common and not necessarily weight related, it is certainly exacerbated by carrying excessive weight.
And so with this Odyssey comes the need for a new attitude. I remember once I was watching a show on TV where someone was being profiled who had lost a lot of weight. One thing she said really made an impression on me. She said she realized she was digging her own grave with a fork. For some reason that stuck with me. I realized this summer when my back issue started that I have to stop living to eat and start eating to live. I need to stop poisoning my own body. It is self-harm just as much as taking drugs or cutting or any other form of physical self-abuse. So I have to stop thinking about how much food I deserve and start thinking about how much I deserve to be healthy. I deserve more than abusing myself with food just because I can. I’ve proven that I can control my over-eating, now I have to prove that I can also control my correct eating.
At last week’s Weight Watchers meeting, one of the other ladies in the group said that she feels she has very little control over much of her life, but she knows that what she eats is the one thing she CAN control. That’s true. We can control what we put in our mouths, and no one else can do it for us.
I know that for me, this tracking of food on the WW App is working. I know that I really CAN control my eating and do it in healthy ways. Sometimes the old entitlement attitude starts to creep in, but I’ve managed to keep it at bay. I just keep telling myself “I deserve to be as healthy as I can be!”
Thanks for letting me share my Odyssey with you. I guarantee I have more to say on the topic, so stay tuned!
:)Amy
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