My favorite food is sushi. I am convinced that sushi is the most perfect food ever created. And not so long ago, I loved sushi so much that it began to mean more to me than it ever should have. I would write bad checks to the local Japanese restaurant just to get my hands on it. My favorites were the maki's. Sometimes? Sometimes I would rush home from work to order 40 pieces of maki.
With extra soy sauce, if you please. They never gave me enough.
"Oh, I really, REALLY need you to make sure there is extra soy packets in there," I'd say. "My friends all love soy sauce."
When the delivery guy would show up, I would make sure I was ready at the door with my check; just so he couldn't see inside my house. Because if he could, I reasoned, he would see that there were no friends inside.
It was just me.
They would deliver the sushi in a large, round, festively decorated plastic tray -- the kind you find in supermarket deli sections with cheese and meats. Someone artfully arranged this food with sprigs of parsley, fanned pickled ginger and dollops of wasabi. Depending on the chef working, I'd find the wasabi garnished with these odd plastic fronds. I would clear off my coffee table -- which was the perfect size for such a platter -- and gingerly set it down. I would then rush to my kitchen for a cup to dispense the soy sauce and wasabi.
Sometimes, I lost my breath in the rush.
I would start out slowly, savoring the texture of the rice and the crab meat of each piece; rejoicing when the little, translucent orange roe burst on my tongue. I would lick the remaining mixture of soy and wasabi from my lips and proceed with the next piece. Going against the grain of sushi consumption, I would nibble on some of the ginger after six pieces or so.
But then something would switch inside me. And what began as a enjoyable eating experience evolved into a race to eat as much of the colorful little rolls of fish and rice before the switch would hit back into its normal resting place and trigger me to stop. When the trigger hit, I would fall into a deep, deep sleep.
***
A few times? Maybe more than a few. A few times I would place my order and then race down the street to McDonald's to order a super-sized fry and a cherry pie before the delivery guy showed up. I would tell myself it was because I was settling in for a peaceful evening by myself with a few movies before my boyfriend got off of work, and I would eat the sushi later in the evening and have the McDonald's instead.
Usually, the fries would be gone before I'd even leave the car. I'd still eat the tray of sushi and the cherry pie would be eaten cold as I woke up from my food coma and watched my boyfriend sign off from his post on the sports desk after the 10 o'clock news was over. Minutes before he could catch me in the act.
***
Sushi was my drug of choice, but anything would substitute in a pinch. Or if I hadn't covered the bounced check to the Japanese restaurant.
[Funny, they would let me slide a few times because I would always come in and pay the bounced checks. I'm sure I was their best customer. They went out of business not much longer after I moved to Chicago.]
The Italian place in my neighborhood served the best Italian beef I have ever had -- soft, warm, foot-long Italian bread split open and filled to the brim with spicy, tender cuts of beef, drenched in au jus then topped with layers of creamy mozzarella.
If I had a hankering for fried food, the Hardee's down the street beckoned me with a pound of beef on a sourdough roll, topped with bacon, swiss cheese, and sauce. For my sides, I would choose large fries, fried apple nuggets, and a small order of Chicken Stars for the drive home.
If I had no cash -- which was often -- I would drive the block over to the grocery store and load up on frozen chicken patties, chips, and fries. First I would always have to peek behind the cashier's lane, though, to see if I was on their "Bad Check" list.
I didn't wonder, you know, why I gained weight.
***
I was in a bad way. It was 1999. I should have left my college town when my friends had, a year earlier, but I wasn't done with school and I had a job as a newspaper reporter. And while it had been the best job I'd ever had -- for three years -- the last year I was there was torture. Mostly because I hated myself, though I didn't know it at the time.
I was broke -- living beyond my means and allowing bills to pile up all around me. I was in a bad relationship -- one which should not have had to be remembered that way, had we only hit the brakes as soon as it took off. Only a year earlier, I had my heart stomped upon by the first man I had truly ever loved and had pinned everything onto him, only to watch all of my future plans crumble to bits when I learned he had slept with someone else.
These aren't the reasons I ate. Gorged. These things that happened were just parts of my life that caused me sorrow and pain; I ate because I have never liked sorrow and pain and for as long as I can remember, when something hurt -- ached -- I filled the void with food.
But see, when I was little? And someone was there to watch me? I couldn't eat for as long or with such avarice as I could when I was older and by myself. Had I my way -- when I was 13 and in my bedroom reading my books and putting away candy bar after candy bar that I SHOULD have been selling to people for school -- I would have kept going. I was just stopped from eating. The longing remained.
***
A funny thing happened. I went home. I mean, in June of 1999, my sister called me and said a friend of hers had a job lead at a publishing house in the suburbs of Chicago and they both felt it perfect for me, and I went home.
It meant leaving reporting, but at that point I had decided that I hated to write, hated reporting, and just wanted home.
I got the job. I left my college town. The boyfriend I was with had already accepted a job as a sports anchor in a completely different time zone -- there was no reason to stay.
As soon as I returned, I knew it was time. It was time to pull myself together. I had a second chance. Little by little, I got rid of the debt, owed up to the lying and the pain and the sadness and let some light back in.
I even broke up with the boyfriend five months later.
***
When I decided to start working out, it had been two years and I tried to approach it in the same manner as I had from where I left off. And I failed. So I stopped. But then I tried again.
Soon, the "starts" outnumbered the "stops" and I worked out with some regularity.
Eventually, I began paying attention to what I ate and ate less of whatever went into my mouth. But I was so hungry. So very, very hungry. I just wanted to keep eating and eating. After all, "eating and eating" was how I always ate. And sometimes I did. Most times, though, I would remember how eating this way got me into my original mess.
And somehow, I stopped.
***
At the LTBuddha Notify List forum/blog, a member brought up how hard it is to learn to eat smaller portions. She said she "just gets bored and hungry and wants to eat." She asked us if any of us had such an issue and if so, how do we deal with it?
The reasons for overeating are different for everyone. The sad fact for me was that I ate because I was depressed and refused to feel that depression. Overeating was a tool I picked up on at an early age and instead of remaining a part of my childhood, it became a part of my adulthood as well. For the overeating to stop, I had to become sick of the aspects of my life that had nothing to do with the physical act of eating. My eating disorder only ceased when the rest of my life found order.
As soon as money no longer plagued my every thought; as soon as I no longer had an unhealthy relationship; as soon as I began to live my life truthfully and honestly did I find myself not eating to the point of exhaustion. Even more to the point, I began to unclutter my life and was able to see that I had been eating to fill a void and to numb the pain. It has taken me three years.
***
I have lost and gained weight since 1999. I have had new lovers. I have switched jobs. I have gone through panic attacks, started school, moved, made more money. And little by little, I began to realize that by virtue of all my tiny steps toward good health, in conjunction with addressing my long-harbored demons, did I understand that I no longer needed food to get me through. I could never just consciously decide that I would only eat healthy and in small amounts. It just happened over time.
The fact that I can now eat a regulated portion in a sitting and not eat until the point that I feel that pants-busting fullness does not phase me. I don't feel the need to eat more and if I do, I just eat. My emotions still set me off and there have been times where I just want to sit down and go fucking balls-out on some party-sized tray of California rolls. But I don't. I just don't. I don't go rush off to the gym, or write something, or drink tea, or play Parchessi, or whatever the fuck it is that all those diet articles tell you to do when an emotional alarm inside of you goes off and prompts you to eat your feelings away.
But I don't let my emotions just sit idle, either.
***
I've never told anyone about those days until now. In fact, I just told Erik so he wouldn't be too shocked if he read this post. Like all Fat People know, Fat People Don't Eat In Front of People. It's all a secret. I just don't live secretly anymore.
***
Like I said, people have a hard time controlling their eating for a multitude of different reasons. I certainly don't presume that the reason I had such a hard time controlling my eating in the beginning is the same as, say, the member of the LTB list who posted her situation. Not at all. But I think the commonality in all overeating situations is that stopping is so very hard. It is not as easy as the experts would like you to believe.
Sometimes you have to jump emotional hurdles. Sometimes you have to just learn that your body and brain work on a 20-minute delay. For some, it's a matter of breaking away from old habits learned growing up -- I believe they call it the "Clean Plate Syndrome."
No matter what the reason, you're really not alone.
***
I updated the pictures, too.
posted by Erin S on Thursday, December 12, 2002
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Wednesday, December 11, 2002
I've lost more weight.
According to WW, I've lost seven pounds in three weeks. This? This astounds me. I kind of knew I had lost a total of seven pounds before the weigh-in last night, but it seemed more official at WW.
It astounds me because I haven't been starving myself or denying myself anything. It astounds me because I haven't worked out to the capacity I had been for the past few months. It astounds me because I haven't lost this much weight this quickly in forever. It took me more than a year to lose the first 20, if you'll remember me saying.
The overwhelming amount of guilt I have felt for not working out as strenuously as I had been as subsided. I know that the portions I'm eating and the amount I'm working out are working for me. However, I AM starting my Wednesday night Spin class again tonight since classes are done for the semester. I can't help it -- I love Spinning. It would be good for me to get back in the habit of going a couple of times a week in conjunction with everything else.
And hey -- we got the weight bench for the workout room last night and we pick up the weights this weekend.
***
It's awfully presumptuous of me to have the following thought, seeing as how seven pounds isn't a huge number in the grand scheme, but I had it. Couldn't help that I had it.
Last night, after having been weighed in, it occurred to me that if I keep at this -- and I don't see the slightest reason as to why I wouldn't -- I could actually be thin. I have been "thinner than I am," or "thinner than last year" or "thin for me" but never thin. It dawned on me as a real possibility for the first time in my life. And all of a sudden ...
It felt scary.
It freaked me out. I tried explaining this to Erik -- he who has only recently put on weight and was thin up until his early thirties. He didn't understand what I was talking about or where I was coming from. And that was OK. It's hard to explain to someone who has spent most of his whole life identifying himself as a "thin person" to know how odd a concept that being a thin person might present itself to someone who has always been overweight.
I wasn't "panic attack" freaking out. I got this mental image of myself and how I would look thin -- not skinny, thin -- and I didn't recognize myself. Not at all. I know it sounds strange, but every time I've imagined myself thin, it was simply thinner. And thin is not who I am. I am the girl with the self-depricating remarks about her belly. I am The Funny One. The Smart One. I am the woman who sounds her barbaric yawp from up-on-high about how looks and body should not be of any importance.
I am not the girl with the small waist and flat belly. I am not the girl who wears a size 8. Or 6! Or 4! I am not the girl who wears a two-piece bathing suit. I am not the girl who runs 5K's on weekends.
But I may be becoming her after all.
This is the first time I've ever set out to lose weight and get in shape that it's starting to seem doable. It seems plausible and not a temporary thing I'm doing. I've obviously been thinner than I am now, but it feels like I'm actually transforming. I'm adopting a new lifestyle. It's all starting to sink in, I guess. I'm becoming accustomed to working out four- to five-times-a-week. I'm grown used to not eating junk food all of the time. I've long ago stopped eating until the point where I couldn't breathe anymore.
I'm certain that when I lose more weight I will remain The Funny One. The Smart One. I will still pontificate on how low-rise "Cooterpants" have no business being sold, let alone worn because the average woman can't even hope to wear them with her curves and all. But I know that I will be different. I won't look like the me I've been looking at for 26 years. I won't be able to resort to making fun of my ample belly when I'm in a nervous situation. None of this discourages me or makes me want to stop and sabotage what I've acomplished so far. Not at all.
Losing weight is just a little scary for once. A good scary, but scary nonetheless.
posted by Erin S on Wednesday, December 11, 2002
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Sunday, December 08, 2002
I updated the exercise blog. No shit.
I'm still thinking of something for the food bit, but unless you speak WW it may not mean anything to you.
I may go back to Fit Day diary, but that means logging my food into TWO online food journals -- I have one with WW that's pretty handy -- and that just seems more obsessive and if you'll read the below post, you'll see I'm trying to avoid such insanity.
I really need to go make dinner ... damn computer. This will teach me to never go so long without writing people back, updating my site, etc., for so long ever again. Good God.
posted by Erin S on Sunday, December 08, 2002
