Ghost Food Realization

So now we are well on our way on our journey from welter weight to wellness. We began at a whopping 277, hovered around there for a while until we finally decided there was no use trying to start out anywhere else but here because that was the only place we could start, and ventured down the flying monkey ridden tarnished yellow brick road of diet and exercise.
In my general frustration with diet programs and fitness gurus (not to mention constant state of perpetual brokedom) I had decided to do this right. I was not going to subscribe to some program only to watch my hard lost weight com slinking back the moment I turned thought I was done. I was going to do my own homework this time and find The Cure. I was going to do everything everyone prescribed to get my metabolism going, and follow all the prescriptions for eating minimal calories, and I was going to be thin and nothing would stop me from getting there and staying there.
And by gum, four months into the plan, I'd already lost 35 pounds. 35 pounds! That was more than most people ever have to lose in one go, and I had done it in a measly third of a year! As I entered into month 5 I knew in my heart I was going to exit it at least ten pounds lighter. Ha ha! Perhaps 15! Or 20! I was unstoppable! I was invincible! I was stuck. That's right. One whole week nothing had budged. I had done just as much exercise as usual, by this time a long evening walk with some trampolining mixed in during the week.
I had not over eaten. No really. I was eating the exact same things I always ate.
Another week passed.
I was still the same size. I would have to eat celery for the rest of the month if I wanted to make my 10 pound goal now. There must be something wrong with my metabolism.
I went to the health food store. I got a bunch of "supplements" which looked a lot like "pills" but couldn't be because they came from the health store and smelled like catnip. They came with a little diet book full of things I wasn't supposed to eat in order to "detox" and get my metabolic ship back on an even keel. Not to mention starve for a week.
And then the third week nothing happened.
I went back to the store.
I got something called "the Master Cleanse." Which involved lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for a full two weeks.
I lost one pound the first week and gained it back the next.
I knew I had a tumor. Maybe I was gaining water weight. Maybe I was doing too much exercise and gaining muscle.
I went back on Google. I found an article by one of the Biggest Loser trainers. It did not suggest I'd added a lot of muscle, or was retaining the Mediterranean Sea, or even that I had a tumor the size of a small island nation.
It suggested something I have since decided to call, ghost food. All those foods we eat which Do Not Contain Calories by virtue of the fact that they do not really exist. They do not exist, of course, because we eat them while standing in front of the fridge in the form of a nibble or a bite. Perhaps they do not exist because they are in liquid form, like the famously calorie free pumpkin spice latte. Or because they are good for us. Everyone knows salads have no calories, and that little bit of blue cheese? Only balanced out by the fact that we just ate a salad, so are now at zero balance.
The article suggested I write down everything I ate.
I put it all in my blackberry calendar.
So every time I found myself in front of the fridge with just a slice of apple or a sip of low calorie soy milk or a spoon full of yogurt poised and ready to enter my mouth I had to whip out the calendar and write it down. Which meant putting the stuff down. And thinking about how many calories the tiny morsel contained.
And doing some quick math in my head.
And generally putting the spoonful back down before I hurt myself.
I lost 3 pounds that week.
I also felt like some sort of hapless glutton. This, I realized was where I had gone wrong all along. All those years, and I could suddenly see them stretching out behind me, year after year, trips to the fridge, stops at the 7/11 or the ice cream store or the Starbucks or whatever. All those times the food I'd been eating wasn't food at all because I'd eaten it where no one could see, on the road somewhere, in the middle of the night standing at the fridge, out of the carton. It hadn't, in my mind been really food at all.
And now, as if they were old soldiers standing at attention, I saw them: the candy bars, the ice cream sandwiches, the beer, wine, martinis, the whipped cream from the can, the last slice of yesterday's pizza I had because it wouldn't be enough for a whole meal and neither were the 2 doughnuts I'd picked up at the AMPM but the two together would just about be enough as long as I finished off the meal with a salad and some garlic bread after.
Suddenly I realized that I did not have a slow metabolism. I had never had a thyroid problem. I didn't retain 130 pounds of water and there was no amount of muscle mass that would get me into as size 24W. It was a sudden, painful burst of reality.
Society, our American fast food culture, hormones, genetics, all these things surely played a role in my weight gain; had I been 20 or 30 pounds overweight I may have even been able to hold those things totally accountable.
But no. 130 pounds were 130 pounds. And those were pounds that Evan down at the 7/11 with his display of Drumsticks and cheesy burritos did not actually Cause me to gain. The cause had been the fact that I, myself had put the drum sticks and the burritos into my very, very delighted mouth.
I was responsible. I was guilty. I was completely ashamed of myself.
And now that I was unable to solve the problem by going to the fridge and poking my finger into some non existent, calorie free peanut butter, and filling a napkin (not a plate, plates contain caloric foods) with grapes (which, have the advantage of being healthy are thereby non-calorie bearing), I had to instead sit down and examine the problem. Or rather walk around with two rambunctious, barely leash trained dogs thinking about the problem.
And I did. I reasoned that I was going to have to face reality and hold myself accountable for all those years I'd abused my body. All the things I'd put in it to soothe my mind which then had wrought havoc on my body and brought unrest to my soul. I would have to see that I had done this to myself.
The shame and self loathing made me want to eat. I had been so out of control, so lacking in discipline that I had almost killed myself - for that is what is meant by "morbid obesity," endangered of death by weight related health problems- with food I didn't even realize I was eating.
And now I really needed a piece of cake.
And maybe a martini.
Probably ice cream, too.

Fortunately I live in a town where the nearest supermarket is a 3 mile drive away. I had to really want that cake and ice cream. And I was in the middle of a walk that would take half an hour just to get home from. So all I could do was carry on walking and thinking and stewing in my own guilt and shame.
I started to cry. Because I had so mistreated myself, and because I had been so mistreated by the very person who should have taken care of me: me.
I had had so little love for myself, so little respect for myself that I had not been able to take time to make a meal, had not seen myself as worth the effort of cooking nor the time of shopping or the care it took to get out and find something active I would enjoy doing.
I had been sorely hurt. And at my own hands.
It would be a matter of months before I came to the life altering conclusion about how I really needed to feel about my hand in my own demise. There were months when I felt ashamed and had to focus on how I was going to "shape up my act" now I was fitter.
It wasn't until I was nearly finished with my weight loss that I finally decided what I really felt and needed to feel about what I had done to myself:
I needed to feel sorry, just as I would if I had done wrong to anyone else.
I needed to look myself in the eye and apologize. Not for over eating. Not for being lazy, or gluttonous or any of those things I'd spent the better part of a lifetime accusing myself of being.
I needed to be sorry for not loving myself enough to do for me what I would do, indeed frequently had done for countless others in my life:
Take care.
I had taken care of friends and family who had been sick.
I had comforted strangers who looked sad when I'd stumbled upon them on the street.
I had let myself go through all manner of pain and heart ache and given myself nothing more than the fleeting comfort of chocolate and beer.
I was soooo sorry. I was no longer ashamed. I was no longer steeped in guilt and self loathing. I was only sorry.
Sorry and overjoyed.
All my life I had spent my time striving to be loved by friends, by family, by various and sundry men. And I had had some level of success with all of them.
But I had never even thought to pursue the love of the one person most responsible, most able to provide care the care I needed: me.

Whole Health Renovation Specialist

I can do anything and I intend to take as many people with me as I can