by waterbaby » Wed Mar 31, 2010 11:31 am
Hi all
THIS A LONG RAMBLING .... I have used this as a place to try and figure out a puzzle in my head. I dont expect anyone to read this or comment, but if you decide to, and you can relate or shed some light, I would be very grateful.
I have been cruising pretty well for 8 weeks now. BUT these past few days things are slipping back to where I used to be with mindless emotionally triggered eating.
I am confused as I am not sure what has triggered this.... I thought I was just getting cocky, too confident that I had figured it all out.
I think it may be a bit of that, but also something more?
I am going to use this thread to try and figure it out as I know that if I dont overcome this one, I am destined to fail. I know it because I have done it many many times before.
A few factors:
1. I have told everyone ( who has noticed I look well ), exactly what I am doing because I feel so confident (which is very unusual for me)
2. I have been extra confident since my mother (long story) has been away for almost a month but.... Mum is back today and I know she will be fatter and I thinner and I want to keep going but something feels different in me since she is back.... need to explore
Hmmm from this journalling I think that ONE: the pressure on myself is upped a little as I have people watching to see if I succeed. As of a few days ago I felt to would. That is one issue.
I think the BIG FAT ISSUE though is.... My MOTHER. What the feck is going on there?? I have know for years that my dieting yoyo is affected by mother in a push-pull experience... like the tides going in and out, I am somehow affected by my mum....
HOW & WHY??
1. For almost as long as I can remember my mum has been a dieting woman. She was never slim enough and then got fatter and fatter. She is now probably 20kg heavier than me.
2. Somehow at 12 or so, she decided I needed to lose weight too, so she started us both off on diets. She even made incentives like new bathers or a beach holiday when "we succeed"
3. Within 3 days to probably up to a week, the diet plan (which I never understood) just got forgotton about. We would have a special ocassion (and for mum that included any trip to a cafe or out for lunch or anywhere someone was offering her food or wine) and everything would go out the window.
4. I was confused by the stop starts but usually relieved that the pressure was off for a bit.
5. I remember thinking if I got slimmer I could wear nicer clothes and people would love me and be proud of me more. Mum says that Dad used to always say she was fat, but I don't remember him saying that to me or her.
6. My dad showed affection to me perhaps a half dozen times in my life. Never any reassurance that I was ok the way I was. He just said nothing, showed nothing and just never got involved. "Emotionally unavailable"they call it. I now know his self worth and self esteem was so low that i think his faith in her parenting ability was very very low - and he was spot on.
7. When I was 13 my brother offered me some yummy snack and I said I couldn't because I was on a diet, he said "you are always on a diet" . I remember losing the plot, crying, screaming at him, hating him, punching the walls, kicking the doors. I felt stupid, fat and I think generally trapped that I needed to diet. The thing is is that it was NEVER MY IDEA! Always started as my mum's idea until it became my reality.
8. The case of self-fulfilling prophecy... I was told I need to lose some weight (puppy fat, just a little cuddly etc) and I decided I was fat. So I became fatter. Then when I failured so many times I decided I was fat and useless. So when I tried I kept failiing because I always assumed I would. So I was forever useless. Then when I had crap times at school and people teased me that I was fat, I believed them of course (and my mum still was trying the on off diet-team crap and giving up on all of them) and so with no friends, fat and useless I then decided I must be ugly. Fat, Useless and Ugly: the nasty toxic mantra that has played in my head for 25 years.
9. My mum has not broken her pattern, despite hundreds of starts and signing up for many expensive plans. She has never stuck to anything in her life. She is a weak woman that stops what she is doing when something gets tough or if she goes out to dinner. I have become the same but for the first time in my life I feel I have found some inner strength. I have been fighting past and jumping over (scrambling at times) over life's hurdles and instead of giving up I have hung in there, stuck to eating well with some minor treats and kept exercising.
10. All is going really well in my life right now, no major stresses and I feel happy in myself, proud and a little amazed in my achievements. But now mu mum is back home for a month overseas. I have not spoken to her for a month and I have not missed her.
11. So I have not even seen her yet, but since thinking about her return I have starting picking, eating mindlessly and this morning had a binge on 5 pieces of toast with too much butter (which sadly is my mums main binge that I vowed I would never do). When I think about seeing her I know I will have to hide what I am doing.... WHY?
This is important to figure out: If I am succeeding and she is not I feel I must or am allowed to (??) stop. Also when I have started succeeding in the past she wants to know what I am doing so she can copy, she rarely starts it or if she does stops and never mentions she was ever doing it in the first place.
So then... I dont want her involved at all in my weight loss as perhaps I feel she will easily knock me off guard. Like she will gently, perhaps even sub concsiously help me give up, expect me only to go for a short time, expect me to stop and go back to her way.
If she is around I feel I will fail. I feel weak and my resolve is shakey. I once told a counsellor that I thought it would be easier if she wasn't alive because then I would be FREE! (of course I dont want her dead!) How can I be free when she is still in my life? I feel I need the gap in our weights to keep getting bigger as I feel I have followed her my whole life, being only one size behind her. So as she got close to 22 I became a 20. She was giving me her hand me downs! Now the gap is a little bigger, but I feel I am not yet safe from her influences. I need to get far far away, in kilos, strength and resolve. I cannot stay away from physically as she important in my childrens' lives and I want to still have a relationship with her.
So if I turn up at her house feeling strong, successful, happier, fitter, slimmer and focussed then what? She will feel inadequate. She will feel pressured. She will criticise herself inwardly. She would feel what I have always felt when others succeed. I guess i am trying to protect her, make her feel better, so do I subconsciously give up? Sounds so dumb, but I think it might me true. But do I show I love her by making her feel less pressured or do I STOP THAT NOW, be strong and LOVE MYSELF enough to succeed? Obvious answer.
I need to break away from her and grow up, cut ties and keep going no matter what. I am not sure how I will do that. The feelings generated when I see her make me feel so tempted to indulge, so tempted to stop in and get chocolate at the servo at the way home. The feeling is hardly noticeable at the time, I just find myself eating. So how does that happening right now when I havent even seen her, but I am thinking about seeing her? Is her influence/power that strong?
How do I fight the pull to go back to comfort eating when I see her or even think about her? To fight that battle everytime is going take all the strength I have and then will I still fail? I have had to overcome at least 4 life challenges in 8 weeks that have shaken me and nearly knocked me from my focus and drive, and none of that included my mother's influence.
So what will happen if I keep going strong, not allowing the weak tempting feelings sink into me and take me over? I will succeed. I will become strong, fit, even more beautiful. I feel energised, confident, sexy, alive and invincible. What will happen to my relationship with my mother? I think I will feel sad for her. I will feel guilty. I will feel that we have LOST A CONNECTION. The food weight thing... has been something we have shared!! No it will go and I will free. So does that mean when I have fully succeeded that our relationship be over? When I am free she will be lost forever?
I know we will always be ok, she will be in my life as mother and granny, but our relationship will change. I wonder if I have felt that I need to stay close to her via this crappy diet game, too fearful of going out on my own, brave and strong.
So this is it.
1. I have not been brave and strong to break free from my mum and her diet games. It keeps us close.
2. I have subconciously stayed close to my mums attempts and not succeeded to make her feel ok. It keeps us close.
3. The permission to indulge and give up is strong around my mum. It makes me feel loved when she feeds me.
So by me taking this plunge and keeping on fighting forward, pushing through the temptations and succeeding I must be prepared for our relationship to change, to not be as close and for her to feel bad.
Just gotta keep going.... Perhaps I will break this cycle once and for all....
Thanks to anyone who read this, who got this far. I didnt expect anyone to....
xoxoxoxo rachel xoxoxoxoxo
Rachel - mama of 2 boys (DS7 & 2)
[url=http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/wVRereJ/]

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SW 104kg
CW 97.5kg
Goal Weight: 65-68 kg
Working hard now! No room in my life now for half-hearted attempts!