I do declare!
When that word first popped in my head this morning I thought while appropriate may sound to grandiose too high falutin' for what I wanted to say and then I thought in essence, I do declare, it wasn't!
I had suspected though now confirmed that I was going in a backward direction recently. I could feel it in my gait, in my efforts to get around that I had put a few pounds back on. I had...
Not much but not in the direction I wanted to go.
In the last 6 weeks when everything from finding a place,packing to move, the move getting settled I had not been as conscientious as I had been in how I had been eating. Again not all that bad but enough to where things were NOT going where it needed to be.
And I had to stop that.
So I did.
I sat down with myself and had a conversation with self as to what was happening.
Self may not wanted to hear it, not because she did not know it was not true, but because so much happened in rapid succession and after all she is only human.
I had self best interest at heart, so I listened. I listened not only with my ears, but with my heart. My purpose in the deep listening was not to criticize, vilify, ostracize or to paralyze but to be kind to Self, reiterated I had Self's back. That she was good people, a good woman a wonderful woman & I liked her.
Heck I was crazy about her!
Self got it..
Then Self told me a story that caught her eye on a lovely lovely night with a beautiful full moon as a backdrop.
She was on her way home yesterday evening & was hungry. Self had not eaten since earlier that afternoon and it was late in the evening. Self was tired AND self was hungry and did not want to go home and prepared a meal. So she asked the driving companion to stop in the local Burger King for a burger, only a burger as that was all she could manage thinking she could substitute other quick and easy sides.
Well... It did not workout quite like that...
Her driving companion in the quest of being nice ordered her meal & this is what she realized after he did it...
She asked for a Whopper, that's all. He order her a DOUBLE Whopper, large fries AND a large soda! All 1800 calories which was Self's entire allotment for the day! Self did not protest much rationalizing she will only eat part & toss the rest out. Her companion did not mean any harm, it was an assumption that because she was a "whopper" woman she would need a whopper meal.
Trust me I knew her companion, there was no malice. Ignorance, misplaced well intentioned but no malice. It is how people see big people, especially where a city where food/love reign supreme. It is how people express their caring for you.
All this was happening in rapid succession, the clicking in self's brain of what just happened, the tiredness and the hunger and all the other things. She went home and had her meal. She did indeed do what she said ate part and left part, but not as much of the part to dispose.
Then her brain started firing up as "what just happened"?
And why did it happen?
Self had not been to a Burger King in over a year, had not been a fan of Burger King in a very long time...
The good thing was she did not feel guilty or berate or put down or saw herself as a failure.
She did see herself as being very human recognizing that in part how crazy & distracting the last few weeks had been as well as the pending death of her friend.
In doing her meal tracker here on Sparks she was not shocked to see she ate double her caloric allocation & almost 3x her sodium intake for 1 day.
And then she gave a manifesto...
This has to not be!
I do declare!
Out came the scales to see where the weight was and sure enough over the last few weeks she had received 6 pounds!
"Oh no this is so not acceptable", Self declared!
Today after we had our conversation, we will map out what & how. We do not have to rehash, we already know. And we are also armed with enough info, direction and love to readjust, rework and renew with no regrets over what is done.
I was telling Self about my comments in the Ruby team about where for those who may know about the TV show on the Style Network call Ruby of a previously over 700 lbs woman who has halved her weight and now working on halving it again as reach a critical part in her progress. In fact she is throwing up deflections distractions and doing all sorts of things as to avoid the core of how & why she got to 700lbs.
It is an extraordinary story and while many may have their opinions on the where and the whys and the how's only she can declare HER manifesto. There are very few people who struggle with serious weight issues who do not have serious underlying reasons that have literally weighed them/us down.
Part of my comments spoke of (and only as a possibility as only she knows or maybe not know/face) that perhaps " her subconscious knows it (the "it" being what is making her ache badly). Her conscious mind seems to be doing everything possible to avoid "it". I know that as well intentioned as it might be (her friends are going to do an intervention), whatever they are going to attempt to do to jump start her again in her goals, I hope it works, but I will not be surprised if it back fires.
From everything I've read from y'all (thank you) and bits and pieces in the clips and her own blog, she is really close. As crazy as it may sounds, all the prima donna behavior all the stuff with Denny etc, is deflections, expertly manipulated as to not face what is really eating her alive.
No pun intended. Fat can indeed serve as a protection, a deflection, an ally though most people will never admit to it. No one likes it, most ones will say everything else but that its a friend & an ally because it is so much easier to resist painful truths and then honestly get comfortable with it.
It becomes a why bother friend..that friend you know isn't good for you, does not benefit you, but at least you know it, familiar with it have a history with it, you know what it will and will not do. It is just easier then to do things differently to delve into the unknown to walk into a deep dark forest with vines , tangled brush, creepy critters and unfamiliar sounds that can appear terrifying. All the time knowing there is a clearing a lovely meadow, sunshine, flowers humming birds and joy lightness there.
It is the nature of human beings in the time we are living in.
It's hard work, real work, terrifying work and while we may say this is what we want (and end to it) it is scary. We are conditioned to conform, to not see or know on a cellular level that we deserve so much more that the world can be joyous, happy & carefree & loving. Real loving not a manufactured this is what we have to do or be to "earn" it.
To "earn it, especially for women, is to be a fraction of our current size. To earn it is to fit or contort ourselves inside an ever increasing smaller ,perverse & restrictive box so we can be approved of, to be loved, to be dignified to be accepted.
Some how we got that message loud & clear we cannot have positively because we ARE...
And yes we can be in the forefront of being our own worse enemy instead of our best ally as Ruby is showing.
I think she will be in the end just find as we will be just fine.. whatever length of time, HER time will take for that to happen".
What she has and many here on Sparks have done is nothing short of extraordinary.
I think I'm extraordinary in an ordinary way going along in my own time at my pace to dow hat I need to do while living life. We want too many pat answers where there is none. I am not on a journey, I am creating my life as Self and I were discussing...
I could have last night declined the meal. No I had no insatiable gotta have it need for it,I simply was not thinking quickly. What was quick (and I am pleased) is that I came very early on to see what or where it could head. I am not "addicted" to food, my self esteem is not low, I did what many people do waited too long, too distracted & too tired.
So today and from this point forward, I will set my manifesto...
I do declare!
