What have I been doing for the last month?

David ended up going into the hospital for 4 days at the end of April. He had to have an unplanned gallbladder surgery. I haven't walked since he went in the hospital. Kitty got sick too and that also kept me from walking. Well, not really. I could have got out there on my own and walked but I didn't. I weighed myself yesterday and I now weigh 278 pounds! Good lord, what is wrong with me? I don't want to be fat. I don't want to be as big as I am yet I continue to eat junk food, fast food and drink soda. I looked back at my last entry and saw that I had a good plan for the week but I just didn't stick to it. I have an appointment with Marianne tomorrow and I'm going to talk to her about this. I really need an accountability partner for eating and spending. David is having his own issues with eating and spending so he can't be an accountability partner for me. I'm hoping that I can partner with Marianne and have her as my accountability person. The spending and eating is a really big issue for me that I have been mostly avoiding. It really is time to get help with this.

I don't think that 278 is the most I've ever weighed but I sure don't want to get any fatter than I already am. I'm embarrassed by how big I am. It's taking all the energy out of me and causing me a great deal of physical and emotional pain. I've been spending most of my time sleeping because I'm so tired and hurt so much. I'm scheduled to go walking with Kitty on Thursday. I really would like to get out there 6 of 7 days again. I really need to lose weight and use my muscles. I think another reason I hurt so much is that my diet is so poor. I've been living on fast food and junk food for months now. I rarely eat anything healthy. I desperately need help with this. Saturday I stayed in bed until 5:30pm; Sunday I stayed in bed until 1:30pm and today I stayed in bed until 2pm. I'm wasting my life. I dropped all my summer classes because I can't go to school feeling like this. My arms and hands hurt. My back, knees and hips ache. I'm a mess. I had lab work done last week and everything came back normal. I know the pain is real. I know there is something wrong with how I'm living. I am paying a huge price for being lazy.

Maybe I need to see Marianne more than 2x/week right now. I just feel so out of control. I don't even want to look back over the last 5 months to see how much we've spent on restaurants and junk food. I have a separate category just for junk food. I thought it would help me to stop spending on candy and soda but it hasn't.

Well, I just looked at YNAB and we have spent $1,300 on eating out and junk food in just 5 months. That's an average of $260 a month!! Holy cow! This is insane. I really do need help with this. I have to learn to say no to David and to myself. We're killing ourselves financially and physically. This madness has to stop. I am so ashamed that I've let it get to this. We've also spent $1,300 on groceries in 5 months. That's $2,600 on food and junk! That's outrageous! And I end up wasting a lot of food too because I'm not eating healthy stuff. I let things go to waste. Junk food and prepared and packaged foods cost more also. Ugh!

I get so overwhelmed when I think of eating right. The thought of having to prepare meals makes me anxious. Literally. I just need to get out there and walk and eat better. There is no magic pill, machine or book that will do that for me. It's very simple - eat right and exercise - but I can't seem to do it. I feel like I deserve to eat junk. It's my reward, my way of medicating myself. I really need to talk to Marianne about this tomorrow. My sister will be here in August and I don't want to be this fat when she gets here. I want to be able to get out there and do stuff and not have to sit around because I'm too fat and out of shape to do anything. I really want to enjoy my time with her. And all of this isn't helping David's Type 2 Diabetes any either. We're both going to die a lot earlier than we want because we just won't take care of ourselves.

As for the plan, can I really commit to:

1. staying away from junk food, fast food and soda?
2. working with Marianne?
3. walking at least 3x/week?
4. eating 5 small meals a day?
5. keeping a food journal?
6. staying out of the convenience stores?
7. planning meals, making a grocery list and sticking to them?
8. adding in healthy foods to my diet (fruits, veggies, healthy proteins)?

Am I asking too much to start? Should I just concentrate on working with Marianne to begin with and then go from there? I know I can't just do all this starting tomorrow. What is reasonable to expect of myself? I know I can work with Marianne starting tomorrow and I can keep a food journal too. I need to take this one day at a time. I always expect too much of myself. My expectations are always so high that I can't reach them so I just give up. I don't want to do that this time.

I named this blog "Slowly Losing Myself" for a reason. I want to lose the weight slowly so that it stays off and I want to slowly lose the lazy and fat me. It's not going to happen overnight, I realize that. There has to be a starting point though, a day when I draw a line in the sand and so 'no more foolishness'. Maybe, with Marianne's help, I can draw that line in the sand tomorrow. Maybe I need to look at it like the Baby Steps in TMMO (financial plan) - small steps instead of giant leaps. I need to work my financial plan and my eating plan concurrently. One will always help the other. If I curb spending I won't be wasting money on junk food and if I stop with the junk food then I won't be spending as much. We've been debt free for years but haven't been able to save and keep money in the credit union. We are 'instant gratification' people. When we want something we don't wait until it's the right time to get it, we just get it right then. Doing that has not served us well. We need to practice discipline, patience and grow the hell up! We eat and spend like children - have to have it now - instead of adults.

So the answer to my question - what have I been doing for the last month - is that I've been eating, spending and drifting through my life without any purpose. I am signed up for one class in the fall (Cultural Anthropology). I'm going to take the class at school, not online. I know I can do one class. Four classes would just be too much to start. But I don't want to be the fat girl in class who doesn't fit in her seat. I really do worry about that. I worry about it with everything. Even things like going to the Rockies game in August - will I fit in the seat? It's horrible to have to worry about stuff like that but I've done it to myself. It's no ones fault but my own. Yeah, my mom taught me bad lessons when it comes to food but she's been gone for 10 years now and I'm 50 years old. It's time to live MY life, not the life she wanted me to live.

I wonder if it would help to email Marianne each day about what I'm eating that's not healthy and what I'm spending outside the budget? I really need to have someone I can be honest with about both activities. It's so easy to spend and eat. I certainly don't do either without guilt though. I know every time I bite into a candy bar or drink a Cherry Coke that I'm not helping myself. It's not about right or wrong. It's more about what's good for me and what's bad for me. Obviously weighing in at 278 pounds is bad for me. Spending money on things I don't need (especially the eating out and junk food) is bad for me. Neither thing helps me to be happy. I get an initial feeling of satisfaction when I eat and spend but the feeling doesn't last very long anymore. Mostly I feel like a failure and I feel ashamed. I don't want to feel that way anymore. Things have to change!

So, I need to talk to Marianne tomorrow and see what she thinks would be a good plan of attack. If I could email her each day about my eating, spending, walking, staying out of convenience stores and planning meals, I think it would help. I really have to be honest though. Mostly I have to be honest with myself. I have to admit how difficult it is to stay away from spending and eating without giving in to the urges. I often get to the point, when I'm trying to cut back, of getting so over emotional about not getting what I want. There have been many times when I felt to bad emotionally and mentally that I've wanted to cry. Instead of crying though, I give in and eat or spend. I have to find other things to do when the times get rough (call Marianne, journal, do some art work, read, study, clean out closets, etc.). What I can't do is allow myself to sleep my life away to avoid things.

Last Thursday Marianne and I talked about my dad and the abuse and dysfunction when I was growing up. I know that plays into this even though I'm not quite sure how. I think I don't like to think about it so I eat and spend. They are my avoidance activities. But I've been avoiding for 50 years now. It needs to stop. I need to face these things head on, slowly, thoughtfully but finally deal with them. I've avoided my life for 50 years. I want to start living intentionally now. I don't know how much longer I have to live but I'd like the rest of my life to be purposeful and intentional. I'd like to feel content and unashamed.

So, what is the weight covering up? Why do I feel like I need all of this fat for protection? What am I protecting myself from? Why can't I see that I'm not loving myself or taking care of myself by over indulging? Why does rewarding myself mean spending and eating? I guess I know part of the answer to that is how my mom brought us up. Eating and spending were indeed rewards for all the difficult times we had growing up. We were very poor, living on welfare and social security, so when money came in we spent it all on food and other things. It was our reward for going through the bad times. Yet if we had put the money away then there wouldn't have been so many bad times. I'm still living that "King for a day, Pauper for a lifetime" mentality. Except for me it's "King for a few seconds and an Pauper for years on end" instead. My high moments don't even last a day. It makes me sad to realize that.

All I can do at this point is ask Marianne how much she is willing to help me and be there for me and how honest I can commit to being to myself and to her. I'm scared. I'm not going to lie. This frightens the hell out of me. I've depended on spending and eating for so long that I honestly don't know what else to do. I need to put things in place to replace the eating and spending before I can work on eliminating those things. I know that if I eat healthier and plan out 5 small meals/snacks a day that I'll be eating much more than I'm eating now. That should bring me some solace but instead it brings me anxiety. I have times recently where I saved instead of spending so I know I can do it. There are so many things I'd like to cut out of the budget but it's not going to happen (cable, cell phone, internet, lawn guy, house cleaner, to name a few). I could cut back though and try to get some of these costs decreased. The big snafu is having to pay all of David's medical bills. They are streaming in and have to be paid. I also need to save money for David's trip to Wisconsin in July and my sister's vacation out here in August. How can I do all of that? David has got to work some overtime but I don't know that much more OT will be coming. We blew all the OT money he's made this year on the tv and golf league/stuff. I guess I shouldn't say we've blown it. David deserves to get a TV and join the gold league because he has been working so hard. But we should have worked on our emergency fund first. We could have made due with the TV we had and David could have gone one more year without joining the golf league but we live in that world of scarcity that tells us to take advantage now because the opportunity may never come back round again. It's a poor way to live.

I guess I should go back to bed since it's after midnight but I have so much going through my head that I don't know that I can sleep. There are things that I need to do tomorrow and I need to make a list on the iTouch so I won't forget anything. Okay, I just entered it all in the iTouch so at least that won't be keeping me up tonight. Mostly what's keeping me up is wanting to talk to Marianne. I need help so desperately. I'm tired of being fat. I don't want to always have to think about whether I will fit in a chair or not. I even worry about breaking flimsy furniture with my weight. I don't want to have to worry about sitting down for the rest of my life.

There's not much junk food in the house right now. If I can stay out of the convenience stores I'll make a lot of progress. Staying out of the fast food joints will help too. I know I can do this. I just need some help and I'm going to ask for it tomorrow. I'll also need to sit down with David and tell him no more junk food, eating out or spending outside the budget. And since we have to money to allot to anything except the four walls and saving, that should take care of most spending problems.

I'm going to stoop blogging now or I'll go on all night.