weight gain

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It’s Not Really About the Food

Last night I argued with my child over food. He didn’t talk to me the rest of the night, and I went to bed early without talking to anyone. I hated myself.

I was a chubby kid. I remember my first food binge. It was ice cream and no one was home. I was seven years old.

I became a morbidly obese teenager. I ate my feelings every fucking night.

In college, I lost some weight. I discovered walking and weight lifting. I was back to chubby. By my junior year, I was a Creative Writing major and I poured all of my childhood trauma and anger into stories and poetry. Did I still eat my feelings? Oh yeah, but not to the same extent.

Just after graduating from college, though, I became bulimic. Interestingly enough, my first puking session was ice cream. I ending up losing another 30 pounds or so. My dad was worried about me. I remember how he came to the video store I was working at and he was so worried I’d die from losing so much weight. This was not going to happen. I still ate a lot and just puked enough to maintain the initial weight loss. But I know it wasn’t as simple as that. I was fucked up and Dad was worried.

I went off to graduate school, still throwing up, just not as often. Then my teeth started to hurt and I had to go to the dentist at the age of 23. I hadn’t gone since I was four years old. We didn’t have the money to go when we were kids and the one time we did go, I apparently had a horrible experience. I have no memory of it, but I broke down in tears when I had to see this dentist while I was in grad school. He’s the one who told me I had a bad experience. He had seen this before. He was kindest, gentlest man and dentist. He pulled a tooth and was good to me. I stopped throwing up on purpose that day. I was too freaked to lose my teeth.

And now? I continue to struggle with my relationship with food and my weight. It sometimes comes up in therapy. Some days I just don’t care about any of it because life is too exhausting on other levels.

But now my son has gained a lot of weight. I don’t know what to do.

My beautiful boy has been on antidepressants for several years now. I think it has saved his life and I’m so, so grateful for our beloved Dr. Lauer for getting him on the right path. Unfortunately, those meds often cause weight gain. For my boy, his hunger was insatiable. Being a growing boy, his hunger could be pretty intense as it was, but this? This was bananas. Along with that, though, was his love of gaming and hatred of exercise. When you combine it all, it leads to weight gain.

I’ve worried about his physical health, although with a battery of tests he needed to do this past week, he seems to be good–except his weight is in the morbidly obese category. Just like his mom’s was at the same exact age.

Last night, we ended up fighting about a pizza, which was really a misunderstanding. But none of that was super clear last night, and I was too in my head to fix it. So this morning, I got up before 7 because my body wouldn’t let me sleep. I had coffee and just felt too unsettled to relax and read. So I started cooking. Not eating. Just cooking. I made healthy breakfast cookies, yeast rolls and sweet potato black bean chili. I listened to an audiobook while mixing and chopping and doing dishes. I felt calm but determined. I needed to fix this.

Being a 17-year-old kid, my son didn’t awake until nearly 11. I had been up for over 4 hours by then. I had a little plate with breakfast cookies on it, waiting for him, and I poured him a glass of milk. He was so happy by the cookies–it’s something I used to make a lot when he was little. I apologized to him and said we needed to talk about it. I started to cry and told him I never want him to have the fucked up relationship with food or his body that I do. I just want him to be ok and healthy and live a long, beautiful life. He hugged me and we talked about what happened. He doesn’t have a bad self-image in the least. That makes me incredibly happy. He does eat his feelings sometimes, but doesn’t seem to have that toxic relationship with food that I do.

Do I want him to lose weight? Yes. That’s an emphatic yes. I know you can be healthy and be large. But when you’re already 6’8″, you don’t fit in a lot of clothes or cars or anywhere. Being heavier increases those challenges. He’s already a broke, queer giant on antidepressants. He doesn’t need anymore challenges.

If he doesn’t lose any weight? Oh well. I’ll get over it. If my kid is healthy and happy and can find clothes that fit, then I’m happy, too.

My son is aware of my various eating disorders and he’s seen photos of me as a teen. Before, he only knew the mom who runs and eats well (most of the time). He didn’t know the person I was before and really still am. Once I showed him the photos, he understood a bit more. Today he is more aware of why his weight gain has triggered this manic urge to fill the house with salads and fruit and severely limit any kind of “junk” or processed foods. And it’s because I told him. I was honest with him.

I don’t know how long I can keep up the good meals and stores of fruit and vegetables in the house. No matter what anyone says, eating well can be expensive. But I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter right now. If I have to charge a load of groceries on my credit card, I’ll do it. (Ok, I already did.) The good meals will be harder since that shit takes time and energy that I don’t seem to have lately. But I’ll try. And I’ll get the kid to help and the husband to help when he’s able.

We’re gonna do this, damn it. This kid will be a part of changing this country for the better. I completely believe that. So I’m going to shove my own eating issues down deep and just try to feed my kid in the healthiest way I can. In this case, food really is fuel. I’m gonna fuel my boy up so he can help govern this country in the near future. He’ll be part of the generation that shows the world that we really are a country of people with differing beliefs and genders and colors and wants and needs, but we will help one another RISE UP, not be pushed down.

I’m off to meal plan for the week. It kinda feels like the beginning of a revolution. ❤

Stay well, friends.

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Back in a Flash

I hate you, Facebook Memories.

I began my morning and thought I’d check in on Facebook before I started work. What comes up? The year 2016 in photos–the last full year I had my brother. He was there in my memories, pics of our Halloween tour of the local winery. Other photos of me where I looked so fucking happy…some I know weren’t real smiles, but others showed genuine happiness. I look at that Holly and want to scream at her. “Tell Phil every single thing you’ve ever wanted to! Go and see him each day. Take time off and take your boy along and just be with Phil. Do nothing and everything with him.”

I miss him. I miss my brother so damn much.

Typically, I love this time of year but everything is still tinged with sadness. And mornings like these? It’s hard to function. It’s difficult to not just say, “Fuck it. I’m not going to work today.” I know I could legitimately do that, but my mother’s voice is telling me to just go to work and you’ll feel better. My own inner voice is also saying, “Don’t let your staff and patrons down. Just go and you’ll be ok.”

So I went.

I went about my day, doing whatever needed to be done–working on reports, paying bills, answering emails. I still felt like I was in a fog, but it was manageable. Then I went to make a cup of tea, something I rarely do. But I was freezing and needed something warm and there sat a box of Earl Grey tea on top of the fridge at work. It’s been there for months, but today I really saw it…and thought of Phil. This was one of his favorite teas. I picked up the box, started to cry and whispered, “You’re everywhere today, aren’t you?”

If only he was. If only I could talk to my big brother, ask him questions I know he’d have answers for, or at least have a joke for them. I wish he could see his nephew and realize that he’d be able to see him eye to eye now. I’d love to hear them laugh together and share some dirty joke or discuss Star Wars films. I just…I just wish he was here.

You know, I’ve been desperate over the past few months to get down to a particular weight. I’ve obsessively counted calories, added a few extra miles to my long runs, and lifted weights. But absolutely nothing happened. I actually gained another 5 pounds instead. (Of course, I now realize I wasn’t counting some calories accurately, but that’s another story.) As I was telling my therapist about my weight dilemma, she asked why that weight. Why this arbitrary number? I told her that I know I feel good at that weight–it’s a little more than when I was running A LOT and when people thought I was sick because they thought I looked too thin. But it’s a weight where I felt good in my body…and the weight I was at when Phil died.

After I said those words to my therapist, my body became very still. I looked at her and let out a sob. I covered my mouth and shook my head. It was such an epiphany, an a-ha moment, and a gut-wrenching grief-inducing realization.

I think I’ve been trying to find my way back to a time when my brother was here and my parents were here, and although life was still difficult and complicated, it just wasn’t quite so lonely or sad.

But I know I can’t do that. Rationally, I know that no matter how much weight I lose, my family will not come back. Of course I know that. Will that stop me from trying to lose weight? Nope. Do I still want to find a way to be happy in this body of mine? Yes. Will losing the weight do that? Probably not. But my pants will fit better.

And hopefully my therapist can help me with the rest of it.

❤

Friends, if you’re out there and you’re missing someone so much that you just want to turn back time and have one more conversation or hug or “I love you,” please know that I hear you. I understand and I wish for that, too. I might not be the one you want to talk with, but I’m here and I’ll listen.

Take care, friends.

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Doing ok?

I seem to ask that question a lot these days. I ask it of my family, my staff, my friends. I am asked the same question nearly every day, too. I think we’re all just trying to hold on and keep connected and check in to see if others are feeling as bad as you are.

How I feel most days…

Like you, there are good days and bad days, or rather good moments and bad days. Last week seemed particularly bad, at least at the end of the week. My son had a meltdown on Friday night, my husband snapped at me and his mother (over the phone) multiple times. (I had my screaming fits the week before so it was their turn.) Many folks here in Maine at least, seemed to have a similar reaction. It’s like we reached some breaking point of too many Zoom meetings or too much time alone or too much time with our families. Or maybe it’s because there’s talk of the “Stay at Home” order being lifted and we’re scared and we think it’s too soon.

I feel lost with little to no guidance. Nobody has definitive answers about much of anything. At my work there needs to be so many things put into place. Even if we can do some things like curbside service for library patrons, we are not ready to do so on May 1st. I feel like we put our pandemic plan into place in minutes, but we will not re-open as quickly. There are not enough supplies around to make us safe–masks, gloves, cleaning supplies–and then there’s the marking up of the library to stay 6 feet apart or counting people as they come in to make sure we’re not over the limit and do we install plexiglass or plastic sheeting at the desks? It’s all overwhelming and scary yet also seems necessary if we are ever to reopen.

And then there’s home. After being disabled, my husband is due to go back to work in a week. He’s already been warned that he may be furloughed. We already know our son will not be going back to school, so the online classes continue and the arguments getting him to do some of his work continue. Of course, then there’s just the uncertainty of it all. What will the future hold? What will our lives look like? Will the kids even be able to go back to school in the fall? Will the library be able to hold any kind of event this year? Will we all still have our jobs?

I try to not think of those last questions. I can’t. It’s a day by day world now, and I try so hard to live like that. As I’ve said many times, I’m not great at it, but my dad always tried to teach me to be patient. It’s ok to have plans, but know that they could all be shot to hell in an instant.

And just a little question for y’all. Have you gained any weight recently? I certainly have. At the beginning of March, I had pancreatitis for over 2 weeks and lost 11 pounds. (That was part of the 20 I gained last year and was trying to lose.) The day we closed the library was the first day I could start eating again. By the next week I had wholeheartedly begun stress eating. Fortunately I’m now running 4 times a week but the 11 pounds came right back anyway. And it’s kind of ok. I’ll continue to wear my fat clothes and occasionally munch on baby carrots, but a cookie or two a day is currently a must. The binging has finally stopped, but a little treat each day is my medicine–along with my antidepressant. 🙂

Stay as well as you can, everyone. Still looking forward to the days when I can hug you tight. ❤

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Looking For Motivation

Two winters ago, I gained 7 pounds due to less activity and too many goodies. By the summer I had lost a few of them, but this winter I gained them all back with an extra three for good measure. That’s 10 pounds extra of Holly that I wish I didn’t have. And yet…I can’t seem to care that much.

All of my pants still fit, but most are much more snug than they should be, thus giving me that lovely extra-large muffin top. I cover my squishiness up as best as I can with layers of turtlenecks and sweaters. Winter in Maine is good for some things! And even with all of that, I can’t seem to get my butt on the treadmill or outside more than I do. I’m only running 6-9 miles a week and attempting to do a smidge of weight lifting a few times a week, too. You might be saying, “Hey! That’s great! At least you’re doing that much.” But it’s not really great. It’s not enough, especially since I’m eating anything I want and not giving a damn. Yes, I am moving, but I’m only one step away from Couch Potato Kingdom.

There was a time when I would faithfully work out 6-7 times a week, even though it stressed me out to do so. I justified it by saying the physical activity did me more good in the long run. But now, just the thought of trying to squeeze 6-7 workouts in a week, makes me want to cry. I give myself Wednesdays off so I can volunteer at my son’s school library in the morning and I give myself Fridays off so I can go to my mom’s in the morning and fill her pill container and check her blood sugar and just make sure all is well.

So what are my excuses the other days? I’ll squeeze in a 20-30 minute workout most mornings, but honestly, I have no excuse for not running on the weekend. I have the time but I’m just so apathetic. I have no doubt that part of my apathy stems from my mother’s illness, my father’s newly discovered memory loss and even our lost vacation. But I can’t keep going on like this because I know my physical health will suffer and my mental health is already deteriorating. The winter affects my mood anyway, so the lack of exercise makes me feel even sadder than usual. I tend to fix that sadness with more reading and chocolate and wine. And that, my friends, is asking for trouble. (Except for the extra reading. That’s always good, no matter how you look at it.)

My friend, Aymie, lost 50 pounds last year and ran over 500 miles. She looks fantastic and you can tell she feels great, too. My friend, Moriah, is on a journey to lose weight and to get healthy. She’s lost 14 pounds so far, and although I know it’s been tough, she’s doing it and I’m so damn proud of her. And yet why can’t these women motivate me to get my ass off the couch? I’ve been inspired by these women and others in the past, so why not now?

Maybe I need a goal. Something to shoot for. Use a website like stickk like I have before? Cover my Facebook feed with memes of encouragement?

Rabbit looking at carrot on a stick

Maybe I just need to hold on until spring when the temps are warmer and we’ll see the sun more. Although I think the zipper on my jeans probably can’t wait that long. I really need to find something now to make me care about my level of fitness.

What do you do to help with the winter blues or with the inactive times in your life? Is there something that helps you get up and go? What motivates you to take care of yourself?

As usual, any and all suggestions welcome, my friends!

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The Comforts of Food

Since I was 7 years old, I have turned to food to ease my anxiety, to diffuse my anger, to make me feel good…or at least better. I have eaten away every emotion until only what appeared to be happiness remained. Looking at it now, I’m sure it was the sugar and fat that gave me that euphoric feeling.  And yet knowing this, and after losing over 80 pounds to finally get out of the fat lady’s clothing store, I *still* turn to food when the going gets tough even though I promised myself I wouldn’t ever again.

These past few weeks have been extraordinarily stressful. It’s not the best excuse, but there it is. Fortunately, my food choices have at least changed since my big girl days. I used to eat lots of chips or ice cream or leftover Chinese takeout as my binge foods of choice. Now, when I’m feeling blue or need to take the edge off, I eat rice mixed with canned peas and shredded cheese and a teaspoon of butter or a big bowl of Cinnamon Rice Chex with almond milk.

I know, I know, I’m so naughty!

198080_1929722125489_5916683_n

Me, 4 years ago, eating a scrumptious gluten-free cupcake from Babycakes in Orlando.

It may not seem like a big deal and honestly, in the big scheme of things it’s not. Since I lost this weight, I’ve been obsessed about keeping it off. I still intend to keep it off and I’m sure I’ll keep counting those calories and running when I’m able, but I also realized this week that I have to start making some kind of effort to let this go. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be overnight that’s for damn sure, but I have to find a way to make myself a little happier and a lot less stressed. That may mean I’ll skip a morning workout and read instead or maybe have a snack between breakfast and lunch so I don’t maim any of my co-workers.

Does this mean I might gain a pound or two? Maybe. Will I freak out if I do? Of course I will. I’m not naïve enough to think that just by saying, “Hey, I won’t get stressed by that little bit of weight gain!” that I *won’t* get stressed. I most certainly will because that’s who I am. What I’m shooting for, is to not get AS freaked as my normal. To try to take it a bit in stride and realize that it’s not the end of the world.

This past week I thought a big chunk of my world really was about to end, and gaining a pound or two doesn’t feel like that at all. Gaining a bit of weight can be resolved at some point by eating less and exercising more and going to bed hungry more often than not. It’s a serious pain in the ass, but it’s not the apocalypse.

 

So tell me, what are YOUR comfort foods? Anything funky or boring (like mine)? I’d love to hear it if you’d like to share.

 

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Apathy causes weight gain

pierre

This is Maurice Sendak’s Pierre. If you haven’t read this children’s book, go to your local library right now and check it out. It’s a study of how one could get eaten by a lion if one remains apathetic. Seriously. It could happen.

It’s a fact. If you don’t give a shit about anything, what’s to stop you from eating 6 peanut butter cookies at one sitting, or a handful of your kid’s Halloween candy (behind his back)? Not a damn thing.

I’ve gained 5 pounds over the past few weeks, due to my Pierre-like attitude (“I don’t care!”). I haven’t run in several weeks and have only walked a few times, and that was because I could watch Netflix on my Kindle while I walked the treadmill. I’ve only been able to wear my “fat” pants and put aside anything remotely form-fitting. I feel very squishy and doughy, yet I still can’t get my ass out of bed early enough to at least *try* to exercise.

In a way, being apathetic has been a bit liberating. I’ve eaten anything I’ve wanted and haven’t had a smidge of guilt.  Chocolate candies and mellow crème pumpkins in the afternoon? Of course! Cookies and handfuls of chocolate chips in the evening? You bet! It’s been a gluttonous ride nearly every afternoon and evening, and when morning comes I roll out of bed, sip coffee and give the finger to my exercise regiment. I dig through my closet to find anything that hides my protruding belly. I stare at myself in the full-length mirror. Then with a halfhearted shrug of my shoulders and roll of my eyes, I’m off to work.

Thankfully, though, the numbers on the scale and a visit from an old friend, may have finally snapped me out of my indifference.  My weight is typically at 165. I like this number. It makes me happy. I feel good and slim at this weight, but not weak. Over the past few weeks, I still weighed myself on most days, and I watched the numbers fluctuate and slowly rise.  Normally if I see my weight get to 168, I’d start to reign it in–watch what I ate more carefully and make sure I exercised every day.  But this past month? I didn’t do anything. I just kept eating and only moving when necessary.  Until that 170 popped up on the scale.  I saw it yesterday. I raised my eyebrows at the scale, ate well all day, then inhaled 7 cookies before I went to bed. Well, it almost worked!

But today, a friend was visiting from out of town.  A really good friend whom I’ve missed terribly. This was my one chance to see her, which meant I needed to get out of my routine and stop hiding in my home and go see her and a few of our friends. If you read my post a few months back, you know that this isn’t easy for me right now. I haven’t wanted to leave my house or be around anyone.

Yet this isn’t just anyone. These are my dear, dear friends that I’ve known for over 25 years. They’re family, or even better than family. But for a few minutes this morning, I didn’t think I’d see them. Something fell through at work and I thought I’d have to skip seeing them. And for those few minutes, I was a bit relieved. I’d have no obligations tonight, just going home and making sure my son got a shower. Nothing else.

Thankfully my boss stepped up and told me I needed to go. She was right. I did need to go. I’m so, so happy I did. Those 90 minutes rejuvenated me to the point where I didn’t even have dessert. Well…that’s not true. I did lick my friend’s whoopie pie wrapper (and no, that is *not* a sexual innuendo) and I might have eaten the rest of the gingerbread man’s body parts that were left in the cookie jar at home. But that’s all! No handfuls of chocolate chips. No Halloween candy.

And tomorrow, no flipping the bird to my treadmill. I might have to fire up the ol’ Kindle to get me on it, but hopefully this is a new beginning. I don’t want to be like Pierre anymore. I want to be that self-obsessed wench I once was. She can be annoying sometimes, I know, but I kind of like her. She has passion. And in my book, passion outweighs apathy every day of the week. But in this case, “outweighs” is a good thing. 😉