Fueling the Food Beast

Posted on November 1, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Have you ever monitored a toddler’s diet?

If you have kids, you probably remember the many, many questions you had about the proper feeding of a two-year-old:

How long can a sippy cup stay out of the fridge before we risk botulism?

Are six bites of turkey really enough to sustain this kid until dinnertime?

That’s a remarkable diaper load for six bites of turkey. Oh, look….he apparently ate a blue crayon, too.

Please don’t tell me he’s chewing on the French fry we gave the cat to play with.

<at a ballpark, or church> Oh look, he’s eating…um…a saltine? WHERE DID HE FIND A SALTINE CRACKER?!?

(Side note: Rest assured, I totally did not poison my kids. Well, not on purpose, anyway. You do the best you can, but those suckers are quick when they wanna be. Toddlers totally fool you with their propensity for copious amounts of drool and general lack of motor control. You let your guard down and risk a quick blink, and when you open your eyes you find them covered with a massive wad of ick. This is why my daughter’s first solid food was actually a ladybug. But we were just notified yesterday that she received a full scholarship to the university of her choice, so either bugs are good for you, or they clearly didn’t slow her down much. #mombrag)

Anyway. The point here is that toddlers’ lives aren’t focused on food. To them, food is fuel.

Kids have a normal, healthy relationship with food. When they’re hungry, their little bodies TELL them to eat – so they reluctantly stop trying to draw on the cat with a Sharpie, and find Mom or Dad to demand a snack. And when they’ve had enough, and are no longer hungry, they throw the rest of their food on the floor so they can be released from the restraints of the high chair and go do something ~~devious~~ fun or educational.

Toddlers don’t eat when they’re bored or when they’re sad. They have lessons to learn, things to ~~break~~ explore….They’d MUCH rather be playing, or throwing a tantrum, or plotting to smear something red and sticky on something CLEARLY not meant to be sullied, like the wall, the couch, or the carpet, than sit down and refuel.

Simply put, toddlers have better things to do than center their lives around food.

That must be so very…freeing.

I mean, these kids – babies, really – have a completely unadulterated approach to food. Get some when you need it, forget about it when you don’t. It’s that simple.

I cannot be the only person to whom this seems to be a completely foreign concept. Can I?

Dr. P (the therapist) and I talked about this a bit. Eating “normally” is a long-range goal for me. (Or so SHE says. I’m not quite ready to accept “normal” if it makes the scale go up. Sigh. She’s got her work cut out for her, that’s for sure.)

But what does “normal” even LOOK like?

Maybe I can learn something from my toddler days?

OK, maybe notsomuch. I mean…yuck. <shudder>

But defining “normal” eating isn’t all that easy. We can define an eating disorder pretty quickly – here’s an example found on ANAD.org*:

An eating disorder is an unhealthy relationship with food and weight that interferes with many areas of a person’s life. One’s thoughts become preoccupied with food, weight or exercise. A person who struggles with an eating disorder can have unrealistic self-critical thoughts about body image, and his or her eating habits may begin to disrupt normal body functions and affect daily activities.

*National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. You’re welcome.

So whatever we consider “normal” eating isn’t…that. Okay.

Perhaps it means tossing the food scales, deleting the food tracking apps on my phone, and just eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full, and letting my body weigh what it wants to.

Sounds simple. But then, the most complicated things often do.

Sadly, one of the consequences of a life filled with the all-or-nothing yin-yang of food extremes is that you completely lose the ability to discern when you’re actually hungry. It makes sense, really – if you’ve spent years spinning yourself around in a constant complete 180 between splurging and starving, dieting and binge-eating, deprivation and indulgence – is it any wonder that I have no natural ability to know when and what I need to eat?

After 30+ (!!!) years of gaining and losing weight – of alternating between Dieting: Extreme Edition and gorging on the all-you-can-eat platter at the Screwitall Grand Buffet – I have no idea – zero – on how to listen to my body.

I’ve spent most of my life basically flinging my appetite back and forth violently between the ceiling and the floor trying to break it. It should be no surprise that I’ve been successful.

Left to my own devices, I truly think I could go for days without feeling hunger. And then, once I realized that yeah, I probably need to eat something, the dam would break wide open, and it’s all HIDE YOUR KIDS, HIDE YOUR WIFE in my kitchen.

My fridge be all like:

(Retro meme from back in the day for y’all)

In all seriousness – very occasionally I feel hunger – but not often. But when I “allow” myself free reign – eating what I “want” – I can eat WELL past the “full” point, until my stomach is sporting a food baby that would fool the eye of the most experienced midwife, and I seriously do NOT have room even for the legendary wafer-thin mint. (Bonus points if you know the reference. My apologies if you didn’t, and clicked on the link, and now cannot unsee it. I truly am sorry. Here’s a bucket.)

When I’m in “food mode,” I can easily keep up, volume-wise, with my 6’4″ hubs and I blow right past my 15-year-old. Yes, I can eat more than a growing teenage boy. Why is there no trophy for that?! (Probably the same reason that there is no award for stopping up a commode that you bought SPECIFICALLY because it can flush an ENTIRE BUCKET OF GOLF BALLS. Not that this has EVER happened. If it did, I’m not sure whether the perpetrator (poopetrator?) should be mortified or impressed. Probably both. But that’s beside the point because THIS IS ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN. GOT IT?)

Maybe I’m actually part camel. Perhaps eating nothing for weeks and then EVERYTHING in a day is normal…for me.

This is FINE, as long as my body does what my mind wants it to and drops ten pounds. But that clearly isn’t how it works for the camel.

That’s hott.

I very much do NOT wish to resemble a camel, in any way, shape or form. But I suppose being cool with my body, regardless of its size, is PROBABLY part of this whole “normal” dealio.

Right?

Except….what woman in the US is OK with her body as-is?

Anyone? Anyone?

We know that nearly 35% of the US population is obese. And despite the fact that only (only!) 1 in 5 American women are on a diet – and that this number’s lower than it was a few years earlier, when it was closer to 1 in 3 – we’re not happy about how we look. It turns out that two-thirds of women are trying to lose weight, and 39% of us let it impede our happiness.

I guess we’re just not using the d-word to describe all the meal-skipping, raw vegan, high-protein gluten avoidance we’re trying. Diets are so 1990s, anyway. It’s all lifestyle choice, right? Or was that what we were calling it in 2005? <head scratch>

Regardless of whatever label we’re slapping ourselves with this week, a lot of us are still desperately trying to be thinner.

So…given all that….what, then, is normal?

And if I’m not clear on the what, how on earth do I find the how?

I don’t wanna be a camel. I want to be a car. Cars have it pretty easy – they have a gauge right on the dashboard that tells you how full or empty they are. (They even have a little arrow to tell you WHERE TO PUT THE FUEL. Well, unless you’re Nissan, then SCREW YOU, I guess.)

Actual gas gauge from actual rental car. Actual WTF moment.

And once you get the pump set up? It automatically SHUTS OFF when the tank is full. It’s nearly* idiot-proof, stopping when the car’s had “enough.”

*Yes, I still occasionally get gas on my shoes. Because I even overfeed my car. I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

It’d be hella easier if we had dashboard gas gauges. Maybe I can get one installed with the next upgrade.

Until then, we’re stuck trying to tame the food monster. Which makes a harmless, innocent cookie…

Ginormous cookie served BETWEEN lunch and dinner at a recent conference. Because OBVIOUSLY sitting on your duff learning about the Affordable Care Act works up an appetite. Note size of cookie relative to pen. Yowsa.

…look a bit menacing.

ROASTED RED PEPPER REVENGE YO

I’m not sure I can wrestle the monster back into its cage. I think after 30 years of having unrestricted freedom, it’s gonna put up a fight. And frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to invest the effort and energy to work on containing the beast.

But I do know that food isn’t a monster. Food isn’t the enemy.

The enemy is the one staring back at me in the mirror. And she’s gonna be pretty tough to tame.

The Artificial Tang of Banana Candy

Posted on October 25, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Despite the overabundance of Christmas decorations you see in every retail shop in America, this is NOT the “most wonderful time of the year” for HR.

Why? It’s because, in addition to the normal chorus of Stupid Employee Tricks, it’s the time of year where everything is due at once. Right now I’m working on a few of the following:

Annual AAP and EEOC reporting (the latter is finished. The former? SHOOT ME. I mean, I’m all about diversity. It’s the mind-numbing minutiae of government documentation that makes all of us approach this task with the enthusiasm and vigor of preparing our taxes or heading to a root canal.)

Open Enrollment – the annual event where HR pulls you all together and shoots confusing terminology and abbreviations at you for a full sixty minutes. The end result of this meeting is the expectation that you place you order for your own personalized combo platter of a pre-tax alphabet soup that you’ll pay a couple thousand dollars for. On the menu are PPO, with or without FSA (dependent care, medical, or BOTH); OR HDHP, with or without HSA (so study those co-insurances and copays, folks!); LTD and STD, the latter of which cannot be cleared up by antibiotics, and you really DO want, just in case, and and let’s not forget to remind ourselves of the benefits of our EAP and 401(k).

(Side note – Seriously, folks. You’re probably spending upwards of $2000 on insurance – take an hour or two and READ the stuff HR gives you. We don’t print it because we are budding novelists desperate to see our names in print. We do it as an attempt to educate you on what we know is an overwhelming, confusing, and expensive topic. I’ll bet the last time you bought an electronic device, or a new appliance, you spent HOURS poring over Consumer Reports and Amazon reviews, determined to get the best value. And that likely didn’t cost you HALF of what you’ll spend on insurance. So take a stab at actually using the tools HR gives you. This is a much bigger – and more expensive – decision than whether you need a built-in ice maker or not.)

Performance Reviews: Ah…my favorite. And by “favorite,” I mean “time of year I most frequently question my career choice.” And by “choice,” I mean “where I accidentally landed after discovering that most people lack the chutzpah to tell someone when they’re getting canned.”

Anyway.

Your performance review is supposed to be the time of year where you get dedicated attention from your boss – where she actually has an in-depth conversation with you about your job performance, your career potential, and your future with your organization.

What it often ends up being is a quick meeting where you get a pencil-whipped checklist from your boss, where you were arbitrarily rated, like wine, cheese, or earbuds, on a scale of 1-5. This scale is meant to capture the full spectrum of performance, with a rating of one meaning “unable to safely operate a crayon” and five being “not only walks on water, but turns it into wine when he’s done.”

Often, you and your peers are force-ranked – this means that your company has set quotas on how many people can sit in which seats on the rank bus – so most of you are solidly in Seat 3, which is Neutral, or Neither Agree Nor Disagree, or “Does my boss even know my name?”

Suffice it to say I’m not a huge fan of performance reviews. What should happen is that you have clear job expectations, and you receive frequent feedback from your supervisor so you know EXACTLY how you’re doing every week of your job. Feedback should be an ongoing process, not a once-a-year event.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret – most managers completely suck at managing. (OK, admittedly, that’s not much more a secret than water being wet.) Most of them are pretty candy-a$$* about telling you when you’re doing something wrong.

*I tried to find another word here, because although in real life I swear like the mechanic I was raised by, I try to keep my blog pretty clean. But Thesaurus.com didn’t have ANY synonyms for “candy-a$$” – it came up empty: “Did you mean cantatas?” Uh, no. Choir peeps may SOUND all innocent when they’re blasting through Vivaldi’s Gloria, but don’t let the robes fool you – they will TOTALLY cut a b!tch. Especially the altos. Those chicks are dark.

The point here is that if HR didn’t force managers to write down how you’re doing once a year, you’d never actually know, well, at least, not until the day you get called to HR and your boss is waiting there with the exit packet.

So that’s why your company does performance reviews. And that’s also why your review tastes oddly like banana candy.

Laffy Taffy - bite-size banana - tub of 145:

Bananarama / Banana Runts - Bulk:

Banana Candy SHOULD be good. I mean – SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR. Right? It’s sweet. It has a fun, bright color that should signal a party in your mouth.

But it just doesn’t taste good. The sweetness is cloying. The flavor is…odd. Unpleasant.

And it certainly tastes NOTHING like an actual banana. It’s totally fake. I mean, it has the COLOR of a banana, and because you’re told that it’s supposed to taste like an actual banana, you eat it and play along.

But if this candy was, say, blue, and shaped like a prickly pear? No way would that shiz stay in your mouth. You’d spit it out. You’d agree pretty quickly that it was nasty, artificial crap that has absolutely no business being called food.

But when we’re told that it’s supposed to be something we normally find palatable, we dutifully nod and swallow it.

You see how this is much like your annual performance review?

It’s supposed to taste just like a banana.

Incidentally, this is how I’m feeling in my marriage lately. I’m trying to recover from the “incident” from a few weeks ago, and I’d been doing remarkably well, actually.

Then I made the decision to go back to therapy. I had my first return visit on Friday.

As it turns out, I’ve been feeding myself a whole heckuva lot of banana candy.

That whole inner peace thing I’ve been carrying around like Fall’s must-have Tory Burch backpack? Fake. Forced. Surreal.

I’ve spent the last two days in the uncomfortable spot of really feeling the feels. Oh, and eating them. I demolished a 26-oz bag of this in under 24 hours. (Add THAT to the list of “can never buy again.” Curse you, Costco.):

can't buy THIS again, either. EVER.:

For you math geeks, that’s almost two pounds of popcorn, folks. 3,640 calories.

Now THAT is one big-azz banana.

Yesterday, the hubs took me for a massage. (Which should have been nice. But all the nice things he’s doing for me lately feel artificial, too. Despite his insistence on the authenticity of his actions, I can’t accept them as acts of love; they feel like guilt gifts. Obligatory offerings. Choco-flavored maraschino-esque balls of goo.)

I cried for much of the massage. As the masseuse worked my shoulders out of my ears, I watched big, fat tears of heartache fall through the face pillow and onto the floor. I wanted them to take some of the anguish with them, but all they did was broadcast it, displaying my hurt for everyone to see.

I spent the rest of the day hiding under a cold, dark cloud that I pulled over my face and head to shut the world out.

My homework from therapy is to let myself experience the emotions I have. I guess now that the popcorn bag is empty (EMPTY. seriously @(#@#WTF*$@!!!!) I can start to do that. Dr. P encouraged me to sit with these feelings. They’re admittedly (and obviously) unpleasant. But eating doesn’t lessen them, nor make them disappear. It only postpones them. They lie in wait until you’re ready to deal with them. It’s like sheets in the washing machine. Eventually, if they sit there long enough, you’ll need to rewash them once in a while. But they won’t get dried and put away until you begin the arduous task of taking them outside to dry on the line, hanging them one corner at a time.

I hate feeling this way.

I don’t want to have these feelings any more.

I’m really, really sick of this damn banana.

But I guess if I want to really heal, I need to eat every stinking bite of it. I’ll need to force myself to choke down one piece at a time, brown spots and all.

When the Heart’s Desire Is a Little Backwards

Posted on October 18, 2015 by KatieComeBack

So it appears that there’s a Harry Potter marathon on TV this weekend.

Of course, upon making this discovery, we immediately abandoned our plans (which, admittedly, weren’t any more ambitious than to order takeout and to bingewatch Season 4 of Friends. But Friends is on Netflix ANY time, right? Okay, Harry Potter probably is, too, but it’s just DIFFERENT when you can’t pause it AND it’s peppered with commercials for fast food, pharmaceuticals, and feminine hygiene products, and it’s ONLY THIS WEEKEND so we HAVE to watch it NOW NOW NOW!)

<cough> Anyway.

Since we’re ordering takeout today, I’ve already wasted much of the morning agonizing over THAT Big Life-Changing Decision – what to get, how much to get, do I splurge on pizza or stick to steamed veggies and chicken, and don’t even THINK about ice cream….

If you live in this hell, you know the drill.

<strums guitar> Come on and join me in the campfire singalong!

Can I eat this many calories today?

Will the sodium bloat me for a week?

Will the kids notice if I only eat half of it?

Will I be able to only eat half of it? (HAHAHAHAHA no)

How long will it take to run this off?

Can’t you all just shut up and let me freaking EAT?

Um…What’s for dessert?

Compounding the struggle to complete this mental exercise is the painful guilt bruise I’m sporting courtesy of last night’s food bender. In addition to a balanced, healthy dinner (OK, it was Taco Bell, SHADDUP) I managed to stuff both a 6-serving bag of cheese popcorn AND two Hershey bars down my pie hole. (This dalliance will take at least three runs to burn off. UGH.) So I shouldn’t be eating much today. But I should eat SOMETHING, but I don’t know what, or how much, and I’m ~~not even~~ have no right to be hungry anyway, right? RIGHT?!?

And dammit, none of this is worth the energy I spend on it. It’s just food, not deciding which kid to feed to the dragons first. (Although today one is sporting a significant ‘tude that might make THAT selection pretty simple.)

While I was arguing passionately with the voices in my head, a scene from the movie (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) interrupted the melee and momentarily silenced the crowd.

Harry’s skulking along under a camo tarp that makes him invisible, spying on his teachers (we ALL wanted a peek at what REALLY goes on in the mysterious Teacher’s Lounge, didn’t we?) when he stumbles upon a magical mirror. When he peers into it, what he sees reflected back is an image of himself – WITH his parents. Now, Harry’s parents were killed by the Main Scary Evil Villain Dude when Harry was a baby, so he actually has no memory of his parents…but there they are in the mirror, looking back at him, smiling away all normal like they’re ready to toss him a football and bake him some cookies or something.

Harry eagerly brings his token redhead buddy to the mirror, excited to show proof that he didn’t self-generate from an unfortunate chemical spill. But Copper Mop doesn’t see Harry’s folks in the mirror. Instead, he sees himself actually passing gym class, or something. (Lame.)

But it wasn’t some evil ginger magic that broke the mirror. We learn this from the Grand Poobah Wizard Bro, who swings by in a few and says when he looks in the mirror, he only gets to see himself holding a pair of socks. (Lame, but less lame than gym class. I mean, socks can have, like, penguins on them. Penguins trump gym class any day.)

So it turns out that the mirror is rigged to reflect “only the deepest desire of our hearts.”

But now that the cool trick is revealed, the Head Honcho in a Poncho says he’s going to go off and hide the thing in a land far, far away. Because people are stupid, and lack willpower, and will sit in front of the blasted contraption for hours, days, even WEEKS, going bonkers, dying of starvation, or both, while obsessively staring into the glass, seeing exactly what they want to see.

(So, basically…it’s TV tuned to Say Yes to the Dress, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Come on, TELL me you haven’t lost HOURS of your life riveted to that drivel. Ah well. Since so many establishments deliver food via text or emoji nowadays, at least we won’t starve to death.)

(AND AND AND. Come on, Dumbledore. “I’m gonna hide it, but don’t you dare try to find it, because it’s bad for you.” Dude, that didn’t work on any kid, EVER, for shiz like Christmas gifts or Halloween candy; how exactly do you picture this working for something as SUPER AWESOME as an enchanted mirror? Clearly you don’t have much experience with the prepubescent set. I guess that’s why your magic school doesn’t start with pre-K.)

So it’s clear that this mirror is powerful, but dangerous. Dumbledore says something fairly profound about it:

Wait. What?

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Remember that.“

Whoa there, Sorcerer Santa Man. That hits pretty close to home.

All this extraneous noise in my head – how big are my thighs, how much food did I eat, what do I weigh today, can I eat anything else, when can I eat again, when will I get a grip and stick to a diet and finally lose weight – isn’t that dwelling on dreams? Shooting for a fictional figure, a meaningless number? Aiming for a target that darts and hides, and gets smaller and smaller, shrinking and reducing itself as I do?

Aren’t all these voices – with their commands and beratings, with their taunts and threats – distracting me from real life? From what should truly matter? From what I really could be?

I’ve been staring into this mirror for the better part of thirty years. It’s a permanent fixture in my spiritual home; it has a featured spot right in the entryway to my funhouse.

And it’s kept me from truly living.

I understand now why Professor DumbleD was trying to hide this thing. It’s been a major time-suck and hasn’t done me a lick of good. I’ve wasted years of my life stuck right in front of it, starving myself and sacrificing my sanity in an attempt to match the reflection.

If only I could get my hands on a house elf. Maybe, when he gets a break from washing the windows, he could get that sucker unloaded on eBay or something, and buy me a nice, benign, limited-edition Kinkade to hang in its place. A painting that, when you pass it, lets you stop and gaze for just a moment, recharging your spiritual batteries instead of draining them. A thing of beauty that gives you a small serving of light and peace, packed lovingly in a to-go box so you can carry it with you, taking small nibbles as you need them as you go about living your day.

That sounds like a nice change. Soothing. Healing.

If only I could tear this mirror out.

Breaking a mirror is rumored to bring you seven years of bad luck.

I’m holding a sledgehammer and preparing to swing.

You may want to back up a bit. This might get messy.

Not So Twitterpated – Help a Gal Out!

Posted on October 17, 2015 by KatieComeBack

I am CLEARLY showing my age here by my complete lack of instinct when it comes to technology.

It’s not my fault. When I was a kid, the phone was attached to the wall, and postcards went in the mailbox.

Sigh.

Tonight started with a food binge that spiralled quickly out of control. Once all the food was gone, it morphed into online shoe shopping.

In order to break the cycle of excess, I decided it’d be cool to have a Twitter account.

I mean, that’s fun. Right? Or, at least, distracting? BECAUSE DON’T I NEED ANOTHER TIME SUCK?

And it has to be easy, because everyone is doing it. Right?

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT I AM DOING.

You can follow me there…but how do I find all you lovely people?

Gimme your handle or nom-de-at-sign or whatevs, and I’ll follow ya.

Love and shoes,

Kate. AKA @carrotkatie

Renovating the Funhouse

Posted on October 16, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Having an eating disorder is a bit like living inside a funhouse.

Remember the funhouse at the local carnival? You voluntarily handed over your ticket, and left all reality behind as you entered a world where gravity, balance, and perception shape-shifted, bent, and distorted, constantly causing you to question your instincts as you jumped, blinked, and were thrust unceremoniously into the wall.

Except this funhouse was, well, FUN, because it was temporary, and because eventually, someone would let you out and you’d go get a funnel cake and some cotton candy.

As part of my attempt at recovery from the food-issue funhouse, I’ve tried a few different things. But regardless of what I attempt, the well-established distortion I’ve been living with is difficult to work around.

For example – books. I’ve read tons of books on eating disorders. After story upon story of experiences with intubation, heart attacks, and grieving families, my reaction isn’t ANYTHING like “Oh. Wait. This shiz could kill me if I did it right.” Nope. It’s more like “gosh, if I just had more willpower, I could finally, REALLY, be thin.” And, I’m embarrassed to admit, occasionally I wonder if eating cotton balls really WILL fill me up. (No, I haven’t tried it, and I don’t recommend you do it, either. But part of the funhouse effect is that stuff that appears to be TOTAL craysauce to normal people starts to actually sound logical. Think I’m joking? How many of YOU have tried Slim-Fast? Or the Cabbage Soup Diet? See? SEE?!?)

I also have flirted with trying meditation. In my quest for inner peace, I have discovered that

Wait, what is my cat doing over there?

Can I get MY leg over my head like that?

I haven’t eaten chicken in awhile. Maybe I’ll make paprikash next week.

Suffice it to say I sort of suck at meditation. NEXT.

I did attend therapy for awhile, too. Was it helping? Hard to say. Like exercise, it was exhausting and painful, so I didn’t exactly look forward to GOING.

Yet – also like exercise – once I finished a session, I was usually glad I had gone.

That didn’t make it any easier to keep scheduling appointments. You don’t get the warm fuzzies until you’re done wringing out your brain…and you don’t exactly look forward to the inevitably draining part that has to come first. The relief at the end is barely a consolation prize, much like a small lollipop for getting a tetanus shot.

So why did I quit? It’d be easy to say “well, I was busy.” But if I’m honest with myself, I think it’s more because I was actually making some progress – I was beginning to redecorate the funhouse. Yet I wasn’t quite ready to part with that mental ottoman and its contrasting overstuffed sofa, nor start to repaint some of the walls I’d grown accustomed to seeing.

Not that therapy got me any further than the redecoration equivalent of picking out a toilet paper holder. But it was a start, and starting is closer to finishing. And I’m just not ready to let go of things like attaining my dream weight or wearing a certain size. Nor am I ready to embrace the possibility of being comfortable wearing a few sizes BIGGER than what I wear now. (Just typing that got a rousing “Oh HELL no” outta me. Which got me some glances from my compatriots at the airport. Move along, folks. There’s PLENTY more interesting to see around here, trust me.)

Maybe I’m not quite ready to commit to recovery. I have a lifetime of destructive habits, thoughts, and patterns to renovate – that’s a TON of work, and I’d be fooling myself if I thought for a moment that it’d be easy. After all, I’ve been this way since I was 10 years old and one of my brother’s friends said I was getting as fat as he was. I don’t remember caring ANYTHING about my weight before that.

But from that instant, it was all that mattered. Well, for the most part. Looking back, I did actually have a couple of periods in my life where I just didn’t CARE so much. And I’m not entirely certain why I didn’t.

First up: 1993. This was the year I got engaged and married (to my now-ex.) I just wasn’t thinking about dieting, exercising, binging, starving…any of it. I had just finished college (well, I finished GOING, anyway. The actual degree came later, technically. But that’s a story for another day.) I ate what I want, when I wanted, and indulged frequently and often. Fast food? Yes please. Fried food? Why not?

Looking back, I wasn’t really binging – I was eating heartily and lustily, and enjoying it.

It was nuts.

I actually remember attending a family reunion with my then-newly-wedded spouse, and a relative of his commented on how many brownies I was eating. I told her “Meh, I’m married now, it’s all good.”

<brrrrrrrrrp> WHAT.

I WASN’T EVEN DRINKING DIET SODA.

I’m more than a little horrified at how out-of-control this sounds.

Topping out at about 180 or so, I got married in a size 16 dress that nicely framed my hourglass figure, and kept up with the wed-and-fed bliss until about a year into the marriage, when I realized that the marriage sort of sucked, and to deal with that I lost about 65 pounds.

That actually brought me to a healthy weight for my height, and I maintained that weight before and after two pregnancies.

So I looked healthy…but the patterns were etching themselves back on the funhouse walls. The thin wallpaper I had hung to disguise them was faded and torn.

Fast forward about thirteen years to the year my divorce was being finalized. I started to date again…and dating typically means a LOT of happy hour beer, nachos, and cheesecake. (I suspect the kids do it differently nowadays….?) As I started to date the now-hubs, I wasn’t thinking about my weight all that much. Yeah, if you asked me, I’d readily admit that I could lose some weight, sure. But I was happy, and he certainly had no complaints.

During our courtship, I did gain weight, and this time, I got married in a Jessica McClintock halter-style number that again showcased my curves nicely.

I was about 150 pounds, and I felt beautiful.

So why now, at nearly 40 pounds below that figure, do I feel fatter, wider…bigger? And why am I less satisfied with how my body looks?

It’s because the funhouse feels like home.

I really like wearing a small size. When I go to a store, and the smallest size fits, it means I’ve won. And next time, it should be too big for me. #bossstage.

I want to be the smallest and thinnest. Second place just isn’t good enough. Try harder. Eat less. Run more. Win.

I know that in my funhouse, the couch cushions are ripped. I’m aware of the chips in the end table. I know the floors have a definite tilt to them; you can see it when you set down a glass or drop a marble.

But it’s home.

I’m not quite ready to get a modern sofa. My TV will look outdated if I replace the carpet.

However, I know I desperately need to replace the windows so they keep in the heat and let in the light. The current ones are draining me dry.

But if I do this, will I adjust to the new view? With more light in the room, what will I see? What will I have to address? What will cry out for repair? What else will I need to replace?

Sigh. With an older sofa, I don’t have to fret about spilling red wine, right?

I do recognize that all this mind-chatter is a complete waste. I mean, with all that I could offer the world, why is THIS what I focus on as my life’s directive? Given an alternative outlet, maybe I could have cured cancer by now. Or at least given SOMETHING of value back to the planet. Right?

Since I seem to have my butt firmly planted in this decrepit, ancient funhouse recliner, I’ll read you a fairly tale.

Once upon a time, there was a bright-eyed, energetic girl named Katie.

One day, someone gave Katie a cookie.

With a smile, she politely said, “Thank you!”

She ate the cookie and went on with her life as if nothing had happened at all.

THE END

I know. It’s just a fairy tale.

Midweek Marketing: Going Against the Grain

Posted on October 13, 2015 by KatieComeBack

As you know, I started this blog with the intent of focusing on recovery. But as of late, I’m not feeling all that brave, especially after recent events, and more especially because I’m just coming off a two-day food bender, and subsequently have gained two freaking @Q#(#@$(#@* pounds, which will take me four weeks and a blowtorch to undo. IF I’M LUCKY.

*insert a few more expletives. Colorful, vibrant, grandmother-shocking expletives.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

Transitioning from a full-on binge to “normal” (read: diet. re-read: not) eating is tough. Your body is coming off its sugar high, and the afterburn sends mixed messages to your brain. And by “mixed” I mean that every voice inside your head, along with a few it’s recruited from the outside, are SCREAMING at you to EAT EAT EAT EAT.

Blah.

Two f(#@*F&G** pounds.

**More expletives, please. Get creative, peeps! Use your favorites as noun, verb, and adjective.

So, while I’m sitting on my hands trying not to stuff my face with both Ben and Jerry, I’ll leave you with some of the other random thoughts in my head.

A few days ago, Nikki at The Undiagnosed Warrior was kind enough to nominate me for the Encouraging Thunder award. Now, Nikki is an amazing young woman who has been dealing with a debilitating illness – the cause of which has continued to evade many trained medical professionals. Ya gotta be brave to face chronic illness day after day; that’s true tenfold when your illness doesn’t have a name. So if you need a story of perseverance and determination, check out her blog!

DA RULZ:

When you get this award, you can:

Post it and the logo on your blog
Pay it forward by nominating others

You cannot:

Abuse or misuse the logo
Claim the logo is your own

If you receive the award you should:

Give thanks via comments and likes in the blog of the person nominating you
Mention the person who nominated you in your award blog
Discuss your purpose in blogging in your award blog

I feel a bit like I’m cheating, because I actually won this award before. But the rules don’t SAY only one per participant. Not that this would stop me. If I can scarf through an eight-serving bag of popcorn in one sitting, do you think I’m gonna even blink at a “limit one per customer” rule?

If you’re still not sure, ask the demonstrators at Costco how many Bailey’s truffles I scored last weekend.

Wait. On second thought? Don’t. I don’t think we need, like, an actual NUMBER here. Never mind.

So anyway. You can read about why I started this blog here. Essentially, I was taking a wild stab at recovery.

As I mentioned above, though….these past two days were bad.

Very, very bad.

This weekend, ice cream and dill pickle popcorn were my binge foods of choice – namely, because I had them in the house. See, that’s how binges normally work:

Step 1: I buy groceries like a normal person, taking time to select items that actually sound good. (Side note: I know the experts say never to shop when you’re hungry…but if I don’t, I won’t actually BUY anything. I have to shop when I’m physically hungry, or I leave the store with new makeup instead of anything I can actually eat. And if I don’t buy food that looks appetizing, it just sits about my pantry like ugly wedding gifts, and I just won’t ever get around to using it.)

Step 2: I fall off the wagon and binge-eat a certain food item (or items. Yeah. More like items.)

Step 3: I CAN NEVER BUY THAT FOOD AGAIN because I will eat it all in one frenzied nonstop session like there’s a prize at the bottom and getting it is my JOB.

This is why I can’t buy stuff like frozen pizza, ice cream, pudding, cookies, chocolate peanut butter, kettle corn, potato chips, anything from Culver’s, or cereal.

Especially cereal.

Cereal is the WORST.

One time? I ate an entire fifteen-ounce box of Peanut Butter Puffins. IN ONE AFTERNOON. (Note to self. Do NOT eat whilst Facebooking. It’s trouble. Especially when peanut butter anything is involved.)

Image from http://barbaras.com/

And don’t let’s pretend “well, at least this is HEALTHY food,” mmmkay? Because the second ingredient is – guess what? – SUGAR. And the box is SUPPOSED TO FEED FIFTEEN PEOPLE. That’s 1,650 calories of cereal, folks. (And it wasn’t even the only thing I ate that day. NOT EVEN CLOSE.)

So at the tail end of my dill-pickle popcorn binge, I was watching the Patriots totally SPANK the Cowboys, and between plays they announced that Jason Witten (tight end, Dallas) now has his own breakfast cereal.

Image from http://www.guidelive.com

(The stars were not so lucky on Sunday. BOOYAH. SUCK IT COWBOYS.)

So as I’m sitting there on the sofa, crashing rapidly from my sugar rush face-first into a carb coma, I started thinking about other cereals the NFL could market.

And they sounded…kinda dirty.

(Just in time, too, since apparently you can’t get your jollies from the pictures in Playboy anymore.)

What do you think? Would you buy any of these? Tape them to your face, go long, and not stop until someone calls a personal foul?

In Chicago: Cutler’s Crispy Bits

New England: Brady’s Frosted Patriot Power Os

Denver: Peyton’s Protein Clusters

Pittsburgh: Big Ben’s Marshmallow Poofs

Seattle: Wilson’s Brown Sugar Nut Toasties

I can’t say any of these splits MY uprights, exactly.

Yum, yum. Guten appetit!

For this award, I’ll nominate a2eternity, adjustremembered, and wehaveapples. Thank you, ladies, for saying some of the many things that need to be said!

Throwback Foodday and a Day (of Food) in the Life

Posted on October 9, 2015 by KatieComeBack

As you already know, I have some “food issues”* that I’ve been dealing with since I was ten, when a solitary comment from a friend of my brother caused a seismic shift in food’s role in my life.

(“Food Issues” = currently read: EDNOS, or Eating Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, or, re-read: Eating Disorder, Not Committed Enough to Qualify As A Real Illness. There’s actually a whole alphabet soup of different subtypes of eating disorders – you can read about them here. I have a wardrobe full of ’em myself. A few fit me better in high school than they do today, but I keep them around and try them on once in a while just for giggles. Bulimia is the bell-bottom of eating disorders, anorexia is menswear – just when you think they start to look ridiculous on you, they come back into fashion and all the models are sporting them on the cover of Vogue.)

Before that time – when I was a kid, and didn’t know any better – food was a calm, tranquil creek. When life had some hard edges, I could visit a favorite snack for brief moments of joy and delight. (Not that life was all that dramatic when I was ten. My biggest issues were probably the indignity of having braces and wearing really thick glasses AT THE SAME TIME. Trust me – highly traumatic, especially when you’re ALSO in band. It’s the grade-school trifecta of uncool.)

Food was comforting when I needed it, and unobtrusive when I didn’t. It was like a favored toy, satisfied to patiently wait on a shelf until I might want to take it out to play.

And play I did – heartily and often, with frequent trips to the convenience store for any one of the Hostess frosted confections (or those amazing little donuts with the crunchy bits on them!) topped off with an RC Cola or a Veryfine Papaya Punch. (Which, sadly, no one seems to make any more. Boo. It was refreshing, not too sweet, and was the color of sunsets. The perfect accompaniment to BBQ Corn Nuts. I haven’t had a beverage with calories in years (except wine, duh) but I still wish they had it, because I might want it SOMEDAY, ya know?)

oohhhh….yeah, baby….

There was more. Pizza and Pepsi every Friday. Homemade Tollhouse cookies. A large casserole of scalloped oysters at Thanksgiving, and a fruitcake at Christmas, “because Katie loves them.” (As I write this, it suddenly strikes me that these were treats that Mom loved, too. I wish she had realized that it was perfectly OK to make them even if SHE was the only one who wanted to eat them.)

And there was always good food at Grandma’s house. From Dad’s mom: chocolate pudding – the kind you cook on the stove, of course – made with marshmallows and served warm, with milk, in Depression-glass dessert dishes. JiffyPop served in green glass bowls. Frosted chocolate-walnut refrigerator cookies (which, despite reading many recipes and attempting several trial batches, I have never been able to replicate.) Smokehouse almonds and 7-Up. Cashews after piano practice.

Mom’s parents also fed us well. Grandpa was a fisherman (who, as I’ve mentioned, used to nail salmon heads to trees), so Saturday dinner at Grandma’s place meant a fish fry, complete with her famous yeast rolls:

Man, I could eat four of those during a meal. FOUR. And one or two for snack later on. Makes me realize how innocent I was….I had absolutely no idea about the frightening number of white-flour calories I was ingesting. (Nor did it occur to me to care. Ah, youth.) My sister, the quintessential picky eater, pretty much lived off these rolls – these, plus Grandma’s deviled eggs, filled her plate for every holiday meal.

Grandma’s house also meant dessert. (Obviously. What’s Grandma without dessert?) The aforementioned rolls, with homemade jelly – strawberry, grape, or sometimes tomato. (Only once. Because yuck.) Homemade apples, stewed with Red Hots. And fruit crisps: Rhubarb, of course. Apple. And, interestingly, zucchini.

Yes, zucchini – the vegetable that you only grow if you have a TON of friends, and if that ton of friends are people you want to have avoid you all summer lest you share the crop that keeps on cropping.

Photo from https://u.osu.edu/buckmdblog/2015/05/27/veggie-vitals-zucchini-the-great-houdini/

Even if you’re not a fan, you have got to try zucchini crisp. Really. It’s surprisingly good. If you like apple crisp, you’ll be all over this.

Zucchini Crisp
 
 3-4 Cups zucchini (peeled & deseeded), cut in thick pieces.  

Cook in 1/3 C lemon juice until tender.
 
 Add:
  1/4 tsp cinnamon
  1/8 tsp nutmeg
  1/2 C sugar
 
 Cook 1 minute; will be very juicy.
 
 Mix together: 
  1 1/2 C flour
  3/4 C sugar
  1/4 tsp salt
 
 Cut in:
  1 1/4 sticks margarine
 
Press 3/4 C of mix in bottom of 8X8X2" pan. Bake 10 min at 350.  
Pour cooked squash over baked crust.  
Cover with rest of crumb topping. Bake 40 min. at 350.  
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

OMNOMNOM. I actually made a version of this over the summer – without butter, of course, because butter is terrifying, and with honey instead of white sugar. And it was delish all the same. I promise this isn’t some cruel joke, like raisins in cookies or white chocolate in your Easter basket. It’s legit awesome. And reminds me of Grandma.

For the first ten years of my life, food was a celebration. Food was an expression of love.

Food was joy.

And then one day, suddenly, one comment turned food from friend to foe. From best friend to mortal enemy.

Food – the security blanket I turned to when craving love and affection – responded to this spasmodic paroxysm by transmogrifying from a much loved teddy bear to a hulking, sinister bully. It recruited the scale as its dictator and judge, and together, the two mocked, harassed, and tortured me.

(And you thought Decepticons were terrifying. Sure, stuff blew up, and people died. But Megan Fox was still skinny. AND HER WHITE PANTS STAYED CLEAN. I wasn’t even allowed to wear white pants until I was…well, by then I was too fat for white pants. Besides the fact that they do nothing to smooth, soften, or minimize, you also have to plan your undercrackers carefully, because you can see the print – stripes, polka dots, and baby ballerina whales – RIGHT THROUGH most of them. So no white pants. But I digress.)

So what does a day of food look like now?

Well, it looks a lot like this:

Now, normally, I don’t eat quite this much packaged food. But I wasn’t going to be home for lunch or dinner, so I had to pack food that could travel. Otherwise, dinner would likely be something predictably healthy, like baked fish and a veggie. Or a stir-fry. (And I couldn’t show you a picture of tonight’s dinner, because, well, it was SUPPOSED to be curried squash and potatoes (465 calories,) but I had 45 lives hoarded on Candy Crush, and it’s level 492, which is HARD, and somewhere between “hey, I got time” and “is something burning?” I cooked those cubes which I VERY painstakingly chopped into uniform pieces down into a gargantuan wad of bright orange wallpaper paste. Despite its attempts to resemble fluorescent mudding compound, it was actually pretty dang tasty. Just not terribly photogenic.)

Anyway. The point here is that 1200 calories is…not a whole heckuva lot of food. The breakdown:

Breakfast (178 calories): Smoothie.
Lunch (370 calories): Madras Lentils (300) and a nectarine (70).
Snack (80): Dried plums. (That’s hippie talk for “prunes.” Which your grandmother ate. I only eat dried plums. Now get off my lawn.)
Dinner (460 calories): Quinoa salad (340), cheese stick (80), clementine (40).
Snack (100): Yasso bar (frozen yogurt.)
TOTAL: 1188 calories.

And, if I stick to this very religiously (as I explained here), I can expect to lose roughly a half pound a week.

With maybe four exceptions to the 1200-calorie-a-day rule (seriously, I can count on ONE hand how many meals have been off the boat, and have one finger left over. GUESS WHICH ONE) here’s how this has played out in reality over the last few weeks:

Week 1: down six pounds (Six, yo. Salt much???)
Week 2: flatline.
Week 3: one pound gone!
Week 4: donut.
Week 5: GAINED A F%(^!N& pound (My body haaaaaaaaaaaates me)
Week 6: Lost SIX pounds (on the Ashley Madison diet. 10/10 would not recommend)
Week 7: Gained two pounds. (FML)
Week 8: Goose egg (FUUUUUUUUUUUuuu)

Hmm. Wait a sec.

As maddening as this roller-coaster ride has been, I guess I HAVE lost ten pounds in eight weeks.

Whoa.

I BEAT MATH.

I’m…MAGIC.

And a magical being needs magical hair…right?

So I treated myself to some color today:

Color makes me happy. Color brings me joy.

AND IT DOESN’T WEIGH ANYTHING.

Unfortunately, it isn’t cheap. Neither is a bad shoe habit. Or new clothes. Or all the nose rings I want from RockYourNose (which you should check out – her stuff is amazeballs.)

But with all the drama as of late, my ego has taken a beating. So, while I haven’t found the exact recipe for the perfect frosted chocolate-walnut refrigerator cookie, or a palatable low-sugar, gluten-free fruitcake, I think it’s perfectly OK to indulge in some pretty, shiny things here and there.

Little morsels of joy, fat-free.

A Kitten of Schrödinger

Posted on October 2, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Remember Schrödinger’s cat?

We all learned about this from Big Bang Theory, right? Essentially, you have a cat sealed up in a box, maybe with some poison. The theory is that, as long as the box remains closed, you don’t really know whether the cat is alive or dead. (Let’s assume this is a soundproof box, and one too heavy to lift and shake. Because otherwise, the cat would make its displeasure quite obvious, and if it didn’t, we’d all be rattling the box trying to get the thing to respond. Or opening cans of tuna. Because any cat not responding immediately to the mechanical crunching of a can opener is obviously dead.)

I realized today that I have some weird, mutant form of this thought experiment kitty going on in my marriage. With my spouse’s revelation last week, I’ve spent a lot of time in a thick fog, unable to visually articulate whether my marriage is dead, or alive.

And right now? It’s kind of…both.

Because it’s been all I’ve written about for two weeks, you already know this, but to recap: the hubs told me that he had, about two years ago, opened an account on Ashley Madison. He claims that, while he spent over $250 freaking dollars on it <insert colorful expletive of choice> he never actually met up with anyone. He had some fairly surface-level electronic conversations…but that was it. Eventually, he closed the account and walked away.

That was that…until the news broke of the security breach. At that point, he knew he had to tell me, before one of my less-trusting or drama-seeking friends “accidentally” found out, and felt compelled to let me know.

I’ve been struggling with whether to believe him or not.

And I’ve come to discover that it doesn’t really matter all that much.

Now, before you examine my cranium for dents, let me explain. It’s basically that philosophical feline, both alive and dead because it is neither.

Not actual thought-experiment cat. Not suspecting any sentient thought at all. Cat eventually proven to be alive when he passed gas and startled himself. Keepin’ it classy and highbrow, ya know.

I have a choice here. I can spend a shiz-ton of time examining, inspecting, and analyzing every nuance and detail of every exchange and communication over the last two years, trying to find the golden nugget of information that will lead me to a conclusion.

Or, I can accept him at his word.

Either way, the sooner I can get out of this dark cloud of over-thinkingness, the sooner I can choose to forgive him. The sooner I can forgive him, the sooner I can get on with life – MY life – whichever direction that may be.

In other words…it kinda looks like this:

The hubs and I spent a lot of time talking last weekend. We had our first counseling session, where he spent a full hour eating crow, barely choking on the feathers. On Saturday, I said I wanted to be outside, so he took me to one of the most gorgeous spots I can get to in under two hours.

You just can’t waste a day like this, ya know? And when the thinks and the thoughts try to smother your joy, there’s nothing like sunshine and giant rocks to bring your inner child out to play.

We hiked up and down the rocks for nearly four hours. On the way, we spotted some really cool ‘shrooms. It’s kind of neat that God’s crayon box is open even to the lowest fungi.

Author’s Note: No mushrooms were harmed, or licked, during filming.

Some of the rock formations formed natural “potholes” (although they look more like tunnels to me):

And there were several cliffs and bluffs, most of which were clearly made before the 80s (when we could learn by reading, instead of by, say, life experience or common sense, that it was not safe to use your toaster in the bathtub and that coffee is generally served hot) because there aren’t any guard rails or restraining bars. Theoretically, you could gently nudge someone to Absolute Enlightenment, or pay your own tuition to harp school, with a little chutzpah and a committed shove.

(Don’t think I wasn’t tempted to wing out an elbow.)

And eventually, we ran into this cool little fella. He didn’t have a whole lot to say. (The truly cool never do. They just hang out lookin’ fly while you wish you could be them.)

I was going to try to pick him up, but I don’t know enough about snakes to know which ones can kill me, so I opted out of THAT little adventure. I found out later that it was probably just a harmless milk snake, and the worst he’d probably do is try to hug you to death, and really, aren’t there worse ways to go? (Like having your deranged spouse kick you in the left kidney, sending you tumbling down a rock face into a murky river where you’re run over by a dinner cruise teeming with drunken nuns? Did I mention I was tempted?)

(Side note: I did add a snake pic to my Facebook page. In which I promptly tagged my spouse. One part passive-aggressive…forty-seven parts immensely satisfying. Heh.)

I still have a lot to work out – with myself, with my spouse, with the state of my marriage. But you can’t spend a day in THIS and not be able to think that somehow you’re gonna be okay.

I put my toe on the edge of a bluff. Not ready to make a decision, this is as close as I can stomach to stand to the edge.

Yeah. I’m chicken.

Calm, overwhelmingly blue skies above. Exciting river of energy below. A few rocks to clear that keep you grounded in rugged reality.

Every direction is intriguing. I have all the time I need to choose which way to go, and if I take my time and plot my course carefully, I can easily turn around if I want some different scenery.

I can’t speak for Schrödinger, but MY cats sure as heck ain’t gonna starve to death any time soon.

I think I’ll just breathe for a while and take in the view.

The Gray of Storm Clouds, the Tarnished Silver Lining

Posted on September 23, 2015 by KatieComeBack

In our last episode (OK, the last three), Kate was struggling with her spouse’s recent revelation that he established an account on Ashley Madison two years ago.

So, for any of you who haven’t bailed on this leaky tugboat…here’s an update. Sorta. It may just be more blommit.

I love that word. Blommit. Super-big puffy heart it so hard. And I love you guys, too. MWAH

I am still largely numb. There are occasional brief bouts of anger, and there’ve been a couple of tears…but apparently, I’m still in shock. What he did is so incongruous with the behavior of the man I married – the man I THOUGHT I married – that I’m having trouble reconciling the two.

Sometimes, I even forget for a while that this is actually happening.

Emotionally, anyway.

Physically, it’s a different story.

I feel raw. Hollow. Like my soul has been in a horrible motorcycle accident; I’m covered in road rash on the inside, the smashed fragments of my heart staining the pavement a bright red. My mouth tastes of metal. My stomach randomly churns and dips as if I’ve been blindfolded and thrown upside-down onto the Gatekeeper at Cedar Point. I’m exhausted, yet wide awake. I spend much of my day feeling like one does the day after a bad stomach flu. Drained. Empty.

Weak.

Sometimes I am weak, sometimes I am strong.

I am strong because I am demanding the space and time that I need to think this through. I am weak because sometimes I still want to hug him and hold his hand.

I am weak because I realize this sends mixed signals. I am strong because I don’t care. The final decision is up to me, when and if I make one, regardless of how he perceives I am feeling today. Regardless of what HE wants.

I am strong because I’m getting myself tested, and requiring him to do the same. I am weak because my gut tells me that this isn’t necessary, because he’s telling the truth. That he never met any of these women. That nothing physical ever happened. I desperately want to believe this is true. Every fiber of my being tells me he isn’t lying. But that’s the same clearly faulty intuition that completely missed this was happening in the first place. IT WENT ON FOR FIVE MONTHS AND I HAD NO IDEA. (Sporadically, he says. But the window was open, so SOME sulfur must have blown in.)

I am strong because no one at work has any inkling of the internal chaos I’m carrying. (I even finished that blasted EEO-1 report – EARLY – go me! Although of COURSE now that I’m DONE I see they extended the deadline A WHOLE MONTH. I put in 3 hours on my day off and NO ONE THOUGHT TO TELL ME I HAD 31 EXTRA DAYS?!? <stabs air wildly and sprouts hissing rattlesnakes from scalp>)

I am weak because I don’t trust any of my family or friends enough to share this burden. And because saying it aloud will make it real, and I don’t know if my heart can sustain the blow.

I am strong because even though I had previously quit going to therapy, I made some new appointments today. (And he’s going to pay for them. OBVS.)

I am weak because I still love him. And because part of me thinks we can fix this, and a bigger part of me still wants to.

Is there any chance at all that he’s telling the truth? Is it possible he was just window-shopping, clicking on the pretty things he’d like to have and adding them to his cart, only to abandon them by closing the browser instead of clicking “Complete Order”?

Does it matter?

I am strong because I’m keeping to my exercise routine. I ran yesterday and today. Although I am weak because I’m just not eating. My body simply doesn’t want it.

My run times are suffering – badly. I’d been doing a 9:20 mile, and this week it’s been 9:45-10. Ouch. (Side note: The fact that I think a 10-minute mile is “bad” is freaking hilarious. I spent most of my life being completely unathletic, and I am realizing as I’m typing this that I sound like an ex-smoker telling tobacco users that they smell bad. I’ll slap myself FOR you, so you don’t feel you have to do it.)

<slap>

So, as I write this, it’s Tuesday, and that means…

…it’s time to face the scale.

I mentioned in my last post that I was pretty sure I’d lost some weight this week. After all this, that’d be a definite plus, right?

I thought I was looking a bit thinner these days. I mean, I believed I could actually see a difference. And that NEVER HAPPENS. This morning I went as far as to take some pictures, because it felt like a pretty dramatic loss, and I was thinking I would have a physique I could actually show off a bit. <strut strut>

But when I looked at the pictures, I saw this fold here and that bulge there, and promptly hit delete. Must have been an optical illusion. I should know better than to trust my vision at 6 AM, before I’ve had any coffee. HELLO.

It was time to face the music. Numbers don’t lie. Let’s get today’s.

I went for my ~~slog~~ run. I came home. Peeled off the sweaty running togs.

I dust off the scale with the broom (because I have three cats, and hair weighs something. So does dust. Can’t be too careful when you’re letting an inanimate object set your mood for the week.)

(Quit looking at me like that. I KNOW you have your scale rituals, too. Shave first? Pluck your eyebrows? Visit the restroom for one last hurrah? Yeah, I’m on to you. <points finger-scissors at eyes, then back at yours>)

I step on.

I look down.

HOLY FREAKING FAINTING GOATS BATMAN.

I LOST SIX EFFING POUNDS LAST WEEK.

ALL HAIL THE ASHLEY MADISON DIET!

Seriously, do they need a new spokesperson? I hear they’ve had some publicity issues. And I have WAY more mass appeal than that Jared ex-Subway clown. (Especially now. Couldn’t set THAT bar much lower.)

All kidding aside – I know I need to eat. After living on swallowed angst all weekend, I’ve been trying to force myself to eat one good meal a day.

But I’m struggling.

I don’t want to eat because I want to lose weight. (That’s a given.)

I don’t want to eat because starving myself will hurt my spouse. A sweet, slim revenge for what he did to our marriage, a full dish of piping-hot guilt stew to go with that regret roll he’s been noshing on.

I don’t want to eat, because I normally don’t want to WANT to eat, and eating when you don’t want to ACTUALLY eat seems like a waste of a perfectly good gift horse.

I don’t want to eat because my heart is screaming that it’s hurting. It screams so loudly that no one can hear it. Eventually, maybe they will see the screams.

I don’t want to eat because I want to disappear, fading gracefully into the ether, drifting off to a place of peace where no one hurts.

Is that weakness, or strength?

Does it matter?

My spouse says he’ll do absolutely anything to keep us together. He’s had a taste of what it might be like to lose me, and it’s wrecking him. I can see he’s lost weight; I can see the anguish in his eyes and feel it vibrating from his very core.

He’s terrified. Absolutely frightened.

(Good.)

I have agreed to try counseling with him. I have also insisted (as I said above) that he get physically tested. He didn’t even hesitate. Didn’t protest “but nothing happened”- he understands why I ~~might not~~ can’t believe that right now. He even offered to go to a Christian counselor (remember, he’s been a fairly hostile atheist, so him seeing a Christian counselor is kind of a big deal.)

What else should I ask for? What would YOU ask for? What would you need him to do?

Am I an idiot for giving this a chance?

I know that doesn’t matter.

As long as I’m at peace with whatever I decide.

Speaking of peace, here’s a giant chicken. BECAUSE GIANT CHICKEN.

He lives at the Farmers Market. I have no explanation.

Bawk bawk, homies. Thanks for hangin’.

You Put One Foot In, You Got One Shoe Out

Posted on September 21, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Before I start on yet another brain dump on the grenade my spouse dropped on our marriage last week, I want to thank all of you who have reached out, commented, and connected with me. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this in real life, and I can feel your support seeping through the interwebs like the heat from a camp bonfire, where we sit around and melt away the chill and make calorie-free, gluten-free s’mores with peanut butter and drink wine. (You are also free to roast hot dogs if you like, but with that as an alibi, don’t ask me what’s on the end of MY stick. Mkay?)

I appreciate y’all sticking around while the power’s out. Hopefully the generator will kick on shortly. Thanks for sitting in the dark with me and keeping me company. It means more than you know.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been the sort of person that craves both security AND independence. I think this can be best illustrated by a story my mom likes to tell: When I was a baby, she would occasionally stick me in the playpen. (This was, of course, back in the 70s, when playpens were actually death traps, and I would’ve apparently been safer playing with a hair dryer in a shark-infested bath tub. But no one knew this at the time, and I’m pretty certain she wasn’t plotting to kill me. That came later, when I became a teenager and fully deserved it.)

Anyway, when Mom needed just five minutes to take cookies out of the oven, or use the bathroom, or whatever, she’d plop me in the playpen, pulling the sides up so I couldn’t wander off. This was my cue to scream, cry, and generally throw an Oscar-worthy hissy fit. I HATED being trapped in there. Shortly, she’d decide that neither her sanity nor her bladder could take the wailing, and, resignedly, she’d put the side down and let me out.

But then, a couple of hours later, a funny thing happened. I’d creep over to the playpen and, noting the sides were down, crawl RIGHT IN and blissfully play with my toys. Putting the sides up turned it into a torture chamber, but with the exit wide open, I was perfectly happy to hang out there all day. (Even as a baby, I drove my poor mother nuts. I’m sorry, Mom. I love you. Thank you for letting me live.)

And this is, historically, how I have approached relationships. I want you to stay, but I can’t be confined. And, now that I’ve been forced to reflect, I see that this has been true with my current spouse – even though I thought he was the love of my life*, I’ve kept the escape hatch propped open.

*He may still be. Or he may meet the fate of the aforementioned hot dog. Jury’s out yet.

For one thing, when we got married, I didn’t take his name. Well, I did, but I hyphenated it with my ex’s name. It made sense at the time; I had 12 years of professional experience under my previous name, plus I wanted to share a last name with my kids.

Lately I’d been toying with the idea of dropping my ex’s name from the two. It’s part of my legal name, but I never actually USE it, and incidentally, hyphenating is a royal pain in the keister. (Don’t ever do it, ladies. JUST PICK ONE NAME. Otherwise you’re constantly wondering which name (or names) you’ve used on which credit cards and internet sites, and you’ll never remember which company’s systems use hyphens, which use spaces, and which just shove both names together into an intimidating tangle of letters, and you’ll have to spell every possible permutation of your name EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME anyone has to look you up. By the way, no two airlines handle hyphens the same way. This keeps you on the short list for free invasion of your personal space.)

Anyway, I haven’t dropped the prior name yet. Just didn’t get around to it.

Hmm.

Another example that perhaps I wasn’t all in: My spouse and I keep separate finances. Remember how I said I was a math geek? Well, every month, he pays the mortgage, and I pay the rest of the bills. I enter everything into a spreadsheet, and we “true up” at the end of the month. We even buy a lot of our own food. I know it SOUNDS ridiculous, but we never fight about money. And in my last marriage, I was the sole breadwinner while my spouse stayed home buying old watches on eBay. I was NOT having any of THAT again, so I control my own funds.

It’s always seemed to make sense for us, but with the current filter on my lens, it seems to suggest that I was keeping the sides of the playpen down.

Oh, another thing. I have this tattoo (I swear it’s less crappy than this photo makes it look):

It’s a kokopelli – he represents the spirit of music, and he’s also a prankster. Even if you’re not terribly spiritual, you can usually hang with a fun musical deity. There are three music notes beside him – one for me, one for my son, and one for my daughter – symbolizing our survival of the divorce. (And to further drive that point home – I bought this tattoo with the money I made hocking my first wedding ring set. Heh.)

My current spouse wondered aloud why there wasn’t a note for him. We were engaged when I got it…surely he’d be a permanent part of my life, right?

But I didn’t add a little note for him. I’ve thought about going back and doing it…but….

(Yeah, I know, you never ever EVER tattoo yourself with a relationship. Not ever. Here’s another reason why not to, I guess. I mean, don’t be this guy):

(By the way? Don’t bother sending this to your friend Brenda. Trust me, she’s already seen it.)

One more thing. I have a backup plan. I just wrote about that a week ago. I SAID it was in the event of my spouse’s death. But perhaps I was keeping my parachute packed not just in case of sudden engine failure, but also in the event that I didn’t like where the plane was going.

Given all this, maybe I wasn’t truly as blindsided by this as I originally thought.

When I’m poking around my brain, it’s definitely one of the tender spots. For some reason, I keep rubbing it to make sure it still hurts.

One positive to this whole mess is that it’s been a super-effective weight loss plan. Based on my complete loss of appetite, and my stomach’s reaction to stress*, I’m sure I’ve dropped a few pounds. I won’t actually know until Tuesday, because in order to keep from being obsessive, I’m only allowed to step on the scale on Tuesday morning. (Perfectly logical, yes?)

*When I’m stressed, I normally eat. However, when I peg the meter – divorce hearing, child illness, or, apparently, your husband flipping the “Available” light on the commitment taxi – my stomach pulls the evacuation alarm, and suddenly there just aren’t enough lifeboats on the Titanic, if ya know what I mean.

About 2-3 years ago, I was at my lowest weight since my anorexic high school days, due to some stomach issues and recurrent mononucleosis. Since then, I’d put on ten pounds and just haven’t been comfortable in my skin. So when I put on another five recently, I stepped up my game. My weight loss has been…slow (which is expected, as I wrote about here.):

Week 1: six pounds (Whoa. Clearly I was retaining water like the Hoover Dam.)
Week 2: zip
Week 3: one pound
Week 4: donut
Week 5: GAINED A F%(^!N& pound

Week 6 is Tuesday. I think I crushed the plateau like Godzilla in a bad Japanese movie. ROWR <stomp stomp stomp>

Ironically, my low weight hits the same time frame as the rest of this whole debacle. Which would lead a normal person to NOT want to be that weight again, right?

But then, if food and I were normal, I wouldn’t have started this blog in the first place.

Sigh.

In the meantime, since food doesn’t appeal, I’ve been binge-shopping. I stocked up on new workout gear on Friday, and today visited the local farmers market and treated myself.

In addition to veggies, I bought myself flowers:

And because flowers die, I bought some jewelry, too. BECAUSE I DESERVE IT.

Silver and clay ring:

And a couple of pieces from Mind of Madness Design:

Red agate/silver on braided leather

Hot pink and gold. LOVE THIS

Here’s what it looks like on. Bold, eh?

I may be all scrambled up like a smoothie on the inside, but I’ll glam up my game face and keep my brave on.

Fake it ’till ya make it.

Carrots in My Carryon

My emotional baggage is packed with food

Fueling the Food Beast

The Artificial Tang of Banana Candy

When the Heart’s Desire Is a Little Backwards

Not So Twitterpated – Help a Gal Out!

Renovating the Funhouse

Midweek Marketing: Going Against the Grain

Throwback Foodday and a Day (of Food) in the Life

A Kitten of Schrödinger

The Gray of Storm Clouds, the Tarnished Silver Lining

You Put One Foot In, You Got One Shoe Out

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