A Regression Into and Out of Numbers

I'm not perfect.

My psychological state isn't perfect, my health isn't perfect.

I do hope you know that.

I'm hoping that I can voice this, well write it, and get it out of my head.

As a warning, I am about to argue with myself, and this could be triggery for those of you who suffer from eating disorders. For that I apologize.

Last I weighed I was somewhere between 186 and 188. I made the mistake of weighing twice in a week. Stupid.

My brain is saying, you lost [almost] 8 pounds last month. You could do it again. Maybe your metabolism has sped up. Maybe it will happen again and again. If you lost 8 pounds this month and in the two months following that would be 24 pounds. 24 pounds in three months. That's 2 pounds a week. That's twice your previous speed. You should work out more, eat less. Maybe you could be 150 by December, maybe you could be 145. 210 minus 65 is 145. That's more than 1/4 of your weight. 210 minus 4 minus 5 minus 5 minus....

This.

This is why I am not weighing myself. 

Welcome to the dark side of my mind. This counting and recounting doesn't just relate to weight, it goes to calories and to other things, if I let it.

It's anxiety. My anxiety. Trying to contain itself by counting.

My mind does this with things I'm anxious about, it tries to circle back on itself. When I'm worried about a situation my mind rehashes all possible outcomes that it can consider, each more extreme than the last in a cycle that used to drive me mad.

And, honestly, sometimes still does.

My mind is full of sinkholes.

But I've learned what others haven't; you don't have to fall in.

If you don't fall in, eventually they start to seal over.

*I wanted to show you all this thinking because I want to discuss why it's wrong, how it's wrong*  (and maybe pull myself further from this sink hole, walk away instead of sticking my toe in)

I do not believe that my weight determines my beauty or my value or my success in pursuing health. I see nothing but crackpot evidence of any of those things. What does it matter if I'm 145 or 150? Will I be more beautiful? Will I feel more beautiful? No. I've lost weight before with the "I'll be better, I'll be more when" mentality, and I was miserable. I lost opportunities because by the time I "got there" I was so consumed with "not good enough" that I was lost in it. No, losing weight, specifically losing to a "goal" weight, won't make me feel more beautiful.

And, I believe that beauty is innate. I believe that beauty comes from *existing* beautifully; from being spiritually healthy, from treating your body and mind well, from making intimate connections, from doing good, from loving yourself, from loving others, from being your best self. This is beauty. All people are capable of beauty at all stages of life, all sizes, all ages. So, no, losing weight cannot make me more beautiful, because beauty is more than something that can be bought or sold, beauty is not something you can cake on or take away. So, no, losing weight won't make me more beautiful.

Will it make me more valuable? Perhaps to some, but to none who matter. Do I resent those who think weight and value are correlated? Yes. Do I see them as morally deficient? Yes! Do I think they harm society with their views? Yes! Do I want to impress or give a sense of validity to those who I feel are socially disruptive and morally deficient? No. So, I cannot consider that any social "value" gained by weight loss would have any gain me. No more than blood money. You win and you loose, and the latter in far greater measure.

Will losing to a particular goal weight make me healthier? I really really really don't believe so. No. It won't. I am healthy. I exercise for an hour nearly every day. I do my best to  make sure I get enough sleep. I work hard to ensure and maintain a healthy psychological state. I pursue my faith. I have removed all things both made of and containing sugar or any processed sweetener from my diet. I try to laugh every day. I go to the doctor when I'm sick. I avoid excess. No, I'm healthy. As long as I continue to do these things to the best of my ability, I am healthy. Only idiots who look only at numbers would think that I'd be more healthy at a low goal weight.

Even if all the idiots thought I was healthy, I'd be unhappy. No, that's not a worthy exchange.

Besides, the likelihood of continuing to lose weight at any one speed, is highly unlikely. The body is not like a car that you can set to cruise control. It varies with time of year, food intake, stress, and hormones. Additionally  the lower your weight, the less you will lose, if you are losing, if you should lose at all for optimum health, because the lower it goes (to a point, obviously), the closer you get to your healthy weight. Yours. Not some got-dam chart made up by someone obsessed with saving insurance companies money (does it not seem odd, the concept that an insurance company is a business and not a charity nullifies the purpose of being insurance...). We are not numbers, we are not statistics.

Beyond all that, it's far more likely that the 8 pounds was a fluke, maybe even a fluke of the scale, particularly seeing as I'd lost 5 pounds each in the 3 previous months. To make a number goal, to obsess, to count and recount as my mind is inclined to is a recipe for pain, both psychological pain in the form of intense anxiety and self doubt, and the pain of disappointment when I inevitably fail to reach a goal I have never ever reached, not even with my best previous efforts.

So, this is how I will close; 

The numbers don't matter, and the time doesn't matter.

I am healthy, and I will continue to be healthy. It would be nice to get below "obese," but I don't have to. I am healthy, my body will go where it needs to. I trust it.

I am committed to loving my body now. If it changes, I will love it then too, and I will love the memory of how my body was.

I am beautiful now. I will practice existing beautifully.

I am valuable now. Value is one of the most inalienable rights. Right up there with beauty. And, like beauty, it cannot be diminished by there being more people with it. It is innate to us (this is why the darkness of the world tries to convince us we don't have it, or that we've lost it). I will practice living in light of that knowledge; that I am very valuable, that we all are.

I am eternal. I will live in light of eternity. I understand that I am a baby in this universe and I will pursue beautiful maturity in all things, but especially my soul.

:-)

Real Update on Garden and Healthy Life

Right.

So, first things first; my garden! It seems to actually be coming along now.

Yes, it still looks mostly like a garden of bottles, but things are growing under the bottles. See.
And, I actually have 3 broccoli plants that may live. Yay!

And my spinach is doing quite well.

I also have my first flower on a pea plant!

I now have kale, chard, lettuce, endive, peas, watermelon, cucumber, squash, broccoli, tomato, spinach, carrots, basil, and (maybe) stevia growing. I need to weed again and replant the pepper seeds. I also have several seedlings indoors. I'm waiting to let them get a little bigger and a little tougher before I figure out where to put them outside. I still have some spots where things could go, particularly in the partly shaded part of the garden things are more sparse, and I could add a few plants. I also need to plant a couple more basil, or actually give in and get some of the other herbs I've been considering. I've transplanted the thyme and the oregano into bigger pots as well.

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Healthy/healthy eating.

Still doing to no sweeteners thing, still loving it. Apparently I also lost 8 pounds last month, rather than the usual 5 that had been happening. I don't know how I feel about that. Part of me is very pleasantly surprised. Another part of me feels very obsessively greedy about this weight loss and wants it to continue at this pace for the rest of the summer and wants to count and recount the possible pounds I could lose (dysfunctional much? yeesh). The third part of me, seeing the second part, thinks that maybe anything other than minimal weight loss would be a bad thing and that I shouldn't step on a scale again for a few months.

I have also had the pleasure of being introduced to a local egg seller who sells a dozen eggs cheaper than the local grocery, even though her eggs are truly free range and humanely raised. Haha, and now I'm wondering where I'm going to find anything so awesome in DC.

Ate quite a few things that had sugar in them yesterday and felt quite sick for most of the day. Wasn't very hungry for most of today, but found myself positively starving at the end of the day. I've just resigned myself to go to bed with a growling stomach because it's not reasonable to eat more. I had a cup of milk, sauteed red potatoes, whole wheat noodles, several cups of steamed kale, a fruit leather, an orange, and beef. My stomach stopped making noises for all of two minutes before it started up again.

I'm a little concerned about my skin/muscle tone if I loose weight very quickly. I'm also afraid I'm going to stop losing, which is why I didn't want to even think about weight loss when I started.

I think I'm going to have to spend this week getting my goals strait again.

Ah, also, speaking of health, on the social health front; my friend R was lovely yesterday. I never leave hanging out with her except that I'm in awe of how great she is. Among other things she was very encouraging about my interest in doing Krav Maga when I get to DC and also in my change in health. She too, has gotten a little healthier lately and I think she looks quite nice. Her life situation has also gotten drastically less stressful recently and I think you can see that in her face and demeanor.

I also hung out with M. She is quite small; a size 0, if I'm not mistaken, and my comparison of us always triggers my stereotype threat. It's not her fault, it's mine. I'm very sensitive to size differences. I'm getting better about not being triggered around her, or other people, but it's still quite embarrassing that I feel it's there so I tend to bring it up. The elephant in my own room. I end up talking about weight virtually every time I'm with her. When I first met her it was horrible, I couldn't get myself to shut up.

Yesterday, in response to something I said, she said "I've always seen you as beautiful," which is very kind and such a vicious slap in the face to the (ugly, dysfunctional, wrong) voice in my head telling me she's only my friend because she pities the "fat girl" that I'm not entirely sure I didn't flinch when she said it. Then I said something self-effacing, which was neither right nor constructive. *sigh* Sometimes you have good days, sometimes bad days. Sometimes, I can't help but wonder why she puts up with me.

That thing I can't get over

When I think about how men I knew in South Korea, or men I dated, wouldn't even glance at me now because of my weight gain in the US, when I think about how I would be stopped in the street and told to loose weight if I was still there, when I think of all the ways society through every sensationalized picture and article derides me for my weight...

There aren't many times anymore that cutting seems like a viable option. I'm pretty much totally against willful self-injury this far out. But, when I think of all those things, I want to take a sharp knife and cut into myself, cut down too the muscle on my arms and legs, stomach, face and back. I want cut until the ugly is cut out of me, because surely being covered in scars is far better than being fat.

*deep sigh*

I've lost weight several times, (hiking often, watching what I eat, doing weights, and running regularly, often for two hours a day, for over a year) down into the 160s, which is still roughly 15 pounds above the max weight I should be at my height and 20 to 30 above what they'd like me to be. So, please explain to me what the fucking point is? I loose weight, work my ass off, forgo relationships just to work out because it requires SO MUCH TIME, embarrass myself at the gym six days a week, by being surrounded by people smaller than me, who look at me with amusement or disgust, only to STILL BE A FAILURE. I mean, really, that's the reality, society says, if you're not a "normal weight" than you're a failure. If you didn't get there than you're actively choosing to be ugly/unhealthy/unattractive/undesirable/worthy of punishment and derision. Don't worry, I got that message loud and fucking clear. Maybe I should have been working out  3 hours a day. Maybe I should have quit my job and just worked out. Maybe I should quit school and quit eating, because I certainly can't work run and do weights two hours a day, eat 1200 calories, and then try to make A's or work (I tried, I would get dizzy and brainless and weak about half way through the day, trembling, tripping, sometimes unable to stand I felt so weak, and I stank). At that point my brain is only capable of the simple math required to count and recount and fucking recount all the calories I've eaten, always rounding up so I don't "underestimate" the calories in something.

I would love to be acceptable in the eyes of others. That's really what it boils down to; the thing I'm incapable of achieving, the thing I can't get over.

I would like to go to a nutritionist for someone to help me make a plan and keep me accountable, and advocate to help me see extreme healthiness as a reward rather than a punishment, but when I think about it I have panic attacks imagining how she/he will tell me I'm killing myself and poke me rudely and and treat me with disgust (this, has, in fact, happened before, so I'm not just imagining some impossible scenario).

Mostly, self-injury doesn't seem like an option, but when I think of those things, it feels like the only one.