Minding Weight

Suspending

2008-03-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I read an article in my local newspaper that said a politician was suspending her campaign for our state senate. I love this word "suspend" because it captures what I'm doing here. I'm suspending my blog, making room for other things right now. Thanks for reading. It really helped me to know that people are out there, listening and reading.

I participate in a teleclass with Mary O'Malley, who wrote The Gift of Our Compulsions, and she said something that has stayed with me since our most recent call: We are like peaches ripening on a tree. Once you start awakening to consciousness around your compulsions, you cannot stop the process. You can’t speed it up AND you can’t stop it. So, I continue with my awakening, and I intend for it to lead me to my natural weight.

As an ending note for today, please enjoy this poem by Rumi. It's called Guest House:

This being human is a guesthouse.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness
Comes as an unexpected visitor

Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human Beings know:
The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door opens.

Welcome difficult as a familiar comrade. Joke with torment brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief.

Clutter and Weight

2008-02-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

I noticed a review for a recently published book that's worth noting. It's called Does this Clutter Make my Butt Look Fat? and it's written by Peter Walsh. I haven't read the book, but it speaks to something that I've noticed for a long time: clutter is a reflection of disorder in our lives and so is extra weight, and there's a large overlap in the Venn diagram between these two. Address one, and it shows up in the other. One of my own weight loss coaches, Kathrine Brown, introduced me to this concept, and I've seen it in my own clients. Pamela and I have an entire session of our 30+ podcast devoted to it.

In the People magazine interview with Peter Walsh, he makes the point about clutter and weight: "Diets aren't about food; they're about decisions. If you have a messy, disorganized kitchen, you will always default to the easy. You'll get takeout. If your dining room table is piled with bills, you won't want to sit and have a healthy family meal there."

His point is worth extending. If you're surrounded by piles of clutter, it's a mirror back to yourself, and it reinforces an underlying belief. Usually the underlying belief is something like, "I'm not worth getting my stuff together." As you're constantly presented with evidence of this underlying belief, competing new beliefs can't make much headway. Address your clutter and you address your weight. It's got some other layers, too. Get some support as you meet your clutter so that you can process the emotions that emerge. It'll help you get to the root of what's plaguing you.

Change is not a requirement

2008-02-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

My friend Scott sent this Rainer Maria Rilke poem in his newsletter, and I want to include it here because it reminds me of my latest "aha!"

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring
clear without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

As I've worked with Mary O'Malley, one thing she's taught me is that I don't have to change how I feel. I just need to acknowledge it, and then it can float on down the river. As I sit at the computer, and my thighs press together, I think "yuck! I don't want to feel this way," and I want to scurry on to another experience, another emotion. But I can't leave here, I can't move on. What's being asked of me is to just experience what's here. Breath in, breath out. It's not my job to shift the feeling right now. Aha, I think. No, Mary would say, let go of the thinking, too. Okay. Breath in, breath out.

The irony that I'm discovering is that by being present to the "I'm stuck" or "I'm sad" or "I'm lonely" experiences allow them to move on. Instead of wrestling these yuckies, I let them drift by like a cloud on the wind. By not forcing them out, they leave more readily. And I wave goodbye, strangely grateful now for their presence.

Giving attention

2008-01-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

Renee sent a supreme question in response to my last post: So, what does it mean to give yourself attention? How does it play out in your activities? The short answer is it means that we listen to ourselves, our souls, at a deep level. And it's more than meditation or pausing. It's stepping out of what Mary O'Malley calls "the attic of our minds" into our hearts and our bodies.

Mary gives an example in her book The Gift of Our Compulsions. Imagine that music is blasting in your house. You turn off the music, and suddenly, you can hear all of the sounds that were masked by the blaring music: the hum of the fridge, the dog's toenails clicking on the kitchen floor, the thunk of the mail dropping through the mail slot. Our struggles are the too-loud music, and our hearts, our true selves, are the masked sounds.

To address the how-to part of Renee's question, Mary offers four questions to ask ourselves throughout our day:

In this moment, what am I experiencing?
For this moment, can I let this be here?
In this moment, can I touch this with compassion?
Right now, what do I truly need?

There's more, of course. And that's the essence of it: reconnecting with ourselves. Telling our own truth, the truth that lies underneath our noise, our struggle, our compulsions.

Replace judgment with compassion

2008-01-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've been participating in a food compulsions group led by Mary O'Malley (http://www.maryomalley.com/), and it's opening me up, allowing me to experience life on another plane. Instead of worrying about food, sitting in deprivation or "I don't care" mode, I'm much more present to myself. Mary says that when we are gripped by food compulsions, what we're really hungry for is our own attention. She teaches a process of returning to ourselves.

One of her key messages is replacing judgment with compassion. Notice the judgmental voice that rises up in you, give it a name so that you can recognize it, and then just sharpen your awareness. "Ah, there is is again." Without attachment. In this way, we relate TO the judgment rather than operate FROM it or being lost in it.

Her concepts and her words are simple, and they touch me so deeply.

Poetry and body image

2008-01-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

My neighbor sent me this fun poem, called "Pat," written by John Hegley:

I said Pat
you are fat
and you are cataclysmically desirable
and to think I used to think
that slim was where it's at
well not any more Pat
you've changed that
you love yourself
you flatter yourself
you shatter their narrow image of the erotic
and Pat said
what do you mean FAT?

I love the poem because it addresses the body image side of weight loss. Until we accept - no embrace - our bodies, we can't move from this spot. I often hear clients talk about how they are motivated to lose weight because they can't stand how they look. Self-disgust is a shallow pool to draw motivation from.

Health fears are also trotted out as reasons to pursue weight loss. Yes, and... And, we're worth so much more than that. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer -- all linked to (that dreaded word) obesity, yet threats actually make us dig in our heals even more. Remember when an authority (say a teacher) told you if you didn't do X, then BIG CONSEQUENCES! Didn't it make you want to do the opposite of X?

Look at where you want to go, what's the destination you have in mind? When you reach your goal weight, what does that enable in your life? What does it bring you externally, internally and in the bigger picture? One of my former weight loss coaches, Kathrine Brown, used to ask me this question, and it really hit home for me. Instead of focusing on where you're leaving, put your attention on where you're going. Look forward.

Strengthening my mind-body connection

2007-12-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

Utne Reader has an article called "Love Your Fat Self" in the current issue. There's a quote that really appeals to me in the article. It's by mindfulness expert Susan Albers: The dieting mind-set is akin to taking a knife and cutting the connection that is your body's only line of communication with your head. The article goes on to say that "there is little hope for long-term improvement in health when this vital line is severed." Amen to these ideas. I live by them.

I am often drawn to diets. They are like magnets, pulling me into its force field -- like when my friend mentioned the ginger-lemon detox that she and her sister were doing recently -- at first, I scoffed and resisted ("I'm done playing with my food!" I said to myself). Then, days later, I'm researching this detox on the internet. I, like everyone else, want there to a be simple formula for sustained change. And it's right here in front of me, yet I keep resisting it. Following the Diet's Don't Work guidelines: eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm no longer hungry, eat mindfully, and eat what I want. Simple forumula: come from within, LISTEN to myself.

The place where I get lost is when I use food for emotional reasons. My top three food triggers: anger, guilt and the biggest: being trapped. My biggest trapped place is parenting. I have a definition for Good Moms. Good Moms stay at home with their children. Good Moms put their children before themselves. Good Moms center their lives around their children. What really works for me is to work outside my home. When I'm engaged, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, I have energy for my kids and for others. When I put myself at the top of my priority list a little bit each day, I am nourished. When I have a vision for my life that includes my children (rather than focuses on them), I have direction, a compass by which to measure my progress.

In 2008, I'm continuing to strengthen the connection between my mind and my body that Susan Albers articulates in Utne Reader. What's your connection between your mind and body look like? How do you strengthen it?

The Gift of Our Compulsions

2007-12-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

I am struck by the force with which Mary O'Malley's book, The Gift of our Compulsions, has hit me. It speaks so clearly to me, directly to my heart. Thanks, Toni, for suggesting this book, as I feel so relieved to have found it. Here's a quote that resonates for me: Thank God that controlling my compulsion didn't work for me. Stripped of any illusion that I was powerful enough to be in charge of these deep forces that would come roaring through me, I began to hear, as if over a very fuzzy phone line, a deep knowing inside me. This knowing said that lasting healing comes from being curious rather than controlling, that it comes from mercy rather than manipulation, from responding rather than reacting. It is about opening what has been closed, reclaiming what has been hidden, and remembering what has been forgotten.

The bottomline of this book is that when we eat (or do anything else) compulsively, it's merely a way of communicating with ourselves. She says, "When we overeat, overspend, or overwork, what we are truly craving is ourselves." Wow. Lightbulb moment for me.

I'm feeling such peace as I read this book, finding my work of so many years falling into place for myself. It's a wonderful gift to me. I hope it's a similar gift to you. Her web site has some articles, classes, and other information: http://http://www.maryomalley.com/index.htm

Stay connected

2007-12-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Throughout my weight loss journey, I've used the mantras "return to self" and "come from within" to ground myself back where my energy is productive. Last week, I realized that it's time for me to change my mantra to "stay connected." When I speak my truth aloud, I'm free of that trapped place I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. When I tell someone else, a close, trusted someone (thanks Pamela!) of my location on my journey, I'm grounded. I'm connected, both to myself and to my bigger world. It's key, it's essential, it's worth reminding myself of this truth.

The concept of being witnessed is strong both for me and for my clients. I've talked to many clients about the concept of self integrity that Kathrine Brown taught me. The idea of keeping promises to myself, of communicating to myself that I matter, of stating with triumph "I did it!" is a powerful tool, one that I return to time and time again. I also scaffold this skill for myself and for my clients. When I'm not able to flex my self integrity muscle to go to my desired destination, I need an accountability partner, someone who will listen with curiosity rather than judgment, someone who will remind me of who I am, someone who will affirm and support me rather than guilt me.

So, two questions for you:

What witnessing do you want to request from a trusted friend?
What accountability will serve you right now?

And because it's so wonderful to have interaction, I love responding to comments. Renee, you suggested that age may bring us the gift of inhabiting our bodies, and I agree. There's a great article in this month's Oprah about a women who, at 50, suddenly found herself living -- really living! -- in her own body. Wouldn't that be an amazing gift to receive earlier in life? I had a moment like that when I was in a Nia class last month. I was so intent on watching the instructor and so focused on getting the movement right (?!) that when she suggested that I follow my hands during a movement, I was struck by a lightning bolt -- suddenly I was in my own body. Wowy zowy! And Renee, you know what your body is saying about you. It's saying kind and glorious things. Would you write down what it's saying? It's worth recording.

Two more notes:

Would you go to http://www.changethis.com/proposals/1088 and vote for an essay that I would like to develop? The web site, Change This, solicits manifestos (bad connotations with this word, eh? a residue from Ted Kaczynski) and then visitors to the site vote on which ones should be fleshed out.
My great friend Terry sent me this link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3945503 . Wow -- it's worth watching. It's about a woman who lost 500 pounds without surgery or dieting.

This I Believe

2007-12-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

A friend introduced me to the NPR series This I Believe (http://www.thisibelieve.org/), inspiring me to write my own essay, which I've put below:

I believe in paradox. I look at the number on my bathroom scale, 161, and I know with certainty that I am not defined by that number. That is not who I am. I am a woman, a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a leader, a change agent, an inspiration, a strong member of my community. I am a dog lover, a new Mah Jong player, an email addict, a closet romance reader. I am unemployed. I am performing the most important job on Earth: parenthood. What does the number 161 have to do with who I am?

Well, everything. It is an indisputable part of me. 1 – 6 – 1. That’s how much I weigh. Yep, that’s me. My doctor needs my height in addition to my weight, but given both those numbers, she can make pretty accurate predictions about my longevity and health risks. When people look at me, they may not know that number, but they can guess it with reasonable precision and come close to it. There are many deductions that people can make from that number: undisciplined, struggling, matronly. There’s accuracy in what people glean from looking at me, yet there’s also no truth to what they see in a glance.

When people look at me, they cannot see my essence. They cannot see the fierceness in me that clawed through fertility surgery to bear children. They cannot see the playful energy that romps with my dog in the morning dew. They cannot see my dejection as I watch a dream wash down the river. They cannot see my glow of pride as I kiss my sleeping children. They cannot see my roar of anger over injustice.

A close friend once told me, “I am not my body.”

“Sure you are,” I shot back. “Doesn’t your body define you, serve you, guide you, communicate with you, communicate with others about you?” It’s a sacred vessel, it’s a dumping ground. It says everything about me, and it says nothing about me.

My body is a paradox, and it’s an expression of my life.

I believe my body is a mirror for how closely I’m living in integrity. There’s a clear relationship between my weight and my level of integrity. As I express who I am through my actions and my words, my weight goes down – my body no longer needs to perform that duty for me. As I slip away from who I am in my heart, my body betrays this change, and my weight climbs.

About three years and 25 pounds more ago, I posed nude for my friend’s art group, and I am still stunned by the reverence that group brought to that room. My body was an inspiration for artwork! “My body is FAR more interesting than Barbie’s,” I told my husband with pride after that affirmation, and I framed one of the sketches and put it up in my bedroom.

I believe in evolution of thought. In fact, I think it’s our reason for being: to grow, to learn, to discover, to experience, to explore. I used to believe that since I wasn’t pretty or slim or Barbie-like that I didn’t fit in, would never belong, could never be successful. Then I believed that my appearance meant nothing, and Gloria Steinem-like, I carried the raging feminist torch. Fat is a feminist issue, said the book title and my new thoughts. “Comfort before beauty” became my motto at age 30. I swore off nylons, stopped shaving my legs, and disappeared into fashion frump.

Now, instead of hating and then ignoring my body, I look to it for the wisdom it holds. I ask myself what it’s telling me about my hunger, about my desires, about my weight, both literal and metaphorical. And I listen. I listen to my weight, to my body, to my essence.

I believe in creating community. I know people are part of my community when they listen to my truth. Thank you for listening.

Freedom

2007-11-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

When I feel trapped, I get on the super highway to food. That emotion, more than any other, snaps me into emotional eating. I see this same behavior in my clients over and over. Sometimes, I feel trapped about the rules I make up around eating, but usually, the boxed-in feeling sprouts up somewhere else, and I just use food to let off steam, ease the pressure.

Okay, example: my six-year-old daughter takes a long time to fall asleep each eve. And she loves, loves, loves to chatter around this time of day. And she's very entertaining. And after about 15 minutes of her sweet ramblings, I'm done. I am done parenting. I am done listening. I am done cuddling. She, however, wants more. And I go to the place where I'm a bad mommy for wanting some space. Food looks mighty good here.

One of my clients feels stuck in a dead end job, another in a marriage that has seemingly insurmountable flaws, another in a health crisis. Where do you feel trapped? That place is the place where change must show up before you'll see a shift in your food and weight. Even if the circumstances don't change, your perspective must shift, or food will remain a place where you attempt to exercise control.

In the first session with one of my clients, she described living with her overbearing aunt the summer she was nine. This nine-year-old was trapped in her aunt's world, at the mercy of her aunt's whims and demands. And that's when my client turned to food (very logically!) to salvage some sense of control. Look back to when your issues with food first showed up. When was the first time you thought you should go on a diet? That's the root of what's plaguing you now.

Yesterday, my coach asked me, "What is the structure that frees you rather than traps you?" I'm still chewing on that question, and I offer it to you, too.

Blessings to Renee, who brought some thoughtful questions to her comment on November 19's blog entry. And to respond: yes, maintaining weight during this season is a worthy goal. In fact, it's a kind goal, filled with compassion for self and a heightened awareness for our cultural influences. One anchor for me during the whirl of social activities between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is my own hunger level. I gift myself with allowing my hunger to guide me. When I come back here, I'm on solid ground. And yes, there are times, like when my husband's family makes buckeyes, an annual treat of peanut butter balls dipped in dark chocolate, that I eat when I am not hungry. When I'm in this place, I name it. "I'm going to eat this even though I'm not hungry." I say it aloud. I say it aloud to bear witness to myself, NOT to tell on myself, but to acknowledge this place, recognize it, and know that I'm standing tall here, too. It shifts my energy and the energy around me from guilt to affirmation.

Service

2007-11-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

Today, my coach asked me a powerful question that's been lingering: how does this serve me? As I reach for food, I examine this question. Food has so many dimensions beyond nutrition. It speaks to comfort, memory, social connection, sensuality. Add to this list. As you reach for food, consider how it's serving you.

My coach also pointed out how I see many of the ways that I eat as a problem. As we were talking, we both flipped into solution mode. What if the way I eat isn't a problem, but a simply a way of being me? An expression of who I am? A pushing towards what wants to happen in the moment? My eating patterns fulfill some valid needs in me, and I want to acknowledge those needs.

I want to point out that I am posting to this blog without regard to a schedule. This perspective about posting irregularly allows me to be free of "should"s around this tool that supports me in my journey to freedom around food. I recognize today that it's useful for me to define where I'm headed. If I don't know where I'm going, I'll likely end up somewhere else, eh?

I'm journeying to a place where food is a sensual experience, where I enjoy food for the simple pleasure of its tastes, where the residue of my eating is energy, forward momentum, and connection to my body, myself.

Part of why I rebounded back up here on the scale is my obsessive way of being around food that led to those low numbers. I went to a place where I scrutinized every mouthful, every decision - a place where I didn't trust myself. I want to be with food with relaxation and ease. For my leadership class, I travelled to a retreat center in Northern California called The Mother Tree. The food there was exquisite, prepared with love. And that's a key point: it was prepared for me. I just showed up and ohhhh'd and ahhhh'd and enjoyed. The food was fresh from the garden, flavorful, healthy, delicious, served in a blissful setting with amazing company. That's my vision of where I'm going with food. Every day like that, eh?

Where are you going with your food?

Welcome!

2007-11-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been on a ropes course? I feel like I am now, ready to leap out into the unknown. I hemmed and hawed, shuffled my feet, and generally procrastinated every way I could imagine around getting this blog started. Why the worry? I got on the scale yesterday, and I weighed 162.2. My goal is 145. And exactly HOW long have I been striving to reach my goal weight, you may ask. Well, since just before my 40th birthday. I'm now approaching 42.

I intend to focus here on what works for me, and I am down from my start of 185. What's worked so far has been reaching out and letting people know where I am. It's also worked to ask for help. Will you help me by witnessing me on this journey? Wise Erica, friend from my leadership class, said the other day, "I don't need any of you to fix me." Amen, Sister. I will reach my goal weight, and gosh o' golly, I'll do it on MY terms. AND, I could use your help. Help me by allowing me to be on my own journey, separate from my clients' journeys. Help me by reading my words and telling me you're out there listening. Help by recognizing timelines don't work for me. Kathrine, my inspirational weight loss coach from last year, told me, "You'll get there when you get there." Not what I want to hear, and still, belief that I will get there.

Why is it so important for me to reach my goal weight? I talked to some friends a few days ago about body image, and I applaud work around body image. I no longer hide at home, not willing to go to the gym until I lose weight and look better in spandex. My body size doesn't prevent me from living my life. I feel better when I carry less weight. I show up differently. Yes, health is the most important part, blah, blah, blah. I want to LOOK and FEEL better in my own body. Yes, it's just a number on a scale. And, it proves to me that I can create what I want.

There's a dual purpose to this blog: public chronicling of my own weight loss journey for the sake of my own integrity and growth (or as one clients says "shrinkage"), and sharing of what works so that you can find your own path to your weight loss. So, I'll end with a note from my journal: When I eat like that, it feeds my ego, which is the part of me that wants to stay stuck. What would it look like to feed the part of me that wants to shift and claim my weight loss?

Last night, I met with a client, and we identified categories of food thoughts:

what do I want to eat? (looking at a menu, opening the fridge, shopping at the grocery, surveying options and checking against our internal desires)
what SHOULD I eat? (current rules about what's right/good/healthy such as whole grains, surveying options and checking against external guidance)
how was that food experience? (rather like a restaurant critic: yum, yuck, more, never again, when can I find another opp to have that again? the evaluation component)
how am I navigating this social experience? (even if you eat alone, there are these thoughts: I'm lonely, I'm cherishing this time to myself. And when eating with others: will she be insulted if I decline another helping? what's appropriate in this setting?)
what's the emotional tone of this experience? (I deserve this. I don't care. I'm stunned that I'm actually enjoying vegetables and not overeating - I don't even WANT to overeat. Serenity and contentment.)

After we categorized food thoughts, my client selected the arenas where she wanted to continue to play. She wanted to leave behind the "should"s and the emotional assessment. Here's your assignment, if you're seeking one: notice (as opposed to police) your thoughts. Which category do they fall into? What's their content? Two of my clients (independently) have talked about inviting an objective observer to collect data, rather like an anthropologist shifts through soil. Just the facts. Leave the judgments and just watch yourself. You'll learn quite a bit.

And share your observations and experiences. I invite you to join this blogging community. I want to hear from you. It helps me to know that you're out there.