Mo Pie over at Big Fat Deal (an awesome blog about issues faced by women in general and overweight women in specific) wrote an awesome post on Friday, ending with the question “Can you be overweight, yet truly happy?”

I’ve struggled with my weight for most of my life. I got heavy as a kid and only went up from there. I’ve been teased, hurt, persecuted, tormented, and excluded based on my size - and more than a little of the abuse was from my own self. I spent most of my life feeling like a victim, trapped in my overweight and horribly out-of-shape body, not liking myself and hating my body.

But, as I said to Mo Pie, then I started paying attention. I started listening to myself. I started hearing those hateful thoughts that would go through my mind at random times, the insecurity that would float by whenever someone stared at me for any length of time. I knew that I would never say such things to someone I loved, so why was it okay to say them to myself?

I’m finding now, in this new and tender place of self-love and self-respect, that my numbers don’t matter. My weight, my size, my measurements - they don’t define me. They are but a small drop in the lake that fills and creates who I am. What matters is how I feel. If I feel ill or unhappy all the time, something needs to change. If I feel healthy and happy, that’s great - no matter my size.

And I find that, as long as I’m listening, paying attention, and taking good care of myself, I am truly happy.

I use eating out for three main things:

1) celebrating
2) rewards
3) financial security

We eat out to celebrate anything from getting a little return from our insurance to getting our blog in the top million. We eat out to celebrate with friends, family, or just us.

I get the desire to eat out to reward myself for various things, and most of the time when I ask, Pace consents. We usually go to my favorite places when this is the case, so it feels very rewarding indeed.

When I was little, my family went out to eat weekly or more, even after my parents got divorced. When I was out on my own, I often couldn’t afford to eat out. Then, when Pace and I got married, our financial situation improved drastically, and we started eating out a lot. This ingrained in me that financial security equals eating out a lot.

A few months ago, I started eating vastly healthier and far less in portions. This has led to internal dissonance - wanting to eat out for my three reasons, but not wanting to eat poorly or overeat. Even in Austin, it’s difficult to find places to eat that fit my strange food habits. And then, as our grocery bill climbs (healthy food is more expensive because that makes sense (sarcasm)), eating out becomes less and less attractive to our budget as well… but the three needs haven’t magically gone away for me.

Today, Megan and I were talking about this. She said she used to have the exact same three things, and she solved it brilliantly, and I will now regale you with the solutions.

1) celebrating
2) rewards
3) financial security

1) Celebrating can be done at home! We can celebrate by inviting friends over and cooking together - someone can bring something interesting to drink, someone can bring dessert, and we can make a meal to share. Sharing food with friends does not have to be done in a restaurant! In fact, I imagine that sharing food prepared by myself with friends would be even more rewarding and celebratory than sharing food in an outside atmosphere.

Oh! In fact, we can even celebrate without inviting friends over! We could have special meals we rarely have, light some candles, take time to discuss our celebratory intent, and really make it feel special and different!

2) Rewarding myself by eating food that actually makes me feel sick seems counter-productive. Megan suggested finding something I really enjoy that’s either a little too expensive or a little too sweet for regular consumption, and get that when I feel I’ve done something to deserve a reward. I think this is fucking brilliant.

3) As I mentioned, buying healthier food does wind up being more expensive. Why not take that expensive eating out and turn it into those healthier groceries? Having financial security provides us with good, healthy food that makes us feel good, food we want to eat and enjoy eating!

I am really looking forward to implementing these awesome ideas. We’ve already burned through our food budget for September, but starting October 1st, we’re going cold turkey (with three exceptions). We’re going to try eating in for 30 days, implement all the above ideas, and see how it goes!

I’m really excited about it!

The other night, I had a weird food experience. I ate half a bag of Doritos, most of which I consumed well after I stopped wanting them. I mulled on this for a long time, trying to figure out why the hell I’d eat so much junk, especially after I stopped wanting it.

I think I figured it out. I think it was a starvation reaction.

My system has adjusted and now expects whole, alive, nourishing sustenance. When I fed us junk devoid of nourishment, my body panicked, thinking no goodness would come of the food I was ingesting and went into overdrive, needing to consume as much as possible in an attempt to scrounge some kind of life-sustainability from the chips. This created a need to continue eating them even well after I was consciously ready to stop, because my body was afraid of starving. I didn’t get full, either, because that kind of “food” doesn’t actually get processed and turned into anything useful, so it was being shuffled out as fast as I was putting it in.

When I eat life-giving real food, I get satisfied and only eat when I want to and can stop when I want. I don’t panic and don’t wonder why I’m eating so much, because I’m not eating so much. But every time I eat foods that aren’t as nourishing, I get that feeling and end up eating far more than I wanted, and far more than I needed, and I get over-full and feel icky.

Food is so interesting and exciting!! Our bodies are so amazing and interesting!

At the beginning of July, I launched into a new way of life.

At the end of June, Pace and I read a really awesome post on motivation. This got the two of us thinking and talking quite a bit, and Pace made a post about the fundamental equations of motivational alchemy and another one about the power of habits (and there’s a third one yet to come!).

I found that I am particularly drawn to soft self-discipline and hard self-discipline. I thought about what I want out of life, what I want to do to achieve those goals, and set some rules in place.

I’ve really adhered to the hard rules I set, even surpassing them. I’m really pleased and I feel like I’ve come a long way.

In July, I exercised at least five days a week (sometimes more). I missed four days in a row due to ankle weirdness, but made it every day on either side of the break - even though the break put me back in the dip. I started paying attention to what I eat, culminating in eating tiny meals every two to three hours and much healthier foods.

As a result, I’ve lost 10 pounds! More excitedly, I’ve lost 5½ inches in my waist, 1¾ inches in my upper arms, and 1 inch in my hips!!

I’ve never lost more than 5lbs. I’ve gone up and up and up, but never down. I cannot describe the joy I’m feeling!! (:

It has been hard. I’ve been sore nearly 24/7, tired a lot, and exhausted for the past couple of days. Yesterday I didn’t think I could finish my workout, but I did, and today was easier. My endurance is up, my self-esteem and confidence are up, and I’m feeling really good. I’m really happy and extremely proud of myself! Woo!

I think I have low blood sugar. Reasons I suspect this include:

• My brain gets really fuzzy up to an hour or two before mealtime. I get very spacey and irritable, and I have trouble making decisions.
• After I eat a large meal, I often go into a food coma. I go into a slump and have low mental and physical energy.
• I also often slump around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
• I’m ravenous throughout the first half of a meal, sometimes even longer.

For the past few days I’ve been trying to eat smaller meals at mealtimes and eat healthy snacks every two hours or so. It’s greatly decreased my frequency of slumpiness and my frequency of spaciness/bitchiness. We’ll try it for a while and see how it goes. I’m also going to try varying my foods somewhat and see if I notice any differences in how I feel.

In other good health news, Debbie from Good Life Modalities seems to have fixed the circulation in my feet and hands! My hands and feet, most notably my feet, used to get cold easily. But for the past few weeks, they’ve been totally great! In fact, I’ve been uncomfortably warm when wearing the socks that I usually wear! This is really impressive. She is really awesome. In fact, I’m paying for another session with her out of my own spending money, because we already exceeded our “crap” budget this month due to getting car troubles fixed, and I didn’t want to wait until next month. I think I’m sending a good message to myself that my health is worth spending my own money on.

Hopefully these positive physical changes will improve my mental well-being too. (: