A Day at a Time?

Forget the addict's mantra, A Day At A Time; I'm taking it hour by hour!

We had a really good Management session last night and there are lots of things to comment on (think I'll do a Learnings from Management category).

The BIG thing that I took away was the fact that as all or nothing people, we see things in black and white terms. So, last night, with the extra pounds in place, all that my brain was doing was say things like, "OK, you can go crackers tomorrow, in style and then back to basics, big time because you need to get a handle on the WHOLE of Route to Management right NOW. Because you simply can't stray. You can't do this. It's too hard." It was last supper syndrome, I think, rearing it's ugly head combined with uber-perfectionism.

And several of us were thinking the same and do you know what? It was all out of panic. Many of us are having major anxiety attacks right now and we're taking today's anxieties and projecting them forward to the whole of Route to Management and beyond. The anxieties are NOT about food - they are about life issues - family, work, dilemmas - you know the BIG stuff that happens when you're looking the other way?!

But our coping strategy is food.

Today I woke up with another panic; I've got major financial concerns about the house (and am absolutely dreading telling my husband). Even though I spoke to Porkchop last night and said, I don't regret my decisions but I regret how I have handled the project, today I have just been beating myself up about my decisions and I feel utterly ashamed. We've spent all our contingency and more and my husband will go absolutely bonkers when he finds out, not least because he is in a state of high anxiety himself about work (and the fact that he took a pay cut to do this prestigious job, which is anything but).

Today I have a meeting with one of my clients and I am nervous about the project. I kept thinking about how I would manage the day and if I ate something off limits, that was ok because this was a difficult day and if I could JUST get through today, everything will be alright.

But it won't. Tomorrow will bring fresh challenges and if I revert to my old behaviour - using food to increase my energy (falsely, as we now know), using food to self-medicate to calm the internal screaming anxiety, which is going off in my head, right now, using food to quosh the anxious stomach - I feel nervous, ergo I must eat and/or drink a lot of coffee to stop this. I mean the list can go on and on and on. If I revert to my old behaviour, well, it doesn't bear thinking about.

But I can't continue in this way, can I? The weight loss, the abstinence, the past six months will all have been for nothing if I can't DEAL with life without using food inappropriately. This is SOOOO hard, right now. It's as if LighterLife Foundation and Development never happened - foodpacks were a lifetime ago. That's how it feels. BUT this is NOT impossible; I can get a handle on this.

I had a lightbulb moment when I was panicking about this meeting this afternoon (should never have taken on the work but hey, there you go, I did!). I realised that I can just do my best and there's a way of managing the meeting without apologising for everything I haven't done and start saying what I have done and just trying to be human rather than perfect (and super human). I've got to cut myself some slack, somehow. This is ALIEN behaviour but if I don't start now, nothing will change and my weight gains will indeed turn into a trend and this really will all have been for nothing.

I realise this is a bit of brain dump but I had to get my thoughts down. The only way I can stop freaking out altogether is just drinking tea, drinking water and focusing on the next hour. And that's it.

Comments

[Sandra]

Hey - I so know how you feel. Financial issues are one of my biggest triggers but I have managed to sit down and clear my head and do a new plan.
Okay - I'm still broke - and with the plan I'm be a bit more broke in a couple of months but then I should be able to start dealing with it.
Whatever the issues with the budget for the house, you need to find some clear head time to sit down and work out your options. Maybe you will both need to rethink your work situations because it sounds like you've both made sacrifices on salary and it hasn't really worked out for the best (I'm reading between the lines here because I don't know your situation exactly). Maybe to get the house finished and prepare for being parents you need to refocus on earning for a bit?
Hope I'm not talking out of turn - it's just that I've had to think of the same things over the past few months...

[Liz]

Hi there. I wanted to drop in and say thank you for the supportive comments. I have found your site an absolute treasure chest of useful information. Lighter Life themselves should get you to write for their magazine. Honest and genuine advice and tips.

I ordered a few books from your list - Skinny Bitch, Perfect Ten and The Hungry Years.

Hope you manage to resolve the money issues without looking for answers in the bottom if the cookie jar!

Liz
xxx

[guinea]

You should not think that abstinence was for nothing.

You've lost the weight. Now you need to learn to live with it. I've learned that abstinence does not cure my cravings for food. It mearly provides me a method for avoiding them now.

The only thing stopping me from eating is the fact that I will break my diet and I am too stubborn to do that. Lighterlife has not armed me in any way to deal with walking past KFC when I am allowed to eat.

I worry, like you, that I will not be able to handle it.

My father is an alcoholic. Alcoholics are just chocoholics, but for booze. He looks for an excuse to drink and blames anything and everything around him for his problem. This makes perfect sense to him, but as an onlooker it makes no sense. This is the same for you.

I don't have an answer for you, but I know that, as Liz says, the answer will not be found at the bottom of the cookie jar.

All the best.