A Weight Lifted Update 8

Well, it's been a while, I know, my weight has been up and down over the last few weeks with the problems with my arm. Just before Christmas I had joint pains in my right elbow - both tennis and golfer's elbow - meaning problems with my tendons on both sides of my right elbow joint. I managed to get treatment for the lefthand side of the joint but then the righthand side flared up again, and the doctor at our surgery that specialises in joint injections has been on holidays for January. Anyway, Wednesday, I should be able to have another injection (gee, I hate needles, but the pain of the joint is worse).

Now my strategy for pain used to be to overeat, to take the hurt away and replace it with fullness, but then I would feel guilty and eat to take the guilt away, etc, etc. I managed to curb some of that behaviour and managed to keep my weight gain below 17st, and now the weight is being lost again. Today I've managed to get back to the lowest weight I was before my pain problems and now I have lost a total of 8.5lbs so far, cue the fireworks again...

So weight in the beginning (Nov 2008) 17st 4
Weight today: 16st 9.5
Weight lost: 8.5 lb

It's about 11 weeks till my trip to Dublin, so I hoping to have lost a stone in total by then, so still working towards that :)

I think that works out as a sleeve rolled up on my "coat", don't you? xx

Blue Monday

According to the "experts", today is supposed to be the gloomiest day of the year - all to do with distance from Christmas, distance from Spring/Summer and the weather + the economy news at the moment. Actually I thought it was supposed to be next Monday as it's a month from Christmas, but then I'm not the expert of formulae for happiness.

All I know is that today I'm not going to let someone else tell me what my mood is supposed to be. I have positivity and strategies - they're not raining on my parade!!

A Weight Lifted Update 6

Week 7 and a bit more lost. 17st has been left behind and now I'm 16st 11.5.

It is surprising me but perhaps it is determination or the emotional weight from my past is leaving me. I have all sorts of things going on in my life at the moment and today is the first day back for school for my son, which in the past has been a trigger day, as I used to feel that I'd lost my use, not being needed all the time by someone, being on my own again, and feeling that I had lost worth. That is still at the back of my mind but this time I have some strategies to distract me - blogging, fruit to snack on, sewing, some taped TV shows to watch, art course readings, organising, washing...

I have also been away from here as I had some issues to deal with. I saw a TV programme advertised and discussed in preview on other programmes about sexual bullying and it bought things to a fore. It put a name to things I had suffered from as a child and young adult and I've been dealing with the memories it provoked. I was bullied as a child and an adult, but now realise that some incidents that also happened to me would now be classed as sexual bullying. Having a name to give it gives some freedom, but it also brings the knowledge that my problems started earlier than I had thought, but bears out a thought that came out in one counselling session that between 6-8 years old were a difficult time for me, although at the time I said I didn't really know or remember why or what happened. Trying to lose weight and the thought patterns that I developed to defend me has meant trying to find different ways to tackle losing some weight and not self-sabotage as I go along. And with my right arm muscles problems and soreness, I've been resting, but still here, there for helping others, as much as I could.

I'm starting to see light again. I hadn't put the little incidents into the whole line of abuse (mostly mentally) and bullying that I had recognised as such in my past. But it is my determination not to be a victim, and I should be able to close the door again soon on those little things. It was just the trailers for the programme (Panorama) and discussions on breakfast television that brought some of the things back under my focus. And yet I've still come through.

Starting weight 17st 4lb

Total lost: 6.5 lb

xx

A weight coming off

For the last 10 years or so, I've had a weight problem. I did lose 50lbs about 6 years ago, but almost as soon as the scales showed the 50lbs loss, my weight started to go back, plus a few more stone for good measure. Over the next years I tried to lose some weight again, would get so far and then it would creep back and I couldn't understand why. Then I had a lightbulb moment from my past.

I was quite gangly as a child and young adult, but I was a late developer, and as I entered my 20s-30s, I got to be noticed - more than I could handle. My natural friendliness was mistaken for other intentions, and I was hurt. My weight crept up and people stopped noticing me and I felt safe. It came to me that my weight had become my coat, held tight, as protection against those unwanted remarks and attention, and that as people started to notice the losses, I felt too far out of comfort. A few years ago, I joined a weight management group but was discharged from it because my losses were discouraging others, but without the support and help it had given me, the emptiness came back and I ate to fill that hole my soul has. It was then that I realised I needed counselling about the abuse I suffered as a child and a young adult, as the hurt had never been addressed and it was that that possibly was driving my need not to be noticed by people other than my husband - luckily he loves me big or small. Over the recent years slowly I have come to love myself and be happy with me, learning what looks good on me and how to use my height to minimise knowledge of my actual size but my weight is potentially a health problem as I get older.

So, I'm going to try again but I have some strategies. 1. I'm going to blog the losses periodically to confront my "public" noticing problems, 2. I've found a style of clothes that I can use as my coat, but which express my arty side - its German name is Lagenlook, meaning layered (example above), but the clothes are worn as you want, big or fluidy - one size fits all. So I can lose my weight and learn more about the new me, regardless of others' gaze - well that's the theory.

At the start of this week I was 17st 4 (242 lb), and today I was 17st 1.5. I'm not dieting as such, just making more healthier choices on foods - swapping crisps for apples etc. I know that weight is an up and down thing from day-to-day, but I'm aiming for down over time. One rule - don't ask me how I'm doing - I'll tell you - as asking = attention in my faulty thinking and for the moment I'm letting go of only so much of my past coping strategies, but this is a start and one step can still make a journey happen.

So...