Women, Food, and Me?

This time around, I lasted almost an entire week on Weight Watchers.

7 days of counting points in lieu of calories.

7 days of chronicling each and every workout in my journal.

7 days of torture.

Because I knew, I always knew, that I wasn't supposed to be on this diet.

I knew I wasn't supposed to be on any diet anymore.

Isn't that why I started this journal in the first place?

When you've been on and off diets for your entire adult life, you pick up some information along the way. 

I'd be a damn fool if I thought that my inability to lose 20 pounds is actually about what I put in my mouth each day.

For me, for a lot of compulsive eaters, it goes a lot deeper than that.

When I'm happy, it doesn't even occur to me to overeat.

When I'm sad, angry or stressed I turn to food.

Each and every time I binge, each and every time I put something in my mouth that I'm not physically hungry for...it's like a fucking cry for help.

I'm desperately reaching for something that I don't think I can provide for myself.

Growing up I wanted to be a writer more than anything else in this world but...

I chickened out.

I never believed in myself enough to pursue my own dreams.  Never thought I'd amount to much of anything and in true self-fulfilling prophecy...I didn't.  So here I am, 39 years old and I can count on one hand my list of accomplishments: college degree I can't receive until I pay UMass the remaining $3,000 I owe them; 5 year old daughter that I adore but who sucks every ounce of conceivable energy right out of my body; and a boyfriend who drives me crazy with his DAILY requests to have another baby despite the fact that he barely spends time with the one we have.

That's it.

That's all I got.

Well, no, I've got just one more thing.

I've got a choice to make.

I can continue along this path, blaming my excess 20 pounds on my inability to stick to Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers or whatever the diet du jour or I can cut the shit right now and, as Geneen Roth outlines in Women, Food, and God, examine my overeating and use it as a guide to discover what I really believe about life, this world we live in, and the force that I call God.  Do I really believe that my life, my goals, my dreams are over because, at 39 years old, I haven't "made it" yet?  Do I really believe that, because I'm a mother, I'm entitled to NO time to myself and am a horrible parent for not wanting my child attached to my hip 24 hours a day?  And do I really believe that I'm less than Lorenzo deserves because I won't give him the son he so desperately wants?

Hell, it's no wonder I eat to escape.

Quick Update

161 pounds.

3 pounds down after one week on Weight Watchers.

More to come.

Day 1

I started Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time this week.

Unlike many, I've actually always had really good luck with Weight Watchers and have never gained back any of my lost weight.  I don't remember the first time I started the program but I'm certainly hoping this will be my last.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past several decades or have never actually tried the program yourself, Weight Watchers is considered one of the most affordable, sensible diet programs on the market.

I agree.

In its most recent incarnation, Weight Watchers has created the Points Plus Program.  Members are assigned a daily points target that is dependant on: sex, height, weight, and age.  (Breastfeeding moms need not despair, as they're supposed to add 14 extra points to their daily target.  I'm perplexed that a breastfeeding mom would even need Weight Watchers as that's the time in my life when I lost the most weight without even trying to).  As a 5'3" non-breastfeeding, 39 year old female, I've been assigned a Points Plus target of 26 points, meaning that my daily diet should consist of no more than 26 points each day.  Each food is assigned a points value based on its: fat, fiber, protein, and carb content.  Fruits, veggies and water have a zero points value meaning one can ingest as many of them as they'd like.

In addition to the daily points target, Weight Watchers is generous enough to give its participants an additional 49 points each week to use in whatever manner we like.  And don't forget to workout!  You can earn additional points each day by pumping iron or getting some cardio in.

So let's go over my first day back on weight watchers.  Yesterday I woke up, used the washroom and weighed myself.

Not a good idea.

For some reason I was hoping to see a drop on the scale.  When that didn't happen...I caved.   Last week's short lived attempt at detoxing (AKA, virtual starvation) had failed almost immediately and I'd returned to what I like to call, last chance eating.  Eating healthy all day long before snapping, and binging on chips and guacamole, crackers and cheese while telling myself that this is the "last time I eat these foods...EVER"

Yeah right.

When I woke up Monday morning, I was determined to get "back on track" at last.  No more binges followed by near starvation, no more diets that don't make sense for me.

I knew it was time to go back to Weight Watchers.

Isn't it sad how most of us don't know how to feed ourselves anymore?  In a perfect world, I could do what Geneen Roth suggests and feed myself, what I want, when I want it.  But, like so many women I know, I'm terrified of food.  Terrified by my own natural appetite.  What if I do as the authors of When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies suggest, fill my house with ALL of the foods I love the most (not just the healthy ones) and binge eat on potato chips until it takes a forklift to get me out of bed?

Feeding myself "on demand" was just too scary for me.

So I chickened out.  Found the free Weight Watchers site and put myself back on my safe little diet.

Worked out for an hour and a half and stayed within my points range like a good little girl.

And a part of me, hates myself for being too afraid to buck the system.

But another part of me...just hopes this diet works.

Off The Wagon

I lasted exactly 48 hours before falling off the wagon and putting myself on yet another diet.

This one more stringent and punitive than ever.

Don't worry I knew this was coming. This isn't my first time at the rodeo, I've attempted to quit dieting in the past: After reading when women stop hating their bodies some 15 years ago, then, after re-reading the same book 5 years after that;

After watching Oprah, upon her interview with Geneen Roth, declare never to diet again;

And years later, upon reading Women, Food, and God for myself.  All of these events would bring about my own end to dieting but each attempt would prove extremely short-lived.

It's safe to say I know the routine. Girl meets puberty and begins a life long journey of self-hatred and counting calories. Girl smartens up, reads one of many anti-diet, love your body as it is books and spends the next 24 hours in a blissful, never-diet-again, nirvana-like state. Then, something happens: Girl steps on scale; or, catches sight of her fat ass in a store window; or, glimpses People Magazine's half their size issue in grocery store check out line.  And she realizes two things: 1, she is in fact " too fat " (for what I'm not sure) and 2, she has no scope with which to to measure her success in life besides the size of her ass and so she freaks out and runs screaming back to the security of a diet (any diet) so fast it would make your head spin.

I've been there before.

Many, many times.

And I'm back there now.  I restarted Weight Watchers two days ago.  Well, I kind of restarted the program.  I found a website that provides Weight Watchers' Points Plus calculators for free. That's a step in the right direction right?  At least I'm steadfast in my refusal NOT to shell out another red cent for any weight loss program. 

But I know what a hypocrite I must seem.  Here I am, trying like hell to love my body as is and encourage you to do the same and...I didn't even make it a whole week. 

I'm right back on the diet roller coaster once again.

But what's different this time is you.

I'm not hiding all this bullshit anymore. I'm going to blog it all, tell it all right here. Open myself up and let you glimpse every fucked up corner of my life, including, hell, especially, my in the toilet body image.

I  hope you won't judge me too harshly.

In the beginning

My daughter and I have already played tickle monster, Sorry, and are about a quarter of the way through High School Musical 3 before she finally begins to whine, "Mommy, I'm hungry."  After eating most of a tomato and a few bites of black beans, she pushes her plate away and maker her way onto her bedroom floor to create towers and castles out of building blocks.

Eating is that simple for her.

I don't remember it ever being that simple for me.

My preoccupation with my weight started long ago.  I must've spent my entire 7th grade year with a jacket tied around my waist in the vain attempt to hide my developing hips and ass from leering classmates.  In high school, I had an after school job, a new group of friends and the disposable income with which to buy whatever food I liked.  Given my propensity towards Popeye's and Pringles I soon reached 150 pounds.  By the time I got to college I'd already had a brief and dangerous (though ineffective) stint with diet pills.  Determined never to go that route again, instead, I alternated between serious binge eating and days on end of near starvation to keep my weight in check.  I wasn't an anorexic or bulimic, but like most of the young women I knew, I was willing to try virtually anything to lose the weight.

Nothing worked.

And two years late, by the time I dropped out of college, I weighed a whopping 200 pounds.

After many years of depression and therapy, I would eventually lose the weight.

I joined a gym, fell in love with exercise, and began to really pay attention to what I put into my body.

Now, at 39 years old, I'm a vegetarian who exercises at least 5 times a week.  I weigh 165 pounds and wear a size 10 jeans.  Though I'm still 30 pounds heavier than my goal of 135 pounds (the number I need to reach in order to achieve a healthy bmi) it's still a far cry from my once size 18 life.

I should be thrilled with my results and once upon a time I was but these days I'm just plain miserable.

And I'm not exactly sure why.

I hate my still poochy, post-pregnancy belly.

I hate my limited wardrobe choices.

But most of all I hate that for the past year and a half I've reverted back to my old binge eating behaviors.

Wolfing down chips and guacamole after my family's gone to bed and promising to "get back on track tomorrow".

Counting calories religiously and then "blowing it" for the day with one unplanned dinner out.

Subsisting on nothing more than hot water with lemon juice in an attempt to drop extra pounds before my self-appointed weigh in days.


In her groundbreaking work, "Women, Food, and God" Geneeth Roth writes, "Our relationship to food is an exact microcosm of our relationship to life itself."

This is 100% true for me.

And I'm so sick of the whole goddamn charade.

Sick of hating my life and trying to convince myself that the problem lies within my body and not my soul.

Sick of telling myself that if I could just "lose the weight" everything else would fall into place and be perfect.

I'm too smart for that.

In this blog I plan to explore all of my eating issues and attempt to make sense of my life, my body, my self.

I don't pretend that this will be easy as I've been on an emotional roller coaster ride with dieting and self-hatred for the past 20 + years but...my goal is to put an end to the inevitably fruitless journey that is dieting. 

Once and for all.