Hey, guess what?  I’m kind of a perfectionist.  It’s a theme that has followed me throughout the years.  No matter how good I was at something, it wasn’t good enough. Even being really good at starving or withholding food wasn’t enough.  Someone was always doing it better than me.  One of my college roommates was anorexic.  It was like the battle of diseases - my bulimia versus her anorexia.  In retrospect it was so sick, it would have made for good reality tv.  “Watch her puke as her roommate starves!  Who can eat less than the other?  Tune in at 10 for the final showdown!”

Everytime I cycle through gaining weight, then losing it, the extremes are hard to temper.  At one extreme, I can’t imagine ever eating sensibly again.  My inner demon says, “You’ve denied for years.  You deserve whatever you want, whenever you want it.”  On the other extreme, my inner demon says, “You fat pig - you can never again eat like other people.  You aren’t like other people.  Barley and oats for the rest of your life.”

Doing Weight Watchers has been fairly enlightening.  Because no foods are verboten, I don’t get that panicky, “OH MY GOD THAT COOKIE WILL KILL ME” feeling like I did during the two years I went without flour or sugar.  And because I am “allowed” to eat whatever, I tend to want certain foods less.  In this respect, Weight Watchers - for now - has been successful.  I’ve struggled with food for too long to be able to proclaim that it’s the Perfect Diet. 

Part of growing older and looking back over all the years of the struggle has proven to me once again that there is no such thing as perfection.  I was reading an article today on “Phantom Fat” and unfortunately I can really relate to it.  Even at my thinnest, I only saw the fat girl lurking beneath the skin.  How could I be 102 pounds and think I was fat? Oh, the joy of a messed up head . . . and how annoying!  how irritating! that all these years later I still struggle with the image in the mirror.

I will say that I’m more able to accept the imperfections of my diet.  That occasionally I will order french fries with my grilled chicken, or get an ice cream cone with the kids.  That’s the joy of being “normal” and of eating “normally”.  Food isn’t good or bad - just because it’s a donut doesn’t mean it’s a convicted felon and should be in food jail.  Salad isn’t angelic, nor is broccoli.  I came face to face with that when I found myself eating a piece of cold pizza at 3 o’clock in the afternoon (!!!).  My first instinct was to freak out and feel like I’d ruined not only my day, but my entire life.  That combination of dough, tomatoes and cheese had the power to just crush my resolve and make me feel tiny (and huge, all at the same time).  Later, after the panic had subsided, I put it into perspective.  It was a piece of pizza.  A simple piece.

As the weight comes off, I’m hopeful my need to be perfect will come off along with it.  Hope is a very good thing. 

I stepped on the scale this morning full of dread.  4 straight days of working out - hard - and watching everything that went in my mouth and my big weight loss this week is .5 pounds.  Not 5 pounds, .5.  Half of a freakin’ pound.

I know this happens and I also know that there are many reasons why some weeks you lose more than others, but it is depressing when you feel like you are working so hard and the scale only moves a fraction.  Seeing those stupid Medifast commercials isn’t helping either where people are talking about a 10 lb weight loss in week.  My written reminder to myself is - it took 6 years to get to this weight, and it’s not going to disappear in 2 months. 

I’m choosing to use this as practice, however, because in the past something like this would have made me flip and become extreme.  I would have extended my workouts to 2 hours (before kids, of course), restricted food even further, or stopped eating certain meals.  I’m going to fight the urge to make the scale move faster - better - more dramatically and stick with what I’m doing. 

I love Chantal’s “Bullety” posts, so I’m totally stealing from her. 

• Lovin’ Love and Logic:  Jennifer turned me on to this book.  I’ve made no secret of my struggles with Arden and her willful and strong spirited personality.  I really, really don’t like yelling at either of my kids.  In fact I hate yelling, period, but as Arden has gotten older, I’ve found that my yelling has increased.  Additionally, when Lily picks fights with Arden or vice versa, the more annoying the fight the exponentially louder I yell.  I picked the book up when we were in DC,  and I’m through about 3/4 of it.  I can’t explain it well, but the directions are fairly simple and common-sense.  If your kids feel you are out of control, prepare for the worst.  If they feel you are calm and IN control, they will react accordingly.  The specific techniques seem to work wonders on Arden, at least right now.  They involve playing goofy “choice games” - like, “Would you rather roar like a lion or meow like a cat?” as well as more important choices:  “Do you want to put your coat on now, or see if you get cold and put it on outside?”.  You give them lots of choices you can live with, which makes them think and reason through the answer, and lets them feel like they have some control and independent action. This way, when you do have to lay down the law, they are more pliable.  I’ve also been using the calm “non-sarcastic” approach to problem solving, like today when I picked up Arden at Rainbow and found out she’d been mean to one of her classmates and had refused to speak to any of the teachers.
  
  Turns out her normal teacher is on vacation this week, and I knew she was upset about that, but unable to express it.  She told me she was mean because she didn’t have a nap yesterday, so I told her she’d be taking one today.  This caused a huge meltdown as we walked to the car, complete with some seat kicking.  I never lost my cool or raised my voice.  I simply said, “How sad that you were mean to Cameron today.  I KNOW you are a nice and kind person, but we all have bad days.  Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure, but today, you need to take a rest.”  Eventually she calmed right down and said, “I can’t be good unless Ms. Rey is there. I can’t do it!”  It was pretty awesome, even though it broke my heart to hear her say that.
  
  I also am SO tired of yelling, “QUIT WHINING!!!” all the time.  The book has a great suggestion - when the whining starts, I say “I can’t hear little voices. I can only hear big, grown up voices.”  When she whines, I say, “I can’t hear that little voice - sounds like something squeaking - maybe there’s a bug in the car?”  This sometimes leads to her laughing, or she gets it together and asks me in a mostly-normal voice.
  
  The best part is, since I have a guide to how to handle these situations, I don’t feel out of control and I don’t get frustrated as easily. Sure, it’s embarassing having a screaming 4 year old, but less embarassing than me screaming along with her.
  
  
• Easter:  I forgot to write about it.  We had a great Easter.  Weather was gorgeous, we spent some more time in the yard, and the girls bought some pretty flowers to plant with their new gardening gloves. They loved planting flowers with their grandmother.  Since neither my mom nor I wanted to cook, we had a delicious dinner out at Cheesecake Factory.  It was heavenly and I hope that not cooking becomes our standard Easter routine.  The Easter Bunny, and Easter Grandparents, were both very good to the girls this year.  Watching them egg hunt was hilarious.  Mass chaos.
  
  
• I often forget how rampant eating disorders are.  Once you get into your thirties, it’s not cool at all to have one, even if you aren’t actively participating with the instructions that sick voice in your head gives you.  I had lunch with a friend today, and as we talked about weight gain after childbirth, she mentioned she’d had a bad eating disorder for about 3 years.  She’s one of the luckier ones - she managed to self-heal and hasn’t fallen back into the psycho groove.  I don’t often talk with my friends or acquaintances about it - not because I’m embarassed, but because it doesn’t come up.  However, when I do, about 80% of the time the woman across from me ends up sharing her experience. It’s rare I talk to someone who hasn’t had anything to do with the big, bad, ED.
  
  And by the way, sometimes I think my family wishes I was embarassed, that I didn’t blog about it.  For me, writing about it openly keeps me honest.  I know I’m not the only 37 year old woman who still struggles on a daily basis with the annoying voice and the desire for the quick fix, and most of all, the desire to control the one thing we actually CAN control.  It’s also good for me to note that so many other people with perfectionist tendencies fall into the ED trap.  It’s been said before, but bears repeating:  eating disorders are less about food and more about controlling when we feel the least in control.
  
   
• Weight Watchers Day II is going fine.  I had lunch at Panera, and they offer some really good options.  Yet another reason I love the internet:  online menus.  I planned my meal so I didn’t have to worry when I got there. 

Today, I had the joy of my annual “womanly” appointment.  Actually, it was almost joyous because 1.) the kids are back in school! and 2.) I absolutely love the woman who gets the honors of smearing my pap. 

Carol is a CNM (certified nurse midwife).  I’ve been seeing her since I was pregnant with Arden. She got me through that horrific pregnancy and then some.  She knows all of my deep, dark secrets and helped me weigh the benefits of Zoloft against the cons of Zoloft while with child.  Normally at my annual, Carol asks me if I have any questions and I always answer with a resounding “Nope!”  Today, I had a number of questions for her.  I’ve got some weird pain I’ve been dealing with for the last 3-4 weeks. It comes and goes, so she wants me to get it checked out by the MammoPancake people.  I’m not overly worried - after feeling me up, she didn’t find any lumps or weirdness. 

I also told her I was at the end of my rope with my weight.  We had a lengthy discussion about how a prior eating disorder can seriously mess with the metabolism.  My mom told me the earth-shattering news that in order to lose weight, you had to consume less calories.  I had no idea!  My frustration comes when I consume “less calories” and work out like fiend 4-5 times a week.  I’m not talking about yoga, either.  I’m talking about sweat-drenching bike rides, circuit training with anaerobic breaks every 2 minutes, and weight lifting and sculpting.  I am not an exercise wuss, and I push myself hard.  Typical me:  I’m either working out to the edge of death (or unconsciousness), or I’m sitting on the couch eating potato chips. 

Carol had a couple of suggestions for me.  The first was to draw some blood (my so not favorite thing to do!) to check my thyroid levels.  Results coming in 48 hours. The second was to either see the nutritionist they have on staff or join Weight Watchers online.  I was reluctant to see a nutritionist.  The only ones I talk to have to specialize in eating disorders, or I get a little crazy.  Many of my friends have had good results on Weight Watchers, so I decided to sign up for the online trial and see how it goes.  Susan was a champ and decided to do it with me, after we both started referring to each other as the “Chin Sisters”. 

Whoo hooo, on Day 1, I managed to stay within my points AND bank an extra 7 due to the length of time I worked out. 

Dieting is hard for me. I can’t call it dieting or I get crazy.  I can’t restrict too much, or I stop eating.  I can’t NOT restrict, because then I eat anything and everything.  Except vegetables.  I’ve never binged on veggies. 

The one area of my life where I am certifiably insane is my weight and my love/hate relationship with food.  If you haven’t walked in my shoes, you can’t comment. You really can’t.  You don’t understand what it’s like to wake up feeling trapped in your own skin, but unwilling to make the changes necessary because that means going back to crazy living, like the years without flour and sugar.  A sane person says, “Yes, but there’s a happy medium. There is a middle. There is a gray.”  The person inside my skin doesn’t understand gray - apparently because that person is color blind.

Weight Watchers seems like a fairly sensible LONG-TERM solution to my problem.  I’m still hoping for a thyroid problem which would explain to everyone around me (mostly my family) that YES I DO WORK HARD and I DO WATCH WHAT I EAT but I don’t get the results I want because there is something wrong with me.  Frankly, even without a thyroid problem, I didn’t do myself any favors with the years of starving/binging/abusing diet pills.  I’m paying a hefty (pun intended) price for those excesses. 

Today, however, I feel positive.  I’m trying to hang on to that.  I’m tired of being miserable.  I’m not willing to starve to achieve those old results, but I’m willing to do a lot to achieve “better”. 

Best of all, I didn’t pass out when they drew blood. 

You ever have one of those days where you feel so hideous you don’t want to leave the house?  Where you are concerned your butt won’t fit through the car door?  Those days when even the thought of the gym scares you, with all the coiffed and flower-scented barbies?  Those days that make you want to crawl back into bed before you’ve left it? 

One of those days when you know you must, absolutely must, go to the gym, and do your class, and pretend that everyone around you isn’t prettier or better or thinner or more flower-scented than you.  One of those days when you really honestly could sleep all day and then all night and wake up the next morning and decide, yeah, you really could use another day of sleep. 

One of those rare days when you indulge in second and third helpings of self-pity and self-loathing, knowing realistically that “this too shall pass” but hating it while it’s here anyway.  Days when you think you’d better double your prescribed mgs of Zoloft or call a friend for lunch, but realize you don’t have any friends available for lunch, dinner, OR coffee because everyone you know and love works.  Days when you hate the previous sentence you wrote because it is so entirely lame and pitiable and if you read it on someone else’s blog, you’d say, “Dude, you really need to get a grip.”

I’m having one of those days.