Day 11/23 Halfway day

By tonight it’ll be halfway to 23 days. I’m down 2.5 pounds. I am 3 pounds to goal so preferrably if I can lose .25 pounds between now and bedtime, I’ll be halfway on weightloss too (just kidding, but also dead serious).

Wins: good runs, better splits, more water, good sleep, half a sandwich, not hungry, bad songwriting, did it anyway.

The weight is the thing. The thoughts I have around my weight is the thing. The thoughts around what I put for food in my mouth is the biggest thing of all. People who are overweight don’t need a lesson in the food groups. It’s not like I have no clue as to apples versus oreos or the difference between eating from a mixing bowl or a cereal bowl. I can cleanse and punish, punish and cleanse and clean out the fridge to brace for war over and over again and never get free from what’s really going on. What’s really going on? I have a fudged up relationship with food that points to my fudged up relationship with my own heart and soul and worth and breathing.

How about not kicking my own ass for every little blessed error from now until kingdom come? How about letting food be food and me be me and existing in a way that I get to be here, feel all my feelings and only eat when I’m hungry instead of making up for being a worthless sack of something by eating food I don’t need? That would be cool.

So that’s what I’m doing. All the Enneagram 4 stuff? All the memories from when I was a kid and a teenager? That’s part of it, I’m afraid. Most of us started gathering our belief systems about ourselves and the world when we were children and never asked ourselves whether any of it was completely accurate or not when we finally grew up. That includes how we think about what’s for dinner, our worth when we eat it and rules about achieving “goodness” through food consumption or lack thereof. That, my friends, is effing bananas. That’s bananas. No one has ever received a humanitarian award for what they put in their maws. It’s not a thing. VIrtue and food are different. French fries are not your nemesis and kale is not judging you.

My brain and heart have rules and thoughts about my beauty and freedom. Somehow, along the way, eating became part of the story around value. I took tips and hints about becoming more attractive, more worthy, more in control and more at ease by using food as a buffer, an enemy, a temptation, relief, control, lack of control, love, acceptance all that stuff. Wrapped up in a chicken soft taco and served with sadness.

Halfway to day 23 is good work to do. Slow, deliberate work of untangling and rearranging. Asking myself what I really want. What does it really mean to love and take care of oneself? What am I willing to do for the rest of my life after the 23 days are over? How do I never get into a battle of emotions using food as my weapon? That’s the thing. 2.5 pounds might not look like much. The grocery store magazine says that lady in a leotard lost 15 pounds in 48 hours. It’s the mental weight you cannot see that’s gone forever. You’d need a pickup truck to haul that nonsense away. Have a great day.