I joined WW a week ago and I have tried to get to some of
the virtual meetings. I am trying out
some of the different leaders to see which ones I like (and it’s easier to
judge a leader if they are presenting the same information). Therefore, I have attended a few workshops
this week. The topic for that first week was food noise. Good subject for sure. I have tons of food noise. I plan my day around food. I haven’t even put down my fork after a meal
that totally fills me up and I am already thinking about when and what I will
eat next time. Even sitting here typing
this, I have already thought about breakfast, lunch AND dinner for today (I
started typing this at 7AM). So, this
topic was very near and dear to my heart.
After attending a few ‘Weekly Workshops’ throughout the
week, I decided to attend a “Deep Dive’ session. I actually really liked this coach’s style
and energy (Coach Marianne B) and the interaction was great. She talked about three factors that affect
the food noise. Environment, stress and
appetite. She talked about how when you
are hungry the food noise is incredibly intense. And right then and there I had an epiphany
about my food noise and my weight issues.
I have always wondered what happened. How did I come to live the life of an obese
woman. I was always more of a petite
person as I was younger, not overweight, just healthy. By younger I mean 10, 11, 12 or so. I actually remember referring to one girl at
school as fat in my description of her at home.
I actually came across a picture of her in my storage recently and I had
it labelled as ‘Fat Joy’. How shameful
is that? I am actually utterly
embarrassed to admit this, but it is the truth.
I was one of the normal sized
or even smaller people among my friends.
And then something happened. I started to gain……quickly. Within a year or so I was overweight and
then shortly afterward, obese. All when
I was right around 12-14 years old.
I have long wondered and pondered what in the world
happened.
-
We moved from Pennsylvania to Florida right
about that time. Was it a culture shock?
-
That was the age that I was hitting
puberty. Was it hormonal?
-
I went from a carefree kid playing outside to a
teenager more apt to be in my room lounging.
Was it just a result of change of lifestyle?
It’s been a big question in my mind for quite a few
years. It wasn’t until this week that I
had an epiphany.
It was during that deep dive session about food noise that I
knew. I knew exactly what had caused my
spiral or at least contribute (because I think those other factors played a
role for sure). It was a true light bulb
moment……before we moved to Florida (before I had weight problems) I had plenty
of friends and the cafeteria at school was not crowded, one could actually find a
place to sit and I had a group of friends to sit with. I ate lunch every day. But then we moved. I didn’t have friends…and I never made a lot
while we were in Florida.
Lunchtime was utterly horrible at my new school. First, try walking into a large room teeming
with people you don’t know. Then you get
your tray and have to navigate through this throng of people between tables
that are placed too closely together to try to fit as many people in as possibly. Why are they so close? We had moved to one of the fastest growing
counties in the COUNTRY and the schools were way overcrowded, that included the
cafeteria, where I had to find a place to sit.
Amongst strangers….other kids that didn’t want a newbie sitting with
them, they were saving those precious and few places for their friends. It was the most uncomfortable situation. I
remember getting my tray, looking for a welcoming place to sit. Not finding any
availability I remember dumping my tray full of food and walking out. It was
so uncomfortable that as an 8th grader I choose to forego
lunch. It was less stressful to sit in
the quad outside. If there wasn’t a bench available, it was acceptable and not
awkward to sit on the ground up against one of the buildings, lots of people did
it. Even if I was alone, I could do
homework or something in order to not look so pitiful. I
didn’t eat lunch.
Don’t feel too bad, I wasn’t utterly friendless, but I never
really had a lot. I was friendly with
everyone, but I just never clicked with anyone. I was just too different, too foreign, too
something. And that’s ok.
That trend continued into high school the following year. The cafeteria was insane. It was not a welcoming place. It was worse though because high school gave
us the option to go through the line and buy a snack. This was important because a snack I could
take outside to the quad where it wasn’t crowded and where I could melt into
obscurity. (Usually with one or two
other people that were also just trying to survive.) The snack of choice…. Little Debby Snack cakes,
my new friend. I didn’t do that every
day because the cafeteria was still way overcrowded to even just walk through and
honestly, I had figured out that the lunch money was more aptly used on my own
pursuits (books and music).
It is no surprise that I got home from school each day and
hit the kitchen absolutely ravenous! I
started to make larger snacks. A full box
of Kraft mac-n-cheese. A box of taco
shells with melted cheese was actually quite delicious and/or apeanut butter
and jelly sandwich always hit the spot. Whatever
I could scrounge from the pantry was fair game.
An hour or two later, dinner would be served and guess who ate a full meal
then too? Why yes, me!
That is exactly where my issues started. I learned unhealthy habits. The food noise in my head was intense by the
time I got home and the food noise never faded.
Once I let it in, it took up residence and stayed firm in my head and
that voice has remained there for all of these years.
I have no desire to take medications, even though they say
the medications will silence the food noise.
I don’t want to be on a medication for the rest of my life and I know
that when I stop taking the meds the food noise comes back (just look at what
people say when then end up stopping the meds…. they regain). I am still 100% committed to the holistic
approach of learning to manage these food noise and my desires. I ‘just’ need to learn how to silence that food
noise voice. Just for a laugh, I do
refer to these voices as my mini me….and my mini me screams at me not just
about food. My mini me tells me that
exercise is bad. My mini me tells me
that I am not worth it. When I was
running regularly, my mini me would tell me that I wasn’t a runner and I looked
like an idiot. This little mini me is so insistent that once when I was running
the mini me was telling me that I was a fool for thinking that I was a runner,
that I looked ridiculous and so many other things that I was started crying,
but didn’t stop running weirdly enough. Finally,
I had enough and I just yelled out loud “SHUT UP”. (I am trying to find a post, because surely, I
wrote about that!)
But yeah…food noise.
Wow….I honestly cried like a baby as I wrote this. This started as a simple epiphany, but turned
into a soul releasing cry as I recounted these experiences and relived those
emotions of stress.
As a side note: I look back and pity my poor mom because I annihilated
the pantry on a daily basis, which had to have affected her meal plans. I may have and probably did ask first for some
of those larger ticket items like taco shells, I assume. She
never said a word though. I know that
she had suffered with excess weight all her life and I know that she had said
that her mom had made comments which hurt her self-confidence and she never
wanted me to feel fat or inferior. Her
silence raised a gal that didn’t care about her weight …. but it also didn’t
stop a growing problem. (It wasn’t until I accidentally started to
lose weight when I got roped into a weight loss challenge that I began to see and care that I was
overweight, until then, I just liked me for me).
So that is the deep thoughts for this week.
I like my official weigh in days to be Friday, so my first ‘week’
on weight watchers was actually only 5 days (from Sunday to Friday
morning). I am happy to say that I lost
3.7 pounds.
Not to keep that up!!!!!
Lets see what we can do on week two.
I know that I will have a bit of a cheat meal once, but otherwise, I’m
ready to knock week two out of the park.
