Book of 2016
- Page 100 -
A trip thru the Rabbit Hole
I have been reading this book as I try to figure out what
program or programs I am going to join.
The book is “Stop Eating Your Heart Out” have I mentioned it? It is a 21
day program to free yourself from emotional eating. Do I think reading this book alone is enough
to put me on the path of beam that will lead me to my tower? No, I don’t.
If something sounds simply too good to be true then it probably is, I
think is how the saying goes. However,
it can’t hurt to continually add tools to my tool box. Because any step in the forward direction is
better than a step back into the drive thru.
Step 1, Day1, assignment 1 whatever you call it is to write your “Eating
History”.
The assignment basically tells you to go back as far as you
can remember and write down you eating history.
Your relationship with good from back then until today, what eating
times with your family was like, when did the weight issues start, when did the
binges start, what foods do you crave.
It also tells you to access how long food has been you security
blanket. It asks to explain what
messages did you give yourself about eating?
Also it wants you to cover what messages did other give about eating?
Honestly this sounds like the basis of a novel for me. Trying to list things that I thought where
relevant took up two note book pages and that was without even digging deep
within me to find things to write. I
think my eating history will be an ongoing and ever changing story as I do
these assignments for the next 21 days.
Also, when I get in a program to help with my eating, I am sure we will
uncover more trues and put away things that don’t matter. Therapy will help break down walls and build
other ones.
I am going to try and be as blatantly honest as I can
be. Something which I rarely do, that is
the passive aggressive Midwesterner in me, the one who hates conflict. I get so scared that I am going to piss off
someone in my family or my past so then I will hold things back. I also worry someone will call bullshit on me
and tell me that I remember things wrong.
If that is the case, so be it, because all I know is that this is what
and how I remember things.
Ok now let’s go back down the Rabbit Hole !
Eating History
Hard Cheeseburgers and Ketchup Bread are the oldest things
my mind can recall about food. I loved hard cheeseburgers from Shoney’s. I couldn’t tell you what a hard cheeseburger
was. However, no other burger was good enough
for me. I wouldn’t eat McDonald’s
cheeseburgers unless they were ordered plan and that was a fight every time
thru the drive thru with my family. I
hated the little onions. I despised the
little onions. If given the choice I
would have eaten two small fries instead of one of their burgers any day. I am assuming these hard cheeseburgers had
not onions on them because if they did I would not have eaten them.
My breakfast of choice as a child was ketchup bread. I loved nothing more than two sliced of
bread, toasted and completely covered in ketchup. I would eat it any time I could. It was a fight with my family every time I did
that too. I heard that ketchup bread is
something a pregnant woman would eat. I
would be told it wasn’t good for me. I was told I couldn’t have it. I can still vaguely taste some ketchup bread
now, slicing it into little square pieces and shoving it in my belly!
When I was young I was small. So think that my pants wouldn’t stay up. They were always falling down my ass. I could eat anything I wanted and as much of
it as I wanted. It mattered not because
it wouldn’t stick to me. I remember that my mom was heavy. I remember my sister Rose was a little pudgy,
and even Jr too. I honestly don’t
remember Ding back then, I do remember later on he got pudgy. I remember I was the skinny one.
Then almost in a blink of the eye it changed. I was no
longer getting the really small clothes, but having to go and get huskies. That is what they were called. Hell maybe they still are. I don’t really know any fat kids, or go
shopping with them. I remember being embarrassed
and ashamed that I had to get into huskies.
I remember also when I ballooned, Rose thinned out, Jr would too, and
then Ding would in his own time. My
parents had me tested. They didn’t
understand the change either. It wasn’t
like a slow thing. It was one day I was thin and the next I was big. Tests seemed to come back fine. Or at least I think they did. So much of this is so long ago, that I am
having trouble seeing it.
I am not sure how long after my change that the diets
started. I remember the first diet I
ever went on was when I was 12. It was a
weight watcher program in which they swapped different food items. I like it
and I remember doing well on it.
However, like every other diet I have done over the years it didn’t
stick.
I remember playing football in elementary school. I remember that if you weighed over 110 or
was it 120 you would get a strip on your helmet. The strip meant you were too fat to carry the
ball. They said it was unfair for you to
do so. I remember it being such a huge
deal for me not to be a stripper. Jr
wasn’t a stripper. I shouldn’t be one
either. It was embarrassing. No only to
me to but my family too I guess. My Mom
told me to take off the knee braces my dad forced me to wear so that I would
way under. I remember dieting before the
weigh in. I remember the coach pushing
me not take off my knee braces and just get on the damn scale. I remember
seeing the weight on the scale and knowing I was doomed to have a strip on my
helmet. I remember I cried like a baby,
because I had been marked as one of the fat kids. The coach said he would weigh me again next
week without the knee braces but he knew what I knew that I wasn’t just over by
the knee braces, I was really over and it was unlikely my fat label would be
removed.
I am not sure what I was more afraid of, my first football
game, or leaving it and going home and living the life of a stripper? I was one of five kids. We all jockey for notice and recognition. We all could get along, but we fought and
were mean to each other as much as we were not.
I knew that the stripper jokes would never stop. I knew that the fat
jokes would follow. I also knew they
wouldn’t just come from my siblings but they would come from Mom and Dad too.
My Mom was heavy and like most heavy people she thought that
was the root of all her problems. It wasn’t
but that isn’t my tail to spin. However,
both she and Dad constantly preached at me about my weight and what I was
eating. I think a lot of the preaching
if not most of that preaching was because they didn’t want me to grow up fat
and unhealthy because weight issues were abundant on my Mom’s side of the family
tree.
Uncle Larry was awesome!
He was super funny and kind. He
would call Mom up and call her a Mule and make a mule sound and it was
perfect. However Uncle Larry was a big,
big man. I wonder if I am bigger than Larry
was from a weight perspective now. I will never have him in height, but I may
have him in weight. I remember one of
the jeers that came at me growing up was that I would look like Uncle Larry
unless I changed how I ate. I remember it
was used as a scare technique. As bad as it sounds, it did scare me because I
didn’t want to be fat. Larry passed when
I was 21, it was during the blackest time of my life. A lot of what I remember about him is he was
big and that is a terrible thing to say.
Especially when after he passed I realized we had so much in common, we
like the same music, we both loved sports, I am sure we both loved to eat, and
the list goes on and on, I still have a box of his CD’s tucked away in my
closet in Terre Haute. I will admit I am
ashamed of this paragraph and ashamed that I ever felt bad I was called little
Larry, or do you want to be fat like Uncle Larry ever bother me. However, I was a kid and the idea of being
fat terrified me. It terrified me because
I was always told about the health risks of being fat. That it would be bad for my heart, my blood
sugar, and my knees. I was told that I
would be alone and unattractive.
These aren’t the only memories I have of being young. I had a good life; I was provided for and
never wanted for anything. I was raised
right and got a good education and have built a life for myself. However, I think these are the memories that
have helped shape me into the compulsive eater I am today. My brain has always been cracked and has
always labored on the negative instead of the good. My brain is easily scratched and things get
stuck in my head and go around and around. I don’t think you can really
understand unless you have been depressed or had a problem that is too big for
you to deal with alone. Also, to be 100%
clear, I am placing no blame. This issue
is my own and I own that. All I am
trying to do here is understand why I feel the way I do about myself. I want to figure out why some where long the
path I lost my way. I want to understand
why I stopped loving myself.
I can’t tell you how many diets I went on in-between the
time I was 12 and 16. They are
countless. I did slim fast. I did Weight Watchers, my mom used to march
me in and make me weigh in. I felt so
stupid being the only kid there. I felt
like in Junior High I never had a long term relationship because I was
chunky. I spent a lot of my early teen
years thinking I was a fat loser. I hung
with the wrong kids and turned my back on the two best friends I ever had Chip
and Poog, to be with what I considered to be cooler kids in Jr. High. These were kids that never really accepted me
and did stuff without me. I would always
be an outsider to these kids. They would
also blame me for everything that went wrong in their lives. If they got caught with smokes, they were
mine. Chewing tobacco, they were
mind. Booze they were mind too. These kids made me feel inadequate and small,
but I wanted to belong with them so bad.
I just never really felt like I did.
These are the kids that lied to me and told me they weren’t going to go
to the high school kick off game and went without me. These were the kids that when my older
brother would say something that was true or they didn’t like, I was the asshole. They would take that out on me. Hell one of them almost beat me up at a party
because I got ketchup on a hat he was wearing.
I will never forget how small I felt at that party when I had to sit
alone at the fire, because if one of them was mad at me the sheep had to
follow. Looking back they were mindless
drowns and I never really liked them.
There was a reason I went back to hanging with Poog and Chip after 9th
grade. They two are still some of my
best friends to this day.
I was that kid in High School. My parents were always gone or they would
turn a blind eye when the beer and cigarettes came out. My parent’s basement was a club and membership
was being my friend. I had a lot of
friends in High School. However, I also
knew most of these friendships were superficial and wouldn’t last once the
ability to drink beer and do as they pleased passed on. I know this for a fact
because after I graduated I threw them all out. I stopped having people over to
drink, and smoke. Chip kept coming
back. Poog would have but he had a
girlfriend and spent lots of time with her.
However, before I did this and threw them out, I spent my
entire high school live striving to be the best host I could be. I wanted people to have legendary time in the
basement. It actually stressed me out
when things weren’t happening in the basement.
I was worried that everyone would just leave and I would be left home
alone and by myself.
The hierarchy with the boys and brothers was measured in one
thing and one thing only in Jr High. It
was how many girls you hooked up with and how far you got. I didn’t hook up a lot. I assumed this was because
I was fat. I would go to bed every night
and pray that I would lose weight. Each day
I was going to start a diet. Each day I would become the person I was born to
be. Then the girls would start lining
up. However, I never did lose weight, and they never really lined up. I viewed myself in Jr High and High School subconsciously
as damaged goods. The only thing that
would have validated that I wasn’t was if she had loved me back. However, she is a story for another day. I felt like damaged good, on some level, so
any girl who would actually like me there had to be something wrong with them
and my interest would fade fast. I could
never be happy with anything I had.
Girls who liked me back then were just one more thing like that.
Look I was not a victim in Jr High or High School. Not even close. I was a bully. I was an asshole. I was mean and could be
mean spirited. However, I was super
insecure. I felt like it could all go
away any minute. One I could have it all
and the next it would be gone. I was so stressed out it was crazy. Food and beer were my comforts.
The best thing about driving and getting my first job was
the freedom it gave me to eat whatever the fuck I wanted. Sure Mom could put me on diets. However, when you had an income and a car you
could get whatever you wanted food wise.
My first major weight gain was between JR and SR year of
high school. This correlates with the
first real paying job I ever had and my first check book. I spend my first summer’s earnings on pizza,
lots and lots of pizza. We would order
anywhere from 5 to 10 pies a time from Domino’s. We need the driver by name and he would cut
us the best deals he could. We would have more pizza than you could possibly
imagine and I was in heaven. I would eat
it when it got there. I would eat it the next morning for breakfast. I would
eat it and as much of it as I could and then the next night we would do the
same thing over and over again.
My mom tried to convince me to lose weight before college. She said I would never get into a Frat if I
was fat. When I was I was accepted into
the house I wanted to get into, one of my pledge brothers said the brothers had
told him they picked me because they needed a good fat guy in the house. It always carried that with me. My confidence was broken at the age of 18 and
I have never really been able to find it since.
I blamed being single and alone in college on my weight. I
would keep praying every night that god would give me the strength to find a
diet and stick to it. However no diet
came and no girlfriend came either. I
look at picture from those days and I see a kid that was pudgy or maybe a
little heavy but not disgusting.
However, I was disgusting but on the inside. I was consumed with being smaller and each
day I lived fat I hated myself little bit more.
I constantly tried to diet in college. I always wanted to get better. However, my love of pizza, beer, and Steak N
Shake was more than I could handle. So I
drank on and I ate on. I ordered pizza
late night or I went to Steak N Shake.
I felt alone because I lived in a frat house and I never
once got invited to be a date for one of my friend’s girl’s friends. My friends were being set up all the
time. I never got set up once. I knew it was because I was fat or assumed it
was because I was fat. Maybe I was a
bigger asshole than I can remember.
Maybe I was still a big bully. I
don’t know what I do know is it never happened. It also never happened that I
had a girlfriend to take to one of our dances, so I either wouldn’t go or I
asked one of the girls I knew from High School.
So, I ate ordered pizza and drank beer.
In Europe in 1997 the 2nd semester of my junior
year of college, I lived in Maastricht.
I was having the time of my life.
I was cooking for myself. I was walking
everywhere. I felt great. I thinned out some. I loved how I looked then; I just didn’t
realize it until now. I wish I was the
same size now that I was then, I would be so happy.
Then I had my first panic attack, in late February or early
March and I lost my shit. I was convinced I was dying and a heart attack was
going to happen at any time. I would lay
awake all night in hostels taking my pulse worried that at any minute would be
my last.
Then things got black and from anxiety came the bad
thoughts. The thoughts I could or would
hurt someone. Like physically. Either beat them up or kill them. I was scared I would just lose control and
hurt them. I assumed it was home
sickness. However, even coming home
wouldn’t put the thoughts away.
The summer of 1997 was the worst of my life. The more I
obsessed about hurting someone, anyone.
The more depressed I got. The
more depressed I got the more I ate and drank.
The more I ate and drank the more depressed I got. I was a train wreck waiting to happen. I went to see
a shrink that summer he told me to lose weight and date women my own
size and all would be right with the world.
I ate more and drank more. I ate
and drank trying to flush out the pain.
I prayed. Oh my god did I pray. I
prayed that God would show me a path.
That God would keep me from hurting someone. I would sit alone in my
room and cry and just hope that I wouldn’t hurt anyone.
When my senior year started, I was still a wreck. I was near
the end of my rope. I would rather die
than hurt someone. I couldn’t shake the
thought I would hurt someone, so perhaps it was better to die. I remember sitting at an IU football game and
saying to myself we will try one more doctor and if that doesn’t work, then… I
never finished the thought. I couldn’t then and I can’t now. However, I think we all know how that
sentence and thought would have ended.
Thank the KA that the doctored did work. He worked and helped so much by saying just
five little words that I needed to hear so badly then and that was “It’s going
to be OK!” It was too. I got better the praying, and thoughts diminished. The obsessing did too.
That is when I found the Atkins diet. It was the spring of 1998 and I was losing
weight and feeling good. I stopped drinking beer. I started on the whiskey. Gods, I had forgotten how much I loved
whiskey. I remember a friend telling me
I hadn’t been this much fun since freshman year. I partied like a rock star and felt
great. I was doing well on the diet
until, I took a few days off and I ballooned up again. However, I didn’t stop
drinking the whiskey. I drank that whole
summer and into my 5th year. I didn’t go to class then, no, I just
drank. I am happy I left the Midwest when
I did. I have not doubt I would have drank myself into a Jim Beam early death
had I not.
I moved to California in January of 1999. It was a move a life time in the making. I had always wanted to live in
California. I didn’t know why but I
did. I moved out here knowing I needed
to lose weight and get healthy. I was
going to do it because I was living my California dream.
I don’t know how much weight I have lost since I moved to
California. If I had to guess I would
say 300 pounds at least. However, I
always found ways to put it right back on.
I think my binging really started senior year of
college. I would get hammered and stop
at the gas station on the way home and get a bag of chips and some candy bars
and go hog wild on them. It was always
candy bars and chips to start. This was
a pattern that stayed with me in California.
Even when I quit drinking, the binges never stopped.
I started to stress eat while living in San Francisco. I
would eat a whole large pizza because work stressed me out so much. Or I would eat a loaf of garlic bread and
full order of alfredo gnocchi. When not
stuffing myself on Italian from Pasquale's Pizza, I was hitting the corner
gas station across the street for my candy bar and potato chip binges. When I was too lazy to do that I would get up
in the middle of the night and eat my roommate’s snacks. I think that is the first time I remember
being helpless not to eat. When I would
wake up in the night and sneak to the kitchen and get into their pantries and
eat all there sweets. I would just replace
them and never say anything about it.
I started weight watchers when I joined NetIQ. I lost 65 pounds and got down to 300
lbs. I was finally getting my life in
order. However, after the WW group broke
up at work, and I went home and heard the family rave over how good I
looked. I shortly came back to
California and self-imploded and I could never bet my momentum back. Then the night eating started back up again
and another roommates food was eaten in the night and those 65 pounds went
right back on.
When I found TNT my weight stabilize for a while. When I was walking hardcore and even starting
to do tri’s I wouldn’t gain weight but I wouldn’t lose either. I think my
weight stayed roughly in the 365 area from 2006 – 2008. I would walk 15 miles and come home and eat a
large pizza. I would swim a mile and go to McDonald’s. I would have the occasional binge but it was
not too bad.
I started stress eating and binging after my first tri in 08. I gained 120 pounds over the last four
years. Mostly from living in a drive thru
and ordering pizza. However, let’s not
forget the countless trips to 7-11 where a bag of BBQ chips, and a pint or two
of B&J’s and some dibs became close personal friends.
There is some combination of stress, loneliness and depression
that drives these binges. I have been on
an emotional roller-coaster of ups and downs for as long as I can remember. Think
I was going to get fired every day from 2008-2013 didn’t really help.
The last few months have been stress related but mostly Dad
getting sick. I keep kicking myself because I was going to figure my life out
and show Mom and Dad that I was ok. That
I just needed to figure my weight out on my own. Now, well now time is short. No matter what if the Chemo works or not time
is short. Dad is 84 and Mom is 70 and I
haven’t made any progress other than jumping weight classes two or three at a
time. The time is just so short.
I think I rushed through this. It isn’t what I wanted it to be. I feel like I am all over the place in this
post. I feel like I am all over the
place and not really answering the questions addressed in the assignment.
There are places I could expand on and other places I can shrink
down. At the end of the day I have had a
very fucked up live with food. I both
love and hate my weight. It is my great
protector but it is also a wall away from the world. I binge.
I eat when I am happy and sad. I have
huge food insecurities and worry there won’t be enough. Perhaps that is a result on no stop
diets. I over order and I eat more than
I should. I turn to food when I am
alone, when I am happy, or sad. My
issues with food started early on. My
issues with my body did too. These are
my issues. I accept them. I will own them now.
For the last five days I have followed the 3, 0, 1
plan. 3 meals a day, with zero snacks,
and 1 day a time. It is 4:30 and I
already have 10,000 steps in. I have
spent most of today writing this or playing with Shiner. I am getting help with my issues because it
is time move forward. I am forty and
tired of being fat and uncomfortable. I am tired of waking up and feeling like
I have a bowling ball in my stomach. I am tired of worrying about my heart. I
just want to live. I want to go hang out. I want to chill. I want to race again. God, do I want to race again. Let’s get this shit under control.
I was honest in this.
I know I have an issue. You can’t
fix what is hidden. Let’s start the
fixing.
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