I'm having that problem right now.
but I'll try to tackle one of them right now because it's the topmost in my mind and can help give perspective on future posts, assuming I get around to them.
I've been thinking about going to a nutritionist for, well, years now. But most of that thinking went along these lines: "What the heck can a nutritionist tell me that I don't already know? I know I'm overweight, I know what I need to do to lose weight, there are a million sensible food plans out there that I could follow, but the trouble if figuring out HOW to get myself to follow them and a nutritionist really can't help with that." But the drumbeat of "go to a nutritionist" has been getting louder the last couple of months as I've been attending OA meetings, where getting a food plan from a nutritionist is expected at the very least, and more likely required.
So I finally made an appointment with one and went in with an--admittedly--bad attitude, particularly given some bad things I had heard about my chosen nutritionist the last couple of days. She didn't quite live up to all the hype about how bad she was; she seemed to concentrate a bit too much on addressing my migraines in ways other than food, when I really wanted her to give me a food plan that would allow me to lose weight, and she didn't actually end up giving me a food plan in the first visit but instead told me I would have to come back for that. I was peeved, to say the least, and decided not to go back.
Three days later I am hopelessly mired in my eating, still confused by food plans, unable to see straight ahead in terms of where I was supposed to go and how I was supposed to eat. I called her back and made a follow-up appointment. At this point, I figured, I had already invested a fair amount of money, so I might as well go back and get the food plan from her. Little did I know that what I would learn in the upcoming visit would be so interesting.
When I got there, she performed a body composition test, something I had never had done before. Now, I had always suspected that I was unusually muscular for a woman. But my father, who is a doctor, had told me that that shouldn't matter in terms of weight loss and than you should still shoot for the lower end of the government's recommended weight range for your height. For me, that would mean 125 pounds. I didn't quite listen to my father and decided on a goal of 135 pounds, which would put me squarely in the middle of the range. It's a number that I have been focusing on as my "ideal" weight for my entire adult life, and given my struggles with food, it would not be an exaggeration to say that learning that this number was off--by a lot--shifted my world view.
The body composition scan told me that I have 140 pounds of muscle and bone and 60 pounds of fat a ratio of 70% muscle to 30% fat. Which means that if I had zero (0%) body fat, I would still weight 5 pounds more than my former "ideal" body weight. I'd also probably be dead. Assuming that I wanted to reach the recommended body fat percentage for a 31-year-old woman of 21%, I would need to weigh 178 pounds. Yes, 42 pounds more than I thought I was supposed to weight.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I currently weight 200 pounds, and I thought I had close to 70 pounds left to lose. Turns out? I only have 22. And at my skinniest, when I know I looked and felt good, I was probably still close to 180 pounds.
So given this revelation, what does that mean for me, my attitude, and my weight loss? That first day, it really did feel like my world view had shifted, like this attitude that I had had of myself as being a huge fat slob was all wrong. It was a great feeling (though also slightly sickening to think of all the time I've wasted thinking that way). Also, the burden of having to lose weight shifted a bit. I was no longer facing this massive, seemingly impossible uphill slog. Instead, it was a much smaller hill I had to scale, and it made it seem less daunting.
What does that mean for my food addiction? Honestly, I don't know. The more weight I had to lose, the more I seemed to get depressed about how hard it was going to be and how long it was going to be before I felt comfortable enough to put myself out there, date etc. Which only made me eat more. Knowing I had less of a battle ahead of me did give me hope for my future. But it's not like this revelation all of a sudden made me stop stuffing food in my face. I binged the next two days after I learned that. Why? I don't know. Habit? Sugar addiction? Still needing to process everything? Who knows.
I will say that today, so far, I have been, precariously, doing well. I am following (more or less rigorously) the food plan prescribed by the nutritionist, and I am enjoying the food. Let me repeat that. I am enjoying the food. I had some very good tasting oatmeal with turkey bacon this morning, and lunch was a big cobb salad. I am also having one of my favorite stuffed portabello mushrooms recipes tonight for dinner. IT feels like maybe, just maybe, I can do it today. I'm still feeling slightly peckish after my cobb salad, so I'm going to have an apple now.
I can do this today. I can. tomorrow will have to deal with itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment