spend your time biting your own neck

(Title from Mumford & Sons Little Lion Man)

It's really quite a challenge to separate my other blog, the weight removal one, from this one. I feel like my journey to fitness and healthy eating is directly related to my journey to sanity. Which is, I suppose, why I am consulting mental health specialists to help with curtailing my emotional eating and bingeing. Which is, I suppose, the battle a lot of us face -- the entertwined illnesses of ED and MH, two evil parasites fighting for control over our mind and body.

Rather than talk in weight, I'll tell you, beloved readers, that in six weeks of this health and wellness program I've shifted my BMI from 47 to 43.4. A downward movement which no doubt will improve my health. I'm still morbidly obese (I kind of like that term...because I AM morbid, in the sense that I'm precoccupied with death LOL) but I'm getting healthier. My goal BMI is probably around 29, which is still overweight but suits my build and my physical health I think.

In general, life has been fairly positive for me since I last wrote. I am planning my vacation to visit my best friend H in Melbourne, which takes place Aug 31 - Sept 6. Three weeks tomorrow - yippee! We are going to eat, drink, gossip and fire each other up in our respective life challenges. I got a fairly large tax refund due to my low income earner status, and therefore am fairly comfortable with money just now. Neil and I are planning a trip overseas next year to Singapore and Thailand, which will be frickin AWESOME and gives me something to work towards with my fitness and saving money.

Apart from a couple of shaky moments, my mental health has been strong. I haven't needed to take Valium for weeks, and the 120mg Cymbalta and 100mg Solian seem to be keeping me stable. I do think the healthier eating has made a difference, and the small amount of exercise. I am hoping to increase my exercise. I've been doing a self-hypnosis/meditation CD that my hypnotherapist gave me which is helping me to sleep, and to curb my overeating. My contract at work has been extended for another couple of months, which is both good and bad. I am happy to not have to look for another contract, but the job is rather boring and I have no friends )-: Basically, aside from the polite hello and goodbye, no-one speaks to me all day. On one hand it's low stress and peaceful, but it kind of drives me mad. After all these months I'm getting bored. And boredom is always dangerous for BPDs.

Things at home are lovely. I adore Neil more every day, and if it wasn't for his slacker teenage son everything would be perfect. But I guess every situation has its challenges! Neil has been super-supportive of my health kick, although he still suggests takeaway now and again. I've been having takeaway occasionally, because at least this way I am incorporating all kinds of food rather than avoiding or restricting too much.

I really do believe that my mental state is a rollercoaster, and I happen to be cruising through an "up" phase. But I am enjoying it while it lasts. It's a relief to feel balanced and relatively positive about things.

every tear's a waterfall

I made a momentous decision last week. I decided that enough was enough with regard to my binge eating and weight gain and have re-started my healthy eating and weight removal journey. I feel self-conscious and triggery talking about it, knowing that a number of my friends in the madosphere are dealing with eating disorders and the like. But it had to be done, guys.

Three and a half years ago I paid a LOT of money to have weight loss surgery and while I lost weight (50kg/100 pounds), I've since regained a significant amount. My bingeing is out of control. I am obsessed with junk food. I eat for comfort, boredom, relaxation. These things are not healthy, and I've kind of let them go while I worked on some mental health issues.

Now I'm relatively stable, mentally, I am hoping to find the wherewithall to tackle my eating.

I've restarted my other blog, renaming it Borderline Lil's Losing Weight. Feel free to visit over there www.lastchancelil.blogspot.com or not. I won't be offended!

I am on meal replacement shakes/bars at the moment, which is a medical intervention for obesity and only supposed to be used under supervision. It's a very low calorie (approx 800 cal per day) diet, with the only solid food I'm eating being two cups of low starch vegies per day. So far (this is day six) it's going okay. There's an element of relief...I HATE my addiction to food, my obsessive behaviour towards it, so I'm glad to have the decision making on my meals taken away for now. Reintroducing food, in 12 weeks, will be a challenge I'm sure.

I'm planning to go back for a visit to my weight loss surgeon Gorgeous Jon to see if I need revision of my surgery, or how he can help me otherwise.

I'm fairly certain I have stretched out my reduced stomach, and whether this can be fixed or not, I've no idea. The meal replacement diet will help that, I hope. And I have completely removed junk food and takeaway from my life for now, even though in the end I hope to occasionally be able to enjoy it without going to extremes.

I have also made an appointment with a binge eating specialist, who does hypnotherapy and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). I've ordered a binge eating book from the internet which is recommended by a lot of doctors and pdocs - it's based in CBT and has a complete programme that goes with it.

What's funny is that I KNOW THIS IS BPD-esque ALL OR NOTHING THINKING!!! But I've decided to USE the all or nothing extreme behaviour in my favour for once, and do something proactive. I'm trying to positively channel my obsessiveness into weight loss and healthy eating.

This is just an update, and I don't imagine I will talk much on this blog about the health plan. I am conscious of my ED friends and their issues, and would never want to negatively affect them/you. But I wanted to share this big change with my friends! And I hope you will all wish me luck (-:

forever is a long, long time when you lost your way

Today's post title is from my favourite Guitar Hero song "Lasso" by Phoenix. My roommate Michelle bought a Nintendo Wii a few weeks back and it's really been more fun that I imagined. I am especially loving the music games, as I am a frustrated karaoke queen, and am a lot better on guitar than I thought I'd be. It's nice just to kick back and have fun with Michelle anyway. We realised yesterday that we've been living in our skanky Juliette Lewis duplex for a year now -- and so much has changed during that time. We were both single back then, and now are seeing really great guys, and we were both in a more precarious mental state than we are (mostly!) now. I think living there has been good for me, she definitely inspired me to start internet dating and look how well THAT turned out.

Neil and I are still blissing out on each other and having a lot of fun. We've been extremely social lately, having had two weddings, a hen's/buck's night and a 40th birthday to go to. They were all his friends, of whom he has many, but I'm starting to feel like I fit in with them and they're all pretty welcoming. Neil also rocks because he bought me some new clothes to wear for all these outings as I was feeling a bit "blah" about my wardrobe. He earns a lot more than me, but I still felt uncomfortable about him spending money on me... His previous girlfriend scored a new car from him, as well as a stack of other stuff she didn't deserve (miaow! LOL) and I don't want to be perceived like her. She was very materialistic, from what I can gather. My oldest friend once worked with this girl (as well as with Neil) and she doesn't have a high opinion of her. I think that my struggle to be accepted by Neil's 19 year-old son is proving to be difficult partly because of the last girlfriend.

Although work, family, friends and love life seem to be stable and nice, there are still more moments of panic/black-hole-ness than I would like. I guess it's called recovery for a reason, not "all-better-now". I had to take a Valium at work the other day, for the first time in months, which certainly worked and helped chill me out for the day so I could get through it. But I was disappointed that my regular medication, and the mental effort I am expending on "being normal", wasn't sufficient to keep the nasty away. I had bad PMT as well this month, which is common but annoying. It makes me irritable and shaky as well as the physical aches, cramps and tiredness. Neil knows about most of my mental history, and Doc A, and the meds, but I try not to always be harping on about it. He lost two close family members to suicide, and I feel so damnably guilty and selfish whenever I want to whinge about my low mood. Being with Neil has definitely shown me another side to mental illness, the survivor's side, and Michelle and I often have to adapt our conversation or anecdotes out of respect for his experience. We have both attempted suicide, and have regular suicide ideation (as Doc A would say), but try not to express it when Neil is around. He knows I have been down that road, but I figure he doesn't need reminding of it.

All in all, life is wonderful yet comes with its own minor pitfalls. I'm navigating them...so far... Being around someone kind and loving definitely helps, even though it adds a social pressure to my life in some ways. I am worried about my eating though, and my consequent weight issues. Neil loves his food, and also loves shopping, and those two things are high on my binge-list. I have to try and maintain the weight loss I achieved through my weight loss surgery three years ago, even if I can't manage to lose the rest of the excess weight. I don't want a repeat of the Mr Ex scenario where we both gained 50kg while we were together. No sir, no way.

the costume makes the clown

Over the weekend Neil and I went to a costume party held by a friend from work. It went really well, and I will attach a photo at the bottom of this post so you can see me as Queen Victoria and Neil as a hunky King Arthur.

Getting the costume organised was a moment of stress for me. The invitation called for us to dress as someone famous (dead) from history, and all of the people I could think of were either men or old ladies. Apart from people like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, who I knew were already coming to the party, and who I could not really hope to emulate due to their amazing sexiness and style. We went to a huge costume store near the city and rather than let us browse the costumes and choose, the staff asked what costume we wanted and then found it for us. Consequently, I ended up with the ugliest, most shapeless dress you ever saw, which was kind of a Gone With The Wind dress but they said it was okay for Queen Victoria (one of my ideas). I was extremely depressed when I tried it on, as it made me look hideous. There I was surrounded by sexy Catwoman, French maid, school girl type costumes and gorgeous skinny women trying them on, and I was wearing a black polyester sack. Ugh. It came with a hoop petticoat, which did NOT help, and they gave me a weird gold headband crown. In the end, I decided to just take the outfit and try to dress it up a bit. It seemed clear from the attitude of the staff and the other customers that there weren’t a lot of options for plus size costumes… The staff member asked me “What size ARE you?” and when I told her, two other customers turned and stared at me. It reminded me of the embarrassment I had shopping for a wedding dress (when I was even heaiver than I am now), when I ended up getting a dress made for me as the stores were so rude.

Anyway. I guess it reminded me that it's nice to have control over our lives in some ways (like choosing every day what we wear, and making ourselves happy and comfortable with fashion) and when we have to step out of that zone it can be confronting. I hardly ever feel that crippling low-self-esteem these days… being loved/desired has done wonders for me in that area. But I had a rough day at the costume shop. Neil kept telling me to try and find something else, but I really just gave up. I felt like I was being punished for not losing more weight after my surgery and not making an effort. In the end, I found a purple crown and sceptre/wand in Toys R Us and also some rocking elbow-length velvet gloves that cheered me up! I think the costume ended up a success, even though the party was full of fabulous Audreys and Marilyns I didn’t feel too bad.

love and other bruises

One of the issues I'm fighting on a daily basis, having started to expose my body to another human being again, is my self-loathing, which can verge on the pathological. As lots of my readers know, I had weight loss surgery 2 and a half years ago and since then have lost 100 pounds. I still have at least 50 pounds to lose before I'm even close to "ideal weight" for my height, and sadly most of those extra pounds have formed a tight knit association with my thighs. I lost more from my upper half, especially chest region more's the pity, so now I have a disturbingly pear-shaped body. But, as I know, as I tell myself over and over and over again, it's better to be lighter and healthier and I wouldn't want to be 370 pounds again. At least it's gone, even though it took my impressive chest with it.

One of the things I find interesting and appealing about the new bloke, Lloyd, is that he had weight loss surgery last April. He's lost even more weight than I have, and is doing amazingly well and is terribly "gung ho" about weight loss. He inspires me to want to lose more, and is encouraging, but part of me wonders when it will be okay for me to just BE. To finally learn to love myself and my body, without planning umpteen ways in which to change and improve it. Where does the balance lie between wanting to be fitter and healthier and thinner and wanting to unconditionally love myself? Where does that balance lay for Lloyd?? I understand that I'm not happy with myself, or my body, so it makes sense that he would be encouraging me to lose weight if it's something I want. But what if I can't, won't, don't lose more weight? What if it's more important to put my energy into accepting myself for the flawed and fat person I genuinely am? When does it become okay to just relax and let the flab fall where it may?

I've struggled with this question so much, for so many years, but the issue is more acute now I share my physical being with another person. I suppose I open myself up to opinion, comment and yes, criticism, by bearing my body and soul to him. Don't get me wrong, he doesn't judge me or criticise my weight, and if anyone knows what it's like to be obese it's Lloyd. Which kind of makes it harder, you know... if he understands how much a person can loathe themselves, why can't he just worship me for who I am right now? To answer my own question, he does worship me, but he is unfailingly honest and upfront about everything - weight included. Would I prefer that he lie to me about my weight the way Mr Ex did, even as I slowly killed myself with food? No. No, no no.

The last week has been especially hard, hormonally challenged as I am, and I cried in front of him for the first time. He was brilliant, empathetic without being patronising, but not even being cared for in that way could ease the intense loathing I felt at the moment for my scarred and ugly body. I wish there was a pill I could take for self-hatred, a potion that could render me carefree and confident. I worry sometimes that even if/when I lose the next 50 pounds I will still feel like the fat failure. That's the problem with mirrors in the mind, I suppose.