Thursday, October 7, 2010

Head game

No matter what I write about here, I always end up feeling better and more normal after reading your comments.  Even about the weird blogroll stuff on my work computer...my default setting is to think that I have somehow screwed it up, done something wrong or stupid, or simply deserve to have my technological wonders go wonky.  Hearing that others of you experience the same stuff really is normalizing.  How sad is that???  Well, it's sad, but it's also great to have a community of friends to validate and set me straight!  Sad that  I think I'm at the core of anything askew in my periphery...which I generally don't except when it comes to things about which I have little understanding, much less expertise (read all things computer related).

First thing I have to mention is :

How 'bout them Phillies and Roy Halladay pitching only the second no-hitter in MLB history (the first being in 1956)?  Pretty exciting.  I admit to being a fairweather fan - I'm only mildly interested in any local team until they make it to post season play.  Last night, though, I watched the whole thing with hubby and son - startling again and again as they whooped and hollered over various plays throughout the game.  (I admit I had a book open in my lap and watched the pages during the first few innings.)  Anyway - fun to be in a city where something big is happening for any of its sports teams.

My food was good yesterday, and we finally came out from under rain clouds, affording the opportunity for an hour long walk after work - about 3 miles.  (Slow pace when I think of Shelley running 12 minute miles throughout her first 10 mile run last Saturday - awesome, Shelley!)  Nonetheless, the walking FELT brisk and energizing and cleared out the cobwebs that had formed over the rainy days before. 

This morning after I got to work, I quickly became aware of binge thoughts - wanting to eat something completely off my "plan" that would inevitably send me down the garden path to food frenzy.  I have no idea where it came from or why, but I ate my non-fat Greek yogurt with fruit, and just realized the thoughts have passed.  But their presence in my psyche this morning tell me I better be on alert later, lest they return with a vengeance.  Tomorrow is weigh day and if nothing else helps me "postpone the behavior", that will.  I don't want to cloud the results of the much better week I've had.

But isn't that thinking goofy?  Whatever the scale says tomorrow does not define the week I had - I know that and yet I still fall into that thinking automatically.  "If my weight is not what I expect it should be, I guess I really didn't have a good week afterall!"  Self defeating thinking at best, and totally inaccurate.  This reminds me of a time I changed the batteries in my scale - probably 2 years ago before I was blogging.  I'd been puzzled by the numbers it was giving me for a few days, and then one morning I got on and saw the number - and then watched it slowly drop down, digit by digit.  Wow - if weight loss was only that easy!  Anyway, it occurred to me that something was amiss (nothing gets past me) so I flipped over the scale to read what battery(ies) it needed and got some that day.  Immediately my "fortune teller" was back on track, giving me only one accurate number daily! 

All of this talk illustrates clearly that so much of this weight loss and exercise and monitoring is largely a head game.  My eating disorder is greatly affected by my faulty thinking.  Or is faulty thinking a component of my eating disorder?  It doesn't matter.  Whatever it is, I have it and I have to deal with it.  And I'm trying.

So after that last small paragraph of wisdom and reasonability, I will refrain from noting that tomorrow is the all important weigh in and week 2 Hot 100 recap.  Because I had a better week.  No matter what that gleaming hunk of metal says!

9 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to see you celebrate your better week, no matter what!

    For a funny take on pre-weigh in rituals that might "lighten your load" go read Fat Daddy today. Funny.

    (He's in my blogroll if he's not in yours.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wahoo, Leslie!!! Something brillian is definitely brewing now! :D Deb

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have had a great week Leslie - don't let the numbers on the scale dictate that!

    It used to make me so sad when I would go to WW meetings, and someone would lose 2.2 and be disappointed with that, not show up for a few weeks, and be up 8 and start the cycle all over again.

    Just make each day the best you can, wake up the next day and try again.

    And your comment about me at the last minute deciding to make Artisan bread for dinner cracked me up - that your family would be happy if you made them dinner for dinner!

    Hugs!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm printing this out and taping it to my scale:
    "Whatever the scale says tomorrow does not define the week I had" - I need to remember this. It's such a mental thing, to eat right, get some decent exercise, and then have that little hunk of metal shatter your pride in all the hard work you put in. Thank you for this bit of sanity - I needed to see it today.

    Oh, and just so you know? My 12 minutes miles are SLOW compared to almost everyone else in my running club...and also most of the runners in that race, lol. It's all a matter of perspective. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yep, I'm with you. This is something I finally learned. That scale is not the best measure of how we are doing. And YOU know you had a good week:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hurrah for better weeks! LOL about your battery story!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well you've got the right attitude that's fer sure!! I am mad at my scale right now so I have neglected stepping on it for the last couple of days. My husband, on the other hand, has lost another 2 pounds: UGH! At least I know it works! I tell him how much of an encouragement his weight loss is to me and it's true. If it weren't for him, diabetes or not, I'd have chucked this baby a long time ago!

    Anyhoo-as Tish said in the above comment "Hurrah for better weeks!"

    ReplyDelete
  8. LOVE Roy Halliday. Silent but deadly hunk.

    Polar's Mom
    www.polarspage.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Keep your head sensibly in the game. Here is hoping fro good numbers for the week. . Michele at http://ruminationsasiuncoverthewomanwithin.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete