This is a journal to help me learn LC tactics and to record LC success as 2007 draws to an end and 2008 looms large and hopeful ahead of me.
Wish me luck! Luck?
Ah, luck is the residue of design.
Found that in a fortune cookie, ages ago.
Fits into the LC mantra about how failing to plan is planning to fail. So my plans start out each day with a hot slosh of WPP+cocoa+espresso+VCO so that I start off feeling like a LC success. Yay, me!
Wish me luck! Luck?
Ah, luck is the residue of design.
Found that in a fortune cookie, ages ago.
Fits into the LC mantra about how failing to plan is planning to fail. So my plans start out each day with a hot slosh of WPP+cocoa+espresso+VCO so that I start off feeling like a LC success. Yay, me!
Adaptation: Change is not a choice. It happens.
Posted 01-27-2008 at 06:53 AM by Zer
Remarkable analysis from a wise woman on how we view our bodies as we grow larger and larger and somehow fail to see that we are outgrowing everything in a One-Size-Fits-All world.
As I strive to work my LC plan, I believe I ~CAN~ change my physical size and I believe that I shall eventually be the person I see smiling back at me from mirrors AND from photos. I believe I shall achieve a normal size and shall live a healthy life, giving credit to Dr.Atkins for making LC a workable life plan!
Quote:
Adaptation...how we survive...
May I suggest Nicholas Cage's film "Adaptation" (with awesome Meryl Streep and one of the strangest men you'll ever hope to meet) for anyone thinking that we choose how we adapt. According to dialogue in the film, adaptation happens to us. We do not choose to adapt. We change daily. We are different each day according to what happens to us, what choices we make.
I saw myself changing - as I watched the film and considered my own daily choices about LC food and exercise and how I spend a day in bed. I've been in bed 24/7 since my hip caught some tissue in Aug.2006. Went to HMO but found no help there, just folks in white coats who want to discuss the pointlessness of seeking a dx. I swear. I went repeatedly, saw MDs and physical therapists and came home exhausted and feeling I had risked my health by struggling into hospitals to see disinterested HMO people. So I tried chiropractors and found SOME pain relief. Then decided in May 2007 that it was up to me to manage the remaining pain, to work with my body.
So I do some lengthening stretches in bed, as Pilates started out with folks in bed who needed help recovering use of limbs. Gives me something to do at night, when the spasms get worse and I cannot lie down. I sit up, stretch to pull longer the taut muscles in my back and butt. Ah, when will this end?
I'm adapting. I'm becoming a different person from who I was when I got up and went to work daily, had a career that I loved and that I lost by being so massive that I was targeted as useless and destroyed. Well, I survived, as survivors do. I adapted to being jobless, faceless as a workaholic with no work to claim as my identity.
Ah, I'm ranting. Full of 40g of hot slosh and feeling almost COMPETENT - a lovely feeling - on account of nourishing all the cells of my body. Wow! Who knew that WPP could deliver such a feeling! COMPETENCE is a great feeling!
- - - - -
Now here's the post that set me off today, written by a thoughtful wise writer I admire and am learning from as I listen to her ideas:
As for avoiding mirrors and thinking I might not look bad at a prior weight or even the weight I am now, this is something I have thought about a lot in the past. I think it is a body image thing - a lot like body image issues people have when they have anorexia or bulemia, but we have the reverse.
They think they are huge and fat when they aren't; our brains don't see the fat.
I know I can look in a mirror and there are times when I have thought I looked pretty good - very nice and even sexy. I have thought an outfit made me look good or not so fat, etc.
I think this is because my mind filters how I really look with how I think I look (and remember looking or hoped I looked in the past).
This filter or image in the brain is pretty good at fooling me and giving me a nice image. Then, I see myself in a picture that was taken from someone else's perspective - they are a different height or at a different angle or just a different side - and that is when I see what others see because it doesn't fit with the angle and direction and image in my brain's filter.
I see this ENORMOUS woman and I can barely believe that is me because I assure you, that's not what the woman in my mirror looking back at me looked like when my brain processed me looking at myself.
I also am appalled when I see myself standing beside other people - it lends itself to comparison and I see that I'm like the size of 2 or 3 of them put together - and with children it is even more pronounced.
I am going to get to the point though that one day the image in my head and the image in the mirror/my brain are a whole lot closer or maybe even match.
I don't think we actively try to forget or deliberately are self sabotaging. I think we have adapted our behaviors to function (because a sign of intelligence is the ability to adapt to changes and when we gain weight, we have to adapt) and in adapting we created some habits.
Habits - be they big or small, good or bad - are very hard to break. It often takes constant vigilance and effort to break a habit (that's why some programs for helping people change have a sponsor that a person can call for immediate help in a difficult situation) and let's face it, everyone has busy lives and things that eventually take a priority position over what we will be eating or doing for exercise that day - if there is a crisis at work or just a big work load - it doesn't have to be a crisis, or a family member has a need or we have a need (we get sick, need to accomplish an important errand, have a fight, see something we want to watch or do) it is easy to get sidetracked and fall back into habits or patterns of behavior that allow us to switch priorities and run on automatic.
So, if we slip and fall or take a wrong turn or find ourselves in the midst of doing something that is an unwanted habit, it is important to stop the behavior immediately and get back onto the new behavior we want to achieve. It also helps to take note of what caused us to slip so we can develop some ways to overcome that situation if and when things get hectic again.
Someone mentioned back a bit about habits and it is true that it takes 30 days or so to break a habit and/or form a new habit. That's why vigilance and support are so important when we first start to try to make a change - we need that constant reminder to break us from the old habits and help us stick to the new ones.
That shouldn't make a person feel dumb or like a failure, we just need to gain understanding and then take the steps to prevent it from happening again so we can be happier with ourselves and how we interact and cope with the things in our lives.
- - - - -
Me, again, commenting on the above msg:
Great analysis of how we learn to filter what we see in a mirror - and how a photo can be such a shock when we convinced ourself that we looked good enough to go out where cameras would be and that it was 'safe' to allow pix at an event.
I too am aghast at how large I loom over friends - taller and MUCH more massive than anyone in most pix that I have. It's alarming to see how a photo looks, especially when I felt SO GOOD as it was snapped.
I nearly fainted when I opened a driver's license 20yrs ago and saw a fat homely stranger's face on it; I had felt so utterly perky as I stood and had the shot taken. I remember that I was buoyant, laughing and having a particularly good day. The woman on the driver's license that I had to carry and display for 4yrs had too many chins, no neck and a bad haircut sticking out in all directions; she looked daffy - just as happy as a fool, wearing some gaudy bright colors - as well as being HUGE!
Could that be ME? Oh, NO!!! Sadly, it was. Is.
May I suggest Nicholas Cage's film "Adaptation" (with awesome Meryl Streep and one of the strangest men you'll ever hope to meet) for anyone thinking that we choose how we adapt. According to dialogue in the film, adaptation happens to us. We do not choose to adapt. We change daily. We are different each day according to what happens to us, what choices we make.
I saw myself changing - as I watched the film and considered my own daily choices about LC food and exercise and how I spend a day in bed. I've been in bed 24/7 since my hip caught some tissue in Aug.2006. Went to HMO but found no help there, just folks in white coats who want to discuss the pointlessness of seeking a dx. I swear. I went repeatedly, saw MDs and physical therapists and came home exhausted and feeling I had risked my health by struggling into hospitals to see disinterested HMO people. So I tried chiropractors and found SOME pain relief. Then decided in May 2007 that it was up to me to manage the remaining pain, to work with my body.
So I do some lengthening stretches in bed, as Pilates started out with folks in bed who needed help recovering use of limbs. Gives me something to do at night, when the spasms get worse and I cannot lie down. I sit up, stretch to pull longer the taut muscles in my back and butt. Ah, when will this end?
I'm adapting. I'm becoming a different person from who I was when I got up and went to work daily, had a career that I loved and that I lost by being so massive that I was targeted as useless and destroyed. Well, I survived, as survivors do. I adapted to being jobless, faceless as a workaholic with no work to claim as my identity.
Ah, I'm ranting. Full of 40g of hot slosh and feeling almost COMPETENT - a lovely feeling - on account of nourishing all the cells of my body. Wow! Who knew that WPP could deliver such a feeling! COMPETENCE is a great feeling!
- - - - -
Now here's the post that set me off today, written by a thoughtful wise writer I admire and am learning from as I listen to her ideas:
As for avoiding mirrors and thinking I might not look bad at a prior weight or even the weight I am now, this is something I have thought about a lot in the past. I think it is a body image thing - a lot like body image issues people have when they have anorexia or bulemia, but we have the reverse.
They think they are huge and fat when they aren't; our brains don't see the fat.
I know I can look in a mirror and there are times when I have thought I looked pretty good - very nice and even sexy. I have thought an outfit made me look good or not so fat, etc.
I think this is because my mind filters how I really look with how I think I look (and remember looking or hoped I looked in the past).
This filter or image in the brain is pretty good at fooling me and giving me a nice image. Then, I see myself in a picture that was taken from someone else's perspective - they are a different height or at a different angle or just a different side - and that is when I see what others see because it doesn't fit with the angle and direction and image in my brain's filter.
I see this ENORMOUS woman and I can barely believe that is me because I assure you, that's not what the woman in my mirror looking back at me looked like when my brain processed me looking at myself.
I also am appalled when I see myself standing beside other people - it lends itself to comparison and I see that I'm like the size of 2 or 3 of them put together - and with children it is even more pronounced.
I am going to get to the point though that one day the image in my head and the image in the mirror/my brain are a whole lot closer or maybe even match.
I don't think we actively try to forget or deliberately are self sabotaging. I think we have adapted our behaviors to function (because a sign of intelligence is the ability to adapt to changes and when we gain weight, we have to adapt) and in adapting we created some habits.
Habits - be they big or small, good or bad - are very hard to break. It often takes constant vigilance and effort to break a habit (that's why some programs for helping people change have a sponsor that a person can call for immediate help in a difficult situation) and let's face it, everyone has busy lives and things that eventually take a priority position over what we will be eating or doing for exercise that day - if there is a crisis at work or just a big work load - it doesn't have to be a crisis, or a family member has a need or we have a need (we get sick, need to accomplish an important errand, have a fight, see something we want to watch or do) it is easy to get sidetracked and fall back into habits or patterns of behavior that allow us to switch priorities and run on automatic.
So, if we slip and fall or take a wrong turn or find ourselves in the midst of doing something that is an unwanted habit, it is important to stop the behavior immediately and get back onto the new behavior we want to achieve. It also helps to take note of what caused us to slip so we can develop some ways to overcome that situation if and when things get hectic again.
Someone mentioned back a bit about habits and it is true that it takes 30 days or so to break a habit and/or form a new habit. That's why vigilance and support are so important when we first start to try to make a change - we need that constant reminder to break us from the old habits and help us stick to the new ones.
That shouldn't make a person feel dumb or like a failure, we just need to gain understanding and then take the steps to prevent it from happening again so we can be happier with ourselves and how we interact and cope with the things in our lives.
- - - - -
Me, again, commenting on the above msg:
Great analysis of how we learn to filter what we see in a mirror - and how a photo can be such a shock when we convinced ourself that we looked good enough to go out where cameras would be and that it was 'safe' to allow pix at an event.
I too am aghast at how large I loom over friends - taller and MUCH more massive than anyone in most pix that I have. It's alarming to see how a photo looks, especially when I felt SO GOOD as it was snapped.
I nearly fainted when I opened a driver's license 20yrs ago and saw a fat homely stranger's face on it; I had felt so utterly perky as I stood and had the shot taken. I remember that I was buoyant, laughing and having a particularly good day. The woman on the driver's license that I had to carry and display for 4yrs had too many chins, no neck and a bad haircut sticking out in all directions; she looked daffy - just as happy as a fool, wearing some gaudy bright colors - as well as being HUGE!
Could that be ME? Oh, NO!!! Sadly, it was. Is.
Total Comments 5
Comments
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I may actually be adapting to being alone, as I evaluate some contacts that are simply not working out as positive support for my LC life.
I think I am detaching from people who were part of my fat life, my food life, my eating life. Maybe having support from LC friends gives me the courage to face facts about illusions I have been cherishing for too long, about how I can change and still keep old contacts. It's not working out well. Disappointing to me to reach out for support and find disapproval for what makes sense to me. Maybe we have to change associations as we morph into a new way of thinking about food, eating, living. That is what addicts are advised to do, to make a clean break with their old contacts and to seek out new contacts that support a life apart from whatever they are addicted to. Most likely I shall always be susceptible to my drug of choice - carbs - and shall always have to be vigilant against the impulse to use food to fill empty space in my emotional life. I think I am seriously contemplating a shift in who I choose to reach out to. Just drawing back. Nothing too dramatic. Just not calling on people who are not (yet) into LC living, who offer me opportunities to slip a few carbs in as we socialize. I am weak. I am inclined to allow myself to share carbs so as not to "be rude" about food gifted to me. So...it will profit me to build new associations and to seek out more LC-friendly folks. Sigh. |
Posted 01-27-2008 at 10:10 PM by Zer
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Why am I slowing my progress by testing, by eating off plan? I wish I understood myself!
I still experiment by eating things that tempt me to try old ways, to see if I can 'get away' with cheating on myself, playing the old game of 'just one bite' and 'might as well eat it all now' after I betray my better LC self by a bite of food that I know too well will not help me achieve my goal of reaching ONEderLand as soon as I might see that lighter-weight land if I simply stick to plan! AAAARGHHHHH! I am LC for life. I truly believe that my cells want to feel the nourishment that makes me feel COMPETENT (as I do right now) with 40g of protein chugging into my veins to nourish my cells. Is there anything better than feeling COMPETENT? I don't think so! |
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Posted 01-28-2008 at 08:54 AM by Zer
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Is there anything better than feeling COMPETENT? I don't think there could be.
I equate slimness with COMPETENCE, with being in charge, with mastery of life skills that elude me. I love the feeling of COMPETENCE that comes when I slurp up my morning hot slosh of WPP+espresso+cacao with some VCO melting in the foam as I sip. Sometimes I do a 2d cup as a nightcap, with just WPP, cacao and no espresso. It carries me off to dreamland on a buoyant cloud of COMPETENCE as I imagine my slim body in motion without the encumbrance of fat that is masking who I ~REALLY~ AM deep inside me! Hey, that's quite a setting for dreaming! Now if only I could quiet this hinky hip that keeps on waking me up from such sleep as I catch! |
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Posted 01-29-2008 at 08:31 AM by Zer
Updated 01-29-2008 at 08:32 AM by Zer |
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Adaptation involves figuring out how to thrive in the world.
Say what? That's a line of dialogue from the Nicholas Cage film "Adaptation" that carries all sorts of significant ideas that seem to me to apply to the way ~I~ am changing as I learn about LC/Atkins from reading and writing at LCFriends. |
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Posted 02-24-2008 at 09:17 PM by Zer
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As I pare down my body size, I am thinking of how I shall in future pare down possessions to live in less space than I now use. It happens to all the older folks I know. They give up all sorts of possessions as they move from space to less space, then to shared space. I see how it works. I know people who are now living in doublewide non-mobile homes as a way of reducing living expenses to fit a limited income. I myself live in a 10x10ft room, with shared space that I am free to use as needed. It allows me to save cash that I believe adds to the quality of my life. Liquidity!
Just for fun, here's a site that explores the variations in living space limited to 10x10ft, just the space that I now live in (for the past 20yrs of stashing cash in savings). Think about what your own living space might be converted to. Think about adapting, about sharing space with others, especially if you are pinched in the wallet and thinking how to manage a mortgage that is taking too large a bite from your income. Just how much space does an individual need? |
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Posted 05-22-2008 at 07:31 AM by Zer
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Recent Blog Entries by Zer
- Finding furniture/cars that fit my size/height/weight needs. (05-31-2008)
- The Recovery Process (04-05-2008)
- Moving my muscles (aka the excruciating "E" word) (03-20-2008)
- Supplements for good health; how much of what? (02-26-2008)
- Halcyon days...LC'ing joy (02-16-2008)
