Me vs Food.

I have a confession to make. I'm now down to 179 lbs from being at 199 lbs a little while back. I wish I could say it was do to good clean living, healthy food choices, and robust exercise. The truth is, I'm down 20 lbs from my previous weight because I've been eating less. Some would say that is the point of a diet, to eat less.

If that is how you feel about it and think that what I've done is healthy, please stop reading right now and go do something else. The point of a diet is to change your eating habits to something conducive to the state of health you wish to be in. This might mean smaller portions, cutting out certain foods, or replacing certain foods with different ones. Or some combination of the three. That's not what I've been doing.

I have a problematic relationship with food. When I was younger, I was borderline anorexic. I starved myself because I felt it was the only way to make sure everyone in the house had enough food to eat, at first. I started that when I was about six or seven. As I got older, I felt less and less in control of my own life. Thus, I controlled how much I ate because that was one thing I could tell I had absolute control over. Additionally, I thought that not eating certain foods (ie fatty ones) would make my 'zits' go away. And, I was ashamed to eat in front of other people because my build was different from theirs. The harassment that I got for being so thin was awful and it has taken a very long time for me to become comfortable eating in front of people again. On my good days, I just have no problem with it. On my bad days, it is a real struggle to make myself eat because I feel that I am repulsive whilst eating.

Then I developed an ovarian cyst. The doctors said that I was so underweight they were concerned about how well the surgery would go. Fortunately, I wasn't so underweight that it went poorly. That was when Beloved decided he was going to make me finish my meals when I was out with him. He didn't go so far as to put the food in my mouth but nothing else happened until I finished my meal. I tried being slick about it and ordering small meals. The folks at the restaurant we went to regularly realized what he was doing and I regularly got full sized portions when I thought I was getting halves. You know you have a problem when the guys running your favorite restaurant start helping your significant other put more food into you.

After a few years of that, I got up to a relatively healthy weight. I was amazed by this because I suddenly had more energy then I ever did before. I wasn't cold all the time. I didn't have times where my stomach randomly hurt for reasons I never put together (that I was hungry). With some therapy, I learned to identify when I was hungry and how to take care of myself on that front. When it was time that we were attempting to have Cuddle Bear, I was actually ten pounds overweight. With some vigorous exercise and skipping extra sweets, I dropped down to 150 lbs and conceived shortly there after (with some medical assistance).

This was also the story of how Snuggle Bug was conceived. After Snuggle Bug was born, I thought my issues with eating were resolved. I did my best not to think about how 'fat' I looking in the mirror and focus on eating healthy foods. When I gained weight from my psych meds, I got even more depressed and felt I was hideous. Mind you, when I was grossly underweight, I felt that I was hideous then too. My weight yo-yoed a bit as I tried to get more exercise and return my weight to what I felt healthiest at (150 lbs). A part of me says I should be pleased with the fact that I've lost 20 lbs over the last month and a half.

That equals about 3lbs lost a week. It's a bit high but in the relatively healthy range. The problem is that weight loss didn't happen over the course of those six weeks. It happened in three. That makes it 6lbs a week. That is a sign that there is a problem. I know exactly what the problem is. I'm skipping meals again. I started skipping meals when I got anxious over the budget. This lead to my being anxious that we were not going to be able to afford to keep the pantry stocked and our family fed. While money is tight right now, I know that we've got resources we can turn to for help. We're not going to go hungry.

Rational thought, however, doesn't enter into this. My PTSD has been problematic for several months now, to the point where I was having nightmares every night. After my medication got adjusted, the nightmares stopped, more or less. But the feeling like my life was completely out of control and I was helpless to do anything about the problems we were facing was very powerful. Thus, I skipped meals. I would tell myself that I didn't feel hungry or that I would eat 'later'. Next thing I knew, I hadn't had breakfast or lunch as I was sitting down to dinner.

I only came to the realization that this problem has come back up today. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. I don't know how I am going to regain a sense of control over my life. I feel like my PTSD and bipolar are running everything. I feel like my arthritic knees and PCOS are a time bomb waiting to go off. I look in the mirror and I find myself looking at my eczema and picking at it again, like I did in high school. I feel helpless right now. And that is creating major problems for me, again.