Eating Rebellion

It’s Saturday morning and I should be on my way to my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. But I’m not there (obviously, since I’m sitting here typing).   I’m rebelling against being accountable for the things I’ve been eating all week.

My head’s not in the sand about what’s going on – I got on the scale this morning and know that I’m up at least 2 pounds which isn’t a surprise at all.  I’ve been eating whatever I wanted which is not a good idea.  I haven’t wanted to eat salad or vegetables or even much protein. Instead, I wasted points on snacky things with salt, flavor and texture.

I’m just really tired of dieting.  I know that WW calls it a “lifestyle” and not a diet, but let’s get real — it’s a diet that you have to stay on for the rest of your life.  And my life has already been structured around counting calories or fat grams or points since I was about 8 years old.  I want to be normal even when I don’t know what normal is.  I suspect that normal people are aware of nutritional values but they’re not obsessed with them.

I, on the other hand, know what I’m eating whether trying to fit something in or eating in the car where no one sees me and the food doesn’t have any calories.  Kind of like broken cookies having no calories, either.  But I’ve gotten to the point this week that I just don’t care what the values are.

Being fat is not where I want to be, but being smaller isn’t much of an incentive for me right now to do the hard work it will take to get there.   I’m looking for comfort and low-stress right now and my healthy eating doesn’t do it for me, though I’m not stupid or blind enough to ignore everything I know about food.  Eat too much, move too little = gaining weight, or at least not losing any.

Last year at this time I was recovering from knee surgery and right now I’m almost exactly at the same place on the scale that I was then.   It’s better but not back to “normal” and probably never will be, as I’m down to bone on bone plus the arthritis.  Wet cold days, such as the one we had yesterday, make it stiffen up and get cranky.   Losing weight would make it easier on the joints as I well know but somehow … I just can’t.  I don’t want to.

I had a little pity party last night that lasted about 10 minutes before I remembered that this very week I had decided to be happy, so I needed to get over myself.  Today I gave myself permission to skip WW even though I know that going to meetings when you’re feeling negative is the right thing to do.  I just couldn’t deal with doing it so EARLY (our weigh in is 8am).

But I don’t have permission to ignore the fact that I’m fat and that the only one who can do something about it is me.  That knowledge is always there in the front of my mind, not hidden away.  All I have to do is look in the mirror or try on clothes and I’m reminded on the off chance I let it slip for 10 minutes.

So I’m not abandoning my WW lifestyle foodplan.  Even when I’m not following it, I know that I’m not and what is not on track.  That awareness shows how deeply I’ve absorbed the “how to” part.  What needs some attention is the motivation so I’m not fighting the concept of actually DOING it.