[Mindful i Mouse] Doing better, but is it really better?

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Yesterday we had to sit all day and try to sleep on and off as we had night driving to do. One thing neither of us can do is sleep on demand. It's always different when one " can " take a leisurely nap and enjoy it and another when one feels one “has†to sleep in order to stay awake all night. I worked nights full time in my youth, loved it then, now, I am just not able to recoup as easily. To break the cabin fever of sitting in too small a space, we had lunch at a restaurant. I chose eggs benedict, which had 2 eggs, shrimp, cut up ring sausage and hollandaise sauce that had a bit of spice added to it. I ate the meal, skipping the english muffin underneath and the fried potatoes served with it. I am getting quite good at selecting foods that are low carb in restaurants AND feeling satisfied too. Husband had a burger and fries. For him, he isn't as interested in lowering the carbs even though he has yet to see his own BG go below a 130 since we have been on the truck. Granted, my BGS’s shoot up quicker than his does on less carbs, but he is not willing to really take it seriously yet. I believe I am further advanced in the diabetes than he is. But time can choices can alter that. I am proud of myself for not touching any mixed nuts yesterday, for eating well in a restaurant and for not snacking while being bored and trying to pass the time or get through a long night of driving. We had dinner at 6 pm then by 2 am, we needed coffee and I made husband his bread and cheese and I sliced off a piece of dry italian salami for me. That worked beautifully, I felt no hunger when we went to bed at 6 am. That made today higher in calories (I have to put those extra calories somewhere) but I reduced my lunch salami by half and that then made the day's worth at 1288. Yesterday was low at 968. I checked my average so far this month and rats, it is too high: I cannot loose weight on 1440 average calories. The first half of these days were on hometime, the second half on the truck. I am taking in an average of 340 calories a day too much. Sigh. While I have made a great improvement over the past home-times, I look at reports like this and sigh a heavy sigh. Another week has past and I am sure I will not show a loss next Saturday if they keep us fluctuating on days and nights. I aim to get this down again, the first step was to lose the nuts and the next is to make sure I stay under my 1100 target range. This sort of thing really gets me, the hard work, the discipline and yet the overall sum of decisions are not as good as the individual choices. Small indiscretions do add up. Husband and I had a good conversation about dieting and where our problems are. It's still the same, we are still affected by the same vulnerabilities as always, but I saw a difference in how we handle it. Husband still believes he cannot control how much he eats once a bag is open or there is more dinner still on the table. For him, if it is there, he wants to eat it, even past the point of being full. So he is still in the place, in his mind that he really doesn't want to give up, control or limit food, as it is too pleasurable to him. It serves a purpose to him beyond satisfying hunger. He over eats if he is tried or stressed, if it is " there " to eat, if he feels he needs something pleasant. I feel the same way, but I work on controlling my impulses, work on methods to control my intake and try to comprehend that this is the way it will be for me, for the rest of my life, it’s ongoing. He believes it is a matter of short term discipline and that once he is away form the food, it is no longer a problem to resist. We differ on that, I believe it is a constant choice and the problem does not go away because we don’t have immediate access. He thinks the issue is solved once away from the food, but somehow, someway he is always back to square one. Being now 17 months into this, the most amazing thing to me is that I have not given up, I have not regained all the weight, I have not perpetuated the same old binge struggle more than a handful of home-times. While I wish I could get my husband to take on the methods I use to work with, but I know that I cannot do more than work it alone. He told me that the other night while I was sleeping, he went and got himself some bakery delights as we were at a truck stop that had a restaurant that sold baked goods too. He knows he is pre-diabetic, he knows his BG's are affected by eating like this, he knows he needs to lose weight. But this has yet to stop him. He guffaw all he wants about how atrocious American’s eat and the horrible food concoctions they come up with, but for himself, he finds that he cannot resist the lure of a badly made cinnamon roll or cheap and tasteless hamburger. He eats it, he complains. I shake my head. See, it is not the FOOD, it is the MINDSET behind it. I am not preaching from a higher tower. I struggle too. The difference is in how we handle it. We have both been stuck in the same weight loops all of our adult lives, gaining and losing and gaining again. We both have made food more important than it needed to be. The issues involved just don't disappear with lost pounds. Being thinner does not make me " cured " of my obesity or make me wiser about food choices. The lure of food that our minds wrap around is every present. Every single day, no, every single MOMENT, I have to make decisions about whether to eat or not eat. Every passing thought about it has to be decided on. Every opportunity has to be judged for it’s need. This never ends, this is what I need to do to manage my weight. The difference between how my husband thinks about it and how I think about it, is that I want to learn to get passed the low threshold of giving in to impulse. He truly believes that once he gets the weight off, he only needs to “limit the treatsâ€. I can’t figure where that innate ability automatically happens after weight loss, if it cannot be done now, how does it happen later? I want to care about myself and my treatment of myself. I have punished myself far too long. My husband doesn't really believe deep down that foods can be damaging to our bodies, nor do I think he wants to accept aging and the limitations that it brings. As long as he wants his treats to be food, he will never really get it about how carbs affect his body now. I hate to think of his course towards diabetes and the complications it will bring. I am already there and it was all because I didn't want to believe that food had that much power over my health and well being. I believe it now. I understand it. I see the damage I have done with food through my obesity. I cannot go back to that horrible place again. And yet, I am still obese. I am about as unattractive as I have ever been. I have been larger, but reducing weight has not made me feel prettier as it has in the past. I saw a reflection on the window last night that left me practically gasping with despair. Haggard looking, bags under the eyes, pale an moon faced. was that what my husband saw? I stared at my reflection in the mirror this morning in the restroom and I didn't look so horrible. At least I think I didn't. I still feel unconnected to my body and my sense of self. I feel ugly and I wish I could lose that thought process. My project for the next home time is to find a sense of style and self. Right now, I have to be ever so careful not to think I am “better†because I am not as obese as I was 17 months ago. That no longer is an excuse to loosen the reins now. --

Posted By i Mouse to Mindful i Mouse at 2/08/2011 10:40:00 AM