I'm so happy...i gained 10 lbs!!!

Hiya, ladies,

This has been a hard week. But, what am i gonna do, mope about it?

I just got back from my second walk in 2 days. I didn't want to go this morning, and connected with that and verbalized it, "Cliff, i'm going for a walk right now...and i'm NOT happy about it!!" But i did it. I know intellectually it will help, but emotionally, i wasn't so sure, before i left. Now that i did it, I'm feeling more hopeful.

Yesterday's walk didn't budge the scale, i was 262 yesterday as well, and i have been absolutely demoralized, depressed, discouraged about a 10 lb weight gain.

My fingers are all bloated up right now, so i know it's a lot of salt, and nothing i haven't confronted before, but still, it's something i don't really wish to be having to deal with right now. It's embarrassing, it's regrettable. But, this is the way it is.

I didn't realize how much stress i've been under.

I'm singing in Mozart's Don Giovanni in about 4 weeks and am struggling with my confidence that i can have my role re-memorized within these next two weeks before rehearsals begin. After the first rehearsal, i have 2 weeks until the performance. Depending on how my practice sessions go, my confidence level fluxuates.

Intellectually, i know there is enough time to relearn the role, but I think emotionally, I'm stressed.

My schedule was such that i ended up eating gourmet almost constantly for 5 days in a row, and not exercising consistently. I also overate the gourmet, and my body is not happy, at all.

I rarely talk about the emotions that lead to overeating, honestly because I thought i've been doing well coping emotionally, i thought, unless i'm completely delusional, which i very might well be. But, now, I have MUCH MORE on my plate over the next month, an opera performance, a possible catering job, social dates galore, and my poor stress management skils are beginning to show in my feelings of total overwhelm and in my weight gain.

I thought I've been able to manage my diet pretty well with changing my thinking or adjusting my way of thinking about my diet, and that has helped keep me in line, until now. Now i feel lost, but i'm trying to figure out a game plan. In the midst of all of this, I'm overwhelmed and under stress. The house, the renovations, the opera, bookings for raw food private classes, the blog, the emails, work. I just keep thinking back to that blissful week in Ohio where i walked alot, exercised alot, ate 'normally', even overate an entire block of cheese and came home to have not gained any weight.

Now, this week...what the hell happened? This week I feel like a complete diet failure. I ate salty fatty things from morning til night and didn't exercise regularly. As an overview, i recall, I felt little hunger eating because i wasn't hungry. I was just eating. And twice i made food for raw food parties and that entailed tasting early in the morning, and the tastes became my salty fatty breakfasts, and then i wasn't hungry for the lunch i had prepared for friends, but ate it anyway. No, fatty salty nutspreads are not ideal breakfast food, at least for me, when i'm more sedentary. Things just kind of never had the chance to...calm down, food wise or busy-wise. I've been on the go, go, go, go. I feel like i need another vacation. Just to recoup.

I weighed myself yesterday and it was frightening. 10 lbs. I have to say, i'm not happy about gaining weight. I can see it, i can actually see it in the mirror. If i can see it, others can definitely see it. In Fairburn's book "Overcoming Binge Eating," he notes that just gaining weight can trigger binge eating. I get this. It's emotionally really horrid to have to show your problems to the world.

And I haven't even been binge eating.

But i've certainly been in a lot of fear, embarrassment, dread, regret about having gained. The last time i saw my friends, Tim and Leslie, I had broken 250 and was 80-10-10ing. I was GLOWING! My visit with them on Sunday consisted of me overeating gourmet after a gourmet tasting breakfast and falling asleep on their couch. When one's body is on overload, the body says, "I need a rest, stop feeding me!" Nuts can knock you out on your butt if you're on overload.

But, in one week, gaining 10 lbs? I don't even really think what i ate warranted that severe a weight gain, but I am prone to weight gain, prone to hold water as we know, and didn't exercise daily, and ate from pleasure instead of hunger most of the time over the last days.

I spoke in an earlier post about not wanting to 'diet' anymore, i suppose to me that dieting has become 80-10-10ing. But instead i want to learn how to control the foods i like, gourmet raw in moderation. i think it's such a great goal. But, obviously ENORMOUSLY challenging for me.

Even yesterday, after i weighed myself, i said, 'okay, today is the kind of day where i just have to seek repair and restitution, and re-establish some serious de-bloat, take some serious anti-reflux and candida measures, and get back in balance. Now is the time when 80-10-10ing makes perfect sense to me.'

I drank green smoothies all day. And then i was hungry. And gave into having a moderate gourmet meal of 1 bag of Brad's raw chips. Okay, i thought. I can get through this. I was hungry. I did it. But i walked over an hour this morning. I'll be fine. Then for dinner, i made zucchini spaghetti with lofat sunflower seed sauce, but was hungry and yearning for something. That something turned out to be 2 oz of raw cheese, 3 arnolds way raw bread crackers and a small peice of chocolate pie.

Apparently, the one hour walk did NADA to the weight gain.

Eating gourmet in moderation, with daily long walks, burning it up and maintaining my weight and even losing is an absolute pleasure. I did this in Ohio. What the hell happened???

My hope was to get my eating habits in control and to lose weight sort of naturally, organically, without being fanatically 80-10-10.

But this? I've been waking up with daily with reflux and i have a slight yeast infection again, I'm bloated and 10+ lbs heavier.

Needless to say, this is not my idea of pure raw joy. And even while i was eating all of this gourmet food, i wasn't really enjoying it, so even eating it wasn't pure raw joy. Eating when i'm hungry and stopping when i've had enough leads to pure raw joy.

I work again today and that worries me. I am known to go on gourmet overload there. What will i do today?

I know this: I'm worth it. I deserve to feel better. It would be beneficial to me if I could do no salt very low fat for a few days and get back in balance. I would really like this. Perhaps if i get very centered, very spiritual, very detached emotionally from all of this, the spirit can lead me and take control where i have no control. Let go, Let God.

I came up with a hypothesis this morning. The body wants to be in balance. When it's working well and in balance, we can sometimes getting away with eating high fat or even salty foods and suffer no apparent consequences.

There are other times, however, when the body becomes sorely out of balance. We've overloaded on fat or on salt and there is nothing to do but reestablish balance by severely limiting these items. Fairburn's book would say this was dieting. Is it? I have reflux every day now. I can't sing with reflux. I know i'm under stress, and under stress i want to be calm and eat calming fatty foods, but i can't do this if i want to sing well and have good practice sessions.

Sometimes you just have to leave the experts out of it and listen to your body and ask God to lead.

I MUST remind myself that getting out of control in just a week and seeking to regain control within that weeks time is fabulous improvement. I used to have to gain 100 lbs back before i'd get back in control.

I need to get back to writing my food down. Calming down. Even planning my meals. Today i 'll need your loving thoughts and well wishes. I gotta get back in balance. I don't feel or look well.

Help.

Much love to you all,

xoxo michelle