the morning workout

(Subtitled: #@%$#*&%#@*#!!!!)

While five years of working out consistently has brought about a certain amount of discipline and routine, it has never brought about any type of desire or enjoyment. EVER. I keep waiting for that moment people talk about—I just couldn't wait to get to my workout. It felt so good to workout today. This experience eludes me. I workout because I HAVE to. I workout because if I did not, I would gain 50 lbs just by breathing. Truly. Writing, I enjoy. Creating art, I enjoy. Singing, I enjoy. Hiking, I enjoy. Reading, I enjoy. Working out? I do it because I MUST.

So this morning, because it is my writing day and I wanted to get a full six hours in, because I have to cart my kids to appointments after school, because I have a meeting at the church tonight, I got my warm, comfortable, almost pain-free body out of bed early and went down to a cold, damp basement and trudged away on the elliptical trainer for 45 minutes when I could have been still in bed. For some of you, this will make you roll your eyes in the same manner as my pre-adolescent daughter. You do this daily. Well, good for you. I do not. I have chronic pain and I don't like mornings. This is not my norm. But I did it. I drug my butt out of my comfortable bed and made myself uncomfortable so that I can now plop my butt down in front of my computer in peace, knowing that I have battled the bulge already today.

The war is not over. But today's battle has been won, while it was still dark outside.

You have no idea what kind of a victory that is.

ten current reasons why i'm not losing weight

1. If my family is eating Graeter's Ice Cream, there is no way in hell I'm not having it, too.

2. My head hurts. Again. Since Friday. I don't want to do anything. (For the record, I did exercise three times despite the head ache. But I didn't want to.)

3. If my family is eating Knight's Homemade Ice Cream, there is no way in hell I'm not having it, too.

4. My favorite quickie dinner is a plate of nachos with cheese and some fresh salsa. It's my standby when I'm stressed or my head hurts. Guess what was for dinner tonight?

5. If my family is eating Jeni's Ice Cream, there is no way in hell I'm not having it, too.

6. My head hurts. Again. And it makes me nauseous. So in order to quell the nausea, I have to have something salty. With a chocolate chaser...

7. If my family is eating Dairy Queen, there is no way in hell I'm not having it, too.

8. My second favorite quickie dinner is a big, honkin' bowl of cereal. Maybe even two. Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night?

9. If my family is eating plain ol' grocery store-bought ice cream straight out of the cardboard tub, there is no way in hell I'm not having it, too.

10. My family eats too much ice cream.

pre-binge melancholia

having one of those days... not feeling well AGAIN... still not over the FOURTH sinus infection of this winter/spring... feeling like crap tonight and feeling fat and miserable to boot... i've started four new posts and haven't had the clarity to finish a one of them... so much running through my head and nowhere near the time necessary to get it down "on paper"... these are the times when i think, "who the hell am i kidding?"... i'm never going to get this weight back off... i'm never going to complete a manuscript... i can't even complete a clear thought... i can't even get a moment to myself, and when i do, i feel so tired and lousy i can't do anything productive with it anyway... there is so much i'm hungry for... so much more that i want my life to be... knowing how to get there and getting there are two very, very different things... for tonight, it looks like having chocolate cookie crumble ice cream and going to bed early... tomorrow morning, it will look like getting my fanny back to the gym... hopefully tomorrow night it will look like complete sentences and finished posts...

a matter of trust

It is 9:00 Wednesday morning, and the children off being educated for the day. I've not managed yet to find a sufficient diversion, so I am stuck with a dilemma. What do I do with my morning?

I've not been to the gym since last Monday. With the exception of a few one mile walks around the block with the kids and a brief walk with my roommate over the weekend, I've not moved my fanny at all. So am I going to move it this morning, or not? Truth be told, my body doesn't feel like moving. It is tired, sluggish, a little achy, still recovering from yet another sinus infection and the monthly interruption to all health and sanity. What I want to do is to go back to bed.

On the other hand, my body is restless. Used to working out five times a week, it is straining at the bit somewhere deep inside, ready to be let loose. I need to get out and move. It is a rare day when these competing forces don't exist in conflict, when I actually feel good and want to exercise at the same time. Lately, if that miracle occurs, it usually is on a day when I wouldn't have time to do it anyway.

Geneen Roth, in her book Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, speaks frequently about the need to trust our bodies—to listen to them and learn their cues about eating or exercise and to regard those cues with respect. "Remember that your body does not want to destroy you and will not go haywire as soon as you let down your guard. Trust that the two of you are working for the same end—your health, your happiness, your peace."

Therein lies the problem. I do not believe this for a moment. I do not believe that my body is a benevolent force intent upon my health and emotional well-being. I have chronic pain. I have IBS. I have a life-long weight issue. What, exactly, am I supposed to find trustworthy about these things and my inability to rectify them?

Let's take the last three weeks as an example. In a moment of desperation and insanity, I went on a strict two week diet and actually lost six pounds. I was ecstatic. I finally had some momentum going. I went to a cookout at my brother's house and was a little freer than I should have been. Over the next week, I relaxed my guard and tried to eat "normal" again. I didn't pig out. I didn't binge every day. I ate fairly reasonably, although not perfectly. I don't know what I did that was bad enough to undo all I'd done. But here's what I can tell you with certainty: I did NOT eat enough food in that week to gain six pounds, but that's exactly what I did. Put every last pound back on my sorry, fat butt and then sat on it and wallowed in self-pity for a few days.

When left to its own devices, my body raids the kitchen for carbohydrates and plops on the couch with a book or my computer. What is there to trust about that? If I trusted my body, I'd weigh 240 pounds again, have a headache every waking moment, and be bloated 24/7. I can't make friends with that. I just can't.

So it logically goes to follow that, if my body is the place within which God resides, and I can't trust my body, then I probably can't trust Him, either. And if I don't believe I can trust the God "who is able to do exceedingly more than I can ever ask or imagine" to bring freedom from headaches and stomach aches and endless obsession and bondage, well, then I'm pretty much screwed.

And that is a much bigger dilemma than whether or not to hit the gym or hit the bed.

disclaimer

I should have walked tonight. Instead, I spent the evening recovering from the busyness of the day and the misery of YET ANOTHER SINUS INFECTION. I am achy and exhausted and devoid of patience, not to mention depressed as snot. This has been my life the last six months. And this is where it has gotten me.

Over the last week I have written snippets here and paragraphs there, all part of trying to sort out this deluge of emotion surrounding the thickening around my middle. But I've not managed to post a single one of them. My hope has been that this blog would be the place for me to sort some of it out and perhaps find freedom. Problem is, I'm finding I'm afraid to write about it. Why? Because it's not pretty. And I want my life to look pretty.

It's not pretty to admit that I think about food and my weight and my body nearly 80% of my waking hours. It's not pretty to admit that I still struggle with compulsive eating, even after all this time and knowledge. It's not pretty to eat on occasion to the point of feeling sick to my stomach, just because "I won't get to have this again for a while." It's not pretty to look in the mirror and see 240 staring back at me. It's not pretty to realize that I am withdrawing from life, hiding in big sweatshirts and BSG episodes, all over 10 or 15 pounds. It's not pretty to recognize the self-hatred that has shrouded my frame like a big, black trench coat, attempting to hide all that I don't want anyone else to see. But if I don't let you see, if I don't look myself, there can be no freedom.

I want to post a disclaimer. I want to warn everyone that what they will find here is not going to be pretty. That the thoughts I think as of late are filled with fear and anger and doubt and self-hatred. That the content of this blog is as self-centered and perspective-less as content could possibly come. That I will go on and on and on about gaining ten-plus pounds, not because of the ten pound themselves, but because of all they represent to me. Then I want to take it all back, and delete the entire blog, and pray that you will forget everything that you've read here and return to thinking, "That Lorie—she seems to have it pretty together, as far having it together seems to go."

I have fought this battle in my head, hidden in darkness, for far too long. I must bring it out into the open, into the light of truth, for the lies within to be exposed. But this openness, this fully exposing how wide and long and high and deep these issues run within me, is not something that comes easily. It is one thing to do it once I'm through it and on the other side, back "together" again. It is another to do it from the trenches—muddy and messy and up to my waist in the mire. It is a struggle to remain "broken open," to not retreat back into my head and allow the words to just spin and spin and spin until they drop to the floor, tired but not spent. Today, I can do it. Tomorrow? I just don't know.

And so this is my disclaimer. I do not have it all together, but I want desperately for you to continue to think that I do. If we can work out a little agreement here where I tell you how awful I am but you still think I'm wonderful anyway, I think we will get along just fine. Perhaps.