On Failing

It's Monday morning - and it's also the only day this week I have home.

It's sunny and about 20 degrees.

It's so danged quiet here right now the ringing in my ears is deafening.

I'm slumped in the corner of my couch - covered in a quilt - still in my pj's - belly growling - cat purring.

My 'to do today' list is manageable.

Blessed.

I ate sugar.

Confused.

I'd like to say that I had a really, really good reason to eat it - and perhaps I did.

I listened to the voice in my head that told me that I couldn't live another moment without a vanilla latte.

It was really a disappointment - I didn't even finish it.

I'm going to just be really honest here, because I really don't know how to be otherwise - I'm all mixed up in the head.  More and more I'm realizing that I have food and body image issues.  I suppose it's only normal to have them after I've spent the better part of 40 years of my life fighting blubber.

Am I a failure?

I don't know.

I don't think so.  I don't want to believe so.

When I step out of my body and look at myself - I question my sanity that I'm even talking about being a failure because I had a grande vanilla latte - and half of it at that.

I could go on and on - but I'm not.  I am actually starting to worry about what I say here about this subject because the last thing I want to do to any of you is confuse you or mislead you in anyway that 'I have the answer'.  I don't.  I'm in the trenches with you.

I put rules on myself, and then I change them.  I say 'never' a lot when it comes to food - and then feel like a complete and utter failure when that 'never' becomes 'always'.

I've tried every program under the sun - and the only one that has ever worked for me has been the Leanness Lifestyle

I still think that's the best program out there.

The reason that I'm not active there 'right now' (I know I will be again) is that I've formed a very unhealthy relationship with the scale, and tracking my food daily.

I know that many people would disagree with me - but for right now - I just need not to weigh myself and I need to not have any goals in place for weight loss.

It truly has changed my life, and instead of messing around with 100lbs to lose - I really have learned to manage my weight, truly eat right and what I'm dealing with now is just about 20lbs.

I feel like I look like King Kong though - I find myself wanting to hide - embarrassed to make eye contact with people.  Ashamed.  I beat myself up a lot.  I scold myself all the time.  I'm so hard on myself.  

If anyone ever treated me the way I am treating myself - I'd consider them abusive

 and not want them in my life.

And yet I continue - internally - to abuse myself.

I'm literally mentally exhausted.

It boils down to this.

I feel better without sugar.

As in - none.

I feel better physically, mentally and emotionally.

It's the being out of control of myself that I think bothers me the most.

One of my favorite writers Leo Babauta penned this on failure:

Here’s what I do:

• I take a breath. It’s not the end of the world to fail. I just need some space, some distance. I need to see the problem in perspective. When I do, I realize that the failure is pretty minor in the grand scheme of my life, in the grand scheme of the world of lives around me.
• I reframe the failure. Someone once said there isn’t failure, only feedback. That means the failure is just a point of information, a part of the learning process. I like to say, it’s not a failure of me as a person, just a failure of my method. Which means I need to change my method.
• I change the method. If the way I was doing it didn’t work, I need to find a new way. What can I do differently? In some of the cases above, I added some accountability, asked people for help, or looked for inspiration. In some of the other cases, I haven’t changed the method yet, to be honest.
• I take the first step. The problem can be overwhelming, because quite frankly we can’t solve any of this stuff overnight, or even in a few days. We can, however, take one step, right now. One tiny step. And that’s all that matters.

I'm going to stop talking now - because I could just go on and on, and that's not what I want to do.

What I wanted to do - and I'm doing it with great reservation - cause we all know how well the DeClutter Me panned out (sorry!)  I am starting this 'program' for lack of a better word - I'm going to start it this Thursday.  Now, that's not to say that I'm just going to be on a quest to clean all the candy out of Lake County until then - but I chose Thursday to give you time to see if you'd like to join me.

And - it's the first day of Spring and that just seems symbolic to me.

Click here...it's called Whole 30

I read the book, and it.is.good.

Really good.

This is what I did - and I made it 22 days.  So danged close.

I won't say anymore - just leave me a comment and let me know you are with me.

I'm doing it either way.

30 days.

Then - if you make it the 30 days - I think you should get yourself one of the Alex and Ani bracelets and we can wear them together and be our own little society.

What say ye?

Carefully consider this.

I'm not even thinking about losing weight right now - I just want to feel that I am the boss of me.  So I'm taking that step that Leo encourages me to do.

And to be further transparent here on the Webernet - I'm going to go as far as to say - I might need therapy to get to the bottom of my body image issues.

It's not fitting that I'm so hard on myself.

I think that maybe my failures are just feedback that something's not right.

I really need to get to the bottom of it, and perhaps change my method....

Vulnerably yours,