I am glad that you are coming along on this journey with me. I decided that I would just be honest with some of the struggles that I have with weight loss instead of painting a very rosy picture that makes me look pretty much perfect. I hope you will bear with me.
I met with my weight loss coach this week. The first time I talked to her I told her that I couldn’t give up fruit. No negotiation. I felt like with all my food allergies, I have given up so many wonderful foods, I could not be asked to give up anymore. She brought up the idea of giving up fruit again this week. I said with a perfectly straight face, “I can’t give up fruit right now, it’s cherry season”. We talked for a long time, she explained the reason was to “see what comes up” which is coach speak for “lets take away your buffers (a buffer is something that you use to avoid feeling emotion) and see what else you need to work on”. I know the reason that I hired her was to help me see what I am doing to sabotage weight loss that I can’t see myself. I am learning to lose weight the way I intend to keep it off, by learning habits that help me deal with all the emotions that I feel without turning to food for comfort or choosing another equally self-defeating buffer. After negotiating that “giving up fruit” only meant two weeks without fruit, I agreed to the experiment, thinking that I would eat all of the fruit in the fridge that day and start the next day. She didn’t go for that. The experiment of not eating fruit started that minute and everything came up. First, I could not BEGIN to imagine what on earth people ate if they didn’t eat gluten, sugar, dairy and now fruit. That was my first adult temper tantrum, “What am I supposed to eat?!!” Oddly enough, the answer was simple, I eat exactly what I eat every day minus the fruit. I felt urges – I talked about the urge jar last week. I added more beads in that day than I have in the past several weeks. It was hard.
The next day was temple day. I usually spend half a day in the temple and I usually fast, because I am so busy that I don’t have time to think about food. It was so easy. I thought I had mastered handling everything that comes up. I thought it was because I was so good at handling my emotions.
The next day, I was faced with a series of disappointments. Things that I needed to do that I didn’t want to do and things that I didn’t want to do that I needed to take care of. After about the fourth one, I stood in my kitchen crying because I felt terrible and I knew I could fix it with something sweet. I was neck deep in the river of misery. Another adult temper tantrum. I went to bed, a little sleep makes everything better. First thing the next morning, I went out to the garden and watered. This is where I find peace and quiet and answers. I knew that I needed to re-prioritize my time. I do not think I would have faced it so quickly if I had something to “buffer” with. I am pretty sure that more things are going to “come up” during this two-week experiment. I am learning faster than I did on my own and it’s hard. I don’t love swimming in the river of misery, and I wouldn’t even consider it if I didn’t want to learn the lesson of controlling urges and appetites.
By the way, the scale has budged just a little this week…
Is it possible that I was eating too much fruit??
