Slightly better, sadly no will power involved

Hi Guys. Thank you to those fellow bloggers who left messages of support after the last post. Your support means the whole world to me.

Just seen a brilliant ad on TV where a woman is getting a quote from a plumber (with a bad case of workman's bum!) and before he delivers the catastrophic news ie how much it's going to cost, an airbag inflates from her stomach to cushion her against the blow! And my only thought on watching this was that I have a built in airbag on me at the moment in the shape of my swollen stomach. There's a whole load of stuff in there about people using fat as a defence against the world ...

Anyway, as it says in the title, things are slightly better. I am eating a more moderate amount of food. But sadly this has nothing to do with will power or strength or resolve of any kind, and everything to do with me feeling really ill since Friday. On Friday morning I got up feeling very hungry - probably as a result of the sudden exertion on Thursday ie being out for a few hours - and so I ate a lot, a mountain of food for "breakfast", and felt incredibly ill afterwards for the rest of the day. And since then I have simply been unable to eat to excess again due to feeling so ill and having quite a bit of stomach pain.

I'd so like to say it was a conscious decision, that I was at last making sensible choices, better choices etc. But that is not the case. I am just being physically prevented from binge eating at the moment. It makes me think a lot of Lisa's decision (see Less of Lisa on blog list) to consider going for a gastric band.

What you eat, when you eat, how much you eat is all about habit. Once you are in a good habit it's quite easy to keep going - unless something upsets the apple cart of course (which is what always happens to me) - but if life gives me an even chance, with nothing too stressful going on I can keep it up. In fact I actually enjoy the challenge of having boxes to tick every day and getting into bed at the end of the day and being able to tick all those boxes. It gives you a sense of achievement. Even when I cry every step of a walk due to the pain of my psoriasis - and I've done plenty of that earlier this year - I can enjoy the immense satisfaction afterwards that I've actually done it.

So the problem isn't doing it, but getting into it in the first place. Getting into the habit of eating much less and moving far more - getting to that place is very difficult. Because every aspect of your being is set up to expect large amounts of food and/or calorie dense foods, both physically and psychologically. To overturn all those expectations is really hard work, igoring your body's constant demands for food, and doing exercise which (at first) as you're doing it just makes you feel really bad physically, requires an iron will. If you are not in a place of any psychological strength at the start then it can become insurmountable.

As you may have guessed, dear reader, I am not in a place of any psychological strength right now. Therefore the facility of willpower is not readily available to me.

So my body is, for once, giving me a helping hand in making me too ill to eat too much in one go.

Frightened

Hi everyone. Well there would have been a post last night but when I had all but completed it I managed to press a button and lost the whole lot. Couldn't get it back. And I really wanted to type it all out again immediately while I still had it all in my mind, but I was just too tired at 1am to do it.


I did manage my walk on Mon night and it was wonderful! I didn't manage to get out until 5 to 10 but when I got outside the gate it was so delightful ... lovely and cool and dark and very few people around. I started walking through the streets not knowing how far I would be going. I was listening to George Michael - Patience. There's been a love affair there since I was 11 and heard Careless Whisper! I was almost happy enough to be dancing down the street, but sadly it was nearer waddling ...


I managed quite a decent walk up a hill and then back again. Totally chilled out with George crooning in my ears. Bliss! When I got back I had fish, veg and salad. I was really pleased with myself! Bed at 4am.


Tue I didn't manage to get out but had a bit of exercise doing my laundry going up and down stairs as the washer is in the basement and my flat is in the attic. I had a proper evening meal again. Bed at 3am.

Wed was more difficult. I was too scared to go out during the day but badly need to as I had nothing in for a healthy eve meal. Later on as I was just psyching myself up for the dreaded trip outdoors I heard noise downstairs - they were having a bit of a party. I just couldn't face walking past, being seen by so many people (potentially).


I was so upset. I realised I was quite agitated from not having had any exercise.


All the time I was bingeing I was very hot and very agitated. I was putting so much energy into myself and there was nowhere for it to go - except in heat and agitation of the mind. I was unable to walk any of it off due to agoraphobia, embarrassment over my size and just a complete disinclination to do anything or go anywhere.


I often slept very little - only 3 hours a night - and never wanted to get into bed. My mind never wanted to shut off. The toddler inside never wanted to go to bed - why is it that kids hate having to go to bed? I don't know. But when the toddler has the upper hand making myself get into bed is a real struggle.


My target bedtime for wed had been 2am but I only made it into bed at 3am. At least it's a lot better than 6 or 7am. I am going to try for 2am tonight. And the last couple of nights I have wanted to get into bed.


My title for yesterday was "Normalizing?" My eating is certainly a lot better. I haven't binged now for over a week. It has been in my mind at times. Many times.


Last week I was concentrating on readjusting my body to come off high fat/ high sugar foods. And to stop bingeing. And I was successful in both those aims. I ate a lot of carbs (rice cakes, corn cakes, rivita, Readybrek) sugar free jam, a little honey, ham and turkey, plenty of fruit and sugar free yoghurt. But I didn't restrict the amount I ate and it doesn't take a genius to work out that 4 meals a day each coming in at over 1000 calories (minimum) is still going to put on weight. But it was about re-educating my taste buds and stomach without feeling deprived of calories.


So this week I am concentrating on cutting down on the amount of carbs and having my eve meal of fish, veg and salad. I am on 6 bowls of Readybrek or ground rice porridge a day + some fruit + eve meal. Still too much. I hope soon to be down to three bowls a day.


Despite still eating quite large amounts the puffiness in my face has gone down a little bit which does make me feel a little more confident in facing the world. And because I am no longer eating wheat the swelling of my bowel has gone down some too. I can't tolerate wheat and it always makes my whole bowel swell up. But that doesn't stop me eating it when I binge of course.

And my skin has started to look dramatically better as well - despite only having taken one antihistamine a day the last few days. This tells me my body needs veg and salad and it needs regular exercise. Although I still have psoriasis on my hands and feet whatever I do. It's PPP psoriasis which is incredibly treatment resistant.

So all this looks like good progress .... But can I keep going?


Well today hasn't been so good so far. I am too frightened to go out yet again. I am thinking I'll have to self harm to be able to get myself out the door - and I won't even attempt it for a couple of hours yet. I get to the stage where I'm so angry at myself, so pissed off and frustrated that I just have to let all that anger out. And no, thumping a pillow doesn't do anything for me!

This morning I had 4 bowls of Readybrek made only with water as I am virtually out of milk. And then because I was frightened about not being able to get out and get anymore food - I have pretty well nothing in to eat at all - I started thinking of what I did have - a tin of salmon, a tin of baked beans and a packet of new potatoes in herb butter. And I was so frightened over the prospect of not getting out today that I ate all all the potatoes (I don't even like potatoes) and 1/2 the baked beans and 1/2 the salmon. It doesn't sound like that much looking at it now. But I was in a state and upset that I'd eaten stuff I didn't need and didn't want to eat and I'd already had too much Readybrek ... so I threw it back up ... worrying all the time that not enough was coming back up... And then of course that just made me feel like crying...

So now I have been blogging rather than crying ...

I still have to face the outdoors but it is very overcast now so I feel confident that I will make it out there - whether self harming or no. But now I am worried that I will buy binge foods and undo all the good work over the last week or so.

The bingeing has been hovering in my mind all the time of course. I have been able to resist. But right now I don't know ...

Reading this back just now it probably seems strange that someone with agoraphobia can enjoy a walk, but my problem is mainly the terror of going outside. Once I get out there sometimes I don't feel too bad. But the fear of crossing the threshold is incredible, like a stone wall in front of me stopping me getting out. And this fear of going over the threshold is not linked to my weight at all. It's like that whatever size I am. The stress I experience when I get out there though, that is more linked to how I look. If I am bigger then I am worried about people looking at me, at seeing people I know, upset that I look such a mess etc.

It's 6pm now and time to face the dreaded outdoors. Wish me luck ...

Ok. So I have now discovered what so many of you know already - blogging and reading blogs is addictive! I'm totally addicted. I'm even getting that "rush" that all addicts get when they are about to *indulge*.

I have read so many good things today. So many brave people out there who are willing to tell the truth about the difficult things going on in their lives. Things which I have thought about, or issues which have real meaning for me, but which I would have shied away from writing about myself. It's amazing the sense of relief that comes from realising "I'm not the only one", and from thinking "me too"... That there are so many people out there battling similar problems and not giving up. I just feel so grateful for all this.

Reading JackSh*t (see blog list) today made me think about how I got into my current bingeing hole. Through April, May and June of this year I worked so hard getting myself back onto the straight and narrow. And God it was hard. I spent most of April getting my food intake down - first to a reasonable level (I won't say normal because I don't even know what that is anymore), then by May my intake was at a level where I could actually lose some weight, and I kept going religously from May through to early July not stepping out of line on the eating front one single time. I thought I had it cracked! Ha ha.

And for three solid months I also exercised at least three times a week, often more than that, walking for at least an hour and a half each time. And this was no mean feat because I was in pain all the time. My psoriasis at that time was only on my hands and feet, but these are the most painful places to have it. One of my feet was so bad I was usually limping for the whole walk. I started to call myself "ol' hop along". Many times I was crying and telling myself to "just push through the pain". It frustrated me that I was only able to walk so slowly. The distance that would normally take 90 mins would sometimes take 2hrs in extreme pain. But I was determined!

And then one day in July a guy said to me "You've lost weight haven't you". And it all unravelled from there. As soon as he said it I knew there was a problem. But for the life in me, I don't know why. Three days later I started bingeing again.

It was on a Sunday afternoon in Cafe Nero. I ordered a large Mocha and a piece of chocolate chunk fudge cake - definitely the best chocolate cake ever! And after that I went to KFC and had a full meal with a sundae for afters. And from there it was open season. I daren't even write about all the stuff I've eaten since then because I'm desperate not to set myself off again. But let's just say *vast amounts of food*. I think that covers it. And I only vomited after eating three times in the last six weeks of hell. And each of those times was after I'd actually eaten healthy food. How screwy is that?

So now I'm back to where I was weightwise at the beginning of April.

Back then I had read an article about a family of four who weighed about 83 stone (that's 1162 lbs for US readers) between them. Sadly they lived in quite a rough place where people called them names in the street - including referring to them as "the Teletubbies". When I looked in the mirror and realised there was a teletubbie looking back at me, that was when I knew I had to change. Now the teletubbie is back again and I've got to go through the whole battle yet again.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

The 5am Post

Well here I am posting in the small hours of the morning, though as this blog is set to some US time zone it will probably look like I wrote it at a much more reasonable time. Why am I writing this in the middle of the night? Because I've been on antihistamines from the moment I got up to try and calm my skin down. They do cut the itching and my skin does look a little better, but they also put me half to sleep. It's pretty well impossible to do anything very much when I'm taking them - like trying to do something blind drunk, but with no enjoyment thrown in.

Between 2 and 4 hours after I take the first dose I am barely awake and then when that wears off and I start to feel alert - and start itching again - it means it's time to take the second dose.

So what with that and the fact that I went to bed at about 6am yesterday (also because of the antihistamines) I've only just got to the point in the day of being compos mentis.

Well at least I don't have to drink any alcohol to put myself into oblivion ...

So how have I done the last couple of days? Well I woke up on Friday crying and totally wiped out from having been out for several hours on Thursday. I felt so delicate, both psychologically and physically. I just couldn't face going out again so I didn't go to healing at the library. I hardly ever miss it - even in the last 6 weeks when things have been so bad, I only missed it one other time. And that was because it was too hot to go out in my coat.

Normally when I don't go to healing I feel really really bad, but on Friday I was too drowsy to get upset about it. I've hardly missed a Friday healing in the last 8 1/2 years. It's my fixed point of the week, and I don't feel complete if I don't go. It's not just the healing itself - 15 to 20 mins of total relaxation, total safety, grounding, and healing energy going all the way through you. It's the opportunity to socialise, to say hello to everyone, a few words here and there with people I've been chatting to for so many years ...

For someone as isolated as me, this is as important as the healing itself. In the last 6 weeks I have hardly chatted to anyone else apart from those people I see at healing.

Except The Bear of course!

It's at times like this when I feel so bad about myself that he is the only person I trust. Because he's seen me at my very worst and not rejected me. This makes it very special. He accepts me whatever I look like and whatever I feel like inside.

But sadly I don't get to chat to him that often, or spend much time with him.

As far as my eating goes, I'm sticking to low fat foods but not restricting my intake. I have eaten one small galaxy bar but downed two Orlistat with it. The next stage will be cutting down on the amount of food I'm eating and then trying to get into a regular pattern of good eating again - which includes having a proper evening meal of fish, salad and vegetables.

This, for me, is the most difficult bit when I've been on a food bender. Salad and vegetables are very challenging when you've only been eating rubbish, or even when you've only been eating mainly lowfat carbs, fruit and yoghurt as I am now. It's a big jump to make. When I'm eating that proper evening meal again it means I'm really "doing it"; really back on my diet. And that's real pressure, because it means that everything I eat then "counts". I will have fully stepped back into reality at that point.

Bingeing is like stepping out of reality for a while; like nothing you eat will actually put on any weight. That's what enables me to eat huge, ridiculous amounts of food. I am not connected to the reality of my situation or my life anymore. Only to the enjoyment of eating in that moment. And it is only momentary enjoyment. Sometimes even between items of food - say between one chocolate bar and another - I wish I could stop. I keep saying no more to myself even as I am reaching for the next thing to eat.

Getting back into exercising is even more difficult ...

So how do I get there? Sadly not because I love myself too much to hurt myself anymore. It's nothing to do with self love. I only ever manage to get back into it because I've become totally suicidal over not being able to go out, not having a life and looking so dreadful. Suicidal over having destroyed my appearance yet again ...

One motivator that has got me back on track the last few times is a man I fell in love with in 2005 (after I had split up with The Bear). I haven't seen this man in over 4 years now. I don't expect I ever shall see him again - and I really wouldn't want to looking like this!

We met on a course. There was this incredible chemistry between us, but we never spoke a word about it. We were never alone without other people there. He was married, so it was impossible. And he was far too honourable ever to do anything he shouldn't. So our feelings were silent and when the course ended we carried on our separate ways.

And I have never even fancied anyone since then, let alone fallen in love.

So the motivator is fantasising about seeing this man, reigniting the chemistry again. Fantasising about him being free to pursue a relationship.

Yet it's not really about this particular man - because I fully accept that that could never happen. It's about what he stands for; the idea of him. Because he was so perfect, and I was so amazed that someone so perfect could ever fall for someone like me; someone so imperfect.

I know some people will think it's wrong to be motivated by a man, that we should do it for our selves, because we love ourselves etc. But this is my reality, however politically incorrect it is ...

Oh God I'm itching really badly again. I'm going to have to go to bed now.

I may be going to see The Bear tomorrow so at least that is something to look forward to. But only if the weather is cold enough ...

Post Orlistat

Well I managed to break the fatty food habit for this week. I used the Orlistat method over the weekend and I've been suitably turned off fatty food. Of course it helped that the morning after the first 2 doses I woke up to an unfortunate accident with horrid orange gloop all over a sheet and the duvet I sleep on (mattress is so lumpy I sleep on top of 2 duvets). I was very glad it didn't go onto the mattress itself - at least I was able to wash away the damage - but it was a scary and disgusting way to start the day.

Luckily I only had to take it for 3 days to have the desired effect in my head. But that was traumatic enough. How people take it for months on end I have no idea. Presumably someone will (or maybe has?) invented a suitably shaped anal sanitary towel to deal with this problem. Sorry for the disgustingness of that idea!! Just being practical .... and there is a market out there for such a product ...

In my last post I talked about being unable to take the Orlistat. So what changed? Well, I reached the point where I was so distressed about the situation, about not being able to leave the house because I am so embarrassed about how much weight I have put on, about my fatness being on view to the whole world because it has been too hot here to go out without my mac on; the idea of my shame being exposed to the whole world just got too overwhelming.

And then there's my psoriasis. Every time I binge the areas of psoriasis literally burn afterwards. 6 weeks ago before I started this bingeing episode it was only on my hands and feet. Now it is all over my body and very very itchy. This is due entirely to eating rubbish. It will probably take quite a long time to calm down. And that's only if I can keep myself on the straight and narrow.

Yesterday I had an appointment and so had to go out. As I've barely been out in the last few weeks this was quite a big deal. It took me at least an hour to put together something to wear - some turned up Topshop cargo pants which I had bought the last time I was big and thought I'd never wear again (I had thought what a waste of money they were ... I wish) and a loose Monsoon silk shirt over ribbed vest top. I did the lower buttons of the shirt up to cover my large stomach but as it was thin silk I don't know how effective the disguise was!

I amazed myself by doing quite OK while I was out. I even went and did some shopping afterwards at a centre near the hospital which I usually never visit - which might sound really brave given my agoraphobia, but that was easier than using shops where I am known because at least strangers won't be looking at me and thinking how much weight I've suddenly put on.

Because I felt OK at the time I was able to do Good Shopping - rice cakes, sugar free jam, dried fruit, raspberries and strawberries, ham and turkey, fat free cottage cheese, a little salad, fat free yoghurt. And because I was calm I wasn't tempted by anything I shouldn't be buying. As I've said before, it's all in the shopping.

Bingeing hell; time to return to normal life

Just seen some research which explains why bingeing is so addictive - it creates opioids in areas of the brain linked to that behaviour (see http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159011.php . I have noticed that I literally get a hit from eating fatty sugary food. And that I can cut out this hit by using orlistat. It takes two to three days for this to happen but then I don't crave it anymore.

I take two or three capsules per binge or sometimes more (this is an overdose but it is only for 2 to 3 days). I break the capsules open and tap the powder out onto a spoon to take because the colouring in the capsules (bright blue) makes me feel quite ill. Also this enables the stuff to get to work straight away which means the maximum amount of fat is absorbed, which is important for this method to work.

So, knowing this, why don't I just take the orlistat? I almost did this evening after consuming a magnum double caramel, a galaxy bar, a box of Milk Tray, a box of cherry and chocolate biscuits and a packet of Party Rings. But I just couldn't do it.

Why?

I have been massively overeating, bingeing and literally eating all day long for the past 5 weeks. It's feeling really awful now. So many times I have desperate to stop. I have begged myself to stop, but just been unable.

It's like being led through life like a beast with a ring through it's nose; dragged along by my blood sugar levels, and the need for a fat hit in my brain.

But now I feel like a complete mess. I've put on loads of weight and I'm covered in horrible itchy psoriasis. So I am a wobbly blotchy itchy mess.

Everything has been subserviant to the out of control toddler (the uncontrollable Id). I've only been cleaning my teeth twice a week. I've been eating in the night, going to bed in the middle of the night, only washed my hair three times in the last five weeks. The toddler complains everytime I even have to get up out of the chair or go to the loo. Doing anything at all becomes very difficult. Apart from eating of course.

JC (Jonathan Cainer) is always right of course - my horoscope says that it's no good eating 2 meals now just because you were hungry earlier and had nothing to eat. He suggests I now move on from the recent trauma. He is so right! I need to move on from here.

I am at the stage now where it's all in the shopping. If I don't buy the food I can't eat it. Simple as that. It's just a case of being strong while I go round the supermarket and not popping out to the convenience store late a night to stock up on rubbish.

I say 'popping out' as though it's the easiest thing in the world but as a sufferer from agoraphobia it is only a very strong desire for food that would drive me out in the first place! But if I have enough good or 'safe' food in then I won't step over the threshold in any hurry.

It's definitely time to move on from here and return to normal life, rather than just sitting around eating.