November 2, 2009.

two weeks in and i’ve barely progressed, mostly because i’ve had a bad cold that took a long time to get over. but alas, the plans are there and i feel really excited about it. and even with the cold i’ve been to the gym more in the past two weeks than the past few months. 2011 NYC marathon here i come! i have an initial training schedule mapped out. it’s really just walking, but i’m pretty much starting from scratch right now, so that’s what i can do. plus, i’m really heavy, and running at my weight would probably not be a good idea. but having a plan and a goal in place feels great. it’s good to have that focus and structure. i want to follow through on this. intend to follow through. i know there will be set backs, but i like having a goal. it’s much clearer than the typical i ’should’ be exercising this much per week. as a wise friend said recently, “should means no.” so i want to say no to exercising 3-5 times per week, i think, yes, that’s true. the petulant me doesn’t want to have to do anything. but when i think about saying yes to running a marathon in 2 years, then what that means in terms of training falls into place.  if i want to run this marathon, this is what that means, and my poor little brain says, OK. if i say, you’re supposed to exercise this much, my poor little brain pushes back. it seems a bit crazy to have these sorts of psychological run arounds, but at this point, i don’t care what it is that works, only that it seems to be working.

it’s interesting to reflect this back to the gabriel method. there’s something about listening to your heart in all of this. i have wanted to live in new york for a long time. i have wanted to find something to motivate me to exercise in a long time and have wanted to do something significant like a marathon or an AIDS ride or something. and i really want to feel great about where i am when i hit 40. it’s a 3-fer. three things coming together all at once that are building into a best version of myself. this doesn’t feel like pressure to exercise. it feels like an exciting goal. it feels like awakening that part of myself, long dormant, that has great talent and great motivation and is able to achieve. it feels like something from my heart. that i am capable of doing this huge thing. this seemingly crazy goal. this massive task that most people don’t take on. it feels true. true to myself and my capabilities. true to my process.

if you are emotionally obese, as i am, then doing the emotional work really is they key to it all. therapy and acupuncture have opened me back up. my therapist keeps asking me where am i in all of my strife? not prominent, unless as a person who tells herself the story that she is ruled by this family and these problems. and so if I’m truthful, I do have all these wants and desires and things I think about, but think about fleetingly and without much conviction or attention, and that I deflect all of this with my family and my past and the trauma I experienced from that. and so in fact, it IS about me, but about me in these stories and not me in my own story. so the marathon goal is about writing my own story, about stepping out of my family’s story and penning something completely different. as crazy as it seems, as far fetched as it seems, it’s just a story. and this is the one i’m going to choose to tell myself.

October 24, 2009

I have been completely derailed by this cold and have not really exercised at all this week. I’m eager for it to be over, but am still coughing and a bit weary, so it’s going to be a couple more days. My body wants to move, but I really have to be careful what I ask of it. I did go for a light walk, about 1.5 miles, maybe a bit more, but at a pretty slow pace. I was worn out at the end, but it felt good to move. I should do the same tomorrow. Maybe a circuitous route to the farmers market at at easy pace. I’m hopeful that I’ll get back into the swing of things again soon.

On another note, I got an email from my mom asking me and my brother to come home for the holidays. I haven’t written back yet, but am finding that I’m really, really angry. Not at her, but at my dad. They are in debt again, and I’m pissed at him for continuing to be so reckless and irresponsible. I feel like maybe I should look at Al-Anon groups. I’m SO not into the AA model. I think it can be useful for a lot of people, but the whole God/higher power thing is really not my schtick. Nonetheless, I feel a bit like I’m stuck in some adult-child-of-an-alcoholic kind of space with it. It’s really sad, because after all that I went through with my mom, she and I are doing so well, and I would really like to see her. But I frankly can’t imagine being in the same house with my dad. I’ve been able to fake it over the phone, but I don’t know that I could sleep under the same roof and sit there and not say anything. I don’t think I know how to do that. I’m just too pissed. So therapy is Tuesday and that will have to be what I put forth.

October 20, 2009.

so it’s totally premature to be talking about this, but i’m totally excited for my crazy goal of doing a marathon in two years. i worked out two days, and today is supposed to be a rest day (i’m trying to get myself on a marathon training schedule) AND i’ve got a head cold, but i really want to go to the gym and keept the momentum going. my muscles want to work. my lungs want to breathe deep. it’s fascinating to me…the evasiveness of motivation.

i’m often a rather dopamine-free person. part of being depressed for a very long time. i don’t have a lot of natural get up and go. i’m what you’d call sluggish. which doesn’t make me a couch potato. i get my work done, i get out, i do stuff with friends several times a week, etc. and my rule of never staying home to watch TV when i have another offer has never been violated, and is a really helpful practice. but i don’t have ragingly high ambitions. i’m pretty OK with it and in fact think that america is a bit overly-ambitious. really, do we all need to make MORE money and have MORE stuff and DO more and yet continue to FEEL worse and worse? but i also miss the spark side of that. the oomph to be motivated. the drive to do. the feeling of being motivated and caring about something.

honestly, and i may have said this before here, i think i’ve been depressed most of my life. and i think my early life’s response to that was to strive to overcome myself. i was an overachiever from probably age 10 to my early 30s. and then i crashed. it’s as though i wore out my whole system, used up all the dopamine, all the adrenaline, and now have none left.

so i have to figure out how to recharge my system. a friend said: your energetic vulnerability is helping you get clear on what you need. i had the thought the other day that i really needed to put my physical needs at the very very top. sleep. then exercise. then eating. then second comes work. third is key (but not extravagant) social. fourth is all the rest—which is especially important considering my apartment is torn apart from the bed bug situation. but it is this that has to live at the bottom of the continuum. i have to build every day around sleeping and exercising. because when i do this, the rest falls into place almost on its own.

and then i always think of meat as the key to amino acid balance, but dopamine is supported by almonds, avocados, bananas, dairy products, lima beans, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds, all of which have not really been in my diet lately. so it’s time to even just start eating a few almonds.

but really, i’m just excited to be excited. about pretty much anything. i reserved a book at the library about beginner’s marathon running. and am just happy to be feeling that drive to move my body again. whee! now i just need to get rid of this cold!

October 18, 2009.

two months since i’ve written and a lot has gone down. i’ve pretty much dropped out of supporting my mother through the stuff with my dad and their financial problems. i can’t. it’s their life, their mistakes, their choices. i will have to probably deal with it at some point, but i can’t play parent to them AND myself at the same time. it’s bad enough that i have to go in deep and parent myself in all these ways that they should have. i can’t do it for them, too.

acupuncture is at about the two month mark. the difference is marked. headaches are much much less frequent. and getting to sleep is pretty easy now. i find myself drifting off much more quickly and sleeping well more nights than not. sleep is not perfect, but it is eons better.

therapy has been great. i really like my therapist. she has a very distinct and intuitive approach. there is a lot of good stuff happening there. i’m finding it easier to be happy, easier to take care of myself and my needs, and i’m starting to envision and participate in my life a bit more.

and through all of this, with things personally looking up, i’ve been dealing with bed bugs, which has been horrendous and has stymied my moods and well-being a great deal. i could write a whole blog about this experience. but i won’t. suffice it to say, the last couple of months have been extraordinarily up and down.

so i’ve not really been exercising and my eating has been only moderate. but it is still nice to not feel that i’m dieting. and i do still feel that my relationship to the whole thing is more balanced. and i still haven’t gained back any of the weight i lost. so that part is really great. in my past strategies, i would have been at least 10 lbs heavier than when i started. and felt horrible about it all on top of it. now i just feel like i’m engaged in some longer term process.

on another note, i read a recent blog post by a friend that inspired me. she was writing about a friend who competed in her first triathalon at age 50. i’m about to turn 38. and while i’m so very very far away from being that kind of athlete, it makes me feel like i want a goal. i’ve never been an athlete. never desired to overachieve in that way. but i do know that having some sort of long-distance thing can motivate me. when i was 24, i did a 126-mile walk. i remember training for it and loving having a schedule to stick to. and a thing to work towards. so here’s what i’m thinking: two years from now, i want to run the New York marathon. AACK! it’s scary to put that out there, but it feels right. i need something to move myself. to feel like a milestone i can work towards: new york, 40th birthday, huge fitness accomplishment. i want to get fit. and it just feels like having that to work toward will provide structure for it. i’m thinking that the goal will be to walk a marathon a year from now—simply by adding a half mile every week on a long walk each week, in addition to other exercise. and then the next six months will get me up and running and then the final six months will be actual marathon training. it may be completely unrealistic, but then again, it may be completely realistic—and just the thing to move me. it’s the first time i’ve felt motivated by desire, rather than a sense of guilt about what i ’should’ be doing. so i’m going to try this on for a while and see where it goes. wish me luck! and hopefully i’ll be chronicling it all a bit more here.

time slips ever fast, instantly becoming the past…

i’ve been m.i.a. from this blog for awhile. but i’m still working the gabriel method. just in a distinctly different way. but several things i want to get down before they escape me.

i’m up, when i should be headed to bed, as is my pattern, but listening to a great r&b album from the early 90s. there was this amazing optimism in hip hop and r&b then. it was so moving and free flowing and full of feeling. i remember being 22, just out of university, living on the southside of chicago, driving around on humid summer nights blasting this particular album and singing along. i remember everyone out on their stoops to escape the heat of their buildings. i remember feeling like i was free, embarking on my life. i remember loving this record.

it evokes such a distinct feeling of almost letting go. of feeling so very ready to just fly. just go. just be. but i wasn’t quite that person. not that i didn’t, but just that i didn’t go the whole way. and it reminds me so much of that feeling. of carefree-ness. of movement, of optimism in the struggle rather than just struggle.

so on to the struggle…in the past few months, some serious shit has gone down. in short, my parents are in debt for the 4th time in their marriage. and i’m not talking about major purchases, i’m talking excessive consumer debt. i’ve been providing emotional and practical support for my mother, who doesn’t have anyone else she feels she can talk to about this. they are in therapy, but therapy still requires people to show up and do the work, and the problems in my parents’ marriage are deep and wide. so this will be a long haul, if it is even possible of really being healed/fixed. and i am PISSED at my dad. for putting our family in this position. for giving all of us his debt rather than financial stability.

and this all leads to one of the big pieces of the gabriel method: emotional obesity and feeling safe. i have realized that i have never felt safe or secure. i worry about money all the time. i worry about never having enough. i worry about my parents ending up broke and destitute. i worry about my brother doing the same. i worry about all the work i’ve done to create my own financial stability will not be enough or be eaten up by my family who can’t manage their money. add this to the lack of emotional stability growing up with a verbally and emotionally abusive mother and it’s no wonder i am where i’m at.

all this has led to a full blown panic attack, residual anxiety for several days, and a massive migraine where i threw up for a half a day. clearly some shit is up!

and so i am doing a few things differently right now. first, i’m seeing an acupuncturist. she’s amazing. it’s a slow shift. but it’s helping. i think i have a lot of crap to move in my body and this is a good start. and i’m back in therapy. first to deal with the imminent practical issue of approaching my family differently. second to address this safety and security issue. it is never going to come from my family. and i need to learn how to tend it myself. third, i have been pretty regularly taking 5-htp, which is a precursor to seratonin. it has really really helped. it’s made me feel ready to get back to exercise, which i’ve been doing again in the past week or so.

and in the spirit of put-it-down-on-paper-and-see-what-happens, two things: 1) i’m going to take a french class this fall. i miss the language and being able to speak it. it’s so beautiful. and 2) i’m going to move to new york at the first of the year. there has to be some end date to this process of wanting to move, and it would make sense for my business to make a clean cut at the end of the tax year.

so that’s where i am. i hope to get back to writing more. but no more lists of what i ate. i’m not on a diet anymore right? this is a process about fixing what is broken and supporting my spirit and body. so listing food seems pointless. i need to focus on all the emotional tending that my poor soul needs. and to find again that feeling you get when driving with the windows down.

p.s. very interestingly, whatever weight i lost at the beginning of this process has stayed off. that is distinctly NOT my normal pattern of lose and gain it all back, often plus some. so that give me great confidence. it will all come in its due time.

Find Your Way, Dionne Farris

Never knowing in the dark, in the light, when the world will change
Eliminating all the fear, all the sadness in the falling rain
Touch my heart, touch my soul, lead me into the light of a new day
Time slips ever fast, instantly becoming the past

Chorus:
You’ve gotta find your way before it’s too late

Endless sky, yours and mine, for to see all our dreams to come
With all you see, focus your energies on what is to be done
Live your life, love yourself, know that everything has just begun
Time slips ever fast, instantly becoming past

July 14 & 30, 2009

well, went to sleep about 10:30 last night and woke up at…5 am! i guess that’s an improvement…? le petit sigh. what is it with my body/brain and 5am right now? i’ll try again tonight. i’m starting acupuncture on saturday. we’ll see if that helps with the insomnia.

what i ate:

• three glasses matcha, milk, agave. hard boiled egg.
• brown rice and saag paneer. millet crackers.
• fruit and nut bar.
• raw cereal: strawberries, 1/2 nectarine, raw almonds, raw buckwheat groats, almond milk

UPDATE: July 30, 2009

yikes… this is from over two weeks ago. i have still been struggling with my sleep. i did begin acupuncture almost two weeks ago. i’m not sure it is helping yet. i have had a few good nights, and just as many insomniac nights. when sleep suffers, nothing else goes smoothly. i do wish i could get a sleep study, but have no health insurance and the costs are much too expensive to pay for out of pocket. and i think in the midst of lack of sleep plus deadlines, tracking my food every day seems rather impossible. (how did i find time for this at the beginning of this blog several months ago?)

on the plus side, i still haven’t gained weight back. so that’s good. on the negative side, in addition to rough sleep, i haven’t been doing the meditation or going to the gym at all. and i am still flowing in and out of depression. i had a really bad episode about a day after my first acupuncture treatment. i was sobbing for the better part of a day. it can be a side effect of blocked emotions breaking open, which is good to release that. there is a lot of work here.

honestly, i think i need to revisit this process a bit. i think i need to really dig deeper in the emotional parts of this. i think i need to refocus on simply getting sleep and doing the meditation and facing my emotional stuff. it’s really complex—every time i listen to the audio book i have some new revelation. and the sobbing after acupuncture threw me. i have some work to do. and i think need to focus my writing and attention on that.

July 13, 2009

wow… i guess i’ve dropped out of this process for about a week. the insomnia did me in. i just didn’t have the space to keep track of my daily habits. last week was a doozy. three nights of less than 5 hours of sleep. and the other nights weren’t a whole lot better. the weekend brought a two-day headache that seems to now finally be at bay. (i think my neck is out of alignment.) all this coupled with some significant work deadlines and i just fell off…

at any rate, to get back to it (which it feels like i’ve been trying to do for months now!) i have to engage with the following: supplements, eating right, tracking my consumption and activity, getting to the gym, doing the meditation, and getting adequate rest. i’m still trying to change too much at once. this is my pattern. i’ve fallen off, but somehow think that i can turn around and be perfect and disciplined and do all things for my body i’m supposed to do. as always, where is the fucking balance in any of this? i don’t have it. i swing back and forth between striving to do everything right, and having it largely fall apart. i did find that sweet spot for awhile. i’d like to find it again. so i think i also have to devote some spare time to revisiting the gabriel method. listening to the audio book and really doing the meditation.

what i ate:

• tyrosine, 2 fish oil caps, probiotic, enzyme
• two glasses matcha, milk, agave. raw cereal: strawberries, 1/2 nectarine, raw almonds, raw buckwheat groats, almond milk
• some millet crackers. bit of caramel ice cream.
• brown rice and saag paneer. 8 small squares dark chocolate.
• small piece of grass-fed beef. caesar salad. small bag of potato chips. pint strawberry ice cream. (blech. i just kept eating it… mindless eating…)

i think i have a really hard time with eating reasonably when i’m so tired. my body needs to get energy somewhere…

i also listened to the gabriel method audio book today, the first part. a phrase stood out that hadn’t before. this is my heart’s desire and i will allow these changes to take place in my life. i think i focus so much on what i’m supposed to be DOING and forget to focus on what i WANT. i can DO til the cows come home and will always fall short. because no one is perfect. but what do i WANT?

i want to be fit. i want to be able to move without getting so easily winded. i want to be able to be out all day and not have my body ache at the end of it. i want to be able to climb the stairs and not die at the top. i want to know that i can move to new york and survive it. and have the energy to enjoy it.

i want to be able to buy better clothes. i want to not have all my tops have to be knits to fit around my gargantuan breasts. i want to feel cute again. and feeling cute again would start to happen in just a couple of sizes. i.e., any loss is going to make me feel better in my clothes. it’s not only going to happen 100 lbs from now. it will start to happen 20 lbs from now.

i want to have food not be so hard. i want to just eat like a normal person. not obsessing over it. not restricting it. not gorging on it. just eating to feed myself. (i think i’m still not giving myself permission to eat. i don’t eat very big meals and then i’m hungry again shortly and then my whole life becomes about food and then i end up eating a pint of ice cream.) (god, seriously, no wonder this is ingrained. i remember being put on a diet in my pre-teens and getting a small piece of fish and a half a peach for lunch and, wonder of wonders, i’d sneak food later.) (FUCK!) (FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!)

i want to move to new york. and every day here leaves me feeling short of something that i really want in life. that i’ve wanted since i was a teenager. i was supposed to go to college in new york. my parents prevented me. i moved to chicago as soon as i could, but it just isn’t the same. i only finally went to new york when i was 31 and it was magic. my whole entire energy shifted. and now 6 years later i’m still in california. and not happy. and wishing i was somewhere else. and it makes me depressed and bored and lacking the motivation to actually get to the place that will help lift all that. it’s become a viscious cycle.

i want. i want to be free of this struggle. i want things to be easier. i want this to change forever and for the last time, for me to never struggle with my weight again, for it to manage itself, for my body to just know what to do, to remember what it already knows how to do, to feel SAFE at a healthy weight rather than at this awful, heavy, difficult, depressed, sedentary place.

and right now, i want to feel rested. so i’m going to go to sleep. at 9:30 pm.

July 6, 2009

Got woken up at 5:30 am to itchy hands. Blech. I don’t know what it could be coming from. I have been really good about gluten. Stress? Could my malaise and the upcoming load of work this week be enough to trigger this? About a year and a half ago, I took everything out of my diet: caffeine, all sugar (even agave), wheat, dairy, corn, alcohol, etc. It made a pretty big difference in the rash. Maybe it’s time to do that again. It was seriously sucky and boring and hard though. Crap…

What I ate:

• two glasses matcha, milk, agave. hard boiled egg.
• nut and fruit bar.
• yogurt indian chicken. salad with pecans, blue cheese, mineolas. 8 small squares dark chocolate.
• millet crackers with cream cheese.
• coconut ice cream.
• heirloom beans with a bit of parmesan. strawberries.
• drinks for friend’s birthday

and july 7…today has been madness. ok eating. too much work. out to dinner tonight with a new client… madness! when am i going to get back to the gym? back to a schedule? i wish i could force myself to do it, but i’m just not good at that… ack! though maybe this is all lack of sleep talking. oh, how last minute pressure makes me thrive at work but otherwise completely wears me out…

lovely dinner meeting with a friend. two drinks. we split some ceviche to start. and then i got my entree and just ate until i felt like stopping. i may have had 1/3 of my meal. i was simply satisfied and didn’t need anything else. and i didn’t have any sense of urgency about it. it was a nice thing to notice. that has been a big thing that i’ve noticed from the gabriel method. i have an easier time just stopping. not feeling like i need to taste more or have more or worried that i won’t have this again soon so i want to really appreciate eating it. i just eat. and then am just simply done.

July 5, 2009

Yesterday was…well…depressing. I’m not totally sure why. General malaise. It hits sometimes. I suffer from periodic depression. No wonder, given my family history and experience growing up. I can mostly manage it. But sometimes it comes back anyway. Time to sleep as much as I can, force myself back to the gym, and cut sugar out completely.

I had a hard conversation with a friend on Friday afternoon. I’ve been wanting to move to New York for about 6 years now, about half of that seriously. It’s just me, no partner to help foot the cost. And it takes a long time to save the 20K that I think I need. I could probably do with a bit less, but I want to be sure I have a sufficient buffer in case business drops off. And I don’t want to just try to go get a job. I like working for myself. And getting a job in this economy seems pointless. Business has been off and it has taken me longer than I would have liked to save the money I need. Point being: I need to get moving. My life is on hold and I’m bored and checking out from here. Which, surprise surprise, adds to the depression. It’s a hard place to find myself, feeling like I’m waiting for my next life to start.

What I ate:

• two glasses matcha, milk, agave. hard boiled egg. half grapefruit.
• vegetable smoothie.
• ceviche and chips. cabbage/kale slaw. strawberries and dark chocolate. decaf espresso with half and half.
• coconut ice cream.
• two cheese quesadillas on brown rice tortillas.

July 3, 2009

I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. It’s a great book that I recommend everyone read and it’s a great companion book to the Gabriel Method. Even I—who have analyzed my food choices deeply, and shop mostly at the farmers market, and buy organic and grassfed and all that—found myself with some surprising reactions.

He starts out the book outlining the philosophy of nutritionism. That food is only useful for it’s component nutrient parts. Which divorces it from the soil, the environment, the food and environment that our livestock are raised in, our culture, our daily lives, etc. And it is pervasive. Even just yesterday I decided to buy Vitamin D supplements given its general deficiency in the population and role in cancer prevention and general fatigue. I subscribe to the notion that if I add a pill, I might save myself from cancer and have a bit more pep in the process. But the fact is that most nutrients don’t work in isolation. They DO work when we get them from food, they way they are supposed to be obtained and the way our body knows how to interact with them. And I believe in the whole current notion that refined carbs are not great, yet that’s mostly what I eat, albeit not white flour, but crackers and chips, rather than brown rice and quinoa. And I buy into the Omega-3 trend. Of course we used to get lots of Omega-3s from plants. But since we don’t eat much of those anymore, and since what we do eat is grown in shitty soil, we don’t get that either. We, as a culture, have been convinced, actively by our govenrment and the food industry, that we need someone to tell us—tell us that we don’t inherently know. So we read the studies in the media and try the latest trend and believe that we can engineer our diets.

In fact we can engineer our diets. Or more simply, arrange them. Go to the farmers market. Eat food. Not food like products. If it comes packaged, it’s probably not actual food. Eat whole grains and grassfed meats and wild fish and chickens with some room to roam.

Case in point: Have you ever had a real free-range chicken egg? Not the free-range eggs from the supermarket that have ‘access to the outside’ but are really inside a barn most of the time, but one that wanders around a yard eating grasses and grubs? The yolks are bright orange. And they taste like heaven. The orange indicates carotenoids obtained by the chickens eating plants wherever they are roaming. It is a more nutritious egg, made so not by the chicken industry giving the chicken feed with flax seeds in it, but by the chicken living in a natural environment and eating what it’s supposed to eat. Just as an experiment: go find some local purveyor of eggs. Ask them how they raise their chickens. See if they actually have space to wander. And then buy those eggs. They’ll probably be about $5-8/dozen. But they will be the best tasting and most nutritous eggs you have ever eaten. The yolks will be bright yellow to deep orange. And they will be flavorful. And amazing. They will make you feel not like you are eating, but like you are feeding yourself.

What I ate:

• small peach, strawberries, almonds, raw buckwheat groats, almond nutmilk.
• arnold palmer. mixed green salad with garlic blue cheese dressing, smoked trout, red onions, etc. decaf espresso with a bit of half and half.
• millet crackers and cream cheese.
• brown rice quesadilla with cheddar. some mint chip ice cream.

Exercise:

After going out to lunch with a friend, I walked some errands and clocked 2.5 miles. Much more than I ever do at the gym these days. Feel pretty good about finally getting some movement in. (and dear god do I need some new tennis shoes!)