A Little History

I remember the things that made me drop weight. I also remember that until now, I didn't really focus on the mental. In high school and college, I didn't realize that I would have to be careful my whole life. In fact, my father once told me that I'd have to worry about my weight my whole life. That pissed me off. He was right. That still pisses me off. (I could go on about parental issues, but I won't. My parents are nice people, and whatever mistakes they made with me are what they are. I'm 44. I'm responsible for myself.)

When I was in high school, I wanted to be able to wear clothing. Come to think of it, that's probably what happened in college. (Clothes=looking good=meeting up with the opposite sex.) This time, though, I was rated for life insurance. That wouldn't matter that much to me, except my lovely new wife and I are planning to have a kid. The insurance company wants me down to 300 for at least three months before they will cover me for more then $50k.

But I'm not doing it for the insurance. I don't want my kid to have a fat dad. I don't want my kid to suffer by being a fat kid. Growing up fat sucked. I would do anything to avoid that, and the kid will already have bad genes to deal with.

I'm an emotional eater. That part is easy. In Mean Girls, one of the leads is giving another character the rundown on the various cliques at the lunchroom tables. One is the table for girls who eat their feelings. I get it. I'm the same way.

Since April, I've been on the program. I have noticed that since I'm not eating to mute my feelings, I'm pretty agitated generally. I want to figure out what to do with all that emotion, which is primarily anxiety. I feel as though I'm in trouble a lot--like I'm an eleven-year-old with someone mad at me (it may or may not be reality, and it's usually not). I'm not going to eat to feed the monster. I want to find something else to do for that. Working out helps, if I can remain stress-free about it. When I start thinking I'm not working out hard enough or long enough, exercise contributes to my stress.