The annoyance of “by the skin of my teeth” and “close shave” successes

It’s been almost two months since my last post.  I’m guessing that lack of posting generally signifies one of two things:  either 1) great success at the moment (no impetus to post) or 2) lots of struggles at the moment (no desire to post).  I suppose there’s also an Option 3) extraordinarily busy (not enough interest to post to overcome time impediments).  Happily, I’m falling into the first category.  It’s almost scary to write this, as I know the dangers that befall a person when success is high — so too is the risk of complacency or freaking out into self-sabotage.  But indeed, I am experiencing a degree of recovery as never before, and God willing, I have every intention to keep that going.  Definitely not without challenges.  It amazes me, how long it can be since I ate certain foods, and I can still have thoughts about them.  But I deal with those thoughts with a perpetual, “Not for now.  But I can revisit my food list later, and maybe add them back then.”  How funny, the mind games we must play!

Of course, recovery encompasses — and is happening because of — so much more than just the food management, per se.  If anything, I can see how so many will say, the food management is almost more the byproduct of other actions and measures, rather than one of the tasks in itself.  I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I will definitely concur that it’s because of all those “other things” that  I have made the strides that I have, and not because, say, I found the “perfect” food plan or am taking a particular “magic” supplement.

To say I’m grateful doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of my happiness with my recovery.  But there’s a nitpicky annoyance that has been with me all along, at least ever since I first began to pursue recovery from my eating disorder, lo so many years ago.  And that’s my perfectionist mind’s kneejerk rejection of those days in which success/abstinence is kept “by the skin of my teeth.”  Probably anyone who has worked on recovery from either compulsive overeating or some other eating issues knows what I’m talking about.  There are those days, thankfully, in which I am graced with an abstinence and fluidity of conduct that feels very solid, very natural, like a well-oiled machine.  I work my program, do what I need to do, and prepare and enjoy my meals with great ease and satisfaction.  Days like that feel like, “Yes, boy, have I made progress!”  Then there are days like yesterday, and into today.  Drove husband to the airport over the weekend for a business trip.  Woke up yesterday morning to a flat tire.  Stress-stress-stress.  I’ve never had to take my car in for repair; normally my husband gets the honors.  On top of that, it was an exceptionally busy work day.  I also had some very positive, exciting things happen to me, concerning my work and accolades from it.  In other words, a very, very intense and hectic day.  I knew such a day is just ripe for feeling triggered, and in the past it almost certainly would have culminated in a huge binge, to take the edge off my adrenaline.  But I worked the tools of my program more intensively than ever, and managed to emerge from the day unscathed — meals went as planned, my recovery and abstinence intact.  What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that was.

But I also knew that today would be tough.  I had a much lighter schedule, would be working out of the house much of the day.  Dangerous, because this represents the “day after” a hyper-frenetic day like yesterday.  And living up to its promise, it was a tough day to stay on task.  I believe that the day will finish on a positive note — another abstinent day, and if it does, I expect tomorrow to be much easier, as I will not only be busy (as in, out of the house, away from isolating busy), but by then it will be two days removed from Monday’s unexpected twists and turns, which means probably things will calm down to their normal levels for me — “things” being my emotions, my body’s physiology, my focus, etc.  So I just need to get through dinner without picking up extra food.

So good news, assuming this all goes as planned.

But it annoys me.  It annoys me that today was as hard as it was to get through.  If I had a dime for every time I had a thought that involved the desire to eat “out of today’s box,” I’d be able to retire right now.  God willing if I make it to bed abstinent, it will not be a gracefully abstinent day; I will be abstinent “by the skin of my teeth.”  I don’t like this, even as I realize that this is simply the way life works.  Some days are effortless, some are effortful, some in between.  That’s progress, I suppose.  At one time, I would have had a meltdown for sure, dismissing a day like this as “inauthentic,” as if the fact that it involved shades of white-knuckling, means that it doesn’t “count,” that it’s not “real” recovery but just me proving that I can hold on for dear life under duress.

But I realize, even as I type this, that all that matters is that I remain abstinent.  For today, it doesn’t matter how “close” I came to eating out of order, it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t a smooth sail.  All that matters is that I remain abstinent.  Sure, I can continue to work my program, work the steps, pray to my HP, work the tools, and hope that in so doing, I strengthen my recovery so that days like this aren’t as intensely challenging, or at least that the frequency is reduced, but I have to accept that there may continue to be days that surface such as this, which means in order to stay recovered, I just need the willingness to deal with the discomfort and accept that my abstinence “pearls” will not always be silky smooth or rock-solid, that they will sometimes look quite “messy” or feel rather choppy.  But I have to assume that it’s in dealing with these very days that I will make the greatest growth.  So I must embrace them the way I embrace those lovely, practically-on-autopilot abstinent days.

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“Eating Disorder”….or simply “Bad Habit”?

It’s funny.  More and more, I’m steering to the belief that all this hype about eating disorders — barring those who are genuinely ill and dysfunctional — is largely a matter of focusing on labeling the problem so that you can keep putting off the hard part:  gritting your teeth and STOPPING the bad behavior already!  Because let’s face it, breaking a habit is HARD!  It makes us cranky and irritable and we rarely see the kind of instant gratification results/reward we believe is commensurate with the effort we’re making.  Which makes us even more cranky and irritable. 🙂

It occurred to me this morning that if you look at something as simply a bad habit, it implies you have control over it and it’s simply a matter of putting your mind to breaking it.  End of statment, no analysis needed, you either do it or don’t do it.  They say, in fact, that people are surprisingly good at devising their own solutions to make this happen.  No need for “experts” to tell them what to do or offer guidance.  If you’re trying to quit eating donuts and there’s a donut place en route to work that you seem compelled to stop at, common sense says you’ll be far more likely to successfully break this habit not only by acknowledging the desire to do so and making a conscious decision to stop, but also in choosing another route, one in which you avoid passing by the donut stand.  Why put temptation in your path where you don’t need it?  The goal is to break the habit, not to test your iron will “with one arm tied behind your back”!

But take that same behavior and slap a label on it — an eating disorder, for instance — and suddenly it’s complicated.  Suddenly, you have an affliction, and depending on the degree to which you’re willing to believe this affliction affects your behavior, it may no longer be as simple as your being able to stop doing it when you want to do so.  No, suddenly you have steps, and issues, and procedures, and counseling, and modes of treatment, and years of psychoanalysis (your own or someone else’s or both) and all sorts of outside factors that either leave you helpless or absolved, depending again on how you wish to perceive it.  Which means suddenly you have all this drama, all this need to learn about this curious affliction and who all “has” it and what “causes” it…..AND now you get to figure out how to deal with your own issues that are driving it.  In other words, why, you can be taking an “active” part in recovering from your bad habit….without even having to take a single action in stopping the behavior itself!  All mental, no actual physical or behavioral change.  Heck, you can put that “icky” part off forever!  After all, there will ALWAYS be something “more” you can dig up, examine, discuss, strategize, buy a book on, etc. etc. etc.  You’ll be the most enlightened person in the world…..while still being at the EXACT same place you were at when you first had the thought, “Gee, I’d really like to be rid of this behavior.”  Methinks enlightenment is the booby prize.  Forget enlightenment, let me remain soaked and immersed in my cocktail of emotions and personality and history, I just want to stop bingeing my face off after a period of clean eating, so that I can wear the clothes I love ALL the time, not just on non binge-recovery days, and end those horrible bloat days.  Does it really have to go beyond that?

A long, long time ago, I rejected the notion that an eating disorder is a “disease.”  I strongly disagree with the whole notion.  It gives one an excuse to engage in behavior that would otherwise be inexcusable.  Get drunk in public and make a scene at a bar?  If you presume this person to be more or less a standard-issue adult, all the strengths and frailties and human history (the good the bad and the ugly) that comes with the package, then the perception of him/her is likely to be, “What an irresponsible buffoon.”  But if we accept the idea that this person was born with the “disease” of alcoholism, well then…. gosh, it’s such a shame, he/she just can’t help himself/herself!  What an awful way to perceive ourselves, that we could be so unable to change or improve.  I pity the person who places such limitations on themselves.  How would they feel if they come to realize that in fact they had no less a capacity to change, and all that kept them back was either fear or just not liking the discomfort that comes with making such changes?

I think a lot of this stems from our egos, and our need for drama and excitement in our lives.  Let’s face it, life can be kinda boring at times.  Oddly enough, I know a number of people who never seem comfortable when things are momentarily going well.  It’s like they immediately need to look for a reason that things aren’t as good as they appear to be, or are doomed to change to the negative soon enough.  I’m afraid I’m guilty of this myself, though I think through being aware of this I’m doing better.  I won’t even try to speculate as to why.  Probably a learned behavior/mindset.

But think of it.  If you find yourself bouncing back and forth between eating very lightly — nothing outlandishly restrictive, but enough to maintain a thin body — and then eating way, WAY more than would be socially acceptable for most non-bingers to witness…..then quick snap yourself back on track in the days that follow with extra exercise to help offset the gluttony….well gosh, without a label all you’re stuck with is the uncomfortable realization that you simply don’t halt a pig-out at the point that you should, which is stupid both because of what it does immediately to your digestive system AND because of how it necessitates your compensatory measures (I won’t even go to the long-term nutritional/disease risk implications).  You have not one but numerous reasons why you shouldn’t do this, and yet you do it anyway.  In that regard you’re no better than a kid, in that you’re allowing yourself to “clock out” of what is normally considered part of becoming/being a mature adult.  To be a mature adult means knowing that sometimes what you WANT cannot happen because it’s BAD for you — and in this case for many reasons.  Yet you ignore that for the sake of instant appeasement, like a kid throwing a tantrum for a toy he/she wants.  Who wants to see themselves that way?  Not me.

But if I suddenly have an Eating Disorder, you have DRAMA!  Poor you!  Thanks to your inborn personality or genes or life circumstances or a combination thereof….YOU are inclined to cope DIFFERENTLY with life than everyone else.  Ergo YOUR approach to eradicating this bad habit will have to be different from everyone else.  Tell me.  If for many years some single guy buys 2 pints of Haagan Daz every Friday night, eats them after dinner, only to decide one day that he doesn’t like this habit in himself and wants to change it, should he seek a counselor?  Buy a book?  Is there such a book on Friday Night Haagan Daz Addiction Recovery?  (Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know the answer.)  Should he seek a support group?  Feh.  None of the above.  He’ll probably just cut them out and do or eat something else.  Will there be a period of missing it, wanting it?  Probably, after all this is has been going on for so long.  Does the discomfort mean suddenly it’s “bad” to be making the change?  No, not if he wants to make the change.

I  believe this is the point I’m at in my own situation.  I’m long past any genuine disorder, if I even ever had one in the first place.  Now it’s just a matter of routing out bad habits.  Of not allowing them to return. 

Why complicate what is blessedly simple?  It’s a BAD HABIT.  Period.

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A lesson from running: You’re capable of more than you think

One reason I love running so much is because it presents countless life lessons, and in the simplest of forms.  I learn how to relax into the moment, how to pace myself, how to protect my comfort zone (that image of a masochist gritting their teeth well past their body’s reach?  I can’t imagine….), how to appreciate something as simple as the miracle of my own breath, the cadence it provides, a soundtrack that can be either gentle or furious or somewhere in between.  I learn how to overcome obstacles, how to distinguish the difference between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to,” how to clear my head, how to stop and enjoy the simple pleasures of being outside, no matter what the season, to slow down and smell the earth’s many fragrances, even how to accept and even embrace the swirling chaos of humanity — the cars, the restaurants, the hum of activity that seems so in contrast to the lone girl quietly huffing and puffing through an afternoon jog.  The list goes on and on.

Anyway, today’s lesson presented itself early on:  you’re capable of more than you give yourself credit for.  As is often the case, I was pressed for time.  But the weather was so beautiful — unusually sunny and mild for this time of the year, with that wonderful blue sky that seems to pick up your mood instantly.  I knew I had to go out and experience it for at least a little while.  I took off and glanced at my watch.  I had about an hour and a half to work with.  Understand, mid-week I normally like to do an extra long cardio session, especially in winter as it keeps my endurance up during the down season from running races.  I was originally planning to either just take a walk or do some light intervals back and forth between walking and running.  But in either of those choices, I normally prefer about 100 minutes, to ensure I cover around 7 miles.  90 minutes won’t cover that.  I had pretty much done an “oh well” as I began to run, but I felt that curious twitch I know all too well.  Not really wanting to have to pay attention to my watch (on such a lovely day I prefer to just GO and let my mind rest), I decided what the heck, I’ll just see how long I can run before I need a break.  It wasn’t long before I realized this wasn’t going to be a problem.  In fact, it was almost embarrassing just how relatively easy it was to keep going without a break.  Mind you, I’ve run continuously recently, but the vast majority of my last few months’ running workouts have been run/walk intervals.  I suppose it all got shaken up when I had a bad 10K race this past summer — got a stitch that I just couldn’t shake.  After that, I seemed to go through a funk in which I felt timid about doing continuous runs.  But rather than give up altogether, I figured when I’m ready to resume continuous, I will; in the meantime, I “let” myself choose intervals most of the time, to keep up my confidence and preserve the whole enjoyment of running.  Every now and then I’d throw in 20, 30, 40 minutes of running, but those were few and far between.

Until today!  At some point, as I continued my “Hmmm, I wonder….” run-til-I-have-to-stop experiment, I began to realize I probably was nearing the 30 minute mark.  I wanted to avoid looking at my watch, because once I do I tend to look again far too frequently, which drives me nuts, like a nervous tick or something.  But sure enough, the town square clock read 2:20, when I knew I had started off at 1:50.  I kept running, did my body inventory and realized all was still a-ok.  I knew at some point I was nearing the 45-minute mark.  I decided that I’d be happy to at least go an hour, that 75 minutes would be the bomb, and that 90 minutes would be like reaching the moon in terms of happy success.

Well I don’t need to keep you in suspense, you probably know where this is going anyway.  Yes, indeed, I hit the 90 minute mark, with only sweat, a little bit of chill in my fingers and a small amount of tightness in my calves as my accompaniments.

In other words, I’ve been capable of this all along, just as I’d done in the past.  I simply allowed myself to put up an invisible fence in my mind, or a leash that appeared to be locked but in fact was not.  Amazing what happens when we put up these barriers for ourselves, isn’t it?  But just as amazing is the feeling you get when you break them down!

Of course, the only hitch is…. I now know that the next time I set out for a run, I don’t have quite so “easy” an excuse to not go at it continuously.  Should I decide to do intervals, I have to know it’s because I’m simply electing for a lighter workout that day, and not because I couldn’t easily nail that time or distance nonstop!  So much for avoiding the real reason!

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