Stayingsassy

I did a few days of IF last week, it does work. Unfortunately binged all weekend and cake for breakfast today already...ugh. Was considering 12 step FA group but didn't go.

Good luck with omad!! It works and you don't have to deprive yourself. I was hanging out on the omad site on reddit, there are ideas and success stories there.

BullDog777

It was a lot easier today. I think my body is getting used to the one meal and it's not constantly telling me to eat anymore.

Tomorrow is the eye appt. I wonder if i'll sleep tonight or if i'll be up reading the boards?

I love this place....for when all else fails...I get back to the basics.

Stayingsassy

I look at food like I look at alcohol: one bite and I'm off to the races, even with healthy food. Only thing that kept me from food was alcohol.

I knew quitting drink would make eating one hell of a horrible bugger to deal with. That's how I know it was time to put down the alcohol, if I was willing to face that second trial ahead of me. Anyway, I think intermittent fasting basically puts the demon in your pocket for 20-23 hours before you have to take it out again, and for some people it's better that way.

Not to mention the incredible physical benefits and reminding yourself of those. Keep posting your progress!

BullDog777

That's exactly how it is for me . I've always been a compulsive whatever....when I was wrestling or played ball, I was in top shape because of the exercise.

Otherwise, I always seemed to be fighting one side or the other regarding the eating disorder spectrum.

I remember when I was 17, my first girlfriend was killed in a car accident and I just stopped eating. I think it was survivors guilt or something. I was supposed to be with her the morning she got hit.
Anyway, I walked around at about 230 and within 2 months I was down to 155-160 pounds. For someone who teeters between 6'5 and 6'6 I was anorexic. I just wouldn't eat. It took me years to gain that weight back.

Then there's the flip side of the coin. I get sober and go from like 220 to 290 pounds, and as high as 315.

I was also bulimic when I was a wrestler. I'd eat like a horse and know I had to cut weight and I'd just binge and purge half the dam week and then ring the water out of myself. I did that for 4 years in high school.

Even now, I do something similar to that when I'm by myself and start to feel a junk food binge come on. If I know I'm up to no good, I've been known to go get a pizza or a bucket of fried chicken and act like i'm eating it right to the point of swallowing it and then just spit it out in a separate bowl. That way I don't get the calories, I'm not ripping my insides out with purging and I get the taste of the junk. It's bad, I know.

So...I get the compulsion.

There's just no middle ground. Without exercise, I just seem to have always to have gone to one side or the other.

Well, I'm 46 years old now. I'm put together with plates and screws from all the accidents, games, matches and fights. Most mornings, I get up sore and it takes me a couple of hours to get comfortable again.

Still.. I know this is the only way besides gastric bypass that I'm gonna get back to being fit again. The doctor laughed at me when I brought up a lap band to her so I guess that's a firm no.

There are days when I get incredibly angry at myself...then there are days when I handle this like a G...

I seem to live somewhere in between that, most days.

I did not come this far to stop now. When I got sober, it was to take back my life. Whether this first year or 2 was just about winning the battle with alcohol, the war within me still goes on.
I have to keep up the fight.

Tired or not, for me..the pain of staying in the shame I feel by letting myself go like this keeps the fight in me alive.

I kind of equate it to a biblical , sort of a baptism by fire...In the Bible, Luke 3:16 has a part in it, that to me, could be taken as a reference to a fiery trial of faith, which endures suffering and purifies those who look upon God's glory and are transformed, not consumed.

Whether the faith is in God or yourself, it takes a little to get a lot.

So...I can let this burn me up or I can make this transform me to an even stronger person.

It's easy to know what to do. I see so many new people come around here and relapse and relapse and relapse. An when asked "what could you do differently? or "do you have a different plan now?" It's almost always followed up by a philosophical response of an even more elaborate plan of sobriety. Great on paper, but almost never executed.

But to them, the answer is good enough and they end up dying with a key, but no door to open to a better life. You have to have both sides of the equation.

I'm saying all of this right before I find out if I'm slowly going blind. LOL

Don't be so hard on yourself Sassy. There is so much accomplishment in your actions, but such a self criticizing tone to your posts as of late. You have fought an incredible fight. There's absolutely no shame in taking a breather before the next battle. I did for over a year and a half.

This is a war of attrition. Not everything has to be won the first year or 2 or 3. You just have to stay in it.

Stayingsassy

So here's what you've got: a food addiction, athletic restraints, and a will to fight.

I've got: a food addiction, a healthy body with no nagging injuries, and no will to fight.

Guess who comes out ahead on that one?

I hear what you're saying about giving myself the time to breathe, but as you know that's not as easy as it sounds.

About your vision...oh man I hated the hit I took with vision in my forties. I was already nearsighted with dry macular degeneration and then my reading vision went! It sucks to hit 44-45 and suddenly you can't see. Such a reminder of mortality, too.

BullDog777

I just got back. The doctor said that my eyes look healthy and aside from perhaps trying a bifocal magnification set of glasses for super small painting, I'm good to go.

What a relief.

hang in there Sassy.

Stayingsassy

Good old age related vision loss! Ah, not fun: BUT not related to diabetes and that's a relief.

I'm trying. to hang in there....keep your fight, cause I wanna see you emerge triumphant so I can see what it looks like.

Everything I do now is a different ballgame because I do it sober...how can I still be grieving the loss of a crutch? I'm watching those 18 months you've got on me, show me how it's done.

BullDog777

For me, it's the loss of the off/on switch.
Life was stressful...drink
Life was scary...drink
Life was annoying...drink
Life had a moment of joy...drink
Had some good luck...drink
Have some extra money...drink.

Everything was ...drink.

Now, life is infinitely more complicated. Not hard...hard was the way I lived...just more complicated. Not necessarily in a bad way either.

Now I have choices...that's complicated.

Before I got sober, the only choice I had was drink.

This gets better Sassy. I remember feeling down and burned out and tired and sick of the grind. I became ambivalent about everything.

So I froze. There is where I stayed until it was time to get back to work. This is entirely normal...at least for me, it was.

There will be a day where you wake up and don't miss the crutch...maybe the simplicity, but I doubt the crutch.

An if you want that simplicity...you now have the power to dump your plate and start again. There's no monkey on your back anymore.

BullDog777

I feel so much better. 7 pounds in 5 days and eating a diet with no meat and no sugar has me feeling 100% better physically.

1 cup of coffee-black is the only caffeine i'm allowing.

I'm sleeping through the night!
My joints aren't constantly aching...I'm a lot less cranky and my blood sugar has been AWESOME!!

I think all of the FF/ processed foods were playing hell on my body. I've been eating all grains and veggies.

I felt so good I took my dog out to my back field and played ball with her for almost an hour!

Today was a good day.

Stayingsassy

Great to hear, bulldog!!

Was kicking around doing a meatless diet myself: my brother (51) is super active but struggled with terrible gout and hypertension. He went vegetarian (vegan for awhile) and his gout went away! I've done low carb/paleo for so long it seems weird to go back to vegetarianism so I'm just playing with it...a few days here and there.

that's pretty amazing you did omad for five days. After the calorie deficit catches up with you, the fasting portion of your day starts to get a bit harder, but sounds like you're burning fat just fine! Keep it up!

Culture

This thread is exactly what I needed to read today so thank you Bulldog.
I'm just over a year sober myself and have been feeling stuck and unmotivated for a while.
I too am struggling, but the struggle is going on in my head.
Some days are good and I manage to get on with my life, other days the anxiety ramps up and I feel so overwhelmed that I find it hard to do anything at all.
Today is one of the bad days.
Just feel like hiding from the world and I don't understand why, as on paper my life is so much better now.
I really do feel battle weary, that is exactly what I'm feeling.
I also have to sort my diet out, too much binge eating this last year has now left me with food issues.
It has helped to read this today though, I thought it was just me at 1+year.

Stayingsassy

Culture: you're not alone.

This is why I hesitate to leave my husband right now. I want to leave everything right now, so I'm not sure my thought process is on point.

I am calorie counting today.

I guess we just keep trying to do the next right thing.

BullDog777

I think, at least for me, I tend to lose sight that it's ok that it's just progress. That I don't have to figure this all out in a day.

So much of my early sobriety was about life and death and trying to make sure I made the right decision that I didn't self destruct.

In a way, i walked out of the first year a bit shell shocked that things quieted down so fast.

Especially when the compulsions and the nightmares and the ptsd slowed down and the monkey was off my back, I was like "what the fu%k do i do now?

Even now...2.5+ years into this journey I STILL haven't returned to work professionally. I know I want to. I need to carve out a legacy and make the mark I started in my 20s. That's scary. Very overwhelming at times.

I stayed up all night, the night before last, wondering what I was going to do professionally. I know what to do.

It's not the work that scares me. The work becomes mindless. It's the business side I hate. Always have, always will. However, it's a necessity nowadays. Especially in the entertainment business.

So it'll be just like sobriety. Too fu%king scary to look at the big picture...but one day at a time. I can probably do that just fine.

i was watching a show about Navy seals the other day. An this guy talked about when he was scaling a cliff and he got freaked out and he froze. His platoon leader came down to him and told him to focus on 2 inches in front of him...that's all he could control and just keep his focus there. An he did...and he made it to the top. It's very similar on how i approach a huge piece of art. I never try to see it as a complete picture...just pieces of a bigger puzzle a few inches a few feet at a time and before you know it, i've painted this huge cohesive painting that looks like it was done all at once.

Like what's that football movie where Al Pachino is the head coach and he says that football like life is a game of inches. I think that's the best way I can look at things so I don't get overwhelmed.

I think what's harder than doing is always starting. ...no matter what it is. So while this new chapter in my life is pretty scary, it's not as scary as early sobriety.

Culture

I had a similar first sober year, I worked hard on myself had various emotional issues going way back which I painstakingly worked through and this year I don't know, just feel flat.
I have to agree with you BullDog, I think I will have to take it back to thinking only one day at a time.
I have this tendency just lately, to panic about next January, which is my scary date when I will need to make a few decisions about my future work options.
I used to work in finance but quit 2 years ago to work for myself as an artist and I know big decisions will have to be made as to which direction to go in.
Stay with what I love or go back to the big money job which I hated.
Not helping my insomnia either.

Grungehead

I can really relate to this as a lifelong procrastinator. For me the fear of failure has always been an obstacle to starting, which ironically guarantees failure. The 12 steps have helped me a lot in this area, but my first instinct is still to shy away from starting anything with an unknown outcome. Progress, not perfection.

Stayingsassy

funny it never actually occurred to me that it would take this long to sort myself out. I feel lost in regard to my relationships and what I really want to do with my life.

During times I sit and freak out about what I want, I always go back to my kids. They are my legacy, they are #1 and if they aren't sorted out yet I am not done.

My job is pretty settled and it's good I don't have to worry about that.

Bulldog, if you aren't sure what you want out of life, I gotta tell you I think you are an untapped resource as far as counseling is concerned, you are exceptionally smart and insightful and caring, and you have a passion for helping others. Psych field? Medical field? I'd lean toward the helping professions. There's money in there too...just have to pick your field judiciously. You have absolutely got it in you.

On the diet front, by the by: I have stuck to 1200 cals for a few days, and I'm down a shocking 5 lbs of water for some reason, but the beauty is I have wrested control of the food demon for now, and I actually have a tiny bit of hope.

BullDog777

I appreciate the kind words, it means a lot. My IOP director told me she thought I should give it some consideration too. The thought of going back to school at my age ....i'm not sure how ready I am to tackle that one. Maybe....though. I kinda love the whole field of study.

Diet.....Day 8: I'm down 10 pounds 9 oz. My body stalled the morning of day 6 and then I remembered a weight loss strategy my coach used to tell me.

He would say that after about a week, the body gets used to what you're doing and tends to plateau, making it harder to lose weight.

The answer to that was to switch to a different diet for 2 days, then to a third for the next week.

So what i did was go from 1 meal to 3 small ones and stayed a lot more active those 2 days. I lost 3 pounds those 2 days.

Starting monday i'm going to an all liquid veggie shake for 5 days. As much as my body wants. Then back to 1 meal a day. So far so good.

My mood is 100% better than it was when I was eating crap. This is seriously making me feel pretty damn great.

Stayingsassy

Nice work on the ten pounds.

I'm feeling way, way better myself. Nutrition/eating sanely matters more than a lot of us let on.

BullDog777

5 pounds is a HUGE victory! Congrats on that btw. I think all that processed food is loaded with s#it that turns people moody and depressed.

I remember that documentary Morgan Spurlock did when he ate McD for like a solid month or something and at the end of it he was feeling all sorts of crappy both physically and mentally.

I feel sharper, my memory seems to be getting better and I don't struggle so much in the mornings.

BullDog777

sixteen pounds down. i was grumpin so bad last night and today i decided to go out and have a cheat day with the fam.

no regerts. HAHAHAHAHA.

I've been busting my ass. This is the last F'ing time I'm ever gonna have to do this. I figure 4-6 more months and I'll be at my goal weight.

tunnel vision.