Sabotage, Self and Otherwise

I'm perfectly capable of sabotaging myself on a daily basis when I'm trying to lose weight. My inner child whimpers "oh, just a little bit won't hurt" and sometimes I listen. It would help greatly if the people around me weren't also trying to help that self-sabotage along.

So my office mate brings me a "low carb" shake yesterday morning again. I should've said no, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings (read: but it looked and tasted so good), so I drank it. I did sit with her and have her pull up all of the ingredients and had a little chat with her about a) how to calculate net carbs (yes, you DO have to count up everything you put in, not just the protein powder) and serving size (exactly how much of that powder did you use, hon, seriously).

I was trying not to make her feel bad, but as a result I spiked myself yesterday. Badly. That shake was easily half my daily allowance of carbs. And between that and the fact that it was a long and stressful day -- food cravings, big time. Pretty much stuck to legal foods after that, but way more of 'em than I really needed. Seriously.

Had to giggle in an ironic sorta way later in the day when she had just chowed down on a burger, fries, M&Ms, and a giganto coke and then she started going on about how she's not gonna handle it well having to watch other people eat when she's on a liquid diet for the lap-band. It's obvious to us all that she's gonna play the control game, or try to, of "you can't eat that here." Nope, sorry girl. We're all practicing saying "You're on YOUR diet."

And I'm practicing NOT saying, "I'm having just as much respect for your diet as you've always shown for mine, darlin'."

I do worry about her, and I'm not the only one. She seems to think that this lap-band is the easy path, something that will make her magically thin and fit. She doesn't seem to get that it's still hard work. Seriously hard work. I've watched another friend who went through it. How hard he worked even before the surgery, how hard he's had to fight not to sabotage himself after, and how much pain he still experiences from it even a year later.

He's done jaw-droppingly well, lost over 150 pounds so far (50 of that pre-surgery!), but he works at it constantly, fighting to keep both carbs and calories low every day. In the meantime, she's actually gaining weight in the run-up to hers (she's scheduled for the end of this month, less than two weeks away).

I want her to succeed. Very much so. I'm pulling for her and will support her in any way I can. I know what it's like to be so fat that you're desperate to get it off. She's really not that much bigger'n me. I just ... worry that she's not being honest with herself or realistic about what is involved. She's not gonna be able to keep pouring giganto cokes and mochas down her throat and actually lose that weight.

In the end, no matter how we go about it ... it's hard work. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable for a long while and do the things we don't want to do, despite our inner child throwing a tantrum. (Yes, I'm talking to myself here.) If I'm not able to do that, I'm not gonna be able to do what I need to do, so sometimes I just have to send my inner child to its metaphoric room for a time-out.

And I have to learn to slap a hand over inner-child's mouth and speak up for myself.

Hey, despite having a terribad day food wise, I did get a couple of short walks in, I did drink lots and lots of water, and I'm down another half-pound on the scale this morning!