Changes?

Well

Still have kept my resolve to not step on the scale. Have cut out my crazy high carb binge for now, have been keeping myself happy with phenomenal low carb baking thanks to kevinpa from Low Carb Friends. Enjoyed an amazing BLT on what tasted and felt just like a real roll but only had 3 carbs! have worked out three days in a row; Sunday: Total Body Sculpt, Monday: Shimmy, Tonight: Total Body Sculpt. bG still averaging 127..... Finding things I enjoy, spent time at Karen's today bathing a horse while wearing E on my back, and playing with dogs and chickens.

Working on love

The binging has all but ceased. I can tell I have put on some pounds. I am working every day at loving ME. Until I love me I won't consistently make healthy choices. It is not because I cant stick to low carb it is because I cant stick to anything at all. The low carb food is great and now that I found Kevin's recipes at Low Carb Friends and the recipes from Healthy Indulgences there is a low carb version for everything I love as comfort food. We had great biscuits last night- a Kentucky staple! The food and way of eating is not the problem, excuse, or reason. It is me and my need for self destruction and patterns of self hate. I truly believe that even with my grief and fear I am trying to surrender to God about Mom's grim cancer prognosis that if I loved myself I would find better ways to deal with it than binging and destruction. I feel like I have to accept myself and love myself as obese as part of this process. Especially as I quit focusing on appearance and numbers on a scale.

Why am I running from God?

Indeed.

Could it be because:

I keep falling and I am tired of falling and failing at everything?

I get so wrapped up in the rapture of devotion time and then life comes along and I slam to the cold ground?

Don't feel worthy?

Lazy?

I read the Bible and get confused about what it means for me and am afraid I will go off on some detrimental path just as I did with that home worship group years ago?

Becasue I get so enraptured and zealous and then I get so discouraged when I lose clarity or can't accomplish anything?

I don't know.

I still feel like I am nowhere near the heart of the matter. Will have to dwell on this...

I don't want to feel marvelous

If I felt marvelous then I would have to confront my demons. If I feel miserable I never have the energy or time or clarity of thought to deal with myself. This is what I realized at 1Am this morning. Food isn't the only self destructive behavior I engage in.

I am struggling to find my identity and value beyond the way my clothes fit, hair falls, and number on the scale. I am also struggling the same if I do not workout, have a perfectly clean house, creatively accomplish something. The way I value me is all tied up in my looks and performance. Take those things away and I do not love myself.

Huh.

Now what?

There is no one to blame for this but me. No excuses.

I have to figure out how to surrender to God, to His truths. Truths like: I am His creation, I am beautiful because He created me, beauty is not just about looks it is everything especially ones soul, that I should be developing a carachter above rubies- the proverbs woman......

No Excuses

The diagnosis came back yesterday. The cancer is in mom's bones, trachea, lungs. They stamped her with an expiration date of 1 to 1.5 years. Yesterday sucked. Today is moment by moment. I was thinking this morning how grand the world would be if everyone treated everyone as if each moment was valuable and precious because we don't know how rare those moments will be. I have not lived my life this way. I think my mom has been trying to tell me that for years but with the wrong words for me to get it. It came across to me as 'the sky is falling'. Not that each moment would then be perfect because nothing on earth is perfect but the world might be richer, sweeter, kinder. And while I was writing this my husband turned on the TV and I snapped at him because I am writing! Ah what a flawed person I am constantly at war with my self. This was in my email this morning from Revive Our Hearts:

No Excuses

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Think for a minute about the first sin. Eve really couldn’t make excuses. She couldn’t blame her upbringing like so many do.

“My mom was never really there for me. I think that’s why I treat my kids the way I do.”

Nancy: She couldn’t blame her husband.

“He constantly puts me down!”

Nancy: She couldn’t blame her environment.

“I just come home so stressed. I guess I take it out on my family.”

Nancy: There were no outside factors that influenced Eve to fall to temptation. She had no financial problems, no weeds to pull, not even any in-law problems. Her problems began with herself. She made a choice.

The truth is we can’t really make excuses for our sin, either. Like Eve, we’re responsible for our own choices. James tells us “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”

Have you been making excuses for sin? If so, would you admit your own responsibility and trust in the blood of Christ for forgiveness?"

The last two paragraphs.... wow... I make excuses, plenty of them. Why can't it fully sink in that sin is a choice? I choose to be grumpy and snappy by the very fact that I don't choose to count my blessings and lean on God and be at peace. I choose to eat high carb foods because I don't choose to honor my body as God's wonderful and beautiful and valuable creation. I choose to sit on the couch and feel exhausted because I don't choose to get up and exercise my beautiful body to gain more energy and endurance.

Choices. Sin. Death.

Choices. Beauty. Value. Peace. Love.

No Excuses

The Gift?

This was in my inbox this morning:

:: Every Experience Is a Gift ::

Perfectionistic parenting is rooted in the false idea
that it's bad to make a mistake or fall short of one's
expectations.

But if you think about it, you can derive value from
*any* experience -- no matter how "bad" it is or how
much pain it involves -- IF you're willing to look for
the hidden gifts.

The one gift found in *every* negative experience is
that it sharpens the contrast between what you want
and don't want, giving you an opportunity to focus
more powerfully on your desire.

When you fall short of your parenting ideals, you may
be tempted to indulge in guilt or self-deprecation.
But then you'd be modeling violence against self
and creating more negative experiences.

Today, if you find yourself facing unwanted
circumstances, or failing to uphold your own
standards, ask yourself, "What is the gift for me
in this experience?"

Such gifts are more obvious in hindsight, but why not
enjoy them *now*?

http://dailygroove.net/gift

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2010 by Scott Noelle"

What is the gift for me in this experience? I do know more fully what I want. I am going to have to think about it more to find anything else. I know one more, I am uncovering nasty layers of myself in order to find me behind all this hurt and lies.

I am lost without the scale. I feel like I do not know who I am without that number, that I do not know my value without it. That number has been the definition of what I felt about myself since teenager. Wow.

Throwing out the scale

I am putting away the scale. I mean it. into the storage building across town.
I have been living obsessed with those numbers. Sure I have turned it into a game of beat the previous days score. I step on it so often E thinks you step on the scale each time you go into the bathroom!

I have to make these changes for me. Not for numbers. Not to be sexy. Not to be desirable. Not to feel powerful and in control. Not to feel triumphant. Not to hush the voices of those around me talking about my weight.

The only numbers I should obsess with is my glucose monitor, which requires carb counting, and is the indicator of my health and this disease that is eating away at my body and lifespan.

Trapped

I am caught between what I want and even knowing what I want really- because it is so entwined with wanting what J wants so we can be happy together kwim? Which is also severely limited by money. And if he is the moneymaker then what he wants weighs much more heavily on what our family does/has/wants/enjoys.

Have I ever really been able to pursue my dreams? No. I came close once before the Air Force when we had goats, horses, waterfowl, poultry, and lived on a cattle ranch. But the timing was wrong, the property not ours, the family entanglements to oppressive and frustrating, not enough money etc. But that has been the only time I have ever been truly happy mostly, well, when I think about it J and I fought alot, we were always wanting to travel and could not wait to get out of our hometown.

I have just lived my life, uneducated, lacking in wisdom, and way to spoiled. I have been bull headed and stupid. Yet I have let a few people practically make my choices for me. Yet, i feel I am incredibly spoiled. And yes, I just ate three more danishes......

I am seeking rock bottom? How to I set all this right? What am I doing? Who am I? How do I live with all the regret of never realizing what I want and how to go about getting it? I mean as far as education, jobs, and goals, before Ellie came along? She is such a blessing so longed for and desired and cried after that I feel like an ass even going through this right now!!!

Every parent makes mistakes, it just seems mine made alot when it came to setting me up for a future. I was told I could be anything but I was never shown or even suggested to that I had to locate the tools to make it happen! They didn't even have them. Maybe all I can do now that my life feels like an utter waste is to set Ellie up properly so she can see her path and know what to do about it, as God sees fit.

Where does God see fit for me? When one is so broken and confused what is there to do????

Perfection is impossible

Do I have a death wish? I must want to die. I carb feasted again last night as we had to stay a the inlaws one more time (they left E and I alone for a few hours to go to dinner and I practically stuffed my face with both hands) and have been out of control eating low carb goodies today (carbquick danishes).Took 40 units of Novolog over several hours to keep my Bg at 200!!! It is over 200 now.

I just feel like eating myself into oblivian. It's not that the food even tasted good. I just feel like life is spinning out of control, I am searching for a drug to slow it down. My heart aches and is empty all at once. I am spiritually, emotionally, and physically bankrupt. Only Ellie and J keep me going. I feel so trapped with no end like running in place in your dreams. And here I have even reversed the past weeks hard work and weight loss. I feel miserable. Why can't I stay focused with no relapses? It's not the diet- teh food is great. It is the 'drug' addiction that keeps me.

What is bothering me?

1. I can't get this house done it is like a nightmare I can't awaken from. And until the renovations are complete we cannot put it on the market and even then we will, of course, have no idea when or if it will sell. It is neverending and that leaves me feeling so desperate and isolated.

2. Until house sells we will be wasting time and money with J travelling so far each workday and it is so very hard on him. And I can do nothing about it. And then it will be hard trying to find a suitable home in our price range.

3. I am back to the thing that is my passion and I do not have the childcare or the money to go more than twice a month at most for riding lessons. And with no horse of my own I have no way to practice and stay fit for the demanding lessons. Riding again gives me so much joy just pure joy and I am so frustrated I can't do more! And then since we need a home in Lone Oak we can't afford a few acres to have a horse.... or the other things that give me joy- chickens, goats, gardening, heritage livestock for our food and others..... I feel I am losing me and what good is that to my family?

4. I am mad at myself because J and E should be enough joy for me.

5. I loathe my aging sagging body, my opinion of myself, my lack of joy, my lack of contributing anything to anyone.

6.I am furious at my brother for making choices that has 99% chance kicked my parents out of their home and left them with nowhere to go because he gave up and decided his wife should make the choice for him to live closer to her parents with no regard to the agony and hell my parents have been through this past year with moms near fatal cancer! Long story. Won't kow for sure untilt he hearing on May 5th

7. Mom has a scan tomorrow they suspect she has more cancer with a bad prognosis if so.

8. I am scared and worried about my parents.Mom is in constant pain and is now on a drug that helps her but is causing her to slip away from me.

9. I don't like being furious at my brother. But I can't get past this evil thing he has done right now because he has no regard for my parents agony.

10. I feel helpless.

11. I am a little upset deep down that throughout all of our travels and lack of money/ blessed with money has kept the thing that is his passion no matter what- art- and I have not been able to keep anything. Some of my passions - heirloom gardening, goats, heritage livestock- have as much potential to make us money as his art!

12. I don't like being upset about that as I love J deeply and he is an amazing husband and friend.

13. Until all this house crap is squared away I have little time for one on one with E, she just tags along, I wear her, or she plays with toys or at cleaning nearby and I pause when I can to read books and do art and am always available to snuggle.

14. I have no energy.

15. I have walked away from God again. I can't seem to stay on His path and the rollercoaster of near and far is making me exhausted.


Probably shouldn't post this because there are those who are 'close' to me who love to make trouble, but I really don't think those meddlers know about this blog.

What does this have to do with Low Carb? Everything. I didn't get so fat and unhealthy by being emotionally stable!