I finished reading The Cracker Factory tonight. It is an old book (copyright 1977) but it was still current. Amazing how much the heroine reminded me of me and her husband reminded me of Luke. Not that we are as extreem, not that i have a problem with alcohol, not that we have the kinds of fights they had, but there were familar emotions and responses and solutions.
I guess, if i am comparing myself with the heroine in the book, my crutch is food. Unfortunately when i came to terms with everything else, i did not come to terms with food. It is still a raging problem. My motives for eating are different now, but the problem is worse, as it is now complicated by age and a past period of withdrawn inactivity which led to a reduction of muscle and increase of fat, complicated by the stress my current weight puts on my joints. In other words, i may not binge like i used to (though i do eat badly and semi-binge from time to time) but lack of activity makes means the result is the same… weight gain, not loss.
I think sometimes of the times i have lost weight. Once i got into counting calories and carbs and fat and it became a game to see how little i could eat. The only other time i did not even realize i was losing till my clothes got loose. I did not notice that i was not biting my fingernails, either, till i saw they had grown. But i cannot reproduce that time. I was euphorically happy then. I was coming out of a long depression, a depression i had not even known i was in till i looked back and saw it for what it was. That would be pretty hard to do again, especially since i am no longer in a depression, at least not like that one. I get depressed from time to time, but i do not live depressed any more.
So how do i get stated now? I have tried the calorie counting. It snuck up on me that time it worked, but now when i do it i know what i am doing is trying to get myself to modify my eating. And every time, EVERY TIME, without exception, that i know i am trying to lose weight, i gain instead, and the harder i try to loose, the more i gain. I think that problem is worse now than it ever was. There is something about trying to diet that puts me into full panic eating mode. I am not afraid i will starve; I am not afraid i will never eat ice cream again. I have no idea why i go into such a panic. I only know that i do.