From Cocoon to butterfly

Well, day three is done and over and now on day four. I am feeling so good. Temptations are still there but like a child throwing tamtrums, when they know they can’t move you, well, it does get easier!  My kids cookies were smelling good but I did not let that get me. I am living my life!

I am winning. slow but steady but I am doing it. Today was rough. I did well in the morning and afternoon but late afternoon, a teacher comes to the office carrying a loaf of fresh baked pastry/bread,still warm from the oven. Ok, kill me!  Well, she was insisting I take some pieces for the kids so I put it on the desk in front of me with the tissue box between me and got busy doing some heavy thinking. I had a “wow” moment. For such a long time I have beat myself up for being weak to temptation. Every time I look and crave, I make myself feel terrible about it. But today, it was a revelation to me. It is alright to be tempted. It is normal to want to eat those things and I am not a bad person because of it, it does not make me weak. Think about the Cullens, (yes, still in the book) they are vampires and have to drink blood. Every day they have to endure the temptation. Smelling it, wanting it does not make them a bad person. It is in resisting it or not that makes or breaks. They resist it although they want it so bad. They want to live life to the fullest that they can. I have to be the same way. As I looked at the bread, yes, it smelled good but I realized that it was alright to be tempted but I can’t give in, I would be giving my life away in doing so. I am feeling so much better and lighter in spirit and in thinking. I don’t want to give that away. So, deciding that and knowing I made that decision, I did not eat the bread.

Then, I come home and my in laws have made wontons, my fav! My fil had asked if I wanted to eat my food (diet) or have wonton earlier and I told him I wanted my own veggies. Wontons are great but full of salt and fatty meat. Anyway, I came home and asked where my food was. My mil was like, hmm, father did not say anything abou thtat, grr! She then tried to convince me to eat wonton because she thinks I should not lose any  more weight. But I remained strong and said, I want to eat my veggies, thank you. So, have to wait and when it comes time to eat, there were two platters of wontons on the table just staring at me. Ack! Well, I just thought, it is alright to be tempted but it is in falling to it that is the wrong thing. So, I ate my food all the while eyeing them but I did not fall. I would not kill my happiness.
And so, I won for another day!

no, I am not a vampire hehe. But I have fallen in love with one, Edward Cullen from the Twilight series. Have read the whole series several times and still reading it. Well, the first book deals iwth temptation. Edward meets Belle for the first time and she is almost irristable to him, the smell of her blood calls to him like drugs to a drug addict. He almost can not resist. Anyway, When I was reading the book, I could see a lot of things that paralle  the journey for losing weight also and the temptations we face.

I have taken some blurbs from the book and just want to think and blog about it. If you haven’t read the book, let me explain where we are. Edward is in love with Belle but has to fight the temptaion of destroying her. He spends time with her and little by little, can deal with her more. They went to the forest one afternoon and it was very rough for him. Later that night, they spend time together and he can actually get close to her. She asked him why:

“It’s not easy. This afternoon I was still undecided. YOu see, I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough. And while there was still that possibility that I might be overcome, I was succeptable. Until I made up my mind that I was strong enough that there was no possibility at all that I would.   Mind over matter”

Think about it, he was a vampire, he had to have blood. There was no getting around that. It was something that called out to him, every day, eveyr hour, eveyr minute. We are like that. We are human, we have to eat. You can’t run away from it, you can control it but that is all. We have to control our lust also and like Edward, we have temptations. Yes, he had to drink blood but he also made a concious choice to drink Animal blood.

“Just because we’ve been dealt a certain hand…it doesn’t mean we can’t choose to rise above..to conquer the boundries of a destiny that none of us wanted”

He had to make a certain choice. He could not outrun it, he could not pretend it wasn’t there but he had to choose to rise above it. We have to choose to rise above wanting to over eat, wanting to eat bad things.  Yes, there are thin people there who never have to worry about their weight but then there is our destiny, we eat any little thing and we gain weight. That is our bodies and we did not choose it but we can choose to control how we deal with our bodies and how we will control it.

Even he admited, fighting temptation is not easy. “You see, I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough. And while there was still that possiblity that I might be overcome, I was succeptable”

We have to decide outright what we are going to do. There is no riding the fence in losing weight and keeping it off. While we don’t strongly decide what we will do, there is always that possibility, always that chance, we will fall off and gain that weight. Not even a chance, if we think about it and want to, eventually we will do it. Even Jesus said, what is in the heart of man, that he is. We are what we think. Try it one day, think about something for one day or every day for a week, in that week, you will do what you did not want to do. I have dealt and did that before. What I did not want to do, I still thought about, dreamed about , and so on. What happened, I eventually did what I did not want to do even though I really did not want to do it. If Edward did not decide exactly what he wanted, he would always be overcome, he would kill her. He knew this and we know this. Until we strongly decide what we are going to do, we will fall every time. We have to lodge it so firmly in our head that we are going to eat right and there is NO chance to fall off because we can’t. Edward could have always said, I will try but he realized, as long as he wasn’t sure, he would always face that chance.  He knew this was life and death. Yes, weight isn’t alway7s life and death but I feel it is all about life.  So, how did Edward decide he could be around his worst temptation? ” Until I made up my mind that I was strong enough that there was no possibility at all that I would (kill)” Pretty much he had to decide there there was no possibility, no chance no situation. He had stress, he had all kinds of things happen but he decided that there was no possibility that he could. I have to be like that. I have to decide, ther is no possibility that I will go off, I have to determine to fight the temptation. It will always be there, I will always have to see it but as you fight it day after day, it does get easier. It doesn’t go way and sometimes it can be stronger on some days more then others but we have to determine not to do it. It is the matter of life and death to us. Is anyone happy to be overweight? No, it makes us miserable, we don’t want to go out much, we are crabbier with others and ourselves, we kill ourselves by not being happy. When we lose weight we feel better about ourselves, we dress better, we are happier, we have life!

WE have to determine we will not succomb no matter what. Sure, we think, but I had a bad day, I did not sleep much and so on. THink about Edward. If he had a bad day, took a bite out of Belle, could he just say, oh, I had a bad day or any other excuse, no. It was a matter of life and death. So now, when I want to eat bad stuff, I have to think of it, do I really want to give up my life? Think of Belle, should I kill her or me. No, So  today is a new day and today

Rachel’–1  blood suckers-0

After my last post of those darn rolls calling me, I got beaten by them, nuts. And then I ate some fried rice on top of that and my body was not happy about it. 15 min later, on the toilet going both ways, so sick. My own fault. I think I did learn something. I was fine witht he rolls in the morning but what I should have done after everyone had eaten their fill was to wrap the rolls up and get them out os sight and smell. That was what drove me crazy because every time I had to go to the kitchen, there they were. At lunch, there they were, at supper, there they were. Any time someone is exposed too much to temptation, you will succomb every time. That is why the bible says not to handle fire because you will get burned. The solution it gives, run away as fast as you can. (new testament) That was my problem, did not run away and did not get the temptation away. The next day, the last one was calling me, I tell you those rolls have a death wish! So I wrapped it up and gave it to my husband to take to work. That did it and then no problem at all.

So, I am learning from my mistakes. But back on plan for Monday. My husband was gleeful in that he got to make more money from me being off on Sunday. Grr. Said that if I stay on plan for four days, still owe him 40, nuts! I am going to do this and make mt debt go out of the red!

Thanks for all the advice about buying lowfat things but you forget where I live. If I lived in Shanghai, perhaps I could find lowfat low cal things but here, not a thing! I am just lucky to find any western thing here at all so finding substitues is not going to happen. I think the best is to find something in the fruit or veggie catogory that will do it, just thinking but not sure.  But, on track again and working my debt off! heheh.

Day four on plan and still going well. OVer here, in China, they don’t do Easter so there is no problem with food and all that included with Easter. But one of the problems I DO have is my cooking. I got an oven a few months ago and DH is always requesting I cook this or that so on Sunday I try to cook something special for th ekids. Today was homemade cinnamon rolls. I am proud of myself in that I did not nibble, snack or taste a thing. That is such am improvement from before. But every time I have to go int he kitchen, they are calling to me to nibble. I know the smell is much better then the taste, especially since they are cold now but it still talks to me. Not too loudly at this moment but I decided to come on here and blog a bit to get the thought out of my head. I also went out to buy some ice cream for the kids. I keep all kinds of popsicles for the kid so have to keep out of that also. Helps that I know DH will be asking if I had a pop day today so keeping that in my mind. Plus, I like that my clothes are fitting better.

Just got to figure out how to cut that binge switch off.

Things are still going well for me. I can’t say that there haven’t been near misses but all in all, I am making it, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. It is not always the easiest but I am trying. One reason I am on now is that I am hungry and wanting to snack but I am waiting till I have more control and then will eat some supper. One way to get control is by blogging my feelings. Lately I have been trying to figure out what brings on this and what are the triggers. I know one thng is that sometimes I am hungry and I take a bite out of something. Then I hit that cycle of , ok, already fell off, might as well go all the way and that is what I do. Or, just want to eat something. sometimes it is so hard to not have whatever you want or can think of. It feels like I have to be totally on guard for whatever I put in my mouth. Now, some of you might say that I should allow myself to have a little something something but what I haven’t discovered is control. For instance, I buy two boxes of snack cakes, each box has six in it. I say I will eat just one but I end up eating all six in one box and then that night finishes off the other six in the other box. I have no control and I know this and that is why. But it isn’t that I want all bad things, it isn’t that. I just love the feeling of freedom to have anything and everything without thinking but the main problem is , no thinking. And that leads to gains and me getting bigger and bigger.  Thus, I am ttrying to figure out how to handle myself. How to stop the cycle of eating too much. If I could just eat one and thens top with that without sinking into an all out binge, I would do so but I can’t. I have tried and have yet to master even the basics of not doing thtat.

So, anyway, back to my subject of accountablity. My husband has become my accountability partner. He doens’[t know he is that but let me explain. He came up with this idea on his own an dpresented it to me. He has been worried about the weight I have gained and that I may keep gaining (a valid fear also for me) so he told me that for every day I am pop, he will give me money. The longer consecitive days I am on plan, the more money he gives me but if I fail, I have to pay him a certain amount. He thinks that it is the money that is motivating me to stay on plan but that really isn’t it. What is the reason is that he is holding me accountable. Every day I have to write whether I was off plan(o) or on plan (p) for the day. Every night he looks to see so he is making me accountable. Money is nothing for me although yes, getting some clothes will be nice but the thing that get s me is I have to show what I have done. Usually I can secretly eat and man, I am a great sneak thief but now I have to own up to my behavior and it has been good for me. I am still very careful in what I do though because I know myself but I am trying.

Ok, I am officially sick of the old me! The old me that buys two boxes of cream pies and eats all 12 of them in two hours. That is not feasible if I am to live life as a thin person. I can’t give up. I have never been one to give up when I am only 1/2 way in doing anything. I have always been a very stubborn and tough person. I wouldn ot let my marriage fizzle, I fought for it and did not give up. I never gave up my idea for living overseas no matter what ridicule I got from my parents. I did not give up my last child no matter how bad everyone was pushing me. Many many incidences that show me that I AM a strong person. I am not a TRY person but a DO person and it is time to get the DO back into my weight losing!  I have to determine to myself that there are things I just can’t have. Even when it is in the house, I have to have the control, no, I have the control to not eat any of it. I have to make my mind up that no matter what, no matter who , no matter whatever, I am going to do this, I will do this and I will continue doing this. At times I let myself get depressed because I know this is a lifetime fight. There is no end, no finish no nothing, just a long winding road that continues. But what I have to look forward to is the road leveling. Right now, yes, it is all uphill, difficult and time consuming but once I get to goal, the road will level off. I can’t get off the road, I can’t stop in the middle of the road and I have ton continually be concious of the road but it will not be uphill. I can’t get depressed at knowing I always have to stay on the road. It is something that in my life I will have to do. Such as work, we all have to have a job, we don’t always want to and don’t always enjoy it but we still do it, why, because we have too./ So, staying concious of my weight and what I eat, that has to be like having a job, something I have to have and do.

So, today I got up and the weather is warming up a little so I put on some clothes I bought in the US. I feel better. Then I made my decision about my hair. I flitter flutter about the decision for a few weeks. I don’t cut my hair and it is really long so I have to be really careful about what I do to it. About four or five months ago I had some color put in it, some red and a tiny bit lighter. Well, the roots are out and have been out and today I woke up and thought, ok, I have on new clothes, I feel better. Ok, stop being wishy washy and let’s get the hair done. So I went out this morning and got it done. Not a huge difference because I am not one to like huge differences but enough that I notice and feel better. Ok, so, new clothes, new hair, what is next…… New attitude.   I am ready for a new attitude. I am tired of gaining and then losing a few days and then gaining back again. The old attitude is bad and I am ready for my new attitude to match everything else. I am ready to put on clothes and feel good.
So, out with the old and in with the new!