I'm a zombie.

The lack of sleep in my life these days is notable. I've been running short on regular sleep (by which I mean a sleep pattern that fits my needs, 5 hrs of uninterrupted sleep to start the night followed by 3-4 hours of a second wave of uninterrupted sleep). I haven't been able to fully embrace this natural pattern for 8 years. My oldest has a very different natural pattern, much more restless, and it set the tone from her infancy on. There are times when it's been better, and briefly when it was worse, than it is now.

One of our primary problems for the last 3 months has been ongoing sickness. Coughs, stuffy noses, bronchitis, flu, stomach flu - we've had it all. I've had it all. So in addition to being woken by Oliver's natural sleep patterns (more restless than mine), I've been woken for illness related reasons. While being ill myself or trying to recover from illness.

I know this is a constant refrain... but - I'm so very tired.

I spent today (and yesterday) eating endlessly. I think about all the techniques I've tried to incorporate in the last month. I set a goal for myself for each meal. I think it through, knowing how frustrated I'm going to feel with myself. And still, I just eat. And eat.

Like a zombie, I'm just moving from one source of food to another, mindlessly inhaling my way through calories/flavors/textures/meals.

I've spent today thinking about the difference between today and last week. I'm so discouraged today. I'm not hungry, but I'm so hungry. And I keep coming back to this: I'm tired. It's made me wonder: how is sleep deprivation impacting my ability to control my appetite? So I did what any good Internet user will do and looked it up online. Multiple sources indicate that sleep deprivation messes with a ton of stuff, including hormone balances that are related to appetite and weight gain. Add that to the cognitive disability, and I wonder if today is so much worse because I haven't been able to sleep much the last 4 or 5 nights.

Or is all of this an excuse?

Daily report: breakfast has shifted a little. I got tired of eating corn flakes (after 2 weeks) and opened up the Apple Jacks. It's a cereal the whole family agrees on. Also, my 200 cal breakfast has been leaving me really hungry. So I gave up the milk in the cereal so I could have extra cereal. I shifted to a calorie free drink to go with it on the side. I actually think this is bad: it promotes the "snacking" idea as I eat more, eat it by hand, and go repeatedly from bowl to mouth. Like eating popcorn or chips for breakfast. I think I need to change this again. Tomorrow's plan: an omelet with the leftover sausage from dinner the other day. Uses up leftovers, breaks the cereal/sweet cycle, and isn't remotely snack-like. We'll see how it goes.

The rest of the day: awful. Trail mix. Snack mix. Lunch. Dinner. Candy. Chips. Horrible.

I haven't read my "Thin Within" book for days. Or the support emails that goes with it. I feel like I'm too far behind now to go back, which is just negative assessment. I feel like I have to start over, which really isn't true either. I'd like to go back to this, and I even know how: just take a deep breath and open the book. But it's much easier said than done.

OK. I'm going to end with some good stuff. Success list. 1. Managed 4 children most of the day. 2 Provided a cooked from scratch healthy meal for my family. 3. Washed/dried and folded 4 loads of laundry. 4. Wrote on my blog again. 5. Completed all schedule school lesson. 6. Spent 30 minutes dramatically belting out old gospel songs for the amusement of my kids.

Off to sleep.

It's a new day, right? *snort*

I didn't post yesterday because I was busy hiding from myself. I do that a lot. I don't succeed very well, but I keep trying. I'm stubborn that way.

One year ago, I was out with a friend, spending some time before Oliver's arrival took up so much attention. While we were out, innocently going about our business, another driver made a stupid decision. The resulting crashed totaled my friend's brand new car, caused her almost a year's worth of physical pain, and freaked everybody out. The bruising I suffered made it very difficult for me to go about my daily life - making this household work - and made me realize how hard it was going to be once we had a newborn in our house again. That realization triggered a little mini-breakdown. I was so anxious and stressed out about how I was going to manage three children. I had nightmares for weeks about the house burning down, about losing my children at the store, or other disaster scenarious. I'd lay in bed at 3 am and just cry.

And here we are, a year later. Oliver is 11 months old. The laundry is regularly washed, dinner is cooked, the house is cleaned, and we're still just going about our business. Everyone is generally well cared for and certainly loved. We have three kids and I manage OK. Not always great (or even good) but we make it work.

Bear with me, I'm trying to tie this all together but it's a mess in my head.

Yesterday, I had lunch with that same friend. Realizing that it was almost exactly a year to the day that we'd had this car wreck experience, I came up with the brilliant idea that we should revisit the restaurant we'd lunched at before. Lunch was tasty, and the conversation rambling. A few quick errands together and I dropped her off at home all safe and sound. Then I ate my way through the rest of the day. I went to bed, but had trouble sleeping because I couldn't short circuit the anxiety cycle in my brain. What was so upsetting? In retrospect, I think that my decision to revisit the restaurant really stressed out my friend. And I feel so bad about that. I enjoy hanging out with her. Truly, I don't have a lot of friends (though the ones I do have are amazing) and I'm pretty sure I really alienated her yesterday. I didn't mean to. But I was wrong. I think. And my paranoia and anxiety just kept building.

Like always, I tried to stuff it down with food, but I just ended up hating myself more in the end.

Now. On to something equally rambling and related in a vague/chronological way.

As I was laying in bed, thinking about how I had made this serious misstep with my friend and how much I wanted to apologize, I was distracted by Oliver. He's very congested and the last two night have been very bad. No sleep to be had. He wants to nurse to feel better, but then as he's nursing he can't breathe very well due to the snot. It's frustrating and exhausting but he'll get better and eventually we'll all be OK. Things got much better for me in the wee hours of the morning when Marc just took Oliver away and I went to sleep.

Oliver entered into my evening when I was already riding that anxiety-crazy cycle. I was overly full, upset, and generally not mentally well. So as I'm trying to deal with him, I kept remembering when we went through somthing like this with Xavier. Only Xavier was about 2 months old and had to admitted to the hospital for oxygen level monitoring, IV fluids/medication, and wall suction (to get the snot out of his nose). We were only in for about a day and half. You can stay as long as you want with them, but the only place to sleep is a recliner. After days of going through all of this at home, I was exhausted. During admitting I couldn't remember important facts. Some friends showed up to support us and I just cried. The hospital preformed a spinal tap - I couldn't even wait outside the room for them to finish, I had to go to a different part of the hospital. And you know what? This whole experience was awful. I color the event by thinking: we weren't in the hospital that long, I'm so glad it was such a minor illness, it all worked out OK. And all of those things are true. But hidden in that is the essential truth: my kid was sick, it made me feel lost and helpless, and the entire experience was emotionally challenging. And when I try to face this truth I get upset all over again. Even though everything turned out OK. Because I have never really faced this truth. So it sits there, waiting.

Somehow, truly admitting to myself and others how much these "minor" incidents in life upset me feels like a disaster in the making. I'm still waiting for the time when the "black" mood days, when the anxiety creeps up, when I go a little too crazy. For just a moment, I'm going to try to set aside the euphamisms and be transparent: Once, 11 years ago, I was so depressed and anxiety riddled that I was slowly killing myself through starvation and actively contemplating speeding up the process with a chemical overdose. I haven't gotten close to that place since I came out of it 11 years ago, though I do find myself struggling from time to time with depression. But having lived through that experience, I live in fear that I'll fall into it again. And this time I'll drag all the people I love with me, and that's even worse.

Typing this post is so hard. My stomach hurts, my muscles are tense, my head aches. This is the truth. Inside, mentally, I'm a mess. I can't even go back and reread for typos.

I think this post probably belongs over on my other blog, the one where I embrace my freaked out mental self a little bit more. Sorry.

So. Back to the food thing. I ate my way through my problems yesterday and feel lousy for it. I woke up with those problems this morning but I stuck with my breakfast goals. The hard part will be letting go and not eating my way through today. I'll probably be back tonight with an update. Maybe. If I can face it. Thanks.

Staring blankly ahead.

For once, I'm not thinking about food. I'm just thinking about sleep. It's been a very long week.

I simply cannot keep up the current pace I've set for myself. I find I'm missing things, and those things are important to me. I know there isn't time for everything, but I thought I had gotten better at managing and prioritizing. Even with my fancy time/task management system, even with my best effort, I just cannot continue on this way. The hard part is knowing what to get rid of and how best to move it on from my life.

On a more specific thought: last month I received a new light therapy device. My youngest child smashed the (very expensive) bulb on the one I used before and I was very excited about the new one. Light therapy devices have changed a lot since I bought mine awhile back. My new device is a blue light spectrum box, small, easily used/understood, not painfully bright. The downside is that I can't use it the same way as the old box, and that's becoming problematic. I either need to go back to the old device (or something like it) or make proper use of the new one a huge priority. Just to clarify, I don't have seasonal affective disorder (SAD) but I do find myself very susceptible to the shortened/darkened days of winter. Plus, the therapy box helps me stay on schedule for sleep. Anyone else using a light box? Any comments?

Moving on.
When I walked into the kitchen this morning, I found a bowl full of milk on the counter. Ari had fixed some cereal for breakfast and added way too much milk, then left it (instead of drinking it). We don't buy sugar-laden cereals or even allow the kids to have them, but several of the cereals the kids enjoy aren't in my calorie count. Ari's cereal was one of these. I have to admit, I added my bland old cornflakes to her sweetened milk. Within my 200 calories? Probably not. But I'm counting it anyway because before the bowl was empty I was full - and I stopped eating and threw the rest out!

That bears repeating: I stopped eating breakfast before the bowl was empty, because I was full.

Success pretty much ends there, I think. Oh, except I didn't eat any chips with lunch. And my "freedom snack" was just a glass of unsweetened iced tea. So I guess there's more good stuff. I did overeat at dinner and at a snack this afternoon.

Must sleep now. And drink more iced tea. Very thirsty.

Putting my head down and marching right along.

I need a new refrain. So here it is. Today's success list.

1. Completed school lessons. 2. Managed 4 children. 3. Marked over half of my morning's to do list as complete. 4. Cooked dinner (from scratch). 5.

There's no 5. Making that list didn't help. It's a surprisingly short list, though it encompasses so much more.

OK. On to something new. There's a backstory here but I'm not going to go into it. But I'm inspired tonight to write a "positive list."

I am .... articulate.
I am .... passionate.
I am .... committed to improving myself.
I am .... in love with my family.
I am .... a solid friend.

These things, they are good.

Today, without thinking, I stuck to my breakfast goals. It feels normal. I didn't think that could happen.

I'm trying to be positive today though I'm not feeling it. I've actually been pretty darned good today but I'm not getting anything good out of the experience. But I'm hungry now, actually really hungry, not just seeking a freedom snack*. So I'm out of here to eat something, legitimately.

*freedom snack: The snack I like to have when I come downstairs after getting all the kids in bed. It's usually high calorie/ high fat junk food that I don't like to eat in front of the kids because I'm setting such a bad example.

Losing steam.

I'm faltering. I haven't done my reading for the last few days. Today I gave in and just went with it all instead of trying to enact change. I'm tired. Frustrated. Losing hope that I can actually succeed.

I'd like to write about good things - and there are some from today - but I'm not much of an optimist in general, and certainly not tonight. The good things just don't seem as important right now. So instead, I'm just all whiny.

I wonder what's hanging around my neck and pulling me down. Possible answers include: 1. Total of 6 hours of sleep (interrupted), preceded by two nights of 7 hours or less. 2. Fighting off a migraine. 3. The cycle of failure is winning. 4. I feel like this is all some kind of void. I can't remember the point. 5. I've used up all my effort and am just phoning it in.

Probably, all those answers are factors in tonight's negativity.

One last ditch effort to end on an up-note: I kept in my breakfast range. I left food on my plate at lunch (a huge accomplishment for me). I had a reasonable dinner portion. I marked most of today's to do list as done. I got to hang with some of my favorite people.

Going through the list, I'm dismayed that in spite of this I still feel so lousy.

What do you all do when you're feeling this way? What makes it better? I'm open to suggestions.

Little nagging things I carry through the day.

Sometimes, the inside of my ear itches. I keep rubbing the outside, or bouncing my head back and forth, or covering up the outer ear, but it still itches. It will continue to just itch. Until whatever nerve is misfiring stops and the itch magically disappears.

Assuming, of course, that I don't puncture my ear drum with a sharp object in a fit of mental incapacity. And that it's not actually some kind of alien attaching itself to my cochlea in an effort to understand human speech.

Back to the ear itch. It will drive me crazy. It nags, irritates, annoys. It's not a huge thing, except in my helplessness. I just have to wait it out. The irritation builds. Until I want to poke pencil into my brain.

So. This food thing? It's like that. My desire for the next thing to eat is always there. Nagging. Irritating. The "pencil in the brain" equivalent is to just give in and eat something. Usually something really bad for me. Somehow, I don't see the act of eating something as traumatic, life altering, or injurious as a punctured ear drum. I vaguely suspect that if I did see eating like that, I wouldn't be struggling this way.

On to less rambling things...

I had a bad day. I won't go into the details, but I fell down a lot. I didn't break my face, but I did bruise it a little. I had some limited success and it's very hard to hold on to it right now.

I'm trying to recalibrate my understanding of "hungry" and "full." The "Thin Within" guide goes like this: on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being "hungry" and 10 being "really uncomfortably stuffed. I'm supposed to eat when I'm at a 0 and try to stop when I'm at a 5. But when I'm at a 0, I can't function. I can make decisions. I often end up eating something in desperation, then eating more faster, and the cycle kicks in. So I think I need to give up on the 0. Maybe eat at a 1 or 1.5. It's possible that as time goes on I can shift to 0. I don't know.

I'm a sugar junkie. When I'm a zero on the scale, I actually have tremors. Realizing this has been a very frightening experience. I'm confronted with how bad I've let this get. Hopefully, with consistent ongoing effort I can improve this situation.

I was supposed to start my success list at the end of each day. I failed. New habit: not actually started. I'll work on it. I still think it's a good idea.

That's all folks.

Rambling.

Sometimes I feel split in half. There's the functional me. This functional part succeeded today. Lessons taught, homework checked, children fed, laundry washed. The functional me fixed dinner, managed when the dryer stopped working, took a shower, changed diapers. Functional me keeps this world going around.

Then there's the other part of me. The crazy part. The mental me. Mental me is busy thinking about food, or freaking out, or stuck on the anxiety train. Mental me spends some of my day - every day... EVERY day - screaming. Just screaming.

I've had these two halves for a long time. I've tried all sorts of things to make the mental me calm. I've had good and bad coping mechanisms. More bad than good in the past. I've set a lot of those bad things aside and started replacing them with good coping mechanisms. Except for food. I still try to stop the screaming with food. It's not as obviously a negative coping mechanism but it is negative. Left alone, I will eat myself into oblivion.

That's hard for me to say. It's all hard for me to say. It's hard to look at all of it and be honest. Clear.

On to less rambling. Breakfast: mixed success. Kept within my calorie count for actual breakfast but within an hour added calorie heavy coffee. Struggling with trying to wait until I'm hungry to eat. Struggling to stay on task. Trying to let go of all my failure and see some success.

I'm just exhausted now. I'm off for the night.

This is like a cheap carnival ride.

I'm posting the daily report on Monday, for yesterday. I spent a lot of time yesterday doing other things on the computer that I've been putting off and ran out of time for the blog. As much as I want to post here every day, that's probably not terribly reasonable. Maybe I'll go for 5 days a week or something. Besides, I'll probably get bored with myself soon.

Also, I just didn't want to report in yesterday. I agreed to a buffet lunch at a restaurant yesterday. It went about as you'd expect: I overate.

I held my own for breakfast, though. And that's getting easier. I'm getting to where I don't even want the high calorie breakfast anymore. It's been almost a month now, so I guess that habit is becoming well established. I'm breaking my rules this morning, though, by following my 200 cal breakfast with a cup of (calorie laden) coffee. Trust me, I need the coffee. Just to stare down the day.

Back to Sunday. After overeating at the buffet, I was actually kind of good. I avoided a lot of snacks. When I served the family dinner I didn't eat anything because I wasn't hungry. I sat with them at the table and we talked. It felt weird, to not participate in dinner, but good too.

I think Sunday was a day full of highs and lows.

On another note, I'm going to try to start a 'success' list at the end of each day. Just making notes of the things that were good for the day. No matter how big or small. I'll let you know how this new habit goes.

Off to start a new day. Later, ya'll.

Hunger sucks.

I'm working on the very basic concept of waiting to eat until I'm actually hungry. This is very difficult for me. The idea is that if I'm hungry I will enjoy my food more. If I enjoy the food more then I'll be less likely to go seeking something more to eat.

This is very hard for me. The hungrier I am the more desperate I am. It's progressively harder for me to make a food choice and then eat responsibly. I don't enjoy my food more. I just feel trapped.

I'm not sure how to get out of this cycle. I know that I should eat only when I'm hungry, and stop before I'm stuffed. But I feel so out of control when I'm hungry.

I guess that's the answer. Find the feeling of control while I'm hungry, and I'll get this thing licked.

Gone Fishing. On a beach. In the sun. Leave a message, I'll get back to you.

Today is one of those weird in between kind of days. I over ate (shocker!) but don't feel guilty about it. I'm not motivated enough to want to do anything to stop. I think this is some coping mechanism in my brain. The stress of this whole thing pulls at me, and I think that some days I just sort of check out of the process.

And the last week has been really challenging me. Stress level: High.

The hard part of this: you can't just stop eating. Sure, you can give up carbs, or sugar, or sweets in general, or regular (or any) soda... but you have to have something, sometime. There's no true, real, full avoidance. It's not even about a 'culture' of food. It's such a basic thing. It comes down to choices. How much? How often? What to put on the plate? And the stress is high. So today, nobody's home.

I'll be back tomorrow.
Probably.

Pendulum of personal performance.

Or: Crazy mood swings often mark my day.

I'm always amazed at how much better I feel when I get the house around me picked up. I feel like I'm exerting some kind of control over the chaos. I feel good. I feel in control. Even though it's often a very loosely held control. It's especially nice when I make improvements in areas that have been messy for awhile. Tonight, we did some heavy duty pickup and put away in the kids' rooms and upstairs hallway. Several times since then I've stopped briefly to admire the open spaces, the declutter, the successful effort to improve something.

What does this have to do with food? Isn't that what this whole blog is supposed to be about?

It's all woven together. My food thing isn't really about food. Sure, I love food. We go way back. It tastes good. I enjoy mixing together a bunch of things and getting something that is so much more than its parts. But my problem with food isn't really about food at all. It's about control.

I grew up in an environment where I had no control. Not over my life decisions, my personal goals, my daily routine. Worse, the grown ups who were exerting all their control were often unpredictable. Unpredictable in a loud chaotic way. I don't live well in that - perhaps more accurately, I didn't live well. And once I got old enough I was able to make some decisions, primarily about food. Combine that with a lot of bad body image stuff, poor nutritional education, and very easy access to junk food - and here we are.

And so, when I get the bedrooms and hallway picked up, I feel better. And when I feel better, it's easier to say no to the extra food. I still want it. I still think about it. I just have a higher chance at walking away.

Today's reading of "Thin Within" talks about the "path of performance" - essentially, the failure you experience are taken as a personal, negative thing that comes along with self-condemnation, which leads to poor decision making, then more failure, cue: the cycle. I live stuck in this path. I'm working on changing that in everything I do, especially in my personal relationships and in my eating habits. Sometimes, success needs it's own cheerleader.

A few sort of related notes:

I usually make a daily to do list. It helps me stay focused. Plus, an awesome friend helped me figure out a flexible, positive system that works really well for me so I don't hate the process. But some days all I can see are the places I failed: the things I didn't check off the list. So I was thinking... what if I ended the day with a "success" list? Listing out the things I've completed, accomplished, and/or feel good about for that day. How about defining success? Or is this sort of emphasis just the "other side of the coin" for failure? To me, success and failure go together, but not in the sort of "same coin" idea. Thoughts?

(insert some witty comment to transition to next note here)

I made banana pudding yesterday. My favorite kind, with Nilla (not off brand) wafers, thin slices of bananas, and the cooked pudding that soaks into the cookies and makes them all soft and yummy. I LOVE eating this pudding for breakfast. It tastes wonderful the next day, and seems like my perfect breakfast food. But you know what? It's not in my 200 cal range.

And today? Today I didn't eat banana pudding for breakfast. I. Win.

[Don't worry, I'm not completely reformed. I ate pudding for dessert.]

Awful. I fell down and broke my face.

OK. I didn't break my face. But I did break all my goals today. I skipped my reading, I ate a lot of candy, I had extra pudding helpings. I feel awful. Full. Tired. Ugly. It's all just sitting on top of me and leaving me defeated.

Tomorrow's a new day. I can try again. It's just... I'm so tired of the failure.

On a different note, I weighed in at the doctor's office today. Suprisingly, I lost a little bit of weight over the holiday. I'm not going to dwell on this, though, because I don't want to focus on the weight issue. I want to focus on changing my habits.

I'd rate today as... not so great.

I was very busy yesterday. I ended day with several successes, and I was pretty pleased. Also, I was able to go to sleep last night without my crazy anxiety spiral. [That backstory is an entirely different kind of post. In short: when I'm the only adult at home with sleeping kids, I find it hard to go to sleep. At bedtime last night, I was the only grown up here, but I managed ok anyway.]

Today is different. Today, I snacked all afternoon. I've eaten two dinners. I've thought about food all day.

Now I'm wondering about it all in context. Yesterday, I felt crazy. Lots of mood swings back and forth. Today I feel more stable. But the stability seems to go with giving in to the food cravings. When I'm not focusing on changing my bad habits, I have the illusion of more control. And I do realize that it's an illusion. But it's hard to accept.

Yesterday, I got a ton of stuff done. And last night, I got no sleep. I'm exhausted, and everything is harder when I'm tired.

This morning, I kept within my 200 calorie breakfast. But I skipped my book reading ("Thin Within") because I felt like I couldn't face it.

I'm wondering if there is a way to moderate my Monday/Tuesday routine a bit better. Generally, I push really hard on Mondays to get a lot done, then I "slack off" on Tuesdays. For example, yesterday (monday) I moved 7 loads worth of laundry from the dirty pile, through the wash/dry, folded it all (or used it to remake beds as appropriate), and got a lot of it put away. Today, I've managed to wash/dry two loads, but it's all still sitting in the basket waiting for me to finish it. Maybe it would be better to spread out the effort a bit more?

Any thoughts? What works for you guys? [Assuming anyone is reading this.] Moderate, or give/take?

Also, I have a doctor appointment tomorrow. I'll have to stand on a scale. Yuck.

My first "diet" book purchase, ever. Yeah... I was surprised too.

Two weeks ago, I was introduced to a book called "Thin Within" by Judy and Arthur Halliday. It's subtitled as a "Grace-Oriented Approach to Lasting Weight Loss." I'm reading it wth a small group of people I've never met, but we'll be getting to know each other through an email chat group. This book will be coming up in these posts, surely. I'm read through the introduction and Day One. I'm still processing a lot of info. I'll get back to you about it.

My first change.

I decided to start with breakfast. I don't have any real concept as to what an appropriate portion is. I've spent so long eating too much that I what I perceive as a "normal" portion is usually too large a size. I've tried the little tricks - room around all the food on the plate, smaller dishes, portioning in the kitchen and then walking away. Those things haven't fundamentally changed my eating habits. So, based on a previous diet experience, I decided to start eating a 200 calorie breakfast.

I can eat a lot for 200 calories, some very satisfying breakfast things. No sausage mcgriddles (oops, that's my really secret breakfast vice) but quite a bit of variety. Cereals, yogurt, fruit, different combinations of these things.

Breakfast feels like a good starting place. The day hasn't piled on top of me yet. My failures aren't clamoring around in my head. Breakfast feels easy. Plus, when I start on a good foot it's easier to keep going that way. Some days, anyway.

Today is day 21 of my new breakfast calorie limit. In those 21 days, I've blown the count three times. Those failures really wrecked my day. The failure I felt those mornings dogged me until I went to bed, feeling stuffed and ugly.

But after 21 days... I'm beginning to feel a little successful. I'm beginning to feel like maybe it might be ok. This is amazingly empowering.

That little bit of success gave me the strength I needed to start talking about this more openly. This is good. I must shine a light into the dark corners of this problem.

The background.

Here are the low-down dirty facts:
I'm overweight.
I'm physically unfit.
I have a low energy level.
I overeat.
I am an emotional eater.

I think about food all the time. The upcoming meal. The dessert in the fridge. That snack that sounds so good, even though I'm not hungry. I eat until I feel so full I can hardly stand it.

It's a terrible cycle. I eat because I'm bored, tired, depressed, angry, upset, feeling out of control. Then, when the full feeling kicks in and the inital flavor rush is passed, I feel even worse. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have such a strong aversion to puking, I'd just binge and purge. The food sits there. In my stomach, yes, but more in my mind. In my heart. Knowing that I had some kind of goal and I failed. Again.

Over the years, I've done a lot of things that were bad for me. I drank alchohol to excess. I smoked cigarettes. I cut and burned my own skin. I've given up those things. But I haven't conquered all the reasons that has contributed to those bad coping mechanisms. Instead, I eat.

I don't want to feel enslaved by food anymore. I don't want to stay on this roller coaster anymore. Change is hard. So here I am.