Pork and Beans

I’mma do the things that I wanna do
I ain’t got a thing to prove to you
I’ll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink
I don’t give a hoot about what you think
Weezer

I did something terrible last week. Twice. I betrayed myself and my husband and I did it at work. As I did the walk of shame to my desk, I was stopped by two coworkers who stopped and scolded me. They were in shock at what they’d just caught me doing. They didn’t know all the details, but I did. I joked with them to ease the tension and it killed me inside. I was being sneaky and got caught. I knew what I’d done was wrong and I have to fess up. I’m doing this so that people who read this will know and maybe hold me accountable in the future.

Are you ready to hear this? You might think of me differently and just know that I am so, so sorry if you do…

I ate a cookie in a broom closet and a piece of cake with buttercream icing at my desk.

Go ahead. Laugh it up. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I can’t believe I’m actually writing those words. I HID in a closet so no one would see me eat the cookie because I knew I shouldn’t be eating it. Then, as if I wasn’t already breaking my diet enough, I got a piece of cake, too. (AND IT WAS DELICIOUS!) I walked it all the way back to my desk and that is exactly how I got caught.

“What do you think you’re doing?” My coworker asked me, grinning.
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t. But I’m weak and it’s so good!” I replied, trying to make her laugh.
“You’re not supposed to be eating sugar, though. That’s nothing BUT sugar there! It’s gonna make you sick, you know.” She was right.

My husband and I have been doing the ketogenic “way of life” (AKA diet) for the past 7 weeks and working out 3-4 times a week. I’ve seen progress in both of us and I feel great! I’ve lost inches and almost 2 pant sizes, felt stronger, worked harder each visit, slept better, and gotten a few compliments from people who’ve noticed. I fought through the withdrawals of quitting all that junk cold-turkey and it was certainly NOT easy…

But yet… I still find myself mentally crawling back to sugar, bread, and CARBS again and again! I can’t figure out why! The cravings seem to happen when I’m not hungry, I’m tired, I’m bored, I’m thirsty, I’m sad, I’m moody, I’m happy, I’m stressed, and when I’m PMSing. So, basically all the time. I’ve only significantly cheated 4 times since we started, though. Which is pretty dang good, considering I spent 26 years previous to 7 weeks ago living on bread, cereal, ramen, pasta, candy, soda, fast food, heavily sweetened tea and coffee, and pizza (and by “significantly”, I mean I ate an actual serving or more.) For example, that cake has at least 40 grams of sugar carbs in that one slice, so I would count that. But, my grandmother gave me a Robin’s Egg Whopper candy a couple weeks ago and I absolutely did NOT count that. Why would I? Come on. One tiny Whopper egg? How bad could that be?
(Apparently, after looking at myfitnesspal’s database, a serving of that heavenly Easter candy is 8 pieces with 34 carbs. I had one egg, which equals out to about……. 4 carbs. Well, crap. That IS significant considering I can only have 20g net carbs in a day(Total carbs-fiber & sugar alcohols=net carbs))

*heavy sigh*

I know, I know. I have no good excuse. Each time I give in to those cravings, I’m blowing my daily carb count through the roof and reinforcing the addiction to sugar. My body seems to think I need it to live. I’m DYING if I don’t eat that chocolate/pizza/PB&J sandwich/you name it. I’ve figured out a trick, though. We buy these tortilla/flax seed wraps that are low carb and high fiber so each one only have 4 net carbs. I eat those in place of bread for a “sandwich” at lunch or a peanut butter snack at night. I try to limit myself to 2 a day max, depending on what else I’ve eaten, and that seems to trick my body into thinking I’m eating bread. It satisfies the craving and fills my tummy and I stay under my daily net carbs. I’ve also found a TON of keto recipes for different meals and desserts that are fun to make and don’t taste like compost (lookin’ at you, keto “brownies” I made last year). It’s actually been a really fun diet so far and I’ve really enjoyed cooking every day. One of my favorite things is to try a new recipe and test it on my husband. Most are a hit and become a weekly meal. A couple have crashed and burned(literally), but we won’t talk about those…

The hardest part about all this has been the exercise. Seriously. Exercise sucks and hurts and makes me sooooo tired…. I know it’s good for me. I know it’ll help me lose weight/get in shape. I know it’ll make me stronger. I know it supposed to be hard at first. I know if I stick with it, it’ll be worth it. I know my muscles will deteriorate if I don’t use them.

I KNOW, OKAY? I KNOW.

What I didn’t know, though, was how hard emotionally it would be for me. I’ve always considered myself to be moderately strong when it comes to emotions. I can get overwhelmed and overly emotional sometimes, like most anybody. But overall, I can handle quite a bit before I break. I’ve been through 4 divorces as a child (more counting grandparents), attended too many funerals to count (family and otherwise), dealt with trauma and abuse as a child and young adult, moved 650 miles away from home in IL to help start/plant a new church in MS, lost a child at 20 weeks pregnant, and I basically run a 3 (soon-to-be 4) provider mental health clinic as my day job. It’s a lot when you read it like that, of course, but these are things I’ve dealt with throughout my 27 years on this planet. Things that I’ve been to counseling for and worked on getting over/past/through to make myself stronger. So that determination should translate to this physical exercise part of me now, right? You’d think, but no. I cry almost every time I work out. You can’t really tell because I’m sweaty and I keep it quiet. Or I just wait til I get home and cry in the shower. I apologize profusely to my husband if he has to help me. I whine and moan about things that make no sense and he just laughs and reassures me. The emotional roller-coaster exercise has taken me on is amazing and rough. It’s opening more doors and windows into my past that show me why I operate the way I do. It’s boiled down to one major thought: I always feel like I have to prove myself to people; I have to work to earn people’s love and respect; I must push myself harder than I can handle so people know I’m strong; and I have to cause pain to punish myself for the things I’ve done/caused/thought/felt/etc… How awful is that? It makes PERFECT sense when I’m in the thick of it. It really does. But when it’s over and I’m just a crying puddle of sadness, I ask myself “why?” I didn’t quite understand where all of that was coming from and just how deeply rooted it was until I started to journal about it. The more I wrote and processed, it became clear. All of this stems down to one, solitary thought that entered my brain as a child, haunted me ever since, and made me the way I am today. It caused a lot of the battles I’ve fought and lost. This stupid, insignificant, sentence has burrowed deep into my being and stretched its vines into my soul and mind for 20 or more years. No one ever had to even mutter it to me. It’s like I just knew it was true.

I’m. Not. And. Never. Will. Be. Worthy/Enough.

It’s been there all along. Since I was at least 6 years old and my parents split up. The thought-seed sprouted and started to take root. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have said anything. I mean, most children who go through divorce go through this on some level. (I say most, because sometimes divorce can be a relief if the household is abusive or traumatic in any way.) We kids take so much responsibility for situations we don’t understand on our shoulders. It HAD to have been something I did because mom and dad were happy until I did something.

The way all that affects me currently, to circle back around (see? ADD child here), is that for all the bad situations I’ve been through or put myself through, it was all because I was never good enough to keep my parents together. I surely had done or said something to make them stop loving each other and divorce. It’s obviously not true and I assure you, I am not that powerful/destructive. But nevertheless, I have always fought to be the biggest, strongest, loudest, toughest, most dominating, emotionless, controlling, sarcastic, and carefree person in my group of friends or literally anywhere I was at the time. It cost me many friendships, relationships, and opportunities over the years, most of which I still regret. I had to do everything on my own and I hated to ask for help. I don’t like leaning on people and I hate when people give me advice. I stood up to bullies, or people I perceived as bullies, and teachers when they were being unfair. Friends knew they could count on me to get in someone’s face for them, whether they were right or not. I defend my friends no matter the cost. I will go to bat for anyone in my trusted circle and you can put money on that (I still do, just in a more mature way). I just go headlong into situations and figure the details out along the way. That’s how stuff gets done and how you keep yourself protected. I never get hurt and no one ever lets me down. And my exercising? Oh, Lord. I force myself to push through pain because it’s SUPPOSED to hurt and if it doesn’t hurt I’m not doing it enough. I don’t want my husband correcting me while I’m working out because I GOT THIS. I know what I’m supposed to do and I know how much my body can take. You just watch and see the results I get. I’m gonna be bigger and better than ever. I’ll never be helpless ever again. I’ll never, ever feel unworthy or not good enough. I’m gonna get skinny and sexy and thin and wear all the cute frilly dresses and shorts and heels my mom always wanted me to wear and I’ll finally look like a girl, a woman even! Right? This is how it should be! This is the measure of beautiful and attractive! Right?!

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

How incredibly miserable that thought has made me for so much of my life. How lonely and depressed and suicidal and anxious and angry, all because of this stupid wall I put around myself and all these standards I set for myself and tried to force myself to meet. Just to be good enough for someone. For who, you ask? ANYONE. Some of these standards are still in my head, and didn’t realize it until my husband and I started working out. Over the past 7 weeks, I’ve hurt myself more often than not because I wasn’t seeing results fast enough to satisfy this need to prove something to someone, so I pushed harder even when it hurt(more than normal). No one is even looking at me at the gym, my husband loves me and tells me I’m beautiful at least a hundred times a day, and no one else should matter (in this instance)! This angst and anger and pain has just been buried and shoved down. Now that we’re eating right and working out, for some reason all of this is starting to resurface, especially the self-esteem issues and lack of confidence. I see it as a distraction, though. Something that tries to come up and stop me from making progress. It’s worked a couple times and I’ve talked myself out of going to the gym. It’s like I don’t know what it’s like to be healthy and in shape so it makes me afraid. All these self-conscious thoughts run through my head: Will my husband leave me once he’s in shape? What if someone else grabs his attention if i’m not losing fast enough? What about the chocolate I ate? Is that going to keep me fat forever? What if I can’t lose all the fat I want to? What if I get into shape and can’t maintain it? What if I gain all that weight back again? So many “what ifs” and I can’t even type out them all here… These thoughts are painful and they swirl around in my head no matter how loud I make my music while I workout. It’s maddening and it’s nearly enough to make me give up..

But I don’t….

I go back again and again, 3 times a week or more. Even if my husband has to drag me or tempt me with something to go, I get ready and walk out that door. The way I feel after working out sucks, but the results I’m getting are worth it. I’m using it as my “me” time now. I can listen to whatever music I want for 45 minutes. I don’t have to talk to a single person if I don’t want. I can sort my thoughts and do battle with my insecurities without anyone knowing. I can feel the burn from my muscles tearing through all that ice in my heart. It’s so worth it. All my frustrations from work, home, self, church, and anything else get turned into energy I use to push myself further through another set or a higher weight on the machine. I have a long way to go and a lot of battling to do, but I can honestly say that after 7 weeks, the amount of self-reflection I’ve been allowed has been incredible. God is constantly revealing new things I need to work on and my body is pointing to different muscles I’ve never used that need rebuilding. I feel like an old building being gutted and put under construction. I can’t wait to see what the new me will be like a month from now, or even a year from now. But for now, I’m gonna just learn how to be OKAY with who I am right now and stop caring about the approval of others. The Bible says we aren’t supposed to be seeking the approval of people, but of God only, in order to be servants of Christ.

So, that’s my mission now. Learn how to seek God’s approval for myself and my body and stop looking to people around me who fail anyway. I suppose I should probably start seeing my counselor again ’cause I have NO IDEA how to even begin. My sister-in-law suggested I start a journal. I’m used to journaling for other stuff and once I get going, it’s really hard to stop or not cry. Hah! But that’s a good jumping off point. I’d like to continue blogging about this journey, too, since the accountability helps. I’ve been a bit braver and posted some things on Facebook, too, so people can follow this new journey I’m on. I appreciate how kind and encouraging everyone has been. It’s really made a difference…

Anyway, keep an eye out for another post the next time those emotions rear their ugly head. I’m sure it’ll be interesting… 😉