Presto Diet - Day Three

My partner showed me a video of Penn Jillette talking about his weight-loss. Said video is here.

I bought his book 'Presto' and started upon a reading rampage. His book is funny and I definitely don't agree with everything he talks about but the main pretence made sense to me.

I've only ever done one diet before, the Liver Cleansing Diet - which my Mum and I did together when I was about 16 or so. I did it and lost a bunch of weight and got a crazy amount of comments and positivity from EVERYONE. It was stupid, because as soon as I began to eat like myself again (binges and all) I just gained the weight back on. Plus I felt like a fucking failure.

Recently I decided to go back to Over-Eaters Anonymous again. I'd gotten to the point of exhaustion with my bingeing - my obsession with food had taken up so much of my energy that I was barely able to keep the rest of my life together. OA is a strange place, you go there because you really don't want to and you keep going because you really really don't want to. It's that type of awful feeling, deep down in the pit of yourself that is just screaming to leave the room - and your rational self realises that sitting in a room for an hour with strangers, telling you about their lives and eating habits should not illicit that reaction. The only reason your mind is reacting like that is because it's trying to save it's addictive self. You and your body want to keep running yourself into the ground because the addiction is just that strong, it has been your coping mechanism for life.

That addiction has both helped and hindered me through almost my entire life, starting back when my relationship with food and my body went sour. Much like how most of my future romantic relationships would go, it was a one-sided, needy-as-fuck relationship. Food was my first love. My second was my friend at Primary School that I used to obsessively stalk whilst he played soccer on the field.

Needless to say, the unrequited loves of my life made me terribly unhappy and food was a comfort to my loneliness, anxiety (that one has become quite the fucking buzz-word lately hasn't it?) and fear.

So this book by a Magician who at best I find funny and at worst I find annoyingly arrogant, felt refreshing and interesting. It also sounded like an bizarre way to implement the Meal Plan which OA recommends as part of your recovery process. A bit like doing an experiment on my fucked up, self-abused body.


At the real core of it all, I don't want to think about food constantly, I don't want to be obese and have all these shitty health problems at 31 years old, and I sure as hell don't want to die early because I ate too much BK.

The Potato Famine part is tough (it's also pretty offensively named). I have done it for almost 3 days now and my obsessive mind has been obsessing about potatoes a lot. And then this morning I woke up and I wasn't hungry, I think mainly because I don't really feel like a plain potato or kumera. That's interesting to me - that because I've taken the choices and pleasure out of my food (it's for 2 weeks), my mind doesn't feel like eating and I can clearly listen to what the rest of my body needs.

So I feel okay, more okay than I expected to feel. Although Penn mentions that the third and fourth days are generally the shittiest for people, so I'm waiting for that. The headaches are shit, the hot flushes are annoying and the puffy face is too but so far that's it. In the meantime I see my weight has gone down - whether or not it's just water weight or something else I don't know but that's cool, I'm in this for the long run. I started at 106 kilos and I'm now 102, my goal is 75.

I want my body to be healthy and live a long time and I'm eating potatoes for two weeks, then a mainly vegan based diet until I reach my target weight. Once I'm there I'll be vegan most of the time and eat what I want every two weeks, for a 4 hour period.

Penn's book may be a money-making venture, it may have more jokes and ego than medical advice (he does mention that he is after-all not a Nutritionist but a Las Vegas Magician) but it has helped me because it led me to believe that with my naturally obsessive and extremist personality (much like his), I needed to make changes that go with my nature, not against it. I cannot eat like a 'normy' and I don't want to. I'm going to eat like a big fat Magician whose trying to heal his body, and so far I feel like this is working for me.

Watch this space...

Another Eating Disorder Post?

I've written before about my eating disorder but I'd like to be a bit more honest/specific this time around. Instead of focusing on the food, I'm going to write a little about where it comes from. Why? Because I only just realised that to heal myself I'm going to have to figure out the answers to all the questions about my behaviours, what's sitting behind it all. And perhaps it might help someone else too.

I am a Compulsive Overeater and have been since I can remember. The first time I remember eating past the point of full, without feeling in control was when I was 7 or 8. My Great Aunt and Uncle had me after school every Thursday and they would give me all the lollies, ice-blocks, sausage rolls, hot chips and tomato sauce I could possibly want. We didn't have this type of food at home, except for special occasions and I felt like Augustus Gloop in 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory'. I hated school and didn't understand the other kids or the point of all the rules and schedules. Apparently I woke up every morning, surprised that we had to do it all again that day. I was classed as 'eccentric' by my family and had few friends, I gradually understood that to fit in I had to stop telling people what I was really thinking and then things became easier. But I ate to fill myself up and numb the anxiety, sadness and loneliness I felt.

I still compulsively overeat for the same reasons. I will eat like that, generally by myself, quickly and secretly. I will eat until I hurt, beyond that I will eat until I hurt, then wait a few hours and eat to that point again. Something inside of me enjoys sabotaging my body, I enjoy hurting myself because it stops me from feeling the other feelings that I can't do anything about.

People often speak of eating disorders as being about control and in my case that is correct too. I eat because I can control that feeling, I can create it and maintain it and I understand it, it has been with me since I was a child. I have scars all over my body from hurting myself this way, scads of deep stretch marks, four more scars from my surgery to remove my gallbladder (I don't believe this would have happened if I'd treated my body with kindness), pre-diabetes and a body that acts much older than it's 29 years.

We all have our addictions, our weaknesses, our Achilles heel, mine just happens to be fed with copious amounts of food. It's a long term journey but over 10 years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to have the life I have now with my Bipolar. I'm strong and I know I'll find a way to treat myself with the love, care and respect it deserves one day - I hope that whatever your self-medication, that you also find your way there too.  

Your food, your food, your food is my drug.

I saw a film called 'Thanks For Sharing' a few nights ago that focused on sex addiction. I thought it would be some puff piece where they lightly attempted to inject some sort of message into the storyline but filled the rest up with a shit-ton of puns about sex. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the film and even more surprised that I felt a real connection to the pain of their stories.

I became keenly aware of the addict crossover world years ago when I fessed up to myself that I had a compulsive binge eating problem. At the time I was navigating myself through the minefield of baggage that was entangled up in the shizzle of my bipolar mess, so my therapist and I decided to focus on keeping me alive and deal with the eating issues later. This often happens when someone has more than one major issue (such as smoking and drinking), the focus goes on the addiction/mental health issue that is more dire and the lesser evil is swept under the rug for a bit. Many addicts have more than one addiction, as do many people with mental health bullshit, in fact I'm yet to meet someone who has collected just one. Often you're just not that aware of the others until the black hole sized one is more manageable or drug dulled.

The odd thing for me was realising that compulsive binge eating was very much an addiction and how similar my experiences with it were to my friend who was a recovering alcoholic. I'm sure people would love to think that they're not and I'm definitely not saying there aren't plenty of differences (I haven't heard of any binge induced comas for instance). But the lies, deception, shame, guilt, complete lack of control whilst actioning said addiction, those are good friends for all addicts. No matter what substance we're abusing, we're trying to drown and numb something fucking dark that's located deep inside us.

In many ways I'm lucky, my addictions haven't killed me yet. I say yet because I may develop diabetes, have a stroke or heart attack due to my addiction to food. I managed to be a recovering OE for a few years but I recently figured out that I've managed to justify my inner addict for months now due to other health issues. So it came creeping back, stifled slightly by my late bastard of a gallbladder which attacked me for six months before I was able to get it removed, I was unable to eat anything high in fat, spice or with any alcohol content without having a severe gallstone attack. Much like my late grandfather who survived a double aneurism and was thus unable to drink, not drinking didn't make him any less of an addict and not eating shit food hasn't made me less of one either.

I'm not sure where to go from here but I think I might search out my old OA book again and see where it leads me. I tend to follow paths like this to avoid impending doom problems that are closer to home, so perhaps if I just dealt with those I'd binge less anyway. Sounds so simple, if only self happiness was as easy as it deceptively sounds.

A Handful of Ginger-nuts and Fear.

I often come on here to vent or process something I've been pondering for awhile and can't seem to get out of my head. So this might be a little mish-mashy but if you normally read this then that's probably not going to phase you.

I did two vlogs last week which have gotten no support vs plenty of angry comments. It's hard not to feel a little bummed about the feedback but then again I wasn't under any illusions that posting a vlog on body hair and women's choices was going to get many pats on the back. Emer O'Toole (the woman who brought about that conversation for me) showed her gloriously hairy pits on TV quite some time ago and my comments were based on that. She's an incredibly brave woman (although it saddens me that she'd have to be, to simply stop shaving her armpits publicly) and even responded to a tweet of mine. It was well worth it to hear her on my side and supporting me, with all the crap she gets, my YouTube abuse is merely a spec in comparison with what she has to deal with.

My other vlog was one for a channel I'm hoping to start about parenting (not judging or advising, just discussing) and the issues that I feel would have/still would help my partner and I as parents. I feel like there are so many things that aren't talked about and I'd really like to open a conversation up about them. I have a long way to go before I manage to make videos that are getting it right though, as I'm a rambler and need to learn how to edit right down to the point. So that's a work in progress.

Something else I've been thinking a lot about, which is a recurring theme for me in my blogs is self-sabotage. I am incredibly guilty of this type of thing, not consciously (most of the time) and it took me a really long time to stop doing it in my relationships. The thing is though, as I've been peeling back the layers and working on myself and everything that makes me messed up, each layer gets harder and harder to get through. My first one was probably being unable to be alone, I learnt how to enjoy my own company through months of solitude when I was 15, by myself, in France, unable to speak or understand any French, for a year. Steep but important learning curves. Actually what real learning isn't steep or dangerous or somewhat traumatising?

So anyway, after that it was probably about five years of therapy, pain, tons of medication, mistakes, mess, relationships, draining my parents, sadness, numbness, adventures, manic, debt accruing, madness that were my early twenties/Bipolar out-of-control-ness-ness. When I was somewhat stable it was relationship learning (that never really ends though) with my first real partnership with someone who was able to see me outside of my mental illness and not be scared. Then learning how to fit into a family that was already there before me as a Step-Mum, falling in love with a gorgeous three year old and creating a relationship with her. Then I was able to attempt to tackle my binge eating with a lot of therapy and nutrition education (I definitely still struggle with this but much like most of these lessons, I think it's one that will always be there, evolving as I get older).

Currently I'm trying to get through my deeply ingrained fear of exercise (so far I've managed to start enjoying going to the gym), but at the same time I'm finding it so frustrating. My relationship with food has gotten very strange, when I'm alone I want to eat and the self-sabotage is so crazy because I'm well aware of it. Perhaps I need to go back to the 15 year old lesson and learn how to enjoy being by myself again but without food to comfort me. I have to find things that I enjoy that don't include stuffing things into my face, because whilst I've managed to mostly keep out of binge eating territory, I'm eating for the wrong reasons. Yes I could just make sure there was only healthy food in the fridge but I don't think that's particularly fair to my partner and Step-Daughter (I already keep ice cream out for that reason) and it's not the what, it's the WHY.

After that many years of therapy I still can't quite get down to the why properly. I'm not normally scared of this type of thing but for some reason I'm scared of what I will have to deal with emotionally if my partner goes to work and I don't pick up that muesli bar, handful of ginger-nut biscuits and terrible romantic comedy.

I Refused Cake Today.

I refused cake today.

I refused lollies today.

I didn't add sugar to my coffee today.

I ate breakfast today.

I ate an apple when I was still hungry after lunch today.

I am 102.8 kilos (226.635 pounds) - kilos make me sound thinner - today.

I will probably be the same weight tomorrow, is what I'm thinking today.

I don't want this blog to become a weight-loss journey but I did want to write about this because it forces me to make it something concrete, today.

I will be posting my weight every so often, like today.

I don't think I have the guts (ha!) to post a photo yet today.

I may do that if I think it might help me or other people like me, another day other than today.

I'm done for today.

I'm Geni and I'm...

...a 'recovering' Compulsive Binge Eater. Most of my life I've been completely obsessed by food, by how to get it, how to get more of it and particularly getting more of it without other people noticing.

I used to spend my time at parties socialising, looking 'normal' but with one keen eye on the chip bowl. I'd know how much other people had eaten and had made somewhat of a science of knowing when I could grasp the opportunity to eat more without looking like a pig.

I ended up going to therapy for it, after seeing a Psychologist for a year, once a week I managed to slowly ween myself off my destructive binging behaviour. I'm definitely not 'fixed' though, I still overeat, I still find the balance of eating a completely baffling mystery. I just don't binge anymore.

I've recently been reading about the Western Society's obsession with 'health', food and weight. I realised that for me to be happy in my own skin I'm going to have to stop agreeing with all the negative messages, that means I've stopped putting myself down out-loud and I'm working on shutting the voice up in my head as well.

I'm so sick of the guilt I have with eating. The thing is my guilt isn't exercise, I'm still fat, I'm just fat AND guilty in this current state. I may never be skinny but I'm going to enjoy the things I like, try my best not to overdo it and just cut myself some slack. Being kinder to myself seems like a step in the right direction.