Sweets For The Sweet

Wear The Red Lipstick, Don't Eat The Cookies

I don't want to admit this but, I had some sugar at my in-laws last night.

No one forced me and at first I was fine passing over the cherry turnovers everyone else had for dessert.  However, when my mother in-law (always supportive of whatever food plan I'm on and always willing to make me something different) was clearing things away, I spied pink cherry butter cookies she'd made. I caved.

I didn't cave because they're my favorite (they are now, but I hadn't had them before), I caved because of how they made me feel when I looked at them. They were pink crunchy drop cookies with little cherry bits and dark brown on the edges. They looked exactly like the kind of cookie you could imagine a 40's homemaker turning out for the holidays or a church sale. Old fashioned, but the pink made them kind or retro and not in an artificial way.  I knew they'd be super buttery like a good spritz, but because they are a drop cookie, that they'd be dense.

They fit some image I have of myself...forties heels, dress, red lipstick, boyfriend in the service and me out on Saturday nights dancing, but always showing up on Sunday after church to help my mother make cookies for the bake sale to help raise money for the boys abroad...ration cards had been saved. Maybe I worked in a munitions factory. 

What?

Let's not talk about how some of this isn't even historically accurate and get to the point. 

I made another connection which didn't make me thinner yesterday, but maybe in the long run it will help. I sometimes choose food for how I imagine it will make me feel or because it fits some image (ever-changing) I have of myself in my head.

I've used the same excuse over the years buying Pepperidge Farm cookies because I so see myself as an elegant two cookies on the plate with a cup of tea kind of person. Yet, I'm not. At all. Or, I see myself as a rich and succulent bodied Nigella who eats an entire tin of homemade candy in a cab on the way to see a friend and it's fun and sensual...except it isn't. At all. Or I can so see myself in my New York apartment watching movies, eating Chinese food and then walking over to the cabinet (in my well-fitting yoga pants) to grab a couple of Zabar's black and white cookies and feeling very Carrie Bradshaw..except I'm not.  

I ate some more of the cookies as we watched a movie and while I can't say I felt they were doing serious harm, I was very aware that only 10 days into my sugar-free year...I was having sugar. Crap. I thought of the blog and felt shame and wondered if I should delete it. 

But, I can look at it the other way...ten days of no sugar is a good thing. And, maybe my cherry cookie situation will help one of you realize that you romanticize food too.  

I just need to pay attention when I romanticize food. I need to be honest with myself that this food fiction I create is simply that. Fiction.

I think I need to examine the images of myself and do more to make them reality if that's what I want instead of using food to make me feel like I'm living a certain way.   I need to wear the red lipstick not eat the cookies if I want that 40's energy brought into my life. The hard part is that in my mind, when I'm wearing my dress and peep-toe heels, I'M ALWAYS THIN. But, I'm not going to get there if I don't say no to the cookies no matter how perfect they look or what images of myself they conjure up.

This blog has a nice post up about being honest with yourself and being real...She's only 26 and I feel I can learn from her insights.     

It's funny, I felt really bad about the cookies and more for the blog and my feeling that I'd have to confess than because of what I did to myself...but, after having written this post, I feel a little better and am totally fine with sharing.

Past is Present

I've been thinking about how I want to live my life this year and while I want to be peaceful and feel relaxed, I feel a sense of urgency that I haven't before regarding my food and weight issues. I want to move forward, to stop being so in my head about my body and feelings. I want to add more to my life and not focus on what I want to take away, but I'm eliminating sugar. Or more specifically "sweets", not so much as a weight issue, but because having abused it for so long it clouds my judgment.  I'm thinking less about losing weight and more about feeling better physically and emotionally.   

I know that I have a medium handle on self-care...I do nurture myself with baths, skin care, reading etc, but I think nurturing myself with some honest tough love is especially important now. Sometimes loving yourself is less about accepting where you are, but realizing that you've been accepting where you are for too long and in truth if you do love yourself, you must make changes...not change who you are at your core, but acknowledge that you need to make some different choices. 

For me, eliminating sugar is about seeing clearly and allowing myself to process what comes up when I don't numb down with candy or cookies or pie or cake or...anything sweet. My biggest realization is that I don't know exactly how to accept that my feelings are valid. For example, if a friend inadvertently hurts my feelings and I know she didn't intend to, it seems like the right thing to do is just accept it wasn't intentional and move on. However, what I'm learning is that in the moment, if I'm upset...it doesn't matter whether it was intentional or not...my feelings are hurt and this must be acknowledged (even just to myself) before I move on. 

I'm fairly intuitive so even if someone is deliberately rude or short with me I immediately understand why...I understand the waitress feels bad because it's the fifth order she's written down incorrectly when she snaps,"You said you wanted mayo because that's what I wrote down!", I can usually be compassionate, nice and gently get the sandwich remade without mayo because that's just my way and it works. However, there are times, (usually in more familiar relationships) where I shut down completely because I start wondering what I did wrong.  

When I was fourteen my father and I loved one another, but had a rocky relationship (prior to and after my parents divorced). He, in an effort to try to make our relationship better, invited me to see the Chicago Ballet and to dinner afterward. We went shopping (very rare...I never got clothes except for Christmas) to find a dress. I chose a dress that was fantastically and totally age inappropriate...black satin, spaghetti straps, short and with a crepe jacket and black satin heels.  Somehow my grandmother and/or mother (I'm not sure) went for it...which was a miracle in itself.

I was overjoyed and just knew that I looked liked Valerie Bertinelli...amazingly great in my mind! It was thrilling to have black high heels and to walk reasonably well in them, plus my hair had even turned out.  I was super excited and a little nervous because my father and I rarely did anything special together and this was a big event. Unfortunately, my mother and grandmother realized the dress was too fancy for a ballet matinee, but there was no way I wasn't wearing it to dinner. And I did.

When we walked into the restaurant where my father was a regular, I felt like all eyes were on me and of course I was in heaven. I assumed I looked at least 25 and told my dad that I hoped people didn't think I was his new young girlfriend!

I went to the bathroom at least three times just so I could walk past everyone in my heels and make sure my hair was still perfect. My father and I were having a nice talk and what I didn't pick up on soon enough is that he was feeling a little uncomfortable. My delight in myself made him uneasy and not because he thought I looked too grown-up, but because he wasn't a confident person and feared that I might be disappointed if I caught on that maybe not everyone in the whole place was enchanted by me.

Then, while I listened eagerly (happy to have his attention), he put down his drink and in a serious tone said,"Laura, you're like me. We're both reasonably attractive people, but we're never going to turn any heads when we walk into a room."

Wow. I was fourteen and heard the hard facts. I was reasonably attractive, but would never turn any heads when I walked into a room.

I nodded in agreement and I kept acting happy, but inside my confidence was completely shattered. I tried to turn off my hurt and disappointment and actually told myself that it was OK that he hurt my feelings because the truth was that he was insecure, newly single and mistakenly worried that he didn't turn heads when he walked into a room (he did) and that if I acted upset it might ruin the night.  I truly believe my father had no idea how hurtful his statement was. I can forgive him for his insensitivity, but I never let myself acknowledge how deeply hurt I was because I was too busy understanding his feelings about himself.

A few years ago remembered this event and finally made the connection that it deeply impacted my self-esteem. My own father didn't think he was handsome or I was beautiful...reasonably attractive, but not beautiful. Just a few days ago I finally made the connection that even at that age, with that big of a hurt, I didn't feel it was OK to be upset. I felt it was my job to understand my father's pain and that letting mine show or saying anything about how he just projected his feelings about himself wouldn't be nice.  I felt it was my job to find reasons to excuse his behavior.

Jump ahead 26 years and I'm still doing it. In fact, it's even more confusing because now I've ignored my own feelings so often that I have a hard time identifying what the heck I'm feeling or if I have a right to be hurt or upset. I've had counseling and my counselor (a great guy) told me that I no longer feel...I just analyze.  

I'm not a total doormat, but I'm often tense because I'm constantly going into some kind of cover my feelings mode. I was a rebellious child, but at the same time I was a family manager the way the oldest child in an alcoholic family often is...a troublemaker, but a pleaser too. This also meant that I always felt like I'd done something wrong and that it was somehow my responsibility to make sure everyone felt happy and that no one had hurt feelings.

I know this has something to do with my comfort eating...that I use food as a tool to prevent me from feeling while I'm thinking.

There is no big wind up here...just letting you know what I'm working through today. I appreciate your comments and your support amazes me. I also want to clarify that I'm giving up all things I consider sweets...like sugary treats, but if there is sugar in say...ketchup, I'm not concerned about that...it's more about the things that I've tended to overeat...and I'm not adding sugar to anything to sweeten it...our house is sugar-free, but I won't panic in a restaurant if there is a glaze on the salmon that has some sugar in it.

I think I broke the physical addiction to sugar awhile ago, now it's the emotional addiction I'm working on.

The Valise is Packed & I'm Ready to Go

This is the start of a new journey for me. If you'd asked me last week if I ever wanted to revisit my past, I'd have told you "no thanks...I've been there many times" and insisted I was ready to move forward. However, this morning I woke up and realized that on this first day of the new year, I can't move ahead without doing a little backtracking.  Hopefully I'll do them simultaneously.

With the exception of the last weeks of the holiday season, I've spent almost two months sugar-free. I've made big realizations during this time...I've never been more acutely aware of how often I reach for food when I'm anxious or uncomfortable than I was at this past Thanksgiving. I stopped myself, but I was so aware that the impulse was there.  Never before have I heard myself say that but for my resolve to "stick to this plan", that I'd be eating...at that very minute....so many times. 

I began observing how often I left a family occasion or a get together with a friend and wanted to get home to eat sweets. I didn't, but I was saddened by the realization that in spite of my food knowledge, my self-help books, my weight loss blog reading habits and my overall understanding of how I operate that I make food....mainly sugar...my therapy.

During weeks on the plan without sugar I began having sugar memories...memories of times when I ate  sweets as a child and long before they began to manifest in the form of weight on my body.

I remember being around seven and nervous about going to the birthday party of a girl who acted nice when parents and teacher were around, but who called other kids "poor trash" whenever adults weren't listening.  She never called me trash because my family was simply too exotic (living on a sailboat and all) to be called trash, she just called us weird. And in truth, no one thought we were more weird than I did, so I taunted her back, but never argued with her about the facts.  

As I walked to the drugstore all by myself to pick out a present for the party, I was furious at my parents, their views on materialism and their total lack of understanding about why things like nice presents offered publicly were important to me. It wasn't like there wasn't money available...it was just that my parents frowned on excess and consumerism (I hadn't developed my own appreciation of handmade at that time). The small amount of money I'd been given was not going to cut it compared to the more expensive gifts of Barbie dolls and accessories I knew she'd get from other girls.  I'd even futilely offered, the way kids make bargains months before Christmas, to forgo my own birthday present if I could have a little more money to spend on her.  I didn't even care about what she thought, it was more the feeling of shame I anticipated when other kids looked and knew I'd given a crappy gift.

I'd been through this shame once before in Kindergarten when I'd arrived at a girl's party with a newspaper wrapped box of colored pencils and stack of typing paper that my mother had three hole-punched and tied with some yarn thinking it was a "real present". No one was mean, but I caught on very quickly that it was most definitely not an appreciated gift. My friend's mother's extra cheerful reassurances that she always wanted her daughter to draw more only served to make me feel worse and because I was pretty intuitive, I knew that she was judging my mother's efforts not mine and this made me furious at both of them...her for judging my mother and my mother for sending me off completely unaware of how my gift would look next to store bought toys.

I walked toward the book and magazine section thinking I'd get her one of the Little House books (that I loved so much) since they were $4.95 and just under my $5.00 budget, but then I thought about the  birthday girl who'd already told us that her dad said we shouldn't be "cheap", and while I knew she was lying (at least I hoped a dad would never say something so rude) I felt warned.

I made my way across the store to the Brach's candy section and without thinking about it, picked up a bag of candy corn, paid for it and walked out of the store. I ate it behind the building and then felt a double sense of dread.

I'd not only started out with a low budget, but now I'd blown half of it and the party was only hours away!  I returned to the store and bought The First Four Years...the last book in the series. It was a thin volume and less expensive than the others. I told myself that since she she'd never read it anyway, she'd never know how truly poor form it was to give her the last book as her first introduction to the series.   

I went to the party and even though no one would have ever known it, I was so ashamed...not just because of the totally inappropriate present, but because I felt that her mother would think even worse of my parents than I was certain she already did because the gift was cheaper than even they intended. I got through the party even though my gift was predictably tossed aside in favor of a Barbie Knits kit or something equally fantastic and that was the end of that.

However, for most of my adult life I've looked back on the day with shame (and sometimes amusement) because I spent the money on candy...it was only in the most recent weeks that I realized just how stressed out I was and how I didn't buy the candy because I was a gluttonous little hog, but because I was about to enter into a social situation that I feared would embarrass me and I was nervous.  The candy corn was a distraction. At seven years old, I fully expected that I should be able to handle it, even though, I see plenty of adults stressed out about awkward social situations and they don't seem to be handling it any better now than I did at seven.

This is just one tiny story of many and while I don't intend to rehash them all, I want to start here and work my way forward in an effort to learn...not about why I eat candy when I'm stressed, but to learn more about why I began putting so much emphasis on what people think and so much pressure on myself at such a young age.

Most people wouldn't characterize me as a nervous person...not one adult who knew me as a child would say I seemed anything but outgoing and maybe a little precocious. I've never thought of myself this way until recently. I realized that while I don't show it, I'm a nervous and anxious person. I've given talks, taught classes, made presentations, do super well on job interviews and yet there are times I chatter endlessly non-stop and it's not because I'm vivacious (though I am), it's because I'm super nervous and worried about being judged or making a mistake... and it seems to be getting worse...like the tension is surfacing into my awareness as sugar leaves my body. During the holidays I let myself have sugar and was instantly aware of how easy it is to slip into a pattern of overeating it.  

I need to spend this year observing and changing my patterns.

This isn't about blaming my parents.  I don't blame my parents for my weight and social issues. However, I'm realizing that somewhere in my childhood there was a grand disconnect and I stopped being able to differentiate my feelings from other people's and life got confusing...I want to learn more about this. I spend a great deal of time trying to justify my own feelings.

It affects my life as an artist (and aspiring playwright too). Carolyn Myss says that weight is purely and simply a sign of blocked creativity. I'm not sure it's so simple, but there's truth there, at least for me.

Since I've always used sugar as an anesthesia of sorts, I've decided at this point I can't have any, even in moderation. I'm taking this year off of sugar in an effort to feel more and be more connected to parts of me that might have been numbed for years.

I want to make it clear that I don't think sugar is bad or an enemy....I hope to eventually be a person who can have some in moderation, but right now, my sugar cravings are linked to my stress and anxiety levels and I need to keep feeling.

I imagine this blog will be part present-time realization and part memoir...I won't include my studio happenings or my real life goings-on...it will be like a private journal gone public and probably not to interesting unless you've had a secret life with sugar all your own.

So, starting now, I board the sugar-free train and see where it takes me.