The Love Bowl

When I started my diet (not a "lifestyle" change or a "plan") almost two weeks ago, I set up a Love Bowl.

It's a pretty bowl and I intend to fill it with pieces of rose quartz...one piece for every pound of weight I release off of my body. 

I was excited to place a seed stone in the bottom of the bowl, knowing that at my next weekly "at home weigh-in " I'd be able to add at least a few more pieces to the bowl and looked forward to seeing it slowly, but surely filling up with little pink pieces of glory.

Rose quartz is a love stone. It's indicated when one needs help loving themselves, recognizing love and for healing hurt hearts. When I had my shop, customers frequently dismissed it as a "feel good" stone and asked for more "powerful" ones...they viewed rose quartz and its pink softness as nice and pretty, but a really just a "fluffy love stone".

They couldn't have been more mistaken...after all, love is an extremely powerful emotion and we all know that even the best of love can sting at times. 

My hope is that as I lose weight, I'll symbolically gain more love for myself and be reminded of this as I drop stones into the bowl. As I've written before, while I certainly believe that sometimes you have to accept yourself as you are and love yourself as you are, I also know you have to love yourself enough to recognize when something isn't working and a change is in order.

So, the day I started my diet I was positively exhilarated and ready to once and for all take seriously my commitment to weight loss. I exercised, weighed and measured, started an on-line food journal and began picking out little rewards to give myself at the 10 pound mark, the 15 pound mark and on and on. I just knew it was the start of the new me!!!!!!

I weighed in and could barely keep myself from hopping about in excitement as I thought of how good it would feel to put at least 5 stones in the bowl. In fact, I already had them ready.

Well folks, let's just say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I was two pounds up.

WTF?

I'm well beyond plus-sized model proportions. Normally when I start a "plan" I'm good for at least 10 pounds down the first week. So there I was, naked and alone in my dressing room wondering how in the hell I could have gained weight when for the first time in years I'm on a non-starvation diet and have been "good". 

I decided not to fret about it and to stay the course. Things are changing, I'm changing and I'm not  going to let this get me off track. 

I had a powerful realization about my weight and I decided to break the 116 pounds down into tiny increments of 2 and 5 pounds.

I have, without a doubt, many pounds of pain...so, I decided to name them. My theory is that by naming them (5 pounds to Grandma Gloria who binged and purged in front of me, 2 pounds to this boyfriend, 5 pounds to that one, 5 pounds for the entire year of eighth grade, 5 pounds for my parent's weight projections, 2 pounds for this, two more for that etc) that not only will I have a greater sense of accomplishment when they're gone, but if I don't lose any weight in a week, I'll know that the issue needs a bit more attention.  When I do lose it, I'll know that my body truly let the pain, the weight and the issue go.

I came up with the idea, but had not named any pounds until I got on the scale and still had not lost anything. I decided to name the first five pounds.  Introducing Patrick Patton. I loved him-I hated him...he loved me-he hated me. We were good except when we were brutal and we were only 14. Yikes.

Shortly after doing so, I had another moment of clarity.

You know what? 

I haven't felt well for a long time.

Stopping the overeating may not have resulted in immediate weight loss, but it resulted in a return to the heightened sense of awareness I normally have of my body and as crazy as it sounds, my individual organs.

My mom and Mark can vouch for me...I normally know what my liver is doing at all times, the second I ovulate etc. Over the years, Mark has learned to trust me when I make bold statements about my good or bad health.  Suddenly, with my clarity back, I realized that I've been ignoring a deep nagging suspicion and physical symptoms that something is way off.

I meditated, inspected my body and sure enough, on the back of my neck there's dark discoloration...a tell-tale sign of insulin resistance.

I put this together with my fatigue, tremendous increased abdominal weight gain, extra severe PMS,  my lack of focus with my business, mild depression and things began to make some sense. 

I immediately scheduled an appointment with an endocrinologist and next week I'm going in for testing. I allowed myself one teary night and have basically been fine since.  I'm an alternative health girl all the way, but want a confirmation of my self-diagnoses and to get this taken care of as soon as possible.  

So really, not losing weight was a good thing because as my counselor Jay said, it made me get "creative in my healing process." He thinks that I have a knack (and a need) for finding creative and unique ways to heal and that I'm doing, "way better than OK."  HA! I agree. 

So, I'll keep you posted on the lab results and in the meantime, I'm staying the course and working on releasing 5 pounds named Pat Patton. 

I also decided that even though my efforts have not yielded any results on the scale, my seed stone deserves a little more company.

Comments

[Michele]

I didn't know that about Grandma Gloria, but it's coming back to me now, I think.

It was all so f****d up. The crap we've been through.

Be proud of your physical self. It's confidence that outshines appearance.
And you are a STAR!
Hasn't anyone told you how talented, intelligent, spiritual, and kind hearted you are? You have more beauty and brains in one single cell than any other person I know. Eight grade can kiss my ass!

[artdeme]

Your clarity is almost scary. I love the stones and the healing power they represent. I look forward to learning something powerful every single time I visit. You do not disappoint.
Be well,
arlene
(I have not updated my blog in SO long. I feel a need to tell everyone to un-link me. I'm fighting my own dragons with much less clarity than exhibited here.)