Jenferner.com

In 2006, I took a year off work to “find myself”. OK, so really it was a lot of goofing off, sleeping in, a fun jaunt to D.C., a fantastic cruise in Alaska and a great cross-country road trip. During this time boyfriend reminded me that only I could determine/discover what brought me joy. He taught me to chase that joy with everything I had. Unfortunately, I had to go back to work last April. As the mundaneness of life took over and the stress level rose, the chase wound down.

In a discussion we had the other day he made a statement that hit me like a slap in the face. He basically said that while my life was full of “doing stuff”, I was doing almost nothing that brought me joy. He was right, cleaning the house is not really satisfying me. I have been putting the chase on hold for way too long now.

So here is my re dedication:

I am going to start taking more glassblowing classes.

I am going to continue doing yoga.

I am going to snuggle a little longer in the morning, even if it makes me a little late to work.

I am signing up for the 2008 3-Day Breast Cancer walk, due to Optifast I am sitting this year out but I am already excited for next year!

And, as soon as the Optifast is over I am going back to gymnastics, at least once a week.

More to come later, need sleep now.

My Tuesday nights belong to Heathen. Heathen is the closest thing I have had to a sister. Once upon a time we were roommates, but as usual boys ruin everything and boyfriend was ready to co-habitate (ok, I was too! Big love baby!). So Heathen and I set up Tuesday night date night to soothe our separation anxiety. Originally we met at the rock climbing gym but when I went on the Optifast diet we had to stop because my strength went in the toilet. So I suggested Yoga thinking that would be less strenuous and equally stress-relieving. I was right about the stress relieving part, not so much on the strenuous part. It is AMAZING! The class we are taking is called Kripalu Yoga and I am in love. Boyfriend says I come home energized and the stress is gone from my eyes. I even did headstands in the last class! As always, I am in awe of Heathen, she does everything with ease.

Starting weight: 205

Current weight: 176.5

Pounds to go: 41.5

Today, it feels like its getting easier. Don’t get me wrong, food still beckons, especially the smell of freshly delivered pizza drifting down from the apartment upstairs. I guess I am realizing that I am in this for the long haul.

My relationship with food has never really been fulfilling (yes, pun intended). Eating always felt like what I needed or wanted, but I was never satisfied by it. I would eat more because I felt I needed more, even though I was no longer hungry. So I guess what I wanted or needed had nothing to do with food. Food only fuels the body, it really has no magical ability to solve problems or make me happy, but I sure acted like it did. I am most definitely a control freak, but I was definitely letting food run my life because I gave it this ability to make everything better. Of course, it never did live up to the hype and inevitably I would beat myself up over the binges. This left me feeling awful and as usual the cycle would then repeat itself. It’s crazy that I was causing myself so much pain, who wants to live like that? The worst part is, now that I am not able to use food to mask whatever unpleasant feeling I was hiding from, I realize that nothing feels as bad as I was making myself feel.

This is why the Optifast system is working for me. I was able to remove food completely. Doing so enabled me to see these patterns and habits. It’s ridiculous, but until now I really didn’t take responsibility for my weight. I blamed it on genetics, health problems, slow metabolism, and ex-husbands. Now, I realize that I did this and I have to fix it. I really hope I can take this awareness and use it to keep from falling back into old habits when I start re-introducing food into my life.