A Great Week and Some Serious Self Reflection...

02/10/2006

I checked my weight this morning, and am down to 218.5. That's 3.5 lbs this week and I still have one day to go before my official weigh-in! Holy Cow!

I've been a pretty good girl this week on the exercise. I decided to start getting up around 5:30 a.m. so I could get my workout done in the morning. I managed to do that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but today I slept through my alarm. I picked up Billy Blank's Tae Bo workout yesterday, so I'll probably do that tonight to make up for not getting up this morning. Jake (DS) says he wants to do it with me, so that should be a sight to see! I'm still waiting on my bellydance DVDs to arrive. I wonder if Jake will do those with me??? I wonder if his dad will let him . . . . LOL!

On another note, I think I'm going to have to break down and buy some new jeans! I was hoping the ones I own would last me until I hit 200, but they are literally falling off of me. I look like an old man pulling up my pants all day. I did find a pair of jeans in the back of my closet that I haven't worn in a while. I pulled them out and tried them on assuming they would still not fit. I was so happy that they did. They feel really good too! But, I don't think one pair of jeans will get me through an entire week. My job is super casual, so I wear jeans everyday. I may have to pull out some of my former banker attire to get me through.

I did pick out my reward prize for when I hit 200. It's the SIRIUS S50 radio. You can check it out at www.sirius.com. Vince has been wanting satellite radio for a while and I've been whining for an ipod, but I don't want to have to download music all the time. This seems like a great solution. (I found out about the radio from Bob. If you haven't checked out Bob's blog, I encourage you to do so - www.thisbobsworld.blogspot.com. I really enjoy his writing.) I also plan to get Vince a SIRUS radio for his truck for his birthday. That means I need to lose 18.5 lbs by March 20th. That's just under 4 lbs a week, which may be a bit aggressive. So, V's b-day present may be a week or too late - LOL! I normally don't like to set goals like that . . . I prefer to do 5 lbs increments, but we'll try it and see how it goes.

Speaking of 5 lbs goals, I've obviously met my 2nd mini-goal of 220 and am now racing towards my 3rd mini-goal of 215. I think it's been about 4-5 years since I weighed 215, and it sure seems strange that getting to that weight is exciting. I mean, 215 is STILL a whole lot of Care' to love. But, I'm in this for the long term . . . it's in the journey . . .it's in the journey.

As an update on the mid-life crisis thing . . . I'm still going through it. I'm at that stage where you evaluate all your current relationships and activities and decide which ones to keep. I've ended a few already. Amazingly I feel a lot better already. There is one very important relationship in my life that I still need to figure out . . it's with my Dad.

As background, my biological father and mother split before I was two years old, and my mom remarried when I was around 2 or 3. So, my step-dad is who I consider my Dad. I do have a good relationship with my bio-dad now, but he's not my Dad. Do you know what I mean? Besides, there was a long period of time where my bio-dad wasn't in my life at all. I understand why and I'm completely okay with it now, but it did have an affect on me in my youth.

My relationship with my Dad has not been good since he and my mother split. To be fair, it wasn't really that great when they were together either. I think it was like I was my Mom's kid and my sister was my Dad's kid. Well, flash forward a few years and I've figured out that I have a huge fear of abandonment. I'm sure that stems from my bio-dad not being around and then my Dad being distant. I know now that that is why I eat like I do. I guess I figured that if someone did abandon me, I could blame it on the fact that I was fat rather than the fact that I was a pain in the butt.

As you can imagine, this has created some serious issues in my marriage. I think I've spent most of my marriage trying to test my husband to see if he would leave. He hasn't yet, and now I'm convinced it won't be easy to get rid of him - LOL!

Anyway, I've been trying to figure out what to do about the Dad situation. Since my grandmother died, I have been pretty much excluded from him and his family and feel like I've been treated like an outsider. Now, whether or not that is intentional, I do not know. What I do know is that every time I am excluded, every time I am introduced as "Jack's step-daughter," every timee my sister is held up as the great and wonderful child, it breaks my heart. I don't see myself as the step-daughter at all. In fact, my sister didn't arrive on the scene until I was 9, so I kind of feel like I'm the first child, not the first step-child.

As a parent, I'm not really sure how you could love one child more than another. . . I never could. But, I think I'm starting to understand how some parents may favor their own biological child over an adopted or step child. It sure isn't fair for the kid, but I think I can at least come to terms that it is possible.

So, now that I've rambled on . . . here's the dilemma. At this point, I've pretty much stopped communicating with my Dad. Now, I haven't told him that I've ended the relationship and there's been no big blow up or fight or anything like that. I'm simply stepping back from the relationship for a while to get my head on straight. This has been going on for a few months now. I've realized that I still feel like a 9-year-old kid when it comes to my Dad. I want Daddy's love, affection and approval and when I don't get it, I respond like a child.

I'm hoping that by taking the break, I can grow up emotionally so that I can deal with my Dad as an adult rather than as a child. As I've been doing all of this self-reflection, I've realized that he and I are very much alike. We're both driven, we both work hard, we are both career-minded, neither of us show love and affection very well, and we both tend to "go silentt" and retreat in conflict. So, you have two people that love each other that (a) don't know how to express it, (b) are probably afraid of expressing it, and (c) choose to retreat rather than addressing the issue.

I don't expect my Dad to change, and I don't want him to. He and my sister have a wonderful relationship so, obviously, she gets what she needs from him. I do expect me to change, and that's where I'm struggling. I guess now that I am no longer an emotional eater, I'm having to face some stuff in my life that I've avoided for a very long time. It hurts. It hurts a lot. I feel like my eyes are constantly burning from all the tears I've shed lately, but it has been very healing.

I do know that I want a relationship with my Dad, but I want to be in the relationship as an adult and not a child. I think I may be at the point where I'm a teenager in the relationship, so at least I'm making some progress. Some days I want to call and talk to him so much it breaks my heart, but I know that if he doesn't say the right thing or if I interpret something wrong, I'll run away, (see - teenager behavior!)

Now that I've rambled on and on and on . . .

This "stuff" has been on my mind for a while, but I wasn't ready to share it yet. Now that I've written it down it feels good. Kind of like "Hello, my name is Care' and I'm an emotional eater."

I know there are other emotional eaters out there. If you are reading this, know that you are not alone. I am proof that you can overcome it. Yes, I still struggle, especially in very stressful times, but I'm taking it one crisis at a time.

With friendship,

Care'