Forty Fat and UnFit

What happened exactly?

Of course my life changed dramatically when I left Norway 8 years ago. I was a fitness instructor in a busy gym. I trained regularly on top of the classes I had and I knew my place in the world. I was a yoga teacher and I was multi skilled in the fitness arena. I was versatile and could take Pilates, core strength classes, kids classes, rehab classes. I even created a fitness belly dance class. That was the centre of my life.

First comes love, then comes the Marriage.

My little family of three moved and we travelled around south east Asia and to Australia. We were on the move for two years. I home schooled my son and I practised yoga and when I could. I even practised by the river Ganges. We did pilgrimages to sacred sites and I prayed, meditated and I felt like I was deepening my awareness of life and spirit. 

Settling Down

We moved to this apartment in Granollers Catalonia about 6 years ago. I'm about to get my residency permit. So for 6 years I haven't been able to work, legally. There have been some loopholes that some people have been willing to fall in, so I have been working on and off when I could. 

My role changed from single independent mother, bread earner, creator and manager of my destiny to mother, cook, cleaner, supportive partner and occasional teacher. I felt disempowered. My heart and mind hadn't caught up to my reality. Yes, I blogged about my experiences. Yes I trained and walked and explored. Yes I tried to do the best I could with what I had, but a fundamental flaw remained. 

Then Comes the Baby Sitting in the Carriage 

We had a baby. It really got between me and who I thought I was. My need to be a good mother was fighting with my need to be a yoga teacher. Both were failing. I suffered some problems towards the end of my pregnancy. My skin was itching terribly. I had pain in my back. I felt alone, tired and ridiculous. What was I doing, a forty something without many friends or family around her having a baby? Was I crazy? There is no financial support here in Spain, for a baby. The father gets two weeks leave. My family were in Australia. If I didn't have a compulsive cleaning teenage son and Kate my best friend here, I would have fallen off the deep end.  Albert works long hours. He's often out of the house twelve hours a day. I can tell you vomit, a demanding baby, being three days unshowered, the house work getting out of control can send anyone over the edge. Don't even get me started on lack of sleep. Lydia at 2 years and 3 months has just started sleeping better, and I do believe it's one of the reasons I'm feeling so much better. 

Basically sweet pastry became my best friend. I have been known to go on a walk and stop in every single bakery along the way, just for a little something. Yes. And I lied about it. Actually, about a year ago I realised I was a binge eater. I had no idea. I just seemed to blank out. I was lying about the food I was eating. I started to think about food more, and it's control over me. I blogged a bit about it last year. That was shedding some light on who I had become. Someone I didn't recognise. 

Where is Your Self Esteem Plugged In?

I didn't realise I was getting my self esteem from my strong athletic body. But I was. So if I was fat and flabby, how do you think my self esteem was talking to me every day I looked in the mirror? 

I didn't realise that I was used to getting support from my social group and my work. I used to be praised often. I used to be called upon to shed light on a matter. People contacted me to help solve problems. And here, I was nobody. Nobody was calling me. Nobody was telling me I was special and gifted and an angel. Here I felt ignored. Looked over. Unimportant. And I was in a rage about it. My little me was shouting all the time 'what about me? I am important too! I am somebody' 

But the fact is, I used to be a somebody. Then I became a nobody. And now, I am just me. I don't need the approval  of others. I'm not looking for it. I am not in the self pity game of 'poor little me' - I've been there and done that. It's not for me. No label for me just now. And breathe.

Who am I?

I still considered myself a yoga teacher first. A teacher. And I wasn't. I was failing. I was two sizes bigger than I was before I was pregnant.  And as the years went by, I discovered I was becoming embittered, frustrated, angry. At everything and everyone. Because they were in the way of who I thought I was.

Thank God for having a change of mind, a change of heart. Thank God for learning about yourself and being able to flick a switch on in your darkest moments. 

And here I am, rebuilding my life based on who I am at the moment. I wrote a bit about it before, but I can't tell you enough how important this moment has been to me. 

From frustrated and impotent yoga teacher to fulfilled mother, determined house keeper, loving cook, and heartfelt companion to my family. Like I've said before, I still teach sometimes. And I have other part time jobs, including a new online jewellery shop. But number one is my two year old daughter. I will not spend one more second wishing for something I don't have, consciously or not. I am filled to the brim with my life here. If only I let it in. And not see it as 'worse', or 'failing'. How can being an attentive mother to a darling girl be a failing?! How could I think I needed to do more to be more to achieve more? 

And do you know what? My headaches stopped. And the pain in my neck stopped. I'm smiling again. And exercising. I feel like fruit instead of chocolate. I still feel like chocolate, just not as much. And I'm just buzzing with life and creativity. I can feel the spirit move within me. My vision has started buzzing. 

Conscious Archetypal Shift! It's possible and it's wonderful.

I've even started thinking in poetry again, and that's always a sign I'm plugged into the source of Life. 

Revisiting Fatty Fat

I was watching that Eminem movie the other day, and I was struck by the truth of moment. If you put all of your fears out there, what can you or anyone else do? You can't be afraid any more. Nobody can say what you haven't already said yourself. 

It's so sad to admit, but one of the things I'm afraid of the most is someone asking me if I'm pregnant again. I dress to cover my stomach. I usually dress in really baggy tops. Partly it's genetics. My mother also tends to carry weight around her stomach. It's partly being two sizes bigger than I was three years ago. It's partly just eating too much. 

And I don't want to be afraid any more. 

So here are the two things about my body I am trying to constantly hide - my stomach and my triple chin.

It's liberating to see it up on the big screen.

I know this isn't for everyone. 

But it is for me. 

I don't want to be afraid of my own body any more.

I want to practice what I preach. 

Self acceptance. Self awareness. Truth seeking. 

I was writing on Fat back in May of last year. Especially pertaining to my eating habits. Here's the link if you're interested. 

First World Guilt Tears Us Up

So I'm feeling frustrated because I haven't been able to prepare healthy meals like I'd like to, and a few nights a week we eat 'easy and simple' - read frozen pizza or equivalent and a salad to compensate. And simultaneously I am conscious that there are people who don't have the option of preparing healthy meals, ever, and definitely don't have the option of picking up some quick food from the supermarket on the way home from work.

I find myself splitting.

I hear myself talking myself into guilt ridden situations and remind myself that I, in fact, as a used to be meditater and use to be yoga instructor, should know better than to listen to and believe in the negative chatter conjured up by the monkey mind. And still my shoulders tense and I feel bad.

I know I am splitting.

I feel like Mr Mom. I picture Micheal Keating pigging out in front of soap operas and identify.

My little girl is asleep for at least an hour in the afternoons, and I have piles of dishes and laundry to sort, and I do not want to do it! I refuse to spend that little bit of free time doing house hold chores. I resent the housework like it's eating into my free time, instead of tending to it with love and care. Instead of blessing it with attention and being happy to make it into a comfortable home for my family, I resent it for eating into MY time. And I feel guilty for thinking I deserve My time. I'm sure that nearly every person in my ancestry  didn't have as much free time as I do, and I still want more. It's never ending. And even if I get an extra hour, I want another hour. I am the free time monster.

I know all the sides of the argument - but it's how I feel. I want and feel that I need time to do what I want. To feel like me, without the apartment, without being a female, without being a mother, without being a partner, without being a friend. Just purely selfish me time.   And you know what, even if I had an hour, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I'd probably sit on facebook liking delicious meals and pretty homes and adorable babies and kittens.

I never used to be like this.

I resent the younger me. I resent that she was happy and didn't know it.

Oh, don't think I can't hear your judgement. Oh, but you have a lovely little girl, aren't you happy being a mother with the look of what kind of female are you - pile on the guilt. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I love Lydia. I would not change a thing. She brings so much joy and brings laughter into our home. I adore spending fun time with her, and I'm so glad we can afford to keep her at home in these precious years.

That said, I'm not at all organised in my home or personal life. Everything is out of control and I am getting by. And the fact is, I see it on so many women's faces. They are disheartened  by life. They are despondent  and fed up and miserable.

I don't think I've every been especially pretty, really. But I was alive. I was the happiest person I knew. I vibrated with life and awareness. And somehow, over the past ten years, I have caved inwards and met the little poisonous snarling animal in me that hates existing and sees misery everywhere and understands why people just get up and leave their lives and never come back.

And for a few days, without guilt, and without shoulds, I'm going to sit with this. Out loud. And let it be ok to feel like that. I'm tired of feeling guilty, of feeling like I should know better, of thinking anything that makes how I feel not ok.

We are human. This is it. I don't want words of encouragement or trite things like 'things will look up soon'. I just want to express. And I know I am not alone in this. Just for a few days. Just let it be. That's all. And we'll talk about shifting out of this another time. Just not now.

Thanks for listening. 

What!? A Food Problem?! Me??

How did I get to be 43 and discover I had issues with eating? And how was it that someone like me, someone who had been keenly observing herself for over twenty years, who was a fitness professional, a yoga, qigong, meditation, pilates instructor, and a personal trainer suddenly discover she was a mindless eater? The mind boggles.

But here I am, 43, and I am here to say I am an addict. I'm addicted to sugar, chocolate, being full (I drink tea all day to maintain a full sensation in the stomach), wheat dressed up as white bread and pastries and I am also addicted to being right, judgements, certain stories in my head that help me to feel like my resentments and my poor behaviour of the past is justified, and myself. I am addicted to myself and my story.

So part of writing this, which I love because its about myself, let’s be honest, is about facing these things about myself. Honestly. As straight forward as I can manage, with as little deviation from the truth as I can muster. Honesty, where it hits the constructs of our defences against the ‘them’ that can hurt us, is tough to muster, but well. Let’s go.

Basically I'm  a mother of an 18 month old and I don’t have the time to exercise like I used to. So I didn't realize I had a problem with eating, because if I put on a bit of weight prior to baby,  I would just do some more exercise. I correlated gaining weight with an eating problem, even though I was never taught that as a fitness professional. I even remember a Fat Albert episode where Fat Albert was eating bowls and bowls of salad, and his skinny friend was eating lots of sugar, and it was the skinny friend who felt sick and couldn't play sport, while Fat Albert was healthy and mobile.

I have been a size 34 for most of my adult life. In the past five years, that has moved up to a 36 and I didn't mind. Now I'm a 38. I don’t think I'm overweight, I'm just bigger than I was before. And I don’t seem to be able to lose the rest of the weight by restricting my food intake. And that’s how I discovered I was addicted. I had a 40 day detox and I lost 4 kilos, but as I'm sure you’re guessing, as soon as I could, I ran straight to the bakery and shoved cake and donuts into my open and salivating mouth.  Mindlessly.

I watched myself, quite surprised. And I looked back and saw a history of binge eating that I had never considered before. It had never been a problem because it didn't show up in fat tissue. When I am in a chaotic moment, apart from breathing, meditation and lots of exercise, I would binge eat or shop. And I was not conscious about it, at all.

So I'm restarting my blog after quite a sabbatical to journal what happens from here. You are very welcome to join me as I move from mindless eating to well, to where ever it takes me.