09/30/10: Going Going Gone...

I can't believe it's the end of September already.  I can't believe this year has gone by so quickly.

Ok.  Got that out of my system.

Now I gotta say....awww...it feels so good to have the traveling-BOOBs back.  I got comments yesterday.  Love it!

Is anyone else like me in that you see this blog as a conversation with your followers?  So when your followers suddenly almost all go quiet...it's just weird.  I knew the quietness had nothing to do with me, it was travel that made it so.  But it was still weird.  Not weird over the weekend of the travel...that was expected.

Anywho.

I have another weird thing that's been banging around in my pea-brain for a few days.  Ok...you got me, there are lots of weird things banging around in my pea-brain, but here's one I wanna talk about today.  It ties into just how bass-ackwards Lori really is.

I hear (read) a lot of people say they wish they could get a band for their brain in addition to the band for their stomach.

I'm bass-ackwards not in that I want a band for my stomach in addition to the band for my brain.  No, in fact, I'm pretty happy with the current set up.  But my bass-ackward-ness is that the band actually, for me, has been more for my brain than it has been for my stomach.

Yep.  My brain is the one that's getting fixed.  I don't think my stomach was ever truly my problem.  I could eat and eat and eat until my stomach was full.  Or I could skip meals and keep my stomach empty.  Always had that ability.  My brain, however, told ME to eat ALL THE TIME and way too much of it.  My brain told ME to keep the stomach unsettlingly full.  My brain told ME that one more bite wouldn't hurt.  My stomach obliged.

And now...my brain says nah, yer good.  Now...because of the band, my brain says, yeah, that one more bite WILL hurt.  Now, because of the band, my brain can't say eat all the time and eat too much of it.  Now...my brain is getting fixed.

I think it's why I'm living on so little restriction (4cc's in a 10cc band).

My brain was my problem.  It over-rode what my body wanted/needed/craved...and even what felt satisfying.

I've said before my weight problem came from putting on a protection coat of fat because of what happened 12 years ago.  And when I had done a lot of brain work to settle that down...my brain had become conditioned to tell my stomach that which was not true.

And how do you undo that?  That conditioning?  I didn't know.  Whatever I tried...it might work temporarily but the conditioning would always persevere.

I don't know if that makes much sense.  I mean, if I had done the brain work to settle it down, you'd think it'd be easy to uncondition myself - or condition myself back the other way.

Somewhere in this pea-brain, though, it was "easier" to just let it be.  I was never a lazy person up until a certain point.  And then lazy was just easier....not that lazy was more appealing, or felt better, or was desired.  It was just easier.  Easier than fixing ol' pea-brain.

Until one day some very aware portion of my pea-brain said, we need help.  And we got help.  In the form of a lap-band.

And here's the thing.  The lap-band does not seem to be making me any more or less hungry than I ever was before.  When I'm hungry, it makes sense.  When I'm not hungry, it makes sense.  That's not new.  What's new is that now my brain listens to my stomach instead of the other way around.

The band seems to have fixed, or is working on fixing, my brain.  My brain now pays attention to my stomach.  And it was like that for me up until I was 23 years old.  And 12 years later, I finally am getting back to what I didn't struggle with before.

It's pretty profound, to me, my bass-ackward-ness.  My brain seems to have realized that since I was so serious about fixing all of this, I mean, I went so far as to have surgery, that it must be time to change my conditioning.  My brain seems to have realized I'm not playing around anymore.

I'm 3 pounds from my halfway goal.  That's pretty cool to me.  I have enjoyed this journey, I have not fought this journey, I am coasting so far.  I say that because, based on how I feel today, that's what it's been like.  I know if I were to go back and read various blog entries from various blog days that I'd see days where I wasn't enjoying it, days where I was fighting it, days where I didn't realize I was coasting and so therefore felt like I was struggling.  But today, what I can say and what I know I feel today..I can say I am exactly where I have put myself and I have put myself here on purpose.  And the end result is I'm losing slower than some and I've lost less than I predicted I would have at this point back in the early days.  But I am where I am and I've put myself here on purpose and the key to me is I'm enjoying life.  The band, for me, was never about restriction.  I didn't want anything at all on my do-not-eat list and that's precisely what kind of list I have.  I wanted a reminder that the small amounts I want are also the small amounts that I need.  Sometimes it's a struggle to eat that little amount of food and sometimes I can't make myself eat it all.  At the end of the week, it comes out in the wash and my average calorie consumption is precisely where it should be.  I am living my life and doing what I want and feeling good in the meantime.  For once in the past twelve years, I feel like I'm in control in a way that I no longer have to stress about.  That's huge.  I can finally just be.

I'm gonna make a prediction out loud now.  Something I have not been willing to do thus far on this journey because I guess I knew somehow that I wasn't quite ready.  But my slow weightloss..it's gonna stop being slow.  I'm finally ready to announce a goal.  I can finally announce it because I'm finally ready to actually work on a goal.

I will be at 163 by December 31st.  I won't kill myself, be mad at myself, be frustrated, angry or sad if I don't make it.  But I will strive for this goal with all of my being and I will put myself into this journey in a way I have not done thus far.  That is 44 pounds which means I have to average 3.4 pounds a week.  And I will try.  Unlike what I've done so far with this journey, I will actively and aggressively TRY.

That might seem like a too high to reach challenge.  But that's how I like my challenges.  If I make it doable or easy, I won't try.  If I make it reasonable or feasible, I will continue to coast.  I am setting my bar high because I want to make myself try that much harder.

So there it is.  163 by the end of the year.  44 pounds in 13 weeks, or 3 months; 3.4 pounds a week or 14.67 pounds a month.

I'm insane!

This should be fun!!!

(No naysayers, please.  Like I said, I won't kill myself if this doesn't happen.  I won't be sad, mad or upset.  This is an aggressive challenge to make me aggressively try.  My goal is to start trying, something I have not done thus far.  And a challenge sounds good right now.)