Food is Not Love: Wait, Yes It Is!
61
Thoughts on My Relationship with Food
Yesterday I joined Weight Watchers.
I did this because over the course of the last seven years sitting on my ass answering the phone in call centers, I have gained approximately 40 pounds, or a little under six pounds a year. (Doesn't it sound nice when phrased that way? Under six pounds a year. Not even half a pound a month! Miniscule!)
At my last call center job we all joked about it: the Freshman Fifteen. Almost everyone who was hired gained between 15 and 20 pounds their very first year. Call center work is so insanely sedentary--you literally are not allowed to walk to the bathroom on the clock--and most of the rewards at these jobs involve food: pizza, doughnuts, tacos, potlucks, birthday cakes.
In fact, it's such a common problem in today's cubicle-ridden workplace that it has earned its very own name in the world of work: obesogenic. An obesogenic workplace is one that is structured in such a way as to practically guarantee obesity unless its employees take their own extraordinary measures to counteract their stressful, toxic environment.
So I finally broke down and joined WW because, at the rate I am going in this new profession, by the time I am 65 I will weigh more than my entire cubicle does. But more to the point, I joined because last month I rode from my cubicle to the hospital in an ambulance with severe chest pains and stayed for two days. Over the course of the following two weeks, both of my two sisters had minor strokes. My own mother died of a stroke at just about exactly my age.
It's one thing to look bad naked at 55. I mean, I've had plenty of sex already, so it's not like I have to be the hottest 80-year-old on the block. I honestly don't care that much about that part of it anymore.
But it's quite another thing to be dead. That I'd like to avoid.
So I joined, and got all my little books and charts and what not, and weighed in, and met some nice ladies and one crabby old man (of course he's crabby, he's not eating!) and then I came home and cried. I mean I actually shed tears. For most of the afternoon.
Dying for Something Sweet
My partner asked me why I was so sad. I couldn't say.
I felt as though someone I loved very much had just died. He said, "Well, we do eat a lot. You're always cooking. We could just not eat so much." And then I realized how very much food has come to mean to me in my day to day life, how I've allowed it to become my own private drug and best friend and art form and valentine for others, to the point that it is actually endangering my life. And I remembered (how could I forget?) that food literally killed my mother.
My mother was bulimic. As children, we witnessed her lifelong tortured relationship with food and with her love/hate relationship with her own body on a daily basis. We grew up with this drama. Every time she went on a diet (which was about once a month), we knew she'd be baking all sorts of wonderful things within days. She'd spend a day or two starving herself, and then suddenly she'd snap and bake eight pies and three kinds of cookies, all in the same day. We got so we cheered each new diet, because we knew it meant chocolate!
My mother wasn't obese. Most bulimics are of normal weight, or only slightly overweight. But she hated her body intensely. Try as she might, she could never get comforable in her own skin. I would ask her, once I was old enough to think of it, why she didn't just learn to like herself as she was. It seemed so much easier for her, even if it would mean fewer cookies for us. She couldn't even consider that. She thought of her body as a problem to be fixed. Over and over again.
Untreated bulimics eventually get to the point where all their chronic binging and purging begins to cause wild swings in their blood potassium levels (among other serious health problems like rotted teeth and holes in their digestive linings). These severe blood-chemistry imbalances can eventually trigger a very specific kind of massive stroke, the same kind that killed anorexic pop singer Karen Carpenter. People with eating disorders very often die young, not of the disorder itself, but rather of sudden stroke.
When my mom had her own final massive stroke, she was talking on the phone with my youngest sister. If it weren't for that fact--the fact that she literally dropped dead in the middle of a phone conversation--my mother would have just died quietly and that would have been the end of her story. But because my sister was on the other end of the line, an ambulance was called. The paramedics arrived quickly and shocked my mom's braindead body back to life, where it hovered in a netherworld for 48 hours before finally giving out. I saw her before she died, hooked up to all that life support, and it wasn't her. It was some horrible thing with a heaving chest that went up and down to the noise of a mechanical respirator, a scene from a horror movie.
That thing wasn't my mother.
I was estranged from my mother and the rest of my family at the time it happened, and had been for years. Since my father was long dead and my mother had named me as the executor on her will, and since I am also the eldest sibling, my two sisters immediately began to call me and demand that I sign a DNR release so that the thing that was once my mother could just die. I thought this was an extraordinary demand to be making of me after all their years of silence, but I considered it carefully and, after visiting what used to be my mother, said no, I wouldn't do it.
Pull the plug yourselves if you must, I said. They screamed at me. I ignored them. Finally I disconnected my phone.
And then my mother died on her own.
I'm not bulimic. I love sweets, but I don't binge and purge, I just eat more than I need to eat and I eat all the wrong things, like most Americans do. I'm fond of butter and chocolate, and if they can be combined somehow all the better. But I have good habits too: I walk 45 minutes each day and I love vegetables even without the butter, and grow lots of them at home myself.
Like lots of women my age, my not-so-secret sin is rewarding myself for survivng whatever torments me with a sweet, and I really can no longer afford to do this. I also love to reward others with sweets and beautiful meals, and I love the positive attention this gets me. When someone cusses me out on the phone at work, it soothes me to pick up a bag of vanilla cremes at the vending machine and stuff my real feelings about being abused for a living. It works, it tastes good. I feel better. Life goes on.
It's going to kill me.
So I think I was crying because I have, as they say, emotional baggage when it comes to food, and I've never really taken the time to admit it or look at it very carefully. I've never had to. I've always eaten like a lumberjack and stayed naturally slim. That stopped when I turned 40, got worse at 48 when I took my first call center job, and now has reached critical mass, so to speak.
I don't thunder when I walk and scare small children with my hideousness. But it's time to take it all more seriously. And it's a loss. It really is. I'll have to find other ways of coping with my job bitterness, other ways of loving the people I love. And I'll probably have to see that crabby old man again.
I have a feeling he'll still be crabby.
On My Way to Somewhere Else
I thought I'd write about this, as much for me as for all you Hub readers here, because I think that 1) being accountable will keep me honest and help me stay on track, 2) I think it will be kind of funny, or possibly even very funny, and 3) when I reach my goal I can put it all together and publish at as one of those obnoxious lose-a-ton-in-no-time books that are so popular. I promise next week (after my second weigh in) I will post a photo of my pudgy self to compare with my 'after' self down the road. And then I'll check in weekly and post updates and reflections on what goes through my mind as I follow in Fergie's footprints.
After I signed up and weighed in on Thursday, two nice women immediately took me under their wings and started to explain the ropes, off the record. One of them (I'll call her Kathleen because that's her name), kept telling me about her husband and his refusal to listen to her free diet advice.
Kathleen is a lifer, meaning she has lost a ton of weight successfully and now gets to be in Weight Watchers forever, for free, as long as she never gains back more than two pounds. But her spouse, (whom she repeatedly admitted does not have a weight problem) continues to eat handfulls of potato chips right out of the bag and big spoons of ice cream right out of the tub right in front of her, no matter what she says.
Also, it turns out that there is nothing so sinfully rich, so decandently off-limits, that Kathleen has not found a way to make it out of sawdust and celery shavings. I listened patiently to many of these recipes (fat free fudge brownie mix made with bran!) and pictured Kathleen's husband, purposely scarfing Jamocha Almond Fudge is front of her while she recited her latest method for taking all the fun out of cheesecake to him.
My first resolution: I will not become Kathleen. I hope.
Anyway, it begins. Come back if you want to. If you can stomach it.
It might not be pretty.
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Comments
Ok Pam, quit shooting yourself in the foot. You are beginning a wonderful journey. go here http://www.level1diet.com and read what happened to my brother. You have opened up a great pantry...wonderful food, that you can chop and prepare in advance for munchie time and the greatest part is there's almost no limit to quantity.
Emotional baggage comes with food. Read a few of the hubs I wrote about food and foster care, and you might find some common ground...I did even about my "healthy ol adult life." We all have feelings mixed in with what we eat.
You have the best reason in the world to change your eating habits....your today's and tomorrows. Decide to be happy about all the greens oranges, and reds and blues you can eat...a whole rainbow.
I'm not going to be sad for you...be happy about your future...make the decision to love the path you are taking. I think it's more level or downhill than uphill -- I really do. I've lost and I've gained and I had more fun when I was losing. I never enjoyed eating something later that I knew was adding to my hips. Been there. honest.
Here's some of the things I said to myself when I turned down a piece of pie..."There's 10 years of pies on my butt." No candy "My double chin is 20 candy bars." Yogurt instead of ice cream "This Can't Be Yogurt.." (the TGBY brand)
I'm happy for your choice...have a good bye to fat party...and celebrate each day with a walk.
so there. (I really am trying to encourage you....you've made a brave and yet easier than you think decision.)
My aunts and uncles...with the exception of Uncle Finley and his wife. but all the other 9 brother and sisters were BLIMPS and they all died early of diabetes...
You are gonna make it girl...It's gonna be a good skinny Christmas and New Year. Hooooray for you!!
Pam--I'm rooting for you! It's damn hard to lose weight and sooo easy to gain it!
Looking forward to updates on your progress. Tell you what--I'll even try again myself!! Got all the materials already from a couple of years ago. I'll pull everything out and start tomorrow morning! Skinny Minnie--here we come!! Aim for a better bod by Christmas!
How about anyone else? We can form a Hubbers Weight Lose Support Group! Help, encouragement, recipes, support, whatever! Set it up, Pam, over in a forum--the more, the merrier!!
Ruthie
Pam, you have such a way of speaking for all of us.
In five years of sitting on my butt in a corporate office, I gained 50 pounds. LOVE the potlucks, birthday cakes, bagels with cream cheese spreads for morning meetings...all of that.
I quit corporate and I got a dog.
We walk. She has lost more weight than I in the last year. So, jury is out.
For me, I want to retain the energy and mobility I've always had. At my age, a 50 pound gain works against that goal.
Thanks for sharing. Your openness will make a lot of us think, hard.
Hey Everyone - I need to clarify that I responded to this hub. pgrundy wrote this one.
Call center employees sound a lot like raising Kobe beef.
Your Hub contained a lot of great information for people interested in shedding the pounds and feeling better about themselves. Here's wishing you success in your efforts - may you find something much more healthy and rewarding to satisfy you in place of food. (I know eating veggies as you already do can't be that fattening! Please remember us fondly the next time you're having a delicious stir-fry!)
Excellent and very honest hub about a problem I can well understand!
I have put on too much weight as well but am nowhere near as bad as many people on this island including much younger ones! One of the problems here is everything is full of sugar and by everything I mean things like fruit juices. It's hard to find pure ones with no added sugar. Most yogurts are full of sugar and the alternatives are worse - full of aspartame.
If and when I eat out I treat myself to pizza - a bad choice. I love cheese but it puts the pounds on me.
I think I'm just going to have to eat less and walk more!
Good luck from me too, Pam!
Poignant, affecting, and inspiring. Looking forward to following your new journey and the wonderful places it takes you. Life's about to change in a big way.
So nice to wake up to Hubpages comments! Thank you everyone!
mariesue--I'm fine now, it was just that first day a lot of stuff hit me. I know I will do it and it will be fine. Two days into it I feel good and am looking forward to getting my old self back for Christmas!
Pam & Ruthie, that's a good idea about starting a forum on it--I'll do it, and anyone who want to join can do it.
Satori, you're not too far off there. I'm nowhere near as bad off as many of my colleagues but I still need to deal with it. Mooo.
Sally's Trove--I walk our dog every day, and I don't know who gets more out of it, me or him. He's the best.
Steve. I know what you mean about the drinks. Everything, I mean, everything, that you can buy to drink at work is full of sugar, so I bring my own iced tea without sugar and I also drink water. What is so bad about all those pops and sugary drinks is most of them contain no nutrition whatsoever, just sugar. Fruit juice at least has some vitamins and so forth. I know people who have lost weight just by giving up Coca Cola.
Cranston, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I'm looking forward to it too!
Hiya Pam, my thought was that your weight problem has to do with that damn job of yours again. It struck me that they are treating you like a battery hen. It's all a part of the same process, of course. You are a unit of production rather than a sentient being, given only minimal space and minimal individuality. It's kind of obvious why you over eat as compensation for that. So I'm rooting for you too and at the same time looking forward to your bulletins from the front line of your struggle, as it were. That dry sense of humour of yours will keep you going, I'm sure, and will keep the rest of us entertained as always. Good luck with it, and I'm looking forward to more hubs on this subject.
Thank you CJ! You are right of course, and I do know it is my job. I never had this problem before I started doing this work, It's so dehumanizing. I live in such a depressed area, I can't seem to get out, which is why I pray to be laid off. Then it's out of my hands and I'm outta there.
In the meantime, I know I can do this. I'm looking forward to it now that the initial shock has faded.
Hey, maybe I WILL be the hottest 80-year-old on the block after all!
You are gonna be great...and inspire all of us to keep going and get and stay healthy. It's worth it... I tell myself as I walk by the cooker cake slow simmering in the slow cooker smellin' like heaven...well its nearly my birthday why not!! This one is cherry and peach.... have you tried it yet? slow cooker cake...? It's better than sex... shhhh
Mariesue you can't possibly worry about your weight---you look like such a little bit of a woman in your photo!
Do NOT tell me how to make slow cooker cake right now---it sounds great and I have to just banish it from my mind, otherwise I'll be forced to track down Kathleen and ask her how to make one with bran nuggets and Splenda. I don't think I can handle that yet, a bran & Splenda slow cooker cake.
Thanks for all your encouragement!
I can't say it any better than marisue or cranston...eagerly awaiting your future writing here...as a 50plus aged woman...trust me...there's more ways to find oneself overweight than working at a call center! Loved learning the term Obesogenic! I'm routing for you!
Thanks Desert Blondie! The hardest part will be posting the pudgy 'before' photo. The photo on my profile is recent but it hides me tummy and midsection, but I feel lots better about the whole thing already---I know I will make it!
pgrundy, you're inspiring me to lose more and tighten up more, one thing that helps me in the past and now is 3 lb hand weights...as I watch tv, i lift and twist my arm until I find a spot that "feels' it and I do it to the count of 20 and find another spot...soon, I can lift groceries easier, and my arms and shoulders don't even ache anymore...it really helps.
Walking gives you energy...no matter what the research and reports say...you will lose more weight than you can imagine, just walking 30 min every day. Plus, a great side effect is LESS APPETITE. After an emergency hysterectomy from 10 years ago....I walked 1/2 mile on the 9th day after surgery and added 1 extra minute daily until I got up to 45 min a day and I got skinny and healthy.
It was magic. (with effort, but magic results) I am sooo excited for you! Turning over a new leaf is always fun, and you'll get so much encouragement from HUB people. or HUG people. LOL keep on keepin' on! (remember that saying?)
Hey PG,
I enjoyed reading this hub and I'm rooting for you, too! I just hope you don't lose your wit and writing style with the weight :-). Positive expectancy about being able to lose weight pretty much guarantees that you will lose the weight. Just be sure to add in some moderate exercise along with the WW program.
I can't wait to buy your book! If you succeed, which I'm sure you will, I too will jump on the band wagon. Be excited this is a big step and a new point in your life, embrace this experience because you'll blink and it'll be over. Soon you'll look in the mirror and you won't even recognize yourself. Sigh, I'm jealous!!!! Good luck and be sure to sneak in a few tips for your hubbies!
PnP ~Everything makes sense until it doesn't.
Pam: This is great, you taking charge of your health and weight. I am also trying to lose weight; lost about 6 pounds and have 10 more to go. I have to watch my weight because living in a rural town where the car is used instead of walking as I did all the time while living in the city, the pounds accumulate easily- reason why I purchased a treadmill. Earlier today, the thought came to me, that I need to stop eating for the sake of eating. I eat even when I am not hungry, especially sweets, just for fun, and its not a good habit. I can enjoy everything, but in moderation.
I am rooting for you, and can't wait to read your follow up story about your weight loss!
Thumbs up to your hub!
Hi Violetsun, IMHustle, Pen n Pad & mariesue! I'm more jazzed about it than I was at first too now.
marisure--the woman who sits in the cublice next to me just brought a set of weights to work and I see her using one hand to pump them all the time. I have a set somewhere, I'm going to have to dig them out. I told she was brilliant. She is, she's really nice to everyone, and very professional.
Violet sun, I love sweets too. Lucky for me, WW makes a whole line of them I can actually eat so long as I count them, and they aren't bad either.
Pen n Pad--wow I better succeed now so I can sell that book! (My day job looks shakier every day! Yay!)
IMHustle--I walk with the dog for 45 minutes each day and yesterday my guy got our bicycles down and tuned them up, so I'm going to give that a whirl today too. It's nice out here today--cool, sunny. Perfect!
Ahhhh PG--just found this and have to stop and say kudos once again. I'll be checking in regularly on your progress and think this will make a wonderful book--and not just aa e-book. This could be the book that gets you out of the call center forever:-)
I too am a WW alum--a chronic memeber, shall we say--show up every now and then for six or eight weeks, lose 10 or 15 pounds and then go home and put it back on again LOL.
Onwards and upwards and a big thumbs up( as usual)
Hi robie!
Yes i know about the boomerange 15 pounds! For years I did that too, and then when we moved up here.The move was so much more stressful than either of us expected. I've gained an extra 20 just this year, and I know its from comfort eating over stress.
I think those pounds will come off steadily, since they are new pounds. But I thought it would be a good opportunity to write about lots of public and personal issues--the way we live and work, eating for comfort, toxic foods and environments, toxic thinking, stuff like that--while sharing my own personal thoughts and progress to keep myself on track.
Hey, anything that gets me out of that call center I'll do it, up to, including, and surpassing WW! Seriously, WW is really the sanest of the 'diet' plans out there--it's just a way of learning to eat well instead of stuffing oneself with bad junk foods.
I've tried the popular high protein regimens---ick. The saddest thing happened at the call center I worked in before this one. About six people lost a TON on Atkins and South Beach. I mean, over 50 pounds each. Then, within six months of reaching their ideal weights, they all, every single one of them, gained back all of it plus a few. I talked to them about it--they all said the same thing: You can't maintain it. You can't eat nothing but protein all the time. At some point, you snap and eat every brownie in the state and you keep doing it until you feel better.
I know WW works. (Another thing we have in common! I know exercise works. Thanks for the vote of support. I'm finally looking forward to it myself!
Pam,
Some one i overheard one day say that little 'tubby guy' I looked around and found they wewre talking about me.
Chnaged my eating and exercise habits at that moment.
Now iI feel real guilty.
I have written a hub called 'Let them Eat Cake.'
I can only exhort you not to look at it.
It's a horrible hub and if I had known i would not have temped it.
Please do not look or even peek.
Mind you does have a funny story in it
Thanks for a great hub.
Hi Mr. Marmalade! How can I not peek, especially when the author has a great name like Mr. Marmalade!!! Thanks for stopping by. (I love cake.)
Wow! Did I need to read your hub. I have been trying to get myself on a weight loss regimen for a year now. I over eat and load up on sweets...I can't seem to stop...I must be an addict. And yes, every day, after every meal and evey sweet fest, my brain is yelling "you are killing youself." Thanks for saying what I have been hearing in my head for so long. I've gotta get a handle on this thing and maybe a support group is just the ticket. I'll sign on.
Pam, you can speak such truths with such heart. There's so much of you to appreciate, even if there is going to be less of you to appreciate.
I gained about 40 lbs during five years, too. When I left my stressful job two years ago, I took over mowing the lawn. I've lost 30 lbs since then.
You'll be there in no time. Really.
Thanks Ana and Cheryl! I know the job is a lot of it--I don't think I'd be as drawn to sweet foods without it. I used to work in a garden center before I got into call center work. God, I'd love to do that again. I live two blocks away from a garden center. It's the insurance problem in the US that is killing me, and the kicker is, my insurance is BAD--I mean, it only cover 80% and only after $3,000, so, ouch, you can pile up medical debt fast.
I wish you the best in your endeavor. It may get tough, but stick with it and achieve your goals! I'm very happy that you're choosing a healthier lifestyle. Have you ever thought ballroom dancing or other types of dancing? Dance is an excellent way to help achieve your goals... and it's FUN!
Good luck!:)
ProCW
Thanx pgrundy you are absolutely fabulous and funny too! I think, I am going to join you on your WW journey considering that I gained one too many pounds while pregnant with my little one (i had her just 2 months ago and I feel like a cow) lol.
I agree with Ruthie17 we need to start a WW support group. Us women, we need to help eachother. I don't know about you guys but I gain weight just by looking at how much my husband eats. LOL
Thanks nelky629! Yes let's start a support group here--I'm up for that! So far so good on WW this week. My weigh in is Thursday for the first week. I'm excited. It really hasn't been too bad so far.
working
Pam Pounds says:
2 months ago
I appreciate your humor and honesty, pgrundy. Good luck in WW. I'll be rooting for you!