YTT

I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED ABOUT YOGA TEACHER TRAINING I CAN BARELY CONTAIN MYSELF.

I mean, you've probably guessed that, right? Have you guessed that? You probably have. I've tried to restrain myself from mentioning it too much yet, because let's just face it, it's going to go into overdrive soon enough. All yoga, all the time. Nothing but. If you don't like yoga, well, too darn bad for you.

Yoga Teacher Training. YTT. Just so you know.

Things I've been doing lately:

*Reading the yoga teacher training tag on MindBodyGreen.

*Ordering "Journey Into Power : How to Sculpt Your Ideal Body, Free Your True Self, and Transform Your Life With Yoga" on Amazon, as recommended by my future instructor.

*Scheduling every class I want to take from here to infinity.

*Making mixes for yoga classes I don't teach.

"Get Free"

Daily Diet Solutions

Months and months and months ago, back pre-meltdown, The Beck Diet Solution was recommended to me as a great book and tool for weight loss. Subtitled "Learn To Think Like A Thin Person!", the books is bright pink, and begins with instructing you to make flashcards.

So of course I immediately put it back on the shelf.

Mama don't make no flashcards. Or do homework of any kind.

I lent it to the Buff (who is a dietitian by the way if I have not mentioned this), and she wasn't a huge fan of it.  She thought it was "bossy, shaming and made [her] want to stress eat", so definitely not great for everyone.

Anyway, I've taken a few peeks at the book, but it just isn't something I feel the need to read all the way through and devote my energies to. There are tons of exercises and workbook things to do, but I'm doing so well on my own and well...I just don't want to. It seems more for people who are short-term dieting, as opposed to people with real food issues, but that's just me.

However, somehow I did stumble across this link, which takes you to the book's website with their "Daily Diet Solutions". Some of them are incredibly bullshitty, like this one:

"Sabotaging Thought: It’s okay to give in and have this one cookie. 

Response: One cookie won’t satisfy me, and if I have it, the ONLY thing it will do is cause me to have an even stronger craving for a second cookie. If I have one, I’ll want two. If I have two, I’ll want three. Don’t get started!"

Here are a few of the good ones:

"You're entitled to make mistakes, but you're not entitled to use one mistake as an excuse to keep making more. No matter how many or how few mistakes you  make this week, what matters most is what you do right after. Learning how to recover IMMEDIATELY from mistakes is a skill that will help you lose weight and keep it off for good." 

"Once you have positive momentum built up, it becomes so much easier to keep doing what you're doing. You'll be less likely to give in to unplanned eating because you'll be able to say to yourself, "I'm doing so well, it's not worth knocking myself off track." 

"If you think, "This craving is so uncomfortable, I'm just going to give in so I don't feel it anymore," remind yourself that while overcoming a craving is uncomfortable in the moment, giving in is uncomfortable for SO MUCH LONGER when you feel badly and guilty about it long after."

Blame It On Hell-A

I'm up to page 48 of "The Willpower Principle". I am impressive, what with my ability to read a whole 28 pages in the space of a week and a half. I plan to commit to reading a bunch this weekend, but since I have yet to finish the book and thus have no willpower to use to force myself to abandon the TV and read, we'll see how that goes.

I really like the book, don't get me wrong. It's definitely going to be applicable to my life and my behaviors, and in fact in the space of 48 pages I've already gone, "that's me!"  about nineteen times. I think it'll help me, once I you know...read it, and I've started highlighting the bits I like best.

For example: apparently willpower is tied to your heart rate variability, IE how the pattern of your heartbeat changes due to your surroundings. The more variability, the more willpower. Apparently there are a lot of external factors that can affect your variability, like your diet and stress.

AND I QUOTE:

"...poor air quality decreases heart rate variability---yes, L.A.'s smog may be contributing to the high percentage of movie stars in rehab."

SEE? SEE? NOT MY FUCKING FAULT!

I love when I can blame anything but myself.

Because I'm perfect.

Obviously.

The Binge Monster

As you may have ascertained from my constant stream of negativity and lack of yoga-mentioning, my self control has been pretty shit lately. It's horrifying, really. I am up some pounds, and down some joy. I am not a happy camper. I am a camper who realizes they're 80 miles from civilization with no cell service and they forgot the beer and the bong and a pillow. And clothes. And sanity.

The root of my problem is any combination of the following: 1) I have serious emotional issues 2) I lost a lot of weight really quickly, and my brain and self-perception didn't adjust 3) My goal is now within reach and that terrifies me 4) I'm worried about gaining all the weight back anyway 5) I'm fucking lazy as fuck 6) I now want perfection which I know is impossible and if I'm not perfect I'd prefer to be a shit-show 7) I know being healthy makes me happier so clearly I just don't want to be happy 8) I don't feel comfortable in my skin 9) I hate everything 10) It's all your fault anyway.

A few weeks ago I bought "The Willpower Instinct" by Kelly McGonigal (PHD!) in hopes of fixing whatever the fuck is wrong with me with a little self-help. It's a good book, so far....you know, 20 pages in. See, I don't even have the willpower to commit to READING the book, so it's a bitch of a Catch-22. ("Bitch" was a typo from "bit" that I chose to leave because hilarious.)

In the beginning of the book, McGonigal suggests you give names to the different parts of your personality that pull you in different directions. Like "the obsessor" for the part of me that fixates on the tiniest things, or "the planner" for the part of me that loves lists and schedules and plans and gets very irritated when things are not set.

The part of me that needs the most work, I have named The Binge Monster.

The Binge Monster is my nemesis.

The Binger Monster wants food, in vast quantities, in short periods of time. The Binge Monster thinks any negative emotion can be erased with calories, and any positive one can be enhanced, despite a decade of evidence to the contrary. The Binge Monster is not swayed by logic, in fact, the Binge Monster is skilled at rationalizing the most fucked up things, like eating an entire roll of cookie dough in twelve hours. ("Well, I haven't binged on cookie dough yet, so obviously I will eventually, so I might as well do it now...") The Binge Monster is smarter than you...or at least, a better manipulator.

The Binge Monster makes you act like a crazy person. The Binge Monster tells you to order two sodas at the drive-through so the bespectacled teenage worker doesn't think all this food is for you. The Binge Monster thinks everyone is staring at you when you go to the work kitchen for another piece of chocolate. The Binge Monster forces you to eat so fast, so mindlessly, that you barely even taste anything. The Binge Monster mocks you, yells at you, punishes you, even as it forces you to do its bidding.

The Binge Monster is not concerned with your goals or dreams. The Binge Monster don't give a single fuuuck. You have no control over the Binge Monster, none at all. The Binge Monster operates on auto-pilot, and ignores any communication from your heart or your mind or your soul. The Binge Monster starts a cycle of self-destruction, and hides the key up its own ass. The Binge Monster hates you and everything that makes you happy.

The Binge Monster is a motherfucking bitch.

If you are not emotional eater, I truly envy you. The helplessness, the self-loathing, the fear that comes with being completely out of control with something as simple as feeding yourself is heartbreaking, not to mention humiliating. I've been writing this post for two weeks, and it was incredibly hard to put these words down, and it honestly terrifies me a bit to post it. But I will.

I was doing so well for so long, and now have been doing so poorly for so long. I'm so incredibly frustrated with myself, but it's just not as simple as we'd all like it to be. I can't just stop, I can't just be better. It's been said before that food addiction is one of the hardest to deal with --- you can avoid alcohol, or heroin, or sex, but you can't avoid food. And believe me, I have tried.

I'll dig myself out of this, I always do. But I feel such panic when I consider dealing with these kinds of issues the rest of my life. Obviously I need to figure out the true cause and trigger of my self-destructive behaviors, but alas I did not come with a "crazy bitch" manual. All I can do is press on, try my best, and live my life according to the brilliant philosophy of Dory.