TheBanyanTree: confessions from diet hell

[Maria Gibson]

Well, I'm here again.  At least this time it has been a much shorter
diversion than last time and I have a much better understanding of what
I'm in for.  And the subsequent gain was a lot less.

It all started on December 22, 2004.  I could tell you the time except
that I think it secretly began when I woke up that morning or maybe even
began a few weeks before then when I made the plan to go out with my
pals for a nice dinner to celebrate Christmas.  On that day, December
22, 2004, I did indeed meet them for dinner after having whatever I
wanted to eat the whole day, which included lots of goodies in the
kitchen of the office I work in.  I then woke up the next day, December
23, and did it all again except I ate at home for dinner.  I knew what I
was doing.  I was awake and conscious the whole time.  I was a spectator
from outside the window, watching.  I may even have cheered myself on.
I thought, oh for a few days, it's ok.  Then, I awoke on December 26,
2004, the day I thought I'd quietly and with great mastery of willpower
go back to eating well and healthfully and didn't, again.  December 27
and 28, same idea, same result.  Then I thought, well, I'll be eating
healthy on January 1st so I may as well lighten up and give in a
little.  I proceeded to give in a lot and eat a lot.  I didn't even
knock on the window to warn the girl on the other side.

Yesterday, January 1, 2005 arrived.  I made it through, oh, lunchish
before I was honest with myself.  Which gave forth to permission to just
finish the day as I had finished all the others since December 22, 2004
and just eat whatever seemed good at the moment.  Or at least filling.
Or at least like something I wouldn't say yes to again for a while.

I think today I have the most honest intentions I've had since that
fateful day last year, last month.  I have a firm plan and it doesn't
seem that the girl at the window is sensing the girl behind the glass
sliding in her resolve.  How do I know?  Because it feels hard.  There
is a time, I have learned, when it feels like a rendering, a tearing of
flesh.  I don't know why it has to feel that way in order for me to know
that I am serious.  But the first days of saying "ya know, I'm not going
to stop at WalMart for a cake nor am I going to eat a bowl of cereal at
10:00pm nor will I stand at the fridge door and pick at a chicken
carcass" are tense.  It's as if I have to constantly remind myself to
not do those things because giving in and doing them came so
effortlessly.  Doing all of those things is an auto pilot experience for
me and comes with ease.

So it seems.  For as I have to deal with the discomfort of now saying no
to cake, late night cereal and chicken carcass fridge raids, so do I
also have to deal with the discomfort of having said yes to them
previously.  Double whammy.  Double jeopardy.  Double penance.  I have
set up within myself an intense craving not only for the foods but for
the activity.  Eating is a sport where I come from and I used to be an
olympic athlete.  I once stood upon the podium of gluttony and obesity
with medals draping my soft folds, inner demons cheering me on.  I most
certainly stood on the tallest of them, the middle podium, for having
achieved so much and it was much.  It was much much.  Today is the day
of constantly reminding myself that the girl on the podium is not the
person I am anymore, that I have changed who I am and what defines me.

Although I am no longer a winner of the self-deprecating sport of over
indulgence, it seems I go back to the old neighborhood from time to
time.  Like the one person who dared to leave but still wants to fit in,
I go back every once in a while just to see what's going on.  It's
uncomfortable but I try. I visit the old haunts knowing it isn't what I
want, but I do it.  I eat and gain.  I watch from afar knowing the first
day I am honest and won't do it will be difficult but I find myself
doing it anyway.  I try and learn from these experiences and take
something home with me, some bit of armor with which to shield myself
when I go back again.  Because I know I'm going to go back from time to
time, right?  The girls at the glass don't meet but it is a very thin
sheet that separates them.

It hasn't taken me as long this time to come back to reality and I
didn't gain enough to be noticed by anyone but me or any thing but the
top button of my favorite jeans.  It was eleven days.

Tomorrow will be easier.

Maria