Beware The Triggers

           When I was a little girl, one of my favorite shows was The Bionic Woman. For anyone who has never heard of the Bionic Woman, it was about a woman would was so critically injured in an accident that they had to replace some of her body parts with electronic equipment. Suddenly she had new strength that no ordinary person could have. She had super hearing with a bionic ear drum. She could run really fast and jump really high because of her bionic legs. Her arms were so strong that she could rip a telephone book in half. I loved that show and wished I were her. No. I did not want to have a terrible accident. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be able to defeat the villains like her. I still do.
           As a grown up, there were a few other heroines that I admired like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Le Femme Nikita. I am a serious fan of those two. I have the dvd collections to prove it. Of course there is the extreme adventure of being able to kick ass and still be hot while doing it. But I looked pass the actresses who portrayed them and their obvious beauty. What I recognized at the end of every episode was that although these women were strong and courageous, they could never escape their duty. That's real folks. That's not fiction. I could identify with them because they wanted to get away from the things that at times made them feel powerless. But instead, they stayed and fought the good fight.
            I just came back from being home for two weeks on vacation. The first week leading into Christmas was so busy that I barely remember it. The second week had trials. I have been dealing with some family situations and I found myself more than once, eating as a defense mechanism. I was overwrought with the situations and the things that I had to do to repair some things but in the end I felt very powerless. This was my childhood . There was always drama. There was always someone sick, someone dying, someone acting out. I was invisable. I was shy and quiet. I did what I was told. Quite often I was the caretaker. There was rarely someone who saw how hurt I was inside because I could put the mask on so easily. You know the mask. The one where you say "it's okay. I didn't really need that" or " it's okay I don't really want that". In the end I wound up hurting myself. I did things and people and then when those things seemed like they would kill me, I did food.
          A funny thing about food is that you actually need it to survive. Your body runs on it. When you know that you're supposed to clean your plate because there are starving children somewhere, eating can't be so bad. But for me, eating was the only thing that didn't turn on me. Eventually it did turn on me. Most of the time I fought it off with some diet or another but it kept coming back. The previous week I ate a gingerbread donut because it smelled so good and it tasted so good. But last week I ate a donut and I can't remember what it tasted like. I purchased Three Muskateers bars for myself as a treat during vacation and never touched them for almost two weeks. It took one confrontation for me to eat them all in one sitting. I don't even remember if they were good.  And I was down and depressed and defeated.
         But you know what? I got up the next day and I did my grocery shopping, laundry, cooked dinner, did my hair  and I found the time to exercise on Sunday. I could not wait to get back to the Tuesday Happy Hour Weight Watchers meeting because I really needed to draw the support from my homies. I went on the Weight Watchers website before the meeting and I realized that I forgot my tools for living.
Positive Self-Talking:
I know that there are people I have known forever who do not mean to take me apart. I will however put myself back together again. I am stronger than this. I will not eat away my pain and gain weight. I will stay on target one pound at a time. Honey, I am the Bionic Woman. I have been damaged before and I may be damaged again but I will build myself a better, stronger , tougher, indestructable body. I will use that body for the forces of good not evil.
            I had some fun with Points Plus this week. Wednesday I spent the entire day in the emergency room with my mother. I had my happy breakfast before I left the house ( 2 boiled eggs, toast, preserves, oranges) and thank goodness I did because I did not eat another thing until ten o'clock that night. I know what you are thinking. What happened to bringing a packable snack. My mind was not thinking of food. I did however pack knitting needles and yarn and magazines I had negelected. Knitting was a big stress reducer. I ended up knitting two hats and a scarf. Normally, I would have been looking for a food truck and shoved anything that smelled good in my mouth. But I didn't. My mother started calling me Madame DeFarge. But the yarn kept me sane. By the time we got home, I realized that I never had time to shop for or plan dinner for me and the guys. Josh and Jake were good with boxed macaroni and cheese but all I could think of was the points. I was a little delerious with hunger. So I took inventory of what i had in the house. I sauteed some onions, mushrooms, eggplant and persimmons in a pan and tossed it with whole wheat spaghetti. It was the best quick meal I put together in a long time and hubby and I enjoyed it. And I finally used the three persimmons that had been on the kitchen counter since the week before.
               In the middle of all my chores on Sunday, I took advantage of the warm air to do some laps. The last time I did my laps, I ran the first one and walked the last three. I hadn't jogged in a while so those last three laps went on forever. This time I walked first. No one was out because it had been raining during the night. I had the track to myself and my MP3 player. It felt so wonderful to do that for myself that I walked four laps and then jogged for one. I even enjoyed running through two deep puddles five times. Yeah it was icky at first but once I moved on most of the water left my sneakers and I was fine. My depression was lifting. I knew I was going back to work and yes my Weight Watchers meeting. There was and is pain in my thighs but it was great.
            I did not do much activity last week.
Wed. - the ER= 1pt
Thurs. errands all day = 3pts
Fri & Sat = 0 pts
Sun. 5 laps ( 4 walk/3 jog) + chores came to 19,441 steps= 12 pts
Mon.- all day + 20 mins dvd = 4pts
            I did not gain or lose weight this week . This is a good feeling. It's like knowing all that I went through plus knowing what I know. I managed to manage. Even though I need to lose more, it was nice not to gain. This week I definitely have to workout more even though my thighs are still recovering from Sunday. I will have to be creative this weekend since there will be snow on the track. But I can do this. I am the Bionic Woman.