Relapse is part of the Treatment

I heard this interview on NPR I think where the guy being interviewed was saying that he was an alcoholic. It took him years to recover and it didn't happen until he accepted that relapse is part of the treatment. Maybe it was Diane Rehm or This American Life on podcast. Anyway, the line struck me. What if RELAPSE was a good thing? Or at least not a bad one. What if RELAPSE itself was a necessary part of the journey. What if it's required? It was a comforting thought but I worried it was weak or selfish or indulgent.

I made a mental note to blog on it but promptly dropped the idea. Until I read Brooke Castillo's blog today and then it all slipped together. She wrote:

For a while, your pattern may look like this:

Get the hang of it
See the cool result in your life
Screw it all up completely by checking out
Get the hang of it (again)

This time when I gained weight back it didn't feel like evidence that I suck. But it sure was interesting. This time I was willing to do it again and again and again. Willing to participate in my life instead of, as my friend Jen says, sitting back with a bucket of popcorn and watching the movie that has become my life.

So my relapse is part of my treatment. This isn't weak - because it takes a lot of strength to stay engaged and connected, especially in the face of what could be considered failure. It isn't selfish - because I know I give the best of myself when I take care of myself first. And it sure isn't indulgent because welcoming relapse as a part of the treatment, while more gentle than other approaches, is more likely to bring more positive results.

But most of all relapse just is. It's a part of my journey. A journey on which I am committed to keeping my eyes and my heart open.

How things work out

It's funny how things work out with weight loss. Or any big challenge, I guess. You are working really hard and not getting results and someone suggests you stop trying so hard. That's really an infuriating suggestion because of the thought "If I don't continue to try hard, I will not succeed." It's a Bodhi tree like mystery which your busy brain rejects loudly. But then, like a geometry problem you step away from, the answer arrives at your door - all unassuming - and smacks you over the head with a sort of sweet, "how the heck did you miss that?"

I started working with Brooke Castillo, weight loss coach, in April 2007. I had a 1-year-old baby and had not lost most of the 85 lbs. I gained while pregnant. In 8 months, from April to November, I lost over 70 lbs. with Brooke, going from 296 (!) to about 220. My goal was to be 149 lbs by December 2009. In December 2007, stepped up my work outs often working out twice a day and burning upwards of 1500 calories a day! And I was committed to losing weight by eating when I was hungry and stopping when I was full. I never counted a calorie. But once increased my exercise, I stopped losing weight.

All that exercise made me hungry! I worked out through the holidays but I probably ate too much. Then I got pneumonia and bronchitis, but I kept working out. I completed 3 triathlons. I was more fit than ever and while I stopped losing weight, I did drop another dress size to a size 16. I was told by my trainer I was gaining muscle and not to worry.

I went to a weight loss retreat and realized, all my muscle wasn't the problem. I was simply eating too much. Brooke coached me about planning joy eats and only having one small serving of high fat food a day. IMPOSSIBLE I proclaimed. We had done this "plan your joy" routine before. There was simply no way for me to plan to eat a brownie and that that was going to stop me from eating a cookie if someone brought them into the office.


And then we did an exercise where I saw clearly that the problem was my incapacity to try harder. The story I told my self was I was working harder than anyone could work. And I had a lot of evidence this was true. And if this wasn't enough, then I quit.

And so I did. From November 07 to July 08 I maintained 220 lbs. But when I got back from the retreat, I quit. Six months later, I ballooned back up to 290! Little by little the pounds piled back on but my attitude remained strong. This was a conscious life choice and not the result of negative thinking. It was the result of thinking. Period. And the thought was this, "I would rather be fat than work this hard."

And low and behold that reality was created! (My thoughts are powerful that way.)

There was magic in that decision. A magic to create my own destiny. A magic to create my own body. A magic to chose my future. But it's not a 1-way magic.

So now I find myself wanting another baby.

My divorce is still in process. I am flat broke. I can live in this fat body, but it has a really big downside. It won't ovulate. Which means I can't make another baby. With no money for fertility treatments and no legal possibility of adoption until the divorce is final, the only way for me to make a baby is with known donor sperm (got it!) and working ovaries.

I've got to lose 50 lbs to get my ovaries in order. I'd like to lose more than that. And the clock is ticking. I'm 36.

So I asked myself a question that Brooke asked me once: "What can you do?"

Weight loss surgery.
- Not covered by insurance

Jenny Craig.
- Ditto on the money

Starve myself.
- Never happen

Plan healthy meals?
.... hmmm.... I COULD do this one.

And so for the past 2 weeks I have been planning my meals, logging my food, exercising (of course!) and losing weight - down 8 lbs so far.

This process of packaging a weeks worth of meals and snacks on Sunday has made it as easy to stick to my own plan as it was to stick to Jenny Craig (but it's a lot cheaper.) Still until today I felt like I was on a diet. Lose enough weight to have a baby and then deal with life as a fat person again.

But today something hit me. Back when I was plateaued at 220 lbs., my biggest problem was eating too much. I said I was eating 1800 calories but that's what my target was. I actually never measured calories and I stopped journaling my food. In retrospect I was probably eating more than 1800 calories and I was eating a lot of non-fuel foods. What I never really did, was take full responsibility for what I ate. In fact, I claimed (thought, believed, decided) what I ate was out of my control. I took control of exercise, but I wanted the food piece of the equasion to come together on its own. Our accountant having chocolate in his office and our new CEO having lunch catered every day was interfering with my plan.

The secret to losing weight, it turns out, isn't eating less and exercising more. The secret is asking yourself: "What CAN I do to take care of myself despite the obstacles life is guaranteed to throw my way?" The answer always leads to eating less and exercising more, but it won't feel like a chore. It will feel like Christmas.

Enough is Enough - STARVE-A-THON

I'm sick of watching this genocide in Darfur year after year and doing nothing about it. An estimated 2.7 million people have been displaced and more than 400,000 have been killed since 2003. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape and mass slaughter. Recently, most of the humanitarian aid groups were expelled and Sudanese aid organizations forcibly closed. This has created increasingly precarious conditions for the internally-displaced camp dwellers.

That's why I'm going on a hunger strike.

I am joining Richard Branson, Mia Farrow, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot and 4.7 million Darfuris who are fasting without option. I'll fast 1 day for every $500 I raise to Save Darfur. You can contribute on your own at savedarfur.org (and forward me the receipt) or send your donation to me at angela lauria | 6600 2nd st nw | washington DC 20012

If you have any questions about why I am doing this - ask me - or visit fastdarfur.org. I also think you'll find Richard Branson's video about his fast enlightening.

Thanks for your support,
Angela

p.s. I think one of the most powerful ways to truly understand what it is like to be Darfuri in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias is to play the VIDEO GAME Darfur is Dying.

Where have I been?

Lots of folks have asked me where I have been since June. Frankly it's a question I have been asking myself too. I can give you all the reasons I have been too busy to blog and you'll believe me:
- My husband and I separated. While my mother-in-law was living with us.
- I've been negotiating custody of our 2 1/2 year old. Still unsettled in my mind.
- I have welcomed into my home - my nanny, her husband and her 18 month old; a 17-year-old high school exchange student from Argentina who's here for a year; and a friend's husband who has been living with us during the weeks.
- The company I work for was bought. I got a promotion and (just for fun) a demotion. However, I believe I saved my job.
- I have been on 6 work trips in Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Dallas.
- My commute went from 5 minutes to 45 minutes in May and in November went from 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes.

I am sure there is more but this is a lot of what I have been dealing with.

I decided that divorce, custody, and saving my job were more important than taking care of myself and consequently stopped going to the gym and completely stopped questioning negative beliefs. The great part of this experience was a vivid consciousness that this was what I was doing.

"Oh," I'd think. "I am choosing to neglect myself, interesting." And then I would go on with the business of self-neglect.

I'd see a book or magazine article about self-care and think: "hmmm, I know how to do that, wonder why I'd not."

But I never tried to break the cycle. I just tried to watch it. Until one day, I packed a lunch and headed to the gym. Not exciting or dramatic. No epiphany. I just WANTED to take care of myself again. And that's how it's been the past few weeks. Delicious self care, more of me to go around, and incredible amazement at how the mind is mastered.

Anyway I saw this great article today about a woman who has lost 175lbs and this advice from her blog completely reminded me of what I have learned about myself in my weight loss journey.

{EXCERPTED}

Things I've learned about losing weight:

* Workout everyday no matter what. Even when you are tired and are feeling bad. Those are your best workout days, you have more energy and feel better after your workout.

* Count calories and write everything down. Writing everything down makes you accountable. One of the links I have is an excel spreadsheet to calculate how much you eat at each meal and how many calories you eat each day. I own a scale that you can input a code for different foods and it tells you how many calories are in them. It takes figuring the calories out for yourself out of the equation.

* Drink half your weight in ounces of water per day. For example: if you weigh 200 pounds you need to drink 100 ounces of water per day. I marked my water bottles in the beginning to keep track of how much water I had drank.(Yes I recycle the bottles.)

* Stay away from salt and processed foods. Use fresh as much as you possible.

* If you can't be honest with other people, be honest with yourself. Sometimes it is the hardest thing you have to do.

* Ask for help if you need it. People are so willing to be part of the success, that they will help you as much as they can. There are some people who will sabotage you. If you have them in your life, tell them how you feel and if it doesn't change, limit your time with them as much as possible.

* Write a journal and take pictures. You will be so happy you did. When you don't see a difference in the mirror, you can look back at where you used to be. It also works when you put your beginning picture side by side with your now picture.

* If you go off your program get right back on. Don't wait until tomorrow, or Monday, just do it after you take a breath, and don't beat yourself up for it. No one is perfect.

* There are only bad excuses not to workout.

* Once you set your foot in the gym, everything else takes care of itself.

* If you are not sweating, you're not pushing yourself hard enough.

* I will have to work on my program the rest of my life. There are no shortcuts to healthy living.

* Being obese is so much harder than getting fit.

* Let the world see who you are under all the protection you wear.

Opening

I mentioned in an earlier post that I chose the word to represent me. It seemed right at the time, but I guess now that I’ve had the thought: “Opening is a good word for me.” I’ve begun to open even more.

The Ropes Course is located near the resort we stayed at last year. I know the area very well so it surprised me I’d never seen it before. What do I mean? Well, I guess last year I was so in my head about hating the out of doors that I never actually noticed them. I didn’t notice what a gorgeous spot we were in. When we pulled up to the Ropes Course yesterday my heart skipped a beat.

“Were these mountains here last year?” I asked Jen.

She laughed. “I thought it was odd you never mentioned it last year. I talked about how beautiful it was here with just about everyone else.”

Of course the mountains were here; I hadn’t shown up.

At the beginning of the challenge, Jesse, the Ropes Course owner shared his favorite Wayne Dyer quote with us: “When you change how you see, you change what you see.”

I knew this was true for me. As I changed and opened, I was seeing so many things I’d never seen – the mountains, the sky, my authentic self. It was all laid out for me to see.

This retreat has been a time of deeper opening for me and a time of acknowledging all the new things I have enabled myself to see by thinking new and better thoughts. And the best thing about opening is that it’s a process that goes infinitely. Imagine how much more there is to be seen!

Unwilling to Be Coached

Brooke told me I was unwilling to be coached today. She’s never said it before and I guess I was stung and stuck by it; but I believe in Brooke and her coaching style and I don’t think she’d say that if it weren’t true.

I’ve been asking myself all night if that thought is true – was I unwilling to be coached. Somehow I know the answer is yes but I can’t see my way through my story to that truth.

On the Ropes Course, I went half way up a pole. It was so much harder physically than I expected. I wasn’t scared, but I was discouraged I wasn’t as fit as I thought I was. Still from the moment I said I couldn’t do it, I took 3 more steps. When I was lowered down I felt great for pushing myself beyond what I thought possible and then Brooke reminded me my weight made this challenge harder. I had fantastic thoughts of my success.

Then in a coaching session, Brooke said she believed I could have climbed up the pole 5 times and the only reason I couldn’t was my thought I couldn’t.

“What do you think you would have done if you didn’t have the thought you couldn’t do it?”

“I guess I’d keep going until I threw up, passed out, or made it to the top.”

Brooke pressed on – what if you didn’t have the thought you might throw up or pass out.
We ended up locked in an argument that ended with Brooke kinda giving up with me. At least that’s how it felt.

“Your thought is – I couldn’t make it up the pole and that thought makes you happy because it makes you feel right. So we are going to let you keep it.”

With that the coaching session was cut short. I’ve never seen her do this to anyone before and it really took my breath away as I tried to figure out what I made that mean. My first thoughts were really painful – Brooke doesn’t believe in me. I am not worth believing in. Brooke doesn’t understand me. Brooke is being difficult. I am sick of this work and I’m just going to quit – that’ll show her. The thoughts kept coming. (Reread now with the turnarounds in place – I don’t believe in myself. I am worth believing in. I don’t understand Brooke. I am being difficult. – these were some pretty spot on thoughts.)

Jennifer was her typical brilliant and generous self letting me go on and on about it but not letting me get too deep into my own story before bringing me back to the work.

“What’s the lesson here?” “How can you turn this around?” “What if you were at your physical limit? What does that mean to you?”

I processed her questions and my own until I remembered how the conversation started…. It was about separating circumstance from thought. I was saying I was good at that now and so

Brooke asked me what the circumstance was on the pole. “I was at my physical limit.”

“Nope,” said Brooke. “You could have made it to the top. Your thought stopped you.”

I couldn’t see that at all last night. But this morning I see it’s true. I could have made it to the top. My thought stopped me. This idea – the idea I could have made it to the top was hard for me to get to because in the coaching session it felt very painful because it caused the thought, I’m a failure. But that thought, ‘I could have made it to the top’ is actually very exciting good news. If I can get my head out of the way, I can make it to the top. I was not determined and here’s how I know, I never asked myself to dig deep. I never asked myself to find the strength to keep going. When Brooke gave me the option to go one more step and come down, I took it. I gave her the power to limit me because the fact was I wanted to be limited. I didn’t want to keep going.

There have been times in my life when I’ve been so focused on something that nothing could stop me, but climbing up that pole was not one of those times. Now, I was physically exhausted, I was hungry, I was in pain; there were lots of circumstances conspiring against me being focused, but that’s like life.

Knowing I could have made it to the top and didn’t make it there could mean I failed, but it doesn’t to me. To me it means I met the limits of my thoughts; and the great news is I am only a thought away from the top of that pole.

(Not) Late for A Very Important Date

Ten months ago Coach Lisa asked me to do the "Pass-Me" Bridge at the Squaw Valley Ropes Course with her. Yesterday I fulfilled that promise and made it across with a sweet kiss in the middle. Actual picture to come. Thanks Lisa for helping me make a dream come true for myself!

Smarter than your Average Fog Eat

I came on this retreat with one, clear goal – to find the neural pathways toward a life without mindless eating when I’m not hungry (what Brooke calls fog eating). Today, I had a chance to work on that goal in one of Brooke’s typical “Attack Coaching” sessions. The thing about Brooke is that she just puts her thumb right on your thoughts and then holds you down. Her confidence in herself and in you seems to glide you onto the next level. Working with her is hard, she doesn’t let you get away with anything, but it’s also like flying. She lifts you off the ground with her love, compassion, and joy of doing this work.

In her unique way, she was lifting me off the ground with her questions.

Brooke: What result do you want?

Me: To be free from fog eating.

Brooke: What action do you need to take in order not to fog eat?

(Oh, this is gonna be easy, I thought, I know how to play this game.)

Me: In order not to fog eat, I need to stay connected to myself before I eat. To do that I’d need to think thoughts like this:
• Nothing is too much for me.
• I can handle this immediate moment.
• I don’t need to stop the thinking.
• I can clear the slate without eating.

With thoughts like that I would feel resourceful, confident, competent, and clear. I would stay connected and not fog eat.

Q.E.D.

Oh oh oh – so much easier said than done. What’s standing in my way of changing my thoughts? The belief that fog eating is somehow helpful to me. When pressed, I realized that I have a secret idea that my fog eating is actually productive. Fog eating helps me calm down, press the reset button, rethink my current circumstance and start a-fresh.

Brooke made her move: “With Angela, the best way to coach her is with mockery.”

So she started this list to show just how productive fog eating made me:

Angela’s FOG EATING TO DO LIST
1) Eat without awareness
2) Eat food that doesn’t fuel me
3) Burn time
4) Zap my energy
5) Feel super crappy
6) Beat myself up after

I hated looking at this list, but she’s right. The idea fog eating makes me more productive is total bullshit. I am just hanging on to this thought – this thought that not fog eating is too hard. And there is absolutely no intelligent reason for it.

Here is where Brooke worked her real magic.

“Tell me about MORE SUCCESSFUL ANGELA (MSA). What makes her VP material?"
Oh I rattled off my answers – so many of them where to start? I’m:
• Productive
• Smart
• Efficient
• Organized
• Resourceful
• Make good decisions
• Prioritize
• Put things in order
• Strategic
• The list goes on and on….

I should have known what was coming. What else? A turnaround! She opened it up to the group.

“What’s the opposite of Productive?”
Lazy!

“Smart?”
Stupid.

"Efficient?"
Wasteful…

The list of opposites went on and on with the girls getting more and more animated:

• Scattered
• Clueless
• Bad decisions
• Not ordered
• Mismanaged
• Dumb

Then Brooke asked me:

“Okay Ms. VP, what do you call a not very smart entry level person?”

My answer rolled off the tongue…. “a monkey”

“Great! A DUMB MONKEY I LOVE IT,” Brooke jumped up and down like an animal. “That’s who you are when you fog eat!!! A DUMB MONKEY.”

Is feeding your body food you don’t need or food that’s not right for your body Smart? Efficient? Resourceful? Of course not! In so many areas of my life I am brilliant – oh, but not when it comes to fog eating. When it comes to fueling my body, I’m a dumb monkey. My thoughts have been telling me I can’t stop fog eating and me, little miss argumentative, I just take the orders and stuff my face without questioning for a minute if this thought is serving me. I surrendered myself to my thoughts and believed my thoughts about fog eating were uncontrollable.

So, here are my new thoughts:
• I am so much smarter than fog eating.
• I am so glad I am not a monkey.
• I am never dumb now.
• I never fog eat now.

I am strongly adverse to the idea of being a “dumb monkey” I don’t think it’s at all cute or funny; it’s just a stark reminder of this lie I have been telling myself over and over – that I need to fog eat; that I WANT to fog eat; that I deserve to fog eat.

Fog eating keeps me overweight and being overweight keeps me from my true potential. No chance to fail because I’m holding myself back. Brooke of course tied this all into my career aspirations.

I can hear Marianne Williamson telling me I’m playing small with the universe and so the universe is playing small with me. She’s telling me to show up for my own life.

I want a seat at the big kid’s table so I can make good strategic decisions, but I don’t make good strategic decisions about fog eating in my own life and I AM the president of what one attendee referred to as You, Inc. I am the President and I’m not making good decisions at all.

Imagine there is a board meeting and Lazy, Stupid, Smart and Efficient all show up. Who would I listen to? When I fog eat, I’m taking advice from Lazy and Stupid. Of course I’m not getting to the next level in my career, I can’t even run my own body effectively. There is a chicken and the egg here but it’s kind of irrelevant. If I want to change my life – and for that matter if you want to change yours – you just have to change your thoughts. You can do it now, or later, it really doesn’t matter; but strategically speaking, I recommend the former so you can amortize your joy over a greater number of years.

How to Succeed in Coaching Without Really Trying

Brooke asked me to take a look at my current definition of Career Success to see if I can revise the thought to something genuinely true for me but that does not cause pain.


Current: Achieve progressively advancing responsibility and reward while minimizing risk.

Proposed: Earn a living in interesting positions in which I thrive and enjoy.



I told Brooke I felt successful but that I wanted to be MORE SUCCESSFUL – that there was more I could be doing which I felt ready for. So Brooke asked me about Miss More Successful. “How would your life be different if you were more like Miss More Successful?”

Miss More Successful has one key thing I don’t have – a seat at the “Big Kid’s Table” at work. She is a part of high-level corporate decisions and her duties are more strategic; therefore her impact at work more significant. If I had that seat I would be challenged in a way I am not now, I would be less restless and searching for my next thing. If I had that seat I would be able to participate in a more meaningful way and I think that means that the company would be more successful. My ideas would be heard by the right people and I’d get to hear those same people put their ideas forward which would give me a ton of new information about business and myself. I feel like I would be able to grow personally faster that I can in my current position. I’d have a little more money but I’d be building equity toward and even more lucrative future.

***

I don't know though - there is something about coaching that when you hit on a big one you know it. I am having angst about my career. I feel I should be further along than I am based on my experience, intelligence, education, and age. This is the thought that is causing me pain - not that I am not further along. I get this. If I didn't have that thought I'd be fine with where I am. Where I am is totally fine. It's wanting more that causing the pain. This new definition I wrote - it is true, it's just not more true that the fact I want more and that's the thinking that needs to be undone. We'll see if we get to work on this at all while I'm here, if not, I have a feeling this thread will be with me for quite some time.