Meet my gremlin

I've had a really broken night, so could really do with spending the remaining 45 minutes before I go to pick X up from pre-school having a sleep. However, I've had a crappy morning (AKA failed clothes shopping trip) and my gremlin has been yelling in my ear all the way home from town to the point that I was holding back the tears as I turned into my street, barely able to swallow as my throat hurt so much from the effort of keeping it in. So, I really needed to come and blog. To let you meet my gremlin.

A few years ago, someone made a post on the Beyond Chocolate forum asking people what their gremlins looked like. I'd never thought about it before but my instinctive reaction was that my gremlin was Amanda Tanen from the TV show Ugly Betty (many apologies to Becki Newton who I am sure is lovely in real life!). Amanda is beautiful, shallow and extremely bitchy to other people. I could imagine her in my head, speaking to me, the way Amanda speaks to Betty. Constantly putting me down. Something that didn't occur to me for ages after Amanda popped into my head as my gremlin personified was something else about her character. If you've seen the show, you'll know that when Amanda's stressed or depressed, she binge eats! A stereotypical bully - nasty and vindictive but also actually quite insecure underneath it all.

Now, Amanda's still there in my head (long after what was one of my favourite TV shows has come to an end). Still representing every popular girl I wanted to look like but never would. But she's not top dog any more. About a month or so back, I tweeted that I was feeling angry. I also made a blog post on the subject. The following day, whilst in the shower, I had a momentary realisation about my gremlin. A glimpse of her if you like. And it wasn't Amanda.

The gremlin I saw was actually me. Not me now, but me as a child. And she was angry. So there you go. My gremlin is 11 years old. She has brown hair and blue eyes and is of average height and size for her age. Before the time when she stopped getting taller (at 5'3") and started getting wider. She's fairly bright and does well at school; enjoys it from an academic point of view. Socially speaking though, school is hell. She's been bullied for the last couple of years and has been hoping that secondary school will provide a fresh start. A chance to be popular. Or at least left alone. And now, here she is in her first year at secondary school and has realised nothing's changed. People are still mean to her and it's probably going to be another 5-7 years of feeling like something you scrape of the bottom of your shoe. She has very few friends and her body is developing ahead of many of her peers'. Especially her breasts which make her horribly self-conscious.

Eleven years old and so very very lonely. Mum always seems to be working and there's no dad or siblings around (one much-loved sister but an enormous age gap means she's already well into her twenties at this point and living 150 miles away). And school sucks. And she's spending her spare time in her head with her imaginary friends and imaginary siblings just to stop the loneliness. Or fantasising about what life will be like when she's finally pretty and finally popular - whether she's 15 or 25. She's definitely going to get there one day and it's going to feel amazing. And she's discovered eating sweets and biscuits is a good distraction too. She's pretending not to care, but really she's angry. Angry with the world and angry with me.

So now she lives on my shoulder, still being angry. Telling me I should overeat because what's the point of not? Nothing's ever going to change! I was supposed to have 'succeeded' by now. I wasn't still supposed to be this pathetic as a grown adult. How is she supposed to endure her childhood and teenage years knowing she only has me to become? Knowing that she doesn't get to be pretty? That she doesn't get to become one of the popular people or someone who oozes confidence? Not at 15 or 20 or 25 or 30...

I let that girl down and bloody hell is she angry about it! And she's sick of staying quiet and pretending she doesn't care; she wants to be heard! Just for once to feel like her feelings are important. And so she became my gremlin so that someone might listen. But all I hear is her yelling how pathetic I am and how I might as well keep stuffing my face because I'm never going to be pretty anyway and I'm never going to change and I'm not important enough or worthy enough to bother making an effort. I don't deserve it.

I want to hate my gremlin. To yell at her and tell her to f*** off. But part of me feels sorry for her because she's lonely and so desperately unhappy and just a child. And I'm also scared because she's right. I didn't change and I let her down. She deserves better and so do I.

My overeating history - the school years

Following on from my post about why I overeat, I thought I'd do a post on my overeating history. Maybe it will explain more about why I overeat and the emotions behind it. I'm breaking it into two - the school years and the adult years. 

I wasn't always fat. In fact, as a kid, I think I was on the skinnier side of average. I'm not sure. My mum's never really been one for photos; I think she's got some of me as a kid somewhere but they're buried away and I haven't seen them in years. My first memories of any 'issues' around food were not overeating but undereating. Not because I wanted to undereat but because I was an excruciatingly slow eater. Now I've no idea whether there was a reason behind my slow eating or whether it was just one of those things. But we'd sit at the table for a lifetime until, after an hour of it, my mum would snap and yell at me to 'just bloody leave it' and I'd have to leave the table without finishing my meal. I don't recall whether this was every time or just sometimes; whether I was hungry for my whole meal or not. I just remember that this happened and it meant I didn't really look forward to mealtimes for a fear of being too slow and being told off.

My next memory around food I was in the juniors, so that period between ages 7-11. I took a packed lunch to school for most of this period (though I do have some memories of school dinners there too). I would usually get a sandwich, some crisps, a chocolate biscuit and a piece of fruit as well as a carton of drink. I remember at morning break time I would eat all the 'good stuff' which left me with just the sandwich and drink at lunchtime. I'm not sure why I started doing this but it's my first memory of wanting to eat crisps and chocolate over and above anything else. Lunch times were then tedious as I was just left with a sandwich which I didn't really want. My mum favoured those jars of fish paste and meat paste as sandwich fillings and I was never keen (was that an '80s thing or do they still make them...?); the tuna one was ok but the beef one - which I swear I got more often that not - looked, smelled and tasted like cat food (or what I imagine cat food might taste like anyway). And I think this was where it began that I would treasure junky/snacky food over 'proper' food.

Let's jump to secondary school now. The packed lunches were gone and I moved on to school dinners. Any school dinners I'd had at primary school had been free as my mum had been on a low income. But at secondary school we were back to paying again (I assume due to changes in financial situation). So I'd be given £1 each day to spend on my dinner. Now, I've no idea how school dinners work now - how much flexibility children have in making choices or how healthy the options are that are on offer - but certainly back then, no-one seemed to care how much you had or how balanced it was. On occasion, I would have a proper, balanced meal but usually the fashion was to have just chips and gravy. That certainly didn't cost the whole £1, so that left the rest for spending on chocolate and/or crisps at the tuck shop.

I vaguely remember some of the popular girls sometimes chose not to eat lunch. At the tender age of 11, we were becoming aware of an 'ideal' body shape or size. So I got into the habit of not having it too. Not that I was in with the popular crowd - on the contrary, I was the one everyone picked on - and not that I lost weight from not eating either. I just suddenly became aware that I should put on this pretence of not eating and save it for later in secret. Many of my secondary school days were defined by the routine of not eating any lunch (sometimes no breakfast either) and then spending all my dinner money on sweets, biscuits and crisps on the way home from school. I got quite the expert on what to buy to get the most food for my money (value brand bourbon biscuits were a favourite as you got loads for about 25p). I remember one week, my mum had no change on the Monday and so had given me a £5 note to cover my dinner money for the whole week. Of course, I had a field day and spent virtually all of it on sweets and snacks on the first day. The problem came on the Wednesday, when my mum asked me to pick something up from the shop on the way back from school and to pay for it out of my remaining dinner money (and she would then reimburse me later). Of course there wasn't anything left and I had to lie about lending some money to a friend. And that incident - at 11 years old - seems to be stuck in my head. Maybe as the turning point of me being prepared to spend money on large quantities of snack foods and - most important - the lying and secrecy.

The years went on and the weight piled on until I was an adult size 16 at the age of 14. I hated my body and my unpopularity. I remember wearing my school jumper every day - even in the hottest weather and even during PE - to cover my size and the fact the my school shirts always gaped over my huge breasts. My mum was still at work when I got home from school and this few hours alone until she got back would be my binge time. Mindlessly eating in front of the TV to block out the sadness and the loneliness.

I left school at 16 and chose to do my A levels at the local college instead. My teachers tried to convince me to stay at school for sixth form but I couldn't wait to be out of there. To have another chance to start again. I'd been bullied at school since the age of nine and secondary school hadn't provided the fresh start I had hoped for (in fact things had got worse). College would be different. A proper fresh start. In terms of the bullying, it was. The right choice, no question. But I stayed a size 16 and my eating habits got no better. No proper food at lunch time and then buying cakes and sweets on the way home to binge on in the comfortable seclusion of my bedroom. By then, I had started keeping my TV time separate and the binges become almost a ritual. Emptying the carrier bag of food out on to my bed and laying it out carefully before me before methodically working my way through it. Doing nothing else so that it had my full attention. Only of course, it never had my full attention - my mind tuned out as I numbly crammed piece after piece of sugary, fatty food into my mouth. Until I felt sick and threw anything that remained away in the bin, disgusted at myself. Until one day, at 17, I felt even more horrified than normal after my binge, and made myself be sick. This new ritual continued for around six months - probably twice a week. Never often enough to be called bulimia and I've not returned to purging since.

It was a horrible time. Being 17 - the age that the movies show young girls that they're supposed to be at their prettiest and most desirable - and feeling hideous. The fat one. Envying my friends their prettiness and slimness and thinking how horrified they would be if they knew how I ate. Although part of me thought that they must already know - how could they not? I surely wouldn't be so big and ugly if I didn't eat like that.

I remember my 18th birthday. One of the loneliest nights of my life. Two of my college friends - both tiny size 8s - dragged me out for the night. I really didn't want to go but felt I couldn't refuse. It would be a girls' night they said. Just the three of us. Which it was until the two of them hooked up with some guys. I guess the guys didn't have a fat friend for me. And so the five of us went back to my friend's house (she lived in a different town to me and that's where we were that night) for the night. I lay in the dark in her bedroom, trying to sleep and trying not to cry, as my two friends lay giggling and kissing their men - who had been sneaked in the house somehow. Never have I felt so alone in my life. So unwanted. On what was supposed to be a special night. My 18th birthday. I hoped to goodness adulthood was going to be better than this.

Why I overeat

Apologies in advance, but (much like the last one) I think this post is going to be another stream of consciousness jobby. I had no clue where my post was going last time and that turned out to be a good thing as my 'problem' with my drink wasn't actually what I thought it was going to be.

The latest chapter I've re-read in Beyond Temptation is all about why you overeat. Now the problem is that I really don't know why I overeat. I expect the reasons vary from circumstance to circumstance. Well the voice in my head says that I overeat because I'm greedy, lazy, pathetic and worthless. The book says that this reason is a myth. But there's that little voice popping up again saying "Oh I'm sure most people who overeat are lovely and not at all greedy and have good reason to overeat. But I'm different...I really am greedy". Hmmm. Guess that would be my gremlin at work wouldn't it? Another couple of chapters before I start looking at her properly. But, be warned, missy, your time is coming!

I think greediness is maybe sometimes why I overeat. Sometimes the food just tastes too good to not have it. I mean, there has to be a reason so many people overeat on crisps, cake, chocolate, pizza, chips, biscuits and so on. It's usually the high fat, high sugar, high salt, processed type of foods. And we eat those because they are convenient and they taste good. Do many overeaters binge on vegetables? Outside of being on a diet plan which allows them as 'free' food?

The main reason I overeat is out of habit. I've done it for so long that not doing it seems almost alien. Overeating for me isn't usually directly caused by specific feelings or situations (maybe indirectly sometimes) but by opportunity. Overeating is my 'dirty little secret' if you like. DH knows I do it, but probably not the extent. But not my family or my friends, other than the vague faux-jovial comments of "I eat far too much chocolate" or "you know I never refuse cake!" and the like. But it's general done in secret. So, overeating for me tends to occur when I'm alone. When X was a baby, I used to graze half the day long as I was at home alone (not counting an oblivious newborn). Of course, he's nearly three now. Not oblivious at all and if I'm eating vast quantities of sugary, fatty foods in his presence then he wants them too. So, whilst he is far from banned from having those foods, my overeating tends to be saved for when he naps. I kind of dread the day the naps stop!! The second he's asleep and we're through the door into the house, the kettle goes on for me to make some tea to go with my snacks. Half of the time, I've eaten it all, quickly, mindlessly, before the kettle boils. I tell myself I'll have one doughnut while the kettle boils and sit down with the other. But suddenly the second one is gone without me even realising. Day in, day out this happens.

X started pre-school in April. Only two half-days but it's another four hours a week I'm home alone and have the opportunity to overeat. Weekends are trickier. I have to create opportunities to be alone to indulge as, even at nap time, DH will be there. I'll 'helpfully' offer to be the one to pop out to the supermarket to buy something for dinner. And then I'll eat two chocolate bars on the three minute walk home (yes, we're that close!). I hate it and yet I sometimes feel like I'll explode if I don't do it. Of course, I accept that, medically speaking, spontaneous combustion is actually unlikely.

So, yes, it's habit. Whenever I'm alone. It's not because I don't like being alone. I enjoy that time to myself. Enjoy that time to blog, read , Tweet or generally piddle about on the internet. Maybe it helps me block the guilt that I'm not doing something more 'productive' (whether that's housework or some kind of creative or active hobby). It's part of who I have been for so long that it's really hard for me to imagine what life is like without it. I don't want it in my life but it's hard to think I could exist without it. I guess it was a coping mechanism when I was a teenager and now it's just habit. I don't even need the triggers anymore. Some of the things that were true of my life then and that I felt needed to be 'coped' with are still true; some aren't. But the overeating habit remains. Alone time = overeating time. I think that as a teenager I was very lonely when I was alone (and this was back before the internet and smartphones and the like to waste my time with) and had no hobbies or interests. I binged to take away the loneliness and the misery. I'm not lonely any more (still miserable sometimes and lacking in hobbies/interests though) but I still use that time to overeat. Even if I'm doing something else as well...the idea of not using alone time to overeat is quite strange. Guess I'm going to have to do some more experimenting.

Just a drink?

I have one of those pre-pay Starbucks cards where you get a star for each purchase and then when you have fifteen stars you get a free drink. My voucher for my first free drink came through last week and I decided that today would be the day I would use it. X is at pre-school on a Tuesday morning so it's a good time for me to have time to go to a coffee shop on my own. Actually, I chose to get my drink 'to go' and bring it home today but still...

It's probably akin to blasphemy to say so in Starbucks but I don't like coffee. I normally drink tea. But somehow I wanted to use my free voucher on something more exciting.  Just like I'd prefer to use my Boots Advantage points on a lipstick rather than toothpaste. So I opted for one of their caramel crème blend frappuccinos (which don't contain coffee). Medium size (a grande is it?) since I wasn't having to actually pay the £3.45 for it.

As I took the 5 minute walk home, beginning to sip my creamy drink, a thought came to mind. And, with that thought, a feeling of guilt. The thought was "I shouldn't be drinking this. It's fattening. It's disgusting. It must have hundreds of calories". An interesting thought for someone who eats - sometimes mindfully, mostly not - large quantities of cakes and chocolate and popcorn and biscuits, probably well in excess of whatever number of calories is in the drink, every single day. I know that the overeating is not desirable behaviour and obviously I'm trying to work on that. But when I am eating that stuff, I don't actually find myself thinking of the calories or how fattening it is (although I may be disgusted at my behaviour) and all those foodstuffs are equally deficient in nutrients and high in fat/sugar as that frappucino. So what's the difference?

The difference is that it's a drink. I never even really realised that might be a 'thing' for me. My day-to-day drinks are tea (with a dash of milk), Diet Coke, and water. All with negligible calories. Now this isn't why I choose these drinks - I'm pretty certain of that. Well it was why I switched from full fat coke to the diet variety originally (somewhere in my teens) but I do genuinely prefer it now. These are just what I like to drink. Occasionally I will have fruit juice or a smoothie - but maybe that's 'ok' because counts towards your fruit/veg intake. And very occasionally an alcoholic drink. But somehow with alcohol, I don't think the sugar/calories/nutritional value has ever really crossed my mind. Maybe it would if I drank a lot but I think that in 2013 so far I have had one can of lager (in fact I think I tipped half of it away in the end) on a hot evening and one amaretto sour before the meal at a posh restaurant on our wedding anniversary.

If you take the alcoholic variety out of the equation (I'm partial to the occasional Baileys over Christmas), creamy drinks do kind of make me twitchy. Mentally not physically. Milkshakes, hot chocolate and the like. Frappuccinos too I guess - although to all intents and purposes they are just a glorified milkshake. I'm curious as to why. I rarely fancy these drinks anyway, so it isn't that I'm going around denying myself them day in, day out. But occasionally I do. And then I agonise over it. I think it might be because when I go to a café/coffee shop - the only time I am ever likely to be drawn to these drinks - I always have a cup of tea and piece of cake. I really struggle to have just a cup of tea. Even if I'm not hungry. I want the cake. Or maybe just a biscuit if I'm really full already (the Starbucks ginger ones are a favourite). But I do like something sweet with my tea. Now, if I opt for a sweet, creamy drink such as a milkshake or a hot chocolate, that leaves me with a dilemma. Do I still have the cake or not? If I have the cake as well, I know I'll end up feeling sick. If I don't have it, however, I feel like I'm missing out.

I didn't order cake with my frappuccino today. Partly because I couldn't be bothered to get my wallet out as well as my 'free drink' voucher and partly because I got my drink to take away rather than to drink there. I'm glad I didn't. I would have felt sick. The drink alone was enough. I think maybe this is something I need to experiment with over the coming months. See what it's like to order a creamy drink next time I fancy one. To say it will be enough without the cake. Or maybe order it with the cake and try just eating/drinking until I feel full...even if that means leaving some of both. Maybe even one day, just having the tea without cake. Seeing what it's like to not have something sweet at all. Interesting.

It's not just about the weight

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm an overeater. I binge eat, I comfort eat, I eat more than I need, I graze constantly on sugary snacks, I stuff down my feelings, I pig out. Call it what you like. It's what I do. I've done it for over twenty years. And to be honest, I'm terrified that I'll always do it. I've been on workshops with the fabulous women at Beyond Chocolate and have just started working through their second book Beyond Temptation in a hope that I can start to finally get a grip on my overeating. I'll be blogging about my journey both on here and also - in micro - on my Twitter account (@kerryoneating - I use this to talk purely about overeating and body image whereas this blog covers all areas of my life, hence they don't have the same name).

So, I'm hopeful that I can change how I use food. But I'm still scared that I won't. It's been nearly six years since I first went on a Beyond Chocolate workshop and, even though they make perfect sense,  I have been too scared to embrace the principles properly in all that time...and getting fixated just on the 'eat what you want' one...

I don't want to be fat any more. I don't want my weight to yo-yo up and down every few years. I don't want to feel deflated every time I go in a shop and try something pretty on and it looks bloody awful on me even if it technically fits. I don't want to feel that there's not even any point in shopping for anything nice because I don't know how many weeks or months it will fit for before I've gained even more weight. My husband bought me a gorgeous coat (this one)for my birthday at the end of March. Felt fab when I chose it but there was no 'grow room' in it at all and it's now too tight just two months later. Barely worn. I'm sick of looking in the mirror and hating how big I am.

But...it's not just about the weight. It's about the eating. I used to think how much I would love it if someone could wave a magic wand and it meant I could eat loads of cake and chocolate all day long and be a size 10. I don't think that now. It's easy to get stuck in the mind-set of thinking the only thing 'wrong' with eating a diet consisting of large quantities of high sugar, high fat, processed foods is that they are high in calories and therefore will make you fat. But it's not just about the weight. Or the calories. It's about the fact that years of eating so much sugar have done irreparable damage to my teeth. I may lose weight one day. But I'll never get my teeth back. I have fillings in around half of them. And that's because of how I eat. I also suffer with knee pain. That's probably mostly down to genetics (my mother has arthritis) but lifestyle also plays a part. I don't think my weight affects it as my knee pain was no better at a size 10 than a size 18. BUT I do think that too much processed, sugary, food and not enough good fats in my diet probably hasn't helped. The fact that I rarely exercise and I sit badly has DEFINITELY not helped. I have horribly bad posture which has, in turn, given my back ache and a bit of a mini-hump and the back of my neck and shoulders. I have very little energy. I wake up tired most days (and not just because I have a small child...although obviously that doesn't help!). I'm physically tired and my mental energy is non-existent. I feel like I just can't be bothered with anything.  And I don't want to feel like that.

I desperately want to be slimmer and feel more confident and wear nicer clothes. But, when I'm 90 (if I'm lucky enough to get there), am I going to look back and regret not being thinner or prettier? Or am I going to look back and regret being too tired and sore to play with my child? Too cranky and depressed to do the things I'd like to do but don't have the energy and the confidence to do? Too scared to go out and actually LIVE my life?

I think I know the answer.

Food and fitness

Well, it's a cliche I know, but two of the things I want to address in becoming a 'better me' are food and fitness. Yes, I want to lose weight - about 2 stone or so - but also to get fitter and address my relationship with food rather than just going on a diet. I'm an emotional eater you see.

I've been working on the fitness bit a little this week. I've been to the gym twice. Yes, again I know the gym is a cliche but I do actually enjoy it once I'm there. I don't enjoy going when it's busy though. I also don't enjoy being told what to do. I know which machines I enjoy using, which ones I hate and which ones I can't use due to them hurting my knees. So twice this week I have been up early and hit the gym at 6:30am. I like to do it first thing so it doesn't impact the rest of my day. Also, as a full time parent, there's the childcare issue; my gym has no creche, so going before DH goes to work is crucial so that he can take care of our son. I've had two great workouts - combining weights machines with cardio each time - and can't wait to go again next week.

It hasn't been such a good week on the food front. Probably because, despite renouncing diets, I still catch myself saying I'm going to be 'good' and straight away I want to rebel and dive into the nearest bar of Dairy Milk. It's also hard not to feel like I've 'spoiled it' by eating cake when I've been to the gym. But hey, eating cake and going to the gym is better than eating cake and not going to the gym!

I'll talk more about the eating side of things in future posts. But just to say that, although I'd like to reduce my intake of cake and chocolate and all things sweet - much as I love them and wouldn't be without them long term - as I do tend to find it hard to tune in to my satisfaction point with them, on the whole I'm aiming to work with the principles outlined in Sophie and Audrey Boss's book Beyond Chocolate.  It's all to do with tuning in to your hunger and learning to eat when you are hungry, eat what you are hungry for and stop when you're satisfied. That's where I'm aiming to be at any rate, but it's a long and very slow journey!