Taking the Plunge

So today is the day I take the plunge. Well, actually it isn’t- today is the day that I meet the person who I hope will hold my hand when I dive off that cliff into the unknown. Right now, I’m standing near to the edge, looking at the calm, inviting sea below and wondering if there are rocks underneath which will tear me to shreds when I break the calm, blue surface. Will I sink or swim? Will I get so far out, panic and have to return to the safety of the land? Will there be a boat that can rescue me if my resolve and energy fail and I’m far from shore?

Of course, none of these questions can be answered theoretically, sometimes you just have to take the risk, face the fear.

And that is what I am facing now – pure, abject fear.

Of course, fear can be good – it can stop you from being munched by predators. It can save you from the terrors of being mown down on the motorway. But at other times, it can prevent you from doings things that will stretch you, improve you, and make you a better person.

I have told my children that the definition of Courage is not absence of fear, but the process of doing something in spite of fear.

So now it is time to practise what I preach. And, holy crap am I scared.

So what am I afraid of? Well the big thing is failure – and all the baggage that comes with it – self-loathing, guilt, feeling like you are being judged by your peers. These are all very familiar items in my wardrobe, stretched and worn with over-use.

I am also afraid that I will suffer, that it’s going to hurt, be uncomfortable, insufferable and unbearable. And nobody likes that.

I am reminded of the story of the origins of Buddhism that I heard recently. Prince Siddhartha, a privileged young man who lived in opulence and was sheltered from all that is bad in the world. He only achieved true enlightenment when he ventured outside the palace walls and saw true suffering and depravity. Then he finally understood that a full life can only be achieved by accepting that at times suffering and grief must be experienced and worked through. The avoidance of these aspects of life leave us stuck in a rut unable to be all that we can be.

Now I am not attempting to liken my anticipated lot to the slums of India, that would be insulting on too many levels. I am just trying to talk myself into “manning up” and not allowing a small amount of discomfort and deprivation preventing me from trying to change my life for the better.

Childbirth is probably a better example for me. My experience of giving birth was, certainly the first time round, a painful, protracted and, on occasions, terrifying experience. When I first became pregnant, had I known what I would be going through nine months later, I would probably have been running a very hot bath and downing a bottle of gin without a second thought. But something overrode those fears – the desire to have a child. A desire that was fulfilled tenfold and has given me more joy than I could have possibly imagine.

Now I just have to find the same need to lose weight, and the same focus that drove me through the rigours of labour and even failed to deter me to go through the process a second time.

I am now looking at myself and asking myself what do I want more – to continue on the same comfortable path, or to take a running jump into those blue waters far below me?

I am not sure why I am now considering the jump. Over the past few years I have become the Queen of Excuses. I have utterly convinced myself that I am happy sat on the top of the cliff, that swimming in the sea is overrated, that the water is too full of sharks to risk entering. I have looked down at the waters below and ignored the little voice inside my head telling me how much I want to feel the exhilaration as I plunge, the sheer joy as I hit the waters, the total freedom I will feel being buoyed by the expansive sea. Instead I have stifled those thoughts with negativity disguised as caution.

To be overweight and in denial is to be covered in a blanket that you believe is giving you comfort, but that is actually slowly suffocating you. It is a “death by a thousand cuts”. It doesn’t happen overnight, but is instead fostered by months, even years, of denial, neglect and lies.

If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. In many ways I am that frog, the only difference being that it was me who was slowly boiling myself alive. A battle raged within me of my suppressed subconscious – the frog, and my skewed conscious – the heat controller. As neither was talking to the other, the inevitable occurred and the frog suffered. That frog did not ever want to die, it was actually quite enjoying swimming about in a heated pool, the warmth was lovely and much more pleasant than splashing about in freezing cold water. I allowed myself to be seduced by the myth that my weight was not making me unhappy, that it wasn’really doing me any harm. I ignored all the other frogs who were shouting at me in my private Jacuzzi, trying to tell me that the thermostat had broken. I told myself that they were jealous, that they had unrealistic preconceptions, that it was none of their business, that they had no right to judge my choice to swim. And slowly and surely I was boiling to death.

So here I am now – a new frog in a new saucepan, and I’m starting to feel the heat. I want to jump out, I’m just not sure if I can do it.

So that’s the psychobabble. Down to the nitty gritty and facts. I have tried so many diets and methods of losing weight, to various degrees of success. And each time I told myself that my motivation was different. But when I look back, the truth is – I was always responding to the expectations of others. Even in my most successful period, when I lost over five stone through Slimming World I realise now that my drive was predominantly to impress others. To me, the goal was to be the best, to “show them” to achieve an accolade. I joined Slimming World utterly determined to win “Slimmer of the Year”. I wanted it so badly, it mattered so much to me, and I went all-out to get it. Every week, at the meetings I sought to attain the magical sticker, the sought after certificate. And, as much as I tried to deny it, I basked in the glory of my success. This drove me beyond all other motives. I became irrationally resentful of other group members who threatened to overtake my results. I was constantly comparing myself to others and hoping that I came out favourably. The result all this determination was success, and I did achieve the sought after prize. But soon it proved to be a hollow victory. Unbeknownst to myself, once I had achieved my “goal” my motivation dwindled rapidly, and it took very little to knock me off my pedestal. As long as my eyes were on the prize I was “in the zone”, but once I had the prize firmly in my grip, I let myself slide into the inevitable weight gain. At the same time, circumstances changed. I moved from being a lady of leisure to someone holding down a job, and therefore less at liberty to visit the gym and cook up nutritious meals on a whim. Life as a 9-5 working mother with a shift working husband can make it a challenge to make time for yourself, but I must admit that I slumped too quickly into despondency and my lifestyle was simply another excuse for my reluctance to get back on the wagon.

I did try several times to regain the enthusiasm for weight loss that I had once had. I joined and re-joined various slimming groups, I had one to ones with nutritionists and nurses. But nothing lasted very long. I told myself that the reason I wasn’t as successful was that I was not involved in the same circumstances that inspired the five-stone shift. This may be partly true, however I now think that, every time I tried to re-embark on a weight loss journey, a little voice in my head whispered away “Yes – you succeeded briefly – but then you failed. And failure hurts. It hurts more than anything else. If you try, you will fail, so why bother? Save yourself the pain.”

Furthermore, I started to feel that those who had praised me, encouraged me, supported me and were even inspired by me were now as deeply disappointed in me as I was in myself. And I felt judged. Unable to accept this disappointment in myself, I turned to anger and defiance. I became irrationally furious at the expectations that I falsely believed were held of me. I became a vicious campaigner and the champion of the “take me as I am” cause and vehemently vocal in this issue. The irony is that this probably wasn’t even the case, I was highly likely to be yesterday’s news and looking back it was very arrogant of me to believe that my weight loss journey mattered to anyone else but myself. And what’s more, like the worst of politicians, deep down I didn’t honestly believe in my own propaganda anyway, I just constantly smoke screened  to distract from the real issue.

I was raised in a highly dysfunctional and, what I have now come to understand as,  Narcissistic family environment. The ‘image’ and projection of the ideal was all that mattered and those, including myself, who did not fit this ideal were berated severely. It did not matter what happened behind closed doors, as long as the outside world saw the perfection we conjured up. From a very early age I had learned to place more value on  what others perceived of me than what I felt about myself, which, at the time was very little.

Everyone competed against each other for a reward – love and acceptance- which, unbeknownst to us, was not possible of being fulfilled. But it did not stop me striving for the impossible, unaware that I was neglecting and destroying the strength within me that would have surpassed the need for others’ approval.

Many years on, despite now living in a wonderful nurturing family that I have helped create for myself, with the amazing support of good friends a that I surround myself with and with irrefutable evidence that I have survived many great issues that would have floored less resilient individuals, the little voice inside me still tries to tell me that I am not good enough. And food has silenced it, even if only temporarily.

Now I actually have a fear of the attention any weight loss will gain me. I have swung the other way. Somehow I need to find a rote in the middle, so that I can be free to choose the right path.

So  here I am now, the Big Fat Failure, wondering if it is worth giving it one more shot. The problem is, I know that I can climb slowly down the cliff, and I may just reach the water. The problem is, sometimes you can find yourself stranded halfway down, and you are too exhausted to keep going. So you just sit on the ledge and eventually convince yourself that it is safer to crawl back up to the top. If you tell somebody that you have decided that you are going to take a running jump then there will always be someone around to tell you how unwise it is to do so. These are either the folk who, like you, have convinced themselves that they don’t want to splash in the ocean, or those who love to abseil carefully and will get down eventually ignoring any distractions and enjoying the view as they go. Good for them. I wish I had the strength and resolve to do that, but I’m terrified of heights and dangling on a string all the way down will only prolong the terror for me.  So, I am at a turning point right now. And I think I want to jump. I have heard all the horror stories, I have had the warnings. But deep down I know that this is the only way for me. I may well be dashed against the rocks, but the chances are minimal. I need to have faith that I can push myself hard and fast enough over that precipice so that I sail over the top and meet the crystal waters on the other side. No half measures will do. A light jog towards toward the edge will only propel me so far. I need to take a massive run up and go for it. Extreme actions get extreme results, and that is why I am going to choose this path. Am I scared, hell yeah? But any adrenalin junkie will tell you that’s part of the rush. Talking of junkies, I think, too, that I am addicted to food, to bad food specifically, Any expert in this field will tell you that the only route out of addiction is abstinence. To go “cold turkey”. And this, technically is what I plan to do. Anyone who has watched the horrific scene in “Trainspotting” may have a sense just how horrendous the process of weaning oneself off a substance that they have become dependent on can be. But “this too shall pass”. It doesn’t last forever and life on the other side is far preferable. I will be utterly bricking myself during those brief few seconds when you I am airborne and defying gravity, but I hope and pray it will be worth it when I landed in previously uncharted waters.

I want a freedom from food, I want it to be sustenance alone, I want to not care what it does, albeit temporarily, to my heart and soul. I want to stop hiding behind it and hiding behind the fat that gives me the excuse to stay as I am.

But Iam scared that the tides of emotion that I will unleash will overwhelm and drown me. So, I must not think about where I will go when I land with a splash, I will only be praying that the tide will carry me favourably, and that a little boat isn’t too far away when I get tired. Maybe I will eventually reach a whole new coastline and a land where I can live a new and fulfilling life. Still being me, just a better me. In the meantime, maybe I should just adopt the philosophy of my favourite character from Finding Nemo – Dory, who simply says “Just Keep Swimming”… I am writing these words to inspire no one but myself, as I type I am hoping that these thoughts will stick. And on bad days I can look back and find the strength to carry on. Wish me luck….