Confessions...

A friend of mine shared a quote on Facebook the other day that strongly resonated with me, for all the wrong reasons. It was supposed to be humorous, but, in me, it sparked a deep-seated guilt. The quote went like this:~ “ I didn't want my family to judge me so I walked past them with 2 cookies on my plate and 4 in my pockets”  Pretty harmless, eh?  We’ve all done it haven’t we?  Well, probably, yes. But for me, and possibly for others like me, it triggers shame and remorse at the many, many times that I have employed devious and subversive methods to distract from and disguise my terrible eating habits. Since I have embarked on my new, healthier lifestyle, my husband has  bemusedly enquired, on many occasions, how I have managed to gain the weight I have, as he has rarely witnessed me gorging on food and snacks that amount to the calories that must contribute to my size. There is a reason for this.  I do not have underlying health issues that affect my weight, no underactive thyroid or side effects from medication. The answer is quite simple. I have indulged in my worst eating habits when there are no witnesses present. I have eaten in secret, in the safe sanctuary of denial. It seems a little ironic that being fat can hold any form of secrecy. After all, by our very presence Fat People are extremely overt. We stand out in the crowd, are still the subject of ridicule and “harmless” ribaldry; we have to buy clothes in “specialist” shops; the “obesity epidemic” is constantly up for debate. And in all this, as our bodies are getting larger, our self-esteem is getting smaller.  It was very hard not to enter a fast food restaurant and wonder if onlookers were watching me with disapproving eyes; as I hauled my bulky frame through the supermarket I would contemplate whether others are reviewing the contents of my shopping trolley with critical eyes; when I browsed through a clothes shop that does not cater for my size, looking for items for my daughter, I considered whether the assistants believed that I am deluding myself.

It is this very conspicuousness, I believe that can drive folks like me into conducting our shameful, compulsive behaviour behind closed doors, or in deceitful and subversive manners.  And, like any addict knows, compulsion goes hand in hand with shame, and shame breeds denial. Therefore the problem does not go away, it just gets hidden deeper and deeper and more difficult to tackle.

For me, the true antidote to Secrecy is TRUTH. But it is a hard and bitter pill to swallow. It requires courage e to admit our transgressions, for if we do not admit them, we cannot acknowledge them. And if we do not acknowledge them, we cannot change them.

So, as part of my Campaign of Truth, I am going to purge, to confess some of my “Food Sins”, in the hope that I will never choose to repeat them again, and will learn to think more healthily.

So here goes….

•         I have, indeed, hidden cookies in my pocket whilst carrying others on my plate
•         I have gorged on cakes, trifles, ice creams etc and then carefully concealed the empty packets so that my actions are not discovered.
•        I have bought food “for the children” which never reached their hands.
•         I have “looked after” party bags for my children on the front seat of my car whilst we travelled home from friends’ celebrations and then feigned empathy at my offspring’s  disappointment that somebody “forgot” to include the cake or sweets, whilst surreptitiously wiping the icing from my mouth.
•         I have concealed chocolates  in my desk drawer and waited for the office to clear before consuming  my stash.
•        I have waited for my husband to go on night shifts and for the children to go to bed before scoffing an entire tub of ice cream.
•        I have entered chocolate shops, pretending that I was purchasing a selection “for a friend”, going to the extent of “umming” and  wondering out loud what “they” would like in a theatrical effort designed entirely to ensure that the shop assistant would not suspect that I would be going home and stuffing my own face with the whole lot in one sitting.

My husband used to have a “Magic Toblerone Bar” he kept in the fridge. This bar, of which he would occasionally consume one section at a time, had the mystical property of “magically regenerating” every now and then.

My other half has an excruciatingly irritating and completely alien habit of only eating what he needs and then putting the remainder back in the fridge 

The next time he indulged a craving he would return to the fridge, anticipating, perhaps, six segments left, he would discover, curiously, that  the entire bar would sudden be whole again. How could this be?? What witchcraft was this?

Well, I’m sure you’ve guessed….Yes, Dear Reader, this poor unfortunate blogger had failed to resist temptation again and, lacking the self-restraint demonstrated by her spouse, consumed the entire bar  in a very short space of time. This left me with a conundrum…whilst my husband might overlook a segment or two missing the next time he fancied some triangular Swiss confectionery, I couldn’t imagine that the absence of an entire bar would go unnoticed. Therefore, I had no option but to traipse to the nearest chocolate retail establishment and purchase a replacement so that suspicion could be evaded. 

Of course, in the early days  (as, after all, this was not a one-off scenario. Oh No!) I was sloppy, and merely replaced the partially-eaten bar with a whole one. 

But, once I was rumbled, I got wise.

 The next time my compulsion got the better of me, I did, yet again, venture out and obtain a replacement. However, as my deceptions grew deeper, I learnt to remove a number of segments before returning it to the fridge so that it resembled exactly the previous bar prior to consumption. It was the Prefect crime and I had become a Criminal Mastermind.

I did not, however, restrict my nefarious activities to Toblerone bars. Other victims of my misdemeanours included several Terry’s Chocolate Oranges, a number of large Dairy Milks and, on one particularly debauched and shameful occasion, one of my children’s’ chocolate Advent Calendars. All had to be replaced similarly.

Whilst I can see some humour in this situation, the underlying pathos in all of this is not lost on me. These are the desperate actions of a desperate individual too lost in their addiction and denial to seek a way out and escape to a healthier lifestyle. No matter how contrived and complicated my deceptions became, no matter emotionally and mentally draining it was to construct and uphold these masquerades, I was more prepared to sacrifice  that part of my soul than to invest  the same amount of energy into redressing my own wellbeing. It wasn’t the Toblerone that needed regenerating, it was my skewed self-esteem.

If I were to read back the last few paragraphs and replace the references to food with references to alcohol or narcotics, they would not be out of place as part of the rhetoric of alcoholics and junkies.  The issue is the same.

So how am I addressing this? Well, I am still most definitely a work in progress. I am grateful right now that the benefits of the weight loss and health that I am enjoying are far outweighing the momentary sensation that I feel when I place something sugary on my tongue. I just need to continue to reinforce that in my head so that the “default” thinking switches to self-love and not self-delusion.

I know, for a fact, that the above list of confessions is not definitive nor exhaustive. Those few examples are just ones that popped into my mind as I considered my blog. Do I feel better making these confessions? After all “confession is good for the soul”. Well, in a way, yes I do. I don’t feel fabulous that they occurred in the first place and I am frustrated that I am still battling with the consequences of these and many other actions. But at least these secrets are no longer festering inside of me, as damaging as fat and sugar to both my body and soul. Now I must forgive myself. And forgiveness is only possible once a wrongdoing has been admitted.

I was wrong. I was stupid. But I’m trying to change that.

Wish me luck…..