Find Your Tribe

If you have read any of my previous blogs you will, no doubt, notice that I do love a good metaphor and allegory. My favourite, and most recurrent theme has been likening my weight loss journey to rowing towards and subsequently landing on a Paradise Island.   The Island is the Island of Slim and represents me reaching my weight loss target. Well, for around six months now, I have been living on this island and trying to get used to a new life on strange shores. There have been good days and bad days. On the good ones, I prance around freely amongst the lush vegetation, enjoying my freedom, paddle in the warm crystal waters, sampling the delicious tropical fruits and lavishing in the wonderful feeling of freedom I now have. On the bad days I find myself dodging snakes and spiders, sheltering from monsoons and suffering dreadful illness from eating the wrong kinds of berries. All the time I was rowing towards this little spot on the horizon I dreamed of the perfect little life that I would live when I arrive. Well I am here. Life is good but it is by no means perfect and, regardless of the beauty of my surroundings, danger and treachery still lurk in the shadows. Survival still has to be fought for. I soon learned that I was not alone on the Island of Slim, and that there was an indigenous tribe that have lived here for countless generations. At first I hid from them, unsure if they were friendly or bloodthirsty cannibals. I watched from a distance, observing their behaviour, noting how they survived in the hope that I could emulate their actions and even learn to integrate with them. When I finally summoned up the courage to approach them, it was a relief to find that they were a hospitable bunch, unaccustomed to, and uninterested in the taste of human flesh. They were called The Naturally Slim Tribe. As much as I was in awe of them they in turn seemed fascinated by me. Having lived on the island all their lives they were intrigued as to how I had negotiated the sometimes stormy seas, and on many occasions they asked me to tell them the stories of my adventures. For a while I was lauded as a hero, but soon the stories ran out and my celebrity status amongst them waned. They treated me kindly, accepted me in their village and showed me, to the best of their ability how to hunt, forage, cook and navigate the seasons. I tried my best to learn their ways but their skills came naturally to them, and had been passed down over thousands of years. Survival on the Island of Slim was a natural, instinctive way of life for them, but for me it was daily trial. Physically the natives and I differed greatly, their skin was naturally dark and resistant to the relentless rays of the sun whereas I was pale and susceptible to sunburn. I tried so many times to join them as they frolicked for hours in the sea  but every time I lingered too long in the heat of the day I found myself blistered and sore. I tried countless creams, remedies and covers but soon I came to understand that there were simply times I could do nothing but watch wistfully from the shade of the trees as my fellow islanders continued with their lives. I was a stranger in a strange land. And wish as I might, I was not and could never be one of the Naturally Slim Tribe. I didn’t feel like I belonged. Saddened and frustrated by my predicament, one day I decided to take walk along the shore to the other side of the island. I no longer cared if I got burned. Kicking the sand petulantly under my feet, I pouted and stared out to sea, contemplating whether I should get back into my little boat and sail back to the land from whence I came, where everything was familiar and life was less of an effort. But storm clouds were gathering on the distant horizon and this reminded me of the courage it took me to leave that place to begin with. What if I returned to the Old Land and discovered that I yearned again for my Paradise Island. Would I have the strength to face the journey again? Would I even reach this island or would less friendly currents direct me to a land festered with volcanoes and predators? So I continued on my walk along the shore, wondering if I would ever cease feeling lonely and different.

As I strolled along the beach, my foot hit a strange wooden object half-buried in the sand. I crouched down to unearth it, and as the silvery grains fell away I came to realise that the object was the remains of a boat, very much like the one I had travelled in to this very island. Intrigued, my eyes scanned the shoreline and soon I discovered the bay was scattered with several more of these abandoned vessels, in varying states of decay and disrepair. Knowing that the Naturally Slim Tribe had no interest in leaving the island and so had never built boats or learned to swim it dawned on me that this island was or had been occupied by someone who had also arrived the way I did. As I contemplated this new phenomenon I became aware of several pairs of eyes watching me from the gloom of the nearby jungle.

“Come out” I yelled in a show of false bravado.

“We can’t” came back the reply “the sun is too bright and we’ll get burned. Why don’t you come over here to us?”.

What did I have to lose? I was sad and lonely, felt isolated from my own kind. If their intention was to murder me as I approached then so be it, at least my misery would be ended. Cautiously I tiptoed towards the treeline, and as I approached my eyes became accustomed to the shadows and I saw that there were several figures standing in a clearing. They were just like me, some were short, some were tall, they were varying sizes but, unlike the dark Naturally Slim Tribe, they were all pale skinned. Yet they all glowed with a healthy aura and were clearly thriving well on the Island of Slim. Much to my relief they greeted me with smiles.

One of the group stepped forward. “We’ve been waiting for you to find us. We saw your little boat coming over the horizon and witnessed the determination in which you rowed to shore. Not everyone survives the journey so we were incredibly pleased to see that you made it. Would you like to join us? You don’t have to stay with us and are free to to leave at any time, but you are very welcome here.”

Suddenly all the frustration and exhaustion from trying to fit in with the other tribe washed over me like a rushing wave which knocked to my knees. Picking myself up I was confused and angry. “So you have seen me struggle over these last few months?”

The speaker nodded kindly.

“And yet you didn’t come to rescue me? You could have saved me from all of…” I gestured wildly around me “This!”.

“Save you from paradise? Why would we do that? And besides, you had to come to us. We could not approach you, as you might have attacked us”.

“Well, you could at least tell me who you are and where you have come from. You are clearly not native to the island” I protested.

“No we are not” came the reply “ we arrived  from many different places over many years, but where we have come from no longer matters. What matters is that we are here, and we have found one another”.

I had so many questions: “how did you survive?” “how have you coped under the heat of the sun?” “how did you learn what foods made you ill and which ones were good for you?” “how have you avoided the snake pits and the caves full of predators?”

“It was all a case of trial and error, we learned as we went along. The natives helped us as best they could but there some things that they simply could not teach us. We learned that are not completely like them and could not live the way they do, so we moved away and set up our own tribe. Some of our members left and went back to the ocean, others believed that the rules we devised from our experience did not apply to them and tried to forge their own way ahead. Those were either lost at sea, drowned in the quick sands or consumed by beasts. We have come to understand that if we stick together we stand a better chance of survival. All of us here have made mistakes but because we trust and rely upon one another we share our experiences so that others do not stumble in the same way. And when others fall, we gather to pick them up and nurse them back to health. If you want to continue alone then you are free to do so, but we cannot offer you help if you are not here to ask for it. This island is big, if you fall because you chose to go alone then nobody will hear your cries and you may risk perishing alone.”

“So what made you decide to stay on this island, when it is fraught with so many dangers for people like us?”. I was puzzled.

“Just look around you and see how beautiful it is here. There is no pollution, the food we can eat is plentiful and nourishing. The sun may be bright and sometimes harsh but there are plenty of beautiful trees under which we can shade. The life we are living here is so much better than the ones that we left across the other side of the ocean, even with all its restrictions. Yes, we have to make sacrifices and we cannot live in the same way as our fellow islanders but we are still more fortunate than we had ever been.  Here we are free. Would you like to become part of our tribe?”

“Why would you want me to join you? I have nothing to offer, no experience, no skills to share?”

“Because, once we were the same as you, lost and alone, afraid and unsure. We want to help you. You have skills that you don’t even know exist, this island will test you and you will emerge stronger. But you cannot do it alone, nobody can. And one day, another little boat will appear over the horizon bearing a passenger who needs exactly what youhave to offer. This is how it works for us here. Trust us, you will not regret it”.

And so I joined them.

After months of rowing and then wandering and stumbling in the wilderness I had Found My Tribe.

Life on the Island of Slim will continue to challenge me but now I am confident that with my Tribe I can face and overcome whatever is thrown at us. I wanted to be a Naturally Slim Tribe member but no matter what I do I cannot be one of them. It is not who I am.

But, through exploring the island and broadening my own personal horizon, even if it was borne out of frustration and my last resort, I have discovered people who understand me, with whom I feel I belong.

I have Found My Tribe….

…Now go and find yours…..

I Want Candy

It has been a little while since I have blogged about my latest progress. As usual, life just gets in the way and before you know it, time has flown by. It has now been six months since I reached my target of “halving myself” with my 12 stone loss and I would love nothing more to report that keeping the weight off has been a breeze….but I can’t. That would be a Big Fat Lie. And as the intrinsic theme running through my blog since I first wrote it 18 months ago is Honesty Is key, I guess it is time to ‘Fess Up. Trying to keep the weight off has been hard, very hard, and there have been times that the scales have teetered back into dangerous territory. Over the last six months my weight has swung down as far as 11st 9lbs (I started off at 24 stone for perspective) where people started to comment that I “looked gaunt”. It has also swung back up to 13 stone, monitoring a 14lb gain since Target. Currently I am somewhere in between the two, and still working out where I want to be. Fortunately I don’t seem to have increased in any clothing sizes so that is a relief. Although it is no reason to be resting on my laurels. So..  Maintenance…  Hard…. Fact ! Throughout my weight loss journey I have learned a lot about myself. It turns out that I still have a lot to learn and that the Learning Curve is less of a curve, but more of a straight line stretching out over the horizon. I understand that I will never stop learning. In fact the only Curve in this equation is the frequent “Curve Ball” that life has a habit of chucking at me. So here’s what have learnt lately. I have an Addictive Personality. This is not a label, not an excuse, not a condemnation nor a vindication. It is just who I am. I don’t know if it came as part of the package in my genes or was a behaviour that I learned a long time ago. All I know that there is something within in me that, when kept unchecked, fuels within me a desire to act compulsively and make terribly bad decisions. Fortunately it hasn’t manifested itself in the abuse of dangerous substances or alcohol but the behaviours I demonstrate when I am not fully control are equally as dangerous and destructive as the actions of a junkie or alcoholic. I used to think that I can beat this behaviour, banish it from my life and “become a better person”. Isn’t that sad, thinking that cutting out a part of what ultimately makes you who you are is the path to enlightenment? We all, have dark little corners in our psyche, or physical parts that we do not particularly like but if we removed them then we would no longer be ourselves. Take a molecular compound as an example, for simplicity sake let’s refer to Carbon Dioxide – good old CO2. This is the life blood of the planet, the primary source of all carbon based life forms. Yet, remove one simple atom, and you are left with Carbon Monoxide, a highly poisonous and dangerous gas. So little can change so much. Now you’re probably wondering “Ok, love, thanks for the science lesson, but what’s this all got to do with weight loss and addiction?”. Bear with me… So I am an addict. Currently my Drug Of Choice is Sugar. I also have a massive issue with compulsive spending which I will, no doubt, address in another blog entry, but for now let’s stick with the sweet stuff. I’m not going to explore too much the origins of my addiction to sugar, and, believe me, I have navel gazed and contemplated an awful over that throughout the years. Instead I am going to focus on very recent history and the now. It came to my attention quite recently that, even though I had successfully lost all the weight, that my sugar addiction was simply waiting in the background , ready to leap back in when I let my guard down. And, of course, my guard fell down. All the time I was on the very low calorie diet, focussing on the target ahead and sticking to very strict rules, staying away from sugar was easy. Willpower was strong because I had a Target to reach. When I attained that target, however,  the goalposts changed radically. All bets were off, “I could eat whatever I wanted”. So I did. Of course, at first it was difficult. My body was used to taking in a very low calorie load, and now, if I didn’t want to continue and waste away then I had to increase the amount I took in. “Ha-ha” I thought “This one’s easy! What quicker way to boost my caloric intake than to “treat myself” to a chocolate bar? After all, I deserve it after all those months of deprivation. What harm can it do? As long as I keep within my calorie allowance all will be well"  Well… within seconds of that delicious treat passing my lips, my fate was sealed. The addictive neurons in my brain that had lain dormant in my brain for the year while I lost weight were suddenly fired back into action. It was like a “Blackadder Goes Forth” style World War 1 trench had suddenly been rallied into action. For months those “soldiers” of addictive behaviour had lazed and lounged in the ditches waiting for the “Big Push”. Now suddenly the “enemy” had attacked, the whistle had been blown and these little blighters were spilling “over the top”, raring to attack. My Willpower Neurons tried to fend off the assault, but they were outnumbered and exhausted from months of constant battling. My addiction was starting to take full hold of me again. And, of course, the problem with addictive substances is that they make you crave more and more. Once the floodgates are open it is incredibly difficult to close them again. So soon, my “just the one chocolate bar” became “just one more” and “what harm will another one do?”. I found myself trapped in the Guilt-Relief cycle all over again, and, gradually, the pounds came creeping back on. What's more, it was all well and good sticking within my "calorie allowance for the day" but the more sugary foods I ate, the less I took in of good, nutritious foods. I was at risk of reducing my health. I am just grateful that something in me “saw the light” and I have been able to look into ways of addressing it again. So why isn’t it just as simple as “changing the behaviour” ? It isn’t, that is all. I have tried to do that but I just started becoming someone that wasn’t me. It was all pretend, anyway and in the back of my mind I knew that something was wrong. I know people that have suffered horrendous trauma in their lives, some have lost children, some are disabled and others are living with cancer. Amongst these are some incredible people who I look at and ask myself “how can you carry on living your life, knowing about that dreadful thing that has happened to you?”. The fact remains, however, that they do carry on IN SPITE of what has happened to them. They acknowledge their lots, their misfortunes, and they weave it into the complex tapestry of who they are. They learn to live with their misfortunes, their losses, their disabilities. They don’t pretend that whatever cross that they have to bear isn’t there, instead they embrace it whilst refusing to let it dominate and define their lives. And it is through them I am learning that there is another way to “beat” my addictive nature. I am learning to say to those naughty little neurons that live in my head “look, I don’t like you and you don’t like me but it looks like we are stuck here in the same headspace, so let’s just learn how we can co-exist without getting into a massive fight” . Well, the neurons have grudgingly agreed, after all it is bloody knackering having to leap out of the trenches at a moment’s notice but they did have a valid point to make before conceding to my wishes. “it’s all your blooming fault anyway” they protested. “you’re the one that keeps picking the fight. We are perfectly happy lolling about in our trench, we only coming out charging when you lean down over the trench walls, waving chocolate bars in our faces and yelling ‘come on if you think you’re hard enough. If you can promise to keep that naughty sugar out of our way then we have no reason to fight you. We can’t leave the trenches but we won’t come over and bother you either’”

Well that was enlightening. And it seemed too simple to be true. But it was a strategy that I had never considered. Instead of investing huge amounts of energy in warring away against my addictions, why didn’t I just stop fighting? It had never occurred to me that I could just walk away and stop picking up my “weapons”. I was so frustrated that there was the “enemy” at the other end of the battlefield that I did everything in my power to exorcise these demons so I could claim a perfect victory. And of course, I was just poking them with a great big, sugary stick…But what harm was the enemy doing in the battlefield whilst they just sat dormant in the trench? Absolutely none. It was a bit annoying that there are certain areas in the battlefield that have been declared a “No Man’s Land” but in the grand scale of things, my own little trench provides me with everything that I need. Just not necessarily everything I want. And this is how I am trying to view my addictive behaviours now. I may not necessarily be able to dispose of the behaviour but I can learn to live a perfectly fulfilling life without the substances that cause me to spiral out of control. I don’t like it, believe me, but the alternative option is far worse. The old adage is so very true, i JUST can't have my cake and eat it. I am sure every blind person would love to talk a long, solo walk along a bracing clifftop. I bet that a cancer survivor dreams of the day that their incurable tumour is removed. I’m sure that Superman rues the day that Lex Luther discovered Kryptonite. Unfortunately all of these individuals are powerless against their own weaknesses, it is just the hand that they were dealt. And my bum hand is my addictive nature. I could rail and moan and scream about the “unfairness” of it all, and believe me I frequently do but, really, what does that gain? Does that change anything? Big Fat Nope. So instead, why don’t I just learn to live with my weaknesses? I don’t have to feed them. In fact I shouldn’t. What I will do is let them live quietly in my head, and refuse to provoke them. So I guess it’s Cold Turkey for me. It appears that this is the only way. No other method has worked so why not give it a try. Sugar is my Kryptonite. Superman cannot deny the existence of the power-draining alien mineral, he just  tries to avoid it. He certainly didn’t go “f*ck you” and make a necklace out of the stuff to prove that he can beat it! That is utter madness. Eating sugar makes me crave more sugar. Eating more sugar makes me fat. Simples. Eating no sugar stops the cravings in their tracks. It’s not rocket science. It is, however, bloody hard to execute. I have no doubt that there will be plenty of fights with the Naughty Neurons as time goes by, when I get bored sitting in my trench and I will devilishly venture out into No Man’s Land and lob a Chocolate Grenade just to see what will happen. Of course when I do that, those belligerent little buggers will come racing  over the top, waging their battle cries and brandishing their bayonets. There will be some bloodshed, but, hopefully, as my journey progresses, I will learn to stop and say “look guys, I’m sorry I did that, I won’t do it again. Can we all stop fighting for now and go back to our trenches.” War is hard. War is Dirty. But it takes two to fight. Now is the time for some pacifism on my part. Wish me luck….. (as an aside I have to laugh. A couple of years ago I wrote a guest blog for a friend, complaining bitterly about the Sainsbury's Christmas Ad in which I felt that they blatantly exploited the events in World War 1 on Christmas Day in 1914. ( https://themedthemadandthemod.com/2014/11/13/sainsburys-christmas-advert-puts-the-penguin-in-the-cold-or-does-it/ ) Guess what they were advertising? A chocolate bar! Ah the irony....)