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February 13, 2008
Beautiful Surprise
It's everybody's second favorite side effect: CR-induced Zen.
Cause baby I missed it then but I can surely see it now
Right here before my eyes
It's a beautiful surprise
Seriously, I don't quite know what to do with my inner peace. I haven't felt this good in as long as I can remember. I felt great around this time last year, February 23rd to April 1, to be exact.
The bizarre thing is that I'm not that far along in improving my CR as yet, I'm just in a positive trajectory. I've given up on eating anything that isn't weighed and measured, and I feel like I weight has been lifted off my shoulders. The struggle is over: the guessing is done, I know what I'm eating and if I don't know I'm not eating. Now of course I'll still go out about once a month and eat like a "normal" person, and I know the calorie count on my beloved sushi so I'm not giving that up (ever, unless I am in prison.) I guess a bit at wine when out because I have measured so many times that I actually am pretty good at estimating pours.
I had been thinking for awhile that I was done with the trying to fit in in an ad lib world battle. It's almost impossible for me to have just one bite: please see last night, when I got stuck in an ice storm with friends ordering bruschetta and cheese, and I ate olive and cheese topped bread for dinner. Felt awful afterwards. Realized that it just has to be over... I can't live this way. Like Marianne, who is back!!!! yea! I can't just live with accepting my body when I feel like crap. I know I'm beautiful, but being less healthy than I know I can be really sucks. Yes, that takes sacrifice. But sacrifice of stuff that just isn't worth it. Is the bruschetta with feta and carmelized onions worth feeling like I want to jump out of my skin? Not really. I love the healthy food that MR and I cook... I don't need anything else. If you can't understand that, if that seems like too much of a sacrifice to you, that's fine. I'm not trying to tell other people what to do, I'm saying what works for me. Marriage sounds to me like an unbearable sacrifice, yet lots of people seem to want to do it. Different priorities.
Other people don't make me eat... or drink, for that matter. I am way stronger than any mild social pressure to eat. I can let other people make their own decisions and still stay strong in my own. Last night Susie and Edward and Lisa choose to eat a whole bunch of stuff I wouldn't have eaten if I hadn't been starving with it right in front of me. But I could have chosen to not eat it, and they'd still be my friends. And frankly, if they wouldn't, I wouldn't want them for friends. I can throw a South Beach diet bar in my bag for emergencies and not feel the hunger compulsion that leads me to eat stuff that makes me feel awful. It's just planning.
Yeah, it takes some discipline. But seriously, it's nothing compared to the discipline I have to exercise just to do my job, and doing my job is kinda second nature after twelve years.
Youth and health are worth it. I have someone I want to be with for a long time.
It's the eve of Valentine's Day, and I am happily, desperately, contentedly in love with an angel. He's been with me through all manner of hell that you can barely even imagine, he's refused to give up on me in spite of the most severe of provocations. He didn't give up on me even when I wanted to give up on myself. He's kept packing me salad and tea and being there for me in the middle of the night anxiety attack and re-assuring me even when I'm crazy. He deserves many good years of me not being crazy, and I have a feeling he's about to get them. What if he gets bored??? :)
That being said, I am also extremely grateful for my wonderful friends.
I spend so many late nights thinking that I have lived so much, and so well, that I really don't need to live much longer. But being happy only makes me want to be keep feeling good. My grandmother is in better shape at 90 than most people are at 65. Why? Cause she never ate much. I can do much better with my knowledge of nutrition. I have so many advantages that she didn't have. She's beautiful and fun and we love to sit around exchanging stories of people that the other will never ever meet. She's amazing. She and my grandfather used to say that the best years of their lives were 65 on. I don't think they would have said that if they hadn't been in excellent health for those twenty five years.
I was sitting on the floor outside the men's dressing room at Macy's (an unusual place for an epiphany, I grant you) waiting for Danny to try on suits when I realized that I am completely, perfectly happy. What the hell happened? The tortured, stressed out April vanished. It's been a process, to be sure, and it will continue, but I am happy. At some kind of bizarre peace that isn't at all about accepting myself as I am or was, but is rather about accepting that I can become whatever I want. With that right comes a certain degree of responsibility: like my nurses, I can't whine, I have to do something about it.
It's not CR-induced euphoria: my CR has not been consistent enough for that, though on the days when my CR is really on, it certainly induces euphoria. Manic, I tell you. But anyhow, it's more the good nutrition and the realization that I'm done with figuring it out, I've figured it out. I've figured out what works for me. And I can see the way clear.
That's just what works for me. I'm not telling you what to do. Do what thou wilt, my friends. And good luck with it.
Now back to downloading bad music to my Ipod...
Posted by april at February 13, 2008 8:09 PM
Comments
April,
Your entry really hit close to home for me. I've been working at a desk job (after being a student for a while) and I was terrified that my good CRON habits that were so easy to keep up when I had free time would slip. But once I started working I realized I ALWAYS have a choice about what I do or don't put in my mouth, and that no one makes that choice but me. A co-worker may comment if I don't have a piece of cake at a going away party, or 'only' have a salad at lunch, but that doesn't mean I have to eat anything else. Realizing I have that control has been incredibly freeing. And my CRON is going along swimmingly :) Your posts continue to be an inspiration :)
Posted by: Rachel at February 14, 2008 6:16 AM
April
It is so nice to hear you having inner peace today - you DESERVE it gal! And although I also struggled as you did with many issues of eating healthy in my early 30's - the more I came to the realization that you discussed in today's post (ie., CR brings such a sense of inner peace and well-being) - the easier it got for me. Now there are hardly any struggles - but it takes time - and you are getting there! The GREATEST gift we can give ourselves is to care enough about ourselves to practice HEALTHY CR NO MATTER what others say - we have to live in our bodies - no one else does. Also - like you - I have NEVER given up my beloved sushi (it's healthy anyway!) and plan never to have to do that (unless sent to prison where I'd be forced to --- as you said in your post!). Also- it was such a pleasure to hear both you and MR speak at this past conference -- he's a GOOD GOOD guy April and clearly cares about you deeply- you both seem so good for one another -- a very sweet couple to celebrate on this V-day! Irit
Posted by: Irit at February 14, 2008 3:32 PM