I Can't Believe I'm Going to Post This But Here Goes Nothing...

I'm on Facebook all the time so sometimes I read something there that I get a little inspiration from. Today was one of those days. A facebook friend of mine posted the quote from an unknown source: "Never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about". I needed to hear that. I need that seared into my pshche. I wake up every morning with big plans and by mid-morning it's all over but the crying. I need to remember not to forget. Today is that day. I will not give up this time.

I can only imagine what the sales meetings are like at the General Nutrition Center (GNC), or any other store just like it. There's a room full of thin, pretty girls, meaty, muscley young men with gelled hair and a gold chain stretched tightly around his thick, body builder neck. They're wearing their khaki pants with their polo shirts tucked in nicely and everyone is tanned and gorgeous. The management team is just as put together, just slightly older and clearly graduates of whatever marketing school they attended. All very polished, all love themselves a great deal and all satisfied with their jobs. And hey, 20% employee discounts on Mega-Extreme Lean Body Muscle-Building Protein Powder is icing on the cake. Life is grand!

"Ok TEAM!", says the managers to the sales people. "There are lots and lots and lots of fat people out there. They don't love themselves like we do. They are lazy and they sit on the couch all day just wishing they wouldn't be fat anymore. They are always on a diet and they always fail. They search far and wide for some easy, quick-fix and they're willing to pay any amount of money for it. They know it won't work. They know it because they've tried everything out there. They've bought into every infomercial, every women's magazine article, every advertisement. They will even tell you 'I've tried it all and nothing has worked!' What they won't tell you is how they get up out of bed in the middle of the night, eat a massive bowl of sugary cereal with whole milk and then go right back to bed. They won't say 'I took the diet pills and then I went to McDonald's for lunch, adding a 12 piece Chicken McNuggets to go with my Big Mac Meal. Oh, and a large sweet tea.'" The management/motivation team continue, "These fat people are desperate and we need to prey on, er, help them. We're here to help!" And the beefy, beautiful sales team cheers!

"Ok", says the director of marketing. "How can we help the poor, poor fattys and capitalize on their flightly 'I'm really gonna do it this time' determination?" He continued, "When the fat people come in and start looking around for the 'magic pill' I want you to lead them over to the entire back wall - full of diet products. We even have a big sign over the shelves that says 'DIET'. See?" and he points to the back wall and the meat heads nod in acknowledgement. "Every month we'll have a different sales incentive program and we'll focus on a different bottle of magic pills", he said with a tooth-whitened grin and a chuckle. "And whoever sells the most wins a 60 ounce tub of Mass Fusion Optimum Micronized Lean Muscle Body Building Creatine Powder! In Strawberry!!" He whipped the team into a frenzy with high-fives all around, peck flexing and strutting. "Now go help a fat person!" he finished, clapping then dismissed the meeting. Then the fit and trim sales staff went on to work - on a mission.

By the last time I walked into the GNC I had tried every infomercial product, every women's magazine article and every diet product sales pitch had me hook, line and sinker. I've read every book, I've tried every kind of diet from Adkins to the Master Cleanse. I've prayed about it, attended Overeaters Anonymous, considered surgery, gone to medical weight loss centers, put magnets in my shoes and starved myself. I've vomitted, taken laxatives and I've excersized myself nearly into heart failure. I've swallowed vinegar before every meal, I've taken fat blockers and I've lived on speed and diet pills until I worried that my heart would stop. I've taken water pills until my muscles cramped. I woke up EVERY SINGLE MORNING and started a diet only to fail miserably by lunchtime. I've been sick with envy of the thin people of the world, I've beaten myself to a pulp with guilt and self-loathing and I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I had blamed everything there was to blame and I had all but given up, resorting to sitting on the couch and wishing I would lose some weight.

Believe me, I know there's no such thing as a "magic pill". I know how to lose weight because I've lost lots of weight a few times. But for whatever the reason that day, I found myself face-to-face with a beefy sales-boy at the GNC, asking me if he could help me find something. "Yes", I said. "Point me to your magic pills", I joked. Mr. Muscles blinked a couple times, probably couldn't believe his luck as he harkened back to the GNC motivational sales meeting, realizing there really are fat people in the world who believe in magic pills and he was one sale closer to that tub of muscle-building goodness! He led me over to a product display and literally handed me a bottle of pills and told me everything a fat person wanted to hear - take these pills and you'll lose a zillion pounds without even trying. The sad part was that he thought I was serious. Even sadder was that I bought the damn thing, knowing - knowing - I was buying another bottle of snake oil. I took my bottle of 40 something dollar diet pills home with me, took a few of them and promptly gave up again. And I was mad at the guy for preying on my desperation - blaming him (and probably some sales meeting that I just made up in my mind) for my failures. And then I thought if he - and the rest of the multi-billion dollar a year diet industry - only knew how I felt about myself and my failures and how much worse I was going to feel when the "magic pill" they just promised me didn't work, then maybe they wouldn't try so hard to earn their money at my expense.

Last weekend I was sitting on the couch watching TV (the only thing I do that doesn't make my joints ache) when I happened onto a program on the Oprah Network. (*disclaimer* - I'm not trying to promote The Oprah Network here - it could have been any reality show based network...) The program was called "Addicted to Food" - a reality show based on a treatment center for various types of eating disorders. Every thing the program said, every point it tried to make, every participants story, every single thing about that show screamed at me to PAY ATTENTION! THIS IS ALL ABOUT YOU!! It wasn't a lightbulb moment, I've always known what my food issues are and have been for years. But it was eye opening and at the least a little nudge - while I sat there on the couch - to get up and try to get myself back together. In this particular treatment center they used the actual Alcoholics Anonymous 12 steps for recovery substituting the word "alcohol" for "food" and they treated the participants like actual addicts complete with food detox, strict and very closely monitored treatment plans and intensive cognitive therapy. And they were also a christian based center, I believe, the TV program showing the counselors at least praying in the name of Jesus Christ which made the show even better to me.

I made note earlier of all the diets I've been on before and all the tricks I've tried. I've done it all. Well, all except get honest. As I watched the show (and it was a program 'marathon' with 4 episodes shown back to back) the more I realized that it was time for me to do something. I could have been any one of those people - and watching them from the "outside looking in", it was easy to see the need for help. There were interesting story lines in the 'cast' and all resembled me so much. I wrote down some of the teaching portions of the show and I tried to soak up everything the counselors told the addicts. I was getting geared up to get on with doing something about my weight problem once and for all and then the head lady at the center said something that disappointed me. She said to the patients there - "No one can do it alone. Just like a heroin addict needs to be detoxed, counseled and helped into sobriety, so does the food addict. You need help, you can not do it alone". I am alone. And I went into the kitchen and fixed myself something to eat.

But I'm stuck on it this time. I know what I've lost as a direct result of my eating disorder and I know what my eating disorder has prevented. My love for my 'drug' has choked out my enjoyment for many other things. It's robbed me of good things that I deserve and it's very definately stolen from me my general well-being and good health. I've decided to get honest and tell others about my eating disorder - sort of like those people on that program unveiled themselves for the world to see (or whoever watches the Oprah Network). Starting yesterday I've decided to address my weight and moreso the things that cause my weight to be what it is and I'm going to write about it as my "help". If someone reads it then I'm not alone. As I sit here typing, I'm feeling anxious about actually hitting the "publish post" button but I'm going to do it and see where it leads me. Over the course of my self-help treatment program I believe I'll write about it all, what got me here, my big food secrets, what I'm doing now, etc. I might even post a picture or two. And I'll see what happens. It's something that I haven't tried yet and once and for all this has to be the first step to regaining myself; to be a better mom, a better employee to whoever will hire me, a better daughter to my mom, a better christian, a better church member and a better friend. Ok, here goes nothing. Click publish...