And we're off!...or are we?

Today we leave for six days in Ireland. A & P's wedding is Friday in a castle in Sligo. We're going to stay overnight in the castle the night of the wedding, but otherwise we're staying at B&Bs, either in Sligo or Dublin. I'm excited, but R is sick today so I'm completely stressed out. She came into our room last night at 3am, trembling all over, burning up, and saying her tummy hurt, her eyes hurt, and her head hurt. I gave her Tylenol and laid down for a while with her. She never did throw up and seemed fine this morning. She just played with her breakfast though and said her tummy hurt (and she was shaking again). She's on the couch now and I'm wanting to eat everything in the kitchen. I really wanted a chance to work out today since we'll be on a plane or in airports for over 12 hours. Ah...the best laid plans as they say...

I've been concentrating on eating when hungry, stopping when satisfied, and not eating when not hungry over the past few days. It's been okay. It's hard not to eat over every little feeling, but I keep telling myself that when I'm hungry I can eat whatever I want. Good Lord, how many times have I tried this over the past few years? I figure it's got to sink in sometime. Last night we went to Old Country Buffet for dinner with dad. T was working overtime on the Dick Cheney detail as part of the motorcade. I wandered around and nothing really appealed to me. I finally made a large salad, ate a roasted chicken breast, and then ate about half of 7 different desserts. I really wasn't stuffed when we left though. My dad was appalled at all of the dessert I ate! It was kind of amusing.

I was thinking about why I feel so much more accepting of being overweight when I'm a size 12 than when I'm a size 10 or 8. I think I feel less pressure -- actually, no pressure. No one says "Oh my, you need to lose weight!" or "There's Susan, eating her salad again!" or "Oh you're so good -- you never eat the donuts (or cookies, or brownies, or candy, or....)". People just leave me alone. When I was a size 6, I felt constantly pressured to maintain my weight loss. My coworkers never left me alone -- "You look so great!", "You're doing such a good job!", "Oh, there's that skinny Susan!", "Oh, look how healthy you're eating. It's disgusting!", etc. Every time I got on the scale and saw that I'd gained a pound or two, I panicked. OMG -- was my stomach bigger? Did my pants look tighter? Could people tell I'd put on 2 pounds, or 5 pounds, or 10 pounds? It's almost as though I needed to either be 135 pounds or 160, with no in-between. If I'm 160, people can tell that I've given up. They leave me alone to eat my salad in peace. If I'm 145, people feel sorry for me that I've gained some weight back and my pants are tight. They eye the half donut I'm eating with disapproval. If I weigh 160, obviously I eat donuts, so it's okay. I could eat several because -- hey, I'm fat! Fat people eat donuts.