Obsessions

So when you have a lot of free time, as I do, you begin to obsess about things.  Too much free time makes your mind wonder and focus on very strange things that busy people don't have the time to really think about.  So now my two recent obsessions and some explanations.  


Obsession #1 Getting my nose piercing back.  
This isn't just an urge to get my piercing back, it's a NEED.  I've been wanting it back for a long time but never got it done because I was worried about getting it pierced in Cambodia.  Well screw that.  I can't stop thinking about it.  I loved the way I looked with it.  I felt amazing when I looked in the mirror and saw it.  I know this obsession is weird but I wanted my nose piercing for the first time so badly and now I need it back even worse.  It's going to happen.  I just hope that they have a small ring to put in my nose instead of just a stud.  I see foreigners wear their nose rings around and I'm always so jealous.  Soon I will have mine back. 


Obsession #2 Food/My Weight.


I feel like these two things go hand and hand.  I'm ready to get really honest right now so be prepared.  I've struggled with my weight all my life.  I've always thought of myself as the fat girl and I feel like it becomes a disease.  "Fat Girl Syndrome" should be a diagnosable disorder because it messes with you mentally and physically.  I've had times in my life when I've felt beautiful, sexy, etc. but it's not the norm.  Most of the time I feel like an outcast because of my weight and I've attributed every rejection I've ever had to how much I weigh.  Along those same lines though, maybe it's a mental block that prohibits me from losing weight.  I think I'd be terrified to shed all the weight that I want to lose because I'd no longer have that security blanket.  If I can no longer attribute my rejections to my weight...that must mean that some people don't like my personality...they don't like ME personally and I can't blame that on the weight.  It's so much easier to think "If I were thinner they wouldn't have rejected me" than to actually accept that maybe they didn't like who I am as a person.  That thought scares the shit out of me.  So maybe I'm scared to lose the weight.  I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't overweight.  If I looked "normal" I don't know how I would deal with it.  


Everyone has their struggles in life and my weight has always been the big one.  I want to lose weight deep down.  I'm scared, but I know that I want this weight gone. It's just beginning to seem like that will never happen.   I've never been committed enough I guess.  The only time I lost significant weight in the past was my senior year of high school when I made a bet with my parents to see who could lose 20 lbs first.  It was the bet that kept me going and my constantly active and busy school, sports, and work life. Now that I have so much free time it's harder to stay away from food.  


However, with all that said, I am losing weight in Cambodia.  I've lost 10lbs already and to some people that sounds like a lot but don't congratulate me yet.  10lbs is just a drop in the bucket for me.  And I was almost at my heaviest weight when I came here so losing ten pounds puts me down to my "normal" weight.  I don't know how to lose weight in Cambodia.  The heat makes me incredibly lazy, I don't have control over my food, I don't know what's happening right now but every day I feel thinner.  I tried cutting back on the coke for a week and I did it but I started drinking it again soon after.  I see tons of other volunteers that have lost TONS of weight here and I'm really happy for them but I look at myself and think "I'm the heaviest girl here and I haven't lost nearly as much as a lot of the other girls".  And they don't seem to be trying too hard, it's just coming naturally.  So why isn't it coming for me? I had this expectation coming in that I would immediately lose tons of weight without even trying and come back super skinny and beautiful and surprise everyone.  And while I'm slowly losing weight now for some reason, I feel like if the miraculous weight loss was going to happen, it would have already.  I don't know.  I lost weight during training because I biked a ton and then I gained some back coming to site and now I'm losing some again.  I don't know what my body is doing.  I feel like I was eating less and working out more during training and I kept it up for 2 months and didn't lose as much as I would have if I did that in the states or as much as other girls who were smaller than me did during training. And now I'm eating the same as I did in training, with a lot less exercise and I'm losing weight.   I don't know.  It's all so confusing.  I feel like this is a confusingly written paragraph so I'll stop rambling and get on to my next point.


The food obsession.  Maybe it's just because I eat horrible food all the time and am stuck with plain white rice for every meal, but i'm obsessed with food.  All I think about is the next meal.  But then when i'm sitting at the table eating it, i'm suddenly not hungry.  Sometimes I have to force down the rice just so I know I'll eat enough to be full.  Maybe that's what's causing the weight loss now.  I'm not eating that much at meals.  I still snack sometimes, eat bread, and drink a lot of coke, but maybe it's the fact that i'm not eating much at meals that's leading me to shed some pounds now.  Who knows. All I know is that I think about food way more than the average person....but probably not that much more than the average volunteer.  However, when I was back home, I feel like my unhealthy relationship with food was what kept me at this weight and what prevented me from losing weight whenever I tried to diet.  I feel like I have a hard time stopping.  When I'm eating I don't want to stop, I have to eat whatever is on my plate no matter how much it is.  It's like the thing in your head that is supposed to tell you when to stop is temporarily out of order sometimes.  And other times it's working fine and I can say no to food. Ugh, I feel like the more I talk about this the more confused I become about what my issues are. 


But I do know it's a control issue in some ways.  Anorexics feel like they can control their life when they control what they eat and I feel the same way sort of.  When I lost 20 lbs in high school I was meticulously counting calories and controlling what I ate. It was done in a healthy way, I promise, and all the other things in my life became very controllable.  My room was always clean, my homework was always done, I met deadlines and didn't forget things.  But when i'm not in control of my eating my life doesn't feel so controlled.  And when my life feels chaotic and messy, I eat a lot.  It's a nasty cycle and one that is damned hard to break.  It was broken in 12th grade with the outside motivating factor of the contest with my parents but I don't have anything in my life that would work like that here. I don't know. Sometimes it just seems so hopeless.  I feel like i've been this size for so long and it's never going to change.


I just wanted to tell you the things that I've been thinking about constantly in the past week or so.  I hope my weight loss due to uncontrollable circumstances keeps happening because then I can keep doing nothing and slowly reach my goal.  My goal weight is 160lbs.  If I could reach that I feel like I would be at a perfect weight and wouldn't want to lose any more than that.  That's still 60-70 pounds away for me.  I need to find a way to get inspired to lose weight instead of obsessing over it.  


This is the first time I've ever discussed my weight publically.  I've talked to some people about it but I've never really shared like this.  My fears, barriers, cycles of unhealthiness, you know them all now.  Sorry if this post is confusing to read. I'm very tired and I kept having sporadic thoughts throughout this post. Let me know what you think.