Sometimes I manage to persuade myself that things are not happening. Or that things that happen do not matter. Or that things that do not happen do not matter. Then, one day, I wake up and wonder why I am feeling so weird since everything is cool. Since everything is normal.

At that times, I search for the strength to pull away the veil.

I cannot go into much detail about the things that are happening and about the things that are not happening in my life right now. Let's just say that the last couple of months between leaving my company and joining a very demanding new job, I have managed to both let things happen and I have also chose to ignore things that did not happen. Like an ostrich I have chosen to keep my head inside the hole whenever what has been happening around has been too stressful to deal with.

The result?

Everything that has happened and/or have not happened has not disappeared, instead, has made their presence concrete and with a vengence.

I consider myself back at square one now. I have to start from this moment and I have to train myself again in many things. Eating, exercising, office etiquette, working modes, home life.

It is very easy to let myself slip. I am this kind of person. The type that tends to visit the extremes. The rebell I kept quiet when she had every right to yell will come and visit every time she has the chance. She is the part of me who never caused any problems when she was a teenager, and was, instead, the perfect girl. Straight A's, never arguing with her parents, always pleasant and sweet, you get the picture. I must have told myself back then that when I will grow up I will do everything I want the way I want it. I have work to do with this little girl. Because really, what is the point of doing whatever you want whenever you want it when all these things at the end hurt people you love and mainly and most importantly of all, still leave you with a sour taste?

It took a very loud argument this morning about something amazingly trivial to make me realise that I am in no good space. I have been inhaling unprocessed feelings for the last month the same way I have been inhaling bad food. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, and mainly pretending its what I want to do. I have been self centered beyond control. But not in the nice zen way where you make your well being a full time job in order to feel good and pass the good feelings to those around you. I have been self centered in the brat kind of way. I am stressed, I will order chinese. I am stressed, I will smoke. I am stressed, I will not do laundry.

It is no news that this kind of behaviour is not helping anyone to feel less stressed. So why should it make me calmer goes beyond my imagination.

But you know, I do not want to be like this. I also know that these characteristics will always be part of who I am forever. I know for a fact that regardless the therapy I am doing, what I am really aiming at is not to eliminate these patterns of behaviour. The aim and the succesful end result will be when I realise them at their very beginning, and start taking the necessary corrective action towards then on the spot. Not like "...oh shit, I am eating chocolate again cos I'm upset, well, tomorrow this will stop" but rather "...oh shit, I am eating chocolate again cos I'm upset, Angelos, I have taken a bite of this chocolate, do you want to finish it, or I should rather throw it away?".

I will always be an emotional eater. I will always have a high temper. I will always binge occasionally. But since we are at binging right now, this is what has happened in this department:

2000: A binge back then was usually a family sized pizza, a chef's salad, onion rings with blue cheese sauce, garlic breadsticks, a pint of icecream and a box of chocolate chip cookies

2005: A binge now is 4-5 slices of pizza, half a pint of icecream, a few dry figs

My aim is to stop at the last bite of the first slice of pizza and think.

This is pretty much the same about all the things I am still fighting to control. For some weird reason, one step at a time does not work with me. To explain this, what I mean is that I cannot start with the food today and after a week with the exercise, and after a month with the laundry. I need a clear day to start with the new scheme. On that day I will not exercise for an hour necessarily. Just making the time for a 15 minute brisk walk will be enough. A small step. But I also have to have a food plan for the day. And I also have to go back home and do the last load of laundry.

I remember when I first went to WW a few years back, I saw a couple of newbies. I was then around 110-115 kilos and they were somewhere between 85-90 kilos. I remember thinking back then that what for me would be an ideal weight at the time, for them was the detestful weight that made them decide and do something about themselves. I remember telling to myself that by the time I reach their weight it will be years and I would have managed to loose almost 30 kilos to be in a body that still needs to loose weight and oh my god...will this ever end?

Well, for the last year and a half, perhaps a little more, I have "cherished" my 85-90 kilos weight.

There is really no way for me to end this process. Unless I start now. As I am now. Because you know what the big mistake is all this time? I am expecting from myself to finish something I never thought possible. I am expecting from myself to loose the rest of the weight while deep inside me I never believed I could loose the 40 or so kilos I have managed to loose. So I am proceeding with the body of now and the icon of then. And am using my achievement not as a means of knowledge and experience to help me achieve my goal, but mainly, and I am ashamed really to admit it, as an excuse. Example: "I have lost 42 kilos, it's ok to eat the pizza now I am stressed, I know how to get back on track"

How is this going to bring a fullness to this project really beats me!

I will take this week to work on this mentally. I will take this week to get to know myself for who I am today. I will take this week to get rid of the image of the past. And visualise the image of the future. Because with all honesty, I will admit to you that I have never ever never imagined myself as a size 10 again. And this is proven by the long time I have been dwelling in the same weight for months and months. As if nothing lower than that is really possible.

Well, you little rebel inside me, with all due respect and sincere love and affection too, let me tell you something. You are growing to become a normal person. You are growing to become a wife and soon a mother too. You are working on the public sector now and you have to follow norms and rules. You are growing to do laundry and cook dinner after a stressful day. All these are not things to look down to. They are things to be proud for. Because without these, all you will remain will be the forever rebelious teenager. And at the ripe age of almost 37, you will, at least, look a tad outdated ;)