I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!

::::happy dance, happy dance:::: Woo-hoo! I’m losing weight! Even a little bit! Yay! (If I had that cool dancing smiley icon, I’d put it here! So just imagine it, rocking out!)

Of course, what’s a little success without a little sabotage, right? So I came home from my meeting the other night and pretty much ate ALL my extra (flex) points for the week. And what I didn’t eat that night, I finished off last night. Plus two. Meh.

BUT . . . I keep reminding myself that one or even two nights of OOPS! isn’t going to put all that weight back on me. At least not right away. So now I’m trying to stay within my daily points the rest of the week. That part kind of sucks, because Friday and Saturday nights are the nights when I hang out with my friends (unless I just decide to go to bed. I’m exciting like that.). It’s harder to stay within your points when you’re all sitting around drinking and eating. :P On the plus side, though, my friends are actors, too, so we’re all weight-conscious. So I can say, “Nah, I’m trying to drop some weight,” and rather than give me a hard time about it, they say, “Oh, yeah, I totally understand. I should watch mine, too. Why don’t we all eat veggies and hummus instead of chips?” And then I feel all happy, because I still feel like part of the gang!

That’s a little weird, isn’t it? That I feel like if I just abstain from the chips, I’m somehow on the outside? ::::sigh:::: I’m working on that . . . .

(Hey, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance:::)

I think that I feel weird about not eating because we’re a bunch of girls, and consciously or unconsciously, in this culture we equate food with love. If someone feeds you, they love you. And when you turn down food, people feel personally slighted, as though you’ve declined not just their food, but their love too. Especially stuff that comes from family: just TRY turning down Great Aunt Mabel and see what happens! LOL

(Hey, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance::::)

And I have this compulsive need to be liked and approved of, at least by people that *I* like and approve of. I read somewhere that everyone has an inner child, but that there are different types of inner children. There are abandoned children, nature children, magical children, eternal children, and on and on. I’m an abandoned one, at least internally. I never experienced familial abandonment, but I was HATED in school, and it really affected me. So now I’m always looking for familial relationships with my friends, my co-workers, etc. When I lived in San Diego, I TURNED DOWN auditions because my workplace “needed me.” It didn’t; I just didn’t want to be disapproved of.

So I think that’s where the insecurity around not eating with my friends comes from. In fact, I usually eat MORE than other people, because hey, food is love, right? And I love you guys! Let me prove it by eating WAY more than I should!

God, I’m a dork sometimes! LOL

(But, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance::::)