Weight Loss Fail, Blogging Fail, Life Fail.. sigh

Well, here we are heading towards the end of January and the situation is much the same as it was when I started my weight loss attempt, months ago. In fact, the situation is much worse. Hence my unwillingness to write here, and my recourse to self-loathing tirades in my head. Not very productive, really.

It's always so incredibly frustrating when I look back on a period of time and think "if I'd actually dieted all this time, I would be at my goal weight by now". My last entry was 29 October. Think how much good I could have done! Instead, I hibernated, avoided the mirror, avoided going out, avoided socialising, and took refuge in ever more frequent binges.

My parents are coming to visit us in a few days and that fills me with absolute panic and dread. My mum is a lovely woman and she means well but her attempts to get me motivated to lose weight are so counterproductive. I don't know if it's even anything she does now, it's just any time she remotely mentions anything to do with my health I freeze up in tension, thinking she's passing judgement on me. She has perfectly good reasons for worrying about my weight, since it's unhealthy, it makes me unhappy, it's a symptom of unhappiness - but I hate it. I would prefer she never mention it, be one of those mums who thinks her daughter is pretty at any size. And maybe she does. But it doesn't feel like it. Every pause, every thought that passes over her face, I think is directed at me. She probably hasn't realised, but she hasn't complimented me since I started gaining weight. No "You look nice" when I'm dressed up. I mean it's true, I really don't look nice any more, but I don't like feeling that way.

My mother has always been trying to lose weight. She did pretty well a few years ago, and is now slimmer than me, which is hard for me to adjust to! I wish she hadn't always commented on how she fat she was though, or what food was good and bad for you. I know nutrition is an important thing to teach kids, but I feel like I knew far too much about what foods were "fattening" when I started high school than I really needed to. I tried to lose weight all through high school too, even though I didn't need to. My mum would try to help me do it, since she knew that I felt bad about myself. I did have a different figure to my friends - curvier and less hard and skinny - but I wasn't fat. I wasn't overweight. I was perfectly healthy. I wish sometimes she had tried to convince me not to lose weight, instead of trying to help me do it. Even though she meant well.

My sister was also obsessed with weight. Still is to an extent, but she is healthy now - I think she has a pretty good relationship with food, and she exercises a lot. My sister was much smaller than me. But she has a tiny frame. I was never going to be her size. Why didn't someone tell me that more often? During her early years of university, when I was in my mid teens, my sister would diet and exercise obsessively throughout the week, then on Sunday, she'd take me out to buy "Sunday night food" - ice-cream, whole tubes of cookie dough, chocolate - and eat them all. I did the same - even though I wasn't doing the compensatory dieting and exercising during the week! My mum commented to me that it was weird. But we didn't really talk more about it than that. I kept doing it. But on my own. And more regularly.

I feel like I am acting like a child, eating "bad foods" secretly and in huge amounts because I am thrilled that I have this free time, my own money, the freedom to eat what I want with no-one watching. When will I realise that there is no one else responsible for my eating? It's just me. I have to make the right choices. No-one's going to tell me what to do any more.

So my parents are visiting, and I have no clothes that fit. Peridot, I sympathise so very much with your situation. The feeling of wearing ugly, frumpy, clothes because nothing else will get on, or nothing else looks halfway decent. My parents are visiting, and, knowing I am trying to diet for the wedding, will expect me to have lost weight. Or at least to be the same I was last July. And yet, I am bigger than ever. I don't want to meet them at the airport. I don't want to see their faces.

One thing I have done, which I really should follow up, is go to the doctor and ask for a referral to a psychologist. I even mentioned my eating problems, which was a big step. I have the psychologists number. But I haven't called. I should. Tomorrow. I will.