Struggling with self worth

This post is going to be a very difficult post for me to write. I'm hoping it will be therapeutic by the end. To be honest, I've been avoiding this post for a while because it's putting a lot of myself out there and dealing with a lot of things that I've been ignoring. It's going to make me incredibly vulnerable. So, if you're going to be a dick, go be a dick elsewhere, mmkay?

I'm not sure when all of this started, but things vastly changed when Nasur moved to America. For those of you who are unaware, Nasur moved from Uganda to marry me. I met him in Uganda in 2012 and we made a transcontinental relationship work for a while, but we couldn't move to the next step because the government blows hard. Long story short, we did a fiancé visa and had 90 days to get married once he arrived in Michigan at the end of December last year. It was a lot of change for me, but one of the hardest things for me to understand was why anyone would want to marry me. 

When I really sit and think about it, I just don't get it. There is nothing appealing about me. I'm selfish, I'm needy, I don't think about other people, I'm lazy, I like my own space, and the big one: I'm fat. I lack self control, I sabotage myself easily, I don't follow through when I set goals for myself, I don't work hard enough, etc. Trust me, I can go on for a looooong time. So when our 90 days started to come to a close, the doubting became really intense. I don't think I ever doubted Nasur per se, but I doubted that anyone could love me as much as he does. Nasur goes out of his way to show me how much he loves me every day and I know that he truly loves me unconditionally. But that scared the shit out of me (and on occasion, still does). Like, when was the other shoe going to drop? When was he going to figure out that I wasn't worthy of his love? When would he leave? I was fucking terrified of taking the next step because what if my heart was completely broken in the process? And when I expressed my doubts to Nasur, all he would say is that he was okay with whatever I chose as long as it made me happy. He held me every time I was completely overwhelmed and I felt like such a jerk because I knew it was hurting him too but he only cared about how much I was hurting. Long story short, as you already know, we got married. And he makes me stupid happy. And he believes in me and thinks I'm better than sliced bread. But me? I don't. And this self doubt has been pretty crushing lately. 

I've been binge eating a lot lately. I haven't told anyone because I know I'm not supposed to. And having Nasur around at home is really helpful because having a set of eyes watching your every trip to the kitchen does hold me more accountable, but those eyes aren't at work. So, that's where my bingeing has been happening. Nasur will make me breakfast at home and, depending on the day, I'll have a second breakfast. For lunch, I'll eat a whole meal and then sneak off to get a cookie at one cafe and get another one at the other cafe later in the afternoon. Then I'll check out the nurse's lounge to see what they've got there. It's stupid and has resulted in me feeling like shit about myself. I keep wondering why I can't just do this. I keep thinking about how successful I was when I had my year off between undergrad and med school and how committed I was. And then I think about how crushing the work hours are and how sometimes during a 24 hour shift, the only thing that keeps me awake is eating. And how when a surgery is challenging or I feel like I didn't perform well or didn't know how to manage something well, I'll eat or blame myself. And then I won't go to the gym because I feel good at the gym and I don't deserve to feel good about myself. It's stupid, stupid, stupid. And I can tell myself this in the midst of a binge, but I don't stop. And it's gotten to the point that the sheer amount of food I'm eating is causing me to be incredibly uncomfortable. It has really got to fucking stop. I'm hurting myself, I'm gaining weight at a stupid pace and I feel gross when I think about it.

I don't want to get into a plan to make things work. I just needed to get the beginnings of this out there. I need to start working towards change. I am willing to recognize that it's not going to be a one-post deal. I've gotta start taking small steps towards a goal that is light years away. But I do know one thing: I've got to start thinking of myself the way Nasur thinks about me. Because he thinks I'm the shit. And you know what, I can be the shit if I'd let myself be. 

All my weigh-ins since March 8, 2011 and a new challenge

So I decided upon updating my weigh-ins page that I should put all the weigh-ins I've ever had (since getting this computer and uploading my photos) on that page. And it became clear to me that you can see when I was working on losing weight (and had lots of weigh-ins) and when I didn't give a shit (I weighed myself 4 times in 2013). It also has become painfully apparent that this is the heaviest I've weighed since March 8, 2011. 

Then this thought occurred to me: This could either be just the motivation I needed or something else I'll choose to write off. I'm hoping it's not the latter, but lately...yikes.

You see, tonight I went to Zumba for the first time since spraining my ankle 3.5 weeks ago and it was probably the least fun I've ever had in Zumba. First of all, I went back way too early. My ankle was definitely not ready. It wasn't painful per se, and I'm not really hurting now, but I just didn't feel stable. And I half assed it because I didn't want to do any more damage because some of the moves did cause some painful twinges (nothing that's lasted or bothering me now). I think weights and the elliptical are going to have to be my friends for the time being. And that's okay. But I got really down on myself and afterwards, I nearly ate an entire pizza. I told myself yesterday that it was okay if I had to modify or couldn't do anything, but what I should have realized is that it's me I'm dealing with and modifying and not being able to do something the right way was going to bug this shit out of me. So, I'll go back to doing things that I can do well, that burn calories a bit more effectively, and don't make me feel shitty about myself. I will probably put off going back to Zumba until after my one month rotation in North Carolina (which ends October 24).

In the mean time, I need to get tracking and get my butt back to the gym. Sooo, I'm going to start a one week challenge (which I'm going to con my friend Lisa into doing with me). It's going to be an extremely hard challenge for me because I have a lot of shit going on in my life right now (residency applications, an away rotation coming up, some relationship worries, some financial woes, etc.) but I think I need a challenge to make myself see that I'm worth the work, that I can achieve my goals, and that I sometimes require a bit of force to get back on the horse.

So, this week's one-week challenge begins at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, September 13 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Saturday, September 20. It includes:

1. Some kind of workout everyday
2. Tracking all my calories
3. Packing food and not buying it
4. Weighing in ONLY on the 13th and 20th.

The reasons this is going to be hard: I've been being so, so, sooooo lazy lately and it's hard to get yourself into a routine again; tracking calories is hard because next weekend I go home to celebrate my Mom's birthday (and I'll have to bring my food scale and my willpower); and because packing food sucks major. Weighing in only twice should be no problem. The scale and I aren't exactly friends right now because its honesty is a bit too much.

I'd also like to set an end of the month weight goal tomorrow as well as an end of the year weight goal. I also want to work on some sort of list of 10 things I love (I was going to write "like" rather than "love," but I think I need a little push in the self love part of life right now too) about myself to post in my bathroom so that I have to see it several times a day.

Alright, I've got 11 minutes to prep myself mentally for this one week challenge.