How did I become this person ???

I had a huge realization come to me this morning, and I am not very happy about it.

Hubby is on vacation, school is on vacation, we finished steam cleaning all of the carpets yesterday and the plan for today is to get the brakes done on the car , visit my MIL an the nursing home and do some grocery shopping. No time constraints, no early morning deadlines, a day of doing things on our own timetable. I was awake, hubby was awake, son was in a deep sleep, and a conversation about nothing led to a nice time of kissing, cuddling and building intensity. Then for no reason in the world, my brain screamed "WE CAN"T DO THIS !". It was as if someone tossed a cold bucket of water in the mix.Move away and catch my breath.Why did I do this ??? Why am I saying no for no reason whatsoever ? I was upset with myself for thinking in this way, and completely baffled as to why. Why did my brain decide no, this cannot happen ?

I laid there , cuddled up next to hubby, and analyzed my thoughts. Why am I saying no to something that is very pleasant, fun and a rare opportunity ( calm mornings without deadlines or child interference is about as rare as hairs on a frog). After a deep ponder , it dawned on me that it was because this was mentally striking me in the same way as the occasional ice cream or popcorn at a theater or just going out to enjoy the day and having to eat out. All are big no's because they are not on the program.Lately this thinking has been amplified at every turn by people talking about strategies to manage the holiday season. Yesterday in my email I received tips on how to create an exercise routine while shopping, and my brain considered that there are too many people running around screaming "CHRISTMAS IS CARNAGE !" , just like the duck in the movie Babe.In this whole two year journey to lose weight as a family, I have had to be the eyes, ears and brain for the whole family. I am the one who has to plan every single meal and snack for 3 people on a weight loss program, each slightly different programs, watch for potential land mines, remain vigilant to unplanned ones and come up with a contingency strategy for every possible slip up, along with homeschooling a child who has learning challenges . With Autism I have had to keep a very vigilant watch on his diet, supplements, therapies as well as helping to steer him along the weight loss journey. He has learned many very good habits, but he still does not totally "get "it enough to work his own program. Hubby tries but gets a lot of the details confused and has a ton of other things to mentally juggle. For one thing, he handles all of the financial matters because he can take them to a place where he can sit down and balance the checkbook without being told nonstop what's on TV, what games are coming out and what is the calender of events for the next week, down to the minute as well as a recitation of odd memorable events in his entire life- and they are often all mixed together . He also does not get reminded of how many minutes away it is till snack time or told that he spelled orange wrong on the menu and so forth. Reading various diet blogs, weight loss email support group correspondences and diet books just to keep up on what new has been learned about the "science" of weight loss has convinced me that EVERYTHING is carnage according to someone with evidence to support their claim. Somewhere in all of this my brain decided, as a survival mechanism, that if it is pleasant it not only will do some immediate harm but it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring back bad habits that will once again require Herculean efforts to correct and derail other good things in the process of setting them right.

And it reflects back on a consequence from my first weight loss attempt. That one was to lose enough weight to conceive. 110 pounds down, and my son was conceived, which began a high risk pregnancy and then the birth of an autistic child. Babies are blessings, and my son is indeed a blessing. But with blessings , like all good things, comes a heck of a lot of responsibility and then the eventual realization that you do not own it- instead it owns you. It has made me the responsible firstborn, tossed into hyperdrive. My son NEEDS to lose weight in order to live a healthy life without unnatural boundaries. I have needed to lose weight all my life, and hubby has gained weight because of the metabolic slow down that comes with aging ( compounded by having to wear several different hats to keep this juggling game going). If it was just me, with this revelation, I would tell myself to just put it down, step back and get some perspective. But it's not just me, and it will not be just me until my son has reached a healthy weight. So how do I stop being this person that is seriously in danger of being a control freak - and not very successful in that role ?

I am beginning to think that I may need to say yes to life a lot more than I need to say no to food for any reason. I need to stop fearing that through doing the ultimate sin of living as a normal person that I will encounter some food that some individual has determined to be evil and harmful , based on a body of scientific evidence. I need to stop believing that my body has this mystical internal scale that automatically measures calories in and calories out, and behaves accordingly. I need to stop feeling like the mere odor of sodium will make our bodies swell up like the blueberry girl in Willie Wonka so therefor do not come within a 50 mile radius of the establishment, lest Skylab will fall from the sky, block the road and force us to eat there or die.

I really need to find a way to STOP THE INSANITY