the most unhelpful of emotions

I have had this blog for over a year now.  I have written in it very occasionally   I purposely didn't tell anyone about it.  A few of my friends have discovered it by chance.  I know my sister Melanie "follows" me, and there are possibly others who follow me (in secret) as well.  Why haven't I shared with any one else?  One word:

Shame.

I am so very, very ashamed that I have weight to lose.  I'm so ashamed, in fact, that I even don't want to publicly celebrate my success, because that would mean I have to admit how much weight I need to lose in the first place.  I have been so ashamed, that I often pretend that I'm ok with the way I look, that perhaps I weigh this much because I want to.  Crazy, right?

Shame is not a helpful emotion for the emotional eater.  Why?  Because shame makes me want to binge.  To hide that feeling under 15 brownies (side note: Mmmmm... 15 brownies...).  It makes me want to crawl into my bed and hide from the world, to avoid all those issues I need to face.

I am also afraid.  What if I fail?  What if I share this blog, and people read, but then they go, "What a hopeless case, she just goes back and forth and back and forth?"  I was seriously afraid of failing, like every other time I have tried to lose weight.  But now that I have proven to myself this is something I want to stick to (even if weight loss is so very, painfully slow), I feel like I can face sharing my experience with others.

So today, I'm facing the shame and the fear.  I'm sharing this with those that I know want me to be successful, who won't think less of me just because I have a certain amount of weight to lose.