I've had lots of stress lately--plumbing problems, financial stuff, relationship stuff. I have managed to keep abstaining from sweets during this bout of stress, but it's not easy. The stress triggers urges to give in and have something so I can feel pleasure, escape, relax (and make the urges themselves go away--the biggest and most immediate drive behind this whole cycle). Pleasure and comfort are in very short supply these days without my favorite junk foods.
Every option seems difficult. I outlined it in my last post. Eating sweets moderately is difficult and requires a lot of energy and willpower. Abstaining from them is difficult. Binging and overeating are difficult ways to live too, for different reasons. All of these options are difficult, but some of them lead to worse outcomes than the others, so I have to make my choice with that in mind.
Sometimes I wish there was brain surgery available that could remove or "wipe clean" the neural pathways that make sugar, binging, and food such a big freaking deal to me. Because rewiring my brain through hundreds of daily decisions and actions is so damn hard. Often I feel like I'm not making any progress and then I start to doubt whether lasting change is even possible. I believe I can change my behavior, sure, but will the incessant whining in my head for MORE MORE MORE ever cease? I wonder if I will be white-knuckling it to the grave, alternating between sheer willpower and mindfulness practices to get through my days without overeating or eating lots of sugary junk. Both willpower and mindfulness take a ton of energy and effort, at least for me, so I question the sustainability of that.
IF the mindfulness stuff becomes more like second nature, though, MAYBE things will get a bit easier. I found a Thursday night insight meditation group in my area and attended the meeting last week. I really liked it. I've been meditating on my own (inconsistently) and reading extensively on the topic of Buddhism for months now, sorting through different schools, ideas, and practices so I can piece together something that works for me. I think I've rejected more aspects of Buddhism than I've embraced; I'm not one for orthodoxy or pre-scientific nonsense and feel no need to become more aligned with irrelevant Tibetan/Japanese/Sri Lankan/(fill in the blank) cultural trappings. I'm a secular westerner that's influenced by Buddhism rather than a Buddhist influenced by secular western thought, that much is certain. But the parts of Buddhism that make sense to me are becoming really important to my life.
No one would be more surprised than me if my lifelong food and weight woes brought me to a satisfying spiritual life around the age of 30. It was my search for binge eating disorder help that led me to Vipassana (insight) meditation, and Vipassana led me to consider Buddhism as a whole. I've never HAD a spiritual life before now.
Maybe that's part of the problem.
Showing posts with label binge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label binge. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
14 weeks pregnant and sweating the sugar question again
So 14 weeks, feeling fine, no weight gained (if anything, a few more pounds lost), barely starting to show. Or not showing? It's hard to tell. I do carry plenty of fat in my abdominal region; my lower stomach looks the same, but sometimes/in some outfits it seems there's a bit of a swell higher up. I think I can get through the summer without maternity clothing, but will need some items come fall/winter.
While my body is trucking along just fine, my mind is up to its old antics. Namely, I'm playing with the idea of complete abstinence from desserts for the rest of my pregnancy. I've had some bad eating days lately and one day last week in which I just flat-out binged on ice cream sandwiches, and after that I felt so fed up and frightened that I wondered if simply walking away from that whole category of food is the smartest thing to do. Not forever, but for now.
See, I've been over this before. Prior to getting pregnant, I had attempts at abstinence backfire enough times that I finally settled on moderation and re-learning as the best way forward. I still think learning to eat "problem foods" moderately is the best long-term solution. I was making progress throughout 2012 with this approach, and before I got pregnant, I viewed my frequent slip-ups with sugar as merely part of the learning process.
I don't feel so easygoing about it anymore. I feel like I can't afford slip-ups the way I used to, and as I'm still fairly new to the moderate eating game, they happen way too often. Some of the things I think about:
1. I weigh 245 pounds about 14 weeks into pregnancy. I'm at high risk for gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. Can I "afford" binges or episodes of overeating? Even if I don't binge, can I "afford" to eat nutritionally poor, sugar-laden foods on a regular basis? Keep in mind, I do not eat a low-carb diet to start with. My body is processing considerable sugar throughout the day due to my consumption of grains, fruits, dairy, etc.
(As an aside, I am certainly not low on calories and I don't believe my urges to binge/overeat are the result of my body desperately trying to get more energy to support a growing baby, or anything like that!)
2. Eating sweets moderately requires a LOT of mental effort from me. Even on my best days, it requires energy and willpower to stop at a certain point and to ignore the cravings for more than inevitably follow. (Hormonal swings haven't made this any easier, I can assure you.) I don't have as much energy and time to fight these battles as I used to, and think it'd be easier on me, in many respects, to simply cut sweets out of my life for now.
3. In a few weeks, the baby will be swallowing amniotic fluid throughout the day that is flavored by the foods I am eating. Research suggests that certain dietary preferences start to form in utero, largely through this mechanism. (Breastmilk is similarly flavored and believed to influence later food preferences and eating behavior, too.) If family history is any indication, my baby probably has food/addiction/weight challenges awaiting him or her already. Do I want to do anything that might make matters worse?
Even if abstinence is the best route, I don't know if I can maintain it. I've never been able to before, but then again, I've never had to factor a baby into the picture, either. I'd like to try and see. If I sense that it's about to backfire in a big way, I will have to go back to the daily grind of battling for moderation. Even if moderation (with all my inevitable slip-ups) isn't ideal, I CANNOT go through the abstain-binge-abstain-binge cycle while pregnant. One round of the abstinence experiment is all I will do; if it fails, I will not be attempting it again during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
There isn't much research or literature out there on binge eating disorder and pregnancy. All my books briefly cover anorexia and bulimia in pregnancy, not even mentioning binge eating disorder. Yet I know I cannot be alone in this, and I wonder how other women handle it.
While my body is trucking along just fine, my mind is up to its old antics. Namely, I'm playing with the idea of complete abstinence from desserts for the rest of my pregnancy. I've had some bad eating days lately and one day last week in which I just flat-out binged on ice cream sandwiches, and after that I felt so fed up and frightened that I wondered if simply walking away from that whole category of food is the smartest thing to do. Not forever, but for now.
See, I've been over this before. Prior to getting pregnant, I had attempts at abstinence backfire enough times that I finally settled on moderation and re-learning as the best way forward. I still think learning to eat "problem foods" moderately is the best long-term solution. I was making progress throughout 2012 with this approach, and before I got pregnant, I viewed my frequent slip-ups with sugar as merely part of the learning process.
I don't feel so easygoing about it anymore. I feel like I can't afford slip-ups the way I used to, and as I'm still fairly new to the moderate eating game, they happen way too often. Some of the things I think about:
1. I weigh 245 pounds about 14 weeks into pregnancy. I'm at high risk for gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. Can I "afford" binges or episodes of overeating? Even if I don't binge, can I "afford" to eat nutritionally poor, sugar-laden foods on a regular basis? Keep in mind, I do not eat a low-carb diet to start with. My body is processing considerable sugar throughout the day due to my consumption of grains, fruits, dairy, etc.
(As an aside, I am certainly not low on calories and I don't believe my urges to binge/overeat are the result of my body desperately trying to get more energy to support a growing baby, or anything like that!)
2. Eating sweets moderately requires a LOT of mental effort from me. Even on my best days, it requires energy and willpower to stop at a certain point and to ignore the cravings for more than inevitably follow. (Hormonal swings haven't made this any easier, I can assure you.) I don't have as much energy and time to fight these battles as I used to, and think it'd be easier on me, in many respects, to simply cut sweets out of my life for now.
3. In a few weeks, the baby will be swallowing amniotic fluid throughout the day that is flavored by the foods I am eating. Research suggests that certain dietary preferences start to form in utero, largely through this mechanism. (Breastmilk is similarly flavored and believed to influence later food preferences and eating behavior, too.) If family history is any indication, my baby probably has food/addiction/weight challenges awaiting him or her already. Do I want to do anything that might make matters worse?
Even if abstinence is the best route, I don't know if I can maintain it. I've never been able to before, but then again, I've never had to factor a baby into the picture, either. I'd like to try and see. If I sense that it's about to backfire in a big way, I will have to go back to the daily grind of battling for moderation. Even if moderation (with all my inevitable slip-ups) isn't ideal, I CANNOT go through the abstain-binge-abstain-binge cycle while pregnant. One round of the abstinence experiment is all I will do; if it fails, I will not be attempting it again during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
There isn't much research or literature out there on binge eating disorder and pregnancy. All my books briefly cover anorexia and bulimia in pregnancy, not even mentioning binge eating disorder. Yet I know I cannot be alone in this, and I wonder how other women handle it.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Inattention is key to binge eating
You hear all the time that eating mindfully helps you eat less. It's true. If you attend to the experience of your food and your eating process as fully as possible, you can be satisfied with less. Start doing it and you'll see the contrast from all those times you wolfed something down while multitasking or otherwise distracted and then thought "That was it? That wasn't enough." And then reached for more food then and there, or perhaps an hour later.
If you want to eat less, pay more attention. If you want to eat more, pay less attention. In my experience (and I'd be interested to hear other views on this), I don't think one can binge mindfully. A binge indicates an unusually large amount of food eaten in an unusually brief period of time, and there's an mental state involved that isn't calm or focused. If your mind is calm and you are eating slowly and attentively, I doubt you are binge eating. It's possible you are still overeating, but I think binging is unlikely.
Ice cream was a classic binge staple for me; I'm still prone to overeating it. Can you believe that it wasn't until I slowed down and tried to eat ice cream mindfully that I realized my mouth became numb after a scoop or two and that I couldn't really taste the ice cream after that point? And that it's not pleasurable to eat ice cream you can't taste? All those years of binging on ice cream a few times a week depended on my inattentiveness; it's how way I was able to remain convinced that I "loved" eating two pints of ice cream in 20-30 minutes.
If you tend to binge while watching TV or movies, browsing, fiddling with the radio in your car, playing games on your phone, letting your mind wander far and wide, whatever...try doing it without your favorite distraction added. You might find that the act of eating itself becomes boring pretty quickly, and that the food doesn't taste as great as you remembered.
I'm convinced that junk food manufacturers depend on people not paying much attention to what they are eating. Eating m&ms in the movie theater is fun. Sitting down at a table and eating one m&m at a time, attentively, is freaking dull. I think fast food tastes good, but it loses much of its magic when you pay close attention to it--say, if you sit down and eat it quietly instead of while driving or talking with another person. And there are so many junk foods I thought were delicious until I slowed down and discovered they were too salty, too stale, too cloying, or too bland for me. Some of them need to be paired with OTHER junk foods in order to be really enjoyable (for me, chips and popcorn taste much better with a soda alongside). This doesn't mean I'll never eat such foods again, but having experienced them in a new light, I'm unlikely to reach for them and even less likely to overeat them. Without some distracting activity paired with those foods, they just aren't that fun.
I don't think that mindful eating is a straightforward, easy solution to binge eating. Not at all. But I think it really can help lessen the grip of problematic foods. It can allow you to see that there IS hope: if your perception of a food can change via mindfulness (despite believing for years and years that your connection to that food was ironclad), then your behavior around that food can change as well. And no matter how entrenched your binge eating disorder is, there is a part of your brain that remains capable of providing insights and applying solutions to overcome it. We've got to put more stock in those parts of our brains! Mindful eating is one way of doing exactly that.
If you want to eat less, pay more attention. If you want to eat more, pay less attention. In my experience (and I'd be interested to hear other views on this), I don't think one can binge mindfully. A binge indicates an unusually large amount of food eaten in an unusually brief period of time, and there's an mental state involved that isn't calm or focused. If your mind is calm and you are eating slowly and attentively, I doubt you are binge eating. It's possible you are still overeating, but I think binging is unlikely.
Ice cream was a classic binge staple for me; I'm still prone to overeating it. Can you believe that it wasn't until I slowed down and tried to eat ice cream mindfully that I realized my mouth became numb after a scoop or two and that I couldn't really taste the ice cream after that point? And that it's not pleasurable to eat ice cream you can't taste? All those years of binging on ice cream a few times a week depended on my inattentiveness; it's how way I was able to remain convinced that I "loved" eating two pints of ice cream in 20-30 minutes.
If you tend to binge while watching TV or movies, browsing, fiddling with the radio in your car, playing games on your phone, letting your mind wander far and wide, whatever...try doing it without your favorite distraction added. You might find that the act of eating itself becomes boring pretty quickly, and that the food doesn't taste as great as you remembered.
I'm convinced that junk food manufacturers depend on people not paying much attention to what they are eating. Eating m&ms in the movie theater is fun. Sitting down at a table and eating one m&m at a time, attentively, is freaking dull. I think fast food tastes good, but it loses much of its magic when you pay close attention to it--say, if you sit down and eat it quietly instead of while driving or talking with another person. And there are so many junk foods I thought were delicious until I slowed down and discovered they were too salty, too stale, too cloying, or too bland for me. Some of them need to be paired with OTHER junk foods in order to be really enjoyable (for me, chips and popcorn taste much better with a soda alongside). This doesn't mean I'll never eat such foods again, but having experienced them in a new light, I'm unlikely to reach for them and even less likely to overeat them. Without some distracting activity paired with those foods, they just aren't that fun.
I don't think that mindful eating is a straightforward, easy solution to binge eating. Not at all. But I think it really can help lessen the grip of problematic foods. It can allow you to see that there IS hope: if your perception of a food can change via mindfulness (despite believing for years and years that your connection to that food was ironclad), then your behavior around that food can change as well. And no matter how entrenched your binge eating disorder is, there is a part of your brain that remains capable of providing insights and applying solutions to overcome it. We've got to put more stock in those parts of our brains! Mindful eating is one way of doing exactly that.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Heading into week 9 of pregnancy, and thinking about multi-generational food abuse
Everything is fine, as far as I know. I had a checkup last Friday that went well. Unless there is a problem, I won't have another checkup or ultrasound for another 4 weeks. Seems like a long time to wait! I'm so anxious and impatient.
Queasiness keeps me from having too much interest in food, but I am so very grateful I am not vomiting. I focus on my water intake. My weight is stable at 250. I take walks, have slowly started up the strength training again, and I do a bit of yoga each day to ease my lower back pain. A quick session of child's pose, cat/cow, and downward facing dog actually alleviates pain for a couple of hours. My meditation practice is non-existent and I want to change that.
Even though I'm not terribly interested in food these days, guess what tastes the best and sits very well with me? Ice cream. Honey nut Cheerios. Lassi. Toast with jam. Yep, sugar, dairy, and refined carbs. I eat salads and fruit and lean meat and hummus and other stuff too, but it doesn't go down as easily. Binging hasn't been a big problem, but I overeat the hyperpalatable stuff regularly and want to stop. I haven't forgotten about Brain over Binge or ditched it in favor of some other philosophy...I'm simply tired and out of sorts. I've started thinking about binge eating recovery more the past couple of days, though.
I sat down and made a list of things I want to teach my child about food and eating. What kind of behavior do I want to model? What kind of household do I want them to grow up in? Surely not the unstructured kind that I experienced, where the parents hide their special junk food from the kids, the kids are left to grab peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or bowls of cereal by themselves throughout the day...except for dinner, where we would all sit down to Hamburger Helper and canned vegetables and fruit. I don't want them to binge like me; I don't want them to insist on pairing meals with TV, like my husband does. So many things need to change. I'm the fifth generation of obese, food abusing women in my family. I have verbal accounts and photographic evidence going back to my great-great grandma, who happened to be very large before there were drive-thrus and 1,700 flavors of Ben & Jerry's at the local grocery store and buffets in each town, and I would not be surprised if the problem goes several generations back further than that.
As much as I don't want to be sloppy and lazy when it comes to the family's nutrition, I also don't want to be shrill, dogmatic, unkind, dramatic--putting kids on diets, making them scared of food or of ever gaining weight, teaching them to look down on others that don't eat like we do. I know there is a middle ground, but I don't have firsthand experience with it. My mom managed to cover both extremes: she was not interested in cooking for us at all, but she took my older brother to Weight Watchers with her when he was a boy so HE would learn to eat more intelligently. He was like 8 or 9, surrounded by crappy processed food at home that he mostly had to prepare himself, with an obese mom and a sugar-loving, chain-smoking dad...and the problem was thought to be HIS lack of self-control?!?! He found the experience of attending a diet club populated by middle aged women mortifying. I can't imagine the public weekly weigh-ins and the comments these adults probably made about the one child (probably also the one male; it was the 80's) in attendance! Today, he is an obese adult with real hostility towards any discussion of eating healthfully or losing weight.
Bottom line--I'm simultaneously scared about screwing things up for yet another generation, and excited and hopeful that parenting might be that final push I require to nail various behavioral problems and become the person I've always wanted to be. Do any of you know people that re-invented themselves via parenthood, especially in terms of food/eating/weight/addiction? I'd love to hear about it.
Queasiness keeps me from having too much interest in food, but I am so very grateful I am not vomiting. I focus on my water intake. My weight is stable at 250. I take walks, have slowly started up the strength training again, and I do a bit of yoga each day to ease my lower back pain. A quick session of child's pose, cat/cow, and downward facing dog actually alleviates pain for a couple of hours. My meditation practice is non-existent and I want to change that.
Even though I'm not terribly interested in food these days, guess what tastes the best and sits very well with me? Ice cream. Honey nut Cheerios. Lassi. Toast with jam. Yep, sugar, dairy, and refined carbs. I eat salads and fruit and lean meat and hummus and other stuff too, but it doesn't go down as easily. Binging hasn't been a big problem, but I overeat the hyperpalatable stuff regularly and want to stop. I haven't forgotten about Brain over Binge or ditched it in favor of some other philosophy...I'm simply tired and out of sorts. I've started thinking about binge eating recovery more the past couple of days, though.
I sat down and made a list of things I want to teach my child about food and eating. What kind of behavior do I want to model? What kind of household do I want them to grow up in? Surely not the unstructured kind that I experienced, where the parents hide their special junk food from the kids, the kids are left to grab peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or bowls of cereal by themselves throughout the day...except for dinner, where we would all sit down to Hamburger Helper and canned vegetables and fruit. I don't want them to binge like me; I don't want them to insist on pairing meals with TV, like my husband does. So many things need to change. I'm the fifth generation of obese, food abusing women in my family. I have verbal accounts and photographic evidence going back to my great-great grandma, who happened to be very large before there were drive-thrus and 1,700 flavors of Ben & Jerry's at the local grocery store and buffets in each town, and I would not be surprised if the problem goes several generations back further than that.
As much as I don't want to be sloppy and lazy when it comes to the family's nutrition, I also don't want to be shrill, dogmatic, unkind, dramatic--putting kids on diets, making them scared of food or of ever gaining weight, teaching them to look down on others that don't eat like we do. I know there is a middle ground, but I don't have firsthand experience with it. My mom managed to cover both extremes: she was not interested in cooking for us at all, but she took my older brother to Weight Watchers with her when he was a boy so HE would learn to eat more intelligently. He was like 8 or 9, surrounded by crappy processed food at home that he mostly had to prepare himself, with an obese mom and a sugar-loving, chain-smoking dad...and the problem was thought to be HIS lack of self-control?!?! He found the experience of attending a diet club populated by middle aged women mortifying. I can't imagine the public weekly weigh-ins and the comments these adults probably made about the one child (probably also the one male; it was the 80's) in attendance! Today, he is an obese adult with real hostility towards any discussion of eating healthfully or losing weight.
Bottom line--I'm simultaneously scared about screwing things up for yet another generation, and excited and hopeful that parenting might be that final push I require to nail various behavioral problems and become the person I've always wanted to be. Do any of you know people that re-invented themselves via parenthood, especially in terms of food/eating/weight/addiction? I'd love to hear about it.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
I've been binging the last three days
And it's awful. It's not fun or pleasurable. It's highly distressing.
In terms of amounts, my binges are way smaller. The first two days, it was Easter candy and today it was angel food cake and whipped cream. But smaller amounts are little consolation. And frankly, I'm GLAD my standards are changing. I want them to. I'm glad I now find eating 6 servings of malted milk balls in a day to be alarming and depressing instead of no big deal. (The package contained a total of 7 servings, and it was hard for me to not finish the box just for the sake of finishing it.)
One of the frustrating things about blogging is that I say something one day, and truly mean it--such as when I declared the other day that "I no longer feel compelled to finish things just for the sake of finishing things"--and then days like today, I have to turn around and announce that I was wrong. Something will occur that shows me I haven't moved entirely past this issue or that behavioral tendency, and then I feel embarrassed about my earlier statements. I try to be conservative in my proclamations to avoid this very thing, but it still happens.
How did I fall into binging again? Well first, I felt urges to binge for three straight days. On the evening of the third day, I developed a killer headache. That was my breaking point. I was beyond frustrated that the urges did not abate for three days despite my efforts to ignore them, neutralize them, distract myself, calm myself through meditation...none of my regular techniques worked. I was already raw from that, and add a bad headache and a really monstrous period and I just didn't care anymore. I wanted relief from the urges to binge NOW and there was one surefire way to accomplish that: binge.
So, I now know what my current breaking point is. It used to be I couldn't withstand the urges for mere hours. Now I can tolerate up to three days of irritating urges before giving in, but I can't tolerate four days or five days. And I guess can't tolerate the urges coupled with severe physical pain. When I say "can't", I mean that my firsthand experience indicates I cannot YET do it; that my skills and strength aren't sufficient for that level of challenge.
The next time I face a real challenging stretch of days, I may do much better. Maybe I'll be better at disassociating from the urges, better at calming myself, or better at interrupting my behavioral patterns by then.
One might wonder why I felt urges to binge for three straight days in the first place. I think many of the things that have historically triggered my urges to binge simply happened simultaneously: hormones and a very atypical period, problems in two of my closest relationships, health worries, exhaustion from special errands I was doing for someone this week, rumination over career concerns, and more. It was an uncharacteristically bad week. Yet these triggers didn't make a binge inevitable. All these triggers would have amounted to nothing had I dealt with the urges they sparked in a more skillful way.
All this has reminded me of what Hansen says in Brain Over Binge--
1. Life is messy and it's impossible to control or avoid triggers, especially when you have lots of potential triggers. So the answer lies in dealing effectively with the urges you experience, not in directly managing/tackling triggers.
2. I binged to get rid of my urges to binge. The urge to binge IS the disorder itself.
3. By binging, I reinforced my brain's problematic wiring. Each day of binging was more extreme than the day before, and I felt increasingly out of touch with my Highest Human Brain/Highest Self as the binging went on.
I must become calm and non-reactive in the face of my urges. I'm trying to figure out how to do that consistently. It's led me to try meditation, work on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy exercises, and more. I marvel at how Hansen was able to just...stop. So quickly. She understood how her brain was tripping her up, decided to look at the urges she experienced through a different lens, and made rapid progress from there. If I play the comparison game too much, I start to get scared that I'm "doing it wrong" or that "this approach won't REALLY work for me." But rationally I know that just because something is difficult doesn't mean my approach is faulty. (Quite the opposite, usually!)
I admit I miss the honeymoon period I enjoyed when I first finished reading the book: things seemed very clear and easy to me for a few weeks. I still consider Brain Over Binge a fantastic resource and a trusty map forward! But more and more, I feel like the real work is just beginning for me.
In terms of amounts, my binges are way smaller. The first two days, it was Easter candy and today it was angel food cake and whipped cream. But smaller amounts are little consolation. And frankly, I'm GLAD my standards are changing. I want them to. I'm glad I now find eating 6 servings of malted milk balls in a day to be alarming and depressing instead of no big deal. (The package contained a total of 7 servings, and it was hard for me to not finish the box just for the sake of finishing it.)
One of the frustrating things about blogging is that I say something one day, and truly mean it--such as when I declared the other day that "I no longer feel compelled to finish things just for the sake of finishing things"--and then days like today, I have to turn around and announce that I was wrong. Something will occur that shows me I haven't moved entirely past this issue or that behavioral tendency, and then I feel embarrassed about my earlier statements. I try to be conservative in my proclamations to avoid this very thing, but it still happens.
How did I fall into binging again? Well first, I felt urges to binge for three straight days. On the evening of the third day, I developed a killer headache. That was my breaking point. I was beyond frustrated that the urges did not abate for three days despite my efforts to ignore them, neutralize them, distract myself, calm myself through meditation...none of my regular techniques worked. I was already raw from that, and add a bad headache and a really monstrous period and I just didn't care anymore. I wanted relief from the urges to binge NOW and there was one surefire way to accomplish that: binge.
So, I now know what my current breaking point is. It used to be I couldn't withstand the urges for mere hours. Now I can tolerate up to three days of irritating urges before giving in, but I can't tolerate four days or five days. And I guess can't tolerate the urges coupled with severe physical pain. When I say "can't", I mean that my firsthand experience indicates I cannot YET do it; that my skills and strength aren't sufficient for that level of challenge.
The next time I face a real challenging stretch of days, I may do much better. Maybe I'll be better at disassociating from the urges, better at calming myself, or better at interrupting my behavioral patterns by then.
One might wonder why I felt urges to binge for three straight days in the first place. I think many of the things that have historically triggered my urges to binge simply happened simultaneously: hormones and a very atypical period, problems in two of my closest relationships, health worries, exhaustion from special errands I was doing for someone this week, rumination over career concerns, and more. It was an uncharacteristically bad week. Yet these triggers didn't make a binge inevitable. All these triggers would have amounted to nothing had I dealt with the urges they sparked in a more skillful way.
All this has reminded me of what Hansen says in Brain Over Binge--
1. Life is messy and it's impossible to control or avoid triggers, especially when you have lots of potential triggers. So the answer lies in dealing effectively with the urges you experience, not in directly managing/tackling triggers.
2. I binged to get rid of my urges to binge. The urge to binge IS the disorder itself.
3. By binging, I reinforced my brain's problematic wiring. Each day of binging was more extreme than the day before, and I felt increasingly out of touch with my Highest Human Brain/Highest Self as the binging went on.
I must become calm and non-reactive in the face of my urges. I'm trying to figure out how to do that consistently. It's led me to try meditation, work on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy exercises, and more. I marvel at how Hansen was able to just...stop. So quickly. She understood how her brain was tripping her up, decided to look at the urges she experienced through a different lens, and made rapid progress from there. If I play the comparison game too much, I start to get scared that I'm "doing it wrong" or that "this approach won't REALLY work for me." But rationally I know that just because something is difficult doesn't mean my approach is faulty. (Quite the opposite, usually!)
I admit I miss the honeymoon period I enjoyed when I first finished reading the book: things seemed very clear and easy to me for a few weeks. I still consider Brain Over Binge a fantastic resource and a trusty map forward! But more and more, I feel like the real work is just beginning for me.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Clothing, priorities, ACT, and identifying the animal brain
I did some shopping yesterday for bras and walking shoes. I also bought a couple of tops. It’s always a painful experience. I’ve got tons of mental baggage in the clothing/appearance department and I’ve also got several undeniable cosmetic challenges—horrible skin and hair (hirsutism) problems being the tip of the iceberg. It makes me feel monstrous.
I have other challenges that are more run of the mill—finding stuff that is simultaneously age appropriate, modest, and aesthetically pleasing to me can be difficult. I require plus size pants that are petite length; I require wide shoes and will not torture myself with really high heels or with body shapers like Spanx; I don’t show cleavage and in fact cover as much skin as possible, yet I don’t want to dress like my grandmother, either. Most clothing, undergarments, and shoes do not work for me on one level or another, but hell, I know I’m not the only woman that feels this way.
Even though I don’t enjoy shopping, I’m trying to move beyond the sports bras, sloppy hoodies, and baggy jeans that I’ve been wearing the last few years. I’m trying to build a small workable wardrobe and wear jewelry again, something I used to love doing. When my fingers got too big for my wedding and engagement rings, I stopped wearing ALL jewelry. On some level, I think I didn’t feel like I deserved to wear jewelry anymore. I was so ashamed of myself. My rings still don’t fit and I’m still unhappy about that, but I think it’s time for me to move forward as best as I can.
I was planning to do a multi-part series on clothing, cosmetics, and beauty: all the challenges I face, my thoughts on the plus-size fashion industry, my thoughts on materialism, vanity, social class, and identity, where I’m actually shopping now, and so forth. Last night I wrote an outline for these posts.
Then I realized what a big distraction it all was. I can only devote so much of my time and energy to this issue and I’d be better off spending my time a.) actually shopping and finding what I need, even though that’s less fun than writing, and b.) working at normalizing my eating so I can lose weight, because the smaller I become, the easier it is to dress myself. As I go down the scale I have more options, things fit better, my feet are less swollen, “real” bras (meaning bras that are not sports bras) are less painful to find and wear, the inner thigh areas of my pants are less likely to disintegrate, I don’t have to pile on as many layers in an attempt to mask fat rolls, and I could go on.
It comes down to priorities, again and again. There’s a million things we could all potentially do, but which of them are the most important? Is taking pictures of my outfits for this blog the best use of my time? I don’t think so. What’s the endgame there, anyway? Do I want people to stroke my ego and tell me what great taste I have? Do I need people to pat me on the head? With much of what people do on their weight loss blogs, I’m not sure what the point is, what the underlying motivation is and whether it’s truly healthy…but I can definitely get sucked into doing what other people are doing in a mindless way if I’m not careful.
There is so much power in clarity, in knowing what's important to YOU. My thirtieth birthday is this summer and I’m getting clearer about what I’d like to accomplish by that milestone. My two objectives—my two true priorities—are earning money as a writer by age 30 and being further along in my eating disorder recovery and general mental health progress by age 30. That’s it.
The writing I hope to earn money from has nothing to do with this blog, so I won’t go into that now.
As far as general mental health goes, I will be continuing with meditation whilst bringing psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment to a close around my birthday. I’ve been with my current therapist for almost four years now and while it has been helpful, I do not think I can accomplish much more with her or through the psychodynamic model.
If I resume therapy in the future, which is entirely possible because depression tends to recur, I want to seek out someone that specializes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I’m ordering some books on ACT that will allow me to get started on my own now; when practiced without the guidance of a therapist, ACT is called Acceptance and Commitment Training. I’m really excited to learn more. ACT and Buddhism share many concepts and techniques, but because ACT is entirely secular, I think it might be easier for me to work with long-term.
ACT is also very much in line with the Brain Over Binge approach—so much so, I’m going to e-mail the author about it. She doesn’t mention it in her book, but I think she’d find it highly relevant.
General mental health and eating disorder recovery go hand in hand, but what should the next stage in my eating disorder recovery be? Well, I feel like a broken record: I want to feel confident that the binging is behind me. I want to know that I don’t fall for the antics of my animal brain anymore.
My classic binges are gone and what remains are behavioral episodes that could be considered overeating, but perhaps could also be considered a new, milder form of binging. No matter what you call it, the animal brain is getting its way in these episodes and I don’t want to reinforce such patterns. So I’m drawing an (admittedly arbitrary) line to gain some clarity, some certainty that the lower brain isn’t running the show: on an average day with no special social events, any urge to eat more than one sweet in a sane portion size will be viewed as neurological junk emanating from my lower brain. As both Kathryn Hansen has said on her blog and a helpful commenter has said on mine just the other day, it’s good to decide the portion size in advance, before you start eating. That way, if you eat more than you set out to, you know your animal brain has won that round. It’s important to face that reality when it happens.
Yesterday, I had a rich almond croissant for breakfast. In the afternoon, I had a candy bar. And at night, I had two little boxes of Nerds candy. With the new "line" in place, any urge to eat sweets after that croissant would have been viewed as silly mental chatter to be ignored. It was a regular Thursday, after all.
However, when I travel to visit my family for Easter in a couple weeks, I might have more than one dessert on a given day. Normal eaters do this sometimes during travel and during the holidays. I know many different people will be having us over for lunch and dinner and will be offering us baked goods and holiday candy. I just have to decide how much is reasonable before I start eating, and stick to that. It’s the mindless and compulsive shoveling of food that is the problem.
Note that I’m not making hard and fast rules, exactly. This is slightly different. I’m trying to establish definitions more than anything else: what behaviors do I define as normal and healthy and acceptable and coming from my higher brain, and what behaviors do I define as stemming from my lower brain’s tricks and antics? If I cave to the urges emanating from my animal brain, I need to figure out why it happened and how I can prevent it from happening again. This is not on-the-wagon-off-the-wagon stuff. I’m sick of crafting programs and systems with rules that are practically made to be broken. They make ME feel broken when I inevitably screw up, and it's too discouraging. I like to think that I'm not broken, but I am undergoing a re-wiring or re-programming of sorts so that I can function better.
I have other challenges that are more run of the mill—finding stuff that is simultaneously age appropriate, modest, and aesthetically pleasing to me can be difficult. I require plus size pants that are petite length; I require wide shoes and will not torture myself with really high heels or with body shapers like Spanx; I don’t show cleavage and in fact cover as much skin as possible, yet I don’t want to dress like my grandmother, either. Most clothing, undergarments, and shoes do not work for me on one level or another, but hell, I know I’m not the only woman that feels this way.
Even though I don’t enjoy shopping, I’m trying to move beyond the sports bras, sloppy hoodies, and baggy jeans that I’ve been wearing the last few years. I’m trying to build a small workable wardrobe and wear jewelry again, something I used to love doing. When my fingers got too big for my wedding and engagement rings, I stopped wearing ALL jewelry. On some level, I think I didn’t feel like I deserved to wear jewelry anymore. I was so ashamed of myself. My rings still don’t fit and I’m still unhappy about that, but I think it’s time for me to move forward as best as I can.
I was planning to do a multi-part series on clothing, cosmetics, and beauty: all the challenges I face, my thoughts on the plus-size fashion industry, my thoughts on materialism, vanity, social class, and identity, where I’m actually shopping now, and so forth. Last night I wrote an outline for these posts.
Then I realized what a big distraction it all was. I can only devote so much of my time and energy to this issue and I’d be better off spending my time a.) actually shopping and finding what I need, even though that’s less fun than writing, and b.) working at normalizing my eating so I can lose weight, because the smaller I become, the easier it is to dress myself. As I go down the scale I have more options, things fit better, my feet are less swollen, “real” bras (meaning bras that are not sports bras) are less painful to find and wear, the inner thigh areas of my pants are less likely to disintegrate, I don’t have to pile on as many layers in an attempt to mask fat rolls, and I could go on.
It comes down to priorities, again and again. There’s a million things we could all potentially do, but which of them are the most important? Is taking pictures of my outfits for this blog the best use of my time? I don’t think so. What’s the endgame there, anyway? Do I want people to stroke my ego and tell me what great taste I have? Do I need people to pat me on the head? With much of what people do on their weight loss blogs, I’m not sure what the point is, what the underlying motivation is and whether it’s truly healthy…but I can definitely get sucked into doing what other people are doing in a mindless way if I’m not careful.
There is so much power in clarity, in knowing what's important to YOU. My thirtieth birthday is this summer and I’m getting clearer about what I’d like to accomplish by that milestone. My two objectives—my two true priorities—are earning money as a writer by age 30 and being further along in my eating disorder recovery and general mental health progress by age 30. That’s it.
The writing I hope to earn money from has nothing to do with this blog, so I won’t go into that now.
As far as general mental health goes, I will be continuing with meditation whilst bringing psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment to a close around my birthday. I’ve been with my current therapist for almost four years now and while it has been helpful, I do not think I can accomplish much more with her or through the psychodynamic model.
If I resume therapy in the future, which is entirely possible because depression tends to recur, I want to seek out someone that specializes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I’m ordering some books on ACT that will allow me to get started on my own now; when practiced without the guidance of a therapist, ACT is called Acceptance and Commitment Training. I’m really excited to learn more. ACT and Buddhism share many concepts and techniques, but because ACT is entirely secular, I think it might be easier for me to work with long-term.
ACT is also very much in line with the Brain Over Binge approach—so much so, I’m going to e-mail the author about it. She doesn’t mention it in her book, but I think she’d find it highly relevant.
General mental health and eating disorder recovery go hand in hand, but what should the next stage in my eating disorder recovery be? Well, I feel like a broken record: I want to feel confident that the binging is behind me. I want to know that I don’t fall for the antics of my animal brain anymore.
My classic binges are gone and what remains are behavioral episodes that could be considered overeating, but perhaps could also be considered a new, milder form of binging. No matter what you call it, the animal brain is getting its way in these episodes and I don’t want to reinforce such patterns. So I’m drawing an (admittedly arbitrary) line to gain some clarity, some certainty that the lower brain isn’t running the show: on an average day with no special social events, any urge to eat more than one sweet in a sane portion size will be viewed as neurological junk emanating from my lower brain. As both Kathryn Hansen has said on her blog and a helpful commenter has said on mine just the other day, it’s good to decide the portion size in advance, before you start eating. That way, if you eat more than you set out to, you know your animal brain has won that round. It’s important to face that reality when it happens.
Yesterday, I had a rich almond croissant for breakfast. In the afternoon, I had a candy bar. And at night, I had two little boxes of Nerds candy. With the new "line" in place, any urge to eat sweets after that croissant would have been viewed as silly mental chatter to be ignored. It was a regular Thursday, after all.
However, when I travel to visit my family for Easter in a couple weeks, I might have more than one dessert on a given day. Normal eaters do this sometimes during travel and during the holidays. I know many different people will be having us over for lunch and dinner and will be offering us baked goods and holiday candy. I just have to decide how much is reasonable before I start eating, and stick to that. It’s the mindless and compulsive shoveling of food that is the problem.
Note that I’m not making hard and fast rules, exactly. This is slightly different. I’m trying to establish definitions more than anything else: what behaviors do I define as normal and healthy and acceptable and coming from my higher brain, and what behaviors do I define as stemming from my lower brain’s tricks and antics? If I cave to the urges emanating from my animal brain, I need to figure out why it happened and how I can prevent it from happening again. This is not on-the-wagon-off-the-wagon stuff. I’m sick of crafting programs and systems with rules that are practically made to be broken. They make ME feel broken when I inevitably screw up, and it's too discouraging. I like to think that I'm not broken, but I am undergoing a re-wiring or re-programming of sorts so that I can function better.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Information and Fear Hangover
Well, I did it again.
My little celebration of positive changes and 20 pounds gone lasted a few hours, and then the next challenge presented itself.
Some history: I have these nagging unpleasant sensations throughout the right side of my abdomen, and some swelling around my right ribcage. This has been going on since mid-2009 and it scares me. I've had tests done: bloodwork, CT scans, a special gallbladder test, ultrasound, endoscopy. I've consulted with my internist, gynecologist, and gastroenterologist. They can't find anything wrong with me. They did notice my spleen is slightly enlarged, but I feel nothing out of the ordinary on the left side of my abdomen where the spleen is located. My bathroom habits and periods are the same as they were before these sensations started (sorry if TMI).
After all those tests resulted in no answers, I just went on with my life. I felt the sensations--ranging from weird to annoying to very occasionally slightly painful--every single day. My upper right abdomen remains bloated and tender to the touch. It's been just over a year since my last round of tests and inquiries and my side has been bothering me much more lately. I'm grappling with a sense of panic, shame, and regret for not continuing to pursue answers. I worry something is actually terribly wrong with me and I'm gearing up for another round of medical fun, starting with an annual physical and going from there. This time I'm going to push harder for explanations and solutions.
All this is background to what I really sat down to write about. Yesterday, I was thinking for the millionth time about trying an elimination diet to see if that could help my symptoms. Perhaps I could eliminate dairy for a few weeks and observe, and then repeat the experiment with wheat/gluten. At the same time, I think about the reality of binge eating disorder, the way I'm JUST NOW starting to get better and normalize my relationship with all foods, and the fact that forbidding something as common as dairy or wheat might create a real mental and behavioral backlash. I don't want that to happen.
A bit later, I found myself on the Whole9 website. These folks have created a paleo elimination diet called the Whole30. I must have browsed the site for hours, even though I had already familiarized myself with it the first time I researched paleo and primal eating in the middle of last year.
By the time I was done reading, I had concluded I was a weak piece of shit, will probably end up with a cancer diagnosis next month, and will die shortly thereafter. Or if that doesn't happen, I will likely develop multiple sclerosis by age 32 and ruin my husband's life. That I'm killing myself with every bite of grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes I take and if something bad happens to me, I completely deserve it because I completely caused it.
I went to bed miserable and scared, and did not get up until this afternoon. I did not want to deal with my thoughts, feelings, or life in general. When I finally got up and got moving around, I honestly felt hungover from the night before and the first thing I wanted to do is eat both pints of ice cream in my freezer. Two unopened pints of premium, limited edition flavor ice cream that have been sitting there, ignored, for days. That I had been looking forward to savoring at some point, but had no urgency to eat whatsoever. (And these are the kinds of changes I've been so pleased with lately!)
I quickly realized this was a reaction to the fear-inducing material I had read the night before. Either I was starting to think about a strict elimination diet at the back of my mind and therefore creating the urge to rebel or "get it while I still can"--or I was wanting to numb myself from the panic I'm feeling about my health and my apparently suicidal eating of black beans and yogurt. Either way, I did not act upon my fleeting thoughts. I did not binge.
I'm sure there is value in the Whole9 approach. I'm sure they are right about several things. But I am also sure of the following:
I don't respond well to a tough love approach. If you check out the site I'm talking about you will quickly pick up on the tough love/dietary badass tone that many people dig and that I personally find exhausting. I take the "know thyself" bit seriously, and I do know this about myself.
Fear and stress are bad for your health. Surely as bad as canola oil or brown rice. Enough said.
Fear, guilt, and shame are not good foundations for behavioral change in most people. Fear has sparked me into action before, sure, but never sustained action leading to long-term change. And I'm seeking sustainable actions and long-term changes!
Lots of well-meaning, knowledgeable people don't know anything about binge eating disorder and therefore are not equipped to advise someone with it. Even the experts "don't know what they don't know", so to speak. It still amazes me how rare it is to find someone talking about obesity and binge eating and general health in holistic brain-body terms. In most discussions, it seems we are either all brains or all body.
So, I need to go to the doctor. I may experiment with reducing or eliminating dairy and/or wheat and/or gluten in the future, on my own terms. I cannot disrupt the progress I'm making with my eating disorder right now. And I need to stay far, far away from nutrition websites. Especially the badass kind.
Edit: In the spirit of honesty and also because my food record for the week clearly states it, I want to record here that I did binge later in the day, after writing this post. Nothing like my old binges in terms of amounts, but I would classify it as a binge nonetheless because of my mindset and approach at the time of eating.
My little celebration of positive changes and 20 pounds gone lasted a few hours, and then the next challenge presented itself.
Some history: I have these nagging unpleasant sensations throughout the right side of my abdomen, and some swelling around my right ribcage. This has been going on since mid-2009 and it scares me. I've had tests done: bloodwork, CT scans, a special gallbladder test, ultrasound, endoscopy. I've consulted with my internist, gynecologist, and gastroenterologist. They can't find anything wrong with me. They did notice my spleen is slightly enlarged, but I feel nothing out of the ordinary on the left side of my abdomen where the spleen is located. My bathroom habits and periods are the same as they were before these sensations started (sorry if TMI).
After all those tests resulted in no answers, I just went on with my life. I felt the sensations--ranging from weird to annoying to very occasionally slightly painful--every single day. My upper right abdomen remains bloated and tender to the touch. It's been just over a year since my last round of tests and inquiries and my side has been bothering me much more lately. I'm grappling with a sense of panic, shame, and regret for not continuing to pursue answers. I worry something is actually terribly wrong with me and I'm gearing up for another round of medical fun, starting with an annual physical and going from there. This time I'm going to push harder for explanations and solutions.
All this is background to what I really sat down to write about. Yesterday, I was thinking for the millionth time about trying an elimination diet to see if that could help my symptoms. Perhaps I could eliminate dairy for a few weeks and observe, and then repeat the experiment with wheat/gluten. At the same time, I think about the reality of binge eating disorder, the way I'm JUST NOW starting to get better and normalize my relationship with all foods, and the fact that forbidding something as common as dairy or wheat might create a real mental and behavioral backlash. I don't want that to happen.
A bit later, I found myself on the Whole9 website. These folks have created a paleo elimination diet called the Whole30. I must have browsed the site for hours, even though I had already familiarized myself with it the first time I researched paleo and primal eating in the middle of last year.
By the time I was done reading, I had concluded I was a weak piece of shit, will probably end up with a cancer diagnosis next month, and will die shortly thereafter. Or if that doesn't happen, I will likely develop multiple sclerosis by age 32 and ruin my husband's life. That I'm killing myself with every bite of grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes I take and if something bad happens to me, I completely deserve it because I completely caused it.
I went to bed miserable and scared, and did not get up until this afternoon. I did not want to deal with my thoughts, feelings, or life in general. When I finally got up and got moving around, I honestly felt hungover from the night before and the first thing I wanted to do is eat both pints of ice cream in my freezer. Two unopened pints of premium, limited edition flavor ice cream that have been sitting there, ignored, for days. That I had been looking forward to savoring at some point, but had no urgency to eat whatsoever. (And these are the kinds of changes I've been so pleased with lately!)
I quickly realized this was a reaction to the fear-inducing material I had read the night before. Either I was starting to think about a strict elimination diet at the back of my mind and therefore creating the urge to rebel or "get it while I still can"--or I was wanting to numb myself from the panic I'm feeling about my health and my apparently suicidal eating of black beans and yogurt. Either way, I did not act upon my fleeting thoughts. I did not binge.
I'm sure there is value in the Whole9 approach. I'm sure they are right about several things. But I am also sure of the following:
I don't respond well to a tough love approach. If you check out the site I'm talking about you will quickly pick up on the tough love/dietary badass tone that many people dig and that I personally find exhausting. I take the "know thyself" bit seriously, and I do know this about myself.
Fear and stress are bad for your health. Surely as bad as canola oil or brown rice. Enough said.
Fear, guilt, and shame are not good foundations for behavioral change in most people. Fear has sparked me into action before, sure, but never sustained action leading to long-term change. And I'm seeking sustainable actions and long-term changes!
Lots of well-meaning, knowledgeable people don't know anything about binge eating disorder and therefore are not equipped to advise someone with it. Even the experts "don't know what they don't know", so to speak. It still amazes me how rare it is to find someone talking about obesity and binge eating and general health in holistic brain-body terms. In most discussions, it seems we are either all brains or all body.
So, I need to go to the doctor. I may experiment with reducing or eliminating dairy and/or wheat and/or gluten in the future, on my own terms. I cannot disrupt the progress I'm making with my eating disorder right now. And I need to stay far, far away from nutrition websites. Especially the badass kind.
Edit: In the spirit of honesty and also because my food record for the week clearly states it, I want to record here that I did binge later in the day, after writing this post. Nothing like my old binges in terms of amounts, but I would classify it as a binge nonetheless because of my mindset and approach at the time of eating.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A binge by any other name
The good news is that my Valentine's Day lingerie went over well.
The bad news is that I pretty much binged on Valentine's Day. It may not have been a classic binge, but it was very, very close to one. I'm not sure what to call it, besides "disturbing."
A few things came together to make this happen:
1. I had a casual attitude since it was a holiday. Thought it'd be ok to indulge a little more than usual.
2. I was experiencing PMS and having cravings.
3. I ate a piece of candy in the morning, which is never a good idea for me. The earlier in the day I have something like candy, the more I want to graze on it the remainder of the day. Plus, eating sweets first thing in the morning reminds me of my old binging days, when I would eat whatever was left over from the previous night's binge as my breakfast. So there's a pattern ingrained in me of start the day with cookies/candy/ice cream/donuts-->the day is ruined, so fuck it-->spend the rest of the day binging.
4. I think I was miffed that my husband didn't buy me any chocolates or the like this year, so I resentfully attempted to treat myself. (Again, with the general moodiness that can come with PMS, I'm not entirely sure how resentful I truly was.)
5. The contents of my recent post on eating sweets, in which I talk about experimenting with periods of complete abstinence, made me panic on some level. Even though I hadn't decided when or how long I would undertake such an experiment, telling myself something like that was coming triggered my old issues and weird thinking.
6. I didn't disassociate from my urges to eat one thing after another as the day progressed. It's as if I forgot to view those urges as nonsense; I forgot what I learned in "Brain Over Binge." That lack of mindfulness, of awareness, is the scariest thing of all to me.
So, which one of my binge patterns was displayed on Valentine's Day? Number 3. From a previous post:
"The third kind of binge involves day-long overeating and non-stop grazing on sugary, junky foods. I grab different treats as I go about my day. It's very mindless and scattered, but there's deceit involved, too. [For example,] I eat 2 cupcakes privately and then later eat 3 cookies in front of another person...
...it's more helpful to note the way I went about eating multiple things. Did I lie to or mislead anyone? Do I feel guilty, paranoid, or ashamed--or did I thoroughly enjoy it?"
It was my mindset that surprised and troubled me even more than the specific things I ate. My memory of how paranoid and hostile I used to feel in binge mode had faded a bit, but there it was again.
Here's what happened.
In the morning and early afternoon, I ate a few pieces of chocolate candy from the bag of chocolate-caramel-cashew clusters I had bought my husband as a Valentine's Day gift. A bag that had been in the house for about 2 weeks without me thinking about it. All was fine.
Later in the afternoon, I went to Trader Joe's for regular grocery shopping. There are these donut holes covered in powdered sugar in the bakery section that I've been noticing (and passing up) for months. I grabbed them and vowed to try them mindfully in the car instead of stuffing them in my face on the drive home. Hey, a little Valentine's Day treat! No secrets! My husband can also enjoy them, and I bet we can even keep the leftovers in the house with no problem and have the rest another day. Cool.
I get in the car and note the serving size is four donut holes, so that's how many I'm going to eat. After the first one or two, a voice pipes up and cries: EAT THEM ALL! EVERY LAST ONE! I ignore it. The donut holes are ok, but nothing great. I haven't eaten sweets in the car for a month and a half now, but I used to do it all the time in the Old Binge Days. And just like in those days, I find myself looking about and feeling agitated by the potential "witnesses" around me--people parking near me, passing my vehicle with their shopping cart, etc. I try to make it less obvious that I'm eating, and as a result, can't focus on the experience of eating. My embarrassment is overpowering my intention to be mindful. I eat a total of five, and even though five donut holes isn't a binge, something weird is happening in my head.
I drive home and unload my groceries. As I place the donut holes on the counter along with everything else, I tell my husband that I bought them because he didn't get me anything special in terms of food/chocolate, that they weren't that good, and that I was disappointed I had eaten some. He says we can throw them away and go out for something more enjoyable. I agree, and into the trash they go.
There's a Starbucks inside a local Barnes & Noble and that's where I want to go. I like their cupcakes, and it's been months since I've gotten anything there. My husband expresses disapproval because he doesn't like Starbucks--yet he doesn't want anything to eat or drink himself, so there's no reason for him to choose our destination. I snap at him that this kind of arguing with me and policing me on what and where I eat contributes to my issues and makes me want to eat secretly behind his back, just so I don't have to listen to him nag. He capitulates, we go to Starbucks, and I feel irritated and defensive.
And once in front of the bakery case, I fully felt like my old dysfunctional self again. I COULD NOT decide between the vanilla and the chocolate cupcake. I felt desperate to have both. I thought about getting the vanilla one and then eating all the chocolate chips stored in the pantry at home later. I end up ordering the vanilla and also buying 2 little chocolate-covered graham crackers to have with it--something I don't care about and would NEVER buy, even back in the day.
And then, suddenly, I feel hostile towards everyone around me. I feel like people are looking at me and judging me as I walk about in search of an empty table. In my head I'm saying "fuck you, fuck you, and fuuuuck you"...to complete strangers. Just like in the car earlier, I can't focus on the treat in front of me because I'm too busy scanning my surroundings and feeling ashamed. I'm worried that my husband will come back from browsing books and see that I've bought two things and that he'll be disappointed in me. I don't even taste the second half of my cupcake. (Meaning: I ate it but barely noticed what I was putting in my mouth.)
We go out for dinner afterwards--nothing fancy, just Chinese--and I eat my entire entree even though I'm not hungry at all and there's no need to do so. And that was Valentine's Day.
It wasn't like my old binges, in the sense that it involved less sneaking around behind my husband's back. Those stupid graham crackers were the only thing that I wanted to hide. Everything else was out in the open. Also, the amount of food I ate at any one time wasn't that much. In the past, I could have easily eaten all the donut holes, then stopped somewhere on the way home to discard the box (the evidence)...and STILL insisted on going out for a treat. Sad but true. When we returned home after dinner in the evening, I didn't attack the chocolate chips or the candy I bought my husband or anything like that.
But the paranoia, embarrassment, guilt, stress, and hostility towards others was like a binge. That's what I really need to look out for, because it indicates something has gone haywire and tells me that I need to get quiet and figure out what it is. Those emotions indicate that my lower brain--the animal brain that has been threatened by my lack of binging--has momentarily gained control and is trying to run wild while it can. And it's afraid someone is going to take away its prize.
Takeaway lessons:
1. Pay attention to emotions. Hostility is a major red flag.
2. Be aware of old environmental triggers, like the car. Eating privately at home is better; I can relax enough to focus on the food, and then I feel satisfied with less.
3. Don't involve my husband in the decision-making process when it comes to sweets. It's an old sore spot. I've got to answer to myself and do this for me.
4. I'm not working on periods of total abstention anytime soon. Clearly, the thought of that makes me panic. I think a little something every day/most days is the skill to master right now.
5. Slip ups happen. This isn't proof that I will always be a hopeless binge eater. It's evidence I have more to learn, and that is all.
The bad news is that I pretty much binged on Valentine's Day. It may not have been a classic binge, but it was very, very close to one. I'm not sure what to call it, besides "disturbing."
A few things came together to make this happen:
1. I had a casual attitude since it was a holiday. Thought it'd be ok to indulge a little more than usual.
2. I was experiencing PMS and having cravings.
3. I ate a piece of candy in the morning, which is never a good idea for me. The earlier in the day I have something like candy, the more I want to graze on it the remainder of the day. Plus, eating sweets first thing in the morning reminds me of my old binging days, when I would eat whatever was left over from the previous night's binge as my breakfast. So there's a pattern ingrained in me of start the day with cookies/candy/ice cream/donuts-->the day is ruined, so fuck it-->spend the rest of the day binging.
4. I think I was miffed that my husband didn't buy me any chocolates or the like this year, so I resentfully attempted to treat myself. (Again, with the general moodiness that can come with PMS, I'm not entirely sure how resentful I truly was.)
5. The contents of my recent post on eating sweets, in which I talk about experimenting with periods of complete abstinence, made me panic on some level. Even though I hadn't decided when or how long I would undertake such an experiment, telling myself something like that was coming triggered my old issues and weird thinking.
6. I didn't disassociate from my urges to eat one thing after another as the day progressed. It's as if I forgot to view those urges as nonsense; I forgot what I learned in "Brain Over Binge." That lack of mindfulness, of awareness, is the scariest thing of all to me.
So, which one of my binge patterns was displayed on Valentine's Day? Number 3. From a previous post:
"The third kind of binge involves day-long overeating and non-stop grazing on sugary, junky foods. I grab different treats as I go about my day. It's very mindless and scattered, but there's deceit involved, too. [For example,] I eat 2 cupcakes privately and then later eat 3 cookies in front of another person...
...it's more helpful to note the way I went about eating multiple things. Did I lie to or mislead anyone? Do I feel guilty, paranoid, or ashamed--or did I thoroughly enjoy it?"
It was my mindset that surprised and troubled me even more than the specific things I ate. My memory of how paranoid and hostile I used to feel in binge mode had faded a bit, but there it was again.
Here's what happened.
In the morning and early afternoon, I ate a few pieces of chocolate candy from the bag of chocolate-caramel-cashew clusters I had bought my husband as a Valentine's Day gift. A bag that had been in the house for about 2 weeks without me thinking about it. All was fine.
Later in the afternoon, I went to Trader Joe's for regular grocery shopping. There are these donut holes covered in powdered sugar in the bakery section that I've been noticing (and passing up) for months. I grabbed them and vowed to try them mindfully in the car instead of stuffing them in my face on the drive home. Hey, a little Valentine's Day treat! No secrets! My husband can also enjoy them, and I bet we can even keep the leftovers in the house with no problem and have the rest another day. Cool.
I get in the car and note the serving size is four donut holes, so that's how many I'm going to eat. After the first one or two, a voice pipes up and cries: EAT THEM ALL! EVERY LAST ONE! I ignore it. The donut holes are ok, but nothing great. I haven't eaten sweets in the car for a month and a half now, but I used to do it all the time in the Old Binge Days. And just like in those days, I find myself looking about and feeling agitated by the potential "witnesses" around me--people parking near me, passing my vehicle with their shopping cart, etc. I try to make it less obvious that I'm eating, and as a result, can't focus on the experience of eating. My embarrassment is overpowering my intention to be mindful. I eat a total of five, and even though five donut holes isn't a binge, something weird is happening in my head.
I drive home and unload my groceries. As I place the donut holes on the counter along with everything else, I tell my husband that I bought them because he didn't get me anything special in terms of food/chocolate, that they weren't that good, and that I was disappointed I had eaten some. He says we can throw them away and go out for something more enjoyable. I agree, and into the trash they go.
There's a Starbucks inside a local Barnes & Noble and that's where I want to go. I like their cupcakes, and it's been months since I've gotten anything there. My husband expresses disapproval because he doesn't like Starbucks--yet he doesn't want anything to eat or drink himself, so there's no reason for him to choose our destination. I snap at him that this kind of arguing with me and policing me on what and where I eat contributes to my issues and makes me want to eat secretly behind his back, just so I don't have to listen to him nag. He capitulates, we go to Starbucks, and I feel irritated and defensive.
And once in front of the bakery case, I fully felt like my old dysfunctional self again. I COULD NOT decide between the vanilla and the chocolate cupcake. I felt desperate to have both. I thought about getting the vanilla one and then eating all the chocolate chips stored in the pantry at home later. I end up ordering the vanilla and also buying 2 little chocolate-covered graham crackers to have with it--something I don't care about and would NEVER buy, even back in the day.
And then, suddenly, I feel hostile towards everyone around me. I feel like people are looking at me and judging me as I walk about in search of an empty table. In my head I'm saying "fuck you, fuck you, and fuuuuck you"...to complete strangers. Just like in the car earlier, I can't focus on the treat in front of me because I'm too busy scanning my surroundings and feeling ashamed. I'm worried that my husband will come back from browsing books and see that I've bought two things and that he'll be disappointed in me. I don't even taste the second half of my cupcake. (Meaning: I ate it but barely noticed what I was putting in my mouth.)
We go out for dinner afterwards--nothing fancy, just Chinese--and I eat my entire entree even though I'm not hungry at all and there's no need to do so. And that was Valentine's Day.
It wasn't like my old binges, in the sense that it involved less sneaking around behind my husband's back. Those stupid graham crackers were the only thing that I wanted to hide. Everything else was out in the open. Also, the amount of food I ate at any one time wasn't that much. In the past, I could have easily eaten all the donut holes, then stopped somewhere on the way home to discard the box (the evidence)...and STILL insisted on going out for a treat. Sad but true. When we returned home after dinner in the evening, I didn't attack the chocolate chips or the candy I bought my husband or anything like that.
But the paranoia, embarrassment, guilt, stress, and hostility towards others was like a binge. That's what I really need to look out for, because it indicates something has gone haywire and tells me that I need to get quiet and figure out what it is. Those emotions indicate that my lower brain--the animal brain that has been threatened by my lack of binging--has momentarily gained control and is trying to run wild while it can. And it's afraid someone is going to take away its prize.
Takeaway lessons:
1. Pay attention to emotions. Hostility is a major red flag.
2. Be aware of old environmental triggers, like the car. Eating privately at home is better; I can relax enough to focus on the food, and then I feel satisfied with less.
3. Don't involve my husband in the decision-making process when it comes to sweets. It's an old sore spot. I've got to answer to myself and do this for me.
4. I'm not working on periods of total abstention anytime soon. Clearly, the thought of that makes me panic. I think a little something every day/most days is the skill to master right now.
5. Slip ups happen. This isn't proof that I will always be a hopeless binge eater. It's evidence I have more to learn, and that is all.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Not recovered, but recovering: January 2009 versus January 2012
*Trigger warning. Don't read if junk food descriptions set you off.*
By January of 2009, I had understood for some years already that I had binge eating disorder. I was on my second therapist, and I was trying to come up with a way to curtail the amount of sweets I ate. I decided to try to limit myself to one treat day during the week and one treat day on the weekend. I thought that was moderate and realistic.
Later that year, I would discover the no-S diet and see that it had several similarities to the sort of thing I had been trying to do on my own. I went on to attempt no-S for part of 2009. And after no-S, I went on to try lots more things, including Overeaters Anonymous.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In January 2009, I was simply trying to come up with a personalized, realistic way to get a grip. I started keeping records in a little book of the sweets I consumed. And this is my sad, alarming record for that month. It shows the ugly face of Binge Eating Disorder, for sure.
Jan 5: peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, 2 mint pudding cups with whipped cream, 2 Andes mints
Jan 10&11: several pieces of German chocolate cake, assorted candy (orange slices, Hershey kisses, mini Reese's cups, crispy chocolate coins), several pieces of marshmallow-chocolate-peanut butter bars, chocolate chip cookie
Jan 13: McDonald's mocha, Dairy Queen blizzard, cookies, 2 mint pudding cups with whipped cream, banana bread with butter
Jan 14: cranberry-banana bread, 2 donuts and a chocolate milk, pudding cup, mini Heath blizzard
Jan 16: sherbet, ice cream with whipped cream, mint pudding cup, various cookies
Jan 17: whipped cream, bit of caramel corn
Jan 18: caramel corn, Hershey's syrup straight out of the bottle, chocolate milk, some apple pie, crumpets with butter and jam
Jan 20: 3 Kit-Kats, 2 bowls of granola
Jan 23: bowl of granola, chocolate cupcake, vanilla cupcake, 2 regular Reese's cups
Jan 26: glazed donut, slice of Reese's cake
Jan 28: coconut flan, tres leches cake piece, English muffin with butter and preserves, granola with milk
Jan 31: 6 Oreos, vanilla cupcake, chocolate milk, hot fudge sundae
And that was me trying HARD to do better! I'm too lazy to transcribe all I wrote down in January 2009, but there are so many notes on the days I binged that say "this tasted like crap" or "wasn't worth it" or "I felt sick and disgusting after this" or "I had cramps and diarrhea the rest of the night." Not to mention, I was upset over my inability to keep the sweets to just two days a week.
Fast forward to 2012. These are the sweets I ate:
Jan 7: chocolate chip cookies and milk
Jan 8: a few peanut m&m's and Lindt truffles
Jan 10: a couple tastes of lemon curd and a few mini candy canes
Jan 12: 9 white fudge-covered Oreos, pint of red velvet ice cream
Jan 13: 3 white fudge-covered Oreos, rice krispie treat, 5-6 donuts, 3-4 bowls of sugary cereal
*read Brain over Binge on Jan 14 and 15*
Jan 16: regular size m&m's
Jan 20: 1 slice German chocolate cake
Jan 21: puppy chow (aka muddy buddies)
Jan 23: most of a small piece of lemon cake
Jan 28: half a small piece of flan, chocolate mousse, and 3/4 regular Hershey bar
I read that and think "it's still way too much." But it's undeniably better. I ate fewer things and smaller amounts. I didn't make myself sick repeatedly and my eating didn't devastate me emotionally. It wasn't a monumental struggle to go a few days between treats. I also know I eat better meals now than I did then; I have more protein and vegetables these days.
I wonder what January 2013 will look like?
By January of 2009, I had understood for some years already that I had binge eating disorder. I was on my second therapist, and I was trying to come up with a way to curtail the amount of sweets I ate. I decided to try to limit myself to one treat day during the week and one treat day on the weekend. I thought that was moderate and realistic.
Later that year, I would discover the no-S diet and see that it had several similarities to the sort of thing I had been trying to do on my own. I went on to attempt no-S for part of 2009. And after no-S, I went on to try lots more things, including Overeaters Anonymous.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In January 2009, I was simply trying to come up with a personalized, realistic way to get a grip. I started keeping records in a little book of the sweets I consumed. And this is my sad, alarming record for that month. It shows the ugly face of Binge Eating Disorder, for sure.
Jan 5: peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, 2 mint pudding cups with whipped cream, 2 Andes mints
Jan 10&11: several pieces of German chocolate cake, assorted candy (orange slices, Hershey kisses, mini Reese's cups, crispy chocolate coins), several pieces of marshmallow-chocolate-peanut butter bars, chocolate chip cookie
Jan 13: McDonald's mocha, Dairy Queen blizzard, cookies, 2 mint pudding cups with whipped cream, banana bread with butter
Jan 14: cranberry-banana bread, 2 donuts and a chocolate milk, pudding cup, mini Heath blizzard
Jan 16: sherbet, ice cream with whipped cream, mint pudding cup, various cookies
Jan 17: whipped cream, bit of caramel corn
Jan 18: caramel corn, Hershey's syrup straight out of the bottle, chocolate milk, some apple pie, crumpets with butter and jam
Jan 20: 3 Kit-Kats, 2 bowls of granola
Jan 23: bowl of granola, chocolate cupcake, vanilla cupcake, 2 regular Reese's cups
Jan 26: glazed donut, slice of Reese's cake
Jan 28: coconut flan, tres leches cake piece, English muffin with butter and preserves, granola with milk
Jan 31: 6 Oreos, vanilla cupcake, chocolate milk, hot fudge sundae
And that was me trying HARD to do better! I'm too lazy to transcribe all I wrote down in January 2009, but there are so many notes on the days I binged that say "this tasted like crap" or "wasn't worth it" or "I felt sick and disgusting after this" or "I had cramps and diarrhea the rest of the night." Not to mention, I was upset over my inability to keep the sweets to just two days a week.
Fast forward to 2012. These are the sweets I ate:
Jan 7: chocolate chip cookies and milk
Jan 8: a few peanut m&m's and Lindt truffles
Jan 10: a couple tastes of lemon curd and a few mini candy canes
Jan 12: 9 white fudge-covered Oreos, pint of red velvet ice cream
Jan 13: 3 white fudge-covered Oreos, rice krispie treat, 5-6 donuts, 3-4 bowls of sugary cereal
*read Brain over Binge on Jan 14 and 15*
Jan 16: regular size m&m's
Jan 20: 1 slice German chocolate cake
Jan 21: puppy chow (aka muddy buddies)
Jan 23: most of a small piece of lemon cake
Jan 28: half a small piece of flan, chocolate mousse, and 3/4 regular Hershey bar
I read that and think "it's still way too much." But it's undeniably better. I ate fewer things and smaller amounts. I didn't make myself sick repeatedly and my eating didn't devastate me emotionally. It wasn't a monumental struggle to go a few days between treats. I also know I eat better meals now than I did then; I have more protein and vegetables these days.
I wonder what January 2013 will look like?
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
High Anxiety
I realized tonight that I'm feeling really anxious. I consciously ate out of anxiety just a few minutes back. Not a binge, but I was knowingly and willingly eating to satisfy the urge to eat unnecessarily.
The anxiety is coming from two things. First, my husband came back today after more than two weeks away on a trip. While he was gone, I read "Brain Over Binge" and made some really positive changes to the way I was eating. Mealtimes were quiet, slow, peaceful--almost meditative. I only had myself to think about and cook for, and that made things much easier for me. Truth be told, I don't like being responsible for someone else's food--probably due to the numerous food/eating issues I have, and also because at 9 or 10 years old, it was already my assigned chore to cook dinner for our immediate family of seven on a regular basis. Over time, I have really grown to resent the task of cooking and cleaning up after others. I'd love to change this about myself, and occasionally do feel a bit of pride from serving others a nice meal and hearing my husband's compliments. But if he told me tomorrow that I was relieved of all cooking duties forever, I would cry tears of joy. (In case you are wondering, it is our agreement that until I'm making decent money from working--whether outside the home or as a self-employed person at home--one of my main contributions to the household is to cook wholesome food on a daily basis. I don't like it, but think it's only fair that I "earn my keep", like anyone else.)
Anyway, he's back. And now I'm scrambling to cook for him again. I just can't ever seem to find a steady, sane rhythm for meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking--unless it's for a party of one. Meaning, just me. (This does make me scared of parenthood, by the way.) I don't have any confidence in my ability to make his breakfast, pack his lunch, and make his dinner consistently and on time while tending to my health needs and all the other things I need and want to do. If this makes him sound like an evil tyrant, he's not. He does demand lots of food (and is effortlessly slim, bah!) so I can get pretty exasperated with what seems like a never-ending task. But he's not a tyrant. If my inability to cook for one other human being and still function makes me sound ridiculous...well, believe me, I feel ridiculous. But there's some basic areas of functioning I struggle with, and this is one of them.
I ate mindlessly tonight, and zoned out in front of the TV for over an hour. When I came up for air, I realized I was just really, really anxious that everything is going to go to shit again. That I'm going to fall into binging again, for starters. That I won't have the presence of mind to remember or apply the things I learned in "Brain Over Binge" and will go crashing off the tracks. I started saying to myself "you're anxious right now. It's ok that you are. You are anxious..." My eyes welled up, saying that. It helped a bit to recognize it, and made me sit down to blog. That's a start.
I think I need mindfulness meditation classes. Seriously. I don't want to come unraveled over these seemingly small issues anymore!
At the beginning of this ramble, I said I was anxious about two things. The second thing is that I am starting to hop on the scale waaaaay too often. I'm starting to nitpick my food choices and scold myself for eating too much. Too many sweet things. Not enough water. Too much eating at night. I'm getting nutsy and impatient for substantial weight loss and thinking about alllllll the habits I need to change in order to really transform my body.
This is not a productive state of mind at all. Less than two weeks ago, I was binging. I need to be happy that I'm not binging right now, and build slowly and steadily from here. I know I'm in this for the long haul, yet I still fall into the trap of wanting and expecting too much, too soon.
Not binging, and eating my daily vegetable, and getting my exercise in...that's ambitious enough. My last binge was on January 13, so tonight I figured that I can focus simply on not binging for a month. Say, through Valentine's Day. On February 15th, perhaps I can add another facet to my plan.
Right now, I need to chill. Deep breath.
The anxiety is coming from two things. First, my husband came back today after more than two weeks away on a trip. While he was gone, I read "Brain Over Binge" and made some really positive changes to the way I was eating. Mealtimes were quiet, slow, peaceful--almost meditative. I only had myself to think about and cook for, and that made things much easier for me. Truth be told, I don't like being responsible for someone else's food--probably due to the numerous food/eating issues I have, and also because at 9 or 10 years old, it was already my assigned chore to cook dinner for our immediate family of seven on a regular basis. Over time, I have really grown to resent the task of cooking and cleaning up after others. I'd love to change this about myself, and occasionally do feel a bit of pride from serving others a nice meal and hearing my husband's compliments. But if he told me tomorrow that I was relieved of all cooking duties forever, I would cry tears of joy. (In case you are wondering, it is our agreement that until I'm making decent money from working--whether outside the home or as a self-employed person at home--one of my main contributions to the household is to cook wholesome food on a daily basis. I don't like it, but think it's only fair that I "earn my keep", like anyone else.)
Anyway, he's back. And now I'm scrambling to cook for him again. I just can't ever seem to find a steady, sane rhythm for meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking--unless it's for a party of one. Meaning, just me. (This does make me scared of parenthood, by the way.) I don't have any confidence in my ability to make his breakfast, pack his lunch, and make his dinner consistently and on time while tending to my health needs and all the other things I need and want to do. If this makes him sound like an evil tyrant, he's not. He does demand lots of food (and is effortlessly slim, bah!) so I can get pretty exasperated with what seems like a never-ending task. But he's not a tyrant. If my inability to cook for one other human being and still function makes me sound ridiculous...well, believe me, I feel ridiculous. But there's some basic areas of functioning I struggle with, and this is one of them.
I ate mindlessly tonight, and zoned out in front of the TV for over an hour. When I came up for air, I realized I was just really, really anxious that everything is going to go to shit again. That I'm going to fall into binging again, for starters. That I won't have the presence of mind to remember or apply the things I learned in "Brain Over Binge" and will go crashing off the tracks. I started saying to myself "you're anxious right now. It's ok that you are. You are anxious..." My eyes welled up, saying that. It helped a bit to recognize it, and made me sit down to blog. That's a start.
I think I need mindfulness meditation classes. Seriously. I don't want to come unraveled over these seemingly small issues anymore!
At the beginning of this ramble, I said I was anxious about two things. The second thing is that I am starting to hop on the scale waaaaay too often. I'm starting to nitpick my food choices and scold myself for eating too much. Too many sweet things. Not enough water. Too much eating at night. I'm getting nutsy and impatient for substantial weight loss and thinking about alllllll the habits I need to change in order to really transform my body.
This is not a productive state of mind at all. Less than two weeks ago, I was binging. I need to be happy that I'm not binging right now, and build slowly and steadily from here. I know I'm in this for the long haul, yet I still fall into the trap of wanting and expecting too much, too soon.
Not binging, and eating my daily vegetable, and getting my exercise in...that's ambitious enough. My last binge was on January 13, so tonight I figured that I can focus simply on not binging for a month. Say, through Valentine's Day. On February 15th, perhaps I can add another facet to my plan.
Right now, I need to chill. Deep breath.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The problem with my rewards system
There are several problems, actually.
First off, the rewards system I am referring to is the thing I was tracking in a "Rewards" tab at the top of this page (now removed, but you can see December 2011's record *here*). I was trying to indulge myself with something other than sugary foods in the hope that doing so would build a new perspective, a new habit, and ongoing motivation for rejecting junk food. On days that I skipped desserts, I bought myself a small reward, like some makeup or an inexpensive book. On days that I ate sweets, I wouldn't purchase anything.
I thought this was a good idea because I've heard this suggestion many times in the context of getting over binge eating: you have to learn to treat and reward yourself with something other than food. Food can't be your main source of fun, entertainment, or pleasure anymore, so look for new options. And I also thought my system was smart because I was rewarding myself for meeting a process/action goal (getting through the day without sweets) that would lead to the achievement of 2 important outcome goals (weight loss and the termination of binge eating disorder).
Even though some thought had gone into this system and there was good intent behind it, I no longer think it's a great idea. In fact, I think it might work against me. Here are the problems I see with it now:
It reflects the (mis)understanding that buying something nice for myself will get me to stop craving massive amounts of sugary food. But when the urge to binge hits, books and sweaters and eyeliner aren't going to do anything to take that urge away. There is much useful discussion in "Brain Over Binge" about this--why well-intentioned advice to take a bubble bath or call a friend or buy yourself a bouquet of flowers when you feel like binging doesn't help lots of people. Those things aren't what the animal brain wants, so they don't satisfy the urge. The urge to binge will remain so long as you fight it, run from it, identify with it, and/or obey it.
It causes me to internally label each day and myself as either "good" or "bad" based on what I ate. It also makes me see sweets in an oversimplified way. Whether I ate a couple of homemade cookies or an entire box of trans-fatty snack cakes, I failed to act properly because I used sugar.
It encourages binge eating because of "I blew the day" and "I want to make use of this day" thinking. This is related to the point above. Since I viewed each day as PASS/FAIL, I wanted my FAIL days to "count" in the sense that I wanted to pack in the pleasure before the clean slate of tomorrow arrived. Why stop with the handful of m&m's when my "grade" is going to be the same whether I eat a little or totally binge?
The worst binge I had this month (and incidentally, the last binge I had before reading "Brain Over Binge") was on a day in which I had 3 Oreos first thing in the morning and was so exasperated with myself for "blowing the day" right away that I thought screw it. Today's a write off. I'm having whatever the hell I want now, and I'll try again tomorrow. That was my decision...30 minutes after getting out of bed. To make a not-so-smart morning into a totally reckless day. I wrote about it and received this great comment from someone called rk23:
I'm working on that "I've already screwed up, may as well continue" mindset as well. I keep trying to tell myself that no food is off-limits entirely, so I don't *need* to 'make the most of' today and begin anything anew tomorrow. Whatever food is tempting me will still be available some other time. I don't need to eat it all now. But that's tough. I know that for me saying "I'll start (again) tomorrow" is always a bad thing. Tomorrow comes and I don't want to start then either. I have to conceptualize today and tomorrow and every day as just my life, with no sense of stopping or starting or resolving to change. And even though I've learned to manage some feelings with self-talk, I'm finding that the way out of a binge cycle for me is just to *stop* talking to myself and do the best I can here and now without regard for what I might've done yesterday or what I don't want to do tomorrow.
After I read "Brain Over Binge", rk23's comment made even more sense to me. (Thank you rk23, whoever you are!)
So I'm suspending this little rewards system until further notice. My intention now is to CELEBRATE each loss of five pounds with a purchase of some sort, and I'll probably share those purchases on the blog. When it comes to day-to-day motivation for meeting process/action goals, I'll just have to be satisfied with the immediate reward for exercising, not binging, etc., which is feeling more energetic, clear-headed, and hopeful about the future.
First off, the rewards system I am referring to is the thing I was tracking in a "Rewards" tab at the top of this page (now removed, but you can see December 2011's record *here*). I was trying to indulge myself with something other than sugary foods in the hope that doing so would build a new perspective, a new habit, and ongoing motivation for rejecting junk food. On days that I skipped desserts, I bought myself a small reward, like some makeup or an inexpensive book. On days that I ate sweets, I wouldn't purchase anything.
I thought this was a good idea because I've heard this suggestion many times in the context of getting over binge eating: you have to learn to treat and reward yourself with something other than food. Food can't be your main source of fun, entertainment, or pleasure anymore, so look for new options. And I also thought my system was smart because I was rewarding myself for meeting a process/action goal (getting through the day without sweets) that would lead to the achievement of 2 important outcome goals (weight loss and the termination of binge eating disorder).
Even though some thought had gone into this system and there was good intent behind it, I no longer think it's a great idea. In fact, I think it might work against me. Here are the problems I see with it now:
It reflects the (mis)understanding that buying something nice for myself will get me to stop craving massive amounts of sugary food. But when the urge to binge hits, books and sweaters and eyeliner aren't going to do anything to take that urge away. There is much useful discussion in "Brain Over Binge" about this--why well-intentioned advice to take a bubble bath or call a friend or buy yourself a bouquet of flowers when you feel like binging doesn't help lots of people. Those things aren't what the animal brain wants, so they don't satisfy the urge. The urge to binge will remain so long as you fight it, run from it, identify with it, and/or obey it.
It causes me to internally label each day and myself as either "good" or "bad" based on what I ate. It also makes me see sweets in an oversimplified way. Whether I ate a couple of homemade cookies or an entire box of trans-fatty snack cakes, I failed to act properly because I used sugar.
It encourages binge eating because of "I blew the day" and "I want to make use of this day" thinking. This is related to the point above. Since I viewed each day as PASS/FAIL, I wanted my FAIL days to "count" in the sense that I wanted to pack in the pleasure before the clean slate of tomorrow arrived. Why stop with the handful of m&m's when my "grade" is going to be the same whether I eat a little or totally binge?
The worst binge I had this month (and incidentally, the last binge I had before reading "Brain Over Binge") was on a day in which I had 3 Oreos first thing in the morning and was so exasperated with myself for "blowing the day" right away that I thought screw it. Today's a write off. I'm having whatever the hell I want now, and I'll try again tomorrow. That was my decision...30 minutes after getting out of bed. To make a not-so-smart morning into a totally reckless day. I wrote about it and received this great comment from someone called rk23:
I'm working on that "I've already screwed up, may as well continue" mindset as well. I keep trying to tell myself that no food is off-limits entirely, so I don't *need* to 'make the most of' today and begin anything anew tomorrow. Whatever food is tempting me will still be available some other time. I don't need to eat it all now. But that's tough. I know that for me saying "I'll start (again) tomorrow" is always a bad thing. Tomorrow comes and I don't want to start then either. I have to conceptualize today and tomorrow and every day as just my life, with no sense of stopping or starting or resolving to change. And even though I've learned to manage some feelings with self-talk, I'm finding that the way out of a binge cycle for me is just to *stop* talking to myself and do the best I can here and now without regard for what I might've done yesterday or what I don't want to do tomorrow.
After I read "Brain Over Binge", rk23's comment made even more sense to me. (Thank you rk23, whoever you are!)
So I'm suspending this little rewards system until further notice. My intention now is to CELEBRATE each loss of five pounds with a purchase of some sort, and I'll probably share those purchases on the blog. When it comes to day-to-day motivation for meeting process/action goals, I'll just have to be satisfied with the immediate reward for exercising, not binging, etc., which is feeling more energetic, clear-headed, and hopeful about the future.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Separating my goals
Stop binge eating. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Lose weight.
Over time, I've made these individual goals into one big, formidable, jumbled, mountainous goal. I might as well state the goal as: do EVERYTHING differently, NOW!
It's almost to the point that I dislike the word "goal" and want to replace it with intent or plan or project or something else that's less loaded for me.
Anyway, I'm starting to separate all these worthy objectives in my mind. The cessation of binge eating is a different objective than "eat more nutritious foods, more often." Exercise doesn't depend on diet (which isn't to say that diet doesn't affect exercise performance). And losing weight is a goal that one can only pursue indirectly, via action goals like "eat better" and "eat less" and "exercise more".
(Um, asking myself what the point of this rambling is...I'm just trying to gather my thoughts, I guess.)
1. Stopping the binges is my most important objective.
2. "Eat healthier" is vague, so let me state my intention to eat at least one vegetable every day and to stop multi-tasking during meals so I can be more aware of portion sizes and satiety. (2 veggies and a fruit every day would be great; I would be proud of that.)
3. I'd like to do 2 cardio sessions, 2 strength training sessions, and 2 stretching (yoga and similar) sessions each week, and to work out at least 3 days per week. (I'd have to two 2 different things each day, like yoga+cardio or strength+yoga to get this all done in 3 days, which is why I think most weeks I'd need 4 or 5 days to get it all done.) I don't care whether it's at the gym, at home, or some combination thereof. I don't care which days of the week or what time of day. I'm done trying to figure out a perfect, foolproof, consistent workout routine in terms of days and activities. My life is too unstructured for that, so I'm going to try the approach of fitting in activity wherever I can manage while having an overall objective for the week.
4. I'd like to weigh 200 pounds again. Ultimately less, but for right now, that's what I want to accomplish. No longer binge eating would take me most of the way there, and a better diet and more exercise will take me the rest of the way. But I think it's important to separate these components in my mind so that a screw up in one area isn't used as a justification to slack off in the other areas. Skipping vegetables doesn't justify skipping exercise. Missing a couple workouts doesn't mean it's okay to binge. Overeating at brunch doesn't justify a lack of vegetables at dinner.
In other words, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition anymore.
Over time, I've made these individual goals into one big, formidable, jumbled, mountainous goal. I might as well state the goal as: do EVERYTHING differently, NOW!
It's almost to the point that I dislike the word "goal" and want to replace it with intent or plan or project or something else that's less loaded for me.
Anyway, I'm starting to separate all these worthy objectives in my mind. The cessation of binge eating is a different objective than "eat more nutritious foods, more often." Exercise doesn't depend on diet (which isn't to say that diet doesn't affect exercise performance). And losing weight is a goal that one can only pursue indirectly, via action goals like "eat better" and "eat less" and "exercise more".
(Um, asking myself what the point of this rambling is...I'm just trying to gather my thoughts, I guess.)
1. Stopping the binges is my most important objective.
2. "Eat healthier" is vague, so let me state my intention to eat at least one vegetable every day and to stop multi-tasking during meals so I can be more aware of portion sizes and satiety. (2 veggies and a fruit every day would be great; I would be proud of that.)
3. I'd like to do 2 cardio sessions, 2 strength training sessions, and 2 stretching (yoga and similar) sessions each week, and to work out at least 3 days per week. (I'd have to two 2 different things each day, like yoga+cardio or strength+yoga to get this all done in 3 days, which is why I think most weeks I'd need 4 or 5 days to get it all done.) I don't care whether it's at the gym, at home, or some combination thereof. I don't care which days of the week or what time of day. I'm done trying to figure out a perfect, foolproof, consistent workout routine in terms of days and activities. My life is too unstructured for that, so I'm going to try the approach of fitting in activity wherever I can manage while having an overall objective for the week.
4. I'd like to weigh 200 pounds again. Ultimately less, but for right now, that's what I want to accomplish. No longer binge eating would take me most of the way there, and a better diet and more exercise will take me the rest of the way. But I think it's important to separate these components in my mind so that a screw up in one area isn't used as a justification to slack off in the other areas. Skipping vegetables doesn't justify skipping exercise. Missing a couple workouts doesn't mean it's okay to binge. Overeating at brunch doesn't justify a lack of vegetables at dinner.
In other words, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition anymore.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
How will I know whether I'm binging?
That sounds like a funny question. But if I'm committing myself to no more binges, I need to get clearer on what constitutes a binge, for me.
My behavior falls right in line with clinical descriptions of binge eating disorder. I eat abnormal amounts of (indulgent) food, often when not hungry, in a short period of time. I usually have a few episodes a week. I have eaten to the point of physical pain--from being so overstuffed--and have feelings of shame and regret afterwards. I often sneak food or wait until I'm alone to eat excessively.
Beyond those common themes, I have three kinds of binges. One is where I eat a large amount (usually a package with multiple servings inside) of one thing. I eat an entire package of Oreos in one sitting, or an entire box of snack cakes. I eat most of a quart of ice cream. I eat an entire family size bag of Reese's Pieces. Stuff like that. I do this alone, or at the very least, I eat some in front of others and finish off the rest behind closed doors soon afterward (often lying to my husband that "I threw the rest out", which makes me feel more horrible than the binge itself, and very guilty). I often watch TV or movies when binging this way.
In the second kind of binge, I buy several different things and eat most or all of it in one go. I might buy a pint or two of ice cream, a candy bar, and an individual serving sized bag of chocolate covered pretzels. I always, always do these alone. Again, TV is often involved.
The third kind of binge involves day-long overeating and non-stop grazing on sugary, junky foods. I grab different treats as I go about my day. It's very mindless and scattered, but there's deceit involved, too. I eat at home and then go out to dinner with my husband an hour later. I eat 2 cupcakes privately and then later eat 3 cookies in front of another person. I think these kinds of binges happen when I'm busier than usual or around more people (like when I have company at home) and don't have the opportunity for a "focused" binge.
So, I suppose my answer is: I know that I'm binging if I'm behaving like any of the three scenarios outlined above.
I don't want to make hard and fast rules, such as "if I eat two desserts in a single day, that's considered a binge." Because I think days like that are going to happen, and it's more helpful to note the way I went about eating multiple things. Did I lie to or mislead anyone? Do I feel guilty, paranoid, or ashamed--or did I thoroughly enjoy it? If it was too much, do I think I simply made a poor choice from a health perspective, or did I totally surrender to my animal brain? Did I scarf the stuff down in a desperate manner or try to distract myself with TV to drown out the protests of my rational voice? (Because I think that's what's behind the TV watching while binging. Thus, I think it's a good idea to focus entirely on the treat in front of me from here on out. I WANT to hear my higher brain from now on.)
My default way of eating regular food, by the way, is pretty unstructured and graze-y. It takes effort for me to sit down to distinct meals. I just want to nosh and snack and eat all day even when I'm not binging. I'm trying to make meals more concrete by sitting down at the table and not multitasking, and that should clear up some gray areas as well.
My behavior falls right in line with clinical descriptions of binge eating disorder. I eat abnormal amounts of (indulgent) food, often when not hungry, in a short period of time. I usually have a few episodes a week. I have eaten to the point of physical pain--from being so overstuffed--and have feelings of shame and regret afterwards. I often sneak food or wait until I'm alone to eat excessively.
Beyond those common themes, I have three kinds of binges. One is where I eat a large amount (usually a package with multiple servings inside) of one thing. I eat an entire package of Oreos in one sitting, or an entire box of snack cakes. I eat most of a quart of ice cream. I eat an entire family size bag of Reese's Pieces. Stuff like that. I do this alone, or at the very least, I eat some in front of others and finish off the rest behind closed doors soon afterward (often lying to my husband that "I threw the rest out", which makes me feel more horrible than the binge itself, and very guilty). I often watch TV or movies when binging this way.
In the second kind of binge, I buy several different things and eat most or all of it in one go. I might buy a pint or two of ice cream, a candy bar, and an individual serving sized bag of chocolate covered pretzels. I always, always do these alone. Again, TV is often involved.
The third kind of binge involves day-long overeating and non-stop grazing on sugary, junky foods. I grab different treats as I go about my day. It's very mindless and scattered, but there's deceit involved, too. I eat at home and then go out to dinner with my husband an hour later. I eat 2 cupcakes privately and then later eat 3 cookies in front of another person. I think these kinds of binges happen when I'm busier than usual or around more people (like when I have company at home) and don't have the opportunity for a "focused" binge.
So, I suppose my answer is: I know that I'm binging if I'm behaving like any of the three scenarios outlined above.
I don't want to make hard and fast rules, such as "if I eat two desserts in a single day, that's considered a binge." Because I think days like that are going to happen, and it's more helpful to note the way I went about eating multiple things. Did I lie to or mislead anyone? Do I feel guilty, paranoid, or ashamed--or did I thoroughly enjoy it? If it was too much, do I think I simply made a poor choice from a health perspective, or did I totally surrender to my animal brain? Did I scarf the stuff down in a desperate manner or try to distract myself with TV to drown out the protests of my rational voice? (Because I think that's what's behind the TV watching while binging. Thus, I think it's a good idea to focus entirely on the treat in front of me from here on out. I WANT to hear my higher brain from now on.)
My default way of eating regular food, by the way, is pretty unstructured and graze-y. It takes effort for me to sit down to distinct meals. I just want to nosh and snack and eat all day even when I'm not binging. I'm trying to make meals more concrete by sitting down at the table and not multitasking, and that should clear up some gray areas as well.
Putting "Brain Over Binge" to Work
I'm excited and nervous and happy and scared and all sorts of contradictory things right now.
Kathryn Hansen's excellent book--Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn't Work, and How I Recovered for Good
--has made me feel more hope (regarding getting over binge eating disorder) than I've felt in a long time. The concepts in the book aren't new to me; I've read about psychology, psychiatry, addiction, nutrition, lower versus higher brain, identification of the "addictive voice", neuroplasticity, etc. before. But there's something to the way Hansen has synthesized and presented this wealth of information that makes it click better. And there's something to the way she carefully distinguishes between terms like "trigger" (as in environmental, social, emotional triggers) and "urge" (urges to binge) that I find helpful. On top of it all, she tells her own story of recovery from bulimia very effectively. I recommend this book to anyone that binge eats.
So now it's time for me to make use of the things I learned from this book. I've already started; there was no "one last binge" or anything of the sort after I finished the book and decided to get going. That in itself is different from my usual pattern of behavior!
(The rest of this entry might not make total sense unless you've read the book...)
The thing I'm somewhat nervous about is my ability to disassociate from my urges. And I'm unsure where to draw the line in terms of food restrictions. Yes, it's my lower brain telling me to binge. It's also my lower brain telling me to eat mac and cheese for dinner when my higher brain/self has a weight loss goal and knows that other dinner choices would help me get there faster. The question quickly becomes: do I need to tackle everything at once? And how do I know, by cutting myself some slack (not by binge eating, but by eating less-than-stellar foods), that I'm not falling for the tricks of the lower brain and thereby strengthening it?
Hansen says she found it helpful to not be overly worried or restrictive about her food choices when she was kicking the binge habit. The main thing is to know what constitutes a binge for you, to eliminate binge eating, and then build from there as desired. (Read more on this, from her blog, *here*.)
So I'm taking that advice. Right now, I'm committed to NOT BINGE EATING. I don't view this as a license to eat junk for every meal and snack, but I am determined to not let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very good. And no longer binging would be very, very good indeed.
More to come on binges, separate nutrition goals, and the like!
Kathryn Hansen's excellent book--Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn't Work, and How I Recovered for Good
--has made me feel more hope (regarding getting over binge eating disorder) than I've felt in a long time. The concepts in the book aren't new to me; I've read about psychology, psychiatry, addiction, nutrition, lower versus higher brain, identification of the "addictive voice", neuroplasticity, etc. before. But there's something to the way Hansen has synthesized and presented this wealth of information that makes it click better. And there's something to the way she carefully distinguishes between terms like "trigger" (as in environmental, social, emotional triggers) and "urge" (urges to binge) that I find helpful. On top of it all, she tells her own story of recovery from bulimia very effectively. I recommend this book to anyone that binge eats. So now it's time for me to make use of the things I learned from this book. I've already started; there was no "one last binge" or anything of the sort after I finished the book and decided to get going. That in itself is different from my usual pattern of behavior!
(The rest of this entry might not make total sense unless you've read the book...)
The thing I'm somewhat nervous about is my ability to disassociate from my urges. And I'm unsure where to draw the line in terms of food restrictions. Yes, it's my lower brain telling me to binge. It's also my lower brain telling me to eat mac and cheese for dinner when my higher brain/self has a weight loss goal and knows that other dinner choices would help me get there faster. The question quickly becomes: do I need to tackle everything at once? And how do I know, by cutting myself some slack (not by binge eating, but by eating less-than-stellar foods), that I'm not falling for the tricks of the lower brain and thereby strengthening it?
Hansen says she found it helpful to not be overly worried or restrictive about her food choices when she was kicking the binge habit. The main thing is to know what constitutes a binge for you, to eliminate binge eating, and then build from there as desired. (Read more on this, from her blog, *here*.)
So I'm taking that advice. Right now, I'm committed to NOT BINGE EATING. I don't view this as a license to eat junk for every meal and snack, but I am determined to not let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very good. And no longer binging would be very, very good indeed.
More to come on binges, separate nutrition goals, and the like!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Mind blowing
I just finished reading Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen. My mind has officially been blown! I'm now looking back over my blog and seeing how much of what I've written reflects a deep misunderstanding of my problem and how to fix it.
Changes ahead, both for me and the blog.
Changes ahead, both for me and the blog.
Friday, January 13, 2012
It happened...because I told myself it was gonna happen
A particular thought often occurs before I descend into madness: that's it. I'm binging later.
It's a private thought I have when I'm in the company of others and I'm stressed or angry or irritated at the people/situation around me. And telling myself I'm "so going to do it" helps me get through whatever I need to get through. It's my default way of promising myself that comfort and oblivion are on the way, and that I need to simply need to muddle through until I can be alone and stuff my face.
I wish it stopped with that silly thought--that when I finally get a quiet moment to calm down, I wish I recognized it for ingrained coping mechanism it is, then rationally decided on another course of de-stressing. But that's not what happens. The thought seems like an ironclad decision. Once I think it, it's like the binge is a foregone conclusion. I MUST do it. In a way, it feels like I already did do it, just by thinking about doing it, and that the actual binge episode is merely the continuation of binging that started earlier in the day (even though it's not). Does that sound crazy to you?
I was helping a friend with some stressful stuff yesterday when the thought occurred to me. When I got home that night, I carried out my "promise." I went to the store (at night, which we all know almost guarantees a binge for me) and got ice cream. I was standing in line to check out when I saw limited edition Oreos on the aisle end display. They were a kind I normally get each Christmas, but skipped this Christmas. I was primed in every way to grab them, and I did. And as I scurried back to the register line, I had a flash of awareness in which I saw myself as a lab rat who was exhibiting the exact behaviors wanted and expected of me by the good folks (ha!) at Nabisco. I waved that nanosecond of discomfort and awareness away, made my purchase, went home, and ate a pint of ice cream and nine cookies along with a too-large plate of spaghetti.
That "I'm going to do it" thought is going to occur to me again and again in stressful situations. It does no good for me to "wish" my brain did something else. I need to practice doing something else, not make wishes. This is what I plan to do: the next time I think "I am SO going to binge later", I am going to tack on a few more sentences to my inner dialogue. "Well, binging is just one option. I might do that. But there's some other options too. Maybe I will do this instead..." and then I'm going to think of a few alternatives to eating and try to build anticipation for those alternatives.
That way, when I finally get alone later, I will be primed to try one of the non-binging alternatives. Maybe it won't feel like I've already binged and may as well "continue." Up until now, I've expected myself to make a better decision on the spot--at the crucial moment in the grocery store, or at home when the food is in front of me. But at that point, it's already too late. I need to work on the thoughts that precede my actions--thoughts that happen hours before when I'm still in the company of other people.
A similar kind of screwy thought process happens when I eat some small amount of junk--a few cookies or a few m&m's--and think "the day's already blown, so I'm going to make the most of it and start over tomorrow." That's the kind of thinking I'm engaging in right now, since I ate 3 leftover Oreos this morning for breakfast. I don't have an answer to this one, though. I know it's similarly irrational, and I know my flawed thinking is opening the floodgates on a later binge...but I haven't figured out how to talk to myself on this one.
Any suggestions?
It's a private thought I have when I'm in the company of others and I'm stressed or angry or irritated at the people/situation around me. And telling myself I'm "so going to do it" helps me get through whatever I need to get through. It's my default way of promising myself that comfort and oblivion are on the way, and that I need to simply need to muddle through until I can be alone and stuff my face.
I wish it stopped with that silly thought--that when I finally get a quiet moment to calm down, I wish I recognized it for ingrained coping mechanism it is, then rationally decided on another course of de-stressing. But that's not what happens. The thought seems like an ironclad decision. Once I think it, it's like the binge is a foregone conclusion. I MUST do it. In a way, it feels like I already did do it, just by thinking about doing it, and that the actual binge episode is merely the continuation of binging that started earlier in the day (even though it's not). Does that sound crazy to you?
I was helping a friend with some stressful stuff yesterday when the thought occurred to me. When I got home that night, I carried out my "promise." I went to the store (at night, which we all know almost guarantees a binge for me) and got ice cream. I was standing in line to check out when I saw limited edition Oreos on the aisle end display. They were a kind I normally get each Christmas, but skipped this Christmas. I was primed in every way to grab them, and I did. And as I scurried back to the register line, I had a flash of awareness in which I saw myself as a lab rat who was exhibiting the exact behaviors wanted and expected of me by the good folks (ha!) at Nabisco. I waved that nanosecond of discomfort and awareness away, made my purchase, went home, and ate a pint of ice cream and nine cookies along with a too-large plate of spaghetti.
That "I'm going to do it" thought is going to occur to me again and again in stressful situations. It does no good for me to "wish" my brain did something else. I need to practice doing something else, not make wishes. This is what I plan to do: the next time I think "I am SO going to binge later", I am going to tack on a few more sentences to my inner dialogue. "Well, binging is just one option. I might do that. But there's some other options too. Maybe I will do this instead..." and then I'm going to think of a few alternatives to eating and try to build anticipation for those alternatives.
That way, when I finally get alone later, I will be primed to try one of the non-binging alternatives. Maybe it won't feel like I've already binged and may as well "continue." Up until now, I've expected myself to make a better decision on the spot--at the crucial moment in the grocery store, or at home when the food is in front of me. But at that point, it's already too late. I need to work on the thoughts that precede my actions--thoughts that happen hours before when I'm still in the company of other people.
A similar kind of screwy thought process happens when I eat some small amount of junk--a few cookies or a few m&m's--and think "the day's already blown, so I'm going to make the most of it and start over tomorrow." That's the kind of thinking I'm engaging in right now, since I ate 3 leftover Oreos this morning for breakfast. I don't have an answer to this one, though. I know it's similarly irrational, and I know my flawed thinking is opening the floodgates on a later binge...but I haven't figured out how to talk to myself on this one.
Any suggestions?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Night time is NOT the right time
My last two posts have been about smarter evening snacking and how it's best if I stay home at night, especially when I'm feeling vulnerable and having binge thoughts. Yesterday, I ate a fantastic yogurt parfait at night and was pleased with myself for smart substituting. Tonight, I stayed home because I was experiencing alot of mental chatter and realized I can't trust a thought process that goes something like this: "your husband is out of town and no one can see what you are doing...hmm, ice cream sounds good...hey! you need some heavy duty tape for boxing up your Christmas decorations...why don't you go to the grocery store? You know, for tape. And maybe ice cream. But definitely--mostly--tape."
So I stayed home. Thing is, there were some mini candy canes still in the house and a jar of lemon curd in the fridge from the holidays and even though I wouldn't consider these temptations or problems normally, they were tonight. Eating a few mini candy canes and some lemon curd wasn't a catastrophic binge, but it was just sorta stupid and not worth the "muddiness", if you know what I mean. It murked up an otherwise sensible day. Those items are going into the trash as soon as I log off here because another evening like this evening will come soon enough, and I don't want broken candy canes laying around when it arrives.
So I stayed home. Thing is, there were some mini candy canes still in the house and a jar of lemon curd in the fridge from the holidays and even though I wouldn't consider these temptations or problems normally, they were tonight. Eating a few mini candy canes and some lemon curd wasn't a catastrophic binge, but it was just sorta stupid and not worth the "muddiness", if you know what I mean. It murked up an otherwise sensible day. Those items are going into the trash as soon as I log off here because another evening like this evening will come soon enough, and I don't want broken candy canes laying around when it arrives.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Don't go to the store at night
That's me, giving myself obvious advice. My husband and I do not buy junk food when we go grocery shopping. So in order for me to eat junk food, I have to make a separate trip to a store/pharmacy/gas station/restaurant, or bake something at home.
As the day goes on, I become more and more vulnerable to the siren song of high fructose corn syrup. Thus, it is not safe for me to go to shopping at night. At least not for now. My reserve of willpower is depleted by the day's activities and my thinking becomes fuzzier the later it gets.
On a related note, I wonder how much rising early for the day and going to bed fairly early as well would help with my weight loss. I'm not hypothesizing about metabolism or anything like that, but the mere avoidance of troublesome times of day.
The vast majority of my binges happen at night. When the binging continues for weeks at a time, it starts to bleed into other parts of the day. I find myself picking up donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast or eating nothing until 2 p.m., then heading to a bakery for cupcakes. It's sad that I lived that way for so long. Things are better now. But nighttime remains a horror zone for me.
I came up with a list of acceptable evening snacks. The next piece of the puzzle, then, is to stay home--where it's safe--and sweat out the cravings. What good is my virtuous little snack, all prepped and ready in the fridge, if run to the store and buy ice cream anyway?
Like I said, obvious advice.
As the day goes on, I become more and more vulnerable to the siren song of high fructose corn syrup. Thus, it is not safe for me to go to shopping at night. At least not for now. My reserve of willpower is depleted by the day's activities and my thinking becomes fuzzier the later it gets.
On a related note, I wonder how much rising early for the day and going to bed fairly early as well would help with my weight loss. I'm not hypothesizing about metabolism or anything like that, but the mere avoidance of troublesome times of day.
The vast majority of my binges happen at night. When the binging continues for weeks at a time, it starts to bleed into other parts of the day. I find myself picking up donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast or eating nothing until 2 p.m., then heading to a bakery for cupcakes. It's sad that I lived that way for so long. Things are better now. But nighttime remains a horror zone for me.
I came up with a list of acceptable evening snacks. The next piece of the puzzle, then, is to stay home--where it's safe--and sweat out the cravings. What good is my virtuous little snack, all prepped and ready in the fridge, if run to the store and buy ice cream anyway?
Like I said, obvious advice.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
When substitutions work
Really late last night, I had a fight with my husband.
After our fight, I headed to the pharmacy to pick up my thyroid medication refill. I knew I was in a vulnerable place and a binge seemed inevitable. I've bought junk from this particular pharmacy many times, and those big bags of red and green Christmas m&m's were on my mind for some reason. I sat in the car a long time outside the pharmacy, thinking "I don't want to do this. I want the pain to go away, and I know the binge is probably going to happen, but I'm so sick of being a slave to this compulsion." When I finally headed in, I had decided to go ahead and let whatever happen.
I walked the aisles stocked with cheap, mass-produced Christmas candy. I spotted the m&m's--the regular ones, the peanut butter ones, the peanut ones, the coconut ones, the mint ones, and the pretzel ones. (By the way, have the m&m, pop-tart, and Oreo minions decided to just keep "innovating" until every last American has diabetes, or what?) Nothing was looking that appealing. Then, lo! A thought occurred to me: this candy isn't going to change anything. The problem I'm having with my husband is still going to be there, whether I eat this crap or not.
I shuffled over to the other side of the store and picked up my prescription. Then I wandered the aisles that contain ice cream and packaged snack cakes. And THEN I remembered I had dark chocolate cherry Kind bars at home, and that I had planned to start using some of the more decadent Kind bars (there are a few varieties that are more dessert-y than others) to ward off binges at night. Something for those nights when I feel like I will go crazy if I don't have something comforting. I left the pharmacy with no junk food in tow.
I got home, ate the bar even though I was not hungry at all, and felt relieved. It was still emotional eating--still taking in calories my body didn't need at all--but it was 170 calories instead of however many are in a large bag of m&m's. I didn't feel compelled to have another bar, I didn't feel terrible about it afterward, and I didn't have a food hangover this morning.
I have days where nothing but full-on ice cream, chocolate, etc. will quiet the beast. PMS days come to mind. But there are days like yesterday and today where the beast is whimpering for a little something and is actually satisfied by a small taste/amount. NOT a small taste or amount of actual dessert, because that sets me off wanting more, but something dessert-LIKE. This afternoon, I was experiencing my millionth craving for eggnog so far this month, so I went home and made a whey protein smoothie with milk and a frozen banana. It was thick, cold, and slightly sweet, so it hit the spot. It worked today; it wouldn't have worked a couple of days ago in the midst of the PMS crazies. And frankly, I wouldn't want to be drinking a banana smoothie on Christmas while everyone else around me is having eggnog.
It's amazing to me that reasonable substitutions work sometimes. I hope I can get better at figuring out what kind of day it is, so to speak, and not going further with the comfort eating and indulgence eating than I need to on any given day.
After our fight, I headed to the pharmacy to pick up my thyroid medication refill. I knew I was in a vulnerable place and a binge seemed inevitable. I've bought junk from this particular pharmacy many times, and those big bags of red and green Christmas m&m's were on my mind for some reason. I sat in the car a long time outside the pharmacy, thinking "I don't want to do this. I want the pain to go away, and I know the binge is probably going to happen, but I'm so sick of being a slave to this compulsion." When I finally headed in, I had decided to go ahead and let whatever happen.
I walked the aisles stocked with cheap, mass-produced Christmas candy. I spotted the m&m's--the regular ones, the peanut butter ones, the peanut ones, the coconut ones, the mint ones, and the pretzel ones. (By the way, have the m&m, pop-tart, and Oreo minions decided to just keep "innovating" until every last American has diabetes, or what?) Nothing was looking that appealing. Then, lo! A thought occurred to me: this candy isn't going to change anything. The problem I'm having with my husband is still going to be there, whether I eat this crap or not.
I shuffled over to the other side of the store and picked up my prescription. Then I wandered the aisles that contain ice cream and packaged snack cakes. And THEN I remembered I had dark chocolate cherry Kind bars at home, and that I had planned to start using some of the more decadent Kind bars (there are a few varieties that are more dessert-y than others) to ward off binges at night. Something for those nights when I feel like I will go crazy if I don't have something comforting. I left the pharmacy with no junk food in tow.
I got home, ate the bar even though I was not hungry at all, and felt relieved. It was still emotional eating--still taking in calories my body didn't need at all--but it was 170 calories instead of however many are in a large bag of m&m's. I didn't feel compelled to have another bar, I didn't feel terrible about it afterward, and I didn't have a food hangover this morning.
I have days where nothing but full-on ice cream, chocolate, etc. will quiet the beast. PMS days come to mind. But there are days like yesterday and today where the beast is whimpering for a little something and is actually satisfied by a small taste/amount. NOT a small taste or amount of actual dessert, because that sets me off wanting more, but something dessert-LIKE. This afternoon, I was experiencing my millionth craving for eggnog so far this month, so I went home and made a whey protein smoothie with milk and a frozen banana. It was thick, cold, and slightly sweet, so it hit the spot. It worked today; it wouldn't have worked a couple of days ago in the midst of the PMS crazies. And frankly, I wouldn't want to be drinking a banana smoothie on Christmas while everyone else around me is having eggnog.
It's amazing to me that reasonable substitutions work sometimes. I hope I can get better at figuring out what kind of day it is, so to speak, and not going further with the comfort eating and indulgence eating than I need to on any given day.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Binge
December 8 food log:
scrambled eggs with Canadian bacon
mini cupcakes
mini candy cane cookies
milk
nachos with melted cheese
Moving on...
scrambled eggs with Canadian bacon
mini cupcakes
mini candy cane cookies
milk
nachos with melted cheese
Moving on...
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