Flexible menu planning

Last Sunday, I wrote out a menu plan for this week.  This kind of thing never helped me before when I tried it, because I'd throw the whole plan away once I deviated from it, or I'd make it ridiculously detailed and rigid and full of labor-intensive dishes that required me to follow a recipe.

This time, I approached it differently in several ways.

1.  I told myself I could deviate from the written menu as needed; that the plan was merely a suggestion of meals I could make with the things I had on hand.  And I didn't care about switching Monday's dinner with Wednesday's lunch, or flipping the order of breakfasts around, or any of that.  I was totally flexible.

2.  I was realistic about the fact my husband and I would end up eating out a couple of times during the week, and that at least one day could be taken care with leftovers, so I didn't plan a dinner for every night of the week.  I planned 4 dinners and it worked out well. 

3.  I kept the food simple.  I accepted that I have limited patience, energy, and enthusiasm for sophisticated cooking.  I can try my hand at something new, or follow a recipe, or make something that requires me to wash several tools, pots, and pans for one dish...about once a week.  Beyond that, I feel hassled.

4.  I didn't worry about perfect balance or healthfulness.  I wanted to encourage myself to eat some good vegetables, fruits, and proteins, to eat at home a bit more, to throw together something more wholesome than buttered toast and milk for breakfast.  And I accomplished that!

I had some junky things this week, like flavored yogurts, french fries, buttered French bread, and a cheeseburger from Dairy Queen. But thanks mostly to my flexible menu planning, I also ate:

spinach

purple cabbage

carrots

red peppers

onions

tomatoes

green beans

zucchini

potatoes

broccoli with loads of fresh garlic

tangerines

strawberries

blueberries

an apple

cherries

orange juice

almonds

salmon

chicken 

eggs

lean Canadian bacon

turkey breast

All in all, not a bad week.  I like this system!

I recorded what I ate each day and I also jotted down what challenged me each day.  I'm starting to accept that every day, I will be challenged by cravings for crappy food.  It's predictable, it's not going anywhere, and I no longer see the point in getting so upset over it.  Sometimes I am going to give in to the cravings; more often, I am not.  None of the cravings lasted as long as I feared they would, and they usually occur in the afternoon or evening--I'm not being tortured from sunrise to sunset with these food thoughts.  The most irritating thing is when I crave the same item for many days in a row.  This is what I craved this week (I did not give in to any of these cravings, by the way):

Monday: craved McDonald's fries and hot fudge sundae

Tuesday: craved McDonald's milkshake or vanilla cone

Wednesday: craved chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard from Dairy Queen

Thursday: craved sugary kid's cereal. wanted to chow down on a whole box.

Friday: tempted to order cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, where we ate dinner

Saturday: felt like eating a pastry from the Starbucks inside my favorite Barnes & Noble

Sunday: considered making a fruit cobbler and smothering it in vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

These thoughts are ANNOYING, but they don't have to be my undoing.  There's something about accepting that my brain is going to come up with these ridiculous ideas every day that helps me stay a bit detached and calm.  It's kind of like "oh, what is it going to be today?"  Then it pops up as I'm going about my day, and I think "Yep, there it is.  Predictable."

I wrote out a new menu plan for this upcoming week and look forward to seeing how it plays out.  I turn 30 this week and know there will be some special treats thrown in there, and I'm fine with that.  I also have my long-awaited 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday and will hopefully learn the gender of the baby!  Weight continues to bounce around between 245 and 250--never lower or higher than that.

Time management=weight management?

I want to find a lifelong solution to my eating and weight problems.  I want this to be the last time I have to lose a significant amount of weight.  Yet I know that it’s always going to take time and effort to maintain whatever lower weight I stabilize at.

If this is going to be a part of my life forever, I think I should get clear on HOW MUCH time and effort it takes to maintain a healthier lifestyle and reasonable weight.  I can then plan other parts of my life with this reality in mind.  If I don’t keep enough time free for maintaining my health (taking care of such things as meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking and kitchen cleanup, exercising, and much-needed spiritual and mental health practices), there’s a high probability I will gradually pack my life with more and more activities and responsibilities and end up dropping the ball on my health and weight maintenance.  It would be very easy to do this, especially with kids and a career in the picture.  In short order, I could regain everything and more, and this will only take a greater toll on my body as it ages.

I don’t want that to happen!  I know I will not be at my best for family or work life if I’m obese, depressed, and always fatigued.  And for me, those three things are deeply intermingled.  I’d rather scale back on the scope of what I do inside and outside the home, and do those (limited) things while feeling well and taking care of myself, than sacrifice my health to take on more and more.  I don’t want to have to fight this obesity battle throughout my entire life.  I don’t want to have to lose 125 pounds in my thirties, again in my forties, again in my fifties, again in my sixties…

I am speaking from experience here.  I lost a noticeable amount of weight my sophomore year of high school and during my fourth year of college.  (Never 125 pounds, though.  I didn’t need to lose that much back then.)  In both instances, the weight loss was facilitated by having a quieter-than-normal schedule for a decent stretch of time.  And in both cases, my schedule and commitments got ramped up again and I gained back everything I had lost and then some.  Perhaps a busier schedule didn’t make the regain inevitable, but since I didn’t have a clear idea of how much time I needed to set aside to take good care of myself, I failed to block out that amount of time.  And really, it’s not just a time issue, but an energy issue as well: I filled my schedule up with other activities, and doing so left me not only with less time, but less ENERGY to devote to working out and procuring/ preparing decent meals.  Not to mention my stress levels went up with a busier schedule, and stress depletes my willpower reserves and makes me want to eat.  What a mess!

So, to increase my odds of lasting success, I am going to start paying more attention to the time commitment aspect of this lifestyle change.  I am going to start tracking the amount of time I spend on things like kitchen work and exercise.  I’m certain there is a minimum time commitment required for achieving certain results, and I’ve got to figure out what this is for me.  After awhile, I hope to discover the most efficient yet sustainable/effective way of doing things.

Any thoughts or advice out there on time-and-weight management?

18 weeks pregnant and thinking thinking thinking

There's nothing much to share right now.  I spend much of my time these days thinking about the future, including how I want to tackle weight loss, weight maintenance, household cooking duties, and so on once the baby arrives.  One thing I'm trying to come to terms with is that I will have to invest much more time into meal planning, exercising, etc. than I do now if I want to achieve the results I desire.  And by results, I don't just mean a certain pants size -- I mean providing my child with a certain example, providing my family with a certain level of care.  I'm about to have unprecedented demands on my time due to the new baby, and simultaneously realizing I need to invest more time on this other front in order to progress further with it.  It's all a bit nerve-wracking, but I have to get real.

I lost the few pounds I had gained recently, and am back to 245.  It was nothing I did on purpose; those few pounds suddenly vanished over a 2 day period, though I had not changed my eating in any way.

It was just about a year ago that I joined a gym, started experimenting with a blog (first on Tumblr, then here), and decided to try to lose weight yet again. My weight at that time was 275.  In the 12 months that I've lost 30 pounds, there were weeks and months in which I gave up trying to reform my ways.  My binge eating only calmed down in January-February 2012.  My exercising has been terribly inconsistent throughout the twelve months.  And I've been pregnant for about 4 of the 12 months!  What a strange year!  Yet here I sit, in a better physical and mental place than I was a year ago.  My takeaway from this is that the whole "progress, not perfection" mentality really does get you somewhere if you give it some time.

It might take me another year to lose another 30 pounds.  After all, the next twelve months will involve the final 20 weeks of pregnancy, it will (hopefully) involve breastfeeding, it will involve a major life adjustment.  I can't accurately predict how each of those things will affect my body and mind, but I do think that shedding 30 more pounds amid all that would be a triumph.  So here's to another good 12 months!

The answer isn't out there

For years, I’ve tried to figure out the right way to have sweets—the foods I have historically overeaten and binged on. I wanted to know how could I eat them--or NOT eat them--without feeling tortured. I’ve written about this before. Sometimes I tried to come up with my own system, and sometimes I’ve looked to others for help.

I tried the no-S diet for some time, which says you should only have sugary treats on “S” days—Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Days, defined as major holidays and personal events like birthdays and anniversaries. (There were other components to the diet, which you can read about *here*.) The creator of this plan is a sensible guy and in no way condoned binging on S days, but I personally couldn’t stop binging and ultimately abandoned the plan.

Still thinking there was an answer somewhere “out there”, I went on to try Overeaters Anonymous for several months. My sponsor and the vast majority of people I met there advocated total abstention from desserts. My dislike of OA probably calls for its own series of posts at some point, but for now, it’s enough to note that a philosophy of total and lifelong abstention (even if viewed through the lens of “it’s not forever, it’s just one day at a time, tee hee!”) didn’t sit well with me.

(A classic OA’er response would be that I couldn’t handle total abstention because I’m incapable of honesty, or because I haven’t truly turned my problem over to a Higher Power, or because I’m too deep into my addiction, or whatever other thing they’ve heard parroted a million times in OA books and meetings. And my response to THAT would be: Sure, alright. Have fun attending meetings several nights a week for the rest of your life, and remaining obsessed with food and eating--albeit in a different way than you were before joining OA. Enjoy feeling that catastrophe is one missed meeting or Reese’s cup away. Enjoy not thinking for yourself. Enjoy the concept of powerlessness. Hey, is that sugar free Kool-Aid over there?)

Ugh. See?! On the topic of OA, I just can’t help myself.

So, more time passed. I started to read Mark’s Daily Apple and explore the paleo/primal philosophy and online community. I took some steps in that direction, but before long the whole thing struck me as too extreme and, perhaps ironically, too reminiscent of my days as a vegetarian. (Again, another post for another day.) Anyway, Paleo proponents tell you to kick sugar and wheat flour (and sometimes dairy, depending on the expert) to the curb, and Paleo dessert recipes sounded more like punishments than treats to me. So that wasn’t going to work much better than outright abstention.

When I wasn’t trying out someone else’s suggested plan or solution, I was asking myself questions like:

1. Should I stick only to gourmet and homemade treats? Maybe the cheap junky stuff I grew up with is the real problem because of the convenience factor and emotional ties I have to things like Little Debbie snack cakes.

2. Should I try having a tiny treat each day? Many people advocate that.

3. Or would it be better to have a normal or even large amount, but only have it once a week? Lots of people talk about weekly “cheat days” and it seems to work for them.

4. Should I modify no-S and keep sweets just for holidays and personal special days, which don’t occur weekly, and not have sweets on regular Saturdays and Sundays since that’s too much and I failed at regular no-S in the past?

5. Should I give myself permission to have one treat from each “category” of dessert, spread out over the course of the month? As in, choose one dairy-based thing, one baked good, one kind of candy, and one sweet drink to enjoy, once apiece, and that’s it for the month?

6. Should I not make any specific resolutions about the amount or type of dessert, and just let myself have anything I want during PMS week, since that’s when I crave crap the most? Maybe if I behaved the rest of the month, it would even out.

On and on this went--the musings of an obsessed person, desperate for answers. Desperate for something between binging and total, lifelong abstention.

These questions subsided for a short while after reading “Brain Over Binge.” Suddenly, it didn’t matter what the treat was, or how often I was having it, or for what occasions, as long as I wasn’t binging on it. I could have a little, or an average amount, or even a bit more than average, as long as it wasn’t a binge. What a relief!

Now, however, I’m a month into not binging, and the question of the “right” way to have sweets has resurfaced. The cessation of binging is the basic foundation I needed, no doubt about it. But I do have a significant amount of weight to lose as well as a problem with emotional eating, and how much/how often I eat sugary treats is going to affect my progress on those fronts. The author of “Brain Over Binge” doesn’t give specific dietary recommendations, so I can’t look to her for the answer on sweets. (The lack of such recommendations is only appropriate, given the focus of her book, the arguments she’s making about binge eating recovery, and her credentials. I respect her as much for what's in the book as I do for what she left out of it.)

Hmm, so if that author doesn’t have the answer…where to look next?

Then it dawned on me. The long-term answer regarding sweets is not “out there” somewhere. There is no magic pattern of specific days, specific intervals, specific treats, and/or specific amounts that will make everything easy for me. The answer lies in me and the development of my own self-control.

I know, I know. Facepalm in 3…2…1.

What I really want is to be able to trust myself in ANY scenario. It’s what I’ve wanted all along: the ability to make a rational decision that takes my normal human desire for pleasure, my desire for weight loss, and my other health concerns into account, backed up by the ability to stick to that decision. Whatever the situation, I don’t want to be swayed by my lower brain in the heat of the moment.

I want to be able to eat a little bit every day, or a little bit rather frequently, if I decide that’s appropriate. I want to be able to eat a normal-sized amount but then not have anything for awhile afterward, if that’s the rational choice I’ve made beforehand. I want to be able to completely abstain from dessert for as long as I deem necessary, if I deem it necessary. I want to know that whether it’s the cheapest shit out there or the most gourmet, I won’t lose control. That I can trust myself.

The ability to do all these things is important because I expect different approaches to be useful at different times. For example:

During the holidays, when there are social gatherings and rich foods at every turn, it would be good to have confidence in my ability to savor a small amount of something every day (or most days). I’d like to know I can enjoy 3-5 bites of something and stop there. The same thing applies to travel and vacations. People often gain weight when they go someplace new because they are eager to enjoy as many local specialties as possible. I want to try new things when I travel too, but eating a full serving (or multiple servings) of dessert every day for a week or two could very well result in weight gain. Daily sampling is a good compromise between total abstention and gorging. Believe me, I have gorged on gelato in Italy, stroopwafels in the Netherlands, chocolate in Switzerland, and pastries in Austria because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing out, and also couldn’t be satisfied with just a little. I understood my options to be EVERYTHING or NOTHING, because I wasn’t capable of anything in between at the time.

Different scenario now. Say my bloodwork comes back and I find out I’m prediabetic or diabetic. Or I get pregnant and develop gestational diabetes. Or I have a special event coming up and want to drop a few pounds to look as good as possible. Whatever the reason--if the route most aligned with my current concerns and goals is to completely abstain from desserts for awhile, I want to have confidence in my ability to do that…and in my ability to NOT go crazy when the period of abstention ends.

Or, say that I simply want to have an entire ice cream cone or a big piece of cake once in a while (not a few bites, but the whole thing, perhaps on my birthday?), yet I don’t want to gain weight or harm my health by initiating a downward spiral of overeating. I’d like to know I’m able to eat the whole serving and move on, skipping treats for some time afterwards in order to balance everything out.

As time goes on, my husband and I tend to go the homemade or gourmet route for our desserts. But when I’m with the rest of my immediate family, which happens a few times a year, I’m confronted by the Pop-tarts and Nutty Bars of my youth. And I want to trust myself around everything. Even within the category of homemade/gourmet, I currently have more confidence around baked goods and candy than I do around ice cream and other dairy treats. I ultimately want confidence around it all.

The only way to develop these abilities and this confidence is to practice. Practice periods of abstention, practice having a little bit many days in a row, practice having an average or even large-ish amount at more spaced out intervals. Practice with crème brulee, practice with Lucky Charms. So that’s what I’m going to start doing. I will write more about it as I'm doing it.

I wonder what other answers are staring me right in the face each time I look into the mirror?

Doing better

Today I was less anxious than yesterday, and I even signed up for an online course in Vipassana meditation that starts January 30th. I'm hoping it will help me with eating-related urges, with anxiety, with being ruled by my emotions and my lower brain in general. I also found a well-known center of instruction about an hour away from my house that offers classes and workshops, so I expect to make use of that in the future.

I overate in the evening again, after returning from the gym, but it wasn't a binge. I am happy that getting through the day without a binge isn't some huge struggle or accomplishment anymore. It's starting to feel normal. And if I keep working at it, one day it will feel normal to get through the evening without overeating.

One thing at a time.

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 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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

Evening snack plans

I always want something sweet at night. ALWAYS. I ate sweet(ish) breakfast cereals every morning for over 20 years, but now find I prefer eggs for breakfast. I don't need something sweet at lunch. In the middle of the afternoon, my sugary desires start to whisper. Sometimes it's more of a murmur, sometimes fairly loud chatter. But after dinner, it always ALWAYS morphs into a howl.

I had the best dinner tonight with a friend at a lovely restaurant. As soon as I got into my car to drive home, I wanted ice cream. I find this so frustrating.

I've tried many things--forbidding myself to eat after dinner. Allowing myself to only eat hard boiled eggs and celery sticks. Trying to listen to hunger cues, sort out my emotions, and snack "intuitively." Chugging water and drinking hot tea. Applying portion control to my favorite sugary foods. (Is "half a cup of ice cream" a real suggestion or a horrible joke?) Suffice it to say, none of these approaches have worked long-term, and in my frustration I have said "screw it" and let myself go off the rails nightly for months at a time...before trying yet another solution for my late-night eating urges.

I have to keep looking for a workable answer. So right now, I'm crafting a list of snacks I can enjoy without doing too much damage. Namely, snacks that have some nutritional merit, give me a hit of sweetness, and do not leave me wanting second or third or fourth servings. So far I have come up with:

oatmeal (with any of the following: spices, milk, honey/maple syrup, nuts, raisins or other fresh/dried fruits)

KIND bar, maybe Larabars now and then

glass of milk--sometimes that is enough, especially 2% or whole milk

protein smoothies, but I have to watch the size

a Chobani yogurt cup--I like to top various flavors with fresh blueberries and walnuts

celery with nut butter(s) and raisins/dates/cranberries/whatever

herbal tea--Yogi Egyptian licorice is sweet

I have all these things on hand, usually. I like that the list has hot, room temperature, and cold items. KIND bars sort of replace candy; milk, smoothies, and yogurt are good for when I'm craving ice cream (which is OFTEN); and oatmeal is grainy and carby and sort of a replacement for baked goods. I wonder if, besides oatmeal, I could be happy with a single whole grain waffle and a bit of maple syrup on those nights I want cake or cookies.

I know it's not IDEAL to eat if you aren't clearly physically hungry. I know many people eliminate nighttime eating altogether. But ideals are getting me nowhere; I need something realistic and doable NOW to move me in the right direction. My hope would be to build on this, eventually eating only half a serving of oatmeal, half a yogurt cup, or half a bar...maybe switching to less sugary stuff some nights out of the week...who knows from there...

I think I'll post this list on my fridge.

Anyone out there have other suggestions or tips for evening snacking?

I believe

I believe I can change my body and my life in 2012.

But I'm looking no further than January at the moment. What small changes can I realistically make this month to start moving forward?

Well, I'm taking part in a fitness challenge organized by Lyn during the first 14 weeks of the year. I'm going to start working my body again, slowly and respectfully and patiently.

I won't say I've got an eating plan written in stone, but I've got various experiments in mind that I want to conduct to find out what is going to work best for me over the long haul.

I'm going to take better care of my skin and my appearance in general, and try to get my sleep schedule back on track. I want to start meditating. I accept that this will not all fall into place simultaneously.

I want my year, my life, my schedule to be simpler than years past, so I can focus on getting really valuable things done.

Time is so, so precious. It's all we have. Here's to a wonderful 2012!

My struggle with basic functioning

This is hard to explain.

I have steady low-grade depression, with periods of major depression mixed in. I'm doing better than I have in a long time when it comes to thinking positively/neutrally, and not identifying with transient negative thoughts and feelings. I'm more mindful than I was a year or two ago.

But I'm not that much more functional. My sleep cycles are messed up, I have trouble getting stuff done, and I struggle with consistency and routine...for starters. What I'm writing about today sits at the intersection of these problems: I do not get up in the morning and get ready for the day (take a shower, get dressed, perhaps apply some makeup) like a normal person. I haven't done this with any regularity for a long time. It's insanely difficult for me. Ask me to do this for 30 consecutive days--or ask me to complete a major home improvement project in a month's time or write a book in a month's time, and I would find the latter two challenges easier.

This has consequences. I usually only get cleaned up and dressed in non-lounging clothes right before I have to go somewhere. This could be rather late in the day, or not at all. (If you are wondering about work, I currently write from home.) There are so many days where I don't have to be anywhere, so I wear the same thing I slept in the night before all day. Guess how motivated I am to attend a class at the gym when it means I have to shower and make myself presentable first? I would say sleeping in late and being too grungy to go out in public accounts for 75-85% of my pattern of skipping the gym despite good intentions the day before.

It's not just the gym, obviously. Everything is made more difficult by this; running errands, having an impromptu outing with my husband, answering the front door when someone rings!

This behavior was modeled to me by my mother. She and my sisters are still very much this way; it's not just me. But I'm an adult now and pointing fingers will get me nowhere. I want to change.

I'm not sure how I'm going to fix this. I need to sleep like a regular human being even though my body wants to go to bed at 3 a.m. and wake up in the early afternoon. Even though it resists all attempts at reform. I need to take care of my grooming in the morning and at night like everyone else does, and make full use of the day instead of letting it pass me by.

I'm going to start tracking some part of this puzzle in a tab above labeled "basic functioning." (Edit: tab has now been removed. I tracked my odd sleeping patterns and concluded I have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.) This is the direction I see my blog heading, by the way. I want to explore (and fix) the ways in which various areas of my life drive and sustain my eating and weight problem. It's all connected--my thoughts, habits, identity, binge eating, depression, family history, dietary choices, hobbies, physical activity, grooming, career, spirituality, home environment, relationships... It's a tangled web with each point connected to every other point.

I'm talking about everything in relation to weight as though weight loss is the central goal, but really I hope to improve it all. Besides, I don't think I can keep excess weight off for any length of time unless I become a different person in several ways. I really don't.

Yesterday's descent

I'm full-out eating sugar today, but the downward spiral began yesterday.

December 7th food log:

Indian buffet for lunch: chicken, rice, vegetables, naan
pizza
octopus (part of an appetizer shared with others; I'm not insane.)
chips
root beer
skinny peppermint mocha frappuccino
a few mini candy canes

I woke up today still feeling the "itch" and thought to myself that I had to get rid of it. It's been bugging me for days now, and it presents a real dilemma. The choices?

a) eat sugar, possibly worsen my cravings, and mess up my effort to avoid desserts until Christmas (and store-bought crap in general)
b) don't eat sugar, keep white knuckling it, and risk feeling so crazy and desperate that I fall into a massive, multi-week binge in the near future.

I chose to eat sugar. Clearly I'm not going to make it all the way to Christmas without sweets; I've given in a couple of times already and we are only about a week into the month. But I can aim for minimizing my consumption--to rack up as many days as I can without the stuff, and thereby prevent December from becoming a free-for-all. I don't have to gain weight this month and start 2012 off with more of a burden to carry.

So the new question is: how many days in December can I avoid sweets?

I'm going to buy myself a little reward for each day I successfully avoid sweets. A song from iTunes is only a buck, for example.

***

I haven't had this blog for very long, but already I am frustrated with how much I contradict myself on this thing. I declare one thing one day, another thing the next. It reflects how much turmoil there is in my life regarding food, weight, etc. and how desperately I am grasping for workable solutions.

I don't see how it can improve, however, unless I keep putting the whole mess out there. I need to keep stripping away the hold that shame and perfectionism have over me.

The holidays ahead

Today, the last day of November, was more reasonable than the last two days. I had a coconut-almond Kind bar, a bowl of bean soup, turkey/cheese/spinach on a bagel, a tall caramel brulee latte from Starbucks, and Turkish "pizza" (ground lamb and vegetables on flatbread).

So now December has arrived. Do I have the strength to limit myself to only homebaked goods (made by my own hands) on just a few special days this month? Some family members are planning to travel to my house for Christmas, and I'd like to make a couple kinds of cookies and try my hand at making eggnog from scratch for the first time. Maybe a red velvet cake, too. Homemade goods have become something of a rarity in my family, as most of our parties feature store-bought cakes, cookies, etc. But now that I have a house and the opportunity to play hostess, I'm trying to establish new traditions; when the people I love indulge at my house, I'd like it to be with something real instead of with various combinations of high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Not that I don't dump those very things into my body, but I'm trying to change. I'm trying to create an emotional association between those kinds of cheap mass-produced goods and the phenomenon of people not caring about one another. (Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. The companies that make these treats don't care about you or your health. And even though cake shouldn't be equated with love, more effort and care go into a homemade cake than into a package of Little Debbie.) I want cheap sweets to become emotionally repellent so that I don't have to struggle so hard with temptation anymore.

To get through December, I'm going to have to stay busy, engage in exercise for stress relief, and create a new habit like drinking tea each evening (my most vulnerable time for eating sweets). Oh, and remind myself that I'm NOT deprived in any way--that I'm CHOOSING to do something good on my own behalf because I care about myself. Perhaps most fundamentally, my vision of Christmas needs to change, to include a picture of myself enjoying and modeling vibrant health in the midst of all the festivities. My tendency is to fantasize about making the house, the meal, the everything (except me, of course) look like something out of a magazine. To make those things the symbol of a perfect Christmas, and not even think about my own well-being--if anything, to sacrifice my well-being in the service of ridiculous Martha Stewart-esque Christmas visions.

I will still endeavor to put on a lovely holiday for my family, but I want to be able to enjoy it. And I can only enjoy it if I'm feeling good. And that requires decent food, exercise, sleep, grooming, de-stressing...and reasonable expectations for myself and the holiday season in general.

This is what disordered eating looks like

Today, I was worrying about the carb content of my meals. I had leftover bean soup for breakfast, grabbed a bagel with cream cheese for lunch, and ate three small chicken tacos for dinner. I felt bad about the lack of vegetables and the amount of starch I had consumed. I chastised myself for not drinking enough water and for skipping the gym. I wondered if eating oatmeal later in the day (complete with raisins and milk and honey and pecans) in the event of post-dinner hunger was "exactly the type of behavior that keeps me fat." I didn't come to a conclusion on this question, but it was on my mind.

At the end of the day, I found myself in Target and compulsively grabbed Limited Edition peppermint Oreos off the shelf and ate them all in one sitting when I got home. Not that I had been wanting Oreos--and they didn't taste like anything special.

I had no intention to binge, but I have to wonder if being down on myself throughout the day for "not being perfect" set me up for this: the old all-or-nothing thinking. I also have an assignment due tomorrow night that I don't want to complete, and my resentment and procrastination on that front probably fueled the fire as well.

My point is that I worried about the fattening effects of a bowl of oatmeal, but didn't think twice before consuming an entire package of Oreos. Really. At no point did I stop and have the conscious thought: THIS is exactly the kind of behavior that keeps me fat--downing a box of sugar and chemicals.

Yet it is. Oatmeal and beans aren't the culprit, for crying out loud! Yes, it would be great to reduce carbs, but the worst sources need to go first.

***

Daily records of food and exercise are just about the most boring kinds of blog entries imaginable, yet I think it would do me good to publish the truth on this blog.

I had big plans for the blog in the beginning, but backed off when I realized I was merely hoping to echo some of the successful weight loss bloggers out there that I read and admire. I wasn't positioning myself to be honest and genuine. What's more, I don't want weight and food issues to be the center of my life, identity, or writing activity. It's a real part of me and something that needs to be addressed continually, but there is so much more to me; devoting massive amounts of time to a blog about binge eating disorder and attempts to lose weight is not what I want to do or who I want to be at this moment in time.

So I stepped away for awhile. And by stepping away, I've realized a few things.

1. It would be best for me to not read other weight loss blogs for awhile so that I can rediscover my own voice.
2. I'd like to try a daily food and exercise log, and to post my weight regularly. It's boring, but it gives an honest picture of what is driving the scale up or down.
3. I think going to the gym three days a week, for me, would be an accomplishment. And exercising a fourth day at home would make me feel even better about myself. I do not expect myself to have a formal exercise session every day.
4. I'm only going to post actual essays on the blog when I feel moved to do so. Right now I'm thinking daily records and one essay a month is perfectly acceptable. I want to spend my time changing, not talking about changing, you know?

Exercise plans for this week, 9/19-9/25

I'm all caught up with moving my handful of posts from Tumblr to this blog. So starting with this post, the dates you see are correct.

This is my plan for the week:

Monday (today)--off
Tuesday--Body Pump class at 7:35 p.m.
Wednesday--a bit of cardio plus Gentle Yoga class at 9:15 a.m.
Thursday--cardio and strength training on the machines
Friday--day off. Will be shopping and walking around a lot.
Saturday--Pilates mat with props class at 11:30 a.m.
Sunday--take a walk

I need an eating plan too. I've had four horrible days in a row, starting on Friday. I prepared carmelized nuts that evening for the guests we were having over for a potluck the next day. I couldn't stop eating them. The day of the potluck, Saturday, was completely off the rails. Sunday the madness continued. Today has not been as bad, but I've had more carbs than I think is reasonable and I'm not feeling good. I feel completely lost and want to get back to the sane way I was eating before. I hate how sugar intake narrows my focus down to the pursuit of more sugar; there is a whole wide world out there and so much potential in me, but sugar shrinks all that down to nothingness.

A little less conversation

It started happening again almost as soon as I started blogging. I got sucked into the world of nutrition research, laying in bed with my iPhone reading late into the night. Compiling lists of links and resources to put on my blog for the benefit of others. Wringing my hands over the latest debates.

The deal is, I’m taking cues from low carb advocates such as Gary Taubes and various people in the paleo and primal communities when it comes to changing my diet. The more I learn, the more I understand that there is significant diversity and disagreement among these folks. That is not a bad thing; the back-and-forth is part of scientific advancement and I value the ongoing scholarship. But as I explained in my very first post, I need more action, less contemplation. Many of the finer points being debated don’t matter to me because it’s not like I’m going to tweak my diet every day based on the latest thing I read.

I think of the Pareto principle and tell myself that 20% of the changes I make will yield 80% of the results I want. So cutting out grains and sugar from my everyday intake will get me most of the way there. And once I’m 80% of the way there, and weight loss starts to stall or whatever, maybe then I can freak out about how many yams I should allow myself each month or whether poultry and pork are tipping my Omega 6:Omega 3 balance the wrong way. I have a long way to go with more fundamental changes to make before I start fussing over all those details. I do not have to go from 0 to 100 overnight.

(Not only that, but I find people who place their nutritional ideologies at the center of their lives and identities to be absolute bores. Really. I’m not vying for first place at the Paleo Pageant; I want a healthier body so I can do things OTHER THAN sit around with a laptop researching diet and reading the latest ego-driven arguments engaged in by laypeople on various message boards and blog comments sections. Ugh.)

I wonder what it would be like to do an information fast? Block all the chatter. Use the knowledge and resources I already have, including the cookbooks I already own. Stop worrying so damn much about doing things “right”! See how far I get. When I can’t get any further, go look for answers amidst the noise. Until then, stay away from the noise and focus on execution.

I think I’ve got my new plan!