More on legalizing junk food

Right after I wrote my last post about legalizing junk food, I discovered I had even more junk in the house than I had listed; I had forgotten about several items.  There were other cookies and a jar of chocolate-almond spread that had slipped my mind, and most of a cranberry-orange cake in the freezer that I didn't realize we had until my husband threw it in the yard for the birds yesterday.  It was several weeks old and neither one of us were interested in finishing it.

To have these things in the house and completely and utterly forget about them is new and amusing to me.  I typically know EXACTLY what I have, EXACTLY how much is left, and EXACTLY how badly I want to devour it all the moment I have a bit of privacy to do so.  I even forgot about a pint of Limited Edition Ben & Jerry's this week, and that speaks louder than me forgetting about cranberry-orange cake, believe me.  I opened my freezer and there it was in the door and I was all "Hey!  Forgot this was in here!"

What I'm working on right now, at 31 weeks pregnant

Because it's unwise to set big weight loss goals during pregnancy and breastfeeding, these are my aims right now:

1.  Avoid gaining excessive weight in pregnancy, and avoid gaining (any) weight during breastfeeding.
2.  Become less eating disordered and more of a normal healthy eater.

My eating is screwy in many different ways, and I've tried comprehensive overhauls in the past that always fell apart in short order.  This time, I'm accumulating normal eating "skills" slowly by working on just a few areas at a time. I think pregnancy taking away any weight loss goal for the near future is what is allowing this shift towards a slow-and-steady philosophy.  What's happening right now:

Half physical, half mental

The distinction we make between the physical and the mental is problematic on several levels, but I'm going to go ahead and talk as though it's a straightforward matter.

When I'm eating regular, nutritious, satisfying meals made from real food (i.e. when I'm cooking for myself regularly), my desire to binge goes way way down.  My cravings for desserts are manageable instead of monstrous.

This won't surprise many people, but it surprises me.