I have come to hate how Ben & Jerry's is constantly rolling out new flavors and Limited Edition crap. If I didn't have issues, I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't even be AWARE of it. But I'm hyperaware of it and staying out of the ice cream aisle is the only way to reduce that awareness.
If I keep visiting the ice cream aisle, one of these days I'm going to see Ben & Jerry's vanilla hey remember that time in sixth grade when your friend Chris's mom brought frosted brownies with dinosaur sprinkles to a school event and it was the best fucking brownies you'd ever tasted? Well, those brownies are in this carton chunk ice cream. I swear it.
I almost bought a pint of Brownie Chew Gooder the other day. It has brownie chunks and a caramel swirl in vanilla ice cream. Then I asked myself WHY? You've had vanilla ice cream, you've had caramel, you've had brownies, what is the big damn deal? I'm glad I walked away.
Really, I see new products all the time that make me go "oooooh!" But if I take a second to think about it, it's never any flavor profile or ingredient that I've never had. It's s'mores in pop-tart form, or red velvet cake in ice cream form, or salted caramels in a cookie form, etc etc etc. It never stops. It's never gonna stop. Therefore, I have to stop myself from falling for the relentless bullshit that marketers dream up.
Like I said, it's my issues. I wish this ridiculous struggle didn't occupy so much of my energy and time.
Showing posts with label sugar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sugar. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Sick of it
My in-laws are here again this week and I've fallen into old ways yet another time: using sugar as a drug to cope with stress, anxiety, anger, resentment. I don't need to go into details about how much I hate their visits and why, because the real issue that is plaguing me is my inability to deal with unpleasantness without numbing myself via unhealthy and excessive food.
I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for binge eating disorder, but I feel despair over my continued emotional eating and overeating (and of course, my weight). And there are so many habits and behaviors that go into this that I hate. I hate that I still feel a pull to buy whatever Limited Edition bullshit that is being rolled out each week by the Oreo people, the Ben & Jerry's people, or the Haagen Dazs bastards. I hate that I'll go weeks without McDonald's and then fall into again, because that stuff is utter trash and when the smiling worker at the drive-thru window hands me my bag, I often sarcastically think "assisted suicide, hooray!"
I hate that today, I went to the supermarket to buy a stash of cheap candy bars to keep in my closet to get me through the rest of the in-law visit--an old bingey behavior and the exact same thing as your average pothead squirreling away his or her stash--and that I bought my 5 month-old organic pureed baby food in the same visit. I felt utterly ridiculous unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt at checkout. And I felt like a horrible mother. I'm looking at my beautiful baby girl in her carseat and she's wearing a onesie that says "mommy loves me", and mommy can't get herself under control enough to ensure that she won't die of a heart attack in the next 10 years and leave her child without a mother. I feel very much like an addict.
I am an addict, basically.
****************
I think I need drugs. I know that's funny, given the statement I just made. But the bottle of Percocet I brought home from the hospital after my C-section has given me some perspective.
A little over five months ago, I came home with a dozen Percocet. And I LOVE how they made me feel--they chill you out, block all pain, and make you feel like your limbs are turning into liquid gold. Because I only had 12 pills and knew I wouldn't be able to get a refill, I typically only used them on nights when physical pain (usually a terrible headache) coincided with extreme emotional pain and severe anxiety. And they wiped ALL the pain away, physical and mental/emotional. More than once after taking them I thought, "if I had access to these all the time, I'd have no need to abuse food. I'd be downright skinny."
I'm not saying that abusing prescription drugs is any better than abusing food, or that I ACTUALLY WANT to trade one addiction for another. (I took my last remaining Percocet yesterday, incidentally.) What I'm really trying to say is that Percocet showed me the effect I've been trying to achieve with food, for years and years: relaxed, mildly good-humored, free of pain. And it showed me that food doesn't do as good a job creating this state as drugs designed for this very purpose do. No surprise there!
I've been trying to drug myself with food for a long time, when perhaps what I really need is ACTUAL DRUGS. Appropriate drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist that can help me with the mental states that keep knocking me off my feet. A few years ago, I took Prozac for a few months, but stopped when it became clear that I'd have to up the dose to continue reaping the benefits of the drug. At the time, that didn't sound good to me, and furthermore, I was starting to get interested in having a baby and didn't want antidepressants in my system. But I have to admit that I'm not making progress by drugging myself with sugar and that my current drug of choice has horrible side effects too (can you call "keeping oneself on the brink of diabetes at all times" a side effect?). I have to admit that my meditation practice has helped, but it's not enough at this point.
The understanding that I'm drugging myself with food and sugar has always been there, but a willingness replace this with actual prescription drugs instead hasn't. Until now. The hunt for a good psychiatrist is on.
****************
Maybe a psychiatrist can help me sort out the question of moderation versus abstinence. That question has spun me around and around, and when it recurs I feel like I've made no progress at all. I mean, just a post or two ago I spoke about how the 5:2 diet doesn't require you to give up dessert and how that's better for me, given "how I'm wired." And here I am again, questioning.
ALL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN!!!
On one hand, there are several people whose intelligence and experience I really respect that advocate moderation. They say you aren't really at ease and therefore haven't really solved your problem until you can be moderate around sugar and other indulgent foods. This makes sense to me.
Add to this the fact that I've never succeeded at abstinence for more than a few weeks at a time, and that involved much white knuckling, and there was usually crazed consumption of sugar afterwards that undid any good that was achieved.
Add to this my past experience with OA, which preaches sugar abstinence. I didn't see many success stories in those church basements. There were a few abstinent people, and they seemed batshit crazy with OA-speak...and the rest had been struggling for years but kept coming back to the meetings, believing it to be their only hope.
And then there are my stints in "treat legalization", which I have found really does decrease my desire for sweets. (ETA: It decreases my desire for the specific treats I legalize. I wouldn't say it decreases my desire in general.) And mindful eating has shown me that I can be satisfied with less of something at a sitting: a smaller slice of cake, fewer cookies, whatever. So I have experienced other modes of eating treats that give me some hope.
Taken together, that's a lot in favor of moderation.
But then there's the reality that I'm so often NOT moderate. I overdo it, over and over again, and I'm hurting my health. My bloodwork and the way I feel day-to-day is proof enough of that.
And so often, my thought while buying and eating crappy foods is "I hate this. I'm sick of this." I'm not even enjoying it, or paying attention to the food...because all I'm after is the high, anyway, and half the crap I buy disappoints when it comes to flavor. So yeah, I *know* how to eat mindfully, sure, but I usually don't do it, because eating mindfully interferes with the pursuit of a drugged state...which is what I'm after 90% of the time I eat sweets. Even now, even though I no longer binge like before. I'm still after that altered state.
Lastly, I've been studying the dharma for a year and half now, and it has helped my life in various ways. Many Buddhists would advocate giving up anything that makes you suffer--sense pleasures, relationships, pursuit of status or fame...really anything you grasp at desperately that leads to repetitive suffering. For me, sweets surely fall into that category. I suffer because of them, in a way that many other people don't. And so often I think my life would be happier and more peaceful if I could let go of them completely and be free of the suffering they cause.
So taken together, that's a lot in favor of abstinence.
Conclusion: I need help to get out of this confusing abyss I've been in for too long.
I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for binge eating disorder, but I feel despair over my continued emotional eating and overeating (and of course, my weight). And there are so many habits and behaviors that go into this that I hate. I hate that I still feel a pull to buy whatever Limited Edition bullshit that is being rolled out each week by the Oreo people, the Ben & Jerry's people, or the Haagen Dazs bastards. I hate that I'll go weeks without McDonald's and then fall into again, because that stuff is utter trash and when the smiling worker at the drive-thru window hands me my bag, I often sarcastically think "assisted suicide, hooray!"
I hate that today, I went to the supermarket to buy a stash of cheap candy bars to keep in my closet to get me through the rest of the in-law visit--an old bingey behavior and the exact same thing as your average pothead squirreling away his or her stash--and that I bought my 5 month-old organic pureed baby food in the same visit. I felt utterly ridiculous unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt at checkout. And I felt like a horrible mother. I'm looking at my beautiful baby girl in her carseat and she's wearing a onesie that says "mommy loves me", and mommy can't get herself under control enough to ensure that she won't die of a heart attack in the next 10 years and leave her child without a mother. I feel very much like an addict.
I am an addict, basically.
****************
I think I need drugs. I know that's funny, given the statement I just made. But the bottle of Percocet I brought home from the hospital after my C-section has given me some perspective.
A little over five months ago, I came home with a dozen Percocet. And I LOVE how they made me feel--they chill you out, block all pain, and make you feel like your limbs are turning into liquid gold. Because I only had 12 pills and knew I wouldn't be able to get a refill, I typically only used them on nights when physical pain (usually a terrible headache) coincided with extreme emotional pain and severe anxiety. And they wiped ALL the pain away, physical and mental/emotional. More than once after taking them I thought, "if I had access to these all the time, I'd have no need to abuse food. I'd be downright skinny."
I'm not saying that abusing prescription drugs is any better than abusing food, or that I ACTUALLY WANT to trade one addiction for another. (I took my last remaining Percocet yesterday, incidentally.) What I'm really trying to say is that Percocet showed me the effect I've been trying to achieve with food, for years and years: relaxed, mildly good-humored, free of pain. And it showed me that food doesn't do as good a job creating this state as drugs designed for this very purpose do. No surprise there!
I've been trying to drug myself with food for a long time, when perhaps what I really need is ACTUAL DRUGS. Appropriate drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist that can help me with the mental states that keep knocking me off my feet. A few years ago, I took Prozac for a few months, but stopped when it became clear that I'd have to up the dose to continue reaping the benefits of the drug. At the time, that didn't sound good to me, and furthermore, I was starting to get interested in having a baby and didn't want antidepressants in my system. But I have to admit that I'm not making progress by drugging myself with sugar and that my current drug of choice has horrible side effects too (can you call "keeping oneself on the brink of diabetes at all times" a side effect?). I have to admit that my meditation practice has helped, but it's not enough at this point.
The understanding that I'm drugging myself with food and sugar has always been there, but a willingness replace this with actual prescription drugs instead hasn't. Until now. The hunt for a good psychiatrist is on.
****************
Maybe a psychiatrist can help me sort out the question of moderation versus abstinence. That question has spun me around and around, and when it recurs I feel like I've made no progress at all. I mean, just a post or two ago I spoke about how the 5:2 diet doesn't require you to give up dessert and how that's better for me, given "how I'm wired." And here I am again, questioning.
ALL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN!!!
On one hand, there are several people whose intelligence and experience I really respect that advocate moderation. They say you aren't really at ease and therefore haven't really solved your problem until you can be moderate around sugar and other indulgent foods. This makes sense to me.
Add to this the fact that I've never succeeded at abstinence for more than a few weeks at a time, and that involved much white knuckling, and there was usually crazed consumption of sugar afterwards that undid any good that was achieved.
Add to this my past experience with OA, which preaches sugar abstinence. I didn't see many success stories in those church basements. There were a few abstinent people, and they seemed batshit crazy with OA-speak...and the rest had been struggling for years but kept coming back to the meetings, believing it to be their only hope.
And then there are my stints in "treat legalization", which I have found really does decrease my desire for sweets. (ETA: It decreases my desire for the specific treats I legalize. I wouldn't say it decreases my desire in general.) And mindful eating has shown me that I can be satisfied with less of something at a sitting: a smaller slice of cake, fewer cookies, whatever. So I have experienced other modes of eating treats that give me some hope.
Taken together, that's a lot in favor of moderation.
But then there's the reality that I'm so often NOT moderate. I overdo it, over and over again, and I'm hurting my health. My bloodwork and the way I feel day-to-day is proof enough of that.
And so often, my thought while buying and eating crappy foods is "I hate this. I'm sick of this." I'm not even enjoying it, or paying attention to the food...because all I'm after is the high, anyway, and half the crap I buy disappoints when it comes to flavor. So yeah, I *know* how to eat mindfully, sure, but I usually don't do it, because eating mindfully interferes with the pursuit of a drugged state...which is what I'm after 90% of the time I eat sweets. Even now, even though I no longer binge like before. I'm still after that altered state.
Lastly, I've been studying the dharma for a year and half now, and it has helped my life in various ways. Many Buddhists would advocate giving up anything that makes you suffer--sense pleasures, relationships, pursuit of status or fame...really anything you grasp at desperately that leads to repetitive suffering. For me, sweets surely fall into that category. I suffer because of them, in a way that many other people don't. And so often I think my life would be happier and more peaceful if I could let go of them completely and be free of the suffering they cause.
So taken together, that's a lot in favor of abstinence.
Conclusion: I need help to get out of this confusing abyss I've been in for too long.
Monday, December 10, 2012
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!"
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!"
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The surprising process of legalizing junk food
Interesting things are happening with my eating in the third trimester. I'm almost 36 weeks now, and still weigh 260 pounds.
I'm not exactly sure when or why this started, but just over a month ago I decided to take yet another crack at changing the way I behave around sugary junk food. It might have something to do with picking up one of my old Geneen Roth books one night; she's very "pro-legalization" and recommends things like carrying chocolate that you love in your purse at all times.
I decided to give it a whirl.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Hurricane Sandy is cramping my style
Food-wise and blogging-wise. But we are actually pretty lucky. No damage to the house, and part of our town has power so we can shop for necessities and get a hot meal at several local restaurants. No real complaints, just some inconveniences that we have to work around.
I did stress eat too much the past couple of days. The kids didn't get to trick-or-treat on our blacked out street, so the Skittles and Swedish fish I bought for them have been ending up in my mouth instead. I purposefully bought candy that I am not overly passionate about this year, and under normal circumstances I believe I would have eaten a couple of packs of each (like 2 individual lil fun-size bags) and given the rest away. I've eaten way too much but still did less damage than I would have done with a bag of Reese's cups or worse yet, those combo bags of mini Snickers and Butterfingers and stuff. Anyway, my eating is starting to calm down as I get adjusted to our current situation.
I did stress eat too much the past couple of days. The kids didn't get to trick-or-treat on our blacked out street, so the Skittles and Swedish fish I bought for them have been ending up in my mouth instead. I purposefully bought candy that I am not overly passionate about this year, and under normal circumstances I believe I would have eaten a couple of packs of each (like 2 individual lil fun-size bags) and given the rest away. I've eaten way too much but still did less damage than I would have done with a bag of Reese's cups or worse yet, those combo bags of mini Snickers and Butterfingers and stuff. Anyway, my eating is starting to calm down as I get adjusted to our current situation.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Binging and re-wiring myself: an update
I'm part of the way through a massive brain re-wiring job, and my mixed eating behavior reflects that.
There have been days over the past few weeks where I've wondered if I've changed at all, because it's still normal for me to eat 2 or 3 cupcakes at a time instead of 1 (or none). I often don't want to slow down and eat mindfully; I still want to overeat; I still want to eat when I'm not hungry. I overate ice cream straight from the carton last week and felt out of control, like I "couldn't" stop.
But there HAVE been changes, and I suspect I have been taking them for granted. I opt to panic about what hasn't changed instead of appreciating what has changed.
One of the things that has changed is I no longer feel compelled to finish something just to "be done with it" or "get it out of the house." Binge eaters, past or present, know what I'm talking about. You eat all of the ice cream because knowing it's in your freezer drives you crazy. You bake a cake and polish it off the next day, just so it's over and no longer in the house. Who cares whether eating it is enjoyable--you just have this weird drive to eat it all and put it behind you. And you definitely want to be the one to have the last piece/scoop/portion.
That's definitely changed. I overate that ice cream last week, but I didn't finish it. There was a serving or so left in the bottom of the carton. It sat in the freezer for a couple of days. Then my brother-in-law came over and in the course of our snacking and visiting, I offered him the remainder of the ice cream. He finished it and I felt nothing--none of my old suffering or weirdness. I just didn't care. To recap, this was a two-part victory: not caring that uneaten ice cream was sitting in my freezer, and not caring that someone else finished it.
I recently baked cupcakes and ate spoonfuls of batter in my usual compulsive way during the preparation, which was disheartening. But I also froze many of the finished cupcakes so we could have them slowly over the coming days/weeks, and that's a very new development. True, I tend to eat them two at a time, or to smother them with whipped cream, which doesn't help with weight loss, but I don't feel tortured by the cupcakes sitting in my freezer. I don't care whether my husband eats the last few cupcakes. I can always make more.
Another change: I often want to overeat or eat multiple sweets a day, but I never feel tempted to carry out a classic binge. The fact that I don't want to buy a package of cookies and a pint of ice cream and a candy bar, and then eat it all in 45 minutes in front of the TV, in secret, is a major development! That doesn't even sound fun or pleasurable to me anymore.
But overeating? Eating in the absence of hunger? Eating dessert with lunch and then again after dinner? Still fun. Still pleasurable. I re-read "Brain Over Binge" over the last few days and did some thinking about this. And I realized that my complete recovery from disordered eating is going to look a little different than the author's, and it will take longer, and that's okay. The author was a naturally thin athlete with normal eating behavior before her bulimia took hold. Once she stopped binging and purging, she returned to the normal eating patterns of her childhood and early teenage years and her weight stabilized around 120 pounds. That's about how much she weighed before her disordered eating began. She sort of came full circle.
I cannot remember a time I was a normal eater or a normal weight. I weighed somewhere in the 135-145 range in 4th grade (and got my period when I was ten and a half, for what it's worth). I have been overeating and eating without hunger since early childhood. Full-blown binging came later, during my teenage years, but I had about 15 years of overeating wired into my brain before the binging even started.
So I've come to understand that even if I stop binging, I'm still going to want to overeat. It's a separate problem from the binging, in a way. I have to re-wire myself in that area too, and until I do, the excess eating will keep me fat. I'm facing a two-part recovery at the very least: address the binging, then address the many forms of overeating. It's going to take awhile, and so will arriving at a reasonable weight.
(Also? I'm straying off topic here, but I've got no idea what my "right" weight is. I know it's not 250 and I know it's not 120. I have felt pretty damn good at 175 before, during a period of dieting in college, and I would feel downright slim at 150. But it's all conjecture; I've got no idea what I can maintain in a healthy, relaxed fashion throughout my thirties and beyond. Anyway, I've just set my sights on 200 for now.)
There is some ambiguity in terms of when overeating crosses over into binging, even though I've previously attempted to delineate clearly what constitutes a binge for me. Some of what I used to call binging, I'm starting to view as overeating. I hope that soon, I will feel confident that the binging is truly behind me and that I can tackle the overeating piece of the puzzle without it backfiring.
There have been days over the past few weeks where I've wondered if I've changed at all, because it's still normal for me to eat 2 or 3 cupcakes at a time instead of 1 (or none). I often don't want to slow down and eat mindfully; I still want to overeat; I still want to eat when I'm not hungry. I overate ice cream straight from the carton last week and felt out of control, like I "couldn't" stop.
But there HAVE been changes, and I suspect I have been taking them for granted. I opt to panic about what hasn't changed instead of appreciating what has changed.
One of the things that has changed is I no longer feel compelled to finish something just to "be done with it" or "get it out of the house." Binge eaters, past or present, know what I'm talking about. You eat all of the ice cream because knowing it's in your freezer drives you crazy. You bake a cake and polish it off the next day, just so it's over and no longer in the house. Who cares whether eating it is enjoyable--you just have this weird drive to eat it all and put it behind you. And you definitely want to be the one to have the last piece/scoop/portion.
That's definitely changed. I overate that ice cream last week, but I didn't finish it. There was a serving or so left in the bottom of the carton. It sat in the freezer for a couple of days. Then my brother-in-law came over and in the course of our snacking and visiting, I offered him the remainder of the ice cream. He finished it and I felt nothing--none of my old suffering or weirdness. I just didn't care. To recap, this was a two-part victory: not caring that uneaten ice cream was sitting in my freezer, and not caring that someone else finished it.
I recently baked cupcakes and ate spoonfuls of batter in my usual compulsive way during the preparation, which was disheartening. But I also froze many of the finished cupcakes so we could have them slowly over the coming days/weeks, and that's a very new development. True, I tend to eat them two at a time, or to smother them with whipped cream, which doesn't help with weight loss, but I don't feel tortured by the cupcakes sitting in my freezer. I don't care whether my husband eats the last few cupcakes. I can always make more.
Another change: I often want to overeat or eat multiple sweets a day, but I never feel tempted to carry out a classic binge. The fact that I don't want to buy a package of cookies and a pint of ice cream and a candy bar, and then eat it all in 45 minutes in front of the TV, in secret, is a major development! That doesn't even sound fun or pleasurable to me anymore.
But overeating? Eating in the absence of hunger? Eating dessert with lunch and then again after dinner? Still fun. Still pleasurable. I re-read "Brain Over Binge" over the last few days and did some thinking about this. And I realized that my complete recovery from disordered eating is going to look a little different than the author's, and it will take longer, and that's okay. The author was a naturally thin athlete with normal eating behavior before her bulimia took hold. Once she stopped binging and purging, she returned to the normal eating patterns of her childhood and early teenage years and her weight stabilized around 120 pounds. That's about how much she weighed before her disordered eating began. She sort of came full circle.
I cannot remember a time I was a normal eater or a normal weight. I weighed somewhere in the 135-145 range in 4th grade (and got my period when I was ten and a half, for what it's worth). I have been overeating and eating without hunger since early childhood. Full-blown binging came later, during my teenage years, but I had about 15 years of overeating wired into my brain before the binging even started.
So I've come to understand that even if I stop binging, I'm still going to want to overeat. It's a separate problem from the binging, in a way. I have to re-wire myself in that area too, and until I do, the excess eating will keep me fat. I'm facing a two-part recovery at the very least: address the binging, then address the many forms of overeating. It's going to take awhile, and so will arriving at a reasonable weight.
(Also? I'm straying off topic here, but I've got no idea what my "right" weight is. I know it's not 250 and I know it's not 120. I have felt pretty damn good at 175 before, during a period of dieting in college, and I would feel downright slim at 150. But it's all conjecture; I've got no idea what I can maintain in a healthy, relaxed fashion throughout my thirties and beyond. Anyway, I've just set my sights on 200 for now.)
There is some ambiguity in terms of when overeating crosses over into binging, even though I've previously attempted to delineate clearly what constitutes a binge for me. Some of what I used to call binging, I'm starting to view as overeating. I hope that soon, I will feel confident that the binging is truly behind me and that I can tackle the overeating piece of the puzzle without it backfiring.
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.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Turns out I AM the kind of person that...
...can have Reese's cups in the house.
I often used to eat a King size Reese's (4 cups) on the drive back from the grocery store when I was carrying out a binge. I'd select my main binge foods--ice cream, donuts, snack cakes--and grab Reese's at the checkout as an afterthought. 4 cups in 5 minutes or less on the drive home was just a way of kicking off the binge. And obviously, I "couldn't" keep peanut butter cups in the house without eating them all or feeling tortured until I ate them all. They've given me trouble the last 6 or 7 Halloweens, to say the least.
Now: I bought a King size 4 days ago and I've eaten one cup each day, very mindfully. I enjoyed them and while eating the last one today, I felt somewhat bored with it. So I will enjoy a different treat tomorrow.
...can throw away fast food.
The other day I was ravenous and went to McDonald's. I ordered a small fry and their new Chicken McBites (regular size, not large size). I got halfway through both, realized my hunger was quieted enough for the time being, and threw the remainder away. I used to eat a medium or large fry like it was nothing, hungry or not. And throwing away any part of a burger or chicken McNuggets or whatever? Previously unthinkable.
...will walk away from subpar cake.
There's a new deli-bakery that I've meaning to check out near the Trader Joe's I frequent. Went today, ordered a piece of cake. On the first bite, the cake tasted chemically. Took a few more bites, still bad. So I left it despite having paid $4.25 for it. Who needs it when there's so many good things to be had?
But throughout my past, I have eaten more stale and gross-tasting goods than you can imagine--even freezer burnt ice cream.
I know my consumption of Reese's and McDonalds and cake is nothing to brag about; most people with weight to lose steer clear altogether. But after years of thinking "I'm not the kind of person that can _________" (control herself around x, y, z, basically) I am pleased with these changes. And these changes are only my initial baby steps.
I was sick of fearing specific foods as though they had special power over me, and sick of fearing myself at the same time. Now I'm wary of certain foods, thoughts, and situations, but no longer terrified.
I often used to eat a King size Reese's (4 cups) on the drive back from the grocery store when I was carrying out a binge. I'd select my main binge foods--ice cream, donuts, snack cakes--and grab Reese's at the checkout as an afterthought. 4 cups in 5 minutes or less on the drive home was just a way of kicking off the binge. And obviously, I "couldn't" keep peanut butter cups in the house without eating them all or feeling tortured until I ate them all. They've given me trouble the last 6 or 7 Halloweens, to say the least.
Now: I bought a King size 4 days ago and I've eaten one cup each day, very mindfully. I enjoyed them and while eating the last one today, I felt somewhat bored with it. So I will enjoy a different treat tomorrow.
...can throw away fast food.
The other day I was ravenous and went to McDonald's. I ordered a small fry and their new Chicken McBites (regular size, not large size). I got halfway through both, realized my hunger was quieted enough for the time being, and threw the remainder away. I used to eat a medium or large fry like it was nothing, hungry or not. And throwing away any part of a burger or chicken McNuggets or whatever? Previously unthinkable.
...will walk away from subpar cake.
There's a new deli-bakery that I've meaning to check out near the Trader Joe's I frequent. Went today, ordered a piece of cake. On the first bite, the cake tasted chemically. Took a few more bites, still bad. So I left it despite having paid $4.25 for it. Who needs it when there's so many good things to be had?
But throughout my past, I have eaten more stale and gross-tasting goods than you can imagine--even freezer burnt ice cream.
I know my consumption of Reese's and McDonalds and cake is nothing to brag about; most people with weight to lose steer clear altogether. But after years of thinking "I'm not the kind of person that can _________" (control herself around x, y, z, basically) I am pleased with these changes. And these changes are only my initial baby steps.
I was sick of fearing specific foods as though they had special power over me, and sick of fearing myself at the same time. Now I'm wary of certain foods, thoughts, and situations, but no longer terrified.
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.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
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?
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?
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Herding Cats
So it seems I can look after a couple of things simultaneously, like exercise plus eating vegetables, or mindful eating plus drinking enough water, or meditation plus exercise. But when I try to bring all these good things together, it's like herding cats. And I'm both the herder and the insane group of cats.
I'm not terribly disheartened, because it still feels like a miracle to me to not be binging several times each week. I feel it will all come together at some point if I keep working at it.
Lately, my focus on eating vegetables and gently reducing carbs has been displaced by a focus on mindful eating. I'm eating lots of unhealthy food in sane portions, and doing it mindfully. I was mindful at McDonald's yesterday, as strange as that sounds. Part of me feels guilty about not eating enough nutritious foods, and another part of me is downright gleeful that I'm able to eat desserts and pizza and all the rest now without gorging myself and feeling obsessed with getting my next fix. I have chocolate chips in the house; I have Valentine's candy purchased for my husband and hidden away for now. Neither item is torturing me with its mere presence, the way it would have in the recent past. I'm amazed.
Hopefully, the novelty of this will pass and I will be able to strike a better balance between practical, nutritious foods and pleasurable, indulgent foods soon. I do know that after finishing a small Shamrock shake last night, I was slightly disappointed in myself because my intention was to drink half and throw the rest away. Instead, I finished the whole thing, and then questioned the wisdom of putting that much sugar into my body at once. I also questioned whether my animal brain had defeated me in this instance, because I failed to carry out my sensible plan to only drink half.
The same thing happened with a smoothie at Panera's a couple of days before. I meant to drink half. I paid close attention to my drink and noticed the flavor changing as well as the sensation in my mouth and throat becoming less pleasant after a certain point: diminishing returns had kicked in. But it was still pleasurable enough for me to keep going, even as my higher self said "stop! NOW! right now! Get up and throw this thing into the trash!"
I've concluded that the ability to not finish something delicious you've started is a more advanced skill than the skill of not starting in the first place, or the skill of throwing away half of something before you ever take the first taste. And yes, I think these are all skills that can be developed. After the incidents with the smoothie and the shake, I've concluded that I should discard half of such hyperpalatable drinks before I take a single taste, because that's my current level of skill. If I want to enjoy something but not take in too much sugar, this is a good way for me to accomplish that.
Down the road, I expect myself to be able to stop halfway through something and walk away from it more consistently. Right now, I can do that with pastries and candy more easily than I can with dairy-based things like mousse, yogurt smoothies, and ice cream. Who knows why, but that's been my experience. Just tonight I shared a small, high quality piece of cake with my husband at a bakery-cafe. He brought home this ridiculously tiny square from his half to eat later. I would have found that maddening in the past, but I can handle it now. If we had been sharing ice cream instead of cake, however, I would have eaten the last bit then and there, no doubt.
I tell myself: all in good time. The reality is I have almost 30 years of bad habits and non-awareness programmed into me, and the rest of my life to learn a new way.
p.s. That's not my cat. My only pet is a blue betta fish named Alpha, who gobbles food admirably in his own right.
I'm not terribly disheartened, because it still feels like a miracle to me to not be binging several times each week. I feel it will all come together at some point if I keep working at it.
Lately, my focus on eating vegetables and gently reducing carbs has been displaced by a focus on mindful eating. I'm eating lots of unhealthy food in sane portions, and doing it mindfully. I was mindful at McDonald's yesterday, as strange as that sounds. Part of me feels guilty about not eating enough nutritious foods, and another part of me is downright gleeful that I'm able to eat desserts and pizza and all the rest now without gorging myself and feeling obsessed with getting my next fix. I have chocolate chips in the house; I have Valentine's candy purchased for my husband and hidden away for now. Neither item is torturing me with its mere presence, the way it would have in the recent past. I'm amazed.
Hopefully, the novelty of this will pass and I will be able to strike a better balance between practical, nutritious foods and pleasurable, indulgent foods soon. I do know that after finishing a small Shamrock shake last night, I was slightly disappointed in myself because my intention was to drink half and throw the rest away. Instead, I finished the whole thing, and then questioned the wisdom of putting that much sugar into my body at once. I also questioned whether my animal brain had defeated me in this instance, because I failed to carry out my sensible plan to only drink half.
The same thing happened with a smoothie at Panera's a couple of days before. I meant to drink half. I paid close attention to my drink and noticed the flavor changing as well as the sensation in my mouth and throat becoming less pleasant after a certain point: diminishing returns had kicked in. But it was still pleasurable enough for me to keep going, even as my higher self said "stop! NOW! right now! Get up and throw this thing into the trash!"
I've concluded that the ability to not finish something delicious you've started is a more advanced skill than the skill of not starting in the first place, or the skill of throwing away half of something before you ever take the first taste. And yes, I think these are all skills that can be developed. After the incidents with the smoothie and the shake, I've concluded that I should discard half of such hyperpalatable drinks before I take a single taste, because that's my current level of skill. If I want to enjoy something but not take in too much sugar, this is a good way for me to accomplish that.
Down the road, I expect myself to be able to stop halfway through something and walk away from it more consistently. Right now, I can do that with pastries and candy more easily than I can with dairy-based things like mousse, yogurt smoothies, and ice cream. Who knows why, but that's been my experience. Just tonight I shared a small, high quality piece of cake with my husband at a bakery-cafe. He brought home this ridiculously tiny square from his half to eat later. I would have found that maddening in the past, but I can handle it now. If we had been sharing ice cream instead of cake, however, I would have eaten the last bit then and there, no doubt.
I tell myself: all in good time. The reality is I have almost 30 years of bad habits and non-awareness programmed into me, and the rest of my life to learn a new way.
p.s. That's not my cat. My only pet is a blue betta fish named Alpha, who gobbles food admirably in his own right.
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?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Okay, so it's too early to bake
Yesterday was a special day for my husband and I. We went out for lunch, and I ate moderately. I enjoyed half of a perfect, tiny piece of flan. I thought that later in the day, I might use the immersion blender I received for Christmas to make chocolate mousse for the first time, just as a little evening treat for the two of us.
The day went on, and something career-related started bugging me. And against my better judgment, I decided to make mousse.
Now, I didn't binge on the mousse. But I overate, and I slipped into that same gray area that I spoke about recently (with the puppy chow). I started eating too fast; there was a desperation there. I set out intending to eat only the final product, but then started eating some of the ingredients as soon as the chocolate chips and Hershey bar were opened. I was standing at the counter, licking spatulas as I worked, and feeling unhappy and a bit crazy.
I made the mousse and some whipped cream to garnish it with, but neither turned out quite right. It still tasted good, and my husband loved it. Even though it was a moderate amount--nothing like a real binge--I ate too much, and in a short period of time. I mean, the mousse was rich--whipping cream, milk chocolate chips (melted), some powdered sugar, and vanilla. I didn't truly enjoy this dish because of the state of mind I was in.
Once I was finished eating, a small wave of nausea ran through me. It surprised me, but I guess my body isn't as used to pure sugar and cream, eaten rather quickly, anymore! I took a chromium supplement, ate some cheddar and sliced turkey, and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes to mitigate the blood sugar spike I likely caused myself. I washed the whipped cream down the sink with water; it was a waste because we had eaten only a couple of tablespoons of it. I threw away the last bit of Hershey bar I had used to make decorative chocolate curls (that didn't turn out right, either) and put the remaining chocolate chips away with the rest of my baking supplies.
This is what I think.
1. It's too early for me to make desserts at home. Even though homemade means better quality and purer ingredients, I seem to have less of a problem when I go out and buy an individual serving of something.
2. I will have to work on "baking mindfully" at some point, because I do like to bake. Cooking feels like drudgery, but baking is fun.
3. It's best if I stay away from sweets when I'm upset to ANY degree. Even mildly upset. Though I understand I have control over my actions, I don't want to strengthen the association between emotional upset and sugary food in my brain any further.
4. It remains to be seen whether I can coexist with milk chocolate chips in the house. I did think about them once today, but the thought didn't linger long. If they become a problem, I will toss them.
I firmly believe that if I keep working on mindfulness and habit change, I will be able to do all the things a normal eater does, such as bake and have treats in the house. But I've got to address one area at a time, and right now, I'm still working on the fundamentals.
My mindfulness meditation classes start tomorrow, and I'm eager to learn. Have a great week, everyone!
The day went on, and something career-related started bugging me. And against my better judgment, I decided to make mousse.
Now, I didn't binge on the mousse. But I overate, and I slipped into that same gray area that I spoke about recently (with the puppy chow). I started eating too fast; there was a desperation there. I set out intending to eat only the final product, but then started eating some of the ingredients as soon as the chocolate chips and Hershey bar were opened. I was standing at the counter, licking spatulas as I worked, and feeling unhappy and a bit crazy.
I made the mousse and some whipped cream to garnish it with, but neither turned out quite right. It still tasted good, and my husband loved it. Even though it was a moderate amount--nothing like a real binge--I ate too much, and in a short period of time. I mean, the mousse was rich--whipping cream, milk chocolate chips (melted), some powdered sugar, and vanilla. I didn't truly enjoy this dish because of the state of mind I was in.
Once I was finished eating, a small wave of nausea ran through me. It surprised me, but I guess my body isn't as used to pure sugar and cream, eaten rather quickly, anymore! I took a chromium supplement, ate some cheddar and sliced turkey, and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes to mitigate the blood sugar spike I likely caused myself. I washed the whipped cream down the sink with water; it was a waste because we had eaten only a couple of tablespoons of it. I threw away the last bit of Hershey bar I had used to make decorative chocolate curls (that didn't turn out right, either) and put the remaining chocolate chips away with the rest of my baking supplies.
This is what I think.
1. It's too early for me to make desserts at home. Even though homemade means better quality and purer ingredients, I seem to have less of a problem when I go out and buy an individual serving of something.
2. I will have to work on "baking mindfully" at some point, because I do like to bake. Cooking feels like drudgery, but baking is fun.
3. It's best if I stay away from sweets when I'm upset to ANY degree. Even mildly upset. Though I understand I have control over my actions, I don't want to strengthen the association between emotional upset and sugary food in my brain any further.
4. It remains to be seen whether I can coexist with milk chocolate chips in the house. I did think about them once today, but the thought didn't linger long. If they become a problem, I will toss them.
I firmly believe that if I keep working on mindfulness and habit change, I will be able to do all the things a normal eater does, such as bake and have treats in the house. But I've got to address one area at a time, and right now, I'm still working on the fundamentals.
My mindfulness meditation classes start tomorrow, and I'm eager to learn. Have a great week, everyone!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Binging versus Overeating
I experienced the difference yesterday.
A (skinny, hyper, athletic) friend came over and it was his wish to have a movie & junk food night with me. Since 2005, making muddy buddies (also known as "puppy chow") about once a year has been a tradition of ours. He got a bucket of KFC for dinner and brought the Chex cereal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, etc. for the puppy chow. We had a nice long visit in the living room first, then the rest of the night was all about the food and entertainment.
By the end of the night, I had overeaten both fried chicken and puppy chow, and had eaten while watching TV/movies, which is something I want to stop doing. I am absolutely not blaming my friend for my own voluntary actions, but I will say that I found it hard to remain mindful in the midst of visiting with him and handling his chaotic energy. (I am much more subdued and mellow--an introvert--and can find it jolting to be around boisterous people. I sort of "lose myself" and then require time to recuperate. I'd been doing well with mindful eating recently because my husband has been away for 2 weeks on business and I've had a quiet home, time to myself, and space to explore a new pattern of eating.) Anyway, not only did I find it hard to focus on how fast and how much I was eating, but I was uncomfortable telling my friend I didn't want to eat during the movie, because that's EXACTLY what he wanted to do...and it's what I've willingly done with him for seven years now.
The bottom line is that I am going to have to figure out how to navigate these scenarios better in the future so that I don't overeat in them. Isolating myself and turning down social invitations is not the answer; learning to regulate myself somehow in less-than-perfect/peaceful situations has to be the way forward.
At one point towards the end of the visit, I found myself standing at my kitchen counter and eating the puppy chow rather fast out of a little bowl. I felt sort of out of control, like it would be almost impossible for me to stop eating right then and there, walk away, and leave the rest of the contents of the bowl untouched. I finished the bowl as these thoughts and anxieties ran their course. I didn't pour any more out for myself, and I sent all leftover chicken, puppy chow, and ingredients (again: chocolate chips and peanut butter) home with my friend shortly afterward.
Once the house was quiet, I started wondering if I had binged. I had eaten too much, too quickly, in a short period of time. And at one point, I had felt out of control--helpless to stop. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had simply overeaten. I had not binged. Re-reading my recent post, How will I know whether I'm binging?, clarified the matter further for me. I had not carried out one my three "classic" binge patterns. And that moment of feeling out of control that worried me? I ate two more small mouthfuls to finish off that bowl and I DID walk away from the remaining cups and cups of puppy chow sitting in a bag next to my bowl on the counter. And it was no big deal. If I had truly been out of control or lost in a binge, I would have reached into that bag for another handful, or poured myself another small bowl and kept eating.
What's more, I did not take part of the leftovers to binge on after my friend's departure, despite his repeated offers for me to keep some of the food. I did not have feelings of anxiety or longing or desperation or anger as I put all the leftovers in a shopping bag for my friend to take home. I had no desire to run to the grocery store and get more treats to eat in private once I had the house to myself again. I felt no need to binge the next day (meaning today, a Sunday) and then "start over" on Monday. This is so, so different from my usual patterns of desire and behavior.
What's even wilder is that I am finding it effortless to eat lighter today as a natural compensation for all the indulgent food I had yesterday. My husband used to plead with me: honey, if you indulge, just go easy the next day. That's what I do, and then everything balances out. Please do this! I was never able to explain to him why I COULDN'T do that. I understood the principle, and I didn't disagree with him about the usefulness of it, but I just. could. not. do. it. because my urges to binge the next day were too much for me.
I hope it's not too early to say that something wonderful is happening to me.
I'm saying it with trepidation, like it might all go to crap again in the blink of an eye...but all this sure feels wonderful.
A (skinny, hyper, athletic) friend came over and it was his wish to have a movie & junk food night with me. Since 2005, making muddy buddies (also known as "puppy chow") about once a year has been a tradition of ours. He got a bucket of KFC for dinner and brought the Chex cereal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, etc. for the puppy chow. We had a nice long visit in the living room first, then the rest of the night was all about the food and entertainment.
By the end of the night, I had overeaten both fried chicken and puppy chow, and had eaten while watching TV/movies, which is something I want to stop doing. I am absolutely not blaming my friend for my own voluntary actions, but I will say that I found it hard to remain mindful in the midst of visiting with him and handling his chaotic energy. (I am much more subdued and mellow--an introvert--and can find it jolting to be around boisterous people. I sort of "lose myself" and then require time to recuperate. I'd been doing well with mindful eating recently because my husband has been away for 2 weeks on business and I've had a quiet home, time to myself, and space to explore a new pattern of eating.) Anyway, not only did I find it hard to focus on how fast and how much I was eating, but I was uncomfortable telling my friend I didn't want to eat during the movie, because that's EXACTLY what he wanted to do...and it's what I've willingly done with him for seven years now.
The bottom line is that I am going to have to figure out how to navigate these scenarios better in the future so that I don't overeat in them. Isolating myself and turning down social invitations is not the answer; learning to regulate myself somehow in less-than-perfect/peaceful situations has to be the way forward.
At one point towards the end of the visit, I found myself standing at my kitchen counter and eating the puppy chow rather fast out of a little bowl. I felt sort of out of control, like it would be almost impossible for me to stop eating right then and there, walk away, and leave the rest of the contents of the bowl untouched. I finished the bowl as these thoughts and anxieties ran their course. I didn't pour any more out for myself, and I sent all leftover chicken, puppy chow, and ingredients (again: chocolate chips and peanut butter) home with my friend shortly afterward.
Once the house was quiet, I started wondering if I had binged. I had eaten too much, too quickly, in a short period of time. And at one point, I had felt out of control--helpless to stop. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had simply overeaten. I had not binged. Re-reading my recent post, How will I know whether I'm binging?, clarified the matter further for me. I had not carried out one my three "classic" binge patterns. And that moment of feeling out of control that worried me? I ate two more small mouthfuls to finish off that bowl and I DID walk away from the remaining cups and cups of puppy chow sitting in a bag next to my bowl on the counter. And it was no big deal. If I had truly been out of control or lost in a binge, I would have reached into that bag for another handful, or poured myself another small bowl and kept eating.
What's more, I did not take part of the leftovers to binge on after my friend's departure, despite his repeated offers for me to keep some of the food. I did not have feelings of anxiety or longing or desperation or anger as I put all the leftovers in a shopping bag for my friend to take home. I had no desire to run to the grocery store and get more treats to eat in private once I had the house to myself again. I felt no need to binge the next day (meaning today, a Sunday) and then "start over" on Monday. This is so, so different from my usual patterns of desire and behavior.
What's even wilder is that I am finding it effortless to eat lighter today as a natural compensation for all the indulgent food I had yesterday. My husband used to plead with me: honey, if you indulge, just go easy the next day. That's what I do, and then everything balances out. Please do this! I was never able to explain to him why I COULDN'T do that. I understood the principle, and I didn't disagree with him about the usefulness of it, but I just. could. not. do. it. because my urges to binge the next day were too much for me.
I hope it's not too early to say that something wonderful is happening to me.
I'm saying it with trepidation, like it might all go to crap again in the blink of an eye...but all this sure feels wonderful.
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.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
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 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?
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