Bump in the road on the way to legalizing junk food

I believe that for me, long-term success in terms of weight stabilization and eating disorder recovery will involve the ability to have junk food in the house and not feel obsessive or compulsive around it. I'm getting there, but my legalization process has been thrown off a bit by new motherhood.

After I came home from the hospital, I started eating treats mindlessly again. The reason for this was fatigue and time constraints, moreso than emotional turmoil or a desire to return to old ways.

It takes time to eat a piece of cake mindfully. But when you are tired and the clock is speeding towards the next feeding or pumping session--and you'd also like to shower and squeeze a nap in there if you can--a 15 minute meditative eating experience with cake isn't going to happen. So what happens? You grab something and cram it in quickly, getting a quick hit of pleasure. Then you want another hit later, because you barely paid attention the first time...

Another thing that had me grabbing at pop tarts and trail mix several times a day was the lack of interest I have in cooking right now. I want pleasure and comfort and convenience, and I'm more focused on the baby than myself, so it's kind of a perfect storm for poor choices.

What to do? Well, I know if I make some sort of vow or plan (e.g. "keep all junk out of the house until blah blah blah") it will probably backfire. So I'm not doing that.

Basically, since I'm a little out of sorts right now and likely to make poor eating choices, I'm not going to go out of my way to acquire sweets in the near future. That is, I won't be stocking junk and immediately replacing it when things run out. Since I'm at home all the time and my husband is taking care of the grocery shopping for now, not much is coming my way unless I request it. If I really want something, I'll ask for it and try to find a quiet time to really savor it. (So far, I've only requested one treat from the store. But I didn't do so great with the savoring part!)

That's it, really. And I will re-asses the situation as needed. Later, I'll have longer stretches of time to myself (hopefully!) and I'll be grocery shopping again, and I expect to pick up where I left off before the birth.

New baby, short posts

I had a beautiful girl just over 2 weeks ago! And now I'm in the midst of the crazy newborn stage. I can tell it is going to be awhile before I can sit down and write proper posts again, so I installed the Blogger app on my phone. My blogging will consist of short notes whenever the mood strikes.

For the first time ever, I've been more obsessed with someone else's food and weight than my own. My baby lost too much weight after birth, was jaundiced, became slightly dehydrated, and had to be supplemented with formula (doctor's orders). Pretty much every waking moment since that bottle was introduced in the hospital has been devoted to trying to get her to breastfeed more frequently and effectively, pumping so that she drinks more milk than formula, and worrying about getting her up to birth weight.

A few days ago, she surpassed her birth weight. And I *think* feeding is going better. I'm still having to pump. Hope this all comes together soon; exclusively breastfeeding would be so much easier.
All in all, I'm grateful she's healthy and I'm doing okay too.

Home scale says 250-253.

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!"

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.

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.