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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
FEW in review: Mar 5-11
So, no exercise this week. I felt a cold coming on and slept a bunch; the cold never developed but my right ear is still hurting off and on. (I had a bad ear infection over the winter and my right eardrum burst. Doctor told me it'll take a while to heal fully.)
My home scale says 255. I'm checking it too frantically and too often for my taste. Something's going on there.
But things aren't all bad...I have enough courage and energy to try to improve my appearance once again, so I've ordered some new clothes for spring. I'll be writing more about that soon.
Also, a small tweak in my routine is working out well for me. After a long stretch of not drinking enough water, it occurred to me to make sure my water bottle is cleaned, filled, and sitting next to my thyroid medication so that I start drinking from it first thing in the morning. My bottle holds 20 ounces and I try to drink at least 60 ounces each day. I usually chug about 10 ounces with my morning medication, and I finish off another 10 with breakfast. Being 1/3 of the way "done" so early in the morning encourages me to keep going; it's pretty easy to drink another 20 before lunch and another 20 before dinner. Before I started doing this, I'd often drink a bit of water from a cup to take my medicine but then put off cleaning my water bottle until later in the day (a task I hate for some reason). The late start would make it difficult to get in my 60 ounces. Or I wouldn't clean it at all and would instead drink out of glasses sporadically throughout the day. That made it hard to know how much I was drinking; I'm sure I typically drank less than 60 ounces on those days. I like my new approach better. Hooray for little adjustments!
I'm leaving my notes for the week in their original form; I experienced turmoil and see no reason to whitewash.
Monday, March 5:
11:45 am - fresh juice made of carrots, celery, apple, and beet;
chicken noodle soup, KIND bar
4 pm - slice of pizza eaten in a hurry in the car (not attentive)
6 pm - devil's food cupcake and pistachio cupcake (attentive but not truly mindful...then again I was literally in Grand Central Station. It's challenging.)
10:45 pm - 2 fried eggs, 2 slices of Canadian bacon, 1 slice of cheese on 2 pieces of toast. not much water today.
Tuesday, March 6:
12:30 pm - egg white salad on a piece of toast;
strawberries with whipped cream (disappointing)
4:45 pm - KIND bar; salad with spinach, one hardboiled egg, 2 strips of turkey bacon, cherry tomatoes, and olive oil/balsamic/dijon mustard dressing
10 to 11 pm - a small amount of barely sweet hot cocoa; half a little snack size packet of honey roasted peanuts; piece of turkey bacon with a piece of cheddar cheese
Did not go to BodyPump because I felt like I was coming down with a cold.
eating attentive today
Wednesday, March 7:
8 am - half a bowl of split pea soup; 1/3 chicken panini with mushrooms and spinach; half a bagel with cream cheese
4 pm - the other half of the honey roasted peanuts packet
6 pm - southern greens blend with onions, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, Canadian bacon
9:30 pm - grilled salmon on a piece of bread with a little mayo; white bean/pumpkin/onion/mushroom/Canadian bacon stew
eating attentive today
Thursday, March 8:
10:30 am - leftover white bean stew
1:30 pm - KIND bar
5 pm - leftover southern greens blend; hard boiled egg, 2 pieces of toast, and way too much lemon gingersnap ice cream
9 pm - snack size cashews packet
11 pm - more ice cream. I feel out of control again. Why can't I get back to that easy, relaxed state I was in? Why is it hard to eat desserts mindfully all of a sudden? I'm worrying about my weight and I think it's tripping me up and making it harder to focus on slow and steady behavioral/eating changes.
Friday, March 9:
8:30 am - fried egg, slice of Canadian bacon, half slice of cheddar cheese,
two pieces of toast (one with butter)
2:30 pm - 2 pieces of wheat bread, roast beef, slice of cheddar, baby spinach
6:30 to 8:30 pm - grilled chicken breast on half a pita with spinach, tomatoes, and tzatziki sauce; 3 homemade chocolate cupcakes (one plain, one with whipped cream and raw walnuts, one with whipped cream and plain raspberries) along with some batter. It wasn't mindful, either. I don't know what to think anymore. The rest of my eating today was attentive and I drank 60 ounces of water.
Saturday, March 10:
snack pack of honey roasted peanuts and half a slice of cheddar
roast beef sandwich with spinach; chocolate-raspberry-whipped cream parfait--I slowed down during the second half of this and eased into mindfulness a bit more.
Later, with company over, I had more of this in a fairly mindless fashion.
Turkey, bell pepper, and black bean tacos with guacamole and sour cream
2 pieces of cinnamon toast
70+ ounces of water
Sunday, March 11:
potatoes with two thin slices of Canadian bacon and sour cream
snack size honey roasted peanuts and 3/4 small piece of cake--pretty mindful
fried fish and curry roasted cauliflower
60 ounces of water; eating attentive today
My home scale says 255. I'm checking it too frantically and too often for my taste. Something's going on there.
But things aren't all bad...I have enough courage and energy to try to improve my appearance once again, so I've ordered some new clothes for spring. I'll be writing more about that soon.
Also, a small tweak in my routine is working out well for me. After a long stretch of not drinking enough water, it occurred to me to make sure my water bottle is cleaned, filled, and sitting next to my thyroid medication so that I start drinking from it first thing in the morning. My bottle holds 20 ounces and I try to drink at least 60 ounces each day. I usually chug about 10 ounces with my morning medication, and I finish off another 10 with breakfast. Being 1/3 of the way "done" so early in the morning encourages me to keep going; it's pretty easy to drink another 20 before lunch and another 20 before dinner. Before I started doing this, I'd often drink a bit of water from a cup to take my medicine but then put off cleaning my water bottle until later in the day (a task I hate for some reason). The late start would make it difficult to get in my 60 ounces. Or I wouldn't clean it at all and would instead drink out of glasses sporadically throughout the day. That made it hard to know how much I was drinking; I'm sure I typically drank less than 60 ounces on those days. I like my new approach better. Hooray for little adjustments!
I'm leaving my notes for the week in their original form; I experienced turmoil and see no reason to whitewash.
Monday, March 5:
11:45 am - fresh juice made of carrots, celery, apple, and beet;
chicken noodle soup, KIND bar
4 pm - slice of pizza eaten in a hurry in the car (not attentive)
6 pm - devil's food cupcake and pistachio cupcake (attentive but not truly mindful...then again I was literally in Grand Central Station. It's challenging.)
10:45 pm - 2 fried eggs, 2 slices of Canadian bacon, 1 slice of cheese on 2 pieces of toast. not much water today.
Tuesday, March 6:
12:30 pm - egg white salad on a piece of toast;
strawberries with whipped cream (disappointing)
4:45 pm - KIND bar; salad with spinach, one hardboiled egg, 2 strips of turkey bacon, cherry tomatoes, and olive oil/balsamic/dijon mustard dressing
10 to 11 pm - a small amount of barely sweet hot cocoa; half a little snack size packet of honey roasted peanuts; piece of turkey bacon with a piece of cheddar cheese
Did not go to BodyPump because I felt like I was coming down with a cold.
eating attentive today
Wednesday, March 7:
8 am - half a bowl of split pea soup; 1/3 chicken panini with mushrooms and spinach; half a bagel with cream cheese
4 pm - the other half of the honey roasted peanuts packet
6 pm - southern greens blend with onions, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, Canadian bacon
9:30 pm - grilled salmon on a piece of bread with a little mayo; white bean/pumpkin/onion/mushroom/Canadian bacon stew
eating attentive today
Thursday, March 8:
10:30 am - leftover white bean stew
1:30 pm - KIND bar
5 pm - leftover southern greens blend; hard boiled egg, 2 pieces of toast, and way too much lemon gingersnap ice cream
9 pm - snack size cashews packet
11 pm - more ice cream. I feel out of control again. Why can't I get back to that easy, relaxed state I was in? Why is it hard to eat desserts mindfully all of a sudden? I'm worrying about my weight and I think it's tripping me up and making it harder to focus on slow and steady behavioral/eating changes.
Friday, March 9:
8:30 am - fried egg, slice of Canadian bacon, half slice of cheddar cheese,
two pieces of toast (one with butter)
2:30 pm - 2 pieces of wheat bread, roast beef, slice of cheddar, baby spinach
6:30 to 8:30 pm - grilled chicken breast on half a pita with spinach, tomatoes, and tzatziki sauce; 3 homemade chocolate cupcakes (one plain, one with whipped cream and raw walnuts, one with whipped cream and plain raspberries) along with some batter. It wasn't mindful, either. I don't know what to think anymore. The rest of my eating today was attentive and I drank 60 ounces of water.
Saturday, March 10:
snack pack of honey roasted peanuts and half a slice of cheddar
roast beef sandwich with spinach; chocolate-raspberry-whipped cream parfait--I slowed down during the second half of this and eased into mindfulness a bit more.
Later, with company over, I had more of this in a fairly mindless fashion.
Turkey, bell pepper, and black bean tacos with guacamole and sour cream
2 pieces of cinnamon toast
70+ ounces of water
Sunday, March 11:
potatoes with two thin slices of Canadian bacon and sour cream
snack size honey roasted peanuts and 3/4 small piece of cake--pretty mindful
fried fish and curry roasted cauliflower
60 ounces of water; eating attentive today
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
First month of meditation
I don't expect my meditation notes to be of interest to anyone, but I like to keep track on my blog because my desire to stop binge eating is the thing that led me to try meditation in earnest.
At one month in, I've had some interesting, positive experiences and personal observations. I've also had really rough patches. Often I don't want to meditate, even though I have already witnessed how beneficial it can be. This underscores a general tendency of mine: I tend to undervalue experiential learning and overvalue reading and abstract thinking, and the way I spend my time reflects that. Also, I have a tendency to get too far ahead of myself and that tripped me up at the very end of February and beginning of March. I read too much, grappled with aspects of Buddhist philosophy that I don't need to worry about at this stage, and temporarily lost sight of the fact that I set out to stop binging, not to become a Buddhist. I absolutely, 100% knew this would happen because religion is such a loaded thing for me. I got so freaked out and frustrated that I came close to chucking the whole practice. Luckily, I had anticipated this possible reaction when signing up for the meditation course I'm currently taking, and had decided in advance that I would think critically, as ever, and discard anything I disagreed with--that it needn't be all or nothing.
Meditation is hard work. Engaging with ancient philosophies and practices in a thoughtful way is hard work, especially when those philosophies and practices are foreign to you. But I think this is really important work for me to do.
February 2012 Practices
Feb 3rd: evening breathing meditation session. Purged 14 unnecessary items from house.
Feb 4th: no meditation.
Feb 5th: did my readings, but no practice. Today's events and my reaction to them drove home the fact that I DO need to strengthen my brain with meditation, and for more reasons than just my impulsive eating.
Feb 6th: I understand the importance of developing my practice, yet feel resistance to sitting down and observing my breathing for 20 or more minutes!
Feb 7th: evening breathing meditation
Feb 8th: readings
Feb 9th: morning breathing meditation; readings
Feb 10th: short morning breathing meditation
Feb 11th: metta (lovingkindness) meditation; readings
Feb 12th: short metta
Feb 13th: morning metta; readings
Feb 14th: morning breathing; readings
Feb 15th: readings; evening metta
Feb 16th: readings; evening metta (and watched a great documentary about the Buddha!)
Feb 17th: readings
Feb 18th: morning breathing; readings
Feb 19th: evening metta
Feb 20th: readings
Feb 21st: readings; morning metta; evening metta, evening breathing
Feb 22nd: readings; evening breathing (I think!)
Feb 23rd: nothing
Feb 24th: readings. Seems I've hit a rough patch with the actual meditation. Frustration and boredom is common and I've got to work through that.
Feb 25th: readings
Feb 26th: actual proper seated metta meditation in the morning! I was so pleased! Plus daily readings.
Feb 27th: readings
Feb 28th: readings and evening breathing
Feb 29th: half a morning metta (was interrupted); afternoon body awareness (just something I sort of made up on the spot; I'm sure there is a formal practice I can get into later); purged 15 unnecessary items from the house.
At one month in, I've had some interesting, positive experiences and personal observations. I've also had really rough patches. Often I don't want to meditate, even though I have already witnessed how beneficial it can be. This underscores a general tendency of mine: I tend to undervalue experiential learning and overvalue reading and abstract thinking, and the way I spend my time reflects that. Also, I have a tendency to get too far ahead of myself and that tripped me up at the very end of February and beginning of March. I read too much, grappled with aspects of Buddhist philosophy that I don't need to worry about at this stage, and temporarily lost sight of the fact that I set out to stop binging, not to become a Buddhist. I absolutely, 100% knew this would happen because religion is such a loaded thing for me. I got so freaked out and frustrated that I came close to chucking the whole practice. Luckily, I had anticipated this possible reaction when signing up for the meditation course I'm currently taking, and had decided in advance that I would think critically, as ever, and discard anything I disagreed with--that it needn't be all or nothing.
Meditation is hard work. Engaging with ancient philosophies and practices in a thoughtful way is hard work, especially when those philosophies and practices are foreign to you. But I think this is really important work for me to do.
February 2012 Practices
Feb 3rd: evening breathing meditation session. Purged 14 unnecessary items from house.
Feb 4th: no meditation.
Feb 5th: did my readings, but no practice. Today's events and my reaction to them drove home the fact that I DO need to strengthen my brain with meditation, and for more reasons than just my impulsive eating.
Feb 6th: I understand the importance of developing my practice, yet feel resistance to sitting down and observing my breathing for 20 or more minutes!
Feb 7th: evening breathing meditation
Feb 8th: readings
Feb 9th: morning breathing meditation; readings
Feb 10th: short morning breathing meditation
Feb 11th: metta (lovingkindness) meditation; readings
Feb 12th: short metta
Feb 13th: morning metta; readings
Feb 14th: morning breathing; readings
Feb 15th: readings; evening metta
Feb 16th: readings; evening metta (and watched a great documentary about the Buddha!)
Feb 17th: readings
Feb 18th: morning breathing; readings
Feb 19th: evening metta
Feb 20th: readings
Feb 21st: readings; morning metta; evening metta, evening breathing
Feb 22nd: readings; evening breathing (I think!)
Feb 23rd: nothing
Feb 24th: readings. Seems I've hit a rough patch with the actual meditation. Frustration and boredom is common and I've got to work through that.
Feb 25th: readings
Feb 26th: actual proper seated metta meditation in the morning! I was so pleased! Plus daily readings.
Feb 27th: readings
Feb 28th: readings and evening breathing
Feb 29th: half a morning metta (was interrupted); afternoon body awareness (just something I sort of made up on the spot; I'm sure there is a formal practice I can get into later); purged 15 unnecessary items from the house.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
FEW in review: Feb 27-Mar 4
This week...ehhh...it is what it is. I feel lost in regards to food, exercise, meditation, the whole thing. I wish I could hide away from the world, re-read Brain Over Binge, and get back into the groove immediately. But I know I cannot put life on hold every time I experience a rough patch; if a person cannot continue to do the smart thing(s) when life gets hectic, they have no chance of maintaining weight loss for long (if they manage to lose weight in the first place!). And yeah, life feels hectic right now. I'm overwhelmed and my eating behavior is getting sloppy as a direct consequence.
I hate to spout cliches, but for now I'm reduced to saying "this too shall pass."
Monday, February 27th:
2 pieces of broccoli frittata
salad--lamb's lettuce, turkey, feta, carrots, pomegranate seeds, celery
1.5 pieces of veggie pizza
blood orange Chobani yogurt with walnuts; KIND bar
5 Oreos with milk in the afternoon and a red velvet cupcake at night
Tuesday, February 28th:
1'ish KIND bar
3 pm: 5 Oreos with milk (mindfulness practice); 2 thin pork cutlets
6 pm: celery with pb and raisins
7:30 pm: BodyPump class
10:30 pm: more celery sticks with pb and raisins; 2 thin pork cutlets, small potato with butter; Mediterranean style greens--containing onions, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, oregano, basil
estimated 50 ounces of water; eating attentive today
gym scale says: 255
Wednesday, February 29th:
8:30 am: went out for breakfast with my husband and it was so nice. Half a bagel with cream cheese; half a small turkey & cucumber sandwich; half a small cup of white bean soup; most of a small cranberry-orange-almond tart; very lightly sweetened small hazelnut cappuccino
2 pm: 2 thin pork cutlets; Mediterranean style greens; small potato w/ butter; celery stick with pb & raisins
8 pm: Chobani vanilla yogurt with stewed strawberries and walnuts (mindfulness practice)
10 pm: few bites of a bison burger and half an order of curly fries
about 55 ounces of water; all eating attentive
Thursday, March 1st:
1:45 pm: scoop of coconut macaroon ice cream (15 min. mindfulness practice)
Mediterranean greens and potatoes; half a celery stick with pb & raisins
bison burrito with onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, cheese, sour cream
blood orange yogurt with stewed strawberries
35 minutes on the treadmill
eating attentive; not much water today
later: more ice cream and Oreos and a glass of milk. A binge.
Friday, March 2nd:
ice cream
McDonald's
chocolate chips
sweet drink from Starbucks-some white chocolate thing
Note: don't remember what else, as it's now Sunday and I'm trying to recall.
After Thursday night's binge, I just gave up and stopped paying attention, stopped trying for a full day.
Saturday, March 3rd:
chicken salad on bread
KIND bar and a few raw almonds
fresh juice: beets, apple, ginger. Shockingly, the food highlight of my day!
buttered toast and 3/4 of a skinny vanilla latte
part of an order of fries and half a pulled pork sandwich
very little water; eating not that attentive. Traveling and social interaction a factor today, plus still out of sorts from Thursday and Friday.
Sunday, March 4th:
chicken salad on one piece of bread; KIND bar
strawberries and hot chocolate with whipped cream--not mindful, though
grilled cheese sandwich
toast and a Chobani blood orange yogurt
2 bison and vegetable tacos
water? and semi-attentive eating.
I hate to spout cliches, but for now I'm reduced to saying "this too shall pass."
Monday, February 27th:
2 pieces of broccoli frittata
salad--lamb's lettuce, turkey, feta, carrots, pomegranate seeds, celery
1.5 pieces of veggie pizza
blood orange Chobani yogurt with walnuts; KIND bar
5 Oreos with milk in the afternoon and a red velvet cupcake at night
Tuesday, February 28th:
1'ish KIND bar
3 pm: 5 Oreos with milk (mindfulness practice); 2 thin pork cutlets
6 pm: celery with pb and raisins
7:30 pm: BodyPump class
10:30 pm: more celery sticks with pb and raisins; 2 thin pork cutlets, small potato with butter; Mediterranean style greens--containing onions, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, oregano, basil
estimated 50 ounces of water; eating attentive today
gym scale says: 255
Wednesday, February 29th:
8:30 am: went out for breakfast with my husband and it was so nice. Half a bagel with cream cheese; half a small turkey & cucumber sandwich; half a small cup of white bean soup; most of a small cranberry-orange-almond tart; very lightly sweetened small hazelnut cappuccino
2 pm: 2 thin pork cutlets; Mediterranean style greens; small potato w/ butter; celery stick with pb & raisins
8 pm: Chobani vanilla yogurt with stewed strawberries and walnuts (mindfulness practice)
10 pm: few bites of a bison burger and half an order of curly fries
about 55 ounces of water; all eating attentive
Thursday, March 1st:
1:45 pm: scoop of coconut macaroon ice cream (15 min. mindfulness practice)
Mediterranean greens and potatoes; half a celery stick with pb & raisins
bison burrito with onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, cheese, sour cream
blood orange yogurt with stewed strawberries
35 minutes on the treadmill
eating attentive; not much water today
later: more ice cream and Oreos and a glass of milk. A binge.
Friday, March 2nd:
ice cream
McDonald's
chocolate chips
sweet drink from Starbucks-some white chocolate thing
Note: don't remember what else, as it's now Sunday and I'm trying to recall.
After Thursday night's binge, I just gave up and stopped paying attention, stopped trying for a full day.
Saturday, March 3rd:
chicken salad on bread
KIND bar and a few raw almonds
fresh juice: beets, apple, ginger. Shockingly, the food highlight of my day!
buttered toast and 3/4 of a skinny vanilla latte
part of an order of fries and half a pulled pork sandwich
very little water; eating not that attentive. Traveling and social interaction a factor today, plus still out of sorts from Thursday and Friday.
Sunday, March 4th:
chicken salad on one piece of bread; KIND bar
strawberries and hot chocolate with whipped cream--not mindful, though
grilled cheese sandwich
toast and a Chobani blood orange yogurt
2 bison and vegetable tacos
water? and semi-attentive eating.
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.
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