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.

No exercise equals a cloudy mind

I missed three days of walking and can definitely tell that it has impacted my mood and mind.  I feel sort of down and my thinking is muddled.

For me, this is a reminder that I need to exercise primarily for the antidepressant effects of physical activity rather than for fitness benefits.  Greater fitness is nice, but seeing mental changes day-to-day based on whether I exercise is more motivating because the feedback is so immediate.  Bodies, on the other hand, do not (visibly) change immediately.

My weight, two months before my due date

I weigh about 259 pounds right now.  My home scale has been reading between 258 and 260 for over a week.  The doctor's office scale is always within a couple of pounds of my home scale.

Back in April, just days after I conceived, I weighed 255.  So over the past (almost) seven months, my weight went from 255 down to the 240s and then back up again to where it is now, a net gain of about 5 pounds so far.  This all happened gradually and naturally, without me doing much to manipulate my weight besides making an effort to curtail binge eating behaviors.

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

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

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

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