Hanging On

This week I have been rather sick in my stomach, the aftermath of food poisoning Saturday night through Sunday.  That was definitely an experience I don't ever want to have to live through again.  It was horrendous, so I will spare you the details.  But I felt weak for days, not regaining my strength and energy until today actually.  However, even though my stomach was queasy I kept snacking.  Mostly on crackers.  Maybe my body wanted plain easily digested foods or something, but I just couldn't stop eating.  I felt like every day started out normally enough, except that every morning this week I have woken up completely famished.  I have eaten my normal breakfast and my normal lunch but I just haven't been able to get my afternoon and evening straight this week.  I have been attacked by the munchies every single day, and a very strong urge to binge.  Every time I even think about a cookie, or the chocolate in the pantry, or the brownies on the counter I can't even think about them normally, my thoughts automatically turn to binging.  It is difficult to stick to my resolve with so much sugar in the house.  Brownies for Matt.  Cookies for the Kids.  Left over chocolate that I just can't throw away.  The whole thing being made weirder because my stomach actually doesn't feel well, yet I've had more cravings this week for candy and desserts than I have since I started this three weeks ago.  But that is the problem isn't it.  Binging doesn't adhere to logic, it doesn't adhere to how your stomach feels or what your brain tells you that you should and should not be doing, or whether you are full or actually need any of the food you are feeding yourself.  Binging is irrational, illogical, emotional, and can be triggered by any range of situations and emotions.  I have known for a while that stress can trigger a binge so I have been actively working on that one.  Another trigger I have identified this week is, believe it or not, being tired.  I have been so incredibly tired this week from getting almost zero sleep Saturday night and feeling so weak from the food poisoning.  I realize that when I am tired I want to go eat because I can't sleep.  (Obviously with two young children running around I can't just let them run around unsupervised).  I wonder if I have made this substitution consciously or if it just happened gradually over the years.  What I really need and want is sleep, but because of the time of day or more likely I just can't sleep due to my schedule and things I need to be doing, I turned to food to satisfy the part of me that longs for rest. 

This is a whole new battle and one that I am not sure how to fight, therefore I have largely failed this week with eating healthily.  My whole afternoon turned into one long grazing feat from about 3pm-6pm.  Mostly crackers.... Not sure why I was craving crackers so much.  I think it was because what I was really craving was sugar and I cannot be trusted around sugar.  I am happy to say that although my eating hasn't been all that healthy I have not binged, and I weighed myself the other day and was 146.6, which I am very happy with on account of I knew that I was dehydrated and the scale was artificially low last Sunday.  Hopefully the scale will stick around that range.  I have still been getting my workouts in remarkably, mostly due to the fact that my oldest daughter begs to go to school almost every day, well school is the gym, so if I'm going to the gym, I'm going to get something accomplished.  I've been thinking also this week of whether or not I will allow myself desserts again, and when that should be if I do.  I would love to have a healthy relationship with those foods, right now is not the time.  If I can't even look at or think about a food without having thoughts of binging then that food definitely has power over me and it is not safe for me to eat it if one bite is going to lead to a binge.  So maybe the day will come when I no longer think about binging when I think of that food.  Then, maybe the day will come when I no longer physically crave that food, and then maybe the day will come that I no longer psychologically crave that food.  Perhaps then, when I no longer physically and emotionally want those foods I will be able to reintroduce them, until then I have been able to hold onto my resolve.  One day at a time.

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