There is hope for you!

I may or may not be adding new posts — as it is, I’m amazed at the time that has lapsed since my last one!  It’s weird, actually, to have logged on and looked at the date.  Shortly after that innocent post, my life changed completely, unbenounced to me at the time.  It’s like looking at my mind “before I knew.”  Shortly after that post, we had the unexpected opportunity to move, to an area that we’ve always wanted to live.  In less than a year, everything changed, and I have to tell you, I feel reborn.  It’s not been easy, and I won’t say I’m now humming a tune while skipping merrily down the “happily ever after” road.  But wow, what a rush.

I post this because….I have stayed abstinent through all of this.  I have worked my 12-step program through all of this.  My program, and my relationship with my Higher Power, have evolved to a place I never could have imagined.  And if you only knew what a low-bottom eating situation I was in prior to my recovery, you would know that wherever you find yourself today, you too can have this recovery.  I urge you to hang in there, find whatever seems to be bringing some relief, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I have faith that you can achieve the same healing and return to usefulness to the world that I have been blessed with.

I hope your reading my blog brings you some comfort and strength.  Good luck and many blessings in your own journey!

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A great week!

My last entry was a sort of condensed “Where am I now” update, badly needed as there was a huge time gap since my last post.  I won’t rehash it, obviously, but I wanted to post and update since that update.  In last week’s post, I’d mentioned that there appears to be a new path unfolding for me with regard to my recovery, and although I didn’t elaborate on it in detail (and I’m still refraining from doing so, sorry), I want to give a little follow up on how this past week has gone on this seemingly new path.

The answer is, so far, so good!  I’m feeling an irrefutable groundswell of change happening, and it’s exciting and scary at the same time to be in this place.  Basically, I’m in the process of letting go of certain habits — both those that are simply outright destructive and those that either enable the destructive habits, or just have reached the point in which they’ve run their course, they’re no longer particularly useful, and it’s time I move on from them.  Altogether, it’s putting me in a very strange place, mentally.  I feel a bit like a trapeze artist, who has relinquished her grip from one trapeze, and is now suspended mid-air until I can grab hold of the next trapeze that swings my way.  But I’m not fighting this.  I know that this is just where I need to be until new habits get formed.  Truthfully, I’m already feeling a shift even from a week ago.  I’m also welcoming whatever anxiety or urges or annoyances I’m confronting, it’s empowering to feel them and realize I don’t have to turn to certain behaviors even when they hit!  “Bring it on!”  The other side effect this is having is….I feel a little spacey.  I’ve often joked that I seem to have my best presentations, speeches, conversations, etc. when I’m having a bad day, or something majorly wrong has happened that day.  My theory is that there’s a part of my brain that is momentarily staying “occupied” by the bad stuff, liberating the part of my brain that focuses and connects with just the right communication processes.  Well right now it’s the opposite; I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts, my phone calls are awkward, I seem easily distracted, etc.  This is very irritating and unnerving as I have always prided myself with my ability to communicate well, my wit, etc., and to come away from any of my exchanges with another person feeling good about how it went.  Not so at the moment.  But I’m assuming that, too, will get better over time, as my brain learns to function in the absence of certain habits and as I forge new ones.  But it’s interesting to observe!

So….we’ll see how this week unfolds.

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12-step Milestone and Other Updates

Wow, once again, I’m stunned at the amount of time that has lapsed since my last post.  For those of you who blog, have you ever looked back and read a previous post and almost don’t recognize your own words?  I’m feeling that way.  Pretty amazing when I think of all that has taken place since last September.  How do I even begin to update?

So I won’t try to cover it all, but I do want to review and look ahead.  First of all, I’m happy to acknowledge that I crossed my one-year milestone with my 12-step fellowship.  That happened about 2 months ago, and I couldn’t be happier about it.  The growth I have experienced this past year is head-spinning.  I’m much less selfish, yet I’m more diligent about self-care (my latest being long, refreshing showers, using lovely, fragrant, hand-milled soaps).  I get far less overwhelmed, instead have learned to simply perform the next indicated action.  I’m less fearful, largely because I now check it out, i.e. when I’m feeling a fear, ask myself, just what is it that I’m afraid of?  And then?  And what does that mean?  Those kind of extended questions.  And 9 times out of 10, I realize the fear is illusional.  And for those times I actually declare the fear to be justified, I allow myself to feel it, then do whatever it is I need to do anyway.  I feel my emotions more.  This has been both a freeing yet challenging development for me.  I’m now connecting with the emotions I used to eat to stifle, yet of course now this means I’m often navigating a roller coaster throughout the day.  I’m learning how to deal with this more constructively.  I enjoy better relations with my husband, friends and family.  I’m setting more boundaries — lovingly — for myself for those aspects of my family dynamic that are potentially hurtful to me, while at the same time more fully appreciating all the gifts my family has given and continues to give to me.  I’m far more effective in my work, have come a long way in devoting myself to being of service and to make others’ lives better as a result of my actions.  My self-esteem is soaring, I’m keeping a much tidier and orderly house, and I’m connecting far more to my spirituality, in a way that’s meaningful to me.  And it goes on and on.

The one element that remains is the original element, and that’s my Achilles heel, my eating.  It has, unquestionably, improved dramatically.  To compare how I ate six months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago, etc…..I won’t say there’s no comparison, because it was already quite good in many respects.  But it has still improved.  Compulsive eating has gone down; whatever I eat, the majority of the time it’s been planned.  And the kinds of foods I eat have changed; whereas at one time I “needed” to include certain treat foods on a fairly regular basis — almost never eating them within an amount I would have preferred, the frequency keeps going down, and in recent times, has been so seldom that the few occasions I’ve chosen to eat these particular foods, I have found myself woefully disappointed.  They just don’t have the allure/thrill they used to possess for me.  Which actually has irritated me on some level.  I’m looking for a Big Bang with them, and when I’m not getting it, I end up eating more in an attempt to make it happen.  You know how successful THAT has been.  Not.

But the most startling development of all came very recently.  I mentioned that compulsive eating had gone down, but it — specifically bingeing — has not been abolished completely.  I have recently drawn the conclusion that no matter HOW much I heal, grow or resolve in these other areas of my life, I will be left with this urge, this vulnerability.  Maybe some people find they just naturally lose the inclination, but that hasn’t been my experience.  With as much positive change that has taken place in me over this last year, I can only assume that the only way for me to be free of the binge behavior is to make the deliberate decision to not do it.  I have to accept that there will be discomfort involved, and though I can hope that the discomfort and cravings will subside over time, it’s possible it won’t diminish as much as I’d like.  Basically, I’m accepting that the only “thing” that’s going to keep me eating sanely and my body at my optimal weight over the long haul…..is me.  Everything else has been taken care of, at least within reason (obviously there is always additional growth, personal evolution, healing….but whatever it is that might have been part  of the fuel behind my ED, I believe is more or less resolved).  All that’s left is the final step.

Mind you, it’s taken me a while to reach the willingness to acknowledge this possibility, let alone accept it.  As with all tough hurdles, merely knowing what you need to do isn’t enough; you have to really want the benefits of taking that action — which includes dealing with the pain/difficulty of making that change, more than the “benefits” of staying put.  I’ve been steadily trying out various ways to put this awareness into motion, but seemed a bit stalled out at a certain plateau.  Until recently.  What happened is something I can’t explain and is now helping me see how it’s possible that so many speakers (I listen to 12 step speakers via podcasts tell their stories of recovery) speak of this seemingly mysterious, almost overnight, leap into willingness.

What happened is, my switch appears broken.  If anyone here is either bulimic or a compusive overeater, you know the switch I’m talking about.  The switch that gets flipped when you’ve decided to open the flood gates and let yourself splurge away.  I think one of the reasons I had been able to (mostly) let go of certain foods in recent times, is because even with less “glamorous” choices (I know you’re probably wondering what, so okay, like, apples with peanut butter spread on them, or high-fiber breakfast cereals, or protein bars, or whole grain pancake mix, etc.), I could still escape into the occasional binge to let off steam — to flip the switch and zone out, then deal with (hopefully) a less severe aftermath than the days my binges were on “big ticket” items such as cake, cookies, etc.   To be honest, I’m not convinced there’s much difference between the two “species” of binges, at least in terms of after-effect.  It’s bad regardless of what kinds of foods I ate, though maybe it’s been too long since the days of day-long junk food sprees to truly remember how bad it can be.

Anyway, so I’d watched myself make all these distinct and exciting changes from within, and while these eating episodes remained the stubborn holdout, I did still see differences there, too, INCLUDING the willingness to make the above substitutions.  Not wanting to oversell it, I still deemed it progress.  Hey, we all want to be rid of the behavior right away, but I’m now appreciating how it often happens on a time frame quite different from the one I may have envisioned.  I can’t help but muse about the possibility that the willingness to start setting boundaries even within what I choose to binge on….was the start of my mind’s process of teasing the behavior from my grip (or vice versa?).  But still, I can’t deny I continued to struggle, and far too often.

Again, until recently, when I had quite the shot in the arm:  I couldn’t flip the switch!!!  We had gone out to dinner with some friends, and although it went well, I pretty much knew even beforehand that I’d likely be using the evening as an excuse to splurge — both during but especially after the visit, once my husband and I were back at home.  I knew I was rationalizing but I didn’t care.  And as expected, we went to the store on the way home, picked up some treats, and came home.  The weather was great, the music that was playing on the radio made for a nice ambience, the visit had gone well….the stage was set for the “perfect” kick-up-the-heels-and-relax-and-eat-eat-eat Saturday night.  How many of these have I experienced over the years.

Yet, much to my chagrin, for the first time that I can remember…..DAMN it, my mind wouldn’t make the switch!  It was awful; rather than zone out, ignoring the number of calories I must be taking in with every passing second, I remained fully cognizant, unable to lose myself in whatever TV show we’d tuned into and fully aware of what I’d be feeling just one hour later, never mind the uncomfortable sleep and awful aftermath I’d have to deal with the next day.  Nothing I tried help me to cross that invisible line.  Of course it didn’t; up until now, this crossover had happened automatically, no conscious effort, just part of the whole binge cycle.  WTF???

That was several weeks ago; I’ve had another eating episode or two since, and with the same experience — no ability to flip the switch.  And those subsequent eating episodes weren’t even with “exciting” foods, just large servings of the foods that are already part of my food plan.  Talk about a pointless endeavor!  So great.  I get to experience the physical distress, the frantic scrambling to snap back to clean eating and keep my weight down in spite of the calorie spike…but I miss out on the very “escape” I’m seeking by putting excess food in my body in the first place.  If that isn’t the very picture of “Done,” I don’t know what is.  It’s time to face the scary yet exciting reality:  Relief doesn’t live “here” anymore.

So….I’m on a slightly different path since this has all come about.  I won’t elaborate on the details — they’re very personal and everything is still too early/tentative to know what’s going to stick and I don’t want to jinx this undertaking by making too specific a declaration, anyway.  But suffice it to say, this is brand-new territory for me, yet another fork in the road that is coming on the heels of so many other (wonderful) forks before it.

So what’s my point in even logging this?  Well partly for my own record.  I want to be able to look back and remember this turning point, as no matter what it’s an interesting development regardless of what happens from here.  But secondly, it’s my hope that those of you who might be struggling, can see that indeed, over time, change can and does happen.  I’m here to tell you, it takes a lot of hard work and it’s sometimes so slow, its almost imperceptable, and it’s scary and frustrating at times because it doesn’t follow your mind’s blueprints and because you don’t know the outcome.  But I hope this little account and update helps illuminate that these little milestones of progress add up!

We shall see.  Or as the saying goes, more shall be revealed.

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The Mighty Pull of the Habitual Comfort Zone

I’ve been having quite a nice summer (notice I’m not putting that in the past tense, because I’m in DENIAL that the warm weather season is coming to an end!), some ups and downs but overall I feel good about my ongoing growth.  I hate to frame this in terms of weight — life is so much more than just that, but given the theme of this blog, I will go ahead and report that my weight has been generally “steady” to “good,” meaning I’ve been probably 1-3 pounds above where I like my weight during the course of the season.  One wonders what psychological mechanism (and it has to be that) keeps me from crossing that invisible barrier (my working theory is that the brain likes the path of least resistence, and as long as it sees me within a stone’s throw distance from my “fighting weight,” it decides it’s safe and okay to allow me some leeway that day), but I hope that barrier is finally crossed again soon.

Which brings me to today’s topic.  There came a point this summer in which I had one of my infamous “house cleanings,” lifestyle-wise.  I need these every now and then; I reach a point in which I’ve become stagnant in certain choices of foods, of articles I read, of things I listen to, etc., and must abruptly switch gears because all these things seem to be doing is reinforcing my struggle.  So I strip them away and go back to some reliable basics, and almost inevitably see myself returning to “myself.”  And right or wrong, one of the ways I monitor this progress back to “myself” is via my naked body checks.  You know what I mean.  First thing in the morning, give the careful once over, up and down, assess leanness, shape, muscles, etc.  Yes the scale is sometimes used, but by now I know about where those numbers probably are based on certain visual criteria, so the intense body scruitiny remains my measurement device of choice.

So with some of these changes came the results I was hoping for, and I must admit a relief upon seeing them!  I think I’ve said this before, but the way I describe how I feel/behave when my weight is in place is, I can relax and get my mind onto other things.  Ironically, as much as this morning “assessment ritual” seems counterintuitive to obsession-free conduct, that’s in fact exactly what happens; if my body meets my hopes and expectations upon that first checkpoint, I can let go and NOT think about it for the rest of the day.  If, on the other hand, I awaken with a bloated stomach or a body that clearly reflects some recent “exceeding my caloric needs” days….my clothes don’t fit the same and I feel as though I’m already entering the day compromised, like no matter what I do or how well I perform work-wise, it can’t add up to 100%.  It may seem a harsh way to operate but it’s how I stay on top of myself (sad to say, the call of junk food is still quite loud at times, even as I know I don’t even like some of those things anymore).

OK, so I shook things up, made some changes, and got back to a place that I feel good about this summer.  Only problem:  This was shortly followed by 1) an extended business trip, 2) a personal vacation with my husband, 3) a temporary change in my work schedule, 4) some social events with people who matter very much to me.  These occurrences, while positive — every one of them, would have been challenging enough (on the eating habits) under any circumstances, but making matters harder, they all fell very shortly after I’d initiated my latest lifestyle changes, before (apparently) they’d had the chance to displace the old habits and become my new “default” setting.  So predictably, once I emerged from all the turmoil entailed from working with each of these events……I found myself stepping back not to the more positive habits I had planted shortly before, but the old habits I had successfully shed.  Worse, it took a little while to realize this had happened!

So let this be a lesson to all of us:  beware the comfort zone you build for yourself, for in times of discombobulation (even the good kind), this is what you’re likely to turn back to.  I am now working to rebuild my “new and improved” habits from before all of the above took place, and I’m afraid I don’t have a crystal-clear memory of my state of mind from then; I’m having, essentially, to start from scratch and reset my mindset all over again.   I appear to be succeeding, but it’s slow.  My main goal now is to keep building these new habits, and to do so over a long enough period so as to make this mode of action the “norm,” lest I find myself thrown out of my routine and in need of returning to the familiar.  Let’s hope “this” is what becomes “familiar”!

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Having a mindset oriented around doing it for a “grade” — doesn’t work with eating, doesn’t work in business

I think I still battle this, though it’s gotten oh so much better.  It’s the idea that one does what they do not because that’s what will genuinely render results, but because it looks good on paper, it will be handed in for a grade, and the better the grade, the better i.e. your weight will be.  So silly!  Who is this “Teacher” I think I’m appealing to?

I imagine this must be more common among those of us who had that kind of “straight A” track record in school.  Early on, we crystalized this idea of putting together a pleasing package, and in return be rewarded with an A.  Unfortunately, that approach does little to teach one of the realities of life.  The truth is, whether it’s your body or your business or your relationship with another, it/he/she doesn’t “care” how “good” what you’re doing looks on paper.  It only knows whether you’re truly doing what needs to be done to cultivate honest results.  I can revamp my business plan until it’s such a work of art they ought to be using it as a template at business schools.  But unless I’m getting out there and doing the “real” work, the stuff that’s going to increase my company’s exposure and present a compelling product and a good reason why a person needs it…..no amount of “A” work is going to make up for that.  It so goes against that ingrained thinking and yet that’s exactly what I need to renew and recommit myself to every day.

And as I said, it’s across the board:  eating, relationships, business.  The more I can learn to cast off this “doing what would earn a good grade in school” approach and roll up my sleeves to do the honest work, which let’s face it is often messy, undefined, nonlinear, improvised, inuitive, uncertain….and even boring, scary, unpleasnant…..the more I will continue to grow and meet the success I seek.

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Oh the irony — the binge that “didn’t need to be”

Well I sure learned my lesson this week!

I sometimes fall prey to a binge — great or small — that comes from a fear of not having the opportunity to have one of my planned “treat nights” anytime in the near future.  How absurd is that, but it’s true.  Because although I plan these treat nights as allowable, workable parts of my food plan, I still prefer to schedule them so that the next day is not a major work or other obligation day.  My digestive tract almost assuredly will bloat no matter what amount of bread or dessert (and full disclosure, I’m quite sure the amount I eat is more than I need!) I eat.  Normally this arrangement works quite well; on my clean eating days I’m not at all thinking about my treats; if anything I’m glad to focus on my clean foods.  But it’s good for me to know that I have that treat coming up.

But sometimes my mind really plays tricks on me, undermining and sabotaging the works.  And this week was not only a good example of that, but more comically, the whole rationale for it fizzled before my very eyes!

So it’s Monday.  And suddenly, in the middle of the day, despite my humming along nicely on my day’s eating plan, it suddenly occurred to me that with the way my week and weekend were shaping up, there would be no room for a treat night.  I couldn’t “treat” Tuesday night due to a busy work schedule starting early on Wednesday.  No “treat” Wednesday because I had an important business presentation on Thursday.  No “treat” Thursday because I had a corporate seminar to give on Friday.  No “treat” Friday because we have a pool party to attend on Saturday.  No “treat” on Saturday due to a family function on Sunday.  And no “treat” Sunday as I have a busy work day Monday.

Can you see the rationalization going on here?

So of course, after much deliberation, I gave in and gave myself a “pre-emptive treat night” Monday night.  Thankfully, not nearly as bad as I would have at one time, but for sure food I didn’t need that was not part of the plan initially.

And, being that I do try to stay as honest with myself as possible, I knew that by choosing that course, I was eliminating the opportunity for such an allowance later in the week.

So what’s done is done.  Pick up the pieces and move on.  Try to do better next time.

Except…..God sure has a sense of humor.  For as of this moment….

• My Thursday business presentation was postponed;
• Friday’s seminar was canceled
• Saturday’s pool party had to be nixed
• Sunday’s family function has been moved to NEXT weekend

So at least FOUR of those supposedly “no treat” nights could have been a treat night after all, which means I had that panic binge for no reason, whatsoever.

OK, OK, lesson learned, the hard way!

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Adding a new food to my repertoire, albeit the “processed” version first

I’m excited, I very much enjoy East Indian cooking and have long wanted to incorporate it into my regular menu.  Problem  is, I tend to jump a little too eagerly onto the bandwagon with these things:  the last time I thought about doing this, I bought a cookbook, a bunch of hard-to-find ingredients (mostly spices I had never used before), and set out to educate myself on authentic East Indian meal preparation.  And while the sumptuous descriptions and exotic recipes captured my imagination and beguiled my romantic side…..I never really advanced forward from the “reading” and into the “doing” phase.  Typical me!  Too much thinking, too much preparation/planning.

So that idea faded into the woodwork a long time ago.  UNTIL…..on a recent trip to the grocery store with my husband, we happened upon the “international foods” aisle, and lo and behold, they have pre-packaged East Indian dishes, ready to heat in much the same way you find American rice and other dishes.  Eureka!  Now granted, I don’t for one moment kid myself that this is any equivalent representation of what I might experience at the local East Indian restaurant or even by my own homemade efforts.  But whatever gets the ball rolling, right?

So tonight’s dinner will be Kashmir Spinach, and I could not be more excited!  We’ll see where this goes…..

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The serenity of binge-free living

As you probably have deduced, I’m not using or updating this blog very regularly these days (how’s that for a fancy way to say I’ve been completely MIA?).  Truth be told, I find that my ability to benefit from such an outlet fluctuates; sometimes I do better by actually distancing myself from any focus — blogs, books, message boards, etc. — on anything that has to do with eating disorders or weight or food issues.  By shifting my focus away from those things AND surrounding myself with a lifestyle and people who represent anything BUT those things, it’s almost as though I “forget” to have such issues.  Sometimes I think there’s a danger in all this self-help via interacting (or lurking, anyway) with others, because doing so can “normalize” what is otherwise very unacceptable behavior, IMO.  For example, certain behaviors or perceptions may not even OCCUR to me, yet in an environment in which people with weight or eating issues are discussing their problems/recovery, I may encounter individuals who engage in these things.  And while at first I may read with a sense of detached curiosity, you read it often enough and suddenly it doesn’t seem so odd, and suddenly you find your own mind is actually absorbing some of these things, and it starts to pollute your own thinking.  By cutting loose and instead only conversing with people who have never had eating issues, I remind myself what “normal/healthy” looks like.  I realize my own version of “normal/healthy” may not ever be quite there — my history brings with it some realities that I ought not be naive enough to ignore.  But who knows?  Time does great things, and through repetition, it’s amazing how much a person can change, to where there’s not even a hint of a resemblence to their former self or way of thinking.

Ha ha, I’m making it sound like I’m desiring such a dramatic change!  No.  But do I think I benefit greatly from getting out of any “ED recovery” environment or mindset?  Yes, absolutely.  Where I’ll ultimately go….again, who knows?

Anyway, but I’d had a recent turn of events that threw me into a bit of turmoil.  Happily, that turmoil is being resolved, but out of the crisis an interesting lesson was illuminated for me.

I have often lamented (tongue-in-cheek), particularly when I’ve prepared for my various athletic events, about how well nutritious eating “works.”  Meaning, by golly, when I’m forced to eat absolutely cleanly for a long, unbroken stretch of time, usually because I’m training much more intensively and have ambitious goals for a given athletic event, I not only see the influence of properly chosen foods and supplements on my body and athletic performance, I also experience a remarkable, almost unbelievable, release from all my cravings.  Whereas I normally can navigate the ebbs and surges of my appetite and cravings without too much problem — they’re there, but with good nutrition and other tools in place, I can ignore and/or work with them effectively, during these extra-clean eating times, it goes even beyond that; I literally lose the cravings.  Eating my planned meals is effortless, I lose my hunger and yet have boundless energy.  It’s not the most “fun” I’ve had with my eating — the foods are typically not the kind that hit people’s Top 10 list of favorite cheat items, but it feels a small sacrifice when compared with the reprieve it gives me from the daily challenge of appetite management.  Why, you wonder, do I ever stray from such synchronicity?  Like everything, little by little, I let “things” chip away at the oh-so-well-oiled-machine, and while my weight pretty much remains the same, I gradually find myself back to the usual m.o., which includes clean eating, just enough “non clean” eating to satisfy my perceived cravings and to stimulate some new cravings of their own, with willpower kicking in to keep things from moving in the direction of those cravings.  I know, deep down, that if I bring myself back to that more simple eating arrangement, I will probably go back to a craving-free existence, but there’s a reluctance that’s hard to penetrate if I don’t have some overarching motivator, such as an athletic event to prepare for.  Perhaps one of these days things will “stick” more than they have thus far.

With that in mind, recently I had experienced a “mysterious” weight gain.  Now hear me out, I’m normally a person who rolls her eyes at the notion of “mysterious” weight gain.  There’s no mystery; you took in more calories than you burned.  Simple as that.  And this, I believe, is still true.  But considering I’m as vigilant as I’ve always been about weighing my food, measuring my food, tracking my daily calories, recording my food intake and my exercise…… the sudden (as in, over a couple of months’ time) weight gain and notable change of body composition truly had me baffled.  By weight gain, I mean relatively small; about 5-6 pounds over my norm.  But on my frame….it looked AWFUL!  But worst of all, I just couldn’t find a good reason.  If anything, my eating and exercise were even tighter than they were in the preceding 6-8 months.  It was baffling and frightening.  It took a long time for me to get to the level of management of my eating (and the ED) that I currently have, and the thought that I might have to make additional tweaks was overwhelming me.  It didn’t help that I was emerging from one of the hardest and harshest winters our area has ever had.  Clearly Seasonal Affective Disorder was a factor in my dispondence.  And while the extra weight may not seem like a big deal, it was just enough to not only force me out of most of my clothes, but to feel….compromised.  I know at what weight range I look irrefutably at my personal best, and this wasn’t it.  I looked bloated, puffy, definitely imbalanced.  I had been at this weight many years before, but back then it was somehow healthier, more fit, even if it still wasn’t my goal weight.  This?  It didn’t even look like me.

I’ll spare the details of how we finally figured out what the problem was — or at least, what we believe the problem was.  Suffice it to say, we did resolve the problem, and I have taken most of the weight off.  I’m now up by a pound or two and can expect the rest to fall into place soon enough.

But the “why” isn’t really the point here.  My point is what I experienced while trying to deal with the mysterious problem.  Because I had no idea what was going on, only that I was gaining weight mysteriously, one of the changes I had to make was to further shore up my eating.  I needed to make certain that I was truly being accurate in my intake and consistent in staying within my allocated caloric boundaries.  I also figured that darn it, if I was gaining weight now, while eating so cleanly, there was no telling what awful consequence would befall me if I dared stray from my eating plan.  So no cheats.  For a long time.

And that is why I make this post.  Because admittedly, as I have referenced before, I had become accustomed, over the years, to a management strategy whereby I would eat cleanly and exercise regularly, enough so that my metabolism could handle a (usually) once-a-week cheat.  Good enough, except that these cheats were often quite grand in scale — cookies, pizza, cheese, chocolate, eaten to the point of discomfort.  It’s been hard to curtail this one remnant of my ED (which at times didn’t look particularly ED’d, more just the kind of nibble fest people often experience on a Saturday night), as it would often take a good 2-3 days for me to feel recovered from the consequences of my splurge.  And while I didn’t always turn to such decadence on a weekly basis, I would still allow at least 2 days each week in which I’d eat way, way more than my body needed of even “healthy” food, such as trail mix or apples or sugar-free pudding.  And while my weight somehow remained consistent despite these occasional flights of fancy, the cycle of dealing with the added quantity of food on my gastrointestinal tract….the distress it would cause….was awful.  Part of my challenge over these last several months has been to work on lessening the severity.  I say “lessen the severity” because I don’t necessarily think I can nor should abolish these occasional deviations from my food plan.  But of course, there’s a huge difference between having an extra helping of a treat food or cooking a particular recipe in its “full fat” version but otherwise leave the day’s eating the same….vs. what I was doing, which definitely went beyond where it should be.  But….old habits die hard.  Choose your poison, and all of that.

So imagine the unexpected “gift” this recent dilemma gave to me.  For while I was decidedly unhappy with my situation — that is, I was annoyed with what was happening to my body and consumed about trying to figure out what the heck was going on,  I found myself, on a particularly difficult day, taking note of one shining light:  the serenity of being away from bingeing.  Because of my body’s apparant rebellion, I had vigilantly kept myself away from eating outside of my meal plan, and for a long stretch of time.  In this case, it had been weeks since I’d last strayed, and prior to that stumble, a few additional weeks still.  Altogether, I had had almost a couple of months without bingeing (my term for those Saturday and/or weeknight cheats), and I have to tell you….. it was wonderful.  While I was still struggling to find outfits that fit me, I could at least feel the serenity that comes when the body hasn’t been inundated with excess food.  My mind was cleaerer, my energy levels more even, my digestive tract at relative peace.

Well, happily, the few changes that I felt were needed, that I felt may provide the relief my body needed from what appeared to be going on….did finally start to take effect.  I began to see “my” body re-emerge, which was a huge relief, indeed.  I had a few athletic events come and go as well during that time, and found the problem to be almost 100% resolved.

So you know what happened next.  Of course!  Problem solved, success at my athletic events, which means it must be time to celebrate!  Mind you, I’m not out of the woods yet, especially since the whole point is to bring myself back to where I normally MAINTAIN myself, not just some bottom-end extreme from which I can then promptly rebound.  But sure enough, at the first opportunity (read:  where I had a day of down time afterward, allowing me to become cave-dweller and digest quietly out of the radar of most humanity), I merrily high-tailed it to the store, picking out all the sugar-fat-kitchen-sink delights I had so steadfastilly kept myself away from for so long.  It was almost head-spinning — literally — to experience these foods again, like switching on a bunch of neuro-receptors that had become dormant (not unlike what I imagine it’s like to smoke a cigarette after having quit for a while).  A couple of hours and a distended belly later, I couldn’t believe I had once again let myself fall into that bizarre, pre-binge amnesia, where I seem to forget how truly horrible the aftermath is — much more horrible than any pleasure obtained from the taste of the food.

So okay, a trip, stumble and fall.  It happens.  Move on.  Only…. I’ve had a couple more since.  So now I’m back to shoring up my eating and be more guarded on what behaviors and foods I allow over the next week or so.  Having had some blissful reprieve from my last binge, I can once again taste that serenity that I recently experienced, and I’m anxious to return to that place more solidly.  It’s fresh in my mind, and I’m grateful to have been, albeit through strange circumstances, forced to rout out some remnant destructive behaviors so as to let me catch a glimpse of it!  I don’t want to forget it anytime soon.  Talk about realizing how ready I am to be rid of those remnants, once and for all! 

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Tweaking my program for the next month, see what happens

I’ll be honest, it’s never comfortable for me to write (or talk) about my bingeing, even if I’m the only one reading/reviewing my words.  But over the years, I have found great success in writing down my latest stragies to try on for size.  Some of them have worked extremely well and are still part of my lifestyle; others have fallen by the wayside, either because they run their course or because I need to change or because they never took hold or didn’t work out.  Which is why I don’t tend to write down every little idea I have.  I prefer instead to think it over, look at it from all sides, and wait until I honestly feel ready to give it a shot.  There’s nothing I hate more than to read someone’s intensions or declarations, only to learn a few days later that all that posturing failed to lead to even an earnest attempt at putting it to action.

 With that in mind, I’m at a point in which I’d like to try out the following:  Over the last couple of years, I have noticed three distinct types of binges that I tend to have, in terms of both content and how they come about.  One is what I call my “junk food binges.”  These are the worst, in that the foods I choose are the ones that represent the most forbidden and decadent, which of course also means (generally) the most caloric.  Most of the time, I “allow” these only when I think I have at least a half a day or a full day on the other side of that to recover, where I can let my stomach rest and drink my tea and slowly get myself back on track.  Then there are what I call my “diet food binges.”  With these, I eat foods that are not usually part of my diet, but are several steps removed from the “the sky’s the limit” mentality I allow with the junk food binges.  The idea with these is that, while I may still feel horrifically full and uncomfortable by the time it’s all over, I will not have ingested nearly the same amount of calories, thus the “damage” is less severe.  Mind you, the calorie “dent” can still be scary-huge, so it’s not like I don’t have my work cut out for me in atoning for the extreme excess, but it’s still not generally as bad as the junk food binge.

Then there’s the third type, which I call my “last minute in-house binge.”  What this means is, I didn’t plan to do it, but for some reason felt, usually following dinner, that I’m not satsified.  I’m either still hungry or I’m experiencing cravings or I’m just bored or emotional, and can’t seem to keep my mind distracted long enough for the urge to pass.  These are the least damaging of the binges, but they also tend to be the least “satisfying,” due to the fact that for the most part, the foods I’m eating aren’t much (if at all) a departure from what I normally eat.  The only thing that makes this a “cheat,” generally, is the fact that I’m way exceeding my day’s caloric needs, not because I’m eating foods that are not on my meal plan.

Perhaps not suprising, I find that, despite the fact that the third type is the least satisfying (in terms of food choices), the more I’m able to confine my binges to just the “last-minute in-house” type, the better I feel overall, the easier I maintain my weight, and the more control I feel.  My cravings tend to go down, my satiation with my meal plan goes up, and I begin to at least start to distance myself from the habit of even entertaining the option of a junk food binge.  In other words, the longer I go since the last “junk food binge,” the easier it is for me to not succumb to one.

But lately I’ve had my fair share of the first two types.  And while I’ve been experimenting with several approaches to once again reverse this trend, one thing I’m noticing is that I usually don’t actually *intend* to fall into the “same old, same old” pattern of behavior (food choices, food amounts, etc.), even when my mind experiences what I sometimes refer to as my “turning the corner” moment (i.e. the moment when I decide I’m going to allow extra calories that day).  It’s not like I’m out for a run, and think to myself, oh, I can’t wait to once again taste <fill in the blank>, or when I go to the store, I’m going to get <this>, <this> and <that> again.  If anything, I’m often pondering a brand-new exploration of food, maybe to try out a pear-walnut salad recipe I’ve been reading about, or a light pasta dish — “light” as in, not cream-based, but still too heavy calorically to be included in my normal food plan.  Yet, where things always come undone is once I’m at the grocery store.  At that moment, my mind starts spinning, and I find myself overwhelmed with the choices.  I get so paralyzed at what I ought to try out that I end up buying what I “always” get, even if that’s not what I initially wanted.  If it’s a diet-food binge, I buy the usual culprits for that; if it’s a junk food binge, I default to the usual players for that.  Needless to say, I often find myself woefully disappointed — even bored — as a result of resorting to just the habitual.  Which of course only pisses me off more afterward — all that discomfort, hurting my body, my health, all the distress I put myself and my husband through….for so little in return!

So here’s my thought.  Given that I’m a rule person — and once I latch on to a rule of mine, I actually rarely (if ever) break it, I’m embarking on a new rule for the next month (the duration chosen just because hopefully this will help steer myself to a new habit).  For the next month, I will disallow a trip to the grocery store when I’ve decided to allow myself to eat extra calories that day.  Sure, allowing extra calories can and probably will result in a binge at least some of the time (especially depending on how a binge is defined).  But the idea is, no food on the binge is outside of the scope of what I’m already eating and/or what I already stock in the house.  If I want some extra calories, I can have them, but I have to make do with the ingredients I already have at home, and not use this decision to suddenly declare a “carte blanche” for myself with a special trip to the grocery store.  Is it any wonder I’m having a hard time letting go of the seduction of a binge?  Who wouldn’t allow themselves such behavior, if all it took for a person to indulge their favorite treats is the decision to binge?  Where’s the incentive to consider an alternative or at least to avoid letting those “extra calories” escalate into extreme overindulgence?

This does mean I’ll have to keep my refrigerator stocked with plenty of “safe” food options, some of which are “borderline” foods for me — meaning, foods I generally eat with no problem, but could eat excessively if not careful.  Over the last six months, I had generally avoided stocking my house with these foods, instead stopping at the store once a day or once every other day to buy just one or two days’ worth of these foods.  But this measure has become tedious, and I’m not sure it’s practical to continue trying to live this way.  I have to learn how to have certain foods on hand and not freak out.  I’ve been re-acclimating myself to this over the last month or so anyway, so it’s not like I haven’t already been making changes.  But now I’ll have to take this up a notch.

What I’m hoping is, I’ll come to discover that I don’t have to obliterate my digestive tract in order to “switch gears” back to clean eating the next day.  Many years ago, I found that one of the reasons I put unwanted weight on is because when you spread out the extra calories throughout the course of the day, you don’t feel too bad the next day; it’s thus too easy to be too easy on yourself, either to overeat again or to allow these kind of “exceptions” too often.  Which is one reason, right or wrong, I always confine my binges to the evening, so that the discomfort is high enough so as to cue myself to the need to get back to the safe zone of clean eating right away.  But maybe I don’t need this measure anymore.  I sure hope not!  It sounds gastly and so terribly immature, the notion that in order to “trick” yourself back to clean eating you have to induce a food hangover, but sadly, I have found this to be far more effective in managing my behavior than almost any other approach to calorie management.

So we’ll see!  I’ll report back with progress reports, whether this new attempt falls on its face or not.

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Walking among the Christmas lights

What a nice way to finish off the Christmas holiday.  After cooking dinner for my husband and myself (we had celebrated with our various families earlier in the day and the day before), we took a long walk around the neighborhood to fully take in the Christmas lights.  I have to admit, I’m such a sucker for this.  There was a day about a week and a half ago, an evening in which I got off work early, in which I attempted to drive around our various side streets to gaze at the sparkling creations outlining houses, trees and lawns (though I’m still not getting the trend of blow-up santas and snow globes on the lawn….what the heck?), but wasn’t able to get into the full, relaxed swing of it.  Last night gave us the chance to observe each “masterpiece” up close and personal.  Our favorite, hands-down, was a cul de sac in which the houses seemed in agreement on doing a very tasteful outline of their homes in bright white, with just splashes of red and green around the wreaths that hung over the garages.  One of them also had light-up gift boxes on their front lawn that, interestingly, did not appear gaudy.  Brightly lit, but still pleasing.

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