Weighty Matters

Just another WordPress.com site

Feb 14

Unfocused and Unproductive

by Mary Stella

Ever since Wednesday, I’ve had problems focusing on tasks. I appear to either get distracted by outside forces or manage to distract myself. As a result, I feel unproductive in all areas of my life.

I loathe not being productive. It drives me crazy. I am an efficient, get-it-done person. This doesn’t mean that I can’t kick back and relax. I don’t need to be accomplishing tasks every second, minute and hour of every day. Au contraire, I can spend hours on a warm day lolling on my porch and reading a good book.

So what’s the difference? Why is it roiling me up and emotionally affecting me now? Simple. It’s because I’m not making the conscious choice to relax and let the world spin around without me. I feel like it’s somehow out of my control. That’s the danger zone. When I feel like some area of my life is not within my control, I generally see an increase in my eating impulses. It’s like when one thing’s off kilter, it drives the rest of my life out of balance, too. Or, when one thing’s off kilter, I feel like my life is out of balance which stresses me out and triggers the desire to eat.

Crazy stuff, huh? Conversely, I can have a dozen projects going at once, be in charge of keeping them moving and in balance, and that won’t stress me out in the least. When I set the projects in motion, I’m golden. Now, if someone else has put the plates on the wobbly poles and then made it my responsibility to keep them spinning, that’s different. Again — it’s the balance between what is mine to control and what isn’t.

None of this actually makes good sense to me. You’d think that if I had an area out of my control, I’d work harder to keep other areas in line and functioning according to plan. As I ponder this whole thing, I wonder if I have a knee jerk reaction, decide that lack of perfection is an unbearable character flaw, and then punish myself by compulsively eating.

This is really messed up thinking. Then again, nobody claimed that those of us with disorders are the last bastions of rational thought at all times. Nor do I pretend that rational thought and rational behavior go hand in hand anyway.

So for right now, today, I’m trying to mitigate the damage. I’m telling myself that it’s okay for me to once in a while be unfocused and unproductive. Okay, I can’t accept that completely. Unfocused and not-quite-as-productive-as-I-usually-am will have to do. My life is not going to crash and burn. The sky will not fall. All is and will be well. I’ll get to that “being well” part sooner if I resist the urge to let my eating disorder pile on the pressure. I really don’t have to inappropriately eat over the whole thing.

General Musings

2 Comments »
Feb 12

Stress and Stomach Issues

by Mary Stella

You know how some people get stomach pains or other gut issues when they’re stressed out? I was never one of those people. I’m fairly sure that’s because I filled my stomach with food when I was stressed. Eating to suppress feelings is common behavior.

I bring this up tonight because I’ve had a funky stomach for most of the day. Around noon time I really started feeling bad and thought I either had an impending attack of food poisoning or that I was coming down with some sort of stomach bug. I ended up leaving work and coming home. When I got here I pretty much stretched out on the recliner for awhile without any energy — not unlike a starfish on a rock at low tide. After dozing in the chair for awhile, I roused myself enough to move to the bedroom for another hour.

After a couple of hours, I realized that whatever was bothering my stomach wasn’t progressing. I just continued to feel crappy without actually getting sick. Instead, it felt like I could feel my pulse in my stomach which was achy and annoying. It took awhile for me to figure it out.

I had a very stressful morning over a particular situation. I can’t go into the details but it was no small thing. Nothing that at the moment I could shrug, be philosophical about, and just let go. The more I thought about the whole unfolding of the situation and my reaction, the more I realized that it affected me emotionally to the point that the emotions manifested themselves into physical symptoms.

No lie. Part of me is completely confident that a milkshake will absolve the discomfort. Part of me knows that the milkshake will not absolve a damned thing. It will only be a counterirritant in that it will actually make me sick which would most likely distract me from the stressful situation.

Tonight I think I’m still more stressed out than not and that’s why my stomach is still knotted up and achy. It’s a good reminder of the importance of developing better methods of dealing with stressful situations so that the anxiety doesn’t create physical discomfort. By better, it goes without saying I don’t mean using excess food. Numbing or stuffing down the feelings are not effective methods and do more harm than good. For me, I think I’m going to draw a hot bath and soak some of it away.

What’s your favorite method for coping with stress?

Body Matters

2 Comments »
Dec 6

The Perils of Getting Too Tired

by Mary Stella

In her comment on yesterday’s post, Skye cautioned me that getting too tired can lead to eating more food because we think we need more energy.

Tru dat.

I did not adhere to my food plan today and ate too many carbs. I’m going to point my attention, if not point the finger of blame, at being physically and mentally tired. It is more difficult for me to stay mentally strong and vigilant on my food plan when I’m stressed and exhausted, and far easier to give into the impulse of grabbing the food that’s readily available, as it was today.

Gotta say, I’m kind of annoyed with myself for falling into the old pattern. It’s not like there wasn’t fruit and low fat yogurt right there on the same table with the scones and bagels. I could have made a better, healthier, on-my-food-plan choice.

So, I’m kind of annoyed but have decided not to beat up on myself about it. I’m human. It was one day. I get another chance to choose recovery and stay in a good place with food tomorrow. I was on the road today by 6:15 a.m. When I got home at 5:30 tonight, the first thing that I did was take the dogs for a walk. Then I ate yogurt for dinner. After cuddling with the pups for a little bit, I hit play on the workout DVD and did the 30 minute cardio routine. Then I relaxed some more.

It’s important on all days to set myself up for success. Maybe it’s even more important to do so after I’ve had a not great day. I want to be more rested tomorrow so I’m about to relax in a hot tub and then go to bed. Tomorrow is Saturday which means that I do not have to set my alarm to wake up early enough to do the 30 minute weight training routine before I go to Tai Chi class. I can do it later in the day.

Tomorrow I wake up and choose recovery. Tomorrow I stick to the food plan again.

Body Matters General Musings

2 Comments »
Nov 25

Food Diary

by Mary Stella

A long time and many posts ago I shared that dislike keeping a food diary. I recognize that it is an important tool in my recovery but that doesn’t mean I joyfully embrace the practice of logging my food. This is a long standing dislike from way back in the days before there were smart phones with apps where we could input our daily food electronically. Hell, it goes back to the days before personal computers.

I’m not sure why I dislike it now, but I’ve figured out why I was always resistant before. Denial. Putting anything down on paper makes it all black and white. I understand now that a lot of my eating was unconscious. Okay, I wasn’t actually, physically unconscious when I ate, as in eyes closed, lights out. However, in the throes of a binge, I could eat and eat and eat and not be logically, completely aware of the foods. I was completely overwhelmed by the behavior. It was hard, difficult, uncomfortable, and stressful to face the truth.

When I started going to a real therapist in 1991 and she told me I had an eating disorder, it was a big deal. Oh, I should point out here that I’d had the eating disorder for years but didn’t know it. You see, I thought there were only two eating disorders — anorexia and bulimia. Since I wasn’t starving or purging, I was completely in the, “I’m just a weak-willed slob who can’t control her eating” state of mind and emotion.

Anyway, in the early days of our work and my infancy in OA, the therapist helped me structure my abstinence. She told me that I needed to commit to a food plan and every morning I needed to write down what foods I would eat and how much. At that point in time, we focused on adjusting the behavior and not so much on the quantity. This meant that if I wrote down in the morning that I was going to have six pieces of pizza for dinner and that’s what I ate, that was okay. I’d committed and adhered to the abstinence I’d defined. However, if I wrote down that I was going to have two pieces of pizza for dinner and then I ate three or four or five, I was not being abstinent.

Sounds a little wacky, but it worked. It helped. The first few months of doing it this way, going to meetings and continuing with therapy got me on track and in recovery.

I did it, including keeping the food diary, because I wanted to recover and was willing to go to any lengths. Even so, I never grew to love logging my food.

I still don’t like it, but I do it, now using MyFitnessPal as an app on my phone. I’ve discovered an important correlation. When I don’t log my food for a few days, I come close to falling off of the wagon. That alone is enough reason to keep logging.

A couple good friends use MyFitnessPal and we all also have FitBits. We’ve “friended” each other on FitBit so we can see each other’s daily progress, cheer each other on in our physical activity, etc. I don’t use the food diary on that program. These friends each recently sent me invitations to friend them on MyFitnessPal, too. I thought about it and then wrote to each of them. I asked them to please not be offended but MFP is where I log my food and I don’t want to share that diary. It has nothing to do with them, it’s all me not being comfortable putting that info out for anyone to see but me.

I’ve had to do a little soul-searching to see why sharing my food diary is out of my comfort zone. At first I worried that it could be a case of fostering sickness in the secretiveness. Tonight I really pondered and meditated on it and had some strong realizations. I spent many years with other people judging my food and what I ate and their disapproval or worry exacerbated my stress and my shame. At a young age I became a skilled stealth eater. My food diary needs to be a place where I can be completely honest about what I’m eating — even if I don’t have a good day and eat off of my food plan.

I can’t do that if what I log on there can be read by other people. I will incessantly worry about what other people think and how they’ll react to the point where I won’t be honest. If I am not honest on my food diary it ceases to be a viable tool in my recovery.

To be clear, these are not judgmental friends. This is all about my old tapes, previous experiences, and personal issues. That said, it is not possible for me at this time to give up the reluctance and make my food diary readable to anyone but myself. My choice to not share is about me protecting the role that keeping a food diary has in my recovery. I don’t have to like doing it, but I need to keep doing it and I can’t afford to let anything interfere with me maintaining this practice with integrity.

My friends were cool and told me they understood. We’ll continue to encourage each other via FitBit and in person. We’re good.

Body Matters General Musings

2 Comments »
Nov 17

Going to Any Lengths

by Mary Stella

A few minutes ago, I wasn’t sure what to blog about tonight. A couple of thoughts and ideas flitted around in my brain. Earlier today I changed the setting on my alarm clock to 6:00 a.m. I am determined to wake up on purpose early every day so that I can get in solid exercise before I get ready for work.

Thinking about that made me think about a phrase that I heard first in Al-Anon and then later in OA. It comes from AA’s “Big Book”. “If you’ve decided you want we have and are willing to go to any lengths to have it, then you are ready to take certain steps.”

That was exactly what I needed to hear again tonight and remember. Being willing to go to any lengths to recover is a huge choice and a defining moment. It isn’t easy to always maintain — that commitment of willingness — but it’s necessary, or recovery will be a fleeting thing.

With this in my head, I Googled so that I could find the exact reference. Instead, I found an absolutely kick-ass essay online. From 2011, it’s attributed to John MacDougall, the Director of Spiritual Guidance at Hazelden — a famous addiction treatment center. Click here to read the entire essay.

Regardless of the drug of choice for the addict — narcotics, alcohol, food — the addiction itself is powerful, often it feels more powerful than any frail human willingness. This essay, however, reinforces another power — the power to choose recovery. I also love when Dr. MacDougall says that we don’t negotiate our recovery.

I must choose my abstinence from compulsive eating, choose my recovery, every day. Then, as Dr. MacDougall says, I find out what the price each day will be. Some days, like today, will be relatively easy. Some will take more effort and require me to give up more in order to sustain my recovery another 24 hours. The price might mean not eating that unplanned dessert or not giving into the anger/upset/stress caused by a situation I run into. Whatever the case, I cannot, will not, wake up with anything less than total commitment. It doesn’t work to say that I will remain abstinent as long as it’s a good day or as long as nothing happens that stresses me out, or even as long as I don’t get a super craving for a favorite food that isn’t on my plan.

A high level of commitment in action engenders successful recovery. That’s what I want. I’m willing to go to any length to achieve it.

General Musings My Progress

2 Comments »
Nov 10

Why Don’t You Just Stop?

by Mary Stella

I was having an intelligent conversation with someone today about eating disorders. I was explaining how with binge eating a person can demonstrate different behaviors. The two behaviors with which I’m personally familiar are eating a lot of food spread out over several hours but with very little time in between eating bouts; and eating a large amount of food in one sitting — i.e. not stopping at all until gorged. It is entirely possible that in both cases the same amount of food is ultimately consumed and that amount is humongous. If that sounds a little abstract, here’s a smaller, simple comparison. Picture a large pizza and someone sitting down and eating all eight pieces before leaving the table. Now picture that large pizza and someone eating two pieces, then walking away. They return within an hour and eat another piece, or two. That behavior gets repeated a couple of more times and, ultimately, all eight pieces of pizza are devoured in maybe three hours.

Anyway you slice it, a person without an eating disorder does not consume an entire, large pizza pie.

The explanation made sense to the person with whom I was speaking — to a point. She seemed to take it all in and then asked, “But why don’t you just stop eating?”

That, my friends, is the bazillion dollar question, why can’t you just stop eating? Here’s my brilliant answer: Damned if I know.

The truth is that I don’t know. I don’t know why the compulsion to binge can be so strong that I can’t stop. At my worst, even if I’d eaten enough to feel physically ill — say if I had a batch of homemade, sugary sweet cake frosting and consumed spoonful after spoonful after spoonful — there was seemingly no shut off switch.

I’m sure that there’s some brain connection or physical analysis that links to the emotional or sensory triggers or something. Unfortunately knowing all that doesn’t really help. Once in progress, stopping a binge is incredibly difficult. It might continue until someone eats so much that they vomit, or at least can’t fit in one more bite. Maybe it continues until there simply isn’t any food left around to eat. At least then there is time and distance between the binge eater and more food and they might be able to convince themselves not to go out and forage for more.

Whatever the case, the very best way to prevent a full scale binge isn’t “just stopping”. No, the answer lies in not starting.

My friends and I in OA used to talk a lot about the fact that alcoholics have a choice which is drink or don’t drink. People with eating disorder diseases do not have the choice to eat or not eat. We called it letting the beast out of the cage at least three times a day. Once the beast is out, it can be a challenge to confine it again.

So, we have to eat, but we don’t have to eat in a compulsive manner. We do have the ability to choose what and how we eat. Non-compulsive eating, i.e. eating to a plan no matter what that plan might be, alters the behavior. It is the closest thing to control that we can practice.

General Musings

2 Comments »
Nov 4

The Disease Never Goes Away

by Mary Stella

I had a bad disease day. Lots of compulsive eating, despite the fact that I’d psyched myself up to have a really great day. It’s not good to blame anything for going off of the rails, but I may as well as share about how a good start in the morning suddenly turned sucky.

I got up early — around 6 a.m. and decided to take advantage of the early start by doing a quick segment of my in-home walking DVD. I did the 15 minute one mile walk, which energized me. By doing so, I figured out that my Fitbit doesn’t log every single step. I think you have to have full forward motion. I don’t believe it caught the kicks. However, that doesn’t matter so much. The point was to exercise.

Okay, so I exercised, showered, got dressed, fed the dogs, and got out the ingredients for a pumpkin smoothie. I put all of the ingredients in the blender, hit the button and — Holy crapola! — ice came flying out the top, the machine made a horrible noise and then it stopped working.

Blenders don’t behave well when you leave the spoon in the container. Dopey move! I salvaged the mixture and poured it into my glass for sipping. I’d left a grill pan soaking overnight in the sink by accident, so I wanted to clean it up. All was fine until I put the pan up to drain and knocked a glass vase into the sink where it promptly shattered. I felt a piece of glass fly into my eye and froze in place, telling myself, “Don’t blink! Don’t blink! Don’t blink!”

I couldn’t feel anything touching my eyeball but I didn’t want to take any chances. Still forcing myself to keep my lid open, I ran to my bathroom, very carefully removed my contact lens, grabbed the eye wash and rinsed out the eye. I think that the piece of glass must have bounced from my eye as soon as it hit, because nothing came out when I rinsed. I gingerly felt around and was mighty darned relieved to realize that everything was okay.

For some reason, this all just through me off. I returned to the kitchen, drank my smoothie, managed to fix the blender, and then took the dogs for a walk. Although relieved, I was still tense and this stayed with me.

Honestly, writing this recap, it feels a lot like I’m whining. Sorry.

Anyway, I was doing okay at work food wise through the morning. I walked past a huge bowl of leftover Halloween candy and told myself “No”. I savored tea, drank water and even made it through my yogurt for lunch. Then someone brought out a plate of homemade truffles. That quickly, the compulsive eating disease stampeded right over my good intentions and determination. I had to have one, and then another.

This not only didn’t satisfy the chocolate craving, but it kicked up an overall desire to eat and continue eating. Unfortunately, someone had already put out a platter of veggie lasagna. Seriously, when I’m in disease-eating mode, the only safe place for me is a locked room without any food within reach. I am so incredibly resentful and pissed off right now. I. Hate. Being. A. Compulsive. Eater.

Saying that is akin to a child crying. Hating the disease doesn’t change one damned thing. I need to suck it up and move on, rebuilding my determination to be abstinent for the rest of tonight and start fresh again tomorrow. I get it.

So I really want other compulsive eaters, or others who are contemplating weight loss surgery, to remember this. Having bariatric surgery does not cure you of an eating disorder. It’s really important to realize that there comes a time when even small, inappropriate bites can throw you off track. The disease never goes away. Each of us still needs to deal with the compulsion every day.

I can’t reshape today. I can only do better tomorrow. That’s the plan.

General Musings

4 Comments »
Oct 31

Candy Holidays

by Mary Stella

It was my first full day with my new Fitbit. (Thanks for telling me about this, Susanne!) I logged 7800 steps in a fairly normal day that included a short dog walk in the morning and a longer one this evening. Of course I’d hoped to hit 10,000 steps but, realistically, I know that I had to spend a lot of time at my desk working today. Even realizing that fact, my mind churns with ideas on how I can hit the 10K step goal every day. Naturally, if I’d had a Zumba class I would have gone beyond the mark. So, I guess I should feel pretty good about coming close on a day that didn’t include a lot of exercise time. I’m strategizing of course. I can get up earlier and take the dogs for a longer morning walk. I can definitely get up from my desk at some point during the day and walk around the facility. That’s perfectly acceptable and really good for my head, too. Tomorrow is going to be a more active day at work because I have a media shoot in the morning. It will be interesting to see how the day’s count tallies. I’ll report on my results.

Tonight is Halloween. In the 9 or 10 years that I’ve been home here on Halloween, I think I’ve only had trick or treaters two or three nights. Yet, I dutifully buy a bag of candy. Oh, you know, last year I think I bought miniature boxes of raisins. I can’t remember and I didn’t post about it. This time of year in 2012 I was pretty wrapped up in anxiety over Superstorm Sandy — first when it brushed by us in the Keys and then when it attacked my home state of New Jersey.

Anyway, I bought a bag of candy, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t have kids knocking on the door. I couldn’t help myself. I was positive that if I didn’t have it in the house, there would be a sudden parade of costumed children coming to the house and leaving in disgust and disappointment. I don’t know why the thought of it concerned me so — it’s not like they would have been deprived of candy All. Night. Long. and I’d be personally responsible for the worst Halloween e-v-e-r — but I caved.

Now I have a big, bag of candy in the house and, of course, I’ve snacked on some of it. I’m calling a halt. My plan is to take it all into work and spread out the calories among my co-workers, but I still have to get through the night. Even though it’s cooled off some temperature-wise in Florida, it will get all melty if I put it in the car now. How’s this for a plan instead? Dump the candy from the bowl back into its bag; put that bag inside a plastic bag with handles so I can tie it closed; put bag in fridge. If I find myself weakening, at least I’ll have gotten the candy good and cold. Then I’ll put it into an insulated cooler with ice packs and put it in the car.

I’m fairly confident that I can defeat an urge to still eat candy in the time it would take me to go out to my car and get some.

Candy holidays suck for compulsive overeaters who really, really like chocolate sweets. Not only do they surround us with one of our drugs of choice which can screw us up physically and mentally, but they twist us up emotionally.

I’m sure Halloween was always a source of upset for my parents too. How hard it must have been to watch me, their overweight daughter, go out trick or treating with her friends, knowing she was collecting a pillowcase full of candy that she shouldn’t eat. We won’t even go into the challenge of finding me costumes. At a certain weight, those child outfits made of that shiny acetate material with plastic masks just don’t fit big kids.

So, factor in that I already hated everyone studying my food choices and making an issue of them, and you know that I was in a constant emotional tug-of-war. All I wanted was to have fun with my friends and just get to enjoy some damn chocolate like everyone else and not have it be such an issue.

Easter is another big candy holiday. We always got two Easter baskets — one from our folks and one from my Nana (Mom’s mom.) Both baskets were great and I give extra credit to Nana. She always went to this neighborhood, family-owned chocolate shop where they made their own goods and ordered each grandchild his or her favorite type of chocolate Easter egg. They were beautifully decorated and even had our first name’s piped on them. For the record, I preferred chocolate filled with butter cream. I think my brother was a coconut cream fan. I don’t remember Easter being as much of a candy stress-fest, however. Maybe because, even with the big egg and some chocolate bunnies and jelly beans, the overall haul of sweetness was less. We also spent a lot of time on the decorated Easter egg hunt. When I got a little older, my folks switched to one basket from Nana and they instead gave us each a different gift that they would hide for us. Most often, mine was a book. Even then, I loved books so I didn’t feel deprived by this change.

If I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of kids, I tell myself that I would make homemade, healthier treats that would be delicious and welcomed by the little goblins. I love that image of myself smiling and offering the treat tray to kids at the door. In my little Halloween fantasy, the dogs wouldn’t go crazy every time someone knocked on the door and I’d watch the tykes wave and call out a chorus of “thank-yous” as they walked onto the next house. Oh, on my dream Halloween, nobody would be worried about whether I’d laced my homemade treats with razor blades or poison either.

I don’t live in that neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t modify my dream. Maybe next year I can still come up with a healthy treat that I can make and share with my co-workers. That way I’ll feel like I’m still participating in Halloween without contributing to an overbuzz of sugar.

General Musings

3 Comments »
Oct 25

Taking Care of Me

by Mary Stella

Before I get into the topic, I have to share about something sort of strange that happened yesterday. There’s a nice older gentleman who spends a few weeks in the Keys each fall and volunteers where I work. He just got back into town and yesterday was the first that I’ve seen him. I hugged him and welcomed him back, asked how he and his wife have been and so on. He then looked at me and rather hesitantly asked how I am doing, with this expressive hand motion that indicated my changed body. He said that he wasn’t sure how to ask but hoped that all was well.

I realized then that he didn’t know whether I’d lost so much weight on purpose or because I had some sort of illness or bad condition. Friends, this has never happened to me before. I’ve never considered that someone might wonder if I’d been horrible sick. Thankfully, I was able to quickly reassure him and he was, naturally, relieved and happy for me.

So on to the rest of the post. I’m doing well with my food plan which does wonders to stabilize my mind and emotions while getting some pounds off. It isn’t the full liquids so much as getting back into the “don’t compulsively or impulsively grab for food” routine that’s making the whole plan work. Weekends are sometimes more challenging, but I’m psyching myself up to continue on track.

I’m focused on taking care of me. One of my roles in my life has been that of caregiver/caretaker. Funny how they sound like they should be opposite things but mean pretty much the same. I give care to others. I take care of others, but often don’t take care of or for myself. Being a caregiver or fixer is pretty common among children of alcoholics or addicts. I think I fell into the role even before Mom’s drinking tipped (tippled?) over into a disease. Natural course of events, actually, since both of my parents were caregivers by profession – Dad a doctor and Mom a nurse. Add in that one of my grandparents was frequently ill which meant that both would move in with us for awhile, and I helped out with their care.

I’ve almost always been calm, steady and effective in times of crisis too. This is not bad. None of it is, actually. There are worst traits to have than to be someone who can provide care and help to others, particularly loved ones. The down side though is that, when you’re young, you shouldn’t always have to be the caregiver. Someone should be helping to take care of you.

Providing care for myself is something that I’ve had to work on. I’ve learned a great deal gradually over the years and then really gained a chunk of experience with it over the last two years as I began all the steps and actions necessary for the weight loss surgery. Then, of course, I’ve had to continue the strong self-care in the many months since.

One of the challenges is recognizing when I need to lavish a little extra care and then doing it. Sometime mid-week I realized that I was feeling pulled in many directions, stressed, and overtired. It came to me that I really needed to step back from the demands of a busy life and schedule some me time. Originally, I was supposed to go to a Zumba event tomorrow, held about an hour away. I changed that plan in favor of staying closer to home. I even went to a Zumba master class here in town for a while tonight. I’ll do my Tai Chi class in the morning and made an appointment for a facial and a treatment called manual lymph drainage. Never had one before but it’s supposed to be beneficial, so I’ll give it a try.

The wind is supposed to stay high and gusty all weekend which means no boating. Windy or not, I will make time for a couple of long bike rides because the exercise makes me feel terrific physically and mentally. On Sunday I’m going in for another dolphin swim. There has never been a time that swimming with some of our dolphin family hasn’t brought me joy. I’m going to make the most of the opportunity.

The next work week will come soon enough. I’m going to make the most of my days off. In keeping with that attitude, I think I’ll go enjoy a nice soak in a hot, scented bath. After all, there’s no harm in the rest of the evening being all about me!

What’s on your weekend agenda? How are you taking care of you?

General Musings

2 Comments »
Oct 23

Done in by a Cupcake

by Mary Stella

Day Two is over and I broke my abstinence. Right now I’ve defined my abstinence as eating only what I plan to consume and not giving into food impulses that lead me to compulsively eat.

I was doing okay until after lunch when a co-worker came into my office and told me that the company that designed our new website sent us cupcakes as thanks for continuing our association via a service contract. Since I do a lot with the website, she wanted to make sure I got one before they were all gone.

There was plenty of time and space between my office and the kitchen when I could have stopped myself. I could have smiled and said, “No thank you.” I absolutely did not have to get up from my chair and go into the kitchen, take the cupcakes out of the fridge, grab one and take it back to my office. Right up until the moments when I ate the damn thing I could have said no. But I didn’t.

Sounds pretty damned lame of me, doesn’t it? No, it’s okay for you to agree. It WAS lame. I’m stronger than the cupcake and the urges. That said, there are also way too many times when I just want to have the cupcake and not have it be a major issue.

Can you tell that I sometimes have issues about my issues? I resent my compulsive overeating disease. It pisses me off that I have it with all the accompanying negative emotional stuff and physical impacts that come with it. Part of me wants to go outside right now and scream into the night, “IT WAS ONLY A FREAKING CUPCAKE!!!”

Whew. Okay. Rant over. Now let’s look at the facts. I had a cupcake with icing. It wasn’t the biggest cupcake in the world. I looked at a bunch of different cupcake ratings online which ranged in calorie counts from 150 to 450. I’m going to rate this at a solid 280 calories with 16 grams of carbohydrates and 40 grams of sugar. (I’m pretty sure that I’m over estimating but I’d rather do that than underestimate.)

I logged everything into MyFitnessPal. Even with the cupcake putting me far over the daily sugar grams, I was so good with every other thing that I ate today that I’m still below my carb and fat allotment and good on my total calorie intake for the day. Between riding my bike and Tai Chi class, I also burned about 400 calories. Overall, it could have been a lot worse.

The real damage is to my emotions. I haven’t quite tipped over into sackcloth and ashes over the lapse. Mostly I’m ticked off at myself. In the comments of yesterday’s post, Cathy talked about my desire to be healthy being stronger than the food. I wish I could say that was the case all of the time. It was yesterday. Today, there were a few moments when I ignored the desire to be healthy. It happens. It sucks. I need to put it aside now and move on.

I’m happy that I didn’t let it trash the rest of my effort for the day and night. Hopefully this will help me set myself up for a successful day tomorrow. I will not let a single cupcake derail me permanently. That is all.

General Musings

4 Comments »
«Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.