Day 8 - Merry Christmas

Emotionally - a fine day. Cool gifts, fun with family, lots of relaxing. Food-wise - terrible day, as expected. Two heaping plates of Christmas food followed by one or two cookies every hour. Perhaps instead of hoping to magically lose 5 pounds, I should be expecting to magically not have gained another 5 pounds. It will be interesting to weigh myself Saturday morning when I'm at home. And by interesting, I pretty much mean absolutely terrifying.

Day 7 - Happy Christmas Eve!

Half of the day was spent baking Christmas cookies - that alone should be an indicator of how the day went food-wise. I feel like there's not a whole lot to blog about today. Except for the fact that I find myself getting a little disheartened about only getting a handful of pageviews since this started. But, I guess it's like magically losing 5 pounds the week over Christmas that I've been hoping for but not really doing a whole lot to advance that goal. I knew that I wouldn't be able to start a blog and then instantly have a horde of dedicated followers that would comment and cheer me on....but you know, it would've been nice :)

I mean, I guess that day wasn't too terrible - an apple and some cheese for a late breakfast, then a veggie salad and green beans for lunch, skipped popcorn at the movies, but ate a whole order of pad see eew for dinner (although I did give out a good hunk of my noodles), followed by a handful of cookies. So definitely could have been better, but also definitely could have been a lot worse. And I've been thinking a lot about what I will do when I get back home in two days. Will I hold true and come home from the grocery store with bags of fresh veggies and fruits and start off on the right foot? Or will I crumble and have to come crawling back to this blog, saying that yes, I binged on a homemade batch of cookie dough....just the thought is making me drool. Perhaps if I focus on the back fat rolls that will prevent me from buying all my baking ingredients.

I don't think that I can really set any goals for tomorrow - it is Christmas after all, and my family does not look kindly upon dieting at Christmas. I have a great supportive family, but they don't get weight loss, dieting, or really even trying to eat healthy. Hmm, is this really true or am I just using that as an excuse to not have to attempt to restrain myself at Christmas dinner?

Days without incident - back to 1

Day 6 - Family time

Is it wrong to fake being sick so that I could stay at the house while the rest of my family went to DC to do touristy things? And is it worse that I used that time to eat an entire tub of guacamole and a bag of Tostitos? Family is weird sort of trap. I won't do any overt, major binges when they are around, but being around them absolutely increases my desire to binge.

Today I was very conscious of how my body feels - the extra fat rolls on my back that have crept back, the tightness of my largest jeans that makes me scared to wash and dry them since they'll shrink a little in the dryer, how I have to suck in my stomach to zip up my coat - and how I have to use my old 'fat' coat, since the stylish new coat that I just bought last month barely fits right now. I honestly gained 15 pounds in about 6 weeks. Is that really possible? Can a person physically consume that many additional calories? Apparently it is possible, but even though I feel all the changes in my body, there is still a sense of denial. I also found a scale in my brother's bathroom while everyone was out - was definitely too scared to step on that one. Even though there haven't been any cookie dough/pizza binges, my diet has been terrible. My brother is a basic meat and carb kind of guy, which means that the only vegetables I've been able to eat lately were a salad when we went out and the lettuce and tomato on my burger earlier today. I do love my cookie dough/pizza binges, but I actually do really enjoy vegetables and I kind of miss them.

And I do love vegetables - even when they are not covered in butter and cheese. I love a good salad, steamed broccoli, sauteed green beans....so how can I not be healthy? Because the horrible little voice inside my head also suggests that a bowl of cookie dough would be a fantastic way to end an otherwise healthy meal. I have no trouble putting together a nice, balanced meal. I just have trouble stopping eating afterwards. I will consume so much food that my stomach aches, and I feel as if I can't even take a full breath. Those next few hours are miserable for me - I physically feel awful. And yet as soon as the terrible, overfull feeling goes away, I am back in the kitchen.

Why does this happen? I recognize that my body does not feel good after a binge. That satisfied, ooooh that was so yummy feeling evaporates so quickly and is instantly replaced by guilt, shame, and physical discomfort. So why does the yummy feeling always win out in the mental tug of war? I consider myself to be a pretty smart person. I finished my bachelors in zoology and biology, finished law school, spent four years as a successful attorney, am now back in school finishing a masters, and am hoping to start a PhD program next year. So how is it that I suddenly lose the ability to think rationally and logically when it comes to food? I've heard of people replacing food with exercise - like the high of a binge is replaced with the high after a good run. Now, I've run two full marathons, and I'm not sure I ever felt the same after a 20 mile run as I do when sitting down and savoring that first bite of a binge.

I've been thinking a lot about instituting daily goals. Not necessarily food goals - not binging would be the goal every single day. But other goals that always seem stupid in my head but that all the magazines and psycho-babble recommend. Like going a full day without fat-shaming myself. Or looking myself in the mirror and saying positive affirmations. Honestly, I am not a positive person to begin with, so these things seem like crap to me. I always feel like weight issues are just a battle of will power and you just need to suck it up and do it if you want to succeed. I'm not sure telling myself in the mirror that I'm perfect just as I am will really help.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Days without incident - 0 (the guac/chips incident may not have been as major as my previous binges, but I don't think I can overlook it)

Day 5 - Big trouble in Little China

Short post tonight - although not technically a binge, I did out-eat my brother at a dim sum dinner tonight after more gorging on specialty cheese and Christmas cookies. That magical 5 pound weight loss that I have been hoping for after this DC trip is straying further and further into the realm of pure fantasy. I come from a family where protests of - oh, I can't eat any more, I'm full - are met with protests of - just one more dumpling, you can't leave just one....oh come on, you're not trying hard enough......but it tastes so good, try this other dish.... It should be no wonder that I have food issues. Probably the biggest surprise is that I'm not even bigger than I am now.

Anyway, I don't think I can recount what I ate today. I'll count it as a day without incident because there wasn't a secretive binge, although there is definitely some shame in my eating today. I honestly have zero confidence that my first stop when I get back home will be the grocery store to pick up cookie dough ingredients and gain another fifteen pounds by February. How can I get this to stop? Anyone out there?

Day 4 - My enthusiasm is rapidly dwindling

I didn't binge, but I definitely ate more cookies, marshmallows, french fries, and whatever other not awesome food choices that were around, And I'm not sure exactly what made today different than any other day. It seems like such stupid, petty little things. We played a frustrating 2.5 hour game session with my brother where I had absolutely no luck. My parents arrived and then they fawn over my sister-in-law. Honestly, I am not a big fan of hers. She is the sweetest girl in the world.....but just annoys me. She's flighty. Playing any game with her is a challenge since she makes a play, decides that another move would have been better, so makes us redo her turn, then decides that she didn't understand the rules and goes back to her original move. And she calls my parents "mom and dad." How petty am I that is the one thing that grates my nerves above all else? I've been at their house for four days now - perhaps I am just reaching my limit. Not sure I can take another four days of family togetherness. Wow, I am an awful person.

Then, my stretchiest of stretch pants are feeling a bit snug in the waist, and my muffin top is blebbing over. You'd think that would be the motivation to NOT eat that extra cookie. Instead, that extra cookie is the one thing that my messed up brain believes will make me feel that little bit better about myself and about my day.

We had another touristy day and went to Mount Vernon. I had my brother take some pictures of me with my friend and me petting the Christmas Camel (seriously, George Washington had a Christmas Camel - it's a real thing). First of all, I hate getting my picture taken. I never take good pictures. I am genetically un-photogenic. But I have no recent pictures of myself and everyone always posts cute pics of themselves on Facebook and damnit, I wanted to be one of those people. So I had him take some pictures....and then I looked at them. My cheeks are puffed out, my neck seems to have a second chin and a wattle, my coat seems to be pulling at the seams, and my legs looks unusually thick. I'm sure that a strange would say that I look just fine, but pictures of myself just undo me every time. Recently, I won a travel scholarship for a national conference, and they asked me to submit a head shot to put in the monthly newsletter. Since I didn't have any recent headshots, I had to ask a friend to take a few pictures of me. She took a few, showed me, agreed that I looked odd, took a few more, agreed they were no better, and watched me start to get teary because looking at pictures of myself is on the anxiety scale of public speaking for me. Seriously, who cries just because of a picture? My eyes are too close together, my neck is too short, my arms have gotten too fat, I have a muffin top no matter what pants I wear, and my thighs now resemble tree trunks. That is all I can see when I see a picture of myself. How do normal people do it? How can I become one of those normal people?

So yeah, back to the title of this post, my enthusiasm and confidence is rapidly dwindling. How am I supposed to gain control over my eating habits when I apparently have no self confidence and can't even handle the frustration of a board game? How am I supposed to regain the body I had ten years ago? Is the alternative just to give up and, instead of trying to lose weight, accept that my binging is just a piece of me and start to work on accepting this new body? I mean, if I saw someone with my body walking down the street, I would never judge her, or think she was too fat, or laugh if she tried to be fashionable. And yet, because it's me, there are different standards.

Days without (major) incident: 4 (but only because I'm surrounded by family). This could be a very loooooong journey.

Day 3 - Okay, I lied - I really want to stop binging AND lose weight

Yeah, so I know that in my first two posts, I made all this fuss about the purpose of this blog and my journey was not really to lose weight, but to focus on stopping the binge cycle and getting back to some healthy eating habits. And yes, those are totally valid goals that I am still striving towards. But I have to be honest with myself - I also really want to lose weight. Five pounds to start would be awesome, ten would be even better, twenty would make me really happy, and thirty would bring me back to my pre-return to graduate school weight. So yeah, I really want to lose weight. A substantial amount of weight. But I guess that will be part of the process - first focus on stopping the binge cycle, second get back to healthy eating habits, third get back into a regular exercise schedule, and then I can finally get to four and focus on weight loss.

I'm still in DC, so being busy and constantly around family or friends means no privacy to binge and also means generally being so busy that I'm not constantly thinking about stuffing my face with food. We did plenty of walking today - International Spy Museum and the Crime and Punishment Museum - I even had a salad for lunch. Course we also split an order of garlic, parmesan fries and my salad had pecan-crusted chicken and gorgonzola cheese in it. We also stopped at an amazing specialty cheese shop on the way home, and I helped myself to two types of cheese and some salami.

Ugh, how do you stop binging/start dieting when you just really, honestly love food? How can I ever get to a place where I can buy a 1/2 pound of cheese, take a few bites, and then not feel the intense urge to immediately eat the rest with a giant box of crackers? How do you get there? Cause I don't think that I can ever become one of those people that just eats the perfect proportion of protein, carbs, and veggies simply because that's what's in the plan day after day after day. I want to be able to eat delicious, specialty cheese and salami and also be able to really enjoy it without feeling shame that I ate too much saturated fat or went over my recommended daily caloric intake. I guess that will be part of the journey - finding a balance that works for me.

Food dairy:
Breakfast - 3 small pancakes with a bit of butter and maple syrup
Lunch - pecan chicken, pear, and gorgonzola salad with some garlic, parm fries
Snack - frozen yogurt with strawberries and cookie dough nuggets
Dinner - cheese, salami, and crackers
Snack - 1 key lime cookie, a few handfuls of popcorn

Days without incident: 3

Day 2 - Keeping busy

Another day without a binge - no batches of raw cookie dough, no eating spoonful after spoonful of brown sugar, no devouring an entire pizza. Of course, staying at my brother's house makes it a bit more difficult to do those things. While I'd love to give myself a big ole pat on the back for having such awesome will power to not binge, I'm pretty sure it's more a product of my surroundings and simple inability to binge in secret.

Food for the day - still not another great total calorie day, but at least no major failures.
Breakfast - a homemade egg, ham, and cheese breakfast sandwich
Snack - Natural Valley granola bars
Lunch - museum cafe cheeseburger and fries (the fries split three ways)
Snack - cup of hot cocoa, one cookie
Dinner - cheese and spinach ravioli with marinara sauce, and another cookie

Now, I actually do love my veggies. Unfortunately, my brother and sister-in-law are not super healthy eaters themselves, so I have to make do. As a goal for tomorrow, I'll try and find something with veggies for lunch tomorrow while we're out.

Not a whole lot to say about today. This visit with family is great for keeping me busy and around people, which severely limits my ability to binge since my binging is always done in secret. It's not so great since we are eating out at least once a day, and I have little control over the meals that are being served when we do eat at home. There's no doubt that I am not-so-secretly hoping to have magically dropped five pounds by the time I get home after Christmas. A more realistic goal would be to simply have not gained any more weight. Not binging will (hopefully) stop the weight gain, but that by itself will (most likely) help me lose the binge weight. That is going to take a much more serious effort on cleaning up my diet even more and getting back into a regular workout habit. But despite knowing what my realistic expectations should be, I have a really hard time making those expectations a reality.

I am hoping that I'll get some more time in the next few days to write some more about me, why I binge, and some goals for my journey to a binge-free life. Even thought I doubt anyone is actually reading this (or ever will read this), I'm thought the idea of having an anonymous audience would help motivate me to continue journaling. Every doctor, therapist, nutritionist always says that a food/emotion journal is the key to figuring out your food issues. Even though I know this, I've always resisted the idea for some reason. Anyway, that's for another post.

Goals for tomorrow - no binging, getting some vegetables for lunch, doing some more museum walking

Days without incident: 2

Day 1 - A New High = A New Low

I almost didn't, but after much internal strife I convinced myself to get on the scale. After all, if I don't know where I'm starting, I can't know where to go. The scale revealed an all-time high for me - 161.2. It may not sound like much, but I am only 5 feet tall. A ne w high number on the scale is a new low for my life.I certainly don't include my personal weight as a comparison for anyone else. In my mind, plenty of people are healthy and comfortable at 160. However, for me, I know that I only reached 160 by binge eating and other unhealthy habits, and it is the binging that I am really trying to combat. Weight loss would be a great side effect.

In terms of food, the day started off really well. I woke up early to drive with a friend to DC, where I'll be staying for the next week and a half over Christmas. I had oatmeal with almond milk and berries for breakfast, a snack of berries in the car, and we stopped at Subway for lunch (6" turkey on wheat, pepperjack cheese, lots of veggies, honey mustard dressing). We arrived at my brother and sister-in-law's house and that's when the trouble began. As soon as we walked in, Jenny pulled freshly baked key lime cookies out of the oven. I tried to say that I was still full from lunch, but she kept insisting and I was able to limit myself to just one. Then, only an hour later, she suggested that we walk to a frozen yogurt place for a snack. On the good side, we did walk (only about 6 minutes away), I got a low sugar flavor, used the smallest size cup and only filled it half way, and instead of my usual toppings of Oreos, cookie dough, and Reese's, I went with strawberries and only two small scoops of cookie dough. Dinner was safer - chicken noodle soup with a roll.

Looking back, it was definitely not a stellar day in terms of total calories BUT I am trying to look at the positives. I am normally a very negative person, so for me, this is a huge step. So, on the positive list, I limited the car-snacking, only ate a single cookie, and didn't go crazy at the froyo place. As a result, I didn't get sugar headaches, like I normally do post-binge, and I didn't have the awful overly full feeling. And now, as I'm getting ready for bed, I feel pretty certain that I can actually fall asleep fairly soon instead of tossing for a few hours like I normally do after a binge because (1) I have to berate myself for being so weak and (2) my stomach is so uncomfortably full that it is physically impossible to fall asleep. If I focus on these things, I can say that it was a pretty good day.

Tomorrow we are planning on going to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History - hopefully this means a lot of walking, but it probably also means a possible fast food lunch. Fingers are crossed that I'll be able to make smart choices.

Days without incident: 1

And in this corner, weighing in at.....too scared to step on the scale

I have spent the last fifteen years of my life yo-yo'ing between 120 and 160. This blog is my latest effort to try and beat the battle of the binge. I know about nutrition, counting calories, and balancing macronutrients. I know about exercise - previously, I trained for years in martial arts and boxing and have even run two full marathons. And yet despite logically knowing what I need to do to loss and maintain weight, I continually find myself powerless when it comes to food. I would diet for a few months or even a year and lose the weight. When I either reached my goal or thought I could handle an extra snack or two, things always got out of control. Ordering a pizza meant that I would eat an entire box of breadsticks and most of a large pizza. Making a batch of cookie dough would turn into eating full batches by myself every day for weeks on end. Opening a bag of chips resulted in eating a party size bag on my own with  large tub of guacamole.

I have now reached my all-time high weight of 160 - and I'm only 5 feet tall. And 160 is really just an estimate. I just finished eating my breadsticks, pizza, and cookie pie (my farewell meal) so I'm terrified to get on the scale. To keep myself honest, I'll step on in the morning. I'll have a 6 hour drive to DC to be depressed over it. I can't believe I'm actually going to try to stop binging during the holidays, but I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll have to spend next semester's tuition on buying yet another new wardrobe since I'm barely fitting into the one in my closet.

So my plan is not necessarily to diet, but to start eating consciously and getting my butt off the couch. I would like to keep track of what I eat on this blog - not for calorie counting, but to keep myself honest and become aware again of what I'm consuming. Same for working out - posting a workout will just be positive feedback. I'll keep track of days without binging, which is the ultimate goal.

I'd love to hear from anyone who starts reading this blog, anyone who wants a partner on a weight loss journey, and anyone with words of encourage or who has their own story. Fingers crossed....let's get this party started.