It’s been weeks since I’ve written a blog here. Since I’ve recorded in my food journal. Since I’ve even really exercised much. Not for lack of wanting to. That’s the crazy thing. I mean, I wanted to stop eating cookies and start writing things down and getting the exercise done, but it’s almost like you are outside of yourself when you’re eating. You are observing the behavior in a detached manner, mentally, but experiencing the sensual pleasures of the food, physically. Then there is the exercise. I actually was totally LOVING the high I got from exercising. It felt so great afterwards too. It lifted my spirit. It helped keep me going. It burnt off angst and stress. But in the state I was in, it was like I had lead weights holding my arms down. It was as though everything was in slow motion or moving through water. I even jotted something here and there in my journal. I woke up and tried to exercise, but only a few minutes in just felt drained and unable to do it.
I spiraled downwards. Out of control. I ended up eating, among other things, copious amounts of:
chocolate chip cookies
pizza
sweet rolls
macaroni and cheese
Newman O’s
hot chocolate
barbeque wings
fried chicken
steak
lots of coffee (decaf) with milk and sugar
I’m sure there were some other things in there, but I hit the comfort food pretty hard and ate it until I was quite full, rather than rationing out portions. Once I got started and stopped writing in my journal, I just abandoned to the indulgence.
The reasons I believe are this:
*lowering my daily calorie allowance from 1800 to 1500
*thinking too much about my weight on the scale – the actual number
*along with my situational depression I entered a chemical low
*a certain amount of comfort-seeking from the food
*but, to be honest, the thing I think had the most impact in terms of launching the binging of warm comfort foods was the sudden cold weather. In fact I remember first waking up and being cold in the morning and wanting *warm, creamy sweet coffee. A nice heavy warm mug of tasty comfort with me most of the morning was what I really craved. The whole cookie thing just kept getting more and more out of control. Then it was mac and cheese – where would it all end?
That went on for days, maybe ten – I don’t know. Then last Wednesday I got a stomach virus and couldn’t keep anything in. Coincidence that such an illness followed my poor eating habits? I think not. I think the depression and not eating all my fruits and veggies left a hole in my defenses and down I came. I was sick through Sunday.
Do you know what’s sad? At one point, on Friday during what would have been my normal weigh-in, I actually stepped on the scale and was relieved to see I’d lost weight – 239lbs I was. I had been in the bathroom the better part of two days and was happy to see that all my binging was disappearing though the virus. I didn’t want to admit this feeling to anybody. I certainly didn’t want to write it here – but I figured if it was bothering me that much and that embarrassing, then it was something I definitely needed to write here and share with you.
I have recovered from my virus. I weighed myself on Monday morning, which will be my new weigh-in day. I still weighed myself the two Fridays that I did not blog and will post those for you. I am food journaling again, as of yesterday and as soon as I finish this blog entry I will work on posting some photos I’ve taken during the past few weeks as well as yesterday’s journal entry and a new vlog. Lots to catch up on. Thank you for “weighting” for me and thank you for taking this journey with me. I feel stronger because of it.