Two weeks without an update. Yikes. Once again, I haven’t given up or whatever, but I must admit that keeping focused on blogging very regularly is hard when I need to organize my work and school life around a tight schedule. Securing more “must do” time, even for something light and fun like a blog, isn’t always easy in terms of both time and motivation.
However, I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern, and I’m now worried and wondering if this is more common than I think, or if I’m some kind of weird exception. It’s about habits. New habits, more precisely. And even more precisely, new bad habits.
Good habits come little by little. Things like picking vegetables instead of starches at the campus restaurant, not giving in to the French fries, removing the mayonnaise from the eggs in my salad (not that I actually like mayonnaise anyway), making sure to get some cardio on top of weight lifting (yay for my WATP DVDs!), taking the stairs instead of the elevator, even (especially) when I come back from the supermarket with three bags full of groceries… I could list many more, but I’m sure you get it. These are good. These are habits I want to acquire for good, little by little, and so far, things are working well in that regard.
What I’m worried about is something else altogether. I must have stated it already on this blog or somewhere on 3FC, but basically, I’ve never been a binge-eater. I’ve always had a tendency to overeat, but never to the extent of what could be called a real binge (the 2,000+ calories in one sitting, or, to be more precise, eating quickly and in abundance to the point of feeling uncomfortable or even pretty sick to my stomach). It just wasn’t in me, which was at least some kind of relief when I started my weight loss journey. One less thing to worry about, right?
Well, the thing is, in the last two months, I’ve had what I could call ‘bingeing episodes’. Maybe not complete, in that I could quickly hop back on the wagon right the day after it, and didn’t experience feelings of guilt/self-loathing/whatever else that would trigger more spiralling into doom (yeah, you’ll have to wake up very early to get me on a guilt-trip about many, many things). But the two or three or four thousands of calories in a day due to one episode of really bad, bad eating? You name it, you get it. Granted, it has happened twice only, so I’m not sure I can call that a habit–but that’s twice too much, for someone who clearly never had to deal with that, and never had the, er, shall I say ‘profile’ for that kind of thing!
I’m at a loss about the reasons behind this. I’ve pondered emotional eating, due to stress, tiredness and being generally under pressure with school and work, but the truth is, I wasn’t feeling especially down at the time it happened. In fact, I’ve had bad episodes of intense stress/anger recently, and they haven’t sent me into eating at all. Boredom? With all I have to do on a daily basis, it’s more and more difficult to find myself bored, mentally and physically. Maybe it was more a matter of starting with a wrong choice, and then switching to healthier, but still caloric enough foods? These two times, it started with something ’semi-bad’–getting a pizza and a (small) meal at McDonald’s, after a few weeks of eating right (maybe a little too much at times, but still mostly sensibly). And then I would get to the point of pouring myself bowls of cereals once I was done, or reaching for the bread and jam and devouring a 250g loaf of bread just by myself… stuff like that. Yeah, I’m not talking “just eating one cup of oatmeal on top of my pizza”, I’m talking real ugly eating, the kind of eating you don’t want anyone to see. Count the bowls as coming two by two, and other joyful behaviours that left me pretty much “What the FUCK are you doing? Stop that! But STOP! Now! Why won’t you stop?”.
I’m not going to moan about why can’t I stop–I lack willpower–I’m a failure–blah-de-blah. I eventually managed to stop (the same day, not one week later), and I know I’m the only one who does have the power to decide when it comes to such choices. However, I’m now really wary about these two episodes, because they have the potential to become a habit! If it’s too fall into a rut of “eat well for two weeks–ruin everything in one week-end with serious bingeing”, I might as well not bother about forming good, healthy habits at all. That’s just so stupid and mind-boggling.
So I’m looking for a cause, and not finding any. It’s not deprivation either: I eat about 1400-1500 a day on average (sometimes it’s 1200-1300, but that’s out of good, low-caloric foods that still make me feel full, not 1200 calories of silly stuff that will leave me with the impression of not having eaten anything). At merely 5′2″, it’s not terribly low, I think. I do exercise, but not to the point of having. I also regularly eat things I like a lot, such as coffee-flavoured soy yogurts, which don’t feel like ‘diet foods’ to me at all, since, well, I like them just as much, if not more, than your next croissant. I guess I can indeed rule out “cracking up out of frustration”, can’t I? Then what IS the reason?
If this has ever happened to someone else, please let me know. I’d like to know how you fought it, how it ended up for you, and if there’s hope that such episodes don’t have that big a potential of becoming a weekly habit or so.
Because I seriously don’t want to add “having to fight off binge eating” to the list of things I have to do to live healthily.
October 19th, 2007 at 02:25
Wow, that sounds really puzzling and frustrating, especially since you can’t really pinpoint a trigger.
It’s good that you’re not falling into the self-loathing thing and instead just looking at it rationally and trying to figure out how to keep it from becoming a habit.
I hope there’s no “next time” but if there is, I’m wondering if there’s a way to slow down and figure out what you’re telling yourself that’s giving you permission to do so something you know you’ll regret later. I think we all do this to a degree when we let ourselves slip, but I can see why you’d want to get this under control.
Seems like you’ve made so many positive changes that you’ll be able to reign this in–but still, how frustrating to have another new challenge to deal with.
October 19th, 2007 at 07:38
Thank you, Crabby. Indeed, I don’t want any kind of “next time” to happen, and I can’t figure out what kind of payoff I’d get from it anyway. “Be at ease in my fat”? I went through the ‘traditional’ causes of self-sabotage, some that I found in books, some others on blogs, but it hasn’t brought me any answer. It’s not like having lost weight has caused tons of obnoxious guys to hit on me (at least there would be a reason to be annoyed then). It’s not like I’m now afraid of “doing stuff with my life and not being able to hide behind my fat anymore”: I didn’t do it before, I don’t see why I’d suddenly need that now. It doesn’t make me less stressed, and it’s not even necessarily food that holds a special affective meaning to me, like Grandma’s delicious hot apple pie or stuff like that. I’m really puzzled.
In any case, I guess you’re right, and I will have to make that effort of slowing down and ask myself “why”. Maybe this is part of that whole “being tired about always thinking about food” problem (it’s calmed down compared to what it was a few weeks ago, but sometimes I still have it). Illogical, I know, but maybe giving oneself permission could be seen akin to not thinking about food in terms of being careful… Oy, no, it’s not even 8 am, it’s too early to go into such a thinking rut! LOL
October 19th, 2007 at 19:37
Hi Kerry. I’ve found myself with a similar problem. Unlike you, I’ve always had this predisposition, but I’ve found it getting much worse as I embark on a serious healthy-eating mission. Before, a slip would be two cookies. Now it’s eight. I wonder if it’s a sort of addictive thing - once we’re not used to eating sugary, white-floury things, maybe the weird spiking of blood sugar triggers something?
For me, I know it has to do with the numbness that a bingey episode brings on. Also, it feels good, tastes good, and that’s lulling. There’s a definite disconnect, though, between the me reaching for the bowl of cereal and the me watching it happen and knowing that it’s the wrong choice. I’m working on mending that split.
It’s weird that I can identify my triggers - comfort-seeking, boredom - but that eating still seems like the best remedy. “Yes, self, I realize that I’m just eating junk to comfort myself, because work is boring and I want a new job, but I’m going to do it anyway.” Brilliant, right?
Anyway, I know that’s no solution - even when I think I understand where the impulse comes from, I sometimes still do it - but it’s interesting to think about. If you’ve really interrogated all the possible emotional/psychic triggers, maybe it really is just a physical reaction to the junk food? Like an ex-smoker having just one puff. I wonder.
October 20th, 2007 at 16:03
Hi Jaime. First of all, thanks for commenting, and welcome to this blog.
Interesting hypothesis about the increased addiction from a ’substance’ you’re not used to. I’ve had episodes of badly reacting to a high intake of processed sugar (I think I mentioned it here earlier this year, sometime in August), so it wouldn’t be illogical that other kinds of reactions might be triggered as well. That “just one puff” comparison could indeed be a key that’s worth investigating. Thanks for the suggestion.