binges

more from Barbara Holtzman (I really like this woman!):

In the chapter on bingeing, she talks about two kinds binges -- food anger and emotional anger. Food anger is the frustration that builds in reaction to the deprivation of not letting yourself eat what you want. Either making certain foods "forbidden" or underfeeding yourself during the day so that you binge after work or after dinner. Reduce this type of binge by not letting yourself get too hungry and by allowing yourself to eat what you really want.

I think I'm doing fairly well on this one. I do still fight every day not to eat too many sweets/desserts, etc, but it's easier now to turn things down knowing that they make me feel crappy. The day after eating too much sugary stuff I feel downright CRANKY and CRABBY. I also seem to have trouble sleeping that night. Knowing that, why would I WANT to eat a doughnut?


The second type is an attempt to deal with uncomfortable emotional feelings like anger, sadness, anxiety, boredom, and loneliness. For those of us who focus on everyone else's needs but our own, eating (particularly sweets) may be the only way we know how to give to ourselves. For others, it's a means of procrastination. If you numb yourself with food, you may be trading the live feelings of anger, sadness and fear for the familiar dull ache of depression. You also miss the opportunity of learning what your feelings are trying to tell you.There may be times you experience uncomfortable feelings and do not use food to cope. Most likely, these feelings are in your "comfort zone". We all have a range of both uncomfortable and joyful feelings we can bear. The parameters of our comfort zones may fluctuate, depending on our general level of stress, health, where we are in our menstrual cycle, and how connected and supported we feel by our friends and family. If you feel the urge to binge, it may be helpful to understand that it's because something triggered you out of your comfort zone.

So interesting! I often wondered why sometimes I feel as though I'm coping just fine with feelings, even bad ones, and other times I feel such an irresistable pull to run to the cupboard. I'm definitely doing better on the self-care issue -- taking time out to relax and not do much, asking T for what I need, not stressing about everything not being perfect all the time, and doing things I want to do as opposed to things I think I should be doing. I don't succeed at all of this 100% of the time, but definitely more often than not. Procrastination is still big for me -- I feel a very strong urge to eat when I know I really need to do some chore I don't want to do. I've been coping okay with it lately though. I convince myself that the chore isn't going away, so why compound my misery with food I don't need?