spiraling out of control

My sister stayed with me for 10 days after my mom died. She has always been an itty bitty thing with somewhat strange eating habits. When pregnant she would eat an entire bag of mini Reeces pb cups at a sitting. She has almost always managed to keep her weight low, however. I think it's just genetic (she's not my biological sis). I was able to see what she was eating while she was here because we were together all the time. The first day she was here she ate 1/2 a granola bar 1/2 a cheese sandwich, and 3 bites of cornbread. That was it. The entire day. It freaked me out and I think I tried to eat enough for both of us.

I'm not sure why it freaked me out so much. She's always been "the skinny sister". Two years ago she had put on some weight for some reason and I was actually a size smaller than she was (being a size 6 at the time). It weirded her out totally. She couldn't stop commenting on how small I was. It made me feel a bit uncomfortable and a little....well.......pleased, happy, proud, superior. I mean, I'd always been the fat one. Anyway, I'm back to being the fat one, and I think I was trying to cement my role or something, while trying to make her eat more and join me. Every time my sister mentioned loving some kind of cookies my mom used to make, I'd run to the kitchen and bake them. We had so many cookies here last week, you'd have thought it was Christmas time. Unfortunately, I ate far more than she did (or anyone else for that matter).

I feel stuck. I cannot seem to eat in any sort of intuitive manner. I try to slow down my eating pace and I end up eating faster. I try to feed myself when hungry and I end up eating too much by the end of the day because I "can't" resist dessert after dinner. I try to ignore my hunger for a while and I end up eating too much, feeling too full, and then fighting the temptation to eat even more. I can't seem to convince myself that I don't have to eat all of the food in the world in one day.

I weighed myself last week and the scale said 167. 167! I haven't weighed that much in years and years and years. I actually can't remember the last time I weighed that much, but it must have been in graduate school -- 1991 maybe? Since I got married in 1995, I know 156 is the most I've weighed unless I was pregnant, and my weight has hovered around 150 for most of my married life. I've been trying to remember what on earth I used to do differently, but it's all a blur. Heck, there were long stretches when I didn't even exercise, baked dozens of Christmas cookies, and still didn't gain weight. Did I spend most of my day starving? I kind of remember eating cereal & milk for breakfast and then ignoring my hunger until lunch, but can't recall much else. Sigh. I don't know why I'm rambling.