Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Different Outcomes Require Different Behavior!

I got my new gel shorts in the mail and put on a pair to go for a 19-mile bike ride on Sunday evening. They didn't quite have the cushy fabulousness I was hoping for, but I think my nether regions are less sore than they would have been in regular shorts. The bugs were unbelievably horrendous. Much of the trail is in leafy shade, and I had at least 500 bug corpses plastered to my t-shirt by the time I got home, along with 1 in my eye, several on my cheek, and even one inside my bra. Ewww. I can't imagine how many would have been stuck in my hair had I not been wearing a helmet. Which reminds me -- why on earth do parents make their children wear helmets when they do not? It's okay if mom or dad dies due to a fractured skull and leaves little Johnny parentless? I don't get it.

I had support group last night and attendance was huge. 18 anorexic teenagers, one middle aged overweight woman, and me. There are some young women there who never say a single word. I have no idea why they come. Maybe just listening to others helps -- or maybe mom forces them to come. During the meeting, one girl said that she's struggling with doing the same thing every day -- starving herself all day and then giving in and bingeing and purging in the evening. She said, "I KNOW what happens every single time I starve all day -- I KNOW it -- yet I tell myself that this day will be different."

I thought about how I do similar things -- I do things knowing KNOWING what will happen -- yet I still do them. Yesterday was a CRAZY day at work. I didn't get a chance to even get a drink of water until 1pm. We had pizza and lots of treats around, but lunch was fine for me. I ate one piece of pizza, my salad, and a piece of cake and I was really full. The afternoon was so busy and I was still so full from lunch that I didn't even think about food. Yet, when I left work, I took three of the cookies a coworker had brought in and told myself they were "for my kids". Yeah, right. I ate them in the car before I was even halfway home. What was that about? A reward for a busy day? A release of all of the tension -- relief that I was done? Anxiety about my support group meeting? What? Who knows? I think the most important thing for me to admit is that I took those cookies for ME. I didn't take them for my kids or my dh or anyone but me. I KNEW I was going to eat them on the way home, but didn't want to admit it to myself. The only saving grace in it for me is that I ate a REALLY small dinner and didn't eat anything else the rest of the night because I wasn't hungry.

After group I went to TCBY to get a frozen yogurt pie for R's 4th grade graduation celebration dinner (which will be tonight), and I wanted to get a frozen yogurt cone just because I was there and I love frozen yogurt. I didn't get one though. I want to get better -- ALL better. That's not going to happen unless I consistently make good choices. If I'd been hungry, okay. However, eating frozen yogurt last night would have been all about "hey, it's there -- and besides, I already ate three cookies and a piece of cake today. Might as well..." No. No. No. No. NO. I will not be that person anymore.

3 comments:

a said...

I totally get the eating at work thing! I seem to have a habit of impulsively grabbing treats on my way out, regardless of whether I've binged on them or totally avoided them during the workday. Work and food are tough. But the relationship between them is so direct, I think it might be an easy place to start with trying to make changes.

withallmyheart said...

I so enjoy your blog. I am a recovering binge eater.

Please try not to expect yourself to NEVER again eat too much, or to binge. Don't be so hard on yourself. Try, perhaps, to learn from each and every occasion. And most of all, treat yourself with repect and love.

I too have deluded myself into thinking that I would "take some food" and give it to another person. Then, with immediacy, I eat it all myself.

Ask yourself, what was happening.
Ask yourself about what was going on inside yourself, outside yourself too.

I wonder if you were able to step back, could you see/or feel what was troubling you...the support group, work, etc. I believe that the answers to overeating and binging ARE within us.

Anyway, I will continue to read your blog. We are on similar paths. Blessings!

withallmyheart
Towson, Maryland

Emma said...

At times like these I am not childless but child free. The cookie game is one I cannot play. If i am taking a cookie it is for me there are not kids to give it to.

I like eating smaller more often meals. I stay a bit full so I find binging distasteful. I don't do it all the time. When I do, I have less pain, more ease and a less hungry day.