Binge and Recovery

I took my healthy-ish snacks to the Super Bowl party we attended. Unfortunately, I sampled quite a bit of them before I went, and wasn't really hungry when I got there. I say unfortunately because I still struggle a bit with not eating when everyone around me IS eating, even when I'm not hungry in the least. Eating when I'm not hungry invariably leads to overeating because I don't have an "end" point. There's no "I feel much better now that my stomach isn't empty, so I will stop now" cue. Needless to say, I DID eat at the party, and ended up feeling a bit too full. In the danger zone, I headed home to put my girls to bed. When I got home, I started by eating two of the doughnuts that were in our refrigerator, and went on from there. It wasn't the worst binge I ever had, but I went to bed feeling terrible - emotionally and physically stuffed. Not only did I feel miserable -- bloated and hot (I always get too hot after bingeing -- maybe my metabolism going crazy?), but about half an hour after I went to bed, my heart started pounding. I was seriously afraid that I was going to have a heart attack or something. It was the first time that I really thought about what bingeing must do to my body, rather than thinking only of the calories I ate, why I ate them, and how much damage I'd see on the scale.

I hesitate to say this (having had to admit to setbacks many times in the past...), but I'm not sure I will ever binge like that again. I've never been that afraid -- not even when I shattered my leg or had my mastectomy. If I'd had a heart attack, I would have done it to myself. There would be no one else to blame. Unlike previous binge aftermath feelings of hopelessness, the next day I felt stronger and more determined to eat normally. I simply wasn't very hungry for the next day or two, so I listened to my body and ate only 23 points Monday and 26 on Tuesday. I stuck to vegetables, beans, and fruit, and nothing processed. Since then, I've had two WW weeks when I haven't gone over my points. I've not gone hungry, but I've not overeaten at very many meals. I think I ended up not gaining weight over my binge, but whether I did or not, I've had a nice loss for two weeks in a row now. I haven't seen this new low weight in quite a few years.

On Valentine's Day, we went out to dinner. I had 20+ points left for the week, so I tried not to worry about how much oil was in my (vegan) dinner or my salad dressing. It was so yummy that I ate all of my portion, and ended up a little too full. I declined dessert, and when we got home, I thought, "Oh, I could probably still eat a Hershey's Kiss or two for a bit of dessert", but honestly, it didn't really appeal to me. I was full -- a bit overfull -- and chocolate just didn't sound very good. Crazy, huh? I made a cheesecake in the slow cooker last weekend, and after the first piece, it sat in the fridge because it just wasn't good enough to waste my points on. Of course, I did eat the entire 8-point, not-great piece the first night when I really could have stopped after a few bites -- when I realized it wasn't all that exciting. Progress though.