Every morning for the past week I've woken up and started off on a really good foot with food.
And every night I completely sabotage what was a healthy day of eating.
It's like I get to the end of the evening and I'm afraid to be done eating, so instead I stand in my kitchen eating ice cream and cereal.
I am trying to figure out what it is that I am afraid of, and I think I know.
When I was fifteen, I started Weight Watchers. I weighed 133 pounds, so I was not overweight. Not even close. But I had a couple friends who were doing it so I though I'd give it a shot too. No expectations, just curiosity.
I lost almost twenty pounds in two months, and I didn't have to work very hard. I don't remember being hungry or feeling deprived, only excited that every time I went to a meeting I got on the scale and had lost weight. It felt great.
What was not great was that people began to notice that I lost weight and started complimenting me. It was very confusing and I started to question what I must look like. I thought things like, "If people are telling me how great I look now, does that mean I was fat before?" I was not able to see myself clearly, and that is something I still struggle with: having a totally warped self perception. A lot of times I look in the mirror and am shocked not to see a fat person staring back at me because I walk around feeling enormous. Other times I look in the mirror and am totally disgusted by certain parts of my body. It's really hard for me to know what is real and what is my imagination.
After losing the twenty pounds in only two months, I went to New York with my family for Thanksgiving. It was my first time not being in my routine or eating my normal diet foods (it was my first time not in control) and it lead to my first binge. I remember going to Trader Joe's with my mom's cousin, buying a box of chocolate chip cookies, and eating almost the entire thing that night. I didn't have the self awareness then that I do now, and I remember not really understanding what was happening. Instead, it felt like the binge was just happening to me, rather than me actively doing it.
This was the beginning of about a year of dieting and bingeing, over and over and over. Then I gained a bunch of weight, and lost it, and gained it again, and lost it again....I've been doing this ever since. I've had highs and lows, and years where I felt more in control than others, but I am always struggling with food.
So, when I get to the end of the day, and I've been very healthy and mindful (not restrictive) all day, it often feels like I'm depriving myself even though I am not. The lines are blurry and I think I go back to that place of being fifteen and on a diet, so by the end of the night I eat out of fear. Fear that if I lose weight, it will all happen again: the compliments, the body confusion, the bingeing and dieting cycle.
But I am not fifteen anymore. And I really want to move past this. I want to be able to eat healthfully and not feel the need to sabotage my day of eating mindfully. So I'm just putting it out there, asking the universe to please help me to do this. It would be awesome if I could go to bed feeling content and satisfied, instead of either deprived or ashamed. Isn't there an in between?
I hope the next 80 days can lead me to that balance and I can stop living in old patterns from ten years ago. So here's to that!
And every night I completely sabotage what was a healthy day of eating.
It's like I get to the end of the evening and I'm afraid to be done eating, so instead I stand in my kitchen eating ice cream and cereal.
I am trying to figure out what it is that I am afraid of, and I think I know.
When I was fifteen, I started Weight Watchers. I weighed 133 pounds, so I was not overweight. Not even close. But I had a couple friends who were doing it so I though I'd give it a shot too. No expectations, just curiosity.
I lost almost twenty pounds in two months, and I didn't have to work very hard. I don't remember being hungry or feeling deprived, only excited that every time I went to a meeting I got on the scale and had lost weight. It felt great.
What was not great was that people began to notice that I lost weight and started complimenting me. It was very confusing and I started to question what I must look like. I thought things like, "If people are telling me how great I look now, does that mean I was fat before?" I was not able to see myself clearly, and that is something I still struggle with: having a totally warped self perception. A lot of times I look in the mirror and am shocked not to see a fat person staring back at me because I walk around feeling enormous. Other times I look in the mirror and am totally disgusted by certain parts of my body. It's really hard for me to know what is real and what is my imagination.
After losing the twenty pounds in only two months, I went to New York with my family for Thanksgiving. It was my first time not being in my routine or eating my normal diet foods (it was my first time not in control) and it lead to my first binge. I remember going to Trader Joe's with my mom's cousin, buying a box of chocolate chip cookies, and eating almost the entire thing that night. I didn't have the self awareness then that I do now, and I remember not really understanding what was happening. Instead, it felt like the binge was just happening to me, rather than me actively doing it.
This was the beginning of about a year of dieting and bingeing, over and over and over. Then I gained a bunch of weight, and lost it, and gained it again, and lost it again....I've been doing this ever since. I've had highs and lows, and years where I felt more in control than others, but I am always struggling with food.
So, when I get to the end of the day, and I've been very healthy and mindful (not restrictive) all day, it often feels like I'm depriving myself even though I am not. The lines are blurry and I think I go back to that place of being fifteen and on a diet, so by the end of the night I eat out of fear. Fear that if I lose weight, it will all happen again: the compliments, the body confusion, the bingeing and dieting cycle.
But I am not fifteen anymore. And I really want to move past this. I want to be able to eat healthfully and not feel the need to sabotage my day of eating mindfully. So I'm just putting it out there, asking the universe to please help me to do this. It would be awesome if I could go to bed feeling content and satisfied, instead of either deprived or ashamed. Isn't there an in between?
I hope the next 80 days can lead me to that balance and I can stop living in old patterns from ten years ago. So here's to that!
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