The Skinny on the Hard Days

Remember in my last post I wrote about how there would be days when I didn’t have the strength to even try to say no to the indulgences I used to consume? Well, I think today was on of those days. Not that I went on a binge or ate myself sick or anything—but the “rules” definitely didn’t seem to apply.

Strike number 1…I left the house without breakfast as I was running late for an appointment. Luckily I had an Atkin’s protein bar in my bag which is actually a pretty typical breakfast for me. After my appointment I figured it was time that I could start drinking so I stopped off at 7-11 and bought a 1 liter bottle of water—it is now 8’o clock here and ¾ of the bottle still remains. I had some more errands to run in the afternoon and for lunch I stopped off at a bagel place and got a made to order salad with chicken in it. Not a bad choice per se, but I decided “to hell” with the diet dressing and had it loaded up with some creamy Russian goodness. I made no attempt to eat the chicken pieces first and though I only ate less than half the salad I probably ate about 10 forkfulls past “comfortably satisfied.” To top it all off—I ate while driving, stuffing a few huge mouthfuls in at each stoplight and taking well over the recommended 20 minutes to eat. Shortly after I finished lunch I got one of my undeniable cravings for diet coke and had actually convinced myself—“what the hell, let’s try it. One carbonated beverage isn’t going to kill me,” even though carbonation was the one and only forbidden “food” as per my doctor. By the time I got to the next 7-11 I had managed to switch my soda craving for an iced tea craving. Not as bad but still full of sugary empty calories. By the time the evening rolled around I was fighting more sugary cravings and stopped off for another iced-tea and a chocolate bar. On the bright side I managed to only eat half the chocolate. Then for dinner I had this pork and rice thing my mother makes which I’m sure is super fattening and I ate the rice before the pork. Man I’m full now. Sad to say, I kind of like the feeling.

So let’s see—how many guidelines did I ignore today? There was the 8 glass of water, the no “drinking calories, the stopping when comfortably full, eating for 20 minutes only, not doing anything else while I eat and that minor, little eating protein first thing…I think that’s pretty much all of them. I don’t have any idea how many calories I consumed since I have no idea how to log half the stuff I ate into MyFitnessPal, but I’m sure it’s more than the 1000-1200 I usually consume.

Well, what’s done is done. Tomorrow is a new day and I just have to keep on keepin’ on. So I guess the question now becomes, why was today so hard for me. Maybe it’s just that I miss my favorite foods. Or maybe it was my weird schedule—I always find it harder on days when I don’t work. Or maybe it was the session with my shrink this morning ( the psychiatrist I saw for surgical clearance suggested I keep seeing him to help me through this journey). Now logically you’d think that seeing him would help, and I think in the long term it does, but probably less so in the short term. I mean, it’s very disconcerting sitting there having him ask you questions you can’t possibly have answers for like “why are you sad?” (as a general life question, not about anything in particular) and “how do you feel in public?” and “what can I give you to make you happy?” I mean honestly, it’s weird and uncomfortable and it makes you think about things that you’ve never thought about because you’ve always just stuffed them down with food. And so maybe after a session of that, perhaps I just wanted to stuff those feelings back to where they were.

I guess I’m going to have to get used to confronting my emotions. It’s not something I’ve ever done before, but going through this journey to the newer, skinnier me, means giving up the coping mechanism I’ve used to avoid those emotions all my life. They may not be easy to deal with but they’re mine and they’re just the price I’m going to have to pay to be happy. I guess that’s the answer to that last question my shrink asked.