Day 53: Emotions, emotions, emotions

Today was a battle with emotional eating; I wanted food but I was not hungry. I wanted the soft comfort of salty and sweet and creamy and crunch…all those things that make me feel “okay” with the world, even if it is falling apart. I am actually doing very well these days, but I think that the fall out of last week is that I am still wound up and emotionally vulnerable. Solution? Food coma.

NOT!

But it is hard to fight those urges, because they are not about hunger. They are about needing and wanting and desiring and looking for comfort. Nervous eating, comfort food, call it what you will: it fills a void that nothing else quite touches. Unfortunately.

Of course the bonus here is that on SLD, it is only about the emotions. Before the craving came from both a deep emotional need and an unstoppable physical force, which together were undefeatable. Which is to say:
Today I drank my ACV/fruit juice mix all day until I got home; then I ate 10 trisket crackers and two ounces of cheese; and then I ate a “burrito salad” with beans and rice and veggies, along with some chips. About 2/3 of a can of hard cider when I got home.

That was the complete tally of what felt like an uncontrolled binge, so I suppose I can only say: Thank goodness for SLD!

I think it does not help that I am drinking at night; I suspect this is also affecting my huger impulse, which seems over the last week to be coming up much stronger in the morning. While I drink an startlingly small amount, I really need to cut it out. I do it to relax enough to fall asleep, otherwise I toss and turn for hours, so I need to look at an alternative sleep aid. Once I fall asleep, I’m good to snore, but the tipping point has been elusive for the these last few weeks. Stress’ll do it to ya every time!

Day 52: The “Lost Week” of KimBoo

My emotional crisis of the week before did not settle like I thought it would. It took off and dragged me behind it like a ripped parachute. I did not update my journals, go anywhere, play racquetball, or do my homework, and I even skipped class on Wednesday. I am usually the retentive type who normally would NEVER in a million years skip class short of being held hostage by a secret government agency. But I did. I also drank too much.

But somehow: It’s all good. I’m okay. It was not a “crash and burn,” it was a “turn left you damn idiot! Turn left! Before you crash! Left! Left! Left!” It was a life lesson that, for me, was about ten years overdue. It was not easy to swallow. I am mad that I put myself through this at all. :::whack head on desk; repeat ::::

And I am ecstatic that I finally got the message.

I did manage to stay on SLD, but not in a regimented way. My schedule got tossed to crackers and I took my SW when I remembered it, which was often late in the day. The success here is not that I did not melt down – ohhhh yes I did! – but that I did not run back to sink my emotions in food. I drank too much beer, but that amounted to about one a night (what can I say? I’m a cheap date…just ask my husband…). My system still hit “full” when I ate and there were a lot of “take home” boxes piled in the fridge from our meals out at night. I also managed to get up and jog every morning and even make it to my crappy job during the day. As far as emotional breakdowns go, this was a “save.”

I have not weighed, though. I’m not that brave!

But today I am back on schedule. I’m writing journal posts, emailing some worried friends, and taking my SW at about 10:30am as per usual. I’ve made this a juice-fast day as I think my body needs a day off from excess. I went for a long trail run yesterday and this morning I jogged as usual. I’m confidant about my life choices and I know that I will lose weight, get healthy, and follow my dreams. What more can you ask for?

Day 46: Totally, Completely, NOT Hungry

Today I went for my hour long run in the morning, got to work, drank some coffee, ate about 1/2 of an apple, and then…nothing. I was supposed to drink my SW at around 10am, as usual, but was so NOT hungry that I forgot even that. At lunch my stomach was growling up a storm and I did not bring any food to work so I went wandering, thinking, “oh, fast food today for the first time in months!”

But no.

Nothing sounded good. What I wanted was a nice salad and some pilaf maybe but that was not going to happen on my short lunch break. So I went to the grocery and grabbed cheese cuts and Triskets and ate…three. Three Triskets with cheese. I could not take another. It is SO weird, because I did not even drink the SW as I was supposed to do. Not to mention that Triskets are like crack to me, they are so addictive! I’ve been known to finish a whole box in one sitting. Yes, with cheese too! A whole box! Compared to: three. Wild.

I had a protein shake after the crackers and did my SW dose at 3pm, kind of mixed up for me but what a mixed up day, food-wise. Perhaps the blunt force emotional trauma of this week is hindering my appetite as well. I don’t know but…well, just weird.

Day 45: Tension Break + Weigh In

Today was a better day than the rest of the week. I am still on a ragged edge but cleaning up the pieces (you want cryptic? I’ll give you cryptic!).

I was back on the SLD dosage plan of mine and also did a “down day” on food intake; not very much of a down day, but enough to feel better: juice/ACV drink all day, and a small mix of stir-fried tofu and veggies for dinner. Actually that was pretty amazing, compared to how I used to eat tofu-veggies mix: on top of four cups of rice! LOL! Seriously, I love rice. But with SLD it just isn’t a craving any more. I had the tofu with veggies and no rice on it at all, which in the past would have been heretical.

After class I got home and MiKE fed me a slice of cheese. I guess that was dessert?

Anyway things are doing okay. I did weigh in this morning at 199 and that is exciting, but given the emotional issues of this past week I can’t say I’m convinced it is a legitimate loss. Well when am I ever convinced of that, right? But we’ll see. I know it would be FABULOUS to permanently break out of the 200s!!!!

Day 44: Crisis Continues

I have been through something of an emotional wreck this week, and it shows (if you want the full gory details, head over the LiveJournal and friend me; I will not go into the whole pathetic rant here for fear of boring the tar out of you). Anyway I can barely eat even without SLD, as my stomach has been twisting in knots. Today all I had was a slice of quiche for breakfast and one cheese sandwich for dinner, with a beer (great mix, eh? So healthy!…jeeze…).

All I did for SLD today was the fish caps in the afternoon, before racquetball. I am still getting the racquetball and jogging in, so that is good. Good for me mentally, too, I know.

Right now I’m on a wait-and-see program, to see how far I might crack and what might come out of these internal riots. I don’t think I’m in a serious depression or anything — eh, been there, done that — but these are tumultuous times for me, emotionally.

I am sincerely glad to have SLD going into this, though, as it has kept me from eating my weight in junk food, which is my usual reaction to stress.

Day 41: Tired…that’s all.

End of day post (yawwwwwnnnn): all is good in the world. Not really, but I think I’m tired enough to believe it. Working full time while enrolled in two separate college programs is kicking my arse! And of course the emotional drama of the past week does not help, so KimBoo sleepy sleepy.

Today I still felt the pull of emotional hunger/cravings, but knowing what they are made it that much easier to not fall down the rabbit hole. I did not eat every healthfully, I’ll admit (peanut butter pretzel balls for lunch, and a bagel for dinner) but neither did I binge or drown myself in sugar. And I did down a serving of Bolthouse Farms “Green Goodness” smoothie (looks like moldy sludge but is actually very yummy) and took my vitamins and fish oil caps, so I was a good girl.

Tomorrow I think I’ll bite the bullet and do a weigh in. As usual, I’m pessimistic about that. Just a case of waiting for what tomorrow will bring.

Day 40: Facing Down Daemons

I finally (doh!) figured out that what I am dealing with this week is not either hunger or cravings, but something else: emotional eating. I’m not surprised by that fact, but I am surprised it took me this long to figure it out. Last night (Wednesday night) I was not hungry and in fact when I got back from my night class I did not eat anything. But I sure thought about it, and in thinking about it, I wondered WTH I was thinking. I knew I was not hungry as I ate a decent lunch (the usual rice/veggies/beans mix) and had a few more peanut butter pretzels too, and for dinner I consumed a whole bagel (which I actually forced myself to finish). Body check: not hungry.

Still, I was thinking about going home and stuffing my face into a bag of chips. And that’s when I realized that this desire had nothing to do with hunger or even cravings, because I knew for a fact that I was NOT going to go home and stuff my face into a bag of chips. The physical desire was not there (thank you, SLD!), but an emotional one was. I wanted comfort and oblivion, and used to be I found both in food.

My father was an alcoholic. It runs in the family — his father was a mad crazy drunk, whom he didn’t talk about — but moreso, my father had a lot of daemons to deal with. He was a veteran Air Corps pilot of WWII and that experience was the defining period of his life, which is sad, because it was a horrific experience. 70% of the men he trained with in 1942 were dead by 1944; my father’s hair was literally turned permanently snowy white (yes, really, it does happen); and he refused to talk about the time he tried to help out at Dachau (he lasted 2 hours, and never told me what he saw). He came home to find that his mother had spent all the money he sent home, which he had been planning to use to start a business with his brother, and that the job market was so soaked with vets even pilots could not find work. He never really recovered. He went back into the military when he got the chance and tried to drink away all the bad things.

I always wondered why, until Mother died. Then I got hooked on prescription codeine (we did not have Hospice — long story — so I got to stash her drugs) and I understood: oblivion. Drink and drugs do a great job of helping you to not care. It was a marvelous feeling to be blank for a while, after all the trauma I had gone through, which in comparison to my father’s experiences was not much after all. The prescriptions ran out and I turned to food. Not quite as strong, but less damaging overall, and very easy: get sad or upset, eat a lot, become subsumed by food coma. Nice.

So last night I wanted chips and a beer and some chocolate but really what I wanted was to just stop thinking, stop hurting, stop crying. Just stop it, stop it all, stop it forever.

That is a hunger of a different kind, entirely.

Day 39: Cravings, o mi

As expected, this week is sharpening up into an emotional wreck. Well, I knew it was coming. So.

Today I was actually feeling some cravings; I gave in and ate what I wanted but the good news is that I got FULL when I did. Peanut butter pretzel balls? Just 10, thanks (as opposed to the whole bag). Mexican food? Just one quesadilla, that’s good (as opposed to four). Finished out with a Dairy Queen blizzard (my acme comfort food of choice), but only a small one. Over all, not a good day; overall, not as horrific as I imagined. And funny: used to be I never ordered a small Blizzard, because my thought was, ‘what’s the point of “small”? Save calories? Get real! Just order a large and be done with it!’ But now, I can’t finish a large (last one I ordered, I had to let Husband finish)! So a small does just fine.

I did run this morning, and it was a good long run. I really think my running schedule is affecting my hunger signals; my body wants more energy. I’m trying to meet that need by eating something after my run, but not a full breakfast (glass of juice, or a handful of almonds, or half an apple), but I need to pay closer attention to whether that is helping fuel the body in time of need or if it is just triggering cravings. I like dosing myself with SW around 10am, that seems to work well, but I might have to change it to first thing in the morning if this keeps up.

Need to weigh in, soon. Ugh. Well WTF, it isn’t like this is a good week anyway. Bah.

Day 35: Stress, etc. (+ a bit graphic at the end)

Tomorrow is Sept. 15, which is my mother’s Death Day. While she died a long time ago, it was and is particularly traumatic for me and I miss her…ghods, with all my heart. Mind you she was a difficult woman in many ways, but she loved me and she was smart as a whip and she had a great sense of humor. She bequethed to me her terrible experiences with being overweight, but alas, I don’t think she quite bequethed to me her stellar good looks (she was, to the day she died, quite beautiful). Sometimes life isn’t fair, and this is definately one of those times! So today and tomorrow I am stressed out and semi-depressed and we’ll have to see how well SLD counteracts that.

Of course is does not help that I flummoxed my timing on the 2-hour window. Bats. The irony here is that I had 1/2 of an apple after I got back from my morning run (1 hour! Avg. HR 138! Six speed intervals! Wooohooo!) and then…nothing. No hunger at all. In fact even my morning coffee was “too much” and so I drank it sippy-sippy style, which took two hours, and before I knew it 11:30 was coming up and I was supposed to be getting ready for lunch. Uh…SW at 10am? Hello? So SW happened closer to 12noon and lunch at 1pm. Not much of an upset, but still, annoying. And “lunch” is just my juice/ACV mix anyway, so not much to freak out about there.

TOM is still hanging in, quite heavy. Everyone says that menopause is a b!tch but really, I can’t wait! Bring on the hot flashes, baby, I’m tired of bleeding like a stuck pig…

Day Nineteen: Hot, Busy, and Full

Today’s weigh in was low! As in 203.6! I was not expecting that, and it was a very welcome surprise. I’m hot (as in the subject line) because I left work early to run all over town doing errands and it was Hell. No really, I mean like Dante’s Inferno, with a heat index of about 104 and a blazing sun firing like a laser through the windows on my car. By the time I got home at 5pm, I was splattered. I laid in bed with cold towel on my head for an hour. Seriously, right now in Florida, you can get heat stroke in your car. Bleaghhhhhh.

My art class at FSU has begun so my schedule is beginning to tighten in the vice. If all goes as planned, my masters program begins next week. As well, I have to work full time and Husband and I are opening our own, very labor intensive business. I cannot tell you how stressed I am by the anticipation of being whipped like a dead horse by these commitments. My free time is becoming very escapist-oriented, let me tell you. However, and to my surprise, stress induced eating does not seem to be a coping mechanism for me, for once.

I remember when my mother was dying, and people I talked to would often worry that I wasn’t taking care of myself or eating enough (I was the main caretaker for both of my parents; yes, it was horrible). The default assumption is that if you are worried and stressed and anxiety ridden, you lose your appetite. Riiiiiiiight. I just ate more. Food was the solace that I could not find under any other rock. I had no life of my own and was losing everything and everyone that mattered to me, and my response was to stuff myself full of something. Full never came.

Over the years that followed I fought that urge, and while it was often a losing battle at least I was aware of my actions and attempting to change my behaviors. Anyone who has battled emotional eating knows the futility of that statement, though, and the insanity it inspires.

But now, I’m practicing SLD while totally stressed out, and full has finally arrived. I ate well yesterday: beans and rice for lunch, 1/2 apple for snack, and sushi for dinner. I was satiated, and I did not run for snack food or chocolate or beer. I did watch too many episodes of Spaced on YouTube (I am SO buying that series on DVD!) but if that is the worst of it, I think I’ll be just fine. For a change.