improve my health

On my last post (number 4… you see the logic, don’t you), I said I binged on pasta and Pringles.

I felt sick all night and couldn’t get more than two hours sleep. The next day was wretched. So I ate chocolate (four bars throughout the day) to comfort myself.

The day ended with a special moment in a service at my church. We were encouraged to be thankful for those moments in our lives when we felt most alive. For me, it’s when I’m writing, DJing or socialising. These are holy moments.

And I reflected on the times when I’m comfort eating. I over-eat because it’s a defence mechanism I developed when I was bullied as a child. Eating is my ‘control zone’. It’s not really about the food; it’s just an insulation against the outside world where I have so often felt powerless in the past (through bullying, grief, issues of sexuality). Eating is my way of being powerful.

But it also numbs me to those times when I feel truly alive, when the defences are down, when I am susceptible to those extreme emotions of pain and joy.

Being unhealthy (or rather, choosing to be unhealthy through my own choices) keeps me in my comfort(-food) zone, but it also shuts me off from being truly human, totally alive and exactly who I am meant to be.

End of rant.

Strangely enough, I have eaten better today.

What a mixed couple of days.

I’m still junk fooding. I had a McDonald’s on Friday night which I didn’t enjoy. The crazy thing is, I wasn’t sure whether to get a McDs or just go shopping for ‘real food’. I flipped a coin!

Sunday (yesterday) was better. I had a takeaway again but on the way to the takeaway I also did some shopping for basics, such as bread and fruit. This is one of the first positive decisions I have made about my eating habits for some time!

This positive decision gave me some self-confidence. Today was worse and I have just binged on too much pasta and pringles. I feel overfed, headachey and ill.

Tomorrow is another day and my 5th post…

This is the third part of seven entries about my eating habits (see previous entries).

I grabbed a takeaway on my way home from work last night. Chicken tikka something, rice and naan. I don’t feel bad about that, because Friday night is a good night for that kind of thing! Honest!

I finally ate some fruit. A banana. A whole banana. Well… not a whole banana. I didn’t eat the skin. I tried smoking banana skins once, and it made me ill, so there’s no way I’m going to eat that.

Anyhoo, after a good night’s sleep, I feel more positive. Today I’ve had two packets of crisps and two chocolate bars, a sausage roll and the most uninspiring chicken, bacon and mayo sandwich on the planet. That doesn’t sound good, but it is an improvement, believe me!

Oh, and I’ve just eaten an apple.

Because I’m blogging about my eating habits, I’m getting more in tune with the way my body works instead of jumping blindly from binge to binge. I felt my body crash after lunch but not as badly as it did yesterday.

So I’m starting to eat fruit. I like fruit; it’s just that my body often cries out for carbs. And meat. And sugar. I need to cut back on the takeaways and snack foods. Yes, okay, the curry was not the best idea, but it was very nice.

Small steps (preferably not steps that take me past the Indian on the corner)...

Okay so I never ate that fruit. And I had too big a portion for tea last night. And I had chocolate and crisps for breakfast this morning, both of which are meant to be ‘low GI’ but I can’t exactly see Weightwatchers recommending it.

I am most annoyed, though, at eating my lunch sandwiches in my morning break, then having sausage, chips and a cream slice for lunch. What’s that about?

Stodge. That’s what it’s about. I feel unhealthy, achey and lethargic.

I nearly forgot to revisit this entry today. I promised to write every day for a week about my eating habits in the hope that bringing this to the light of day will encourage me to change my habits.

So far, so bad. I must get into that fruit… not literally, that would be silly. See you tomorrow.

I’m fed up. Literally.

McDonald’s breakfasts. Chips for lunch. Pizza. Crisps. Pringles. Bread with everything. Tomato sauce with everything. Fizzy drinks. Chocolate. Late night sandwiches.

I’ve found 43 Things to be a useful watchdog in my life before now. So for the next week, I’m going to add daily entries. I’ll be honest about my eating habits.

I’ll tell you the grizzly truth about how much mayo I have with my chips.

I’ll ‘fess up to the fact that right now I have bunch of fruit next to me that I haven’t touched all day.

And I hope being honest here will encourage me to be healthier. It worked with my writing habits (see separate entry), so I hope it will work with my eating habits. Watch this space – and get your hands off my pizza, it’s mine!