elizara

It’s like two steps forward, one back. I had a really rough week food-wise, and I think I probably gained a pound. Then today I hiked for six hours, so now I can barely walk but maybe I lost what I gained this week. Anyway, I’ve been feeling like I need a diet coach to send these updates to, but too afraid to annoy and bore my family and friends with it, so you are my diet coach, if anyone is actually reading this. I got this amazing book, the Beck Diet Solution, and have realized that it’s really not just about counting calories but about changing my habits, my way of thinking about food. And though I lost some weight in the first three weeks of the book, it takes at least two months to change a habit, and some of the old habits are sneaking back in. Lately I haven’t been binging except for two days this week… which I really have to give myself credit for nipping in the bud, and also I have to give myself credit for a lot of self-restraint, but I do have trouble overeating when I go out to dinner with friends and it’s family style dinner. Anyway, I think I can lose two pounds this week or so if I really follow the book. Including this part about planning meals… which seems really especially restrictive and antisocial. I already eat the same breakfast every day. Now I should add lunch to that too… the same thing. What I have to be careful with is if I feel I have failed at dinner, I sometimes keep eating afterward, as if I’ve given up entirely. I need to make sure not to eat after dinner.

Back to normal. I ate two very healthy meals, breakfast and lunch, and feel really much better. This whole thing is a reminder that i have to be vigilant against a relapse, and I also need to focus on my relationship with food. And also that I need to be extra careful when traveling… make response cards and find distractions to bring with me.

After a month of steady control and weight loss and care and freedom from this vicious cycle with the help of a book by judith beck, all my newfound skills and self-control and freedom went out the window on Sunday, exactly two days ago, when I got on a plane for a reporting trip to the middle of nowhere and when i got there, totally feeling lost and scared and not sure what to do or how to report on this GOD AWFUL place, also cold because I hadn’t packed a warm jacket, also worried about losing a friend with whom I had tried to have an assertive conversation about concerns but it backfired, I went into a restaurant and proceeded to finish the whole dish rather than the third of it that I meant to eat. That one lapse snowballed, because of the stress and weird feelings of being there… and I started eating ice cream til it hurt. Seriously hurt the next day. But I kept eating and I think I already gained a pound from all the food. Technically, counting calories, it should be a pound. But I can lose it back but first I have to process all the feelings. I felt scared, cold, lonely, lost, under deadline pressure, helpless, didn’t know what to do or how to do my work. I felt in over my head. Why was I there in the first place? I didn’t know. On top of work stress, I also felt guilty and worried about losing my friend. I also just hated that town. It was the freakiest most desolate place I have EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE. It was really the scariest place I have ever been. The town seemed inhuman and apocalyptic. I am not exaggerating. And in my head, I felt all chaos and confusion and fear. Binge eating was my way to escape the feelings. And focus the chaos in my mind on one thing… bite by bite. Next time I should bring some things to distract myself. I don’t know what. I guess I could have texted my friend. Or listened to music. I just want to feel free to travel without throwing my diet out the window and inhaling calories as if I’m aiming to break the binge-eating world record. As soon as I got home today I felt safe and fine again… and I slept nonstop. I went to sleep at 8 p.m. yesterday, woke up at 8 a.m. today, then back to sleep from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was all half-sleep with strange dreams. I just want to get back on track. And I want to free myself, to learn how to travel in the future without losing my marbles again.
I think one of my problems was intellectualizing.. instead of just being conscious of my sheer terror at this place, I was thinking… how am I going to get my story done? What am I going to ask this person I need to interview about whatever? I was totally unaware of my feelings. I felt like rocking back and forth or burying myself under the covers… but I made dazed efforts to interview people… which is hard when I was so detached myself.