write about the different ways food is a problem for me, and what I can do about each one

WHY do I want more cookies? I’m not hungry. I’ve had a crunchy snack and a sweet snack, both of which were reasonably healthy. So what’s up?

I need to prove that I can? OK, I can, so there. I have the power – I can march into the kitchen and eat as many cookies as I like and no one can stop me, not even Master. Happy now? OK, now prove that you can choose NOT to.

I’m upset because my body is being particularly unuseful today and I’m sad that I couldn’t dance at the party? Yeah, more cookies are really going to help with that one, right? :/. Aaargh. I think my thought process (if it can be called that) is “if I can’t enjoy these other things, I might as well enjoy the food.” It’s hard to hold onto “if I give up some of the food, I might be able to enjoy those other things again,” when that possibility is so far off even if I can believe it’s true. At the moment, it just feels like I have to give up food on top of so many other things I’ve lost, and that sucks.

Because I want to show myself that I’m a bad/useless/pathetic/whatever person who’s not even strong enough to fight off a cookie? What good do I think that will do? Give me an excuse to give up? Make people hate me so they’ll leave me alone and I can be a hermit and stop getting hurt?

Because they’re here? So are cheese, apples, almonds, sugar-free popsicles, cottage cheese, yogurt, fresh veggies…so why cookies? Hrm.

Because I saw [name] in a very personal and memory-filled context? These are not the magic cookies that will put everything back the way it was, or the way I thought it was, or whatever the hell it is I think I want.

Because I want to blot out what I’m feeling with a sugar high before I can even figure out what it is? Am I forgetting that a few hours later it will drop me like a fiery bagel and make me feel worse than I started? Or am I remembering that, but planning to just keep shoveling in the crap to keep that from happening?

Because “everyone else” gets to eat cookies? Since when have I wanted to be like everybody else? :). And by the way, a whole hell of a lot of “everyone else” has issues with cookies too. And the rest of “everyone else,” the ones who don’t get sick from eating cookies – well, I have to accept that I’m different from them

My period does whacky things to my brain. Not only do I crave TOTAL CRAP, but I seem to use food to flog myself (and not in the happy-fun way). I’m a terrible person and everything in my life sucks crunch see how much I suck? crunch eating these chips proves it! crunch I’m eating them even though Master doesn’t want me to crunch which makes me a bad slave * crunch crunch crunch* as well as a bad person in general crunch so I might as well just keep eating them crunch. There, I have proven the extent of my suckiness crunchgobblemunch, so I have accomplished something!

WTF is up with that?!

I want to write about what happened with me and party food this weekend, but I’m not sure how to articulate what was going on in my head. There was at least a little “everybody else can eat it, why can’t I?” going on, but there was a lot more…something else. Or maybe the absence of something. I don’t know – I’ll think on this.

Avoiding binge-eating is going OK so far, but I noticed I still pick up food and eat it without thinking when I’m stressed enough. Fortunately, so far when I’ve gotten to the 2 serving mark I’ve stopped and thought about it, but it’s a scary habit, and the food is gone before I’ve even tasted it. If I really stick to the 2 serving rule, there’s only so much trouble that will get me into, but that habit can easily lead back to the binges so I need to be careful.

I’m not sure what to do about this one besides STOP and THINK and DECIDE rather than just eat, but getting to the point where I can do that is difficult. If I can do it after serving 2, I must be able to learn to do it in the first place, right?

I’m slowly adding things to the list of stuff that tastes good and isn’t bad for me (or isn’t as bad for me as what I usually would eat). So far I’ve discovered:

low-carb and/or sugar-free Breyer’s ice cream and popsicles.
sugar-free lifesavers and Werther’s
low-carb Oreos
whole grain, low-sugar Chips Ahoy
dark chocolate-covered almonds
almond slices roasted in lots of butter!
sourdough pretzels

I have a bunch more recommendations of things I haven’t tried yet. I’ll add to the list as I find things.

I have completely avoided binges since Master introduced a very effective rule. I’m going to keep the details to a more private journal [you’re welcome :P].

One of the many things I’ve thought of trying in the past is to keep a list of things I can do to distract myself from food when those urges hit, but the problem is I never stop to think first – I just eat. Now I stop. It’s been VERY hard a few times, but I survived, and maybe I’ll get in the habit of thinking before I shove things in my face.

I was thinking this was covered under #2, but there are times I use limited amounts of food as a drug, and times I binge out of habit or something else, so I’m listing this as a separate problem.

The tendency of a person eating junk food to continue eating junk food unless acted on by an outside force. [It helps that I have a pretty formidable Outside Force in my life :)].

I have periods when I just don’t care. That might be OK for very limited periods, but it’s very very easy for me to keep going in that direction. And I fall prey to the oh-so-common “all-or-nothing thinking” trap. I ate a cookie, which screwed up everything so now why bother? Silly, silly human.

This is probably the easiest to solve, when it’s not combined with all the other problems.

to fight. I think this is a separate problem from habit and from stress eating, and from the other “too tired.” This is when I just don’t want to have to think about it, or work to go against habit and pick something healthy even if it’s right in front of me.