Caging the Binge Monster

I know you guys are getting tired of reading about my frequent binge episodes, and quite frankly, I'm tired of telling you about them.  But I think posting about this crap is helping me in some way....not exactly sure what way, but I think quitting posting or shutting down the blog would end up being way more damaging than writing all this garbage out.

Today was a really bad day.  Yes, ANOTHER really bad day.  They're so frequent, and I feel the need to apologize for that, but it's simply how my life is right now.  This is the second week in a row that I didn't get paid.  I was supposed to have 2 weeks of pay left on the unemployment, pending on whatever's going on in Congress right now...and yet, I haven't received either one of those checks.  I'm holding my breath that all the paperwork that I had to fill out last week when I didn't get my check will be processed by this Friday and I'll get BOTH checks and can actually pay the people I owe.  At least that is my hope. 

I didn't even have the heart or guts to ask Dwayne for any financial help this week, because he came through for me so valiantly last week.  That, in turn, led to an argument, and it just grew and grew and I was pushing him away as hard as I could.  It's really for his own good....I don't want to pull him down into the muck and mire with me.  It's depressing down here.  How did all of this affect my eating today?

I had a 200 calorie breakfast scramble at 7am, right after I found out my bank account was still empty.  And then at noon my sister, nephew and I were out shopping at Goodwill for some clothes and we had a really big lunch around noon.  This is where I felt myself starting to slide downhill.  I got lost while driving around looking for a particular road, Cyress was in the backseat whining, it's been raining all day and my windows were fogged up and I forgot the driver's side one is broken.  I tried to roll it down and it FELL down and startled the crap out of me.  I pulled over and finally got it back up, got back on the road and a van pulled out in front of me while I was going about 45 mph....Amy and I both threw our arms out to the side (as if we were trying to keep Cyress from flying over the front seat) while I slammed on the brakes, and then I went to cussing at the van (like they could hear me), telling them I've got a kid in the car!!  Were they trying to kill the baby???  Yeah I know...it was bad to cuss in front of the youngin'.....but it was just one of those stressful days. 

Right after that I told Amy I feel like binge eating today.  She said, "Awwww....I'm sorry......I know what that feels like."  Even though she's a twig and I didn't believe that she really knows what that feels like, the fact that she was sympathizing with me got me teary-eyed.  It felt like someone cared, but was it enough to stop the cycle I was in?  We stopped at Quik Trip to get gas and I got a medium caramel macchiato and a brownie.  I drank half the coffee and threw the rest out when I got home.  I shared the brownie with Cyress and Amy, so I ate about half of that.  That was my attempt at trying to save myself before the whole day was ruined.

I got home about 3:30p I think and started drinking water....lots of water.  Argued some more with Dwayne through email....texted Billie and cancelled the gym for tonight....cried for about an hour, took an hour nap, woke up and cried some more.  I knew what I was headed for.  Didn't I just do this last week?  Yes I did.  Am I going to have to go through this every week?  I don't know. 

I guess the first bit of good news is that I'm now acutely aware of when a binge is coming on.  I've read in other blogs where people say they kind of "wake up" in the middle of one, after they've ingested 4,000 cals, and can't even remember how it really started.  I may have been guilty of that in the past, because before I started blogging, I really didn't know what bingeing was.  To me, it was my "normal".  I didn't know there was an actual term for eating like a moron or stuffing down your emotions or stress with food.  But now that I've been at this blogging thing for a while, I'm all too aware of what's going on....what leads up to one, how quickly the downhill slide is if you enter into one, and how amazingly fast it's over with and how many calories I can eat in such a short amount of time.  I'm also becoming aware of just how horrid I feel afterwards.  The guilt and disappointment in myself is overwhelming.  It's absolutely suffocating.

That's actually a good thing, because if I keep concentrating on that when I feel a binge coming on, then hopefully I'll be able to stop myself more frequently, and they will be fewer and farther inbetween.  I've just about decided that emotional and stressful stuff will always trigger the binge feelings for me.  Kind of like once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, no matter how many years you're in recovery.  I'm thinking it's also once a binge-er, always a binge-er (no, that's probably not a real word, lol). 

Back to the eating.  I woke up from my nap and drank some more water.....I think I've had my usual (3) 32 oz. glasses so far today.  Then Shane called me at 7pm and asked what's for dinner.  Sh*t.  I was trying not to cook dinner because it was one of those desperate feelings of eat absolutely nothing else today, or you're going to eat everything in the house.   I hate to sound so extreme, but that's the truth for me.  Some days are just like that.  I told him I'd make some chicken tenders in Rotel for soft tacos, because I knew I just had those a couple of days ago, and they didn't sound that appetizing to me tonight, so I shouldn't be tempted.  So I made them, and I didn't touch them.  It's 8:30pm right now, and I haven't had another bite of food since that 1/2 of brownie this afternoon around 2:30pm.  I think I made it through the binge feelings w/o doing too much damage for the entire day.  I had a big lunch, and fattening snacks with the brownie and coffee.  But since breakfast was only 200 cals and I haven't had dinner, I think the overall day may still be intact. 

There's nothing saying that I won't be back on here Friday if I don't get my check again, telling you how I ate 10 bacon double cheeseburgers.  I'm not brazen enough to claim that kind of victory over bingeing.  But I made it through today.  I stopped the cycle before it really got out of control, and I feel pretty good about that.  It's still a crappy day and I feel bad in a lot of other ways, but there's one tiny gleam of hope that I get to hold onto for today.  I have to believe that the more I work at breaking this cycle, that the better I'll get at overcoming it for longer periods of time. 

Other than the big lunch today, I've done really well with my eating and exercise this week.  I'm still looking forward to my weigh-in this Friday....I'm not dreading it...and that's a good feeling.  :)

Quote For the Day:

"Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time."  -Mark Twain