Sincerenity

TW: Eating Disorder

I hit my year mark of my weight loss journey! In my previous post about my first year, I talked about how much I have learned. And there is ever so much to learn.

Last week, I learned a big, BIG lesson. I was having a great week and then at the end of the week, I had one of the worst binges I’ve ever had.

I am not just trying to lose weight. There is so much more of that at work here. This weight loss journey is a constant, daily, never ending battle against myself. Weight loss is hard enough on it’s own, I don’t need to make it harder by fighting against myself. I have found many ways to work with myself, but it’s a work in progress. I still have to break down walls with myself and help myself see that I am working for myself, not against myself.

In this process of losing weight, I have to face one of the biggest reasons I gained weight in the first place. One of the biggest contributers was I was – and still am – an emotional eater. Overeating and having consistent binges led me to gaining weight very, very quickly.

I have made so much progress in learning how to cope with this. My goal is to be in control of food and myself, not let food control myself. Some things I have done to deal with this is learning what hunger feels like (including what an empty stomach is, and learning that just because I wasn’t full that didn’t mean hunger) listening to and responding to hunger cues (having an apropriate portion according to my current need) and also meal prepping and meal planning. I know that in the moment, I don’t make good decisions with food, so I meal prep and plan so my decision is already made for me.

Even after all this work that I have done – and still consistently do – mistakes still happen. Sometimes I may find myself in a position where I just give in. It feels like a conscious decision and yet it doesn’t at the same time.

Last Saturday, I found myself alone with a ton of food. I don’t normally touch this food, but since no one was near, I fell into a binge session that continued when I got home. It was one of the worst I’ve had in a while.

So there’s the facts, but what now? Well, I move on. It happened and there is literally – no matter how hard I try – literally nothing I could do to change that. I did not lose all my progress, I only took a few steps back. But now that I’ve taken a few steps back, I can see more of myself. Here is either an oppurtinity to hate myself and beat myself up and let it happen again and give up – or, I could learn something and do better.

I choose the latter. Now it’s time to consult with and console myself. It’s okay. I am not going to be perfect in this. There’s going to be mistakes and I have – and will – fail. And I’m glad for that. Imagine if I lost all this weight but never taught myself how to cope with food. Eventually I would find myself at square one again, but probably worse off than I am now. Here before me is an opportunity to get value from this failure, and not let this experience go to waste – even though it was an unenjoyable experience.

I learned long ago, as I mentioned earlier, that I don’t make wise decisions with food in the moment. So to counter that, I meal plan and meal prep as many meals as I can. I want a snack? I already know what I’m having, and it’s already budgetted in my day. It’s lunch time? I already have a lunch with me ready to go, and I’ve already budgetted for it.

Another thing I learned long ago is that if food is there, I’ll eat it. While I was working on my control, I stopped keeping my lunchbox at my desk. It stays in the fridge in the breakroom all day. If I want something to eat, I have to go get it. It was apparent to me then that I wasn’t as hungry as much as I thought I was, now that I have to actually go get the food.

So what is the lesson here in my binge last Saturday? Well, I learned that I have a hard time exercising control when I’m alone with food. So now, the task is how I can counter that. I can stay away, I can put it away, leave the room if I can, I can rely on my own food I already brought…. I’m already getting so many ideas!

To every problem there is a solution. The key is figuring out what will best work for me.

So now that I’ve evaluated what caused it and how I can prevent it again, what else can I learn from this? What were the consequences? Well, I felt emotionally – and physically – sick afterwards. I used to eat like that all the time. I don’t know how I did that, it does not feel good in my stomach. I also felt emotionally drained: not only from the stress and dissappointment from binging, but also because I have an emotional eating problem, therefore I was binging to cover up or hide an emotion. In this particular instance, I was feeling insanely bored and a little lonely. What else can I do when I feel bored or lonely? What can I turn to instead that isn’t food?

The next morning, I observed that I woke up with an awful migraine. I’ve been battling migraines my whole life. So many things in my life are catered to myself avoiding migraines, including piercings in migraine pressure points. But I made the connection… I think overeating is one of the things that causes migraines…. which honestly makes a lot of sense when I think about previous times in my life. So now, I have another reason for resisting a future binge.

So now, just from this one binge session alone, I’ve learned a lot of things about myself. The where, what, when, when, how and even the effect it had afterwards. Now it’s time to apply this new knowledge. Am I glad I binged? No. But it happened and I can’t reverse that. So now I’m going to get value out of it by taking these lessons and making myself better. And this will take practice. I know someday I will find myself in a situation where my newly gained knowledge about myself will be tested. I am better prepared than I was last time.

My binge does not define me. What I learn from it and how I change – will.