Eating Update 5
So I've lost 8kg since October. YAY! :) Happy, happy, happy.
Also happy: Mum saying "you've lost weight!" right away as she sees me. Which from her is huge, because she's very honest and she's the first person to remark "you've gained weight" and gives me a lot of critical looks about the way I dress, the way I do my hair, my make-up, what I weigh, etc. So coming from her, I know it's a) definitely not a "pretty, encouraging lie" and b) visible at least to people who haven't seen me for a while, though not to myself.
Yay!
Less yay: I come home with the best intentions, thinking I'm going to carry on and do so well, in a really determined, set, disciplined mood. I go for a run on my first morning and notice with delight how much easier it feels. I eat very little throughout the first day. I know, however, that my mum bought fancy chocolates a while ago, the kind of thing that's an "exception" when you do buy it. I think "oh, it's an exception, so it's okay" and I eat ALL of the rest she's left me (about 150g) within maybe ten minutes. Great way of enjoying expensive chocolates, wolfing them all down... I obviously feel guilty and all terrible afterwards. Still, I have some of the wine as well and that sort of helps in the moment becuase it makes me feel less guilty.
So today, I wake up thinking "right, it's going to be a better day". "It's okay, I can still balance it out; don't look back, this is going to be a better day; DON'T throw it all away because of yesterday." Except now I'm used to it again and it all comes back to me, sitting on that sofa eating, the many evenings I've spent sitting on that damn sofa, eating. It's been such a habit for so many years and it's my danger zone. Again, I do fine throughout the day, eating some lean chicken breast with a bit of rice, some strawberries with low-fat natural yogurt, some coffee without sugar. It's all good. In the evening, the second I get home and sit down on the couch, I get this incredibly strong physical CRAVING for chocolate, stronger than I've felt recently. It's like the barrier has been broken, and now I need it. "NEED" it. Again, I end up finding chocolate somewhere in the house (hidden in the basement, I feel like such a freak even looking there!!) and I eat it, about 150g of it again. That's 300g of chocolate eaten over the past few days. WTF?! I haven't eaten that much chocolate in ages. But again, once I started, I couldn't stop. I needed more. It's that damn "all or nothing" thing again. I needed it all.It needed to be gone. I needed something to fill my evening, sitting on that sofa (I better not sit my fat ass down there again!) as always, a "purpose" in the otherwise dull evening. And after all, a tiny voice whispers, it's an exception. "You never come home anymore. You're only here for 13 days. THe chocolate is in the house and you'll eat it at some point, anyway. You always do. It's an exception. It will be nice, all social with your mum. It will feel SO good. It's only an exception. You'll be good again once you go back to your flat and you're all alone again."
Of course, I feel predictably awful now and weighed myself right away to check if I'd gained weight in that hour or so. I'll go for a run tomorrow morning, but I think my mum is cooking traditional Sunday food tomorrow, which is unhealthy. I never used to like it but now that it's an exception and that it's my mum cooking for me, which is so rare and so special as I mostly do the cooking now when I'm home, it's...special. I know I'll want it.
I knew it would be difficult to keep my healthy habits up here, but I guess it does make a huge difference to return to your old environment where you were so used to your bad habits, where there are good sweets available, where there's stuff in the house and where there are things you couldn't buy in England, which makes them "special". Of course I've talked to my mum about it and tried to convince her we should both make a deal and try to live healthily for the nexrt two weeks, but we're still at a point where we pull each other down. When you barely have enough self-discipline for yourself, you tend not to have it for someone else, either, and I still fail when temptation is present. I've been avoiding so many things in England - going out, walking past shops hungry, walking past certain areas, being around certain people, leaving the flat after dinner. Is that really the way it works?
People say that once you start losing weight, you enter a positive upwards spiral, but I don't feel like that. I feel like it's still very much a downward spiral, only I'm fighting way harder and not getting the success I want. I guess that's the perfectionism coming through again, but when I'm trying so hard, shouldn"t I be doing better? Am I not trying hard enough? And why do you have to be so amazingly good and avoidant to even only lose a tiny little bit of weight? Feels like you're putting in a lot more than you're getting out. Which, of course, makes complete sense, given that our bodies have evolved to put on weight where they can (I think my body is very well-evolved in that respect ;) ).
Where is that upward spiral? Is there a point where it gets easier? How do habits transfer to new places, or rather, old places, which I think is harder?
Hmm, "tomorrow is another day", but I'm afraid I'm almost slipping into the "fuck it, let's give this up" mode now, which I CANNOT, MUST NOT enter. Nope, keep going. I can do this. I will be good again starting NOW. 1:19am, Saturday night. Yep, that's it.
Also happy: Mum saying "you've lost weight!" right away as she sees me. Which from her is huge, because she's very honest and she's the first person to remark "you've gained weight" and gives me a lot of critical looks about the way I dress, the way I do my hair, my make-up, what I weigh, etc. So coming from her, I know it's a) definitely not a "pretty, encouraging lie" and b) visible at least to people who haven't seen me for a while, though not to myself.
Yay!
Less yay: I come home with the best intentions, thinking I'm going to carry on and do so well, in a really determined, set, disciplined mood. I go for a run on my first morning and notice with delight how much easier it feels. I eat very little throughout the first day. I know, however, that my mum bought fancy chocolates a while ago, the kind of thing that's an "exception" when you do buy it. I think "oh, it's an exception, so it's okay" and I eat ALL of the rest she's left me (about 150g) within maybe ten minutes. Great way of enjoying expensive chocolates, wolfing them all down... I obviously feel guilty and all terrible afterwards. Still, I have some of the wine as well and that sort of helps in the moment becuase it makes me feel less guilty.
So today, I wake up thinking "right, it's going to be a better day". "It's okay, I can still balance it out; don't look back, this is going to be a better day; DON'T throw it all away because of yesterday." Except now I'm used to it again and it all comes back to me, sitting on that sofa eating, the many evenings I've spent sitting on that damn sofa, eating. It's been such a habit for so many years and it's my danger zone. Again, I do fine throughout the day, eating some lean chicken breast with a bit of rice, some strawberries with low-fat natural yogurt, some coffee without sugar. It's all good. In the evening, the second I get home and sit down on the couch, I get this incredibly strong physical CRAVING for chocolate, stronger than I've felt recently. It's like the barrier has been broken, and now I need it. "NEED" it. Again, I end up finding chocolate somewhere in the house (hidden in the basement, I feel like such a freak even looking there!!) and I eat it, about 150g of it again. That's 300g of chocolate eaten over the past few days. WTF?! I haven't eaten that much chocolate in ages. But again, once I started, I couldn't stop. I needed more. It's that damn "all or nothing" thing again. I needed it all.It needed to be gone. I needed something to fill my evening, sitting on that sofa (I better not sit my fat ass down there again!) as always, a "purpose" in the otherwise dull evening. And after all, a tiny voice whispers, it's an exception. "You never come home anymore. You're only here for 13 days. THe chocolate is in the house and you'll eat it at some point, anyway. You always do. It's an exception. It will be nice, all social with your mum. It will feel SO good. It's only an exception. You'll be good again once you go back to your flat and you're all alone again."
Of course, I feel predictably awful now and weighed myself right away to check if I'd gained weight in that hour or so. I'll go for a run tomorrow morning, but I think my mum is cooking traditional Sunday food tomorrow, which is unhealthy. I never used to like it but now that it's an exception and that it's my mum cooking for me, which is so rare and so special as I mostly do the cooking now when I'm home, it's...special. I know I'll want it.
I knew it would be difficult to keep my healthy habits up here, but I guess it does make a huge difference to return to your old environment where you were so used to your bad habits, where there are good sweets available, where there's stuff in the house and where there are things you couldn't buy in England, which makes them "special". Of course I've talked to my mum about it and tried to convince her we should both make a deal and try to live healthily for the nexrt two weeks, but we're still at a point where we pull each other down. When you barely have enough self-discipline for yourself, you tend not to have it for someone else, either, and I still fail when temptation is present. I've been avoiding so many things in England - going out, walking past shops hungry, walking past certain areas, being around certain people, leaving the flat after dinner. Is that really the way it works?
People say that once you start losing weight, you enter a positive upwards spiral, but I don't feel like that. I feel like it's still very much a downward spiral, only I'm fighting way harder and not getting the success I want. I guess that's the perfectionism coming through again, but when I'm trying so hard, shouldn"t I be doing better? Am I not trying hard enough? And why do you have to be so amazingly good and avoidant to even only lose a tiny little bit of weight? Feels like you're putting in a lot more than you're getting out. Which, of course, makes complete sense, given that our bodies have evolved to put on weight where they can (I think my body is very well-evolved in that respect ;) ).
Where is that upward spiral? Is there a point where it gets easier? How do habits transfer to new places, or rather, old places, which I think is harder?
Hmm, "tomorrow is another day", but I'm afraid I'm almost slipping into the "fuck it, let's give this up" mode now, which I CANNOT, MUST NOT enter. Nope, keep going. I can do this. I will be good again starting NOW. 1:19am, Saturday night. Yep, that's it.