Post-Estonian Food Update
Right, I haven't posted for a while. I should explain that I've been away on holiday to Estonia for a week to visit my sister. Great holiday, fun times and all, but horrific in terms of my eating. I couldn't stop myself. It scares me that I have become as much of a "food tourist" as my parents used to be when I was a kid. The highlight of their day was eating if we were in a foreign place, trying everything. So here I was, eating cake, chocolate, and a delicious curd snack called "kohuke". Only I wasn't eating it once or twice, occasionally. It was what I was eating every day. I enjoyed it so hedonistically, and I binged to the point where it wasn't even pleasant anymore. I just kept eating like crazy because I was "on holiday". Because it was so relieving to relinquish control again, to not have to try as hard as I have been these past few months, to be "away". Food, to me, connected to comfort, to relaxation, to letting go. I overate even when I realised I was full, because then, surely, at some point I'd be satisfied. Satisfaction never fully came. The only thing I got was guilt afterwards.
My issue isn't that I like to try new things -that is quite normal if you're on holiday somewhere foreign, I think- but the quantity. I'm not happy trying something once, or trying a little bit of it. I have to have the whole thing. And again. And again. Because the second I try it, I am consumed with this "I will never, ever have a chance to eat this ever again" feeling. It's a curious thing. I know it somehow links in with this other grave mistake I make, this thing in my mind, this panic of "not getting" something. The feeling of "never again". It's what has been screwing up my "plan for change". I don't think "I'm making happy, healthy choices". I think "I can NEVER AGAIN have cake", "I can NEVER AGAIN have chocolate", "I CAN NEVER AGAIN HAVE HAPPINESS". I think I haven't quite yet embraced my "new life" I am hoping for, I am not thinking like a healthy person. I still think of food as a comforter or reward but an evil thing to be dreaded at the same time. I still haven't found anything else to fill the void yet. I self-soothe by eating; it's what I've been doing for as long as I can remember. I guess learning a new lifestyle is hard, but my excuses are running out. Only I can make this change.
I have the knowledge, the skills, and I know I have the self-discipline in other areas of my life. I just don't know why it won't work properly, why I have small successes and then screw it up for myself completely. It's a yo-yo pattern that has happened to me before. I do well for a while, then I screw up and I screw up completely because once I start, I don't stop. I don't feel satisfied after eating a piece of chocolate. A piece of chocolate opens the gate, and I want more. I want it all to be gone so I don't have to think about it anymore, because after that, "I can never have chocolate again". Then I feel worse afterwards and tempted to abandon. I don't know how to break that cycle. No, that's a lie. I do have the knowledge and skills to break that cycle, I just don't do it. Only I can do it. But how? I am incredibly frustrated and feel trapped inside myself, a huge failure.
On the bright side, I joined that weight management group again that I attended last autumn. Different instructor, different people this time. It helped me lose 10 pounds last time but not as much as I wanted. But because I was in Estonia, I missed the second week, and I'm afraid of the third because I think I have gained weight in Estonia. I don't want to fail. I hate public failure even more than private failure. I'm a perfectionist, which is the ironic thing about it. The thing is that this time, I identify with the group even less. The person who does the group has never struggled with weight in her life and constantly says things that reflect stereotypes or a bit of a lack of understanding (e.g. "generally overweight people don't realise how much they eat" - really, I write everything down religiously and believe me, I KNOW when I eat too much and that I eat too much, knowing is not the problem, "studies show overweight people sleep less but I don't really understand that" - oh, you as a nurse don't know how body weight affects your hormones and don't make the connection that since being overweight is positively correlated with depression, that might be the link between being overweight and insomnia?). The people in the group may have their own problems, btu they aren't like me. They are people who weigh 60kg who would rather weigh 55kg, or otherwise women in their 50s who gained weight now through less exercise and having kids who eat junk food. That's not my issue. One of the women in the group drives me crazy. I know she has a right to be proud of herself for losing weight last time and now wanting to maintain it (she looks like she weighs about 55kg...before she weighed 59), but does she have to interrupt all the time and be so goddamn smug about it? My problem isn't that I buy my hummus instead of making it myself and not putting any oil in (hummus is supposed to have oil in, just for the record), or that a banana has more calories than an apple. That's a different issue. My problem is that I binge eat...properly. Not in the sense of "I ate two carrots rather than one". More in the "eating disordered thinking" kind of sense. I know I should respect and use the group more, but I really don't know how. I can't even begin to be honest there. I just hope that the peer pressure will somehow still help.
Someone told me once that change happens in small steps, but I think the thing is that if you're a bit on the perfectionistic and "thinking in categories" side, you want it to be huge and immediate. Weight loss doesn't necessarily work like that. I have put in this long-term work in other areas of my life, so theoretically, I should be able to do it here. SO JUST DO IT, DAMN IT!
My issue isn't that I like to try new things -that is quite normal if you're on holiday somewhere foreign, I think- but the quantity. I'm not happy trying something once, or trying a little bit of it. I have to have the whole thing. And again. And again. Because the second I try it, I am consumed with this "I will never, ever have a chance to eat this ever again" feeling. It's a curious thing. I know it somehow links in with this other grave mistake I make, this thing in my mind, this panic of "not getting" something. The feeling of "never again". It's what has been screwing up my "plan for change". I don't think "I'm making happy, healthy choices". I think "I can NEVER AGAIN have cake", "I can NEVER AGAIN have chocolate", "I CAN NEVER AGAIN HAVE HAPPINESS". I think I haven't quite yet embraced my "new life" I am hoping for, I am not thinking like a healthy person. I still think of food as a comforter or reward but an evil thing to be dreaded at the same time. I still haven't found anything else to fill the void yet. I self-soothe by eating; it's what I've been doing for as long as I can remember. I guess learning a new lifestyle is hard, but my excuses are running out. Only I can make this change.
I have the knowledge, the skills, and I know I have the self-discipline in other areas of my life. I just don't know why it won't work properly, why I have small successes and then screw it up for myself completely. It's a yo-yo pattern that has happened to me before. I do well for a while, then I screw up and I screw up completely because once I start, I don't stop. I don't feel satisfied after eating a piece of chocolate. A piece of chocolate opens the gate, and I want more. I want it all to be gone so I don't have to think about it anymore, because after that, "I can never have chocolate again". Then I feel worse afterwards and tempted to abandon. I don't know how to break that cycle. No, that's a lie. I do have the knowledge and skills to break that cycle, I just don't do it. Only I can do it. But how? I am incredibly frustrated and feel trapped inside myself, a huge failure.
On the bright side, I joined that weight management group again that I attended last autumn. Different instructor, different people this time. It helped me lose 10 pounds last time but not as much as I wanted. But because I was in Estonia, I missed the second week, and I'm afraid of the third because I think I have gained weight in Estonia. I don't want to fail. I hate public failure even more than private failure. I'm a perfectionist, which is the ironic thing about it. The thing is that this time, I identify with the group even less. The person who does the group has never struggled with weight in her life and constantly says things that reflect stereotypes or a bit of a lack of understanding (e.g. "generally overweight people don't realise how much they eat" - really, I write everything down religiously and believe me, I KNOW when I eat too much and that I eat too much, knowing is not the problem, "studies show overweight people sleep less but I don't really understand that" - oh, you as a nurse don't know how body weight affects your hormones and don't make the connection that since being overweight is positively correlated with depression, that might be the link between being overweight and insomnia?). The people in the group may have their own problems, btu they aren't like me. They are people who weigh 60kg who would rather weigh 55kg, or otherwise women in their 50s who gained weight now through less exercise and having kids who eat junk food. That's not my issue. One of the women in the group drives me crazy. I know she has a right to be proud of herself for losing weight last time and now wanting to maintain it (she looks like she weighs about 55kg...before she weighed 59), but does she have to interrupt all the time and be so goddamn smug about it? My problem isn't that I buy my hummus instead of making it myself and not putting any oil in (hummus is supposed to have oil in, just for the record), or that a banana has more calories than an apple. That's a different issue. My problem is that I binge eat...properly. Not in the sense of "I ate two carrots rather than one". More in the "eating disordered thinking" kind of sense. I know I should respect and use the group more, but I really don't know how. I can't even begin to be honest there. I just hope that the peer pressure will somehow still help.
Someone told me once that change happens in small steps, but I think the thing is that if you're a bit on the perfectionistic and "thinking in categories" side, you want it to be huge and immediate. Weight loss doesn't necessarily work like that. I have put in this long-term work in other areas of my life, so theoretically, I should be able to do it here. SO JUST DO IT, DAMN IT!