My Life, My Thoughts

I ate alright today for the most part.  2 slices of peanut butter toast for breakfast.  A part of a salad for lunch.  Pasta and garlic bread (homemade) for dinner.  A bag of 100 calorie kettle corn and an ice cream sandwich.  I burned over 400 calories at the gym today.

But then the boyfriend went to bed, and I pretty much just ate a whole bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos.  Yep, there’s just crumbs left.  That’s about 1,650 calories… Soooooooooooooo, what I’ve eaten in the past 2 hours is about 100 calories more than I should be allowing myself.

On a depressing side note…

One of my friends is in the mental hospital right now for her depression.  I went to visit her on Friday, and I couldn’t help but feel like I should be in there.  Maybe not at this current moment, but I probably could have used that help before and I know I will need to again.  I am so thankful that she’s in there, getting the help that she needs when she needs it.

The real world is harsh, and we are our own worst critics.  I know I’m my worst one.

Tomorrow I will eat a light breakfast.  I will go to the gym and burn another 400 calories AT LEAST, I’m going to aim for 500 this time.  I’ll work out my leg muscles some.

I’ll come home.  Eat something small for lunch.  Chicken noodle soup perhaps?

I’m making tacos for dinner.  I will obviously have to buy some more doritos since that’s what they were for in the first place.  Oops.  I don’t think I’m going to allow myself the doritos though… I’ll have mine on a tortilla thanks.

I want to be about 700 calories BELOW my allowed 1550ish calories.  Yup, 700.  But that’s adding the 500 calories burned into it…so really, only 200 below at the minimum.

Tomorrow night, I will not binge.  At all.

With that being said, yes, I know I messed up AGAIN.  But it is what it is.

I did so good today!  I did perfectly!

Not only did I get just about everything on my to-do list done (in fact, everything except for reading and job searching).

I ate breakfast!

A slice of peanut butter toast and half an apple!

At the gym I did 30 minutes on the elliptical!  I usually can barely do 15!  And the most I’ve done at that gym was about 18.  So yay me.  I only spent a few minutes on the treadmill as my legs hurt.  I then did some arm weight exercises!

Then I came home and ate lunch, which was a healthy salad!  The base was a pre-mixed mix of radishes, carrots, spinach, and lettuce.  I put some sunflower seeds in it, some buffalo chicken, and some cottage cheese.

Then I cleaned and all that crap.

I didn’t eat until dinner, where I had part of a chicken cordon bleu.  I had some green beans and some garlic bread!

I tend to eat more after dinner.

I ate a mini bag of kettle corn (which is only 100 calories).

I ate a cheese wheel… (about another 80 calories).

And a chocolate mousse jello (about 60 calories)…

All low cal foods.  And I’m starting to feel a bit hungry again, but I’m going to bed so no more food for me today!

Awesome exercise and Awesome eating!  I feel great!!!

Here’s one of those major set backs when it comes to me.  I’m a binge eater, I know this.  I struggle with it, over and over again.  I’ve been doing so well.  Yesterday I exercised and burned over 350 calories, but today I just devoured a small pizza from Dominos all by myself.

Sad thing is, I could probably eat more if I wanted to.  But I know better.  Sure, that’s all I ate today… and so the calorie counter says I still have about 300 calories to eat today.  But you got to think about the amount of fat in that pizza.  I probably ate like 100 grams of fat, not to mention the amount of sodium I ate.

My initial thought after I finished was, “why the hell did I just do that?”  And after that, my next thought was “I should go throw it up!”  But that always makes me feel worse.

So, now there’s only 1 thing to do.

The roads are just terrible.  I can’t go to the gym.  So, it’s exercise at home day.  I’ll have to get on that awful treadmill (I so prefer the ones at the gym).  I’m going to have to go on it for like ever.

Set back.  But it’s not defeat.  I will not accept defeat.

I will eat light the rest of the day.  Super light.  In fact, I might just skip dinner all together.  I don’t usually skip meals (except for breakfast), but I like to snack, so I’m sure I’ll get my other calories still today.  I will eat my jello and my kettle corn. Yum.

And tomorrow, I will be back at the gym.  I will be eating the right amount of calories, and less fat, and definitely less sodium!

I will just shake my head at myself, but I will not beat myself up.  No, I will not.

Let’s do this!

So my day is going okay so far.  I got outta bed a little after 11, which was a bit later than I wanted.  I skipped breakfast, kinda…it was lunch time…so I just ate lunch.  Went to Subway and got a 6”, and a lemonade, but they convinced me to make it a meal… so I ate a cookie, but the other one is sitting on the desk and my boyfriend will gobble it up when he gets home!  

I did go to the gym!  I burned 150 calories on the elliptical (I was on it for 15 minutes).  Then I went on the treadmill for about 16 more minutes and a few minutes cool down… burned 110 more calories!  Then I came home, did the dishes, vacuumed, and picked up a little bit… took out the trash.  Haven’t done James’s laundry.  I’ll leave that for him tonight.  My friend should be here any minute…and we’ll hang out with her 2 boys (2 years old and 3 months old) for 2 hours, then James and I will be baby-sitting the 2 year old for a couple of hours.

I feel good right now!

I found this challenge in another self-help book I found (ugh, maybe this one will help some?)  Anyways, here’s day 1.

DAY 1:

Write your eating history. Discuss your relationship with food from childhood to the present. What was mealtime like with your family? When did you begin to have weight issues? When did the overeating/bingeing begin? What foods or food group do you crave? How has food been your security blanket? Write in as much detail as you can, being as truthful as possible. What messages did others give you about your eating and your weight?

Wow!  This is going to take a long time!  I’ll break it off into sections, in case anyone actually sees this and someone only wants to read certain parts.

What was mealtime like with my family?

What mealtime?  When I was really young, I don’t really remember much about food.  I remember endless fish sticks.  I still won’t eat fish.  I remember party pizzas (Totinos)… as I got older, my memories kind of blur.  By the time I was a teen, my parents worked evenings for the most part.  My brother and I ate countless pizzas, microwavable foods, grilled ham and cheeses, fried foods, and lunchables.  For our sides, we ate bowls of chips.  We ate chips with everything!  When our parents were home, my mom made awesome tacos!  Jay (step-dad) loved to grill, so I became a meat lover.  Hot dogs and chicken wings and pork chops!  MMM!  There really wasn’t a huge variety in the foods we ate.  My parents never made vegetables for sides.  I don’t remember once being served a plate of broccoli or being given the choice for a salad.  In fact, I didn’t even start eating lettuce or spinach or any veggie besides corn and carrots until I was an adult…until about a year ago.

We ate fries, but mashed potatoes or baked potatoes were off the menu.  My brother and I were too picky.  I didn’t learn how to cook really… and I really had no idea what a full, healthy meal looked like.  To me, it was just a pork chop, a big helping of chips, and maybe some corn… definitely some garlic bread.

I remember around my freshman year of high school, my brother and I would come home from school, and he would start up the fryer and we’d throw in mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, fries, etc… things that were completely stocked in the freezer.  That would be our “after school” snack.

When did you begin to have weight issues?

I don’t have a certain memory of exactly when this was.  But I would guess 8 or 9.  Before then, I was skinny as rails.  I didn’t have a pound of fat on me.  I have a picture of me somewhere at about 9, I’m guessing.  I’m half sitting, half standing on the couch, reaching for a cat, I believe…and in my hand, I have a big bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos.

When I moved to a new town in 5th grade, when I was 10…I was overweight.  I’ve only been at a healthy weight once since…and it was a little after my mom died because of the depression I was in.

When did the overeating/bingeing begin?

Again, I don’t know exactly.  The first solid memory of binge-ing is 6th grade.  A classmate came over after school because we had to make a dance routine for gym class.  As soon as we got to my place, I turned on the tv (Full House was on), and grabbed a bowl full of cheetos.  My classmate didn’t want any.  I ate 3 bowls before I said I was ready to start the dance routine.  I don’t think I even realized then that that was a bad eating habit.  I do now though.  I think it slowly got worse from then on out.

I think the binge-ing especially got worse when I would come home from school, and my brother would be upstairs in his room, and my parents would be at work….and there was just so much junk food in the cupboards that I would just eat bowl after bowl of chips, 2 or 3 debbie snacks, maybe some string cheese, and anything else I could get my hands on.  The purging didn’t start until I was 15.

What foods or food groups do I crave?

It really depends on the day really.  It’s usually always between chips and chocolate.  Salt and sweets.  And grease.  I usually crave fried foods or pizza a lot too.

How has food been your security blanket?

I don’t know about when I was a child, but when I was a teenager, I think it was the only thing I could control.  If I ate more and more, I was doing something that I wanted to.  It was something that I could make happen.  Now-A-Days, I’m not sure why exactly.  I think it’s just something that’s always been there, and something that I know will always be there… but it doesn’t really make me feel very good anymore.  I have digestive problems now-a-days, and so when I eat awful, I pay for it in more ways than just weight gain.

What messages did other people give you about your eating and your weight?

When I was younger, not much.  And I think that’s part of the problem.  No one told me when enough was enough.  No one taught me about the amount of calories and fat I was ingesting.  No one taught me healthy habits.  As I got older, kids in my class would call me fat, and other weight-related names.  This just gave me a bad sense of self and I turned to food even more.

Other Details

When I moved to live in a dorm when I was 19, I had to get a meal plan from the cafeteria.  This is what I lived off of for 2 years.  This and delivery and fast food and lunchables and chips.  I rarely cooked.  I didn’t know how.  My choices in the cafeteria were pretty bad.  Breakfast would rarely happen.  Lunch would usually be 2 chicken and cheese quesadillas or a sausage and egg breakfast sandwich or pasta.  Dinner could be any of those or something random, but nothing healthy.  For sides, I usually didn’t eat much.  But desert was almost always something I did get.

After college when I moved in with my boyfriend, we both struggled with cooking.  We ate out A LOT!  Ordered pizza quite often.  And for the first year, we lived off of frozen pizzas, mac & cheese, tacos, and dried out pork chops.  That and junk food.

Now, almost done with the 2nd year, we have gotten quite better.  We still eat out too often.  But when we cook at home, a lot of time we have veggies to go with it.  We’re getting better at meal planning.  But we both eat way too much outside of meals.  Way too much.

So completely addicted.  Just today, I was saying how I’m going to lose 15 pounds in 2 months.  And I still plan on doing it.  I’m starting an exercise regimen.  But I craved pizza hut for lunch, so I ordered in.  I ate 4 pizza rollers and about 6 wings.

I told myself I probably shouldn’t eat anything else today.  But dinner time came around, and of course I was hungry… we went to Subway and I got a salad.  Not bad, right?

But now that I’m up by myself…I can’t help but eat.  I ate 2 bags of flamin’ hot cheetos (the one serving size bags) and 3 wheels of cheese (the Babybel kind).  Okay, so that’s like less than 500 calories right now… and it’s not as bad as most of my binges.  But it’s still too bad.  And I can’t get over this fucking craving for a DQ cone!

But tomorrow is a new day.  A new freakin’ day!

I’m going to wake up by 10:30… eat cereal for breakfast!

Get my stuff together and head to the gym.  Be there no later than 11:30… work out for at least a half an hour.  Avoid DQ on the way home… no matter how tempting that cone is!  I have to remember that that would be 220 calories of pure bad things.  Lunch is going to be something light… some soup.  I shouldn’t eat too many calories tomorrow.  I’ll probably be home and done with lunch about 12:30 or so. Then I need to shower, wash James’s work clothes, do the dishes, take out the trash, pick up the apartment, vacuum (all of which should be pretty easy because the place is actually relatively clean).

Then I need to make a grocery list.  Then I need to put on a fake face that shows me not hiding my craving for all of this sugar, while my friend comes over.  This will actually be easier than I probably think, because as I hold her 3 month old, I will be reminded that I want kids someday, in like 2 years, and I need to lose weight and become healthy for that.

Then I will be baby-sitting a 2.5 year old for a couple of hours… We’ll make tacos for dinner.

But the hard part will be when everyone leaves and James goes off to bed.  That’s when I want to eat like crazy!!!  Ugh.

Of course I have to eat 1 more ho-ho before I go to sleep.  I’m unstoppable.

I just need to stop eating.  Today I ate a sandwich (6 slices of meat, 3 slices of cheese, and a butt load of chips.  After lunch and between dinner, I believe I ate 2 ho-hos and 1 or 2 cheese-sticks and a few more chips.

Dinner I ate half a chicken breast and some vegetables.  After dinner I followed it by another ho-ho.

After James went to bed, I had another ho-ho, 3 more cheese sticks, and probably 3 or 4 servings worth of chips.  Oh, and a fruit snack.

I know I need to stop.  I literally tell myself while I’m eating, to just put it down… and yet, I finish it, get up, and go get some more.  I have no self-control.

I realized today that James definitely has a problem knowing when enough is enough, but he’s nowhere as bad as me.  He eats all at once, and then that’s it.  He’s done. Right before dinner he ate a snack mixture of nuts and M&M’s and sunflower seeds.  He ate his dinner (1 chicken breast and a bunch of veggies), and then the other half of my chicken breast.  Then he got up and made a bagel with cream cheese on it.  Then he ate a reese’s easter egg chocolate candy thing (that thing was HUGE)…and a fruit snack.

So yeah, he ate a lot in a short time, but I wouldn’t call him a binge eater.  Not like me.  I just can’t stop eating.  Ugh.

Tomorrow I am going to semi-cleanse my body.  I will have to eat dinner (If I don’t eat dinner, James throws a huuuuuge fit).  I will not eat anything all day, just drink some juice and gatorade and water.  I believe I have planned ham and mashed potatoes for dinner tomorrow night, but I might change that to something else.

And I will be exercising tomorrow.  I will be.