Preturnaturally Calm

First, an excuse: I am without a computer at home these days, something I haven’t been without since I was about four years old (my father was a very early adapter). Mine keeps threatening to “dump physical memory” (eek!), and then rebooting itself, in an endless cycle. I need a new computer. I also need, in no particular order: My electricity fixed (the lights in my kitchen have shorted), a $1,500 ticket to Indonesia, and to pay my American taxes. So much for writing on Monday nights, unless I’m going to do it in longhand. Anyway, time for blog posts being grabbed in bits from work, and there aren’t many of those. (Well, ok, except for the bits I spend checking other people’s blogs. Oops.)

I woke up this morning to find myself weighing 11 stone 10 ¾, which is dangerously close to 12 stone, one pound over the highest weight in the “normal range” for me (yikes – I’m “overweight” again), nearly six pounds above my lowest weight ever, and three pounds above last week’s weight.

I am refusing to get overly upset about this (despite the “overweight” tag), which may be problematic if the scale continues to climb. Why am I being so calm? Last week’s behavior was not the behavior of someone who gains three pounds a week. I worked out a lot: Power plate within two hours of stepping off the Eurostar, running Friday night before a friend’s leaving drinks, sprinting to the gym from Waterloo Saturday morning and then upping all my weights in Body Pump, doing heartcore (and it is seriously hardcore) Pilates on Sunday. I ate like a non-crazy person in Paris.

And oh yeah, there was a binge. Friday night, after several drinks, and dinner that was a salad with goats cheese which, while yummy, perhaps ought to have been the pizza I was really craving (and that my friend was having). I left the restaurant and promptly consumed a double chocolate muffin, a jam doughnut, and an Eccles cake in Covent Garden, and then another double chocolate muffin and a chocolate dipped flapjack in Putney. A small binge, by my standards. Probably slightly helped by the fact that I was on the way to see Bachelor No. 2. But still, nowhere close to 14,000 calories, approximately the amount extra I’d need to consume to gain four pounds.

Why did I binge? I’m honestly not sure. Alcohol was almost certainly a factor. But usually it has to be combined with something else, usually frustration, despair, or loneliness, of which I felt none. I do think my life in London is going to change when my friend – whose leaving drinks it was – actually leaves the country in a few weeks, as I’ve spent a good bit of my holidays and fair chunk of my weekends with her. But I don’t think that’s quite enough to cause a binge. Is it possible I just can’t have more than one drink ever? Maybe. I went out on Sunday night with a friend and – after two drinks – I sat in Wagamama’s nearly unable to concentrate on what he was saying because the urge to binge was that strong. (With his help, I didn’t. I asked him to sit with me while I had a piece of chocolate cake, like a normal person. Except it wasn’t like a normal person because I ate it so quickly. Sigh. I did, however, manage to stop there.)

Hmm. Binge, chocolate cake, salty Wagamama soup, quite a fair number of drinks. I deserved to gain weight, though not four pounds. Let’s see what happens this week. Drastic action may be required if the scale goes up again.