Thursday 14 August 2008

Still Fighting It

“So how’s l’escapee?” my friend O. said the day after I returned from France.

“If I told you I’ve never eaten so much sausage in my life, that would sound kind of bad, wouldn’t it?” I said.

O. laughed. He knows my host in France – an artist who likes to get off, as they so charmingly say in England, with the models (women he sees naked every day). O. also knows that S. discovers one food he likes and finds easy to cook – in this case, sausages – and makes it endlessly.

And I ate them endlessly – along with bread and 200g (yes, 200 g) bars of chocolate. And I don’t even like sausages. And the bread wasn’t great fresh-baked French bread from some Loire boulangerie. (At least the bars of chocolate were French.)

Honestly, I almost could have forgiven myself if I were bingeing on amazing pain au raisin and patisserie. (Loads of people eat their way across France – I certainly wouldn’t have been the first.) But that’s how bingeing is – what you’re eating is almost besides the point. I can – and did – binge on the 90-calorie fig cereal bars I’d bought in the 8 a Huit grocery store to prevent myself from getting too hungry between meals. I reached what felt like new lows, lying about having left my handbag upstairs so I could run up and grab a few more squares of chocolate.

I haven’t binged consecutively for so many days in years. And each morning I’d wake up with a too-full stomach and the dread of getting dressed, because each day there were fewer and fewer clothes I wanted to wear, mostly because I feared whether they’d fit and didn’t want to try them on to find out for sure. I took my belt off going through airport security and couldn’t face putting it back on. I literally feared my jeans would split. (You laugh, but it happened to me once, when years ago I stuffed myself – erm, sausage-like – into jeans I couldn’t admit no longer fit. I plunked myself into the back seat of the car and rrrippp. One of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.)

Why did I binge? For so many reasons, some of which I’m still facing up to myself:

--a relationship that needs ending so badly that the psychiatrist I went to Wednesday (the one who told me six weeks ago I was depressed with good reason) spent the entire 40-minute session telling me to dump him.

--because I’d felt hungry the whole day I traveled, and had been fighting the urge to overeat all day. I’d felt grumpy and resentful watching people eating 3-course lunches while I struggled to be healthy. And by 9.30 p.m., when the first sausages were served, I was incredibly hungry and tired of fighting.

Honestly, tired of fighting really sums it up on so many levels. Tired of fighting to eat appropriate things at an appropriate time. Tired of fighting to get out of bed and exercise because I know I won’t do it later in the day. Tired of fighting… well, tired of fighting a lot of things I’m not ready to write about yet (see “still facing up to myself.”)

* * *

BN2 always used to berate me for planning to fail, as he put it. This time, I’m glad I did.

I had 15 binge-free days behind me when I went to France. I had packets of oatmeal and cereal bars. I had optimism (hello, France? When one is trying to recover from binge eating? That’s like going to a wine-tasting in the early days of giving up alcohol). But I guess I know myself better than I give myself credit for.

Before I left for France I booked my favorite Pilates class for the day after I got back to London. You can’t do Pilates on a full stomach, and so I had to get straight back into my healthy eating routine. And I have. It’s been five days now.

I guess I’m back in the ring again.

* * *

I debated not writing weights until I had something better to post, but that’s, um, so not the point of this, isn’t it?

I couldn’t face the scale for a couple of days, then got 12 stone 8 (yikes! Highest weight in a year!) on Tuesday, I think it was. Yesterday was something like 12 stone 4.5. I’m hoping when the dust settles and the binge bloat goes the numbers will seem slightly more manageable.

Part of me would like to spend this weekend eating carefully prepared and measured meals, but that’s not an option. As luck would have it, Friend Bearing Chocolate is back from her job in Asia for a few days and we’re meeting up. I’m looking forward to seeing her, of course, but a little anxious about the food just the same. She’s craving tapas. Eeek. Maybe I won’t even be able to look at the chorizo? One can hope.

2 comments:

  1. Cripes...france must have been tough. Well done for getting back in the saddle and gettingover the hump and onto the downward stretch again.

    You have a lot going on so be kind to yourself and try and enjoy your exercise rather than punishing yourself with it.

    Lesley x

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  2. I just got back from a week at the shore with the entire extended family. Since I am the only one with a weight problem, no one served any healthy meals except me. I did my best, but there were plenty of opportunities to go astry, especially in the wine-consumption dept. Oh well - today, back at work and back in the saddle. Its a journey, right? Good luck getting back in the groove and good luck with B#2, whatever you decide.

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