Monday 26 October 2009

When Life Gives You Lemon Drizzle Cake

Just when I think I’ve got a handle on all of this eating stuff, the old dog dreams me up again.

(Not really. I just remember the old dog line from a short story I read years ago.)

Just when I think I’ve got a handle – when I think: I can do this, and do this every day for the rest of my life – something kicks me back into the corner.

I woke up yesterday tired, unwilling, and yes, cranky. (Also hungry, but that’s a given.) Something in me was off, and all I wanted was to set it right with food. Right after breakfast began the countdown to when I could have my snack. I didn’t want to stuff myself so much as I just wanted to start eating and not have to stop anytime soon.

After lunch, I got a last-minute invitation from a friend who wanted to treat me to a nice tea (and cake). I wavered. At first I said no, thinking: Yes, I can go to tea, but not when I’m in this head space. I thought about the fact that I’m at a birthday party tomorrow night, have a hugely debauched weekend planned, and then pretty much there’s reasons to (over)eat every week through January. And that’s just the events I know about now – surely there will be more to come.

Faster than a speeding bullet and at least seven times as more self-destructive, my mind started doing its whirl. I can’t go and have cake – I’ll want to eat everything. I’ll have one slice and it will kick off a binge. And I’ll have to start the Days Clean clock over – and right in the runup to the holiday season, too. I don’t have the energy. I’ll start bingeing and I won’t be able to stop.

I thought about things I know I myself have said and probably written, about how overeating once does not fell a diet – it’s how you handle the hours and meals after it. Still I didn’t feel better. I’m going to go to tea and then I’m going to binge, I thought. I felt eerily calm at the thought, like a decision had been made and therefore I could stop hovering in midair and just land already.

No, I can’t go to tea, I thought. I can’t binge. Already I felt resentful about the tea I was missing – that I couldn’t just accept a last-minute invitation like a normal person. Also, I felt like a fraud. Haven’t I been calmly and probably (not-so) semi-smugly writing about how I’ve got it (almost) figured out? Ha.

I thought about going to the tea and eating something healthy for oh, about a half a second. I doubted I’d be able to in the frame of mind I was in, and even if I could, chances are something I denied myself at the tea would lead to overeating something much less nice later on. I thought about postponing the tea – this particular friend is, if not sympathetic to my eating problems, at least aware of them. Then I thought about all the Occasions for Sin, as an old colleague of mine used to call them, coming up in the next couple of months and couldn’t begin to think on what day, exactly, I’d choose to slot in overeating.

I thought about just going to the tea and seeing what happened, and freaked out slightly that this would suddenly be the beginning of me accepting every bit of extra food ever offered. Suddenly I’d be having dessert every night and having supersize snacks. I’d stop exercising and start bingeing, or maybe I’d start bingeing and then stop exercising.

And then it hit me: This is life. I can stay home and eat neat, safe meals and carefully plan for indulgences, or I can just go out and live a little. Because I don’t want to be the girl who’s replaced lack of control around food with hypercontrol around food. Both are equally ugly places to inhabit.

So I went to tea. I debated a Montezuma chocolate bar – something I could control a bit more than cake – and inwardly rolled my eyes at myself. I’d been thinking about cake, so it was cake I should have. In the end, I went with a huge slice of lemon drizzle layer cake with a thick and yummy vanilla icing between its many layers. It was at least three bites before I could even listen to my friend, let alone speak.

My English breakfast tea came with a nut-and-dried-fruit-studded biscotti that I couldn’t stop eyeing. I’m going to binge, I thought. It’s going to be the biscotti that does it. It's going way over and above -- you've just had cake. You don't need biscotti. I couldn't focus on the conversation again -- only the biscotti.

So I ate it. Slowly. It was delicious.

I felt full and happy and almost like a normal person. Except a normal person wouldn’t be congratulating herself for eating a slice of cake and a piece of biscotti.

Later that night I was hungry for dinner at the usual time, and just as hungry as usual. So I ate the amount I’d usually eat, answered some emails, and went to bed.

Seventy days binge-free.

11 comments:

  1. Like you, sometimes I feel a little Sybil-ish (you know, the girl with multiple personality disorder). I have all sorts of conversations/fights within my own head about food. (Luckily, there is not much carry-over to other areas of my life.)

    When all was said and done, you maintained your composure and retained your binge-free status for another day. A well-fought victory.

    PS Since your mention of a Cadbury Flake bar, I can't stop thinking about them. I was in London last month and tried one...it led to me buying and consuming a box of 10 in 3 days. I have now placed them on my list of "Foods I am never allowed to buy again". Too risky.

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  2. That is EXACTLY what Steve Peters told us to do if we wanted something....not lie to ourselves about it, not bargain and count calories and promise that we'd cut back elsewhere. Decide if we really want it, if we accept the extra food etc and then to enjoy it and then go back to our usual routine.

    That's spot on. Well done chuck!!

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  3. That sounds pretty cool to me! And you handled it very well. Head space is so tricky. Hate it when it goes sour, but you managed beautifully.

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  4. Well that was just bloody awesome. I can't be more articulate than that :)

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  5. PS i have to ask, where does one purchase this awesome lemon drizzle cake? my sister and I often go to afternoon tea when I'm visiting and I really do like a good quality wodge of lemon cake! :)

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  6. I too would like to sample the lemon cake - although it has to be said that I make a lemon cake that is far FAR superior to any I've ever tasted. And, my friend, I have tasted many... (Shauna - will make for you and R next time you're down if you like!).

    But the lemon cake is not the star of your piece (even to someone as greedy as me). You had the head tussle, it was tough but you DID IT. You faced adversity (okay, just cake but...) and you came through it calmly and serenely. Wow.

    love
    Peridot x

    PS More on debauched weekend please!

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  7. Oh, they would have been IMPOSSIBLE to resist for me too.

    Dealing with these issues now is part of the process and it sounds like you are handling brilliantly!

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  8. Wooooo HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I love your writing, and you had me on edge throughout! Congrats on your binge-free streak!

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  9. Sorry for the delay on letting you know the cake source! It's the tea room at Fulham Palace, in Bishops Park.

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