Monday 9 November 2009

I. Am. Okay.

Ah, London. It’s a huge city and you can go for months without seeing certain friends because of its sprawling-ness – and then of course you end up seeing people you definitely do not want to see in the Hampstead tube lift.

After a couple of days spent marinating in shame about my HP dinner party behavior, I sent a handwritten thank you note-cum-apology to the hosts. Thanks to the Royal Mail strike, I spend a few days wondering if they got it. And then Thursday – late for an appointment – I dive into the Hampstead lift just as the doors are about to shut, and there they are.

“We got your thank you,” said L., the female half. “It was so sweet. You didn’t have anything to apologize for. We’ve all done a boozy exit.”

I smiled and made a joke about my forehead being black and blue from walking around smacking it with my palm.

C., the male half, said: “We just wondered at a certain point where you were.”

Chimed in L: “And if you were OK.”

Someone please remind me of this the next time I go off on what is clearly a the-whole-world-is-Beth-centric fear and self-loathing episode? (Then again, C. and L. could just be extremely gracious, hmmm?)

* * *

I scale-hopped Friday morning to find a number I have never ever seen before and frankly probably will never see again: 9 stone 11 (137 pounds). I confess I found that slightly shocking, as (a) there was Harry Potter overeating episode, and (b) my weight has hovered between 144-146 lbs for a couple of months now. It may in fact have been a scale error – I moved it before I stood on it, and I also was much more dehydrated than usual.

I (almost) wish I hadn’t weighed myself, only because I felt like seeing that number made me feel like I had license to eat whatever I wanted over the weekend, when Peridot, her boyfriend and I went up to the Peak District for Lesley’s birthday.

And eat I did (apologies in advance for the food porn): Peridot’s gorgeous sausage casserole plus mash and red cabbage followed by apple crumble with custard and cream on Friday (and P’s boyfriend and I then proceeded to finish the entire container of custard), plus double helpings (and double carbs: rice and potatoes) of a yummy dish that involved chicken, cream, and apples at Lesley’s birthday Saturday. Then when we got back that night I dove into a package of marshmallows and some ice cream. Best Scrambled Eggs Ever (they were custard-creamy) on Sunday morning (note to P's readers: I can tell you that if this weekend was any guide, every single thing she writes about cooking is as delicious as it sounds) followed by tea shop stop: 2 scones (one cheese, one plain) and lemon cake with icing.

Ahem.

In the car ride home I was silently congratulating myself for overeating like a (vaguely) normal person – I ate because everything was delicious and because it was sociable and fun, not because I was filling some psychological hole. (On Saturday night I'd actually thought vaguely of a chocolate bar I had in my backpack, but dismissed the idea actually of eating it.) If I hadn’t had a crummy cold, I might well have cartwheeled out of the cottage Sunday morning, full up of good food and friends and the self-satisfied feeling that I. Am. Okay.

And then.

I think the cracks started appearing at tea. In the car ride back to London I had the post-Christmas feeling – that nothing nice is going to happen again for a long time, and yes, that normal service must resume on the eating front. I felt OK about second part actually, but not so OK about the first.

At the tea shop I could feel my binge-head taking over. I coveted P’s boyfriend’s cheese on toast. (Now that I think about it, melted cheese used to figure heavily in my teenage pigouts.) I felt I could have eaten at least another two scones in addition to the two I’d already had. Or maybe I wanted more cake? Maybe I was just a bit ill and tired and not wanting to deal with the return to reality? Who knows, really. I don’t. It was 4:30 pm when P and her boyfriend dropped me off at the Tube, and all I could think was that it was a dark and cold Sunday evening and I just wanted to eat to fill it.

I started off small, with what might have been an afternoon snack: a Dorset Cereal bar. On the train I ate 2 small bars of chocolate (one Montezuma, one Green & Black’s Butterscotch). And then I remembered a snack-size packet of chocolate-filled pretzels I still had in my backpack. Off the tube I had a (crappy) piece of cake (can’t even remember what kind – banana? It tasted fake and awful but the icing was sweet) and scones from Tesco. I bought a packet of four and ate one and then another, nearly choking crumbs down my coat. With every bite I thought how inferior these were to the ones I’d had earlier, but still I didn’t stop eating them. With some effort I made myself throw the last one out. I didn’t want to feel sick. (Hear that? I didn't want to feel sick.)

I’m not pleased with myself, but I actually haven’t beaten myself up too much about this one. I did binge on top of a weekend of eating, but it was (fairly) minor and I stopped it before I made myself ill. Instead of thinking all gloom and doom, I’ve decided to think that maybe there is hope: That maybe next time I’ll stop just that bit earlier, and the time after that a bit earlier still. As Peridot commented about my overeating at the Halloween party: “That’s not you anymore.” You know what? For the most part, it isn’t.

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm, clearly the weak link in the weekend was... me! I hope I didn't make things difficult for you, eating-wise, what with the meal I made and the stop back at the tea shop. I seem to recall that you showed remarkable restraint surrounded by M&Ms - unlike moi. Bf too has succumbed to their evil lure - he ate at least half a big bag last night. I kept thinking - 12=c100 cals, eek! But I kept this to myself.

    love
    Peridot x

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