If You're Happy and You Know It...Binge?

Why do I binge when I’m happy?

Is it because of some core feeling that I don’t deserve whatever is happening – or some (self-destructive) need to mess things up?

I genuinely don’t know.

All I know is that on Wednesday I received a (very unexpected) offer to write a monthly column for a newspaper I both like and respect. (Even though this is a private blog, I still feel uncomfortable writing its name – but it is the one for which I sometimes currently write.) This was less than 48 hours after an editor had called up wanting to buy a story I pitched to her six months ago, when she was at another magazine entirely. I was flattered that she’d even remember it.

And in the middle of all this, I saw an old friend/mentor who talked about wanting to set me up with her cousin. Who I met briefly last year, and who seemed to be among the nicest, smartest, and frankly, hilarious, people on this planet. Nothing might ever come of it, but after months of nothing going on in that area of my life (partly by choice), even the prospect was exciting, if terrifying. I was already dreading any post-date dissection of me by the two of them.

Thursday I went to the nutritionist. I’d lost another three pounds, for a total of 14. 

That night I went out to dinner with friends/professional contacts. We always have cocktails. The last time I went out with them, as I recall, I also ended up bingeing – thought it was also the day I’d been to lunch at the newspaper and I was happy and all had gone well.

I had dinner (sushi/sashimi). I ordered a side of brown rice because I just wanted more more more. And then I had too much (possibly embarrassingly so) of the dessert.

And then we left and I started bingeing. A black and white cookie at some bakery around the corner from the restaurant. A biscuit from Whole Foods. Two mini crumb cakes (packaged a la Hostess cupcakes). A ginormous oatmeal raisin cookie and a Linzer tart.

And then I debated going to Magnolia for icebox pie. Instead I walked into the CVS and bought a crummy chocolate chip cookie and vanilla ice cream sandwich (380 calories, said the package – I remember looking, though at that point, who even cares?)

I got home and thought about the giant jar of peanut butter, but something stopped me. I knew I couldn’t start bingeing on it or I wouldn’t be able to keep it in my diet, and it is one of my favorite things. Instead I ate a 2 oz. container of hummus (a sample I’d been given earlier in the day), 2 Babybel lights in my refrigerator, a serving-size package of cashews from Trader Joe’s, and a banana.

I’m particularly irritated about the stuff I ate at home: By this point I should know that I only ever eat samples when I’m bingeing. And the Babybels and the cashews I’d thought about getting rid of, just because they’re not on my food plan at the moment and every time over the past month I’ve looked at either of them I’ve thought: I bet I’ll only eat that if I binge.

Sigh.

Day 2.