This past weekend I visited the sister and the nephewage –
and ran a 10-mile race around the cherry blossoms for which I hadn’t really
trained. (Thanks, I suspect, to CrossFit, I ran the whole thing without
stopping, albeit not very fast.)
Better than the race, though, was this: On Saturday night,
we returned to the house with children a little cranky and overtired from a
birthday party. (I initially interpreted my sister’s failing to offer me cake
as a comment on how large I’d gotten. Either way, I didn’t eat cake and didn’t
much notice – I was busy talking to one of the dads about Russian literature.
Oh DC and your nerdery, sometimes I miss you!)
The plan was to order out, and my sister eyed me warily when
her husband suggested she and I walk over to Pennsylvania Avenue, where there’s
a burger and a pizza restaurant next to each other. She has witnessed years of
my crazy food behavior, which often has included extreme control over where I
eat.
But I shrugged, said I was fine with whatever, and meant it.
I decided on pizza, pausing only when my sister told me they were “huge slices”
instead of individual pies.
“How many do you think is dinner?” I asked. She suggested
two slices. They were delicious. I realized the only pizza I’ve eaten in recent
years that wasn’t part of a binge was an Amy’s low sodium frozen spinach pizza,
which I used to eat almost daily for lunch when I first moved to New York.
The next day, after my ten-miler, we took the triplets to a
lunch/playdate. Food available, even for adults, was hot dogs, chili, and tater
tots. It wasn’t what I would ever pick, but it was that or nothing. I had a hot
dog on a bun – surprisingly good – and a few tater tots (not so much). I didn’t
chafe at the fact that I was wasting a lot of calories on something I didn’t
really want to eat. That’s probably why I didn’t also think about what I could
eat when I left, or on the trip home.
I’m not sure what switch has flipped. Maybe it’s that I
haven’t been trying to control my meals much. For sure I am eating more than I
need, but I’m so relieved not to be bingeing that I almost don’t care.
Day 19.
