Sunday 20 September 2015

A Slip

I slipped last night after some cocktailing, and am thoroughly annoyed with myself, in part because the evening (and the food) wasn’t even worth it. In the scheme of things it wasn’t awful – 2 pieces of pizza and some frozen yogurt with some toppings I scarfed from the bar, ugh. (I know. Frozen yogurt. WTF? And the day before I had just walked by a new artisanal ice cream place that opened by me and thought: Totally not tempted. I never crave frozen yogurt. It clearly was just defiance.)
It was Day 27. But if you’re going to drive from New York to California and you get car trouble in Michigan, you don’t drive back to New York and start over, right? You fix the problem and keep going. So that is what I’m doing.

I knew it was going to happen. I could feel it. My phone was dying and I was hungry (I felt like I’d been hungry for a couple of days) and tired and watching someone eat a fig and manchego flatbread and I just wanted it all. And I was bored. Sigh.

Friday 18 September 2015

Day 25 (Post so boring I can't even give it a creative name)

8.52 am: One of those days where I feel like I'm hungry right after breakfast.

Going to try to write here throughout the day to see how it goes/follow it.

9.03 am: Ugh. Just remembered I'm having not-my-usual lunch today, and already worried it won't fill me up and I'll feel hungry all afternoon. Right. One thing at a time here.

10.25 am: Spent an hour writing (a project I like) and was OK during it. But now thinking about food again. May take a little walk shortly. Usually I exercise in the morning, but I'm meeting a friend later for a barre class (one of my least favorite workouts, but this one is free.)

11.04: Friend now says she's canceling on barre, which I do understand, but am annoyed, as she's apparently had said problem for several days now and I lose the credit for canceling in less than 24 hours. (Class was given to me, so I'm not actually out $$, but still. And plus, I might have organized my day differently today if I'd known. I certainly wouldn't go to barre on my own. Sigh.)

11.51 am: Hungry, tired (woke up at 6, inexplicably), feeling unwilling. Have done nothing but waste time since 10.25. Right. Let's get on with it. 25 minutes of work.

12.18 am: Just done 25 minutes of actual work for something that pays (earlier hourlong thing does not, at least not yet). Feel marginally better. Why can't I just remember/accept that wasting a lot of time just doesn't feel that good?

1.06 pm: Another 25 minutes of actual work (there was some time-wasting between the last lot of 25 min and this one. But now, lunchtime! Aaah!

1.20 pm: Always feel a bit sad when lunch is over. Like, no more food for you until dinner, which seems impossibly far away.

1.50 pm: Meant to go for a walk but stopped by emails about a piece I've already turned in but needs to be updated slightly. Life of a freelancer.

1.52 pm: Email to PR company bounces back, and I actually called. Intern at front desk seems unaware of who the company represents. Hmmm, maybe not the best choice of person to answer your phones?

2.16: Stomach asking for more food. Grr. Taking 20-min walk NOW and not looking at email so can't fall down rabbit hole.

2.51: Hot out. But good to get out. Thinking about putting my phone in airplane mode so I can't compulsively check email. (I managed not to on this walk, but still.) Friend still hasn't answered about whether canceling on barre means she's also canceling on dinner. Kind of annoyed.

4.36: Friend has just now finally canceled. Don't really mind at this point. Most of last 90 minutes spent alternately emailing a publicist and making a few fixes to already-filed story. Still feeling like I want to eat, but it's not unbearable, and there have been moments of reprieve.

4.51: Now just want to eat. Thinking of heading out to Pilates a few minutes early. (It's a Pilates/barre double, not typical for me, not least of which is because I never do barre. Still on the fence about whether I *will* do barre sans friend.)

8.30: Home from Pilates and a barre class I despised so much I finally let myself leave during the last song. I *never* leave classes. But this was just horrible. Not that it was so hard -- it was just interminable. I didn't enjoy it at all. Grumpy to have spent that hour (well, 56 minutes) on something I despised that didn't even feel like it was doing that much. Grr. So ready for dinner.

9.13: Hungry, a little grumpy and despairing of ever being full (or thin) (or being able to write again). Doesn't really make sense as I've eaten approximately the same calories as usual. Actually doing a bit to help other people to try to get myself out of my own head. (And also because I don't really want to work, although for sure I should.)

9.50: Hungry, sigh. Wasting time. Going to do 25 minutes of work.

11.22: Wasted more time, did a bit more work, but not on the thing I really should have been working on. Hunger seems to have faded a bit... Just in time for me to go to sleep, hmph. Though going to bed feeling hungry is never fun.

What I learned today: Writing it out was helpful, if kind of boring for the rest of the world to read. Also: I need to do something about this time wasting. I've been working at half-speed since I got back from working abroad -- can't seem to get excited about anything, and telling myself the most important thing is to get through the day without bingeing. But I dare say I could soon end up bingeing from the stress if I don't start lining up some work for myself...


Sunday 13 September 2015

Small Victories

I’m still lying to avoid a lot of events – just don’t want to be seen at this size – but it’s been 21 days since my last binge and I’m starting to feel more like myself. (I nearly made it to 30 days while I was traveling, but there were some London slips.)

Some of the old familiar feelings are returning, both good and bad. I skipped having a drink at an event I went to Tuesday because there was just no point in crummy event white wine (good). But then I was almost relieved when someone canceled drinks on me on Thursday so I could not be tempted and stay home and eat a clean dinner (not necessarily good, because it very easily tips into obsession). Ditto last night, when an acquaintance-friend of the sort I only ever get cocktails with asked if I was free at the last minute. I was, but I’d had plenty of drinks the night before, I was sweaty from Pilates, it was pouring rain, I wanted to finish Purity and I frankly did not feel like going out to Williamsburg and making conversation with someone I’ve only hung out with about five times and don't imagine I'll ever be particularly close with. I’m of two minds whether my decision to stay home was good or bad, and I guess it was neither. Yes, the controlling part of me liked staying home and eating a clean dinner. But I used to have trouble staying home if ever the option presented itself to go out, no matter how unappealing said option was, so… good on the whole?

Also last night, I was about to have a tablespoon of almond butter because I was convinced I was too hungry to sleep without it. I had the spoon in my hand and then I thought: Why don’t you just go ahead and brush your teeth and see if you can live without it? Maybe I won’t always be able to, but last night I could. It felt like a tiny victory, if not quite a turn in the tide of these past couple of years of bingeing and gaining weight.

Yesterday’s trip to the farmers’ market to buy eggs felt like another small victory. I may have mentioned here the shame I feel about how little cooking I do, and how my every interaction with food is designed to minimize the time I spent around it when not actually eating it. Since I got back from London, I've been making myself eggs every morning. Going to the farmers’ market for them felt like the antithesis of bingeing, in that if bingeing is about as much as possible as fast as possible, a farmers’ market is about having the best possible version of whatever it is you’re going to eat because you’re not going to have a lot of it. I even allowed myself to imagine there might come a day where I know all these vendors and chat to them. 

Day 21. 

Thursday 10 September 2015

Day Sixteen

I spent half the workout class I took today (Precision Running at Equinox) deciding whether to say hello to someone I knew in the front row who I haven’t seen in awhile. I hate this part of having gained so much weight – this shame about being seen. I wish I could hide for a couple of months, but honestly, there may not be much difference in a couple of months, because my top priority is just not to binge.


Today was a perfectly on-plan day and out of curiosity, I tried on a dress that I bought in May. Ugh. It’s tight. Not good. (It was always on the fitted side, but now it’s unwearably so.) Then again, what did I expect? Though I haven’t binged these past couple of weeks, they’ve been messy.

Wednesday 9 September 2015

Day Fifteen

I went out tonight in part because I got my hair cut, and it depresses me to sit home and waste a really awesome blowout.

I wish I had somewhere really fun to be, but instead I went -- fairly reluctantly, it must be said -- to a pre-fashion week event. I say "fairly reluctantly" because I feel enormous, and although these events are useful for running into editors and otherwise meeting people, I don't want to run into editors or otherwise meet people. I want to hide behind my computer and not leave until I'm at least a size or two smaller. Which isn't going to happen anytime soon.

There was wine and vodka drinks and passed appetizers, but I ignored all of it. It helped that it was so unbelievably hot in there that all I wanted to do was escape. Like, seriously, the sweat was dripping down my legs. I'd have felt worse about it -- blaming it on my size -- except absolutely everyone was schvitzing. The event included a presale shop for a collection that hasn't been released yet and is expected to be popular, but beautiful as the clothes were, I couldn't even think about trying on anything in that heat. Anyway, I don't need anything, and don't particularly want to buy much at this size, per usual.

Got home and decided I should post more regularly to remind myself that sometimes I really do make good choices, like not standing around drinking on a random Tuesday night. Wondering if posting more frequently will make me any more accountable or just more boring?

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Fourteen Days

Considering what I ate this weekend – fried food, cheese, carrot cake et al – it’s strange that I’m calling it a success.

I came close multiple times, including yesterday, sitting at Veselka with a friend, ready to sneak off to the “bathroom” (read: the corner shop) to take the edge off. But I didn’t. And after the pierogies (fried), the blintzes with raspberry sauce, the sour cream, and the chocolate-dipped rugelach, I briefly debated carrying on eating. But I didn’t. Not a single thing.

Today, my friend we’ll call Cat yesterday had suggested we drink the prosecco a friend had given her. Some nice, lazy daytime drinking. But I chose not to. Daytime drinking usually leads to daytime grazing, which leads to bingeing. And I already don’t feel like myself these days – I don’t need to add a hangover and post-binge on top of it. I wavered a bit about midday, thinking how nice it would be for the day to disappear in a pleasant haze. And then I realized it wouldn’t, because Cat – an old friend from college who’s recently resurfaced -- isn’t that kind of friend (a story for another time). Just so there was no going back, I booked myself into a 4.30 class at the sort of nutcase (and expensive) New York gym where 95 percent of the women have the sort of bodies where they work out in just sports bras (eek, I know).

I would really, really like to lose some weight. But for right now, I’ll have to be happy just not to binge.


Fourteen days.

Saturday 5 September 2015

This Close


This is how close I came to bingeing last night.

Truly, I don’t know how I didn’t.

I was restless yesterday, thinking I would have a quiet night in and then feeling both hungry and like I wanted to do something a bit more celebratory, since it was a three-day weekend. Not that three-day weekends mean much when you work for yourself, but anyway.

A friend texted to say she was in the neighborhood, and so we went to a wine bar. It used to be I had willpower of steel and could avoid food when I was out so I could go home and eat my planned meal, but I just cannot anymore. And so we had a bit of cheese, bread and nuts. Nothing terrible, but not paleo. Halfway through the bottle of Riesling I was already thinking about a binge. And then I texted another friend to join us, and we drank more (but didn’t eat more) and then the first friend left.

I was thinking about suggesting to Friend #2 that we go for dinner, since she hadn’t eaten. But after we walked F1 to the subway at Union Square, we stood there looking at each other uncertainly. I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to eat (meaning, with another person, as opposed to what I could shove down my gob in private), and I didn’t want any more to drink. We ended up parting ways, and I thought about pizza and doughnuts (the above-mentioned Dough) and all manner of stuff.

And then I thought about how much better I would feel if I could wake up the next morning not having binged. And I told myself I could even eat my regular dinner when I got home, if I wanted to. And slowly I turned around and walked south instead of north (toward the doughnut shop). I passed a pizza place and a gelato shop and so many other food places I stopped counting. Ice cream cones people carried leaped out at me.


And then I got home and went to bed. Day 12. 

Sunday 30 August 2015

Day Seven

Something strange happened this morning: I couldn’t finish my pancakes.
And then something stranger happened: I stopped trying to.
You could say this is because I ate way more than I should have yesterday (and that it wasn’t paleo). But often eating too much (as opposed to bingeing) makes me hungrier the next morning. I don’t know what it was. I do know that it was hard not to finish the last pancake, because I was thinking: What if I’m hungry later? What if, at 11 or 3 or 5 or 9 pm I think: Fuck, I wish I’d eaten that pancake?
(It did make me glad I’d decided to limit my paleo pancake-eating to a once-a-week treat, and also glad that I’m going to start cooking more, so I know exactly what’s in what I’m eating.)
It was not a stellar weekend. Friday drinks turned into the sort of night where you’re not entirely sure how you got home, and I consumed nearly an entire can of almonds instead of dinner. Eeek. Saturday was a long-planned beach day where I gave up on the paleo idea and very nearly binged. There was a bit of secret eating – a sneak to the shop next door  when we had a longer-than-expected wait and I was getting grumpy – but it wasn’t a full-out binge, and it so SO easily could have been. Something strange happened this morning: I couldn’t finish my pancakes.
And then something stranger happened: I stopped trying to.
You could say this is because I ate way more than I should have yesterday (and that it wasn’t paleo). But often eating too much (as opposed to bingeing) makes me hungrier the next morning. I don’t know what it was. I do know that it was hard not to finish the last pancake, because I was thinking: What if I’m hungry later? What if, at 11 or 3 or 5 or 9 pm I think: Fuck, I wish I’d eaten that pancake?
(It did make me glad I’d decided to limit my paleo pancake-eating to a once-a-week treat, and also glad that I’m going to start cooking more, so I know exactly what’s in what I’m eating.)
It was not a stellar weekend. Friday drinks turned into the sort of night where you’re not entirely sure how you got home, and I consumed nearly an entire can of almonds instead of dinner. Eeek. Saturday was a long-planned beach day where I gave up on the paleo idea and very nearly binged. There was a bit of secret eating – a sneak to the shop next door when we had a longer-than-expected wait and I was getting grumpy – but it wasn’t a full-out binge, and it so easily could have been. (I had Devil Dogs, which taste exactly like chemical cream between styrofoam, and Drake's Pies, the apple version, which still taste pretty good though achingly sweet). So maybe not a gold star, but certainly a victory of sorts.