I had a dream last night that I started bingeing. All I remember about it is that it involved two ice cream sandwiches, or maybe – quite probably -- it was my inability to decide between the two kinds that kicked off the binge. One looked like a homemade ice cream sandwich with flat all-chocolate biscuits (not my favorite) and ice cream flecked with something, possibly even mint (not a fan) and the other was the kind you can buy anywhere – I think vanilla between chocolate chip cookies. I don't remember anything else except the frustration, the exhaustion, the crushing disappointment of having to start all over again, too full.
And then I woke up.
This morning I caught sight of myself in the mirror and thought: I'm starting to feel more like myself. And then I thought: What does myself feel like? When you feel like yourself, what does that feel like?
Forgive me – it's 1 am and I'm tired and I had a disappointing not-quite date with Mr. Disappointment, who I have not seen since we first went out at the beginning of May. It's left me... well... a bit mixed up. Disappointed. Embarrassed. Sad. Maybe I'll pick it further apart tomorrow. Maybe I won't. Is this really who's left in the pool? Don't even tell me I just have to hang on a few more years for the refugees from divorces. Sigh.
Also today (or really, yesterday), I ran a mile today. My first since April and this bout with plantar fasciitis. I ran it slowly (10:26), not-too-painfully, continually scanning for any pain in my foot – and wondering how on earth I used to run multiples of these like it was no big deal.
Day 12.
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Monday, 16 July 2012
Word
Still suffering from an attack of the so-what-does-it-all-matter-anyways, which has spread to all aspects of my life.
Last week, for what might have been the first time ever, I spent 45 minutes a day working on a (silly chick-lit) novel I started years ago. Friday and yesterday I started thinking about (seemingly) insurmountable problems in the novel (or should I say chapter, because that's really all it is at this point). I thought about how many problems there are to solve in it, and what a waste of time all that problem-solving will be if I can't figure out what happens after the first couple of chapters. And anyway, even if I finish it will probably be a shitty chicklit novel that no one will publish, and even if someone does publish it probably it will have about 10 readers, maybe nine, since my grandmother is no longer around to buy one. And it won't be a big enough deal to review but if someone did...
I've very nearly talked myself out of bothering. And writing a novel has been something I have been talking about doing all my life.
And I know at least as well as anybody that writing does not happen until you put words down on paper. One after another. It is something I rue on evenings when I expect to be up all night writing articles – that unlike so many other jobs mine is not one that can be over when the clock strikes a certain time. And the half-doing my job only results in having to do it again and again until an editor says I've got it right.
Sometimes – usually – I write a whole lot of (crummy) stuff that (somewhat mournfully) I delete after I figure out what the hell it is I'm really trying to say. (The mourning, in my case, is not for the stunning prose but rather for how many hours went down the drain with each sentence I highlight and then apply the left-pointing arrow to.)
But I have no choice but to put one word down and then another and hopefully another. Minute by minute. Sentence by sentence. Step by step.
Meal by meal.
Day 11.
Last week, for what might have been the first time ever, I spent 45 minutes a day working on a (silly chick-lit) novel I started years ago. Friday and yesterday I started thinking about (seemingly) insurmountable problems in the novel (or should I say chapter, because that's really all it is at this point). I thought about how many problems there are to solve in it, and what a waste of time all that problem-solving will be if I can't figure out what happens after the first couple of chapters. And anyway, even if I finish it will probably be a shitty chicklit novel that no one will publish, and even if someone does publish it probably it will have about 10 readers, maybe nine, since my grandmother is no longer around to buy one. And it won't be a big enough deal to review but if someone did...
I've very nearly talked myself out of bothering. And writing a novel has been something I have been talking about doing all my life.
And I know at least as well as anybody that writing does not happen until you put words down on paper. One after another. It is something I rue on evenings when I expect to be up all night writing articles – that unlike so many other jobs mine is not one that can be over when the clock strikes a certain time. And the half-doing my job only results in having to do it again and again until an editor says I've got it right.
Sometimes – usually – I write a whole lot of (crummy) stuff that (somewhat mournfully) I delete after I figure out what the hell it is I'm really trying to say. (The mourning, in my case, is not for the stunning prose but rather for how many hours went down the drain with each sentence I highlight and then apply the left-pointing arrow to.)
But I have no choice but to put one word down and then another and hopefully another. Minute by minute. Sentence by sentence. Step by step.
Meal by meal.
Day 11.
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Still Fighting It
Today, in what I both suspect and fear will be a recurring theme, I had moments of despair, feeling that everything I'm doing is pointless.
So I'd like to get to 30 days without bingeing. But what happens after Day 30? Day 31.
It never ends. It will never end.
And frankly, today hasn't even been that much of a struggle.
I am very well aware of the benefits – both physical and psychological -- of not bingeing, of course. But sometimes, the times when I want to do it, I just don't care. And sometimes, like today, I actually mourn that I cannot do it. It's like thinking wistfully about a bad relationship (for the record, something I actually do not do in the case of BN2.)
***
I went back to yoga today, though not the studio with the horrendiferous class. My sweatworking date for the crap class runs a yoga newsletter, and she agreed with me that my neighborhood might be the only one in NYC that is not overflowing with studios. But she told me about a new one that recently opened, and when I Googled it, I discovered two teachers from my old yoga studio in midtown (the one where I'd do lunchtime yoga; now sadly closed anyway) now teach there. Half the battle with me and yoga these days has been that I can't work myself up to going when I'm not sure what I'm going to be getting into.
Today's class was 75 minutes of very gentle vinyasa flow that was both too gentle and slightly too long (I have yoga ADD; those 45 minutes lunchtime classes used to be ideal). But it felt good to get back on the mat, and I bought a new student special of unlimited classes for 30 days. If I go to just four classes it's already a good deal. I'm aiming for two a week.
Day 10.
So I'd like to get to 30 days without bingeing. But what happens after Day 30? Day 31.
It never ends. It will never end.
And frankly, today hasn't even been that much of a struggle.
I am very well aware of the benefits – both physical and psychological -- of not bingeing, of course. But sometimes, the times when I want to do it, I just don't care. And sometimes, like today, I actually mourn that I cannot do it. It's like thinking wistfully about a bad relationship (for the record, something I actually do not do in the case of BN2.)
***
I went back to yoga today, though not the studio with the horrendiferous class. My sweatworking date for the crap class runs a yoga newsletter, and she agreed with me that my neighborhood might be the only one in NYC that is not overflowing with studios. But she told me about a new one that recently opened, and when I Googled it, I discovered two teachers from my old yoga studio in midtown (the one where I'd do lunchtime yoga; now sadly closed anyway) now teach there. Half the battle with me and yoga these days has been that I can't work myself up to going when I'm not sure what I'm going to be getting into.
Today's class was 75 minutes of very gentle vinyasa flow that was both too gentle and slightly too long (I have yoga ADD; those 45 minutes lunchtime classes used to be ideal). But it felt good to get back on the mat, and I bought a new student special of unlimited classes for 30 days. If I go to just four classes it's already a good deal. I'm aiming for two a week.
Day 10.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Noticed
Noted: I have been crazy tired lately – struggling to get out of bed, and wanting a nap in the late afternoon (which I do not dare do because then I won't sleep later). Is this still detox, or heat, or a combination of both, or something else entirely? I'm not sleeping any less than I used to.
And breaking news: I must remember that when I eat lunch too late – and get too hungry – it never fills me up, even if it is a lunch that does the job reasonably well on other days. (Except at the very end of a binge, I can always, always eat more.) It makes for an uncomfortable afternoon, feeling like I'm just waiting for the hunger to pass, and reminds me of my days of starving – which makes me panic slightly. But that is future-tripping -- What if the hunger never passes? What if I'm hungry all day? – not living in the present.
It didn't help my hunger much that, buoyed by the fitting of one dress, I decided to try on a very fitted skirt that I could zip just before I left for London. It wasn't even on the same planet as fitting, sigh. I immediately felt hungry and wanted to eat. Noted.
Day nine. (Sorry, Lesley!)
And breaking news: I must remember that when I eat lunch too late – and get too hungry – it never fills me up, even if it is a lunch that does the job reasonably well on other days. (Except at the very end of a binge, I can always, always eat more.) It makes for an uncomfortable afternoon, feeling like I'm just waiting for the hunger to pass, and reminds me of my days of starving – which makes me panic slightly. But that is future-tripping -- What if the hunger never passes? What if I'm hungry all day? – not living in the present.
It didn't help my hunger much that, buoyed by the fitting of one dress, I decided to try on a very fitted skirt that I could zip just before I left for London. It wasn't even on the same planet as fitting, sigh. I immediately felt hungry and wanted to eat. Noted.
Day nine. (Sorry, Lesley!)
Friday, 13 July 2012
Change of a Dress
What a difference a dress makes.
All week I've been hiding out/slobbing around in my workout clothes or a maxidress, the latter of which, I was pretty sure, was the only dress I own that fits.
But yesterday I tried on a dress I wore a couple of weeks ago – including at the beginning of my time in London – and it fit. It is almost as forgiving as the maxidress, so I'm not 100 percent sure it didn't fit last week. All I know is that the last time I wore it it was a struggle to zip it, and when I binged that night, I thought I would bust the fitted waistline.
There is something to me that seems symbolic about fitting back into a dress, even if it's just one. I know I have written before about fearing I will never be able to stop eating, but I had not done anything like what I did in London since before late November 2006, when I began the journey that would bring me to lose nearly 100 pounds. I did binge my way through the TomKat wedding and then Thanksgiving in Italy, but really, the ceaseless London bingeing reminded me of the two weeks I spent at the Venice film festival in August/September 2005, when I put on nearly two sizes and didn't stop eating until I regained all the weight I'd lost sometime in 2004-early 2005.
I don't remember what I was doing in those days – presumably I would wake up after each binge hoping to diet, whereas these days, I am just trying not to binge. Nor can I remember if I ever scraped a day or two of healthy eating together – and at what point I gave in and grudgingly bought larger-sized clothes, just looking for anything that I was pretty sure would fit and get me out of the shop in minimal time. (And if it didn't fit in the size I'd decided I was, I definitely would not buy the next size up.) I hated the clothes and I hated myself for having to buy them and wear them.
I like this extra dress that fits me now. And luckily, it's a dress that can go anywhere, as my grandmother would say – I can wear it to a meeting or out at night. So I don't need to hide, which means lying about why I can't do things... which makes me feel crummy, and which may well make me binge.
Once upon a time I never wore that dress – I bought it in Venice in 2009, I believe, where half of it was supposed to be a birthday present from BN2. (He never paid me.) I brought it to my grandmother's apartment – I think I thought it needed tailoring – and promptly left it there. I didn't rediscover it until this past December, when my sister and I went to my grandmother's to start cleaning the place out.
I started wearing it this summer, hoping for happy memories bright enough to blot out the dress's sad origins in the wreckage of a disastrous relationship that never should have been rekindled, as it was, to some extent, in Venice. Yes, I wore the dress in June the night I met the Italian psychotherapist (did I blog about him?) who rode the wrong train home from a party to get my number. (Alas, that is now the best I have to say about him.) But now the dress will be, I hope, a talisman – and a very fitting reminder that bingeing doesn't have to be forever.
Day eight.
All week I've been hiding out/slobbing around in my workout clothes or a maxidress, the latter of which, I was pretty sure, was the only dress I own that fits.
But yesterday I tried on a dress I wore a couple of weeks ago – including at the beginning of my time in London – and it fit. It is almost as forgiving as the maxidress, so I'm not 100 percent sure it didn't fit last week. All I know is that the last time I wore it it was a struggle to zip it, and when I binged that night, I thought I would bust the fitted waistline.
There is something to me that seems symbolic about fitting back into a dress, even if it's just one. I know I have written before about fearing I will never be able to stop eating, but I had not done anything like what I did in London since before late November 2006, when I began the journey that would bring me to lose nearly 100 pounds. I did binge my way through the TomKat wedding and then Thanksgiving in Italy, but really, the ceaseless London bingeing reminded me of the two weeks I spent at the Venice film festival in August/September 2005, when I put on nearly two sizes and didn't stop eating until I regained all the weight I'd lost sometime in 2004-early 2005.
I don't remember what I was doing in those days – presumably I would wake up after each binge hoping to diet, whereas these days, I am just trying not to binge. Nor can I remember if I ever scraped a day or two of healthy eating together – and at what point I gave in and grudgingly bought larger-sized clothes, just looking for anything that I was pretty sure would fit and get me out of the shop in minimal time. (And if it didn't fit in the size I'd decided I was, I definitely would not buy the next size up.) I hated the clothes and I hated myself for having to buy them and wear them.
I like this extra dress that fits me now. And luckily, it's a dress that can go anywhere, as my grandmother would say – I can wear it to a meeting or out at night. So I don't need to hide, which means lying about why I can't do things... which makes me feel crummy, and which may well make me binge.
Once upon a time I never wore that dress – I bought it in Venice in 2009, I believe, where half of it was supposed to be a birthday present from BN2. (He never paid me.) I brought it to my grandmother's apartment – I think I thought it needed tailoring – and promptly left it there. I didn't rediscover it until this past December, when my sister and I went to my grandmother's to start cleaning the place out.
I started wearing it this summer, hoping for happy memories bright enough to blot out the dress's sad origins in the wreckage of a disastrous relationship that never should have been rekindled, as it was, to some extent, in Venice. Yes, I wore the dress in June the night I met the Italian psychotherapist (did I blog about him?) who rode the wrong train home from a party to get my number. (Alas, that is now the best I have to say about him.) But now the dress will be, I hope, a talisman – and a very fitting reminder that bingeing doesn't have to be forever.
Day eight.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
There's Only This
This morning in spin class, I was struck by a revelation: This second, this class, this feeling, this day, this week... this, too, shall pass.
Like pretty much every other sentient being on the planet, I have heard this about a bajillion times. But today, for the first time, I felt like I understood it – and I walked around like someone who had just gotten new glasses with a tweaked prescription. Everything seemed slightly sharper and clearer.
The past few days I had woken up unbelievably lethargic. This morning I didn't. Spin class seemed almost unbearable my first day back; today it was hard but the day when I get back to my previous level of fitness didn't seem so far off. Similarly, there are things – things that happened last week, last month, last year – that caused me such pain and discomfort I thought I'd never forget them. Sure, there are a few things from years ago that still stab me – for which the pain, hurt, or shame still seems as fresh as the day it happened – but mostly, not so much. And I say this as someone with an excellent memory.
When I received an e-mail from an editor saying I had until 2.30 pm (at the time, less than 45 minutes away) to make any final changes on a story, I got a little stressed, but nowhere near previous levels. This afternoon, while waiting for the story to be posted (I always panic a bit, especially when the subject matter, as this one was, is controversial). Plus, um, it's the freakin' New York Times. Lots of times when I write something I can pretend no one will ever see it. I don't think that's the case here.
Anyway.
Later on today, around 4.30 pm, when I knew the story would be posted within hours, I tried not to sit around – as I usually would – wasting time because I couldn’t focus. This will all be over soon, I told myself. I wasted some time, sure, but I also did a little cleaning. Progress.
I headed out to a press event at 6 pm: caponyasa (a fusion of the Brazilian martial art capoeira and vinyasa yoga) on a rooftop poolside, with stunning views of the river. I felt fat, shy and uncomfortable among a crowd of women's magazine editors (both fitness ones and possibly worse, fashion ones, because there was a runway show scheduled for after the caponyasa). My palms hurt. My left foot hurt. I was the biggest person there and in the most un-chic (and mismatching) workout clothes. Every minute it was something else. But I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the experience as best I could.
I made a snap and possibly unwise decision to stay for the dinner: a vegan sushi buffet. I am a disaster at buffets, and sushi (like tapas) I find particularly difficult to guess what's a portion. And vegan sushi? I mean, just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's low in calories. (Consider, for example, raw foods – I found out that a particular raw dish I used to buy is 800 calories. "We don't publicize that," the company owner told me. Gee, I can't imagine why not.)
I think I ate about 15 pieces, panicking slightly because I was still hungry. I'm going to be hungry all night, I thought, and it's only 7.45. I bet I'm going to wake up hungry in the middle of the night. The last time I woke up hungry in the middle of the night I ended up bingeing. I regretted the decision to stay for the food. I thought about what else I could eat. Then I brought my attention back to the conversation. It worked, briefly.
When I left I thought again about what I could eat, and whether I should eat. The night stretched out ahead of me, and I thought briefly about the amount of damage I could do in the three-ish hours until bedtime. (Hell, I can do a crazy amount of damage in about 10 minutes.) I walked up Hudson Street and bought a pear. It wasn't ripe enough and as I ate it I felt slightly resentful.
This, too, shall pass.
Day seven.
Like pretty much every other sentient being on the planet, I have heard this about a bajillion times. But today, for the first time, I felt like I understood it – and I walked around like someone who had just gotten new glasses with a tweaked prescription. Everything seemed slightly sharper and clearer.
The past few days I had woken up unbelievably lethargic. This morning I didn't. Spin class seemed almost unbearable my first day back; today it was hard but the day when I get back to my previous level of fitness didn't seem so far off. Similarly, there are things – things that happened last week, last month, last year – that caused me such pain and discomfort I thought I'd never forget them. Sure, there are a few things from years ago that still stab me – for which the pain, hurt, or shame still seems as fresh as the day it happened – but mostly, not so much. And I say this as someone with an excellent memory.
When I received an e-mail from an editor saying I had until 2.30 pm (at the time, less than 45 minutes away) to make any final changes on a story, I got a little stressed, but nowhere near previous levels. This afternoon, while waiting for the story to be posted (I always panic a bit, especially when the subject matter, as this one was, is controversial). Plus, um, it's the freakin' New York Times. Lots of times when I write something I can pretend no one will ever see it. I don't think that's the case here.
Anyway.
Later on today, around 4.30 pm, when I knew the story would be posted within hours, I tried not to sit around – as I usually would – wasting time because I couldn’t focus. This will all be over soon, I told myself. I wasted some time, sure, but I also did a little cleaning. Progress.
I headed out to a press event at 6 pm: caponyasa (a fusion of the Brazilian martial art capoeira and vinyasa yoga) on a rooftop poolside, with stunning views of the river. I felt fat, shy and uncomfortable among a crowd of women's magazine editors (both fitness ones and possibly worse, fashion ones, because there was a runway show scheduled for after the caponyasa). My palms hurt. My left foot hurt. I was the biggest person there and in the most un-chic (and mismatching) workout clothes. Every minute it was something else. But I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the experience as best I could.
I made a snap and possibly unwise decision to stay for the dinner: a vegan sushi buffet. I am a disaster at buffets, and sushi (like tapas) I find particularly difficult to guess what's a portion. And vegan sushi? I mean, just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's low in calories. (Consider, for example, raw foods – I found out that a particular raw dish I used to buy is 800 calories. "We don't publicize that," the company owner told me. Gee, I can't imagine why not.)
I think I ate about 15 pieces, panicking slightly because I was still hungry. I'm going to be hungry all night, I thought, and it's only 7.45. I bet I'm going to wake up hungry in the middle of the night. The last time I woke up hungry in the middle of the night I ended up bingeing. I regretted the decision to stay for the food. I thought about what else I could eat. Then I brought my attention back to the conversation. It worked, briefly.
When I left I thought again about what I could eat, and whether I should eat. The night stretched out ahead of me, and I thought briefly about the amount of damage I could do in the three-ish hours until bedtime. (Hell, I can do a crazy amount of damage in about 10 minutes.) I walked up Hudson Street and bought a pear. It wasn't ripe enough and as I ate it I felt slightly resentful.
This, too, shall pass.
Day seven.
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Chasing Rainbows
Sometime in the past week, I realized I've been chasing an impossible dream: the perfect binge.
As I sat on the airplane and wondered until what time the Magnolia Bakery was open and if I could make it there in time, I briefly considered what else I could and should eat before I started Day 1 of not bingeing. But I was landing at 10 pm on July 4, and I doubted much would be open by the time I got to New York. (I could still binge, of course, but everything I wanted might not be available.) I thought about how hard it would be to write the story I had to write if I woke up still full from a binge, and about how frustrated I'd be to feel that way and still not have had the perfect binge.
I thought about not bingeing, and it is here that I have another resentment to add to the pile: That what I am hoping was my last binge ever (the one the morning of July 4 in London) was not the perfect one, and that possibly the very last truly crappy unnecessary thing I may ever eat was an overly sugary piece of chocolate that was part of an airplane meal.
It was then that I realized the perfect binge is a fiction that just keeps me bingeing. What is the perfect binge, and why haven't I discovered it by now? And why, why, why – when nothing else in the world stops me – do I think I will suddenly stop bingeing if only I could achieve it?
***
I'd like to say there's nothing worse than a really bad yoga class, except obviously there are plenty of things much worse than that.
But a truly awful yoga class just sucks.
I took one today. It was unfortunate, because I haven't done yoga in ages, and this wasn't the reintroduction I had in mind.
It was a "vinyasa boot camp," and there was neither vinyasa nor boot camp. It was just lame. And if I'd wanted naptime yoga, which this sort of was (but not the good, I-also-feel-stretched-out kind), I wouldn't have chosen this particular teacher, who seemed to think she was some sort of comedienne.
I was particularly annoyed because she arrived nearly 20 minutes late, without so much as an apology. And I didn't have time to go and do a(nother) workout.
I muddled through today. Day six.
As I sat on the airplane and wondered until what time the Magnolia Bakery was open and if I could make it there in time, I briefly considered what else I could and should eat before I started Day 1 of not bingeing. But I was landing at 10 pm on July 4, and I doubted much would be open by the time I got to New York. (I could still binge, of course, but everything I wanted might not be available.) I thought about how hard it would be to write the story I had to write if I woke up still full from a binge, and about how frustrated I'd be to feel that way and still not have had the perfect binge.
I thought about not bingeing, and it is here that I have another resentment to add to the pile: That what I am hoping was my last binge ever (the one the morning of July 4 in London) was not the perfect one, and that possibly the very last truly crappy unnecessary thing I may ever eat was an overly sugary piece of chocolate that was part of an airplane meal.
It was then that I realized the perfect binge is a fiction that just keeps me bingeing. What is the perfect binge, and why haven't I discovered it by now? And why, why, why – when nothing else in the world stops me – do I think I will suddenly stop bingeing if only I could achieve it?
***
I'd like to say there's nothing worse than a really bad yoga class, except obviously there are plenty of things much worse than that.
But a truly awful yoga class just sucks.
I took one today. It was unfortunate, because I haven't done yoga in ages, and this wasn't the reintroduction I had in mind.
It was a "vinyasa boot camp," and there was neither vinyasa nor boot camp. It was just lame. And if I'd wanted naptime yoga, which this sort of was (but not the good, I-also-feel-stretched-out kind), I wouldn't have chosen this particular teacher, who seemed to think she was some sort of comedienne.
I was particularly annoyed because she arrived nearly 20 minutes late, without so much as an apology. And I didn't have time to go and do a(nother) workout.
I muddled through today. Day six.
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