Tuesday 1 September 2009

A Bad Day

I went out early today to do my shopping - and didn't find it too difficult to get out or be out. When the agoraphobia isn't 100% full on, I can manage very early, before most other people are around, or very late. It's just the 12 hours in between that I have the problem with.

Anyway, I've been so worried recently about not getting out and continually running out of food, that I made sure I wouldn't run out in the near future by buying loads and loads and loads. I think you can probably already imagine the rest before I tell you ...

A lot of bloggers complain that they are good all day and then binge in the evening. But I'd say although it's bad to binge any time of the day or night it's much worse to binge first thing in the morning because then your blood sugar is kaput for the whole day.

And yes Chris I do that multiple slices of toast with sugar free jam thing too. So I'm typing with jammy fingers. My laptop will suffer a certain amount of crumb infiltration if I'm not careful now ...

Just searched for "adult education (my town)" and came up with

"Naughty (my town) Wifes [sic]
Husband Out For Work: You In For
Naughty Pleasure. Join For Free"
Is that educational? Sadly I'm not married.
Anyway, why the binge? A certain amount of domestic stress - I won't go into the details. This is really annoying; that any even fairly medium sized stressor can set off the bingeing. I've only had about 3 hours of sleep each of the last two nights which is a very bad sign in retrospect.
The only good I can draw from this is that most of the food I've been eating is not of the fatty and/or sugary variety. The one or two items of fatty food that I did have provided no "hit" for me. I was surprised that I didn't really enjoy them. This is due to breaking the fatty food addiction with orlistat. I ate the fatty and sugary things first of course and then threw about half back up and took orlistat for what was left to ensure that addiction didn't take hold again. But I still have a bad carb thing going on.
For the rest of the day I've been compulsively eating (without any vomiting) low fat carbs - multiple bowls of muesli, bananas, dates, sandwiches, large quantities of crumpets and toast with half fat soft cheese and all fruit spread ... Definitely better than the stuff I was eating in the previous bingeing weeks. But still way way way too much; leading to several hours this afternoon of scary severe stomach pain followed by near diarrhea.
With the physical consequences of this behaviour being so bad - not forgetting of course the obvious weight gain - it just hammers it home yet again that this is a mental illness. My body definitely doesn't want me to do all this to it. Yet at the time it was the only way of dealing with my stress, anxiety and depression. I did consider taking a tranquilizer - I have a few left over from some dental treatment I had last year - but it didn't appeal. Would have probably been the better thing to do though I'm thinking now.
The previous evening I had dealt with the stress by drinking alcohol. Better than eating and don't worry I'm in no danger of being an alcoholic - I can't tolerate very much alcohol at all. I only had about 3 units worth. I did consider - at least I was considering the other options to eating I'm thinking now - I did consider having a drink this morning but couldn't do it. My body just doesn't like alcohol that much. But then it doesn't like vast quantities of food that much either lol!
Hopefully, as the stressor has now receded, I will calm down in the next few days and manage to reduce my food intake to where it was. I had hoped to get back to my diet this week, but as I have to cut down gradually I can't see myself getting there until next week now which is really pissing me off.
All I can do is try to stay calm and keep going....

6 comments:

  1. Hi FOTB,

    Sorry to hear you are in struggle mode. I hear what you're saying about better to only binge at night than in the morning due to the blood sugar effects. For me, once I begin overeating things not on my plan, I really can't stop. So if I start in the morning, it's a long day of grazing through various food and texture groups. Better definitely if I wait until night time...at least the damage is controlled.

    As a recovering alcoholic (with 18 years sober), I just have to caution you to be careful with booze...it can be quite enticing and unfortunately an effective way to numb out. You say you're okay with it and I hope that's true. Just pay attention to your cravings.

    Hang in there - we can start our day over at any moment. Here's to a better one!

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  2. I wrote you a comment but it didn't go through.

    I've been struggling with cravings and such. I've tried to totally rewrite my paradigms around food. For me that hole sometimes I feel isn't really a hungry for food hole. It seems like it, and food will sedate it for a bit... but in the end it will open right back up and perhaps even get bigger.

    I'm struggling with that balance in enjoying food, but maintaining my power over it. It's simple to say the only power in food is what we give it... but realistically I mean why does Chinese food taste SOOO good?!!

    In the end we got to make this a fight for our very lives, because it just may be.

    It's all about food fights at foolsfitness!-Alan

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  3. I'm sorry to hear that your struggling. I have those days/weeks and it is so frustrating. I just finally started a new plan this past week, so far so good. However, I know I'll hit my wall, and the cravings will be on my mind 24/7. I am working with a couselor this time, keeping a journal and really trying to figure out what void I'm trying to fill when I get off on a feeding frenzy. I just have to stop.
    Sending you lots of support and friendship.

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  4. I'm sorry to hear you had a bad day, but you are still here and posting so think positive. You also said yourself that your binge wasn't as bad as previously, so you're making progress. One step at a time...

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  5. Hi again, FOTB,

    Thanks for your comment on my 09/03 post. I appreciate your thoughts, and can tell you that you're right about me still playing around sabotaging myself. I'm glad you said it. I guess I'm still feeling ambivalent about going lower in weight, but I'm not a bit unsure of not wanting to gain! I hope you're having some better days. Please stay in touch. I greatly appreciate your feedback!
    Leslie

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  6. Hi Bearfriend, I'm sorry I didn't post on this sooner - for some reason it didn't show up on my dashboard and I've only just found it. I know exactly what you mean about binging till your body starts just pushing it through and out, such a horrible state to be in and in my case it usually lasts for days after an 'episode'. I have a terrible tendency to be glad about that as it feels like my body is eliminating a poison or something (but given that I've slightly abused laxatives in the past I'm trying not to think that way about it). You are improving though, however little it feels like it... the food is healthier than before, which means that even with the unfortunate side effects your body will be getting some nutritional benefit from it instead of just a load of toxic sugar and fat. Don't turn to the booze though, if anything is guaranteed to make things worse its waking up in the morning feeling dehydrated and 'wrong headed' on top of everything else! Hang in there and things will get better, honestly they will...

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All comments gratefully appreciated!