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....

Hurrah! I went out and it was OK!

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on Thur post. It really helps to know there are other people out there rooting for me like that.

Today was an amazing and quite strange day. I inadvertently, and possibly only for one day, broke my reliance on carbs. This is amazing. I've tried in the past to do it and failed. But today I had no choice and actually enjoyed it! This is the weirdest thing ever. Yes. I enjoyed today. With only one bowl of Readybrek. Normally this would be unthinkable.

But really I can very little credit for this. It's down to the fact that I only had one bowl left in the packet and just enough milk for a meaningful splash of it on top. I did have sugar on it. But when that bowl was done, that was that. I couldn't have any more because there wasn't any more.

But I was OK. I had an L-glutamine tablet (1g) before breakfast because it really does stop hunger. Of course I don't take them when I'm in bingeing mode because I just want to eat and don't want to be stopped (which shows how much it is all in the head). But I thought I'd better take one today as a precaution against having no food and not being able to get any until the evening. And it worked. I also had another in the afternoon. Just to make sure.

And for lunch I ate what I had which was a little tinned salmon with a tin of green beans, some mushrooms and a few baked beans with some fat free dressing on top and a bit of pepper. And I really enjoyed that little meal for some reason. I was just so grateful I had something to eat.

The entire contents of my fridge were now: jar of mint sauce, jar of pickled green peppers, some red chillies - completely dried out, and a tube of tomato puree. So I decided to take advantage of this to defrost the fridge. It had needed doing for a long time. I just couldn't be bothered before, but today I decided "I will get that damn freezer section door to open again!" and after about 3 hours with a hairdryer and water getting all over the floor I did finally get it done.

Then I had another little meal identical to the earlier one except no green beans.

Then I read blogs for quite a while.

I had been hungry all the time I was doing the fridge, and having the freezer section operable again gave me thoughts of Carte d'Or ice cream. And I was genuinely hungry. Real hunger. Not just blood sugar all over the place type of hunger. And I started to get really really worried that when I got out in the evening I would buy all the wrong food. I started to get bingey thoughts.

I knew if I bought a load of rubbish, all the stuff I've been through over the last almost 2 weeks in weening myself off the sugary/fatty food would have been for nothing and I'd either carry on bingeing for a few more weeks or have to start the process of getting myself off it again. Either way bingeing today would have been a huge set back.

But reading all the blogs really helped. Knowing that there are so many other people out there trying so hard not to binge - that helped. And when I read Sean's Thurs post just before I went out that helped too - that what you want to achieve has to be more important than the bingeing.

And when I put my black trousers on to go out they were a little bit loose on the leg - I mean there was room to actually walk in them without feeling totally trussed up! Whereas in the last couple of weeks I have really worried that they were going to tear apart while I was outside. Of course, they're not looser because I lost some weight. It's just that the weather has turned and is much fresher and cooler the last couple of days than it has been. I retain a huge amount of water on my legs in warm weather - they really balloon up. But now it's cooler the water has come off. Wat-er relief! Even though I know it's only the hotweatherwater going it still made me feel that I can't turn my back on this. I want this feeling - of going down, of getting smaller - to carry on.

But when I was walking to the shop I was still thinking I might binge. I might buy all those foods again and end up back in it again.

When I got to the shop I made the right choices and it wasn't that difficult. The reduced section almost got me - but I managed to buy only healthy non-bingeing foods.

For my evening meal I had an all veg curry with a piece of haddock. And really enjoyed it.

So I'm ending today on a high. So happy that I enjoyed the healthy food. I wish I could eat like this every day - small meals consisting mainly of fish and veg. It would be a dream come true.

So for the moment not being able to go out has worked in my favour.

Chris suggested that perhaps I could exercise indoors but unfortunately I don't have room for an exercise machine. Not that my flat is too small per se but that I already have far too much other stuff in it. But I have started doing one or two toning exercises again. These involve press ups and an exercise I know as "the plank" which is the only way I know of tightening and toning that lower tummy area that sit ups don't seem to touch. You get into position as for a press up - arms can be straight or bent if you are able. Then lift one leg off the floor (or bed as that's where I do it) and move it out to the side as far as will go and then back 20 times keeping it at the same height all the time. Then 20 with the other leg. Sounds easy? Non my friend! It is very difficult. But a miracle worker. If you have a saggy lower tummy you will notice the difference in days just doing this once a day. If you can bear the pain, do it morning and night. Earlier this year I was also doing 80 stomach crunches - 50 straight and 30 twisting to opposite knee - twice a day (I built up slowly to that obviously) and also various leg exercises. I do all these lying on my bed. It's the comfiest way!

Bingeing hell; time to return to normal life

Just seen some research which explains why bingeing is so addictive - it creates opioids in areas of the brain linked to that behaviour (see http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159011.php . I have noticed that I literally get a hit from eating fatty sugary food. And that I can cut out this hit by using orlistat. It takes two to three days for this to happen but then I don't crave it anymore.

I take two or three capsules per binge or sometimes more (this is an overdose but it is only for 2 to 3 days). I break the capsules open and tap the powder out onto a spoon to take because the colouring in the capsules (bright blue) makes me feel quite ill. Also this enables the stuff to get to work straight away which means the maximum amount of fat is absorbed, which is important for this method to work.

So, knowing this, why don't I just take the orlistat? I almost did this evening after consuming a magnum double caramel, a galaxy bar, a box of Milk Tray, a box of cherry and chocolate biscuits and a packet of Party Rings. But I just couldn't do it.

Why?

I have been massively overeating, bingeing and literally eating all day long for the past 5 weeks. It's feeling really awful now. So many times I have desperate to stop. I have begged myself to stop, but just been unable.

It's like being led through life like a beast with a ring through it's nose; dragged along by my blood sugar levels, and the need for a fat hit in my brain.

But now I feel like a complete mess. I've put on loads of weight and I'm covered in horrible itchy psoriasis. So I am a wobbly blotchy itchy mess.

Everything has been subserviant to the out of control toddler (the uncontrollable Id). I've only been cleaning my teeth twice a week. I've been eating in the night, going to bed in the middle of the night, only washed my hair three times in the last five weeks. The toddler complains everytime I even have to get up out of the chair or go to the loo. Doing anything at all becomes very difficult. Apart from eating of course.

JC (Jonathan Cainer) is always right of course - my horoscope says that it's no good eating 2 meals now just because you were hungry earlier and had nothing to eat. He suggests I now move on from the recent trauma. He is so right! I need to move on from here.

I am at the stage now where it's all in the shopping. If I don't buy the food I can't eat it. Simple as that. It's just a case of being strong while I go round the supermarket and not popping out to the convenience store late a night to stock up on rubbish.

I say 'popping out' as though it's the easiest thing in the world but as a sufferer from agoraphobia it is only a very strong desire for food that would drive me out in the first place! But if I have enough good or 'safe' food in then I won't step over the threshold in any hurry.

It's definitely time to move on from here and return to normal life, rather than just sitting around eating.