I said I’d write more later while I was blogging from my phone in the middle of last night. Here’s the thing:
I saw my psychologist on Tuesday, and as we talked, I explained that although some things have come up that are stressors, physically I am doing much better about taking care of myself, such as taking my medicine and checking my blood sugars, and I’m trying to spend a little more time doing self-care and find a balance between work, my friends’ needs, and my own. I off-handedly mentioned that in addition to sending my endocrinologist my blood sugar values and medicine doses each week, I’d flipped the page over and taken last week and written down everything I’d eaten. I’ve tried to do that using phone applications, and I do really well for breakfast and lunch, especially on weekdays, but then slack off after work. Well, writing things down by hand seemed somehow to make things more ‘real’, and I didn’t let up on my resolve to get everything in. And what stared back at me in cold, hard truth, is that I binge eat at night, something I knew, but desperately tried to ignore or deny to myself, and something I’ve never really talked to anyone about, but I know my best friend knows, and occasionally he’ll make allusions to it. But I don’t remember ever really talking openly to him about it. And it is worse the ‘better’ I am at keeping track or limiting things during the day. It’s like I keep it together all day and then have a calorie blowout, several times a week, almost always at night.
My counselor gave me one of those Health Monitor booklets on binge-eating to go through. It gives the symptoms, treatments, and stories of people who overcame it. I was embarrassed, but I took it. I didn’t actually read it until the next day, when I had some quiet time. Since dieting seemed to make it worse, but many people who binge eat do need to lose weight, I was interested in how I should go about doing it. So what does a librarian do when faced with something like this? Of course, she looks for books. I remembered taking a class years ago through work with a book called
You Count, Calories Don’t. I still have that. I also found a couple of books at the library that sounded promising, one on intuitive eating (mindfully paying attention to hunger and eating for sustenance and to ease hunger, rather than mindless eating), and I also saw one on binge-eating. There were also a couple of e-books that looked good, and I put holds on them. But there was one I could get through the library called
The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, (which was the result of a
blog by that name) and that one I downloaded, and I began to read. The author,
Shauna Reid, is Australian, growing up in a rural area on farm. But there were a lot of similarities in terms of our family life, our relationship with food, and so on. I only read the first couple of chapters that gave the background to the problem. The rest is about her quest to find the person who had been eclipsed by all that weight (she weighed even more than I do). I’m still reading. But it was like a giant lump rose in my throat after reading what I had. I can’t say it was truly an epiphany; it’s not like I didn’t know I overate. But just how much of my psyche was damaged with food as my main source of easing my issues hadn’t really sunk in. Now it did, and it took me aback.
So that evening I went to the Tates Creek library and checked out the two physical books that looked good, and then I went over and picked up A so we could try to work out at my complex gym (a tale in and of itself, and a humourous one at that, but I won’t go into it quite yet). Afterwards, we went by the store and he ran in and got a few groceries they needed. On the way to his house, I told him about my bingeing. Now, A is in a programme himself to deal with some of his issues, and the first thing he said after I confessed it was, ‘it’s good that you’re talking about it; that’s how to get through things that concern us.’ Basically, I was taking a first step to recovery, if you want to call it that.
So tonight I plan to do some reading. But also, today, I’ve tried to be mindful in my food choices. Nothing’s been forbidden per se, but I have mostly made healthier choices, and yet I didn’t feel like I was depriving myself of anything. All in all, I ate less than normal. And at lunch I saved a couple of items completely and ate them later in the day because my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so to speak—even though I had a late breakfast due to an appointment with my podiatrist, I got stuff that sounded good, but then, when I was full—and I was paying close attention to it—I simply stopped eating, and then took my food and asked one of the cafeteria workers to wrap it for me. I ate a side dish as a snack later in the day, and then ate the rest of the main dish right before I left work and went to physical therapy. So that was good. And then after PT tonight I ran by the store to get YKWIA milk, and did a little grocery shopping, and I did buy one sweet thing (pumpkin and chocolate chip cookies). Everything else was healthy. While I gave myself permission to eat the cookies even though they’re sweet and fattening, I only ate two, because 1) I’d become full after my dinner and 2) I felt okay just eating the two, not like I had to eat a whole box for some reason. Fortunately it’s also payday; the lower my food gets in the house, the more I actually eat, out of panic, rather than rationing, which is what most people would do. So that’s where I am right now, pleasantly full on two (not three) small burritos, some fruit, and two cookies, as opposed to last night, where I had a box of macaroni and cheese (that’s three servings), a can of vegetarian chili, a can of lima beans, two veggie burgers with cheese, and the Kroger version of Nutella, right out of the jar. It was crazy—and that was after being told about the eating disorder and recognising that I have it. It’s actually been worse before.
Treatment normally consists of cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy (which I’ve undergone before, and still have the manual to fall back on and practice with), as well as other forms of therapy with a mental health professional. Also, there is one medicine that has been approved for it, but I’m not sure it would be good for me to be on it. On the one hand, it is also used for ADHD, which I have, but in people who are bipolar or depressed, it can make symptoms worse, including suicidal ideation. It’s also a controlled substance, being a type of amphetamine, meaning that to be on it, you have to pee in a cup every month, or at least that’s what someone I know does to keep his Adderall prescription going.
So that’s my story. In order to be healthy, I need to not focus on losing weight, but rather take a look at my relationship with food (and exercise) and come up with a plan for weight loss based not on the calories, or the scale, or the like, but rather being mindful, reducing distractions, and making better choices both in food and activity. The last time I lost a significant amount of weight, I wasn’t really trying, but I think I did those things, until I got stressed and fell back into old habits. So here’s to taking what one paper I read called a ‘weight-inclusive’ view towards healthy weight and how to attain it and ‘normative weight’, meaning all the stuff we hear about diets, etc. Both require dedication and someone who enjoys trying to improve life, no matter how much of an uphill battle it seems to be. I must do everything in my power to become that person.
Okay, this is a long post—time to sign off for the night. I’m getting a little sleepy, despite some late caffeine. Good night.
