Saturday, December 6, 2014

I did indeed gobble till I wobbled

I admit it, I had the best of intentions about Thanksgiving eating. But good intentions aren't really worth much of anything. Part one of my plan went off without a hitch, but that's because part one of my plan involved eating whatever I wanted on Thanksgiving. And if I'm objective, this didn't actually involve me going crazy and shoving a whole turkey in my mouth or devouring a whole bowl of mashed potatoes. In all honesty, I just ate a moderate serving of everything. Even though that sounds fine, my stomach did not appreciate this at all because it was all rich stuff I am not used to. At this point though, I was still on track with the plan. Where the plan started to derail is when a couple hours later I decided to eat dessert (pumpkin cheesecake!) even though my stomach still felt horrible, just because I felt like I should have dessert and I wouldn't let myself have it the next day. So I ate that cheesecake and then headed to work, where I felt like my stomach was in revolt the whole night.

I wasn't tempted by the work goodies, not because of any superhuman willpower on my part, but because I honestly felt like I never wanted to eat anything ever again. I didn't really eat anything on Friday, so consequently on Saturday my stomach had recovered and I was absolutely starving. Upon arrival at my parents' house, I ate leftovers despite my vow not to do so. I mean, I did eat the turkey sandwich on whole grain bread and stayed away from the mashed potatoes, but I couldn't say no to the stuffing. It had celery and apples in it so it was practically a health food, right? Haha, I wish. This continued through the weekend, me not binging in any way, but not sticking to my regular diet either. What was really stupid is that my stomach continued to feel horrible the whole time, and while I knew full well that returning to what I normally ate would cure it completely, I still ate junk. Not because I was hungry sometimes, but just because I wanted to. I even continued to track what I ate in my handy app, and just kind of shrugged when I saw the calorie count. I kind of felt like I was being a masochist for even wanting to know the calorie count for some of it (does anyone really want to know just how many calories are in mashed potatoes?), but I track no matter what.


Some days I wasn't even over my calorie limit, but I knew the type of food I was eating was not doing my body any favors. And by Sunday, I had gotten to that dangerous place where I thought, "I weigh in Wednesday. The week is shot anyway. I'll just get back on track then." NO, NO, NO....what was I thinking?!? That is such a slippery slope!

So Wednesday morning came, and obviously I knew I had gained. I'm just not the type of person who can eat junk and not gain. But by that time, sanity had returned and I gave myself a talk that I was quite proud of. I told myself that the important thing was that I was owning the number on the scale, whatever it was, and not hiding from it. That whatever the scale said, it wasn't something that I couldn't overcome. That while it was important that I realize where I went wrong, it was equally as important that I didn't continue to beat myself up over it. So I hopped on and saw that 4.6 lb gain. I admit it, part of me resented that number, mainly because I knew some people could have eaten what I did and not gained an ounce. I threw a tiny pity party and thought, "Why can't I have a super human metabolism?" And then a minute later, I was all about getting back on track and doing what was right for my body, not everyone else's.

Luckily for me, part of that gain appeared to have been from excess sodium intake, since by the next day (after consuming tons of water), I had already magically lost a pound and a half. I've been totally back to normal since Wednesday and it feels great to me physically and mentally. Part of me is upset that even after all this time, I still can't seem to get it through my head sometimes that while eating junk feels good while you eat it, it's just not worth it for all the misery afterwards. It's tempting to beat myself up for not completely figuring everything out 2.5 years after I started all this. But I continue to be a work in progress and I always will be. Yes, I ate more than I planned, but I also didn't binge at all, which was not the case 3 years ago. I also continued to run every single day just I normally do. I've come such a long way, and one Thanksgiving weekend can't erase all that I've accomplished.

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