I am really disgusted with myself. AGAIN. Last night's food list posted above looks bad enough, but I know there was more. I don't know what was wrong with me yesterday. I was ravenous at lunch time and ate more than I needed. Then, I had the opportunity to get home at a reasonable hour and cook for DS, who wanted hamburger helper. So, I broiled a large steak for me and DH and ate 1/3 of it. And that really should have been all I ate. I really wanted to be good, eat a sensible dinner and not eat anything after 7pm in the hopes of having a good weigh in this morning. Instead I binged and ate and ate and ate. Oh, now I remember what else I ate -- about 4 points worth of fat free pretzels.
When I stepped on the scale this morning, it was up 3 pounds from yesterday morning and I KNOW a lot of that was because of the outrageous amounts of sodium in the pretzels and the hamburger helper. But it was also the result of my binging. Just pathetic. So, I chickened out and used my no weigh in pass at WW. I thought it was more important to go to the meeting than to skip it because of my fear of the scale.
The meeting was helpful. The third part of a 3 week series on "Triggers". We've explored
1. food as triggers. It turns out that some foods that should be green light have become red light or maybe yellow for me, because I tend to overeat, perhaps because I have to get through my head that even healthy foods should not be eaten in overabundance.
2. emotions as triggers. I thought I ate mostly out of "stress", but learned that is an umbrella emotion probably made up of some combination of anxiety and frustration and worry in my life. But the reality is that stress is not really present at home at night when I am really binging and so the overeating at night might really be more habitual and perhaps, even some boredom or avoidance.
3. environment as trigger. Although going out is a dangerous situation for me, I have demonstrated I can order the right things in restaurants when I make the effort. And I have definitely controlled my environment at work to only have healthy foods in the fridge and in my credenza drawer. I even have almost exclusively healthy foods at home. So the issue isn't the foods in the environnment being the trigger, but more likely the emotions I feel in that particular environment. In fact, I do get home, breathe a sigh of relief and think "I deserve to relax now and eat whatever I want" and I have formed the HORRIBLE habits of eating at the kitchen table while reading a book OR eating at the computer. These are the habits I must break in order to NOT sabotage my efforts every single night.
So, I've decided to take some steps and make some commitments to myself. We started an 8 week goal challenge at WW today. It is almost 8 weeks to June 1 (when the WW week started Sunday, that was really the start of the 8 weeks). We had to write down a goal to reach by June 1. I wrote down 3:
1. I want to be below 1__0 by June 1 (down into the next "decade" -- as of this morning, that is 11 pounds, but more likely about 8). It shouldn't be hard to do.
2. I want to be comfortable (physically and mentally) wearing a pair of blue island print capris I bought last summer. This will require time at the gym and good eating, but also getting over a mental hurdle about people looking at this "fat girl" and thinking I shouldnt' be wearing such cute clothes
3. I want to make it to every single WW meeting between now and then and not skip any out of fear of the scale.
Now, the plan for how to meet those goals:
1. I bought a 3 month journal and I intend to journal every bite in it, regardless of what I've eaten, how many points it is, and even if I don't have time to journal on line. I am going to put it on the island in the kitchen when I get home and I am going to write down every bite I eat each night.
2. I am NOT going to read a book while I eat at the dinner table.
3. I am NOT going to eat in front of the computer.
Those are my goals and my strategies for getting there.
I continue to keep my fingers crossed for you & the Minnie.
Go Cam!
I know that you CAN accomplish each and every one of them!
