This is long. I don't expect anyone to read though it, but I felt the need to get this on "paper." :)
Wow, did I binge eat last night.
I do realize that all things are relative, and compared to how I binged 2 years ago, last night was barely a drop in the bucket. But for who I am now, it was a BINGE.
I went to dinner with a friend and had salmon teriyaki bento box. Nom nom nom. I ate well but couldn't finish the entire entree. I ate all the salmon and shumai but left al least half of everything else. Good deal.
Then we went to a play, which was awesome. On the way home, I stopped at Walmart for cat food and generally wandered around the store for a while. I was feeling a little hungry and tempted to buy ice cream or candy or something - anything - "snacky," but that's not who I am any more. Not that I never eat those things, but there's no good reason in the world for me to be eating them at that time of night.
All told by the time I got home, it was a little after midnight. No reason to do anything but go to bed, right? But I was hungry! (whine whine) Truth is, I was probably still thinking about those snacks I chose not get and craving more than actually being hungry.
Did I drink a glass of water? No. Did I eat some veggies? No. I got a snack of an ounce of cheese and a 100-calorie sandwich roll. OK, no problem. That's only 200 calories, and I knew that if I didn't eat something I wouldn't be able to sleep. No harm, no foul.
So I took my little snack up to bed and turned on the TV. And decided - at 12.30 AM, on a work night - to watch that night's Tivo'd Project Runway episode. Which I could clearly see was 90 minutes long.
Super bad major error. I know better.
I ate my snack and drank a diet ginger ale. But of course, that didn't get me very far into the show, and I was still hungry! (whine whine)
And *POOF!* that crazy Binge Eater was back. I tried to ignore it (OK, only half-heartedly) but soon found myself back in the kitchen. Oy. Should I eat popcorn? More cheese? Raisins? Chicken? Everything I thought about or laid my eyes on got me even more hungry. Maybe I should just eat all of it! Give in - eat the kitchen - really go for it!
Fortunately, a small voice of sanity reigned. Sort of. I decided on peanut butter. And more sandwich thins. Did I take one sandwich thin from the bag, measure out a serving of peanut butter out onto it, and take my yummy little 300-calorie sandwich upstairs to happily munch away? No, of course not. That would have been too much "effort."
Yep, you guessed it, I took the entire jar of PB and the entire bag of thins with me. As I'm walking upstairs, I'm thinking to myself, "What are you doing? Why are you doing this? You know this isn't going to help you, right?"
And I answered myself: "Shut up, you!"
Two peanut butter sammys later I decided I was full enough and stopped. Between them and the earlier cheesy snack, I'd pounded down 1000 extra calories in about 30 minutes.
I know it was a single backstep that is easily overcome. I know that in the long run, those extra 1000 calories won't impede my success. In fact, I found out that 2200 calories will be a good maintenance level for me.
The thing that I need to remember from this experience is that the Binge Eater is never really all that far away. She's tamed quite a bit, yes. But I will always always need to be watchful for her escapes and ensure that she's as controlled as possible when she does strike.