i find i tend to eat more and cant stop when im tired ... Usuually when im tired. Ive identified why i overeat and when in at risk.
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In general I do tend to eat more if I'm tired, especially if I've just woken up from a doze but am still tired. I did have an old zombie pattern for eating like that so I try to avoid the circumstance. Also I sort of recognize it enough now that I have a chance of dissociating from it until the impulses have died off. (Probably coffee or sleep will kill them, or a little healthy food and then sleep.)
i find i tend to eat more and cant stop when im tired or bored. ...
I do also feel more like eating badly if I'm bored, and on Sunday I probably was a little bored when I first had a lolly while I was out at a picnic during the afternoon, and that probably contributed to the way the evening ended up. It didn't control anything by itself though. It was one lolly to begin with, then about 6. Then 2 chocolate biscuits.
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Tell me, would you have eaten all that food if you had to drive up the road and buy it then sit at the checkout then eat it?
If i dont buy junk then i cant overeat it without putting myself to a lot of hassle of getting in the car, driving to the shops, picking it out etc.
I suppose kids help also because they all want some
I do almost always have all my trigger foods in my house because I don't try to prevent anyone else from eating them. I buy them and I ignore them. If I'm having a hard time I try to buy things that other people like but which are not my personal preference, but that doesn't always matter. The longer I go without them, the less I'm interested.
Last Sunday I did leave home to deliberately buy a lot of what I liked. I hoped my daughter wouldn't want to come and she didn't. I did eat some junk in the carpark so that to an extent, I wouldn't have to deal with the kids wanting some or anyone else thinking about what I was doing.
I had decided on Sunday that I would be relaxed about my eating to try and improve my mood. Also I was trying to stay off the computer. After the picnic, I ate 2 icecreams at home. I started reading, I sat in the comfy chair, and I turned the TV on. That is a whole bunch of associations from way back for me. It's a "switch off, tune out, use my mind to go somewhere else" pattern. I had worked out the icecreams would not be that many extra calories in a whole day. But then it looked like maybe I had eaten things that someone else might want. Also, those ones, weren't the kind I really wanted.
So I drove to the closest shopping centre that is open on the weekend, which has a fancy bakery and cake shop. I bought the 2 petit fours there. I chose them because I really liked the look of them and because they were small.
Then I went to the specialty chocolate shop. I bought one chocolate. I knew would want more before the evening was over, in fact I thought it could send me out again, so while I was in the supermarket I bought 3 more and a small (150 cal) block. Again I chose only the kinds that I really like a lot and I bought small amounts.
Then in the supermarket instead of buying one of the icecreams I wanted I bought a box of four. That was so that I could have one, and everyone else at home could have one. Then I bought another box of ice creams, so that we would have enough again, and so that I would have back up if I still wanted more icecream. Also I bought a bag of mini chocolate bars ("treat" size), so that there would be chocolate in the house again, and also as back up so that I wouldn't run out before the evening was over.
I've been talking the whole time about "binging" or "bingeing", but the associated issue is craving. I guess I was pretty clear that I didn't want to end up half way through the evening doing further battle with myself. When I binged during the Christmas week I had ended up going to the petrol station at 10:00 at night, which is something other people in my house can observe. Some people talk about cravings that they can satisfy with a little of something. To me a little is more likely to be a spark that starts a craving.
I ate the 2 little cakes and one chocolate in the car, so that I wouldn't have to discuss them with anyone else or buy more for them.
I actually really liked them. Then I ate all the rest of the chocolate because one wasn't enough. I didn't especially enjoy eating that, or anything else I ate that night.
Then I went home and ate the one special icecream. However the kids turned out not to be home, so during the evening I ate 2 more. Also I ate 2-3 of the other ones and a bunch of the mini-chocolate bars. I ate salad because I knew it would soothe my stomach at one stage, and I ate the pork chops because they would normally have been the basis for my meal.
Why would I act like that though?
I understand that it's very strange. I'm sure it's incomprehensible to anyone who's never done it. Even that same night and even before I stopped eating I was already starting again, to think that myself.
I guess when I started eating a little badly I thought maybe I could stop while it was controlled. I knew I hadn't in the past but I keep wondering how much I can tinker with what I'm doing now and still be ok.
I guess also, I deliberately risked the lack of control. I suppose there's something attractive about it. Past a certain point it's unpleasant, and with repetition it's unpleasant. For me, these days, it quite quickly feels truly dangerous in a way I don't want. However, I probably started doing things like this long ago without thinking about the consequences, and sometimes I retrigger the pattern in myself. When I started thinking about this again afterwards, I figured that for me there is something attractive about lack of control. Not just the adrenalin charge of danger, it's the release of effort and responsibility and the switching off of the controlling part of the brain. It's like fair ground rides used to be or overwhelming sex. NO binging does NOT feel as good as that, it just has a similar sort of attraction like that. Like drugs or alcohol might feel for some people I suppose. I do remember realizing in the past that I was using it as a kind of rest at the end of the day.
It's just a very temporary kind of rest though because it starts off so many pricking, stabbing demons.
At any rate, there seem to be a lot of things that might lead me towards it. There more of them that are happening at once, the harder it is to stop it before it starts.
However, the things that turn it around for me, are writing and eating properly. The writing fits the avoidance of boredom I guess, but also I suspect the writing fires up the part of my brain that's more thoughtful and controls impulses. I believe the food evens out my hormones. That's how it's been for me.
I like thinking that I have tools like those which can help me turn things around again.
I can't afford to be complacent about them though. It usually takes a 2-3 days that are a bit off, before things are bad enough to be really in my face. I think this is because returning to that sort of food gives a really big buzz initially, so that a little is satisfying - but this dies away quite quickly and it turns into nothing being satisfying. By then I could easily have gained a genuine 1-2 kg. Even one bad day could turn a weight loss week into a weight gain week. Unfortunately there is no reliable way for me to quickly lose the weight again. I say no "reliable" way, because I'm not sure that the ways I know of, to lose it quickly, won't restart the binge pattern.
Kathleen DesMaison's books quite closely describe both the eating problems I have, and how they can be controlled . Maybe by the time I get done with this I will be a 100% convert to her ideas. I hope not, because I would like to be more flexible than that. Still being healthy is the more important issue for me. I also see that some of my behaviours sort of fit with articles like this. . Though I don't see anything there that tells you how to stop, which her books do. She has a website as well, but that just skims her ideas.
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Seeyou Wednesday!
