
I think the state of mind I have is out of synch with my age number.
Now that I think back on it, my girl was right the first time. We were naughty on Thursday - just safely naughty. My son did blanch somewhat when she told him, and it is out of synch with my age I guess, unless I have early Alzheimers.
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Friday 28 February
Breakfast normal
Snack Grapes
Lunch 6 crackers, cottage cheese, salad.
Snack Apple
Dinner: 275 gm Chicken marinated in and then cooked in, onion, garlic, tinned tomato, coriander, sage and lots of fresh chilli. 150 gm smashed microwaved potato. Chopped salad with lettuce, tomato, yellow capsicum, snow peas. Diet apricot yoghurt. 3 fresh dates. 1/2 large mango.
Binge: Started with one Crunch Icecream. Which didn't have good enough chocolate on it. Next one Freddo. 3 more icecreams and 3 more Freddoes, didn't help. Freddoes are bad chocolate, that's why I buy them! Not tempting. 1 nice Boost icecream bar, was no help by then either.
I was fighting the urge to eat badly all day. Hence the high level of chilli in the chicken, which did turn out to be very tasty! Also, hence the large serves. Yet in the end I didn't get through.
Why? Well the specific thing I recall is that at the time that I had the first "one" icecream, I was still hankering after a treat, despite having had dates, which I think of as a treat, and having had the mango, which is kind of special and so on. I still wanted more of a buzz. I also recall that at that time I definitely had a choice. I wasn't out of control. Additionally, I still had a choice at a couple of moments after that, despite being sleepy, and falling asleep after having some of this binge food, and before having more. I had a choice, but I really, really wanted to eat a nice icecream. I don't know whether the fact that nothing I ate then tasted that good was a good thing or a bad thing. But I definitely chose to start this, sent a fleeting hope in the direction of "just one", knowing that it probably wouldn't be.
Exercise: None.
So things I see that make this similar to (at least some) other binge days, might be the lack of exercise, being over tired, and having a blah day - it was very hot, and I worked somewhere that was not air conditioned and I found the day boring.
Saturday 29 February 2008
Breakfast: normal, but 9:00
Lunch: single oat pancake (210) with mushrooms (42), a little bacon and 50 gm cottage cheese (45). Large orange (100).
Dinner: Grilled rump - 90gm cooked weight, 90 gm potato m/w and smashed, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms with bacon, gravy.
Exercise: 35 minutes at the gym. 25 minutes on elliptical Heart rate about 150-155. Possibly it was lower than previously because I was on a different machine? but I think I've used this one before. Mainly lower because I forgot my headset and had to listen to the health club music. This music is current and not that special, and I can handle that, but it's too quiet. The other day the channel I got through the head set went crackly after a while, but crackly and loud works better than quiet, I think. I will take the usual bag another time, even if I'm not swimming. Also, I went on one of the machines that guy showed me. I'd left myself short of time to do more.
So, having binged again despite my intentions, what did I think about it this morning? I thought it was a pain - like "now what?" What am I supposed to do? I did everything I could think of to stop wanting the food that could be the start of a binge, but that didn't work.
The only thing that would have worked would have been to just not do it, and wait for it to go. I reckon it would have gone given enough days ... [This is probably a useful thought, only seeing as I haven't managed to do it yet, it's not as encouraging as I'd like.]
I thought other stuff, like "It's one day a week. Some people think having a day off a week is ok." [But that won't work for me because one day off would be like having "just one"]. Also I weighed myself and I lost nothing this week. So whatever I did this week with that binge included seems to equal only maintenance, which is not going to get me to lose weight.
I thought: well if I make today a good day, then at least it's limited and therefore I'm still getting better at this than I was.
I thought: if I added together all the weight I have gained since September and didn't take away all the weight I have lost since September, I wonder how much I would weigh? [A rough guess would be 13 kg (28 lb) more? 5 to lose what I gained in New Zealand, plus 2 kg because that didn't come off in a straight line, plus, 2 kg after Christmas, 3 kg after camp, plus a couple of single kg?] Well, I found that a vague kind of comfort. No I'm not where I should be, but equally right now, all my clothes still fit, so this is not the worst case scenario either.
I had to go out early before I finished my breakfast coffee, which was not good, shopping with insufficient satisfaction ... I just sort of set my mind towards what I want. I thought something like "Mal would say 'Just get on with it'", which amused me slightly, and was effective. Not that she has ever told me to get on with it, but I reckon she would tell herself that. When I came home I went online and looked at weight loss stuff, which was helpful.
I found out why I was getting weirdly differently results about how many calories I should have. It's because I did one lot of calculations adding 244 calories instead of subtracting it.

Well this gives me a heap less calories than I thought I had at the beginning of this week!! Still it's good to have something less rubbery to deal with. Also, in a way it makes more sense, because I'm quite often satisfied at about 1500 a day. Only I have been getting uncomfortable about it, wondering if it was too low and therefore going to cause me problems. Now I find that depending on small differences in how it's calculated, the maintenance calories for someone with my age (52), height (5'0") and weight (78kg) (well I've been using 78 though it's still 79 today [edit good grief - I've given myself 10 extra kilos here - I did use the right numbers in the calculations though. My weight is about 68-69 kg at the date of this post!!), is 1450- 1600. This is with no exercise and just doing things like using the computer.
Also, quite late tonight, it occurred to me that every time I have started to really binge, and thought of it as a binge, I have been sitting in the same place in my house, maybe even the same chair. I never binge while I'm sitting at the computer. For a long time, while I was losing weight, I rarely sat there, but in the past couple of months, I have shifted, partly because it is much cooler there, and partly because it is a bit closer to my husband, and partly because there have been some tv shows I've actually wanted to see.
I think I should be able to use that information. A lot of the time, I don't feel like bingeing anyway - even if I am in that room, in that position, yet sometimes I am really struggling - surely it would at least help, if I don't sit in that spot at that time? (Yeah, probably just grasping at straws, but whatever I get right with my mind, however my emotions are, I have a specific behaviour problem, and because it's a habit related behaviour maybe a thing like that might help...) Well, we will see. I don't suppose I'm out of the woods with
wanting to eat badly yet. It can't hurt to improve my (inadequate) strategy to do with
actually not doing it.