Lost the Battle with Food!

I ate sooo much today.  I knew it was coming, my cravings for sweets and all things fatty, but oh sooo good, had been building up these past few weeks and finally today the flood gates burst open.  The day started out as usual, I was sticking to my healthy low-calorie diet but I still felt so hungry, starved, empty.  I wanted more.  A deep craving was bubbling up inside of me which I quickly stomped on.  But a number of events this week have spiked up my stress-levels.  First, I'm in the middle of moving, so there's a lot of packing, cleaning and everything is a mind-boggling mess.  Second, I got my monthly "visitor" (my period), and oh, we girls know that it's never a good time during that time.  I get especially tired, grouchy and sore.  But most amazing of all, my appetite becomes like a bottomless pit.  I'm like a starved animal prowling; my one focus, FOOD, especially yummy sweet, carbo-rich foods.

All the junk I ate.

Now, I'm not justifying my food binge, instead I'm noting how stress-levels, physical fatigue, emotional distress, etc, can really make us vulnerable to our sneaky rationalizations, i.e., those thoughts that make us do things that sabotage our real goals.  And today, I was stressed-out, tired and emotionally feeling the disorder around me.

But I think how we crack on any diet is that your mind finally rebels against all the "self-denial".  The stress and fatigue, etc, are only triggers, like the spark that lights the canon, but the cannonball was already there.  In truth, my resolve had been cracking this whole week; sneaking a little bread here, peanut butter there, a spoonful of ice-cream here, but nothing serious.  But each time I "denied" myself, e.g., "no, no more ice-cream", "no, can't eat those cookies", "no, can't have pizza," the craving just became worse.  My cravings have been like an unruly teenager; each time I say "no" to her, she becomes even more unmanageable until one day she says, "hell, with you, I'm getting that tatoo on my ass!"

This whole week I've been like a famished women lost in the Sahara desert; I've been seeing hallucinations of oasis of ice-cream, of loaves of freshly baked bread, and clouds of cream-filled puffs.  I've been on a restrictive 1300-1400 calorie low-carb diet since starting P90X.  And the more restrictive it's gotten, the more obsessed I've become with food.  I daydream about lunch in the mornings, then I dream about breakfast at night.  Like a love-struck teenager, instead of scribbling the name of my future husband in my notebook, you'll find me scribbling my meal plans.  Ahhhh, pathetic.

And today, all the "self-denial", pent up yearning for food finally reached its limit.  I remember walking toward the kitchen, almost zombie-like; I no longer had any conscious control over myself.  My hand closed onto the fridge handle and pulled.  The light inside filled my eyes and there I saw it, the object of my deepest desire, the BREAD!  I reached for it, ohhhh, soo soft, soo cushiony to the touch.  Then I turned and saw the jar of peanut butter, extra creamy, extra smooth, droooool.  I cradled these two precious cargoes to the kitchen counter.  I think my hands were shaking with excitement when I twisted open the packaging on the bread.  A whiff of such heavenly buttery fragrance filled my senses.

I gently pulled off a small piece of bread and twisting open the jar of peanut butter, I spread a layer of creamy, velvety goodness on it.  Slowly, and quivering slightly, I put that small morsel into my mouth...I can only describe the experience of such blissful happiness that I could have fainted right there and then.  Then, without thinking I reached and tore off another piece, this time bigger and spread some more creamy peanut butter onto it.
"Oh, such paradise!"

Then I took out an entire slice, but I halved it first, and repeat.  "Oh, but there's the other half!", I exclaimed, and so repeat again.  And then again, and again.  And then, "Whoa, there's some Nutella.  I've never tasted Nutella and peanut butter together before.  Wonder what it tastes like?"  Uh oh, there goes the top off the Nutello jar. "Wooooo, so creamy and chocolaty.  Just a little now.  Oh! I need another slice of bread!"  Before I knew it I had scoffed down nearly half the loaf, ahhhhhh! Why do things happen so fast when you're having so much fun!

But this was only the beginning of the end.  I couldn't stop at just peanut butter and Nutella now.  I couldn't let this heavenly bliss stop.  I reached for the cupboard, my movements frantic now.  I scanned the shelves desperately, "Ah ha! the raison and oatmeal cookies, with chocolate chunks!" I grabbed for it, hugging them close to me less someone tries to wrestle them away.  I opened the package and once again I was enveloped in the sweetest, most buttery fragrance ever imagined.  I scoffed one down.  "Ahhh, such pleasure!"

I was a woman possessed.  I ran to the freezer and yanked it open.  A gallon tub of ice-cream sat there in the dark recesses of the freezer, almost forgotten.  I grabbed for it, a big tub of coconut ice-cream with blondie chunks and caramel swirls; I plied open the top.  Dug my spoon in deep and lifted; gooey caramel whirled around snowy white peaks and blonde rocky chunks.  There was no turning back now.  I closed my eyes and let destiny lead me. And, it led me to the bottom of that tub of ice-cream!

I was in a frenzy now, "Must have more, must have more."  I ran over to my forgotten pantry and opened the door, the hinges creaking.  I dug beneath a pile of dry goods and miscellaneous knick-knacks until I reached a mysterious bulky brown paper bag.  I reached for it with quivering hands and opened it.  Glittering like jewels, a pile of sweets, chocolate bars, candy, toffees, and all sorts of "sugar and spice and everything nice" filled my field of view.  This was my emergency stash; the bag of "food" that would save me should World War III or Armageddon break-out.  Well, today was my Armageddon; I reached inside and pulled out a Baby Ruth, slowly peeled off the wrapper and...."Oooo la la, you're certainly my baby!"  And then a Mars bar, "Wooo, turn me into a Martian now!"  And then I don't remember what happened next, perhaps my brain blacked-out from the surge of sugar entering my body.

When I finally came around from my "drunken" revelry I was half a loaf of bread gone, many tablespoonfuls of peanut butter and Nutella less, a tub of ice-cream cleaned out, and countless empty candy wrappers strewn all over the kitchen floor! (I only had one cookie at least).  I was dazed.  I was speechless.  I was mortified.  But at least I was finally full.

In the wake of this catastrophe, I asked myself, what lessons have I learned?  First, never eat so much in one go; I gave myself a huge tummy ache afterwards.  Second, dieting through denial will only spell-out disaster.  I remember when I was eating, especially the ice-cream, I was almost indignant.  I was spooning in each mouthful with such fire and heat; it was like I was venting all the pent up anger that I felt at being denied my "human right to stuff my face, damn it!"  And I think this demonstrates that when we put ourselves on a restricted diet of "no eating this, no eating that," that it is like being indignantly slighted.  It's the same "sting" that we feel when we're ordered by our supervisors to carry out idiotic assignments, or when an obnoxious jerk steals your parking space, or when you've been ripped off by false advertising.

Now I'm not saying to go out and vent your indignation by eating whatever you want, quite the contrary.  The point is that the battle with food has to be won up in your head first.  The key is your perception of the diet.  If you view your diet as a form of "suppression", then each time you say "no" to yourself, and each time you see your friends and family (Ahem, husband!) wolfing down everything you want to eat, then you're only building up resentment instead of resolve.  Sooner or later, you'll burst from all that pent up "suppression."

But, on the other hand, if you perceive your diet as the "vehicle" to your ultimate and glorious transformation, then it is actually your "saviour", your means of redemption.  But, it's necessary to first have a strong sense of the person you want to transform into; the kind of lifestyle you want to live and then to have a healthy diet that supports those goals.  Therefore, in the end, a successful diet has to be healthy, balanced and reasonable; trying to live on 1000 calories a day, or just cabbage soup ain't going to cut it; and if you're a "foodie" like me, you'll literally go temporarily insane.  The diet you adopt should be a diet that you would want to maintain for the rest of your life; your aim is not merely to change your physical body but to adopt a completely new lifestyle.