Moderation in Excess?

I haven't been writing as much as I'd like. Dean started a new job and has been in this unbelievably sunshiny mood when he comes home so we've been watching a lot of Dexter and movies and going out and doing stuff. It's pretty awesome.

Nonetheless, I'm constantly going over topics and ideas in my head to write about. The latest one that I'm finding I am not alone in is the binge eating I previously wrote a long, gut-spilling novella about.

I've spoken to some my mom and two of my closest friends, and lo and behold, we all binge. My mother, the former dancer, told me about how when she was a teenager and started getting turned down for roles because she was ten pounds overweight (for a dancer, mind you-in the photos I've seen of her during this period she looks emaciated, almost like an Auschwitz victim), she would sneak cookies or potato chips, sometime sin the middle of the night, then compulsively run in place to work it off. After she quit dancing, she started in with the vicious cycle of dieting, losing, gaining, being 'good', being 'bad', buying low fat, or low, carb, or organic, that so many women are familiar with. Finally, in her mid-forties, after struggling and beating herself up for so many years, she decided "The hell with it, this is how I am", and somehow became comfortable with herself. The irony of the story is, in recent years she's developed a rather sensitive stomach and intestinal tract and is now forced to eat very small, plant-based meals lest she is doubled over with IBS attacks. So guess what? She lost weight!

Another good friend of mine, upon reading this blog, divulged some of her habits which sounded shockingly similar to mine, such as getting pissed off when having to share an entire bag of microwave popcorn with her husband, grazing on leftovers, or simply eating far to much of the 'good' stuff (salad, edamame, grilled chicken breasts, whole grains). She and I also have a strong proclivity for corona's with lime and salt, red wine, cigarettes and long phone conversations with each other during which we consume many of these things. Definitely not the most physically healthy relationship, but it certainly makes my soul feel good. Our big difference is that even though we share similar eating and drinking habits, she weights about half of what I do, and has a couple inches on me. Bitch!

My other friend, like me, has always struggled with her weight. She played sports in high school so she's never gotten to the state I am in right now, but she's come pretty close. She suffers from a whole litany of disorders, depression, psychosis and binge eating being the main culprits. A few years ago, she went and saw a nutritionist, who told her to really listen to her body when she was hungry- not, bored, depressed, or anxious, but truly hungry- and then feed it whatever it wanted. This idea was positively terrifying to me at first.

I thought to myself "If I feed my body whatever I want, then I'll be as big as a house! I'll eat a mountain of buttered noodles....a swimming pool full of cream cheese frosting...77 venti-extra-whip white chocolate mochas!" Little did I know, I wouldn't be feeding my hunger, I would be feeding my emotions. And they have their eatin' dress on. 24-7.

So I played with the idea of "Eat whatever your body wants, but only if you're truly hungry". On Dean's birthday, we went to the Olive garden, where I ate the 'bad' foods: breadsticks, cream soup with dumplings, and the mother all pastas, chicken fettuccine Alfredo. It was delicious, of course, but scary. I was certain that when my pasta arrived A) it wouldn't be enough to satisfy my hunger and B) I'd scarf it all up without tasting it.

Then the most amazing thing happened. It came. It didn't look like much, but that didn't bother me too much because my head was yelling at me that I shouldn't be eating it anyways. I turned down that voice, and ate my dinner...and by the time I was full, truly full, too full even, I'd eaten only half. Half!

OK, so this has happened before. I've had the waiter box up the rest so I could take it home. And when I get home, I finish it off. Go to bed with a stomach so full I can almost feel new stretch marks emerging. Have nightmares. Wake up still full.

That didn't happen this time! I told myself "Sarah, this is not the last time you will ever eat fettuccine Alfredo. This is not the last time you will ever eat. You will be hungry tomorrow, and you can eat something then. No need to shove it all in your mouth now."

The next day, I gave the rest of my Alfredo to Dean. That is another thing that has never happened.

So on Saturday, I had a dinner date with a friend at the Macaroni Grill- another fatty, carby Italian dream/nightmare. We got there and sat down, where we were promptly served bread, oil and wine. Yum. I then ordered a pasta dish with shrimp and chicken. It came, I ate, once again, maybe half. Actually, to be fair, I ate all the meat and seafood and only half the noodles. I wrapped up the rest to take home to Dean, and wound up forgetting it at the restaurant.

Since my friend and I are boring old married ladies who didn't feel like, and we too broke for barhopping, we cruised over to Denny's for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. I ordered the most sinful of all the pies- pecan (although, to be fair, I think it's has a decent amount of nutritional content thanks to the liberal use of my favorite nut), and a cappuccino. Once again, I ate, I enjoyed, I savored- and I wound up with half left. And that was ok with me, because there will be more pecan pies, cappuccinos, Italian breads, fettuccine Alfredos, and any other 'bad' food I want. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems to me to label a food as 'bad' or 'good'.

The best part about last Saturday was that, after my indulgences in moderation, I actually dropped a pound.

On Sunday, I made biscuits, sausage gravy and fried eggs for breakfast, then had a large bowl and a small bowl of chili for dinner, topped off with two low-carb ice-cream bars and a bowl of pudding for dessert. Um, yeah. Totally unnecessary. The other funny part about this was I was perfectly content with two small biscuits with gravy in the morning, which is totally NOT South Beach approved, yet I went nuts with the high protein, high fiber chili and sugarless desserts. Guess who put her pound back on in one day? Yup. This girl, right here.

I guess I need to re-learn to feed myself. When I tell myself "It's OK, there will be another appetite in a few hours", then my need to pig out lessens. I'm sure there will be other times when I will slip up; my period, an argument, a bad grade, whatever. What I hope though, is that along with learning to feed myself, I can also learn to be kinder to myself. This is my struggle, but it's not my defining point as a person.

I'll leave you with this: Just today I got ripped a new a$$hole by an angry parent, and immediately scarfed down two fun-size packages of pretzels. I was pissed off when I did this, and very aware of what I was doing. But I don't feel that bad about it.