With food, lots and lots of food.
Every morning we had a breakfast of bagels, muffins, fruit, sweet rolls, danishes, egg dishes, sausage, bacon, donuts, yogurt, coffee, OJ, and other tasty foods all laid out for us. Including an ice cream social on Friday with 10 different kinds of ice cream, toppings, and oh my... did I mention they spoil us rotten?
Temptation? Oh heck yeah.
Every day there was a huge crowd in the teacher's break room choosing out what to have that morning. Plates filled with carbs, sweets, sugar filled stuff.
What's a dieter to do?
I did my best to only have a taste, a piece here and there, but it was so tempting to know that at any time there was just so much stuff there to eat. And I went back more than I wanted to, but how long has it been since I had a cheese danish?
Some days were better than others, but on the whole I ate way, WAY more calories in the last week than I'd had in a long time.
**if you are easily grossed out, skip this next paragraph**
To be honest, which if I'm not going to be, then there's not much use in writing and sharing, I was way tempted to binge and purge, give into the feeling of stuffing myself over and over. In a way, it would have been wonderful to totally lose control of everything and just eat and eat and eat.
But I didn't, and I'm glad. It's a bit embarrassing to admit a moment of weakness, but it's also real, and life is real.
In the end, what I did do was go ahead and take in the extra calories and know that I was probably shocking my body with some extra fuel. In the process, I might gain, maybe a little, probably a lot - but let's just let the body do what it's going to do.
How did my body do? I lost 2 pounds in the past week. Losing 2 pounds in a week hasn't happened in months. Weeks of a highly controlled diet results in a 3/4 pound weight loss then followed by a week filled with shockingly bad food, which yields a 2 pound loss. So, wow?
What lesson do I take from this? Moderation is more the key than I ever imagined. A bagel with cream cheese, a muffin, a sweet roll is NOT going to sidetrack me. A small bowl of ice cream cannot stop me. Not even if I add toppings.
Maybe, just maybe ...
It's better for me pump in some extra calories so the body doesn't think it's being starved.
This was a lesson to show me that I need to stop worrying about every calorie.
Maybe I just need to live
Maybe :)
Thoughts to take with me today: The body is an amazing thing to watch. Love the journey, love the life, love yourself.
Great post, especially coming on the heels of the last one! I have struggled with this for years and still find it easier to eat absolutely nothing than to eat a small bit of a 'trigger' food. When I was doing Weight Watchers years ago, there was a variation called 'the Wendy Plan' (I think) that encouraged dieters to vary their daily intake - instead of eating the same 22 points/1400 calories every day, you were supposed to alternate days of intake - 1 day high, the next day low, the next day moderate. The idea was to keep your body from doing exactly what you said - getting complacent. In thinking about this now, it sounds pretty much the way people are 'supposed' to eat - more on some days, less on others, based on their hunger and activity levels. Sad that it's taken me until age 47 to understand that this is what normal eating is..sigh. Congratulations on those 2# and thanks for sharing the lesson!
ReplyDeleteI don't know how other people plan out their blogs, but mine are very much a thing of the moment - what is going on with me right now, so the last two posts kind of created an odd flow didnt' they?
ReplyDeleteAnd if you discovered the truth at 47, you are three years ahead of me, since I figured it out at 50! But what is important is that the truth was found at all. I think many people go to their graves without that knowledge and that is the saddest of all
So much love and light to you across the way
Namaste