RC #3

It’s #3 as I think it is the third time to write about doing a reality check, nice to have some kind of consistancy to title posts.

Losing a couple pounds this week eased my pain levels, so I eased up on dieting. I don’t like being hungry. Dieting is too much of a binge trigger without that ache to keep me in line.

Reality checks may be stepping on the scales as numbers can reveal things I don’t want to admit even to myself, but it is also in the jeans… black jeans purchased in 2004 before hopping a jet to visit a friend for the holidays, the same jeans boxed for years because they were too small to wear now fit loose in the legs. Even new capris purchased for this summer fit too loose. That drives me nuts! I can’t stand wearing baggy pants.

Most of all, reality is the slow process of recovery from binge eating disorder. And what is recovery?

Recovery is time passing, moments gathered into days fading into weeks. Months have passed.

Recovery is knowing recovery is possible. Someday, living with B.E.D. will be a thing of the past.

Recovery is awareness that bingeing is a negative reaction, an attempt to repress “unacceptable” raw emotions, and finding other ways to cope. It is “okay” to feel things, to express emotions, but it is “not okay” to harm yourself or others. Art is a blessing as it allows me to express anything without fear.

Recovery is eating intuitively, trusting myself to feed myself without fear of going beserk.

Recovery is the ability to enjoy the flavors, aromas, and textures of food without one iota of guilt.

Recovery is shedding layers of insecurities in all aspects of my life. (That one surprises me.)

Be glad my SD card died… my treat for good behavior this week was a pedicure. The photo snapped was like wow, scary old lady feet with toenails fancy painted black with white floral stickers, clear rhinestones, and silver glitter.

Hey, it is okay to be your own outrageous self. Truth be told, no one else really cares.

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Reality Check Sunday

I slept hard, slept in, and slowly awoke in the midst of a bingeing nightmare.

I have not mentioned binge eating disorder for awhile because I did not want to write about it, didn’t even want to think about it. So much for avoidance.

In the dream, I was bingeing on sugar, a homemade concoction of a creamy nougat center coated with caramel and pecans (later peanuts, when pecans became too exspensive to keep up with me) and double dipped in chocolate. They were shaped like gourmet easter eggs and my sister was making them for a wedding. She needed hundreds to serve all the guests, but I was sneaking them by the handfuls. She resorted to hiding batches all over the church and I was still eating them, hunting them like easter eggs and gobbling them up for the mind numbing sugar high. By the end of the dream, the candies were individually wrapped and boxed in attempts to slow me down, but only long enough to rip each open.

Oh yes, definately a nightmare. Yet thinking about it later, I realized what was missing… the dream lacked guilt, remorse, and shame. It also lacked that sicky thing that comes with a real life sugar high binge. (Anyone who thinks it is impossible to experience a sugar high has never consumed enough to get there. Most people, I assume, get sick enough to stop before the numb rush kicks in. Suppose that sick thing is body rebellion trying to make you stop before serious harm occurs as it can’t be healthy to mess with glucose levels or whatever physiology is going on.)

So, that was an odd dream… but dreaming it reminded me that avoidance is not the best way to deal with anything. Avoidance is just a temporary escape from reality.

At the same time, I don’t want to become obcessed with recovery from binge eating disorder as that is almost as bad as being obcessed with binge foods. I don’t want to have to think about it. I want “not an option” to become “not an issue” someday.

In all honesty, I am not quite there yet. I have become quite adapt at stopping binges in the early stages, but I’m skirting the edge, walking the fence, and crossing over the line a little too often. And the scales, the undeniable means to check reality, prove that with stagnation. If bingeing, I gain weight… if not, I lose.

It has been exactly one month since I stepped on the digital scales for a precise number, as I weighed myself at home before going to the doctors on March 28th, and the number is only two pounds less… which doesn’t count as a lost as it is “normal” to fluctuate up and down a couple pounds. I weigh the same.

Okay, maybe the body “reaches a plateau” between loses but I know the reason has more to do with number of times I’ve had to stop myself from bingeing and yes, I can lie to myself with words like “progress not perfection” which I know is total bull. That’s like saying it is okay to stop yourself from chopping off your fingers after your hand is a bloody mess. It is much better to just not do that in the first place.

Since I have the tendency to use avoidance, maybe I need to scheduale a weekly weighing as a reality check. If I use the spring scales (shown below) instead of the digital, then (maybe) I won’t become obcessed with the actual number down to the tenth, thus limiting possible personal judgement to a simple okay or not okay. All I know is avoidance is not cutting it.

As for the pencils on the scale? Ah, that is the other thing I need to do this week, narrow down my dick blick wish list and order pencils to replace some stubs. Thanks for reading!
~ Nancy

Reality Check

I stepped on the scales today to give myself a reality check: down eight since New Years.

Okay, I was curious. The other day, I was talking to my mother and she said, “How much weight have you lost, another twenty?” Then before I could say it, she sing-songed my standard answer: “I don’t know.”

Yes, since I quit the diet-binge thing, I answer such questions with “I don’t know” and most of the time, I really don’t know.

Most people who ask are dieters. They are calorie counters or carb counters or into points, rules and more rules, all about control and willpower and the latest tidbit from their favorite nutritional guru on television. Eat this, don’t eat that, this way, that way… like whoa, serious information overload. Bottom line is usually a “this is what I’m doing and you should do it, too.”

No thanks… I’m not interested in dieting. That’s a merry-go-round ride to the secret dark world.

I heard that some people who give up bingeing take up overeating or start grazing. (FYI: that grazing thing is just a slow motion binge being sneaking, like taking a bite of something every time you walk in the kitchen until it is all gone whereas a binge is like eating all of it at once.) Right now, I am NOT bingeing and I am NOT grazing, but I am also NOT dieting… what if I am accidentally overeating now and then?

So, time for a reality check. Scales don’t lie… if I’m bingeing, grazing, or overeating, the numbers will go up. If I am just feeding myself like a “normal” person, the numbers will be stable or slowly go down.

It was good to see a lower number, but that is just evidence of living a binge-free life. Recovery is mind, body, and soul… a holistic thing, so I still have a long way to go. Thank you for listening.