late night scenario aka bad food habit

vickster82

i'm sure we all had our bad days, but mine was especially horrible and i need to share this so i don't keep it inside and go insane. of course i feel guilt and shame right now, but what i'm really trying to understand is how much i can attribute to metabolism imbalance/hormonal fluctuation, recovery from sickness or just my own lack of willpower. all criticism welcome! :grumble:

my day started at 5:30 am. doc appt early and then to work. i work at a hospital and am very mobile, running around to patient rooms and what-not. yesterday was an especially busy day, i was always moving about, and at the same time i was just starving! i ate very well all day long, and reached by 1200 calories by 6 pm. :drinker: then it's staff meeting, at which cookies were produces. home baked chocolate chip and oatmeal. i broke down and had two with some coffee, thinking its ok, i'm on my way to the gym right after meeting and will work off every calorie doing intense interval training.

get home at 9 pm put on my gym shorts and go to the kitchen. now i'm tired as hell, can barely walk at this point, and my head is pounding. i'm fightin acute bronchitis and have been coughing and spitting up phlegm all day long. so i wonder how i can make it to the car let along work out. im dragging myself to put on my sneackers when i decide i can't really do this. i have no strength in me. so i go make me a cup of green tea, have some toast, and lay down on the couch. i say to myself, have tea, relax and then go to the gym. THEN cravings kick it and i have one serving of jelly beans, my worst food and favorite snack of all times. THEN i smelled something from the kitchen and found some very yummy little chicken patties my sister made. i had three. now i'm full, guilty, and feel ashamed. but i'm enjoying myself at the same time, watching the movie 21, and relaxing. then i had more tea and head off to bed. i woke up full and in misery. i have the belly bulge going on and just don't feel well.

BUT I tell myself i'm leting that go as my day off, its now in the past, and i just have to jump back on the wagon. however i know i have a food problem when i eat late at night and i don't know how to control it. i do fine all day, do gym in the pm, come home and eat. i don't work out for3 hours that i need my recovery meal and i don't like eating before bed. i know i have to overcome it internally but i just don't know how!

however here's a quote that showed up on my blackberry as i was waking up (i have my emails sent to my phone and get these auto generated)

"a bad habit never dissapears miraculously, its an undo-it-yourself project" by abigail van baren (dear abby).

i hope this message will serve me as a healing tool and a motivator for those struggling w/the same thing.

vickster82

i'm sure we all had our bad days, but mine was especially horrible and i need to share this so i don't keep it inside and go insane. of course i feel guilt and shame right now, but what i'm really trying to understand is how much i can attribute to metabolism imbalance/hormonal fluctuation, recovery from sickness or just my own lack of willpower. all criticism welcome! :grumble:

my day started at 5:30 am. doc appt early and then to work. i work at a hospital and am very mobile, running around to patient rooms and what-not. yesterday was an especially busy day, i was always moving about, and at the same time i was just starving! i ate very well all day long, and reached by 1200 calories by 6 pm. :drinker: then it's staff meeting, at which cookies were produces. home baked chocolate chip and oatmeal. i broke down and had two with some coffee, thinking its ok, i'm on my way to the gym right after meeting and will work off every calorie doing intense interval training.

get home at 9 pm put on my gym shorts and go to the kitchen. now i'm tired as hell, can barely walk at this point, and my head is pounding. i'm fightin acute bronchitis and have been coughing and spitting up phlegm all day long. so i wonder how i can make it to the car let along work out. im dragging myself to put on my sneackers when i decide i can't really do this. i have no strength in me. so i go make me a cup of green tea, have some toast, and lay down on the couch. i say to myself, have tea, relax and then go to the gym. THEN cravings kick it and i have one serving of jelly beans, my worst food and favorite snack of all times. THEN i smelled something from the kitchen and found some very yummy little chicken patties my sister made. i had three. now i'm full, guilty, and feel ashamed. but i'm enjoying myself at the same time, watching the movie 21, and relaxing. then i had more tea and head off to bed. i woke up full and in misery. i have the belly bulge going on and just don't feel well.

BUT I tell myself i'm leting that go as my day off, its now in the past, and i just have to jump back on the wagon. however i know i have a food problem when i eat late at night and i don't know how to control it. i do fine all day, do gym in the pm, come home and eat. i don't work out for3 hours that i need my recovery meal and i don't like eating before bed. i know i have to overcome it internally but i just don't know how!

however here's a quote that showed up on my blackberry as i was waking up (i have my emails sent to my phone and get these auto generated)

"a bad habit never dissapears miraculously, its an undo-it-yourself project" by abigail van baren (dear abby).

i hope this message will serve me as a healing tool and a motivator for those struggling w/the same thing.

dothompson

I've been thinking alot lately about how I handle it when I eat off my plan or binge. I'm thinking that the whole blame, guilt, shame, game is extremely counterproductive and honestly interferes with the learning process.

I think when we binge and then tell ourselves how worthless we are we stop working on the problem, because we are accepting that the problem is us. We feel worse and often we go and eat more. "Well I blew it for the weekend, I might as well start again on Monday".

If we accept as a given that we are logical, powerful human beings we can look at the situation and see what broke down. For example rather than blaming yourself and feeling guilt and shame. You can accept that what you did was logical and try to figure out why a logical and strong woman did something she didn't want to do.

Hmm, I was going constantly from 5:30 until 9. I got home overworked, stressed and exhausted. It was simply unrealistic to think that I would be able to go to the gym. It's no wonder I binged. I'm setting goals for myself I would never expect from others. I would have been much better off getting into a warm bath to relax from a long day. Setting my goal too high ended up making things harder. Next time I'm going to take a heathy snack to the meeting to avoid the cookies and I'm going to give myself a break when I've worked a 16 hour day.

We learn the most from our mistakes, but we have to prossess them as a correctable problem rather than that there is something wrong with us. There isn't.

Treat yourself with kindness and respect.