On Difficulty and Hutzpah (or Improved Binging and What a Good Boyfriend a Donut Makes)

On again, off again. On again. Off. Off. Off. On again. Following a food plan, finding my way past binging and binging and obsessing and despairing and by turns feeling entirely equal to the situation, to eating on a saucer or spooning my ice cream into tiny bowl, to gladly eating my Weight Watchers Lite Jalapeno Cheese Sticks and Stacy’s Plain Bagel Chips (230 calories) or my Thomas English Muffin with Land o Lake’s Lite Butter and 2 Slices of Morningstar Fakon (330 calories), to stopping, stopping eating by 5 pm, okay 6 pm.

And then going out to J. Alexander’s and trying and failing to push back the plate, picking and picking and picking and finally picking the thing up and moving it to the other side of the table beside my mother-in-law, well out of reach. And then STILL thinking about the other half of the burger that I’m not even slightly hungry for.

Or trying not to HEAR my Luna Protein Bars beckoning to me from the kitchen drawer or the siren song of the exquisite Burger King Hershey Pie (380 calories) cause really it’s only five minutes away! All of this in the midst of such success.

Such steady progress. Such oh my goodness you’ve lost SO much weight you look terrific! And yes I do. I look terrific. I feel terrific. But I still binge.

Except, when I don’t. And when I do binge it’s not like I used to binge because it would really make me ill. No driving to the bakery for a creamed-fill donut (450 calories) and an apple fritter (550 calories) and one of those little peanut cakes with frosting on top (250 calories). No more eating all that sugar in the car and of course all that sugar makes me feel so TERRIBLE and I must have a Wendy’s Baconator (650 calories) and LARGE Fries (600 calories) which I take home and eat sitting in my recliner in front in my TV where I will stay for hours without moving all the while very unsettled and sometimes despairing because I have, indeed, done it again.

No, when I binge now it’s a couple of Pop Tarts (400 calories) and a Luna Bar (170 calories). Or a LOT of Sanita Tortilla Chips (460 calories) and a Snack Pack Chocolate Pudding (110 calories) and Lotus Cookies (4 for 150 calories), sometimes staying within my calorie allowance, sometimes not. This is because I have made so much PROGRESS and I continue to lose weight and battle my way through the morass of the curious dancing of Me + Food our initials carved into a tree inside a little heart, me and the chocolate-covered cream-filled donuts. Me and the Fritos. Me and Food, we are tight, we are thick as thieves. Me and my cohort of sugary salty please save my life dependable always tastes the same never disappointing readymade foods. We are stepping up the steps to the school bus and facing another troubling disappointing day because really, my life is just a series of bitter disappointments and my goodness. What am I doing?

Oh. Yeah. I’m doing that thing. I’m obsessing, I’m miring up in the difficulty. I just had five cookies so my childhood is even worse than I thought and I am nothing but a disappointing lump of flesh, useless, useless.

Sophia Loren, when asked how she dealt with food/diet, wrote “I concentrate on the goal, not the difficulty.” She also said she didn’t eat potato chips because it really is impossible to stop, even for a movie star who could surely hire someone to smack her little toddler hands away from the yawning mouth of the bag…oh my gods, I am doing it AGAIN.
Overthinking. Obsessing. Romancing the FOOD. Please Most Marvelous Mr. Reese Cup, take me to the dance. Please kiss me. No one else has. Please be my first forever best KISS.

The goal is to lose pounds and feel better and better. And better. The difficulty is mostly in my head. The difficulty is located squarely in the mythology I’ve woven to understand the story of my life. The story of Me. Plus Food. One part Truth. Three parts fiction. An overblown entirely out of date story. One that I am about the business of rewriting.

Every time I post one of these pieces on MFP, I get a little nutty. I feel like a fraud. I feel like I’m about to be found out. And I get obsessed with the comments, with reading them and answering them. Will they LIKE me? Will they say NICE things to me? Will I be bitterly disappointed, AGAIN? And even when I tell myself, Rebecca. This is My Fitness Pal! You are not submitting this for publication. There is no competition here. You won't get famous here. Even when I tell myself these sensible, rational things, I still obsess and ruminate and wind up nutty and BINGING. Really. We are all grown up but impossibly silly little kids.

Of course, it’s not just me and it’s not just us. It’s almost everybody out there! We are the ones who are becoming aware, who have jumped into the creek and are swimming upstream. We are often exhausted and have to cling to the bank while someone spoons ice cream into our mouths, but then we let go and start swimming again. We refuse to just float back down the stream. And if we're smart we know that we will always be swimming upstream, even when we've met our goals, even when we finally (I hope) make our peace with food. But we will be stronger and the swimming will be easier (I hope, we all hope, we dwell in hope!).

Good lord, Rebecca. Enough with the metaphors. And enough with the romance. Food is food. A cigar is a cigar and a donut is a donut. Neither has the power to undo my life. Or to make me five years old again. Or eleven. Or twenty-six.

Food is food.

-rebecca

(oh. and writing helps me. that's why I do it and post it here because it may help you, too. and I am not asking for advice like "don't bring junk food into your house." I will always keep snacks in my house. and I don't have an un-diagnosed untreated eating disorder. and i am a very happy person. except when i obsess and fret and complain and whine.)