Revelation

I weighed in at 258.2 Sunday morning and SWORE to myself that I was going to keep doing my part to eat healthy. I left for church with the resolution that I would NOT stop anywhere for lunch on the way home and I would eat a salad instead.

And then WBF who also sometimes attends the same church I do, caught me after church and wanted to go to the Chinese buffet for lunch. And before I could even stop and think and say, "Nah, I'm going home to eat salad," my head was nodding yes and I was saying something like, "Sure, I don't eat the noodles anyway," in response to her saying, "I know you probably don't need to but..."

Muscle memory is my only defense in that. But I still could have salvaged the situation by making wise choices when I got in there. Which, I kinda did make wise choices until I didn't. Eggrolls...crab Rangoon...those were my carb downfalls. And I SUCKED at my portion sizes. I loaded my plate full...doesn't matter than 2 quarters of my plate was a broccoli and spinach dishes. Who needs that much food in one meal? My only truly wise decision was to forgo the sweet tea and get water.

I was SO MAD at myself all the way home and all afternoon. And my body was apparently mad at me, too, because, well, I don't want to TMI but I spent some quality time in the bathroom...we'll leave it at that.

While I was angrily berating myself I had a revelation. It shouldn't have been a revelation but it was.

I have been living under the bondage of food my whole life.

Call it disordered eating (popular term dejour), call it an addiction. Either way, I've been enslaved to food my whole life. I think about food constantly. I crave it. Even while I'm eating, I'm thinking about what I want to eat next. I dream about it. I don't want to think about it, but I do.

With that revelation, I started really examining my relationship with food. And come on, we all have some kind of relationship with food. Mine, for whatever reason, is simply not a healthy one. I started thinking about how much of the time when I'm eating, I don't even taste the food. I'm so busy shoveling it in, I don't even stop to evaluate whether or not I like what I'm eating unless it's phenomenally good or atrociously bad enough to notice.

I need a mind overhaul, not just a health overhaul. Simplistic as it sounds, I need to learn to eat to live, not live to eat. And it isn't as though I didn't already know that, it's just I'd never put it in terms of being mindlessly enslaved to food. Dependent on it for emotional reasons even when after whatever pitiful band aid it puts on turns into regret, shame, and remorse.

I had plenty of all three yesterday. If the social aspect is so intrinsically important to me, I could have easily still made better choices. Smaller portions. Stop eating when I'm full. Leave off an eggroll. Don't go back for a second plate of more Rangoon's. Walk the buffet to see if there are healthier options than I'm used to getting instead of going to my old favorites. Heck, I could have filled my plate with sushi and skipped all the fried, saucy stuff! 

Old habits, they say, die hard and that has never been truer than it is for me right now. It's easy to be mindful when you can sit and plan your meals and prepare them yourself but much harder when out and about in the world where all your old habits, favorites, and temptations live.

I have another "test" coming up Wednesday. We are taking Mama to our favorite burger joint for her birthday Wednesday and I've already pulled up the menu to figure out what my best options are (that don't include a salad) and I've already decided to get chicken instead a burger and sweet potato fries or a side salad. I'll let you know on Thursday if I stuck to my decision or if I caved to temptation again.