Two-Day Bender

I just read Yana's post over at girl meets band. Her post really hit home as yesterday was day two of my food bender. First I spent a day baking and making things I had no business putting together and then I ate plenty of the non-nutritious bits and avoiding the nutritious (aka the beef and vegetables). Some of my excuse for the food prep was because I was hosting my neighborhood BUNCO game but please...I so did not have to bring in potato chips, cupcakes etc. I could have picked equally good but much more nutritious items.

Day two of my food bender involved systematically snacking on every snacky item still sitting in the kitchen. Breakfast was onion flavored potato chips and some popcorn with seasoning salt. Lunch was more popcorn, some mixed nuts (ok the nuts were not horrible but still not a meal) and m & m's. When I got home from work another cupcake went down the shute followed by a dinner of more popcorn, nuts and m& m's mixed into an evil trail mix concoction. The beef was in the fridge. There were vegetables in the fridge. I could have chosen them but no...I was hell bent on hoovering each and every bunco leftover in the house.

Then came Yana's post. I of course had all kinds of advice for her. Why is it that I can know exactly what to do when I read someone else's problem but nooooo I launch headlong into my own blinding bender. So what follows is a list of the ideas/rationalizations/abusing thoughts that have run through my head as I spent all of last night (while i should have been sleeping) analyzing what the hell I was doing and thinking and what it means maybe??

1. I just came off a week of eating next to nothing and this is my body trying to regain something. My surgeon has discussed with me in the past how our bodies refuse to starve and that dirt will taste good under the right circumstances. As of this morning my body did get 2 pounds back. Perhaps this was one of those primeval urges trying to stop me from turning into skeletor (as if).

2. In my old dieting life this would have been the marker for my turn around trip to gaining again. I would have given up and been off regaining everything I lost.

3. Was I self-medicating like Yana discussed? Maybe a little. In the past I have always been an excellent little dieter when hosting parties, going on vacations, or attending holiday celebrations. It is always the day after when all of the fun and stress of being good in front of other people is over. I have always then lost the plot and eaten everything food related item I could get my hands on. I am not sure if the I am medicating the let down of fun, a way to release the pent up stress of getting ready for the event or just a purging of the goods left standing in the house.

4. Yesterday there were really moments while baking those cupcakes where I tried to convince myself that post-band I could really handle having that kind of stuff in the house. That I could bake and that somehow it would be different than pre-band when I would eat most of what came out of the oven and set myself off on weight gain and the self-loathing of 'bad eating' set in. I guess it is different a little bit because I could only eat 4 or 5 of those cupcakes, 1 cup of mixed nuts, 1/3 bag of potato chips, 1 cup of m& m's, 2 cups of potato salad. This was all of the potato chips, nuts and M&M's left but there was still 5 cupcakes that I managed in a moment of clarity (late last night) to throw into the garbage when I came up for air. The potato salad is still in the fridge and safe from me for today at least as I am not feeling the urge to crack into it..is that really how I want to live my life? and I apparently found foods that wouldn't get stuck aka slider that I could do damage with. Is this just me? Can I change this naughty little habit? Should I stop beating myself up over or face it and try to stop? Is it OK to do this? Do 'normal' people do this?

So...was this emotional or physical? was this me or my primeval starvation-o-meter urging me on? How can I stop it from happening again? Do I need to stop it from happening again? When I have post-event-itis can I reroute my urges to a more positive outlet? I told Yana to find something to replace her urges....perhaps I should have gone out and gotten on my bike instead of laying my head on my kitchen counter with my mouth open:)

Today...is another day.