I don’t know how to explain my eating yesterday.
The only thing I can say about it is I started eating at 9am and I didn’t stop eating until sometime after 6pm. I feel like it was some sort of day dream. It went something like this: I got up yesterday morning and had my usual pre-run/workout breakfast (banana and almond butter). After my run I had a banana, a few strawberries and two granola bars. Once home I kept going to the fridge (at least every 5 minutes) and popping handfuls of grapes, blueberries and cheese. Went to my MIL’s house and from there continued to consume more cheese, bbq chicken, ribs, coleslaw and pickled veggies and about a pound of blackberries picked from her yard. Lots of food brought home and I continued to pick at chicken and grapes until I finally forced myself into bed at the late hour of 7:30p.
Looking over the food items it doesn’t seem that bad. Yes, lots of fruit was consumed. Yes I ran 4+ miles yesterday before the chowfest happened but for me this was a lot of food. Enough food that I actually weighed myself and it said 191 (that’s 6 pounds of food in my stomach). I couldn’t stop eating. I am grateful that my food choices were some what healthy (minus the bbq sauce of course) but only because I don’t keep “bad” food in my house any longer. I kept asking myself if I was hungry and the answer coming back was always yes but come on after 3 large pieces of chicken and a crap ton of coleslaw you can’t be hungry enough to eat ribs too.
It was all mindless eating.
Maybe I pushed myself too hard this last week. I worked out with Godfather three times. I worked out with Supergirl Megan once. I biked a total of 40 miles and ran a total of 10+ miles including some really hard hill work. I woke up yesterday sore, tired and run down…so I ate.
I ate until my stomach was bloated. I ate until I was so full I thought I was going to throw up and then I continued to eat until finally my brain shut down and all I could do was go to bed. I slept almost 10 hours and as I write this feel like I could go back to bed for a few more hours.
The damage doesn’t seem so bad now that I’m up and moving around. I’m actually trying to convince myself that in the end hardly any food was consumed (I mean compared to what I was eating just a short 8 months ago) but truth be told: it was a binge. I won’t spend too much time obsessing over it. I won’t go out and hit the gym hard today in hopes of rectifying whatever weight was gained. In fact, I’m taking a much needed day off and the only sweat that will be coming off my face is from working on the front yard because it has been neglected long enough. I may go for a walk on the water front just to clear my head a bit. I’ll choose my food wisely today and may even measure everything just to feel a little more in control.
I’m going to close this week not thinking about all the food I put in my mouth but rather all the sweat that fell off my body. I won’t think about the mindless eating but rather all the mindful moving I did. I won’t think about the “bad” choices because there were none. There were only choices and I am in control of them all.
With what you ate, the most that happened was your sugar spiked from all that fruit. You ate until you were full and you binged a bit, it will happen. Remember this is a life long journey to live healthier. It could have been that you worked your body so hard this week and it was just starving for calories. Or it could have been you just wanted food. The binge will probably happen again Tara over the course of this LCJ. If you do it once every few months I don’t see it as a big deal. If it starts happening all the time, then maybe you have to sit back take a breath and look at things a bit.
You are doing great!
I was hungrier than normal yesterday too and I chalk it up to getting my period. But anyway I totally get how you feel…yeah it was healthy food, but it still was a binge. BTDT. I think the key is to embrace the binge has a learning experience versus something to feel ashamed of. For me it’s not a matter of saying “I will never binge again” it’s more about increasing the amount of time in between binges, catching myself sooner and being more objective about it. And yes, seeing the wisdom that comes each and every time it happens. It’s all good!
I like the approach you have with this. You are living your life. Shit happens now let’s move on. Obviously you will want to figure out the why’s so you can prevent it from happening in the future, but most of us have been there or somewhere near there and can relate. Keep on with it girl I look up to you tremendously!!!
Last season we had a presentation from a GREAT sports nutritionist named Emily Edison. http://www.momentum4health.com
It might be really beneficial to talk to her or someone like her and get a sense of whether you’re eating the right number of calories and the right proportions of different foods for your level of exercise. You have been on a very short, steep trajectory from zero to super-athletic, and you are considering upping the ante more all the time, it seems. Maybe your body is REALLY needing some nutrient or mineral, or needing it different times, or just depleted in some way. Or maybe you’ve just been running your engine too hard without enough recovery time, and your body/mind is too tired to hold onto your new discipline. I’m hoping this same rain is falling in Tacoma to keep you resting in bed with Mitch this morning. Why not make a rest day really a day with some physical rest? An easy walk to clear the mind and let the yard be wild a little, for now?
You’re doing great. No matter that you will binge sometimes, will have some days that feel like the days you lived in your old life. You are human and therefore glorious and imperfect. I think Karen’s response says this sort of thing as well as anyone could.
Oops more to say. I just remembered your last few Facebook and blog posts, and think they are instructive: Friday: Stressful week, letting go of a large sum of money, making marathon decision, pushed to the max physically, therapy and Godfather and wanting to borrow a blankie. Saturday: (team practice) need a rest day, so damn sore, I’m freezing. And then binge. I think a formula is in there, and it’s similar to what I said before, with emotion added. Mentally tired, emotionally tired, physically tired from high levels of physical exercise. Binge. It’s not inevitable, but it’s a moment when vigilance is definitely hard to find. Good instructive experience, again echoing Karen’s wise words.
I still stand by my statement this morning about you being consistent and inspiring…even when you binge your attitude is one of perseverance and strength. I <3 you Tara. Keep up the good fight…you are shedding much more than fat, my dear….and gaining so much more.
Like I said on Twitter…you have come so far. Remember on vacation when you were freaking out about eating a piece of cake? (Was that it?)
Shit happens. Less-than-perfectly-healthy choices happen. You’re right – you’re in control of your choice, and one of them is how to react when you make a mistake or have a rough eating day. You can either treat it like a mistake, or like an end-of-the-world moral failing. You know which of those is healthy, because YOU ARE HEALTHY and YOU MADE THE HEALTHY CHOICE.
So amen to moving on and letting it be what it was. ENJOY…I mean, REALLY enjoy your rest day. Pamper your body. Take a nap, take a bath, ask Mitch to give you a massage, read a book, etc. Do some serious self-care cuz you deserve it.
I have found that often a binge – no matter WHAT the food is – comes from my lack of self-care and sometimes that means taking a day or two to take it easy. AND I agree with Josie…Keep up the good work….you are shedding much more than fat!
That stuff happens to me all the time. Can’t seem to get full. It’s not the calories that bothers me but the way I feel for two or three days until it all clears out.
I think a rest day is just what the doctor ordered. You’re right, you made a choice and now you have a whole new set of choices to look at. Take that walk by the water and let your spirit recoup. ♥
Remember my mindless eating post? Yeah. Been there, done that, it’s over now. That monster will come back every once in awhile but as long as it’s not a daily occurrence, I’m ok with it.
Don’t beat yourself up Bumblebee. We all have these days. But now they’re few and rare.
We’ve all been there! Start over and put it behind you!
FIToriBLOG.com
Sometimes you need to just relax and eat what you want. It’s good for your mind. Like you said, you chose relatively healthy foods so you are good. I have to echo seattle. Remember the cake? you have come so far. great job.
also, sorry about not posting before this, since the move, I havent set up internet at the house. I’m working on it though!
I love your blog. 🙂
Hmmm, sounds like we had similar weekends, because that pretty much describes my Friday night. And then I headed out camping and fishing for the weekend, and ate more than my fair share of crappy food. But like you, I’m not going to agonize over it, just move forward and keep doing what I’ve been doing since the start of this year.
I loved what you wrote in your last paragraph. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in what I did wrong that I completely over look what I did right, and for me, that’s a bad combo. I usually end up tossing in the towel for several days or weeks because I got so bummed out at what a failure I was that I failed to see that I managed not to drink a soda (which is huge for me) and went for a great walk and burned a ton of calories cleaning the house. But after I sabotage myself the calories burned are nill…all beacause I couldn’t look past what I did wrong to what I did right and keep pushing forward. Keep up the good work!
kudos to actually recognizing what it was and then moving on directly from it. I find this too – especially AFTER a hard/long workout (run) and too little sleep. In fact I just blogged about it myself – 90% of the “binging” is because I am truly hungry. 90% of it is also very good choices, which is different from a couple of years ago.
great that you took a break too – that’s what we call “listening to our bodies” right?
Sometimes binges for me are not about quantity or healthiness of the food but just how I know that I really was out of control. Awesome that you concentrate on your workouts, be happy for all you’ve done and are continuing to do!