Binging, hitting bottom, and a new resolve

This started out as a comment on a spark pal's blog and quickly grew in length to the point that I knew I needed to copy it here and keep writing...


Wednesday after work I found myself trying to figure out places on my way home that might have candy corn for sale. I knew my usual "dealer" for this drug of choice was out of it, so I stopped at a different corner market. They didn't have my preferred kind (Indian corn, with the cocoa part on the bottom) so I bought the jumbo bag of regular. (I didn't even know they MADE jumbo bags until then.) I wasn't going to open it. I was going to portion it out later in the week, when I'd had more time to get the sugar out of my system.
Ha.
Yeah.
Like THAT'LL happen.
The whole bag was gone in 36 hours, and I was either gone or sleeping for all but 4-5 of those hours. I was able to do the portion thing successfully a few weeks earlier and make a (small) bag last for about ten days. But since then - nope. They might as well post a new section on their nutritional info that says "Tracy-size serving = 1 bag."

So yeah, I understand the shame factor. I've been having binges like that frequently this past few months, and last night I found myself feeling almost as desperate and disgusted with myself as I was when I joined SP last year. It's that same feeling of hitting what seems to be rock bottom. For a while there, I would have one 'bad day' and then 4-5 decent ones. Lately I'm struggling to have a decent day calorie-wise once a week. And that is just not working for me. Well - obviously it must be, to some extent, or I wouldn't keep doing it. But it is KILLING ME. It is depressing me and making me feel shame and fear as I see the number on the scale inch back up. I haven't figured out (or let myself figure out) the payoff that I'm getting from the behavior, but there obviously has to be one, beyond the "but it tastes good!" reason.

What am I accomplishing by eating so much, by feeding the emotions and the desire for taste and texture?

-I'm making myself crave the sugar and fat and FLAVORS even more.
-I'm making my blood sugar spike and my insulin go crazy in response. I can feel my heart beating a little harder in my chest, and I feel jittery, followed by the inevitable crash and desire for sleep.
-I'm giving myself bad breath and mild heartburn, which had completely disappeared when I gave up sugar in the past.
-I'm pushing steadily toward 220 again, instead of 210. HELLO??? Wrong way on that highway, sister!

So -- last night after a friend's Halloween party, while playing a game on the computer, I made the conscious choice to go ahead and finish off the last of the candy corn in the house. I was feeling disgusted with myself, and finally I felt a small tingle of that bittersweet resolve I'd felt in early July last year, when I hit rock bottom and started working toward a healthier weight. I made the decision, with full awareness, to finish off the candy and to not stop at any stores today for the after-Halloween sales. That's IT. No more. No more having 20% or more of my daily calories coming from empty sweet treats. I'm not saying I'm going to give up sugar completely - although I have successfully done that in the past. But I am giving up CANDY. No more candy. Period. End of story.