Battling the Binging

Are you a night eater? I’ll admit that I am. It’s the hardest time of the day for me to resist temptation. I can go almost all day – proud of myself for eating rather light. Not much for breakfast other than coffee and a nutrition bar –oh no, just a lite lunch, thank you. Then it kicks in. I want something more ‘substantial’ as a mid-afternoon snack, because hey, I've hardly had a thing all day. Then dinner comes and I’d like a dessert, of course. I add up my all my calories for the day so far and discover that, hmm, gee I have a lot more calories to use up in order to meet my goal for the day. Must not under-eat. If I’m not careful, though, I’ll end up over-eating because my craving nature kicks in and before I know it, the extra 300 calories I had to spend on dessert will end up ‘encouraging' me to eat 600 and I've blown it for the day.

And perhaps we share this issue, too - the more I eat, the more my body wants to eat. If I over-eat, say give in to that afternoon or night craving, I find the next day my body wants more - even to the point of hunger pains poking at me around the same time I overindulged the day before. It’s as if my body is saying, ‘Hey, you fed us yesterday at this time, let’s do that again!’ It would be really easy to give in to those urges just to shut them up. That’s where our tough resolve has to kick in. It’s hard. I know. But if you can battle it back –ignore those desires/pains/cravings for one day, it will get easier the next. And the day after that is even a little bit better because you now have a history of winning the fight. If you can hang in there until you begin to see results on the scale or in the way you can now breathe easier when you don a certain pair of jeans or skirt, that will give you more incentive to continue the fight. You can do it!

Now Is The Time

It was during this time 7 years ago that I made up my mind to lose my weight. It was, in fact, the day after Thanksgiving, after all that turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce, the mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie and pecan pie. That's when I got on the scale, (not a good idea for any American, I’m sure), and discovered I was at my top weight. (You can read more about it in my first couple of entries listed here to the left.)

The important thing is that it was the final motivation, the final straw, if you will, that made me finally want to change enough to do something about it. Oh, I had said I wanted to do something many times. And even half-heartedly attempted it. But after about a week, I'd go back to my old ways. But here I was, standing on the scale again, only this time something in my head clicked.

I didn’t like the way things were headed, I was too young to look this matronly, (because that’s how we look when we get overweight, matronly – we’re not only carrying more pounds but the misshapen and boring clothes that designers throw together for the larger gals makes us look like we’re carrying more years,) and I was determined to take back my power.

A dear friend suggested I not try to diet during the Christmas holidays, fearing I might fail with so many temptations around of holiday goodies, many of them my own since I love to bake. But I was so determined that I did it anyway and lost 8-pounds in the first month! That tells me that so much about our weight has to do with what’s going on in our heads. If you set your mind on something strongly enough, you will do it. So, what are you waiting for?