About Thursday

I am writing this a day after Thursday, in the hopes of getting past, or over, or at least somehow in the process of dealing with, the shock of the 5 year anniversary. (Yesterday’s post)

Thursday was an odd day.

I had a binge. A huge binge. Larger than I have had in a long time. It wasn’t as big as it could have been. I had other food I was also going to eat but somehow managed to talk myself out of it.

Then I was horrifically full so didn’t eat for um, 8.5 hours or so.

I wasn’t going to eat again at all that day but I had practice and I am trying to stick with the whole “eat before and after working out or engaging in a physical activity” rule. sigh. I hate that rule.

Obviously I didn’t eat right before practice, what with all the food that was still in my stomach digesting – which side note, despite very much wanting to I did not take any laxatives or diet pills to rush the food out of me – a miracle if ever there was one.

I’d like to take some credit for that but I only refrained because I know that the side effects from those pills would have hit when I was at practice and oh wow would that not be good.

So…no pills…but lots of food in the tummy…

Then I went to practice, had a decent workout, and when it was all done wanted ice cream. What the fuck?! *rolls eyes* My brain was all “you already fucked up today, if ever there is gonna be a day to eat the ice cream it is today!” but it was also saying “sure you ate a tonne earlier but you just finished practice so you burned a bunch of that off which means you have room to eat more”

I would like to point out that both those arguments are flawed, and yet, both feel so valid.

The whole drive home I was arguing with myself if I was going to get ice cream. If I wasn’t going to get it did I want to stop somewhere else and pick up something ready made to eat for dinner? Did I want to just grab the McFlurry and be done with it? Did I want to make something to eat at home? Or should I just not eat?

Don’t you love how I go from eating ice cream to eating nothing, like middle options don’t count or something.

In the end I went home, with the fairly solid plan of not eating because I was definitely over my calories for the day so my body doesn’t need any more food in it. If it is hungry from practice, which it shouldn’t be, then it can feed itself from the food I already put in it.

After my shower though I remembered a talk with my one-on-one counsellor and how we talked about post-workout nutrition and how it is important.

Ugh. Sometimes I hate when those talks pop back up in my head because they make it harder to convince myself restricting is the right choice and some days I really want to restrict because oh my god all the food in me from earlier!! Ack! But, I know he is right, and I am wrong, so I remembered what we talked about. I remembered about fueling my body, and taking care of it, and how if I don’t give it what it needs post-workout than tomorrow will be harder, and my workout tomorrow will be harder, and I’ll be more prone to injury and exhaustion, and well, I kept remembering a lot of stuff.

Eventually all that remembering kicked my ass in to gear and I made something to eat. And not even my normal food, which would have been a protein smoothie bowl or an egg with some toast.

Nope. I went out of my comfort zone by so freakin much. I have no idea why, it just felt like the night to try…to be honest I think because I still felt like such a screw up from my earlier binge that I figured if I’m gonna eat something higher calorie than my normal post practice meal I might as well go completely off plan. So, not the best reasoning for why to try something new but whatever.

I cooked a beef burger patty, and topped it with cheese, because oh yeah, apparently I eat cheese sometimes now! How the fuck did that happen?!  (I’m gonna get so fat…no! no, in moderation it might be ok…right?) Aaaaaand I made these things, I don’t know what to call them, they are like tater tots but made of broccoli and cheese.

I bought them I don’t even know how long ago and they have been in my freezer ever since. I’ve been too scared to try them because (1) what if I don’t like them and I’m stuck with them or (2) even worse, what if I like them and eat them too often, or too many at a time, and do I really want to risk having yet one more food that I know about, and like, that I have to put on my “not allowed” list, cause you know that is where most foods end up. sigh.

Food stuff is so hard.

So yeah, the package said 6 was a serving, so I cooked 6 of them.

That means I ate a burger patty with some cheese melted on top and 6 broccoli & cheese tot things.

Can that be any farther from something I am comfortable eating?

And omg, later I ate 10 crackers so I got my freakin grain component.

What has come over me…

Oh, and one last thing for the day, our drop-in group on Monday is cancelled cause of the holiday so I actually reached out to the friends I made in group that I hang with sometimes and asked if any of them would be interested in chilling that day, sort of our own group thing, so we don’t miss that Monday connection we usually have. And two of them have said yes! I thought for sure they’d be all “omg do we not see enough of you already, back the fuck off woman!” but no, they actually seem happy with the idea. Not everyone has responded yet so some of them may be all “back the fuck off”, but not all of them are…I’m assuming it is more the need to stick to routine and take care of their own recovery than any actual desire to hang out with me but that’s ok, shrug, I can deal with that.

I’m trying to tally the day, in a recovery positive way, and here is what I have:

Bad Shit:

I had a binge

Good Shit:

I stopped the binge before it got even worse than it was.

I didn’t take any pills etc. to purge after the binge.

I didn’t bail on my practice and avoid humanity because of my binge.

I initially restricted after the binge due to being sooooo full but after practice I made and cooked a meal.

The meal I cooked had all 4 food groups, contained red meat (something I never eat), contained a completely new to me food, had cheese, and I willingly ate a serving of carbs.

I didn’t purge the dinner I made.

I reached out to friends to make arrangements to help us all have support on a day when I knew we would be lacking it.

So, it would seem the Good tally is winning, wouldn’t you say?

Now, I will be the first to admit I could be very wrong here. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten the post practice dinner because of how much I consumed earlier. I don’t know all the new rules, and I get confused a lot about what to do, what is the right decision, and I most likely made the wrong one here. But even if it is wrong, I made a decision, and I stuck with it, no matter what the consequences were. And at the end of the day I guess that is the best I can do.

(I feel I should point out I wrote that last paragraph like it is no big deal but I was freaking out. Totally and absolutely freaking out about having eaten that dinner, having the food in my tummy, taking in even more calories. I have been doing so well lately with not eating too much and Thursday totally blew that out of the water. So ya know, panic, in spades. But I still didn’t go for the pills, or for a late night run, instead I drank some water and went to bed. Please let that be a sign of progress cause if it isn’t then this internal drama sooooo isn’t worth it! Just sayin’)