Life has been throwing Dan and I few curve balls lately. It's nice when I can see binge triggers coming, so I can have a plan in place instead of fumbling in the dark. Before I would have welcomed a bingeing episode with open arms. I would have embraced it as an old and welcome friend. Now I can usually see a binge a mile away, and instead of embracing it, or avoiding it I make a plan to cope with it.
Recently we found out that someone near and dear to our hearts has breast cancer and is undergoing a Mastectomy on Monday morning. Daniel and I plan on visiting the hospital I need to identify as many binge triggers as possible beforehand. I know that having days off can sometimes be triggering (who hasn't had the, "I"m on days off and I'm not going to cook" thoughts? Or, "I'm on days off and I'm WAY too busy and stressed to cook!") and being in a hospital I find is very stressful. I get a bit anxious and I know exactly where the cafeteria is!
I plan on having my favorite breakfast, natural peanut butter, toast and decaff coffee. So at least I'll have a good start to the day. After that I'm still deciding. I think I will make a few of my favourite healthier comfort foods on Sunday and leave them in the fridge. That way I know I have food I love at home, it just needs to be heated up. Of course I'll take my mini food log with me just in case I eat on the go, but I'm hoping that wont be necessary.
Yesterday I had mini pork chops planned for supper, but I never got to make them! I found out around 2:30 pm yesterday that my younger brother (read: baby brother!) decided to make the 3 hour trip to visit us for the weekend! If any of you know my family at all, you know we like to eat! So I knew right away the pork chops wouldn't get eaten, and that pizza would probably be on the menu. Sure thing, as soon as we walk in the front door he says, "We gotta get pizza! I don't care if I pay for all of it!"
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm SO glad I have been faced with this binge trigger over and over again. Before it would have made me anxious and panicky. What should I do? Of course I want pizza, but at the same time a don't (or maybe it's "shouldn't" it's hard to tell)! Now I can take it in stride and I usually have a plan in place as soon as I know he's coming to visit. Through trial and error I have found out that if he goes and gets pizza, and I have my normal meal I get very very cranky. So I have decided that pizza is alright in moderation. I get a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. BBQ Chicken for only 650 calories!
Some of you may be wondering why I don't just stick with what I had planned, because surely it was healthier and better for me. Well yes, nutritionally the meal I had planned was better. But for me I find it's okay to have that occasional slice of pizza. The way I eat is the way I plan to eat for the rest of my life. It's unrealistic to expect me to not ever have anything "bad" ever again. If I do, then it'll seem like I failed, when really I was just being human. I know now that when my brother comes up, that I'm going to have pizza in moderation, which is something I didn't know how to do before. Learning how to eat in moderation and how to control my habits is new and wonderful!
Now today, thankfully he has left over pizza so I will be making my own meals and he can have pizza! The only problem I have with eating junkier foods in the evening (or saving up my calories for a big evening meal) is that I wake up VERY hungry in the morning. I've been battling that ever since we came back from vacation. I wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning and I'm ready to eat a horse! Thankfully I've learned that it's a symptom of the previous days food and that if I eat the same as normal, it'll eventually go away. (When I eat breakfast the intense hunger goes away, I don't stay hungry. Just to clarify).
Yesterday morning I had some of my new Organic Pumpkin Seed butter, I first heard of it from Katie over at Runs for cookies. It turns out she got it from one of her Canadian friends, who in turn got it from Save-On! So, since I'm totally in love with pumpkin I decided it was worth a try. It has a comparable amount of protein and calories to natural peanut butter, and I would say a similar taste. Mostly bland, to be honest. I decided to spice it up and put some on my toast with pumpkin pie spice, not too bad!
It kinda looks like something you'd buy for Halloween anyways?!
I'm not sure if I'll buy it again, but I'm glad I tried it! I find coffee, toast and peanut butter (or pumpkin seed butter!) to be the things I find myself automatically eating every single morning. It's a measly 220 calories, but it keeps me running for hours.
Work has been hectic the past two days. It's the time of year where new video games are released, which means our store turns into a mad house every week. The past two days we have been preparing for the new Skylanders game to come out (if you have children over the age of 5 you've probably heard of this game). Sometimes it's cute to have little kids come up to you with big toothy grins and try to peer over our tall counter and say, "escuuuse me, do you have Chop Chop or Hex?" (imagine the child has slurred the words and you'd agree the children are adorable!). But then you get in the mothers who have been pestered all day to come to a store they don't like (most mothers dislike video game stores, go figure) and they have to stand in line to find out we don't have something in stock. Or worst of all, when the mother wants something we don't have, and the she doesn't even know exactly what she's looking for. Frustrations all around! I'd like to say I work in a store that's fun at Christmas, but usually we get in Christmas shoppers who have no idea what they're buying and they're irritated just by coming into the store. I will be glad when the Christmas season is over and I can resume a reasonable day at work.
Thanks for stopping by! I want to know what your comfort foods are! Are they healthy, unhealthy? Let me know! Turkey and Quinoa meatloaf with mashed cauliflower is probably one of my favourite meals ever as well as Baked potato soup, and Quick Chicken corn chowder! Yum yum yum!
Thanks for stopping by! I want to know what your comfort foods are! Are they healthy, unhealthy? Let me know! Turkey and Quinoa meatloaf with mashed cauliflower is probably one of my favourite meals ever as well as Baked potato soup, and Quick Chicken corn chowder! Yum yum yum!
I'm glad you have a plan set to combat the triggers. That's the hardest part....trying to figure out HOW to deal with it. For me, it meant not having the trigger foods in my house ever. Not having the temptations where I can access them helped a lot. It was a lot more effort to actually have to go out to the store and buy the foods I wanted to binge on, than it was to have them handy.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I agree totally! It's taken me a long time to figure out some of my triggers and I'm still learning! I've only just starting integrating "snack" foods back into my house. I still don't carry chips, chocolate etc and try to make my snacks instead otherwise I might binge on them.
DeleteMy biggest hurdle was my dietitian and my counselor both banned me from visiting family for a few months since being around loved ones made me want to eat. I associate food with love, and I LOVED being with family, so in turn I LOVED to binge. I'm glad that I'm over that hurdle, but goes to show how bad binge triggers can be!
Thanks for visiting :)