Sometimes you have to give thanks for the lows

I hate to have even a bit of a downer post on Thanksgiving, but I also feel like if I don't continue to keep it real then I won't continue at all.  Because as I've said in the title, I do have to be thankful for the lows (and I am) -- because otherwise I wouldn't recognize the challenges I overcome along the way.

I think it started because of the overconfidence that developed when I had such a spikey workout yesterday.  This really did a positive number on my confidence, because I was thinking about the 5k we did earlier this year and how proud I was that I was under 17 minute mile.  And now, I'm hovering around 15 minutes.  So, that's down about 2 minutes in an 8 month time span that included like 4 monhts of not working out at all.  As always, I'm taking the NSV's where I can get them.

Then, I was helping my mom make an apple cake for Thanksgiving dessert.  I licked the spoon.  I was thinking about my friend Kiosk and how she'd asked me to be her support network during times when she was making cakes for people because cake batter triggers a frenzy.  I thought hey, one spoonful -- I can do this.  I was thinking about dinner and how, while I am looking forward to the variety of very non-healthy things we will be having, I did not plan to overindulge.  Just a regular plate-ful.  It's just dinner.  I don't need to eat to survive winter, like the Pilgrims. 

But things started slowly drifting downhill.  We hung out with our neighbors, whom we love but do not usually lead me to the path of good decisions.  We are making wine with them and we sampled a carafe.  It has a very high alcohol content right now...  We had Chinese food for dinner, like good Americans pre-Thanksgiving.  I continued to maintain a level of good decisions -- I skipped the lo mein, I ate a lot of broccoli (which I choose to believe is a better decision, even if it is slathered in sauce) and made a very small plate overall.  Fist sized portions of shrimp and broccoli and mostly the mushrooms from a beef and mushroom concoction. 

And then it happened.  We got home.  And I binged.  Like I haven't binged in a very long time.  Opened up tortilla chip bag and strapped on like a feeder.  But then that led to a self-loathing that can only be cured by chocolate.  Found some Christmas chocolate (that would mean it was from last year) and snarfed many pieces of that.  Was surrounded by wrappers and put the chocolate away.  But, I guess I still felt empty because I moved on to a snack sized bread pudding -- which was probably the only somewhat decent thing I binged on since it was teeny portion from Kozy Shack.  And I managed to stop at one.

And I managed to stop.

I headed for bed and made a call to Kiosk to try to talk me through it.  She was immensely helpful, despite being overwhelmed with her Thanskgiving prep. 

And this morning, I forced myself to go to the gym and get my workout in.  (Thank Goodness for 24 hour gyms!)  I have a plan of attack to try to not binge my way through the day.  And I'm going to work on being thankful that I'm capable of forgiving myself for these setbacks while not forgiving myself in to downward spiral. 

It's been a challenging year on the weight loss front.  I have been kidding myself into thinking I could procrastinate on dealing with the food issues.  I still don't know if I am capable of handling focusing on more than one thing at a time.  But, I do know that if I don't at least start trying that last night was just a toe-dip in the shallow end of the tidal pool of self-loathing that can evolve from denying that emotional eating is a part of my life. 

I'm thankful for you sitting here reading this.  I'm thankful that I have people I can call and can talk me down.  I have people who push me to keep trying.  And I am most thankful that I have people who don't judge me when I slide back and still love me and root for me anyways.  I want you to know that I'm rooting for you too!

Much love and gratitude,
Heather