Sliding.
I’ve got to get my head on straight.
I have been catching myself doing head-math. You know, adding up calories of a meal or snack. It’s very mindless and I’m halfway through the calculations before I realize what I’m doing. I stop then, and resist totalling up an entire day’s worth of calories, but OH. HOW I WANT TO.
On the drive home from my parents’ home tonight after spending the day playing nurse to my mom as she recuperates, I was torn between two competing desires. First, I wanted to go straight to the grocery store for a box of those ice-cream sandwiches that are made with the M&M cookies–you know the ones? I’ve never had one, but for two days now, I’ve been thinking about them. Second, I wanted to go home and place myself on the treadmill for a good 90 minutes.
Overeat or overexercise. Those were the choices. Not, like, a hot shower or a Sudoku or a good dog-snuggle. Food I wasn’t hungry for or exercise I didn’t need (having already done my designated workout for the day this AM).
Why? Why is that where I go when I’m feeling anxious? Why can’t I just go home and put on the pjs and pour a glass of iced tea (or wine, as needed) and watch American Idol and just relax? Why do I go for the pain?
When I decided to give up the disordered eating and compulsive exercising, I typed up a little contract with myself of the behaviors I wouldn’t engage in. And I signed it with the stipulation that I would give myself precisely three months to try living without my rituals. I’m roughly five weeks in and it’s still very hard and sometimes I think that when the three months wraps up in mid-July, I’ll still have time to “get things under control” (horrible phrase, but the one my internal voice is using) before the summer is over.
I miss dieting. But I don’t miss feeling hungry and sore and really, really terrified all the time.
Maybe by the time 7/16 gets here, I’ll have found other ways to soothe myself.
A couple weeks ago, I found myself doing the calorie roundup, despite not having done it for quite some time. It occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the calorie content of a brusse; sprout, which I had for lunch that day. It unnerved me at first, but then I became so pleased with myself that I have forgotten the calorie content of a brussel sprout. There was once a time when I knew the calorie content of most every food known to modern man.
It was then I realized how I used to use calorie counting as a means of diversion. Instead of dealing with the very real problems at hand, I counted calories. It’s so very easy to forget problems when you’re counting up an entire’s day worth of calories, oops, you lost count and now have to start over, and while you’re at it, why not calculate tomorrow’s too.
It reminds me of the lines in a Bruce Cockburn song:
I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers
It didn’t take long - I don’t know much about Turkish drummers -
But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes
Who’d been in the Afghan secret police
Who made the observation
That it’s hard
To live
Then I was reminded of the proprietor of a Vietnamese restaurant in Quebec who used to be head of the secret police in Da Nang - and it occurred to me I was thinking about all this stuff to keep from thinking about something else…
Isn’t that just what secret police are all about???
You’re exactly right. It’s how I deal with anxious feelings. Knowing those numbers gives me a feeling of control and distracts from the likely uncontrollable thing actually bothering me. It’s such an easy habit to slip back into.
I’m looking forward to forgetting the numbers eventually. At least that might slow me down.
Thank you for your comment and the lines from the song; I think that would go well on my bulletin board.