holding myself accountable
Here’s a major moment of honesty for you.
This morning, I ate 600 calories in cookies. Cookies, people. It is now 11:35 am. And I have no other source of nutrition in my body. They were organic cookies, with antioxidants & some whole grains, and blah blah blah. But they were still cookies, dessert, snacks. This is really not easy for me to admit. I try to keep my dietary flaws to myself; I am so not proud of them. I should probably clarify that I’m not a big girl. I have a little extra weight on my tummy that I’ve worked hard to keep down since my original college gain.
But it’s still hard to reconcile the person I am now with the person I once was. Before college, I was absolutely the healthiest and fittest (and, not to mention, happiest) I had ever been. Then my choices changed. As did my stress level, radically. All my purchased food is kept in my room, within arm’s length. My other meals are taken at the dining hall, buffet style, where the healthiest offer is some wet leaves and unripe cherry tomatoes and the array of desserts looks like the land of milk and honey by comparison. Actually, it is the land of milk and honey - just heavily processed.
Yuck.
I do work out. I do have good days. And I, miraculously, have a healthy body image that I’ve worked hard for. But then I have these moments, these binges, these major eating indiscrepancies that make me panic. It’s such an awful feeling, and that’s precisely why I’m sharing. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has felt stupid for their food choices. More than anything, though, I want to prevent these ridiculous, out-of-control moments in the future.
I want to be able to keep snacks in my room without eating them in 24 hours, and I want never to worry about fitting in my clothes. I want to balance the insane urge to lunge at the cookie counter at Mrs. Fields in the mall with the desire to look and feel as skinny as the model in the Abercrombie display (never gonna happen). I just want to have a healthy and controlled attitude towards eating. Is that so much to ask?
Apparently, yes, as I’ve been dealing with this issue for months now. So, here I am, writing about it and broadcasting my problem to the world. My self shame is officially on display. I would just love it if some of you reading could identify, but if not, I’m happy to have this out in the open because it means that I’m devoting myself to change in a more serious way than before. Silent promises to myself have never been enough.
I’m ready now to just take it one day at a time, and when I struggle, I will be SURE to look back at this post as evidence of how BAD it feels to actually eat that last cookie. Don’t do it!
