Last week, I had such high hopes that I would start this post by saying I had a much better week as far as my eating habits go. Sadly, that is not the case.
I know exactly what happened, and it’s what I wrote an entire post about: “A Lesson In Weight Maintenance“. I’d written that I’ve learned over the last year or so just how my body reacts to certain foods. Sugar, for example, makes me crave more sugar. Even the tiniest amount can start cravings that feel insatiable. And they last for days!
The hard part is getting back to the balanced feeling, where I don’t have cravings. To get there, I have to refrain from sweets for about four days–sounds simple enough, right? Well, the cravings get so bad that trying to make it through four days is extremely difficult. I know that I can do it, but it’s certainly not easy.
I also learned (only more recently) that overeating has a big effect on my body the following day. I hadn’t overeaten in a long time–a couple of months–and one evening, I ate until I was really full. I don’t even remember what it was, but I hated that feeling of being so full. I had no idea that it was going to affect me the way it did the following day.
I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. I haven’t had alcohol in 975 days now, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget what a hangover feels like. I was ravenously hungry and my stomach felt like a bottomless pit. And I craved greasy food! It reminded me of college when my roommates and I would go to McDonald’s the morning after a night of drinking.
That feeling lasted all day long and I realized it had been the first time that I had gone so long without overeating, and by doing so, my body just was not happy with me at all. What’s difficult is that I had a huge appetite (even though I knew it wasn’t true hunger) and it’s hard not to eat when I felt that hungry.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been battling with these–what do I call them?–effects of overeating as well as eating sugar. I desperately want to get back to the neutral state I was in before, where I didn’t have the desire to overeat or eat sweets.
Another side effect of the overeating was that my energy level tanked. My morning runs feel more difficult and I have to push myself harder during the day. I had never noticed that before. My whole life, I ate sweets pretty regularly, so I never knew what would happen when I didn’t eat them for a long time. (These discoveries have actually been really fascinating to me.)
This past week, I logged my food for a few days, just to see how many calories I was eating. I wasn’t trying to restrict because I was genuinely curious. I wasn’t surprised when I saw it was about 2,500 a day. I knew I was eating too much. Before, I was probably eating about 1,800 to 2,000 per day and I felt so much better.
As for my weigh-in, I’m right at the border of the high end of my maintenance range.
So far, I’m lucky that my weight hasn’t continued climbing, but I definitely notice the difference in how I feel (and in how my clothes fit). I would like to focus on getting back to my comfortable self–eating how my body feels best. And over the last year, I’ve learned SO much about what makes my body feel best! Eating normal-sized portions, no sweets, high-fiber, and a lot of fruit. (I think the fruit helps curb sugar cravings, but it doesn’t have the effect on my body that refined sugar does.)
I’ve done pretty well the past couple of days, and once I get through a couple more, I should start to feel like I’m on the right track again. Fingers crossed 😉
