The last couple days I have seen a definite shift in my relationship to food, where I have used binge behavior, and thus food, as a punishment for myself. This goes deeply and directly back to my brief stint with an "eating disorder" over 7 years ago.
The container of ice cream that I usually buy is 1.5 quarts. One serving is 1/2 cup, at 150 calories per serving, allowing 12 servings per carton. I usually go through a carton in 3, maybe 2.5 my-size-servings, adding milk to make delicious milkshakes.
So I'll go through 3 cartons, which I can sometimes get on sale for $10 total, in just about a week and a half, whereas if it was only one suggested serving size per day, 3 cartons would last 36 days (is that math right? haha).
Then, the other day, I added cookies to my in-home menu. In less than 24 hours I ate at least 12 cookies. Six of them, along with some ice cream, constituted my "dinner" the night that I purchased them. The next day I decided I ought to bring the remainder to work because it did not seem wise to allow myself access to so many cookies since I do not trust myself to not binge on them. Then I ate at least 6 more throughout that work day, to the point where by lunch time not only was I not hungry (but ate my lunch anyway), but I also was in such physical discomfort that I had a difficult time engaging in conversation with coworkers.
My most recent "binge" was last night, and I only say "binge" in quotation marks because years ago I used to read the blogs of a girl who struggled with a very intense bulimia, and she sometimes would list out everything she ate in a binge. I am not saying this is a "binge" like that kind of binge. But I am saying that this is me eating "mindlessly" or "compulsively" and eating in excess, indulging, feeding a need to put something in my mouth and consume it beyond being full, to the point of discomfort, completely overriding what my body and myself is communicating to myself, listening only to the desire for more food.
And the energy as I ate all of this was like that of punishment. Like I deserve the sluggishness and shame and self judgment that I allow to accompany binge behavior. I deserve to feel uncomfortable in my gut as I force my body to digest all of this, thus abusing my body for what I do in my mind. I deserve to face the consequences such as potential weight gain for indulging in all of this over-eating... Like that was a thought at one point. I'm going to get "fat," and I deserve that, and I deserve all the self-hatred that will come with gaining weight, like "that'll teach me" to... what? Not eat? So why am I continuing to binge now? Like knowing the consequence and doing it anyway, with the thought that experiencing the consequence I already understand will somehow stop me next time. I can stop myself now.
It's tricky though. I mean I have to really look at what is healthy versus what is just me wanting to live an ideal body image. Healthy =/= Thin.
And I can't use process to make myself the ultimate anorectic. No no, that would be quite counter productive.
What I can do is stop abusing my body through food. I can stop abusing food through my use of it. I can stop participating in the thoughts of self judgment in regards to the food I have already consumed. And I can try out setting up a rule / expectation for myself that I will cease my consumption of sweets by not even allowing them in my possession for a set time. Just to see how that goes.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make having sweets in my possession one of my top priorities, as the main reason that I will make a trip to the store.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes eat sweets in the absence of any nutritious food.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically just not care, say "fuck it," and continue to eat even after I am already full.
I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to appreciate and savor every bite that I eat, being conscious and aware of my chewing, of the tastes, etc., instead rushing through eating so that before I even know it, the food is gone, and so of course I am likely to want more.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to overload my digestive system with too much food of a wide variety, very little of it having any nutritional value, much of it very difficult to digest.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to eat until and beyond the point that I am uncomfortable physically.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to eat sweets simply because I have them, so that as long as they are in my apartment, I will eat them, which, coupled with compulsively over-eating, means they go very fast.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be deterred by the high price of my most favored brand of ice cream so that I end up spending a lot of money on this addiction in order to have what I have deemed the best version.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to waste money on a self-abusive addiction.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be pushing the envelope with myself, to see how much I can eat before I finally say ENOUGH and look at myself and stop myself, forcing myself into participation in an opposite polarity, where here the opposite of binge behavior is starvation / restriction.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel my arms, to feel how flabby or not flabby they feel, to think about when I was in high school when I could touch my index finger to my thumb around my upper arm with relative ease, and to miss that, and I believe I have to get back to that.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine by believing that I can feel fat going directly to my arms, making them flabby and wiggly.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine / feel like a subtle buzzing sensation in the "flabby" part of my arm, also feeling / imagining it hanging / dangling down and swinging as I move.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a relationship with this part of my body that involves fear of it looking or feeling a certain way, rather than seeing that this part of my body serves a function and is performing that function well.
When and as I see myself imagining / judging the "flab" on my arms, I stop and I breathe. I stop and I breathe. I commit myself to releasing that energy of that thought, that judgment, that image in my mind, and that imagined feeling/sensation of whatever I have believed fat feels like physically.
I commit myself to continue walking my process of self-embodiment to have a look at my relationship with myself as my body / the parts of my body.
I commit myself to eating healthy portions / serving sizes of at least 3 meals per day. I commit myself not to go into the polarity of under-eating or over-exercising.
I commit myself to continue to increase my menu of healthy food options, including the expansion of what fruits and vegetables I eat.
I commit myself to being aware of every bite that I take and aware of how my body feels as I eat, and listening to what my body communicates to me about what it needs or does not need in terms of food intake.
I commit myself to redefine and re-align my relationship with food to be one of support and sustenance.
I commit myself to finding something else to do besides just eating and eating more -- some other way to use that time in a supportive way.
I commit myself also to support my body to be healthy through diet and exercise, supporting myself thus to develop a strong healthy body which supports me as life.
I commit myself to continuing to look at and further define the fine line between what is healthy and what supports my mind dis-ease of "eating disorder" as a desire to be thin.
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