Day Four, Feelin' Blah

I am up WAY too early. My cats woke me up around 5:30 and I couldn't fall asleep. I was motivated to do some organizing, so that was a good start to the day, at least.

Thank you guys for your comments on my post about late night eating. I wish it was as easy as just saying, "I'm not going to eat at night" or saying, "tonight I might indulge, but tomorrow I won't". Example: all day yesterday I listened to my body, which wanted mostly healthy foods, plus a few dark chocolate chips. Even at dinner I listened to my body and stopped when I was full, because I was out with my parents and sweetheart and knew we'd get dessert after. I thoroughly enjoyed my dessert, which was eaten around 7:00 at night, but then later I really, really wanted a piece of the homemade carrot cake we have in the house. And I had one. And I wasn't hungry when I ate it, it was for purely emotional reasons that I indulged. And now, many hours later, my tummy hurts.

The thing is, just reasoning with late-night eating doesn't work for me. I don't just say, "jeez, obviously you're not hungry and you know you're going to feel off if you eat this treat late at night", because it's like some part of me wants to rebel and eat it anyway. It seems like it's become a habit.

I know myself too well to think I can just say, "that's it, no eating past 8:00 pm". In fact, that's exactly what I don't want to do. You know they say when you start to eat healthy you should add in healthier foods, not just remove the stuff you already love? I think I need to add in things to my night time routine. Not food, of course, but other ways of comforting and nurturing myself. Also, the boyfriend and I have both agreed that we've fallen into a pattern of too much late night indulging, and once the cake we have now is gone we're going to ease up on desserty stuff, though of course I'm not going to restrict myself from having treats.

Late night eating for me is comfort and emotionally based. I don't want to remove all sweets from my house. I don't want to set another restriction on myself. I want to eat when I'm hungry. I want to listen to my body. But I think to really do that I need an action plan for dealing with late night eating. I've learned various techniques from the many books I've read, so I'm going to have to sit with this and figure out what I think might work for me, then try it. I also need to find something to replace late night eating with - a non food reward or ritual.

What do you guys do to reward and comfort yourself - something that is cheap and non-food related!

I would like to say, though, that overall since I've decided I'm not putting myself on any diets and trying to be loving towards myself, I've felt better emotionally about my looks and weight. Imagine what we'd all be capable of if we stopped wasting time on worrying about what our butt looked like?