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?

Day Three - Late Night Eating

Good Morning!

So last night I went out to dinner with my sweetie, ate a pretty comfortable amount, loved what I had, all that good stuff. After dinner we ran a million errands, mostly for him: the mall, a sportswear store, the grocery store, Home Depot. When we were at the grocery store I told him to get me something chocolate while I filled up our water containers. When we found each other again he'd gotten me this thick, chocolaty spelt and walnut brownie from the bakery, something we couldn't give back but that scared me.

Scared of a brownie? Yes! It was so thick and rich looking, and I know there was real butter in there. On the drive home I was actually getting a bit hungry again because it had been hours since the sushi and, well, sushi, especially the veggie kind I eat, never holds me over for long. I planned to have a teeny bite of the brownie and maybe some dry cereal to stop my rumbling tummy. However, that's not what happened! I ended up eating the teeny bite, plus a couple of pretzels and a handful of cereal, but then I went back for more brownie. I ended up eating the whole thing!

This is what happens to me: I overeat and start worrying about gaining weight, beating myself up for eating late, try to come up with a plan so I never overeat at night again, and end up back on a diet. Obviously this is not an option right now. I was eating the brownie and about halfway through my body told me, "Eh, I've really had enough of this. It's rich and delicious, but it's beginning to be overkill" and my brain said, "eat, eat, finish it, don't let it go, it's delicious, you should just keep eating it." And my brain one.

So, I want to stop late night overeating without turning to dieting or restricting or some plan that limits the times I eat. I want to pay attention to my body's hunger and fullness signals all the time, including late at night, when I struggle with it the most. I'm not exactly sure what my plan is, at the moment, but I wanted to write about it.

In other news, happy Friday! I'm not working today and I plan on taking a nice walk, relaxing, maybe doing some very overdue cleaning, and I don't know what else. Tonight I'm going out to dinner again. I swear this isn't normal, but my parents had been planning on taking me and my boyfriend out tonight for the last week or two, so it just ended up that I'm going out a bunch of nights in a row. Should be fun, though!

How do you guys cope with late night eating?