If you work with the spouse of someone in Overeaters Anonymous, it may be hazardous to your health, or at least add some calories to your days. I did the bad-food sendoff with Fuzz again this morning, after a night of musing for too long on a box of chocolates. When will I learn? Food + sentiment/nostalgia = big trouble. I saw this piece on tv about this small chocolate company down east where my great grandfather used to work, and I found out they had a website and ordered some treats from there: one type is a fairly easy one for me to eat in small doses, but the other was chocolates. My old favorite binge food. I could eat a half a pound at one sitting, no sweat as part of a larger binge, where I would alternate sweet and salty, crunchy and gooey items. I had an inkling these would be trouble, but I didn't listen to that small voice and ordered them.
So they came yesterday, and last evening Fuzz and I each had three. Then I put the box away in a cupboard I don't open often, but for the next couple of hours they loomed large in my mind. I finally went to bed but I was already thinking about tonight when I could have three more. A big question floated in my brain: would I be able to make it to the end of the box parceling out a few at a time, or would the number grow until I finally threw caution to the wind and polished off the rest? I felt like I had dynamite in the cupboard.
Early this morning I was doing my regular phone call (3 times a week) with my food buddy, the OA fellow sufferer I talk over food challenges with. And I told her about the dynamite, even calling it that. "Should you get rid of it?" she wondered. I groaned.
"But they were so expensive!" I whined. "I'm too cheap to just give them up like that."
"Expensive enough to sabotage your eating and your peace of mine?"
She had me there. Compared to the cost of an hour of therapy, this was a cheap lesson. I started to see in my mind a vision of the box floating out the door with Fuzz as he took it to work. And the picture came with a sense of relief. By the end of the phone call I was convinced, possessed even, by the prospect of sending the demon in the beribboned box out the door. I scrambled down the stairs to catch Fuzz before he left. I did take the step of putting 4 chocolates in a baggie for my evening treat tonight. Notice it was 4. I rationalized that two of them were small ones. See how slippery it is?
Fuzz, bless his heart, did offer to just keep the box in his car and bring it out again tonight, but honestly, I was relieved that it was leaving. There is something about chocolates that aren't really really dark (85 percent cocoa solids minimum) that just set off my cravings. I have a growing suspicion that it's more the sugar than the chocolate itself that sets me off. So it will be a relief when they are gone. I wonder if I might even give Fuzz those chocolates I set aside this morning and be more content if I just had my usual dark chocolate with my cup of decaf?
The holidays are such a minefield for emotional eaters. Last year didn't go so well. This year, I haven't done any baking, no christmas cake. Because the family has conflicting travel plans, I don't think we'll even get together for a turkey dinner. Thank God I don't work in an office like Fuzz's. There's all sorts of crap floating around there and I feel a little guilty about contributing to that. But I am being reminded that the more I try to eliminate "exceptional" eating from my diet, the better I feel.
Which leads me to a larger question: In our excessive society, we can feast any time we want. But the concept of the feast originated in a time when, where there was feast, there was usually famine following somewhere. We don't have to gorge on the fatted calf in order to survive the rest of winter. Just as we work to make famines a thing of the past, I think feasts are also becoming obsolete. And what is a binge but a distorted feast response to distress?
Oh yeah, day 40 since my last binge.
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