A Social Eater, or Closet Eater?

I'm back after a hectic but fun Christmas vacation. For the most part. It had a less than soft ending as my host for a ski weekend ended up having to go to emerg after a fall, and we spent some not so tranquil hours waiting waiting waiting in the ER. Then 5 1/2 hours of driving in the dark to get home, racing the clock to beat the snow. The end result was I felt pretty exhausted and drained when I finally got home. But there were great times, with many highlights: hiking in a Nevada canyon (never been in the desert before), seeing a wonderful Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas, and hiking to the top of a small mountain in Quebec with my fancy new snowshoes, on a blindingly bright -15 degree day. That last one was done alone, and I might have given up if I was hiking with someone else, but since the trail was clearly marked and my friend knew where I was going, I was ok. It was amazing. After admiring the view from the top, I had to hightail it back down because I would soon run out of light, so I practically ran down the steep path. In snowshoes yet, who knew? They are made for it, though, they have these big mean looking crampons on the bottom for gripping slopes which certainly appeared to me to be at least 60 degrees! I couldn't have done this five years ago.

The eating went pretty well, considering we travelled a lot. Of course, when travelling, due to restaurant portion inflation it was hard to not eat more than usual, but Fuzz and I often split an entree, salad and an appetizer. And many times lunch was brown bagged because we were staying in a hotel room with a kitchen and a friend's house.

Actually, it wasn't until I got home that I ran into trouble. I was tired and a little depressed. That night was a friend's birthday party. Some of the people there were OA people, some were not. There was way too much food. And for whatever reason, I don't know why, it just seems to be the nature of my beast, my MORE monster came out roaring. I was full. But I wanted to keep eating anyway. Of course, because my OA friends were there, I didn't overeat in front of them, always careful to keep up the appearances, but once I got home with a package of leftovers, I began to pick at them after Fuzz went to bed (of course). It wasn't a binge as such, I stopped before that happened, but I still felt like an idiot the next day thinking that I had eaten too much in total that day. I felt overstuffed, and ashamed of myself.

The next day I was back to normal, but I was highly aware of the claws of the monster appearing out of the abyss wanting to drag me down. ARgh argh argh. The nature of my beast. I've had this before with eating with others. And I'm not sure what I should do about it, because it feels gross. That's the only word for it. I get too full and I'm mad at myself.

The out of control eating, that emerges is after social dining but it's definitely done in secret. And it feels out of whack. And I wasn't writing. I think all sorts of uncomfortable stuff was going on, and so the eating came out. Yet again. I have to learn these things over and over, at a deeper level I guess, so this time I got away by the skin of my teeth (no pun intended), but just barely. Grrrrr. Spit.