Last week I was so hopeful that I would start this post by saying that I had a much better week in terms of my eating habits. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
I know exactly what happened, and that’s what I wrote an entire post about: «A lesson in weight maintenance«. I wrote that over the past year I have learned how my body reacts to certain foods. Sugar, for example, makes me crave more sugar. Even the smallest amount can trigger cravings that make me feel insatiable. And for days!
The hard part is getting back to feeling balanced, where I don’t have cravings. To achieve this, I have to abstain from eating sweets for about four days. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, the cravings are so intense that trying to last four days is extremely difficult. I know I can do it, but it certainly isn’t easy.
I also learned (only more recently) that overeating has a huge effect on my body the next day. I hadn’t overeaten in a long time (a couple of months) and one night I ate until I was completely satisfied. I don’t even remember what it was, but I hated that feeling of being so full. I had no idea it was going to affect me like it did the next day.
I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. I haven’t drank alcohol in 975 days, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget what a hangover feels like. I was ravenously hungry and my stomach felt like a bottomless pit. And I craved greasy food! It reminded me of college when my roommates and I would go to McDonald’s the morning after a night of drinking.
That feeling lasted all day and I realized that it was the first time I had gone this long without overeating, and by doing so, my body just wasn’t happy with me at all. The difficult thing was that I had a big appetite (although I knew it wasn’t real hunger) and it was hard not to eat when I was so hungry.
For the past few weeks, I have been fighting these (what do I call them?) effects of overeating and also eating sugar. I desperately want to return to the neutral state I was in before, where I didn’t feel like overeating or eating sweets.
Another side effect of overeating was that my energy level plummeted. My morning runs feel harder and I have to push myself harder during the day. I had never realized that before. I ate sweets pretty regularly all my life, so I never knew what would happen if I didn’t eat them for a long time. (These discoveries have been really fascinating to me.)
Last week, I logged my food for a few days, just to see how many calories I was eating. I wasn’t trying to restrict because I was genuinely curious. I wasn’t surprised when I saw it was around 2,500 a day. I knew I was eating too much. Before, I probably ate between 1,800 and 2,000 a day and felt much better.
As for my weighing, I’m right on the upper end of my maintenance range.
So far, I’m lucky that my weight hasn’t continued to go up, but I definitely notice a difference in how I feel (and how my clothes fit). I’d like to focus on feeling comfortable again: eating how my body feels best. And over the last year, I’ve learned A LOT about what makes my body feel better! Eat normal-sized portions, without sweets, rich in fiber and lots of fruit. (I think fruit helps control sugar cravings, but it doesn’t have the effect on my body that refined sugar has.)
I’ve been doing pretty well the last few days and once I get through a couple more, I should start to feel like I’m on the right track again. Fingers crossed 😉
