To Err is Fattening

Remember how I said in my food post a couple of days ago that I still make bad choices from time to time? Well, I made one last night.

After a long, emotional roller-coaster day, I asked Hubs if he wanted a treat. (That's code for "I'm going to send you out to get something bad for me.") He did, and so he went, and he returned with ice cream and a Slurpee for me. The Slurpee was tiny -- and it should have been enough. I dug into the ice cream anyway. Mmmm...cookie dough.

Within two bites, I was done. It was inexpensive ice cream, the kind that's a little gritty. It was a little too sweet. It wasn't what I wanted. But I kept eating. Bite after bite, a little more, a little faster, and before I knew it I was on the verge of speed-eating the entire pint. I wasn't even tasting it, wasn't even present, if that makes any sense. I was just consuming.

Something made me snap out of it; I don't know what it was. I looked down and saw that in about five minutes (maybe less), I'd inhaled almost two-thirds of the container. Two-thirds of an 800-calorie, 40g of fat container of lousy ice cream. My heart was in my throat; the spoon was still in my hand and I could feel it wanting to dig into what was left. "Go on, you've already eaten most of it. Just finish it off!"

I didn't.

I didn't finish the pint. For a single moment, the small part of me that's strong and steely and food-resistant jumped up and said NO. I clapped the lid on the carton as fast as I could, and ran downstairs to put it in the freezer. NO MORE.

I didn't want that damn ice cream. So why did I eat it? Because I had a sort of crappy day. Because I want to work out and I can't. Because being alone for almost two weeks has made me neurotic and paranoid and slightly depressed and I wanted something, anything, to make me feel happy. Guess what? After I ate that stupid ice cream, a wormhole didn't open up and erase my crappy day. I still couldn't work out. I was still feeling neurotic and paranoid and slightly depressed. That stupid, lousy, not-worth-it ice cream didn't fix anything.

It may seem like common sense -- how could food fix anything? Emotional eating has been my M.O. for so long that I hardly ever question it. I suppose in some ways it's like an addiction; there is a need, a huge, screaming, demanding need and I answer it. I give it what it wants because (used to be, anyway) for however short a time, filling that need with food makes everything else disappear. For those few fleeting moments, my brain checks out, my hands and mouth do the work, and everything goes away.

I don't want to check out anymore. I want to be here. I want to be present. I want to deal with things instead of hiding behind food, and fat, and funny.