Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Frustration City...

I need help. I'M OUT OF CONTROL!!

When I get up in the mornings I'm not hungry. I don't eat breakfast until at least 2 hours and sometimes 3 or 4 hours after I get up. I do alright through the day and eat lunch around 4 hours later. By then I'm starting to get hungry. I rarely eat snacks between breakfast and lunch nor between lunch and dinner. When I start feeling like I may be hungry in a little while I start fixing my dinner. Usually by the time I get if fixed I'm famished. I think the smell and the task alone are what gets the hunger pangs started. After dinner all hell breaks loose. I am usually not hungry for quite a while after dinner but...I LOSE CONTROL! All I can think of is eating, eating, eating. And I do. I save calories so that I can snack in the evenings because I know from experience that I can't make it through the evenings without snacks. My snacks are a salad -or- a bowl of cereal with strawberries -or- some melon -or- a small bag of light pop corn -or- a half a peanut butter sandwich. The problem is that I WANT them all. And sometimes I do eat them all! I can't get food off my mind in the evenings. I can't get satisfied. I'm usually not hungry when I'm doing all this eating, I just think about how good it will taste and end up eating it. I've tried to increase what I eat so that I will be really full and not want anything else to eat after dinner and that doesn't help. Does this happen to anybody out there besides me? What do you do to stop?

I know what would help with this problem but the solution is definitely not feasible. I know if I had someone else in the house with me it wouldn't be like this. When my husband was alive he snacked like this all evening and I can remember wondering where in the world he was putting it all (and he never had a weight problem). I was usually so full after dinner that there was no way I could eat anything else. I'm sure if I had a companion I wouldn't be so bored in the evenings and I wouldn't have the time to think about FOOD. But that ain't gonna happen any time soon, if ever.

I know what to say and how to encourage others with their eating but I can't practice what I preach. I feel like such a hypocrite.

And I'm disgusted with this post editor. I've lost my ability to change my font size and color. I wanted to yell in the first paragraph but couldn't because this stupid thing took away my ability to yell! ARHG!!!!!!!

Oh, fifth clue to special company: I've known these ladies all their lives.

Tired of my ranting? I am.

Happy Hump Day to all you workers out there.

UPDATE: (10:36 AM) I just did my official weigh-in and didn't gain or lose. At least I know maintenance.

7 comments:

Heather said...

Hang in there! I am much like you. I eat 'well' all day then have a little implosion after I get home from work. Grrrrr.

JC said...

O.K. since I don't know your family and you have known these ladies all their lives then I'm guessing either, daughters, nieces or female cousins. Am I even close to the ballpark or in your case mountain top?

Now for your rant, I'm proud of you for letting it out. Your eating because your lonely and you know that. Writing about it is an excellent thing to do. See I didn't know your husband died; I just knew you were alone. My husband divorced me and then he died. Either way we are alone. Our options are find someone else or adjust. I've been adjusting now for 15 years. I'd rather be alone than wish that I were alone.

You have come tooooo far to turn back now and look you don't have a long way to go. I still have 100 to lose. My friend our best days are still ahead, if we believe they are. Losing weight is a mind game so you take strength from me now so you can give it back later.
I'm reading another book by Linda Spangle called "Life is hard: Food is Easy" www.weightlossjoy.com that is helping me identify the emotions associated with food and recommends things we can do to deal with them. A huge amount of my eating is done out of being lonely and bored.

Gotta run, I have a meeting in six minutes.

Grace and blessings to you.

Pattie said...

It sounds like you know what the problem is in the evenings: you're bored. So how about finding a hobby that consumes your energy? It sounds trite, but I know it works. When I'm quilting, I lose rack of what time it is, sometimes even what day it is!

If you can find something you feel passionate about, those evening eating urges will disappear. But it may take a while to find YOUR thing. So be patient - but don’t stop trying.

Hang in there, Deborah!

Cammy@TippyToeDiet said...

It wasn't very nice of Pattie to take my answer. :)

I feel for you. Nighttime is my eating problem, too. Sometimes I'm hungry and sometimes I'm just bored. It's often tough to know the difference. :) (Since I don't have high-cal foods at home, I don't have to worry about going too far astray, but still I don't like snacking for the wrong reasons.)

Lots of times it's that first snack that triggers more snacking. So I'm wondering if we use those "extra" calories during the day and outlaw snacking at night if it will help the problem or create a new one. I'll try it if you will. :)

Tony said...

yeah eating when you are bored is definitely a problem for me as well. I think perhaps if you ate six meals a day instead of just 3, it could potentially help the nighttime eating.

Anonymous said...

I have the same problem. The only way I can stop eating after dinner is to distract myself. I'll usually find a captivating movie or blog or surf the net or do some research or do something creative on the computer (drawing, etc.).

I totally gave in this past weekend after dinner on Sunday and splurged like crazy. Just a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but it all added up.

I don't think there's a magic answer to this problem. I think it just takes plane ole will power and "eye on the prize". At least that's what it takes for me to not eat everything in the house after dinner.

BTW, I really agree with what JC said. And I think Tony might be on to something there. :)

MaryFran said...

I have no advice...simply because I'm the exact same way. I eat dinner and there is no way that I should be hungry...yet I find myself eating all night long. For example, I see a loaf of bread...so I have toast. Not because I'm hungry, but because I see it and think how yummy it tastes.

Will power...that's what we need. Do you know where I can buy some???