No, overeating will not make me feel better

I feel crappy.

It started a few days ago … that famil­iar ache in my cheek­bones, radi­at­ing up into my eye and down into my gums. Yes­ter­day, I devel­oped a very stuffy nose and scratchy throat. By last night, I was mis­er­able so it was off to the doc­tor today. Sure enough … the sinus infec­tion has returned and I am back on an antibiotic.

I never had aller­gies until a cou­ple of years ago, which a lot of peo­ple found pretty amaz­ing given that I live in a “Big Val­ley” that is a noto­ri­ous allergy zone. Things got really out of con­trol in May 2005, when I trav­eled to Ore­gon with the rock band I was play­ing in. We stayed at a church-run camp. Try­ing, lit­er­ally, to be a “good camper,” I stayed in one of the cab­ins. I knew when I walked in that I should run back out the door … the smell of mold and mildew was pal­pa­ble. But it was a long way back to the near­est town via a dark, twisty road that I sim­ply could not nav­i­gate by myself with my post-retinal detach­ment vision. So I fired up the small wall heater in an attempt to rid the air of as many harm­ful mol­e­cules as possible …

Iron­i­cally, I had under­gone a root canal a few days ear­lier and the doc­tor told me that the infec­tion in that tooth was prob­a­bly not com­pletely erad­i­cated when I spent one sleep­less night in that cabin. The next night, I did go to a hotel in town, but the dam­age was done. When I got on the plane to come home the fol­low­ing morn­ing, I could not open and close my mouth because of the pain in my cheek and jaw. Antibi­otics, breath­ing treat­ments, inhalers fol­lowed but it seemed that after that episode, I was always out of breath, con­gested and miserable.

Finally, last sum­mer, I went to my doc­tor and declared, “I can’t live like this. You have to do some­thing.” Allergy test­ing and injec­tions were the next order of busi­ness and, of course, she rec­om­mended exer­cise and weight loss. Duh.

I had attended water aer­o­bics classes pre­vi­ously, but dis­con­tin­ued due to a com­bi­na­tion of sched­ul­ing con­flicts and eye surg­eries. I deter­mined that day in the doctor’s office to get back in the pool.

It was the best deci­sion of my life.

I also decided to resume using Advo­care’s Meta­bolic Nutri­tion Sys­tem (as dis­cussed in my pre­vi­ous entry) and adhere once again to a healthy eat­ing plan.

But on days like today when I feel just crappy enough to be mis­er­able, but not fully sick, the temp­ta­tion to overeat is pal­pa­ble. Why is that? I know that overeat­ing is not going to make me feel bet­ter, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want to.

Is it about com­fort? Or consolation?

On days like this, know­ing the dif­fer­ence between a diet and a healthy eat­ing plan really mat­ters for me.

When fol­low­ing a healthy eat­ing plan, there is no need to be hun­gry between meals. Phys­i­cally hun­gry, that is. It is imper­a­tive to dis­cern between true phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal hunger. True phys­i­cal hunger should never be allowed to con­tinue and I think peo­ple who tell you to drink a glass of water to hold it in abeyance are, well … all wet.

True phys­i­cal hunger should be assuaged with healthy food choices and water is not one of them. Yes, you have to drink plenty of water each day, but if you are try­ing to trick your body into believ­ing it isn’t hun­gry when it really is, you can give it up. It’s smarter than that. And by engag­ing in star­va­tion diets and such silly trick­ery, all you suc­ceed in doing is slow­ing down your metab­o­lism. Yeah, you might lose weight but you will find it again — faster than you can imag­ine — once you give up the star­va­tion plan. And you will. Trust me on that. Nobody can sus­tain it for­ever. Been there. Done that. Have the cloth­ing in var­i­ous sizes hang­ing in my closet as I type this to prove it.

Quiet true phys­i­cal hunger with food that is good for you, thereby keep­ing your metab­o­lism run­ning in peak form.

Quiet psy­cho­log­i­cal hunger by dis­tract­ing your­self. If you just can’t, such as on those days when you really feel the desire to crunch or munch, enjoy a snack like car­rots and cel­ery with non­fat Ranch dress­ing or a cou­ple of rice cakes. The veg­eta­bles are great for you and allow you to hear that crunch­ing sound you long for! So long as you dip in non­fat dress­ing, your “binge” won’t hurt you at all.

Most impor­tantly, be kind to your­self and acknowl­edge your suc­cess. After all, in the old days, that binge would have been com­prised of a pack­age of _______ (insert your favorite binge food) as an appe­tizer, washed down with _________, and fol­lowed up with __________ (insert your sec­ond favorite binge food). If your “pig-out” involved car­rots, cel­ery, rice cakes or a sim­i­lar healthy choice, look your­self in the mir­ror, smile and remind your­self that “you’ve come a long way, baby.”

Now I’m off to the frig for some of those baby carrots …

Track­posted to Out­side the Belt­way, The Vir­tu­ous Repub­lic, Perri Nelson’s Web­site, Right Truth, Shad­ows­cope, The Amboy Times, Pur­su­ing Holi­ness, The HILL Chron­i­cles, Right Celebrity, third world county, Woman Honor Thy­self, stikN­stein… has no mercy, , Nuke’s news and views, Pirate’s Cove, The Right Nation, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Ran­dom Yak, A Blog For All, DeMe­di­a­cratic Nation, Maggie’s Note­book, Adam’s Blog, Weblog­gin, Phastidio.net, The Bull­win­kle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Col­lo­quium, , Con­ser­v­a­tive Cat, Blue Col­lar Muse, The Crazy Rants of Saman­tha Burns, The World Accord­ing to Carl, Blue Star Chron­i­cles, Gone Hol­ly­wood, and The Yan­kee Sailor, thanks to Link­fest Haven Deluxe.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Fem­i­nism, Weight Issues, Weight Man­age­ment

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