If anyone had told me - at virtually any point over the last 2.5 years - that I would be able to go one month without binging I would not have believed them. But, here I am!
Here are some good stats:
1. I have not binged since May 10th. I overate pretty consistently between May 11 and May 30, but I did not binge once. There is a significant difference between overeating and binging. Overeating is 3 or 4 slices of pizza when 1 or 2 would be enough to satisfy you. Binging is eating an entire pizza by yourself followed by ice cream, cookies, and whatever else you can cram into your mouth. Binging is doing all of that as fast as possible, with as little thought as possible, until you truly feel ill.
2. I have been eating "like a normal person" since May 30. I have tracked calories without becoming obsessive, and I have maintained my perspective. Going over my calorie goal has not been an excuse to binge.
3. I have been exercising consistently. I am still not ready to run outside, go to yoga or the gym - - basically I do not want anyone to see me working out. But, I have exercised ten of the last twelve days. I have been walking for one hour on the treadmill while watching episodes of The Americans on my phone. Good show, by the way!
4. I made the decision to add my exercise calories to my calorie tracker so that I could have a more accurate picture of things. I want to make sure that I do not look back in X weeks (when I have forgotten which days I exercised and which days I did not) and think that eating 2000 calories a day three out of five days allows me to lose weight when I burned a few hundred exercising but did not log it. I was concerned about logging exercise calories for fear that it would motivate me to eat back exercise calories just because they were there, but so far this has not been the case.
5. I have lost five pounds in just over two weeks. My current weight is 151.6
6. I have not been excessively preoccupied with thoughts of food, or with negative thoughts about my body. This alone is wonderful. To be able to have space in my head for ANYTHING other than food and self-hatred is wonderfully freeing.
My new goals are:
1. To continue my binge free streak
2. To continue to track my calories without becoming obsessive
3. To continue to lose approximately one pound a week, but not to allow this goal to dictate my entire life. If it happens more slowly, that is fine. I just want the general trend to be downward.
4. To increase my exercise intensity. I would like to work running back into the mix. My current plan is to run 2-5 minutes (whatever feels right; no less than 2 and no more than 5 on the first day) at a 10:30 min/mile pace and to increase my running time by one minute each day. The rest of the time will be spent walking and watching The Americans :)
My intentions here are to start off super slow and easy so that I do not lose motivation. When I was running consistently and seriously a few years ago, I was able to keep a pace of between 8-9 mins/mile for up to six miles. I do not need to be at that point in order to start back up. More accurately, I am not going to be at that point when I start, and letting that be a barrier to getting started will mean that I never get back there.
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