I can’t eat today…I’m weighing in tonight

How many times in my life have I said that?  Too many to count!

My boss is on Weight Watchers with his wife and to date, he’s lost a little over 30 pounds.

So I’m headed out the door to get some chinese take out for lunch and I ask him if he’s going to lunch.  He replies, “I can’t eat today, I’m weighing in tonight.”  For the briefest of brief nanoseconds I felt guilty for going to get chinese.

For 2 or 3 days now I have felt pretty much off kilter as far as my eating was concerned.  I figured out this morning why that was.  I wasn’t feeding my body what it wanted.  I have been seriously craving chinese food since about Monday and I just kept putting it off thinking I didn’t “need” it or I didn’t really know what I wanted.  At about 11:00 this morning I made the decision to trust my body and I put my faith in the fact that it knows what it wants.  It wanted chinese food!

I gotta tell ya, it was delish!  It hit the spot and I feel so good for having listened to my own body.  No guilt, just a satisfying feeling of trusting my body and feeding it what it wanted.  I do wish I had listened earlier but I’m still learning to trust a body whose mind has been severely brainwashed into believing in dieting and restriction.

Back to my bosses comment:  I can remember the last time I was on Weight Watchers…our meetings were on Wednesday nights.  I was so gung ho that “this time I was going to do it!”  (“it” being “I was going to be “good and succeed”, pish posh!)  On Wednesdays, I would do exactly as my boss is doing now and would starve myself or eat the minimum to get me through to 6:00 (the dreaded weigh in time).  I would let the number on that scale determine:  a.) my worth, b.) how I spent that evening treating myself, c.) if I was going to be in a good mood or if I was going to sull up and not speak to anyone, etc….  However, regardless of how I did on the scale, right after the meeting I would head to the nearest Burger King, order a king sized whopper meal WITH CHEESE, go home and scarf it all down in a matter of minutes.  No enjoyment!  Starvation!  Punishment!  Celebration!  It could fit any occassion I wanted it to – weight loss or weight gain.

The point is, my restriction led to my bingeing.  Bottom line.  Dieting is restricting.   Your body can only live so long without having what it really wants.  It will rebel.  It will make you miserable (if not physically, emotionally).  If you want a cookie, eat a cookie.  If you want a cookie and eat pizza instead, you’re not listening to your body.  If your body wants a cookie and asks you for it and you deny it, you will end up eating everything in sight thinking your doing the right thing but you won’t feel satisfied until you get that craving taken care of.  (or in sassy terms:  EAT THE DAMN COOKIE!)

What do you want to bet that after my boss weighs in tonight and loses whatever he does (or gains), he goes and pigs out afterward?  His body is starving I’m sure because he not only said he couldn’t eat today but he said yesterday he couldn’t eat any lunch he is extra hungry.  I foresee some major rebellion coming from his body once he stops dieting!

~sas