Cats, Comfort and Calories

Tuesday 13th March '07. 73kg (Mis-read the scales last time, still lighter than when I began though!)

It’s funny isn’t it, writing stuff down? I never intended for this to become a diary, never intended for it to get personal, but the more I write here, the more I feel the increasing urge to pour out my heart to it. I look back over the previous entries and I am not best pleased with the style, it seems amateurish to me, but I guess that’s what you get with a diary, just a continuous line of thoughts. As you have probably guessed I have not been feeling myself of late. I have been feeling a bit low recently and without wishing to sound melodramatic; in times of need food is my first port of call. It’s a funny thing, comfort eating. If anything the guilt associated with doing it just makes you feel worse. I guess it all stems from childishly equating food with love, and craving the cheap sugar rush I get from my kind of comfort eating. The trouble is, once you then get into a pattern of eating lots of nice stuff for a day or so, it is hard to break out of it, as I am now finding out. Right now I am feeling fat and frumpy and just downright ugly. Cramming my face with chocolate-based products is not going to help matters but diet and exercise is the last thing you feel like doing when you’re low. Tricky, tricky…

~

Despite my current (And momentary, I promise) lapse, I have actually been doing really well recently. I am trying to eat better and am even keeping a food diary. It’s amazing actually. I always thought I was pretty much on top of my daily food intake, and couldn’t see the point in writing it down, but it really does make a difference. I am highlighting any bad food I eat in red, and have been astonished to find that even when I think I have been eating really, really well, I still haven’t had a single day without any red in it. So far this hasn’t actually prompted me not to eat the naughty items, but it does make me feel bad about it afterwards, which is something I have never done. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not, but still, baby steps.

In addition the food diary I have also been trying to do half an hour a day on the dreaded exercise bike. Unless I am going out or am really busy that is. Half an hour is exactly 300 calories, but instead of uplifting me, I just find that demoralising. Ever tried counting calories? 350 constitutes your average healthy sandwich. It is also a pint of cider. Considering that I will generally consume about 5 of these (Pints, not sandwiches) on an average night out, it’s no wonder I have been putting on weight. Despite the exercise, I am not losing it either. Pounding away on the bike the other night, I just couldn’t help but think, wouldn’t it be easier if I just skipped lunch instead of going to all this effort? That can’t be a good thing. But when something like a fat-free yoghurt or a healthy oat bar is 100 calories, in order to lose weight, you’d have to eat practically nothing. (Which judging by my food diary, is something that I would find impossible)



It is a worrying thought though, the fact that food means that much to me that I cannot have even a single day without eating more than I should. I loathe those people who can forget to eat. I think about it all the time. Lunch is the high point of my day. Is that my life? Am I so sad that I have nothing more to take enjoyment in other than eating? I hope to god not, but I suspect I may finally be edging closer and closer to the truth here. When I have been on holiday in the past, I have not thought about food at all. In fact whenever I go on holiday abroad I lose tons of weight because I am just too busy and happy to think about it. My life at the moment by contrast, is in a gigantic rut. I get up, I go to uni and paint all day, come home and collapse. That’s about it. Now while I resigned myself years ago to the fact that I am going to become a sad old cat lady and die alone, I do not want to die due to chronic obesity. Something has to be done. I have asked other people though and we all agree that there is just something about painting that makes you want to eat. Maybe it’s all those calories we burn up thinking so hard. My theory is that it’s because it gets so monotonous. But never mind, it’s not like I could even go out and have fun on a diet anyway. Not at 300 calories per pint.