Eating to avoid real desires

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live. - Leo Buscaglia

Sunday morning, I got up and did not feel like swimming. Even the best reminders of how much I love it did not faze me. After arguing with myself and losing, I finally decided not to swim. “It’s my life, my decision, and it’s ok if I am not perfect at exercising.”

I sat down and had a drink of water, my preferred way to start my day. Then I got hungry for lunch. Only problem was, it was 10:10 in the morning. A tad early, even for me. It came back again and again. I ended up eating little things until  lunchtime.

Just as my bowl of chili finished heating in the microwave, DD comes in and requests a fresh batch of bagels. I’d just made a dozen the previous weekend, but they were already gone. I told her, “Fine, but it will have to wait until I’ve had lunch and watched my matinee movie. Probably 3 hours, since the film is a long one.” (I loves my DVDs, and this was the BBC’s filming of North and South, starring Richard Armitage)

“But I’m hungry now, and that’s too long to wait.”

Sigh. I figured it made more sense to make the bagels now than to have it hanging over my head during my lunch.

Make bread dough. Put to a quick rise in the oven at low temp. Heat the baking soda water to boil the bagels. Empty the dishwasher. Clean the counter. Take a bite of lukewarm chili. Eat a few chips. Flatten the dough, shape the bagels. Start boiling each bagel, 30 seconds per side. Lay each one on a baking sheet covered with corn meal. Bake. Eat a little lunch. Take bagels out of the oven, go to enjoy movie.

Large lunch of chili with chips was not enough. Needed a bit more. Eat a not-so-little dish of ice cream. Get impatient with DH, who needs to go upstairs and take a bath. Want him to leave so he doesn’t see me get a SECOND bowl of ice cream.

Get second bowl of ice cream. Goes down like water. Start wondering why I’m binging. Watch movie, almost 4 hours. Start thinking about eating something else, realize that I’m just using food to avoid thinking about something. Don’t know what. Want another movie. Want more food.

Decide to not eat, but to enjoy another film. Success - no more food until almost 8 p.m. when I eat a sandwich with fruit salad, still twice as much as I’m hungry for.

Wonder what’s going on? I kept avoiding the fact that I wanted a day off of responsibilities, just to replace it with lying around and watching movies. I could not face my “shoulds” of my many projects or household tasks, so I ate.

Ultimately, I ended up doing what I really wanted, but ate my way through the emotions.

I don’t like the fact that I ate so much more than my body wanted, but I am glad that I recognize that if I had faced my desire to not work on my chores, I wouldn’t have eaten my way through the day.