I entered down the slippery slope yesterday, and discovered I am just not ready to eat outside of my strict planned meals. A co-worker asked me again to join her for lunch out our school café, and with my career in such a precarious balance with so few teaching jobs in my area, I am hesitant to say no to any invitation to socialize and network. So despite my packed lunch, I joined her. I didn't fair so bad, homemade pizza and salad bar stuff, and then a piece of puff pastry with chocolate chips pizza dessert. Maybe not the best of choices, but still regular eating in the real world. I figured I could stop there, that I would be able to just go back to what I had planned for dinner, but in my morning rush, I had forgot to take out chicken for dinner, and I was itching to eat out. We ended up at Extreme Pita, which is still a relatively healthy choice, and I chose not to have a side with it, so I was still feeling ok with myself.
But then we ended up at the Millcreek* Fair. And that led me to convince myself that it is a rare occurence and that means treats are ok, because they aren't an everyday thing. So then came the twist soft serve cone, and parts of Nick's funnel cake. Not a pig out by any means, but certainly not good choices.
This morning, I chose not to go for a run, for no good reason other than laziness and I just didn't want to. This is the first week since I started training that I didn't go for a single run. I almost had myself talked into going for a short non-podcast run, because I'm starting to feel like the long runs are intimidating me. But alas, the angel on my shoulder convincing me to do the right thing got beat out by the devil doing cartwheels and saying "Look what I can do!"
Then came our cadet annual inspection, which is always followed by a luncheon. You know the scene, LOTS of sandwich platters, veggies and dip, and cookies and two-bite brownies. My pre-planned strategy had been to allow myself one treat, in particular one naniamo bar (because of course there would be naniamo bars, there always are). But by the time we got to the table, the naniamo bars were long gone, and somehow 4-5 sandwich quarters, 2 two-bite brownies and a cookie ended up on my plate.
By dinner, I was feeling pretty weak willed, and when we were invited out with some friends, it was easy to say yes and order appetizers and eat a large portion of Phad Thai with abandon. And the foodie pièce de resitance was the Kit Kat bar from out convenience store visit. What was that? As if I needed that in any way, shape or form. But it was gone in seconds, and I was almost sneaking it in the kitchen because I didn't want anyone to see me eating it shortly after our large dinner.
The end of our night took us out to a local lounge for latin night. I did have one drink, which also didn't help my caloric destruction, but that was the least of my worries. I was somewhat dressed up, but very quickly felt fat and frumpy sitting on the bench with all the thin, pretty girls around me in their cute shirts and flouncy skirts. I felt ridiculously out of place. And then when Snowie* pulled me up to the dance floor, I was certainly the odd one out of us 5 girls. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, I had zero confidence to even be in the room, let alone attempting to latin dance in front of all these people. Add to it the shame I felt of my poor eating choices in the last day, and I prayed that I would never let go of this feeling and fight to lose the weight so that I would never have to feel like that again. I should have been having fun. No one seemed to care if anyone knew how to latin dance or not. Nobody laughed at me. But I was embarassed and ashamed, and I hate that I felt that way. I had forgotten that bars made me feel so inadequate as a girl. I had forgotten how I feel being the unattractive girl that people look right through as if I'm not even there. I hated sitting at an open bench and not having the security of a table in front of me that blocked view of my midsection; I hated the feeling of constantly wanting to tug at my shirt to try to hide my pudgy tummy and wide butt. I hated all the things I felt about myself, because I figure that by my age, I should be over all those things and just letting myself have fun, but I can't let go.
I'm mad at myself for falling down that rabbit hole, for letting one lunch that really wasn't that bad become a day and a half of not-so-great eating. I was doing really well this week, and I threw it all away for what? I didn't have to make those choices.
My hope is that I retain what I felt tonight, dancing in the middle of that dance floor. I felt out of place, awkward, not confident, fat, unfashionable and clumsy. I felt like people were watching me feel awkward and that just gave them one more reason to mock the fat girl. I know one of our friends made a somewhat thoughtless comment about his girlfriend, and I'm pretty sure Nick* shields me from anything they say about me, or anything he himself thinks. But I'm miserable in this skin. This is not who I want to be. And I don't want this feeling to fade, because I desperately need to remember what I am fighting for, so that when faced with tough food choices, I make the right ones and feel better for it. I guarantee that if I had've eaten better today and gone for a run, I would have felt better about myself tonight and I wouldn't have weighed any less. So I need to continue to make the connection that healthy eating and exercise makes me feel better about myself no matter what the scale says.
I don't want to hang on to the feelings of shame, I just want to hang on to the sentiment of wanting to be a different person and wanting to feel confident and like I belong in a place like that.
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