Because I must learn to guard against hunger (from HALT – hungry/angry/lonely/tired) to prepare myself to properly face verbal abuse, I’ve embarked on a “diet” of sorts.
I know that I’m supposed to eat at least three times/day. Five times if I include healthy snacks. I also know that I currently:
- eat twice a day, usually in the evening and early early morning before bedtime,
- am a coffee-holic (along with sugar and half & half) and that my coffee calories usually make up around 500 calories/day
- feel hungry in the late morning when I wake up, but feed myself only coffee until the sensation goes away.
So how does my current “eating style” benefit me? Obviously, it doesn’t REALLY benefit me at all. HOWEVER, because I’ve been doing it this way for at least 6 years, any drastic change is going to make me feel on edge and deprived.
Funny isn’t it? Changing from a diet high in caffeine and low on nutrients will cause me to feel ON EDGE and DEPRIVED. Caffeine by nature ups the nervous energy. And eating sloppy meals from fast-food chains, ill-planned home-cooked meals, and late-night snacking deprives my body of the nutrition I so desperately need.
I’ve been sabotaging myself for a very long time.
Sure, I want to change my eating habits EVENTUALLY. I’ve learned from weight watchers, sparkpeople.com, and most of all from my sister, that eating well is maybe the most important thing I can do for myself. Nevertheless, I’ve kept my nutritional knowledge on a strictly “brain basis” instead of implementing the needed behaviors. The last thing I’ve wanted to do is DEPRIVE myself of my unhealthy habits.
Doing it “my way” when it comes to food has been one of the only things I feel I’ve had any type of control over for a very long time. And if I want to eat shit, then by God I’m going to do it!
Maybe I don’t want to eat shit anymore. Maybe I don’t want to avoid bedtime until 3 AM when I’m once again hungry and too tired to grab something good for me.
Maybe seeing that I DO have control over things other than food is a feeling that I can trust. IF, in fact, I am regaining some control over myself and my life, then maybe I could afford to change a few tiny things to goose me into better nutrition.
- I want to reform my sleeping habits to keep up with my boys, to stop calling my support system (family) at their bedtimes or later, and to have more than 2 or 3 shopping hours per day. (You think I’m kidding about the shopping?! Do you know how inconvenient it is to ALWAYS drive 30 minutes to my closest WalMart because it’s the only store open? Talk about a time-waster…)
- I want to eat the two snacks/day with my morning coffee. Then, because I know from experience that getting food in my belly at breakfast time makes me hungrier around lunch, perhaps I’ll find it easier to actually EAT lunch. Then, at dinner-time, I won’t be scrounging desperately for any kind of food because I haven’t eaten a bite all day, and I will be able to relax and make something good for us. Maybe I’ll eat a fruit before bed, right at 10 PM, so I don’t have that “empty and deprived” feeling as I close my eyes.
That’s it. That’s all I’m changing for now. The sleep thing is going to be very hard, but it may be THE KEY to getting my nutrition back on track.