The Health Chronicles: Glorious Cheat Day

Yesterday was a lot, but worth it.

I do not have a healthy relationship with food.

There. I said it. Like many people around the world, especially in America, I have an addiction to sugar. Studies have shown that it can be a more powerful addiction than alcohol or any other drugs out there.

But admitting this is only part of the unhealthy relationship that I have with food.

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I also have some serious hang ups about the way that my body looks. While women are of course (unfortunately) used to and programmed to scrutinize their bodies to be held to unhealthy standards by society, there are also a lot of men who suffer too. This is something we don’t talk about much and I am not equating my own mental hang ups to those of women, but they are absolutely still there. I haven’t been happy with the way I look for over a decade now I would say.

I am aware that a lot of that has to do with what I eat from time to time, but there are other factors as well. From bad sleep to constant stress, there’s many factors that can effect the way your body looks on the outside, let alone how you’re ravaging it on the inside. Then there’s the fact that I will beat myself up because of my disappointment in myself with how I look. And of course, then I will eat terribly to “make myself feel better” or in the past I may have drank very heavily.

Thus, the vicious cycle would continue.

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This past week has been incredibly stressful. There were some things happening at work that were thrust on me and have made my responsibilities 100 times more than I thought they would be taking on the position. I am thankfully in a mental place where I could handle this stress in a healthy (ish) way, but the stress is still there, and looks to only get worse.

In the past I may have taken that opportunity to numb my feelings with alcohol. I also would have gone hard on the unhealthy foods to give me a nice sugar high perhaps after work. I’m not saying that didn’t happen. I did have my fair share of PB&J’s this week and a couple bowls of sugary cereal. But I did not go overboard, and I certainly did not drink.

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Well, one of those things changed Saturday.

After working yesterday, I now have a break until the New Year, unless something changes. So, I decided to celebrate. But I did not celebrate by going out to a bar with booze while watching college football playoffs with strangers. I did it by buying a ton of junk food and watching the CFB playoffs from the comfort of my home and getting to bed at a decent hour.

So, enter two 7-11 hot dogs with glorious fixins, two doughnuts, a piece of cake, reasonably sized bag of cheezits, and a 20 oz of purple Fanta that has so much sugar it should be illegal to sell. I really went for it, having a little party that teenagers at a sleepover would have been jealous about. And I ate it all, scarfed it down really. But it was different this time.

I did not feel bad afterwards.

After my little feast of absolutely nothing healthy I had myself a nice green tea, and continued to watch the college football playoffs. I went to bed at a reasonable time once the final game was out of hand, and got almost 8 hours of sleep last night. To be honest I was a little worried I went so hard on the unhealthy food that my sleep might have been affected.

I slept like a rock.

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I am not saying that I have broken free of my unhealthy relationship with food, let alone my addiction to sugar. But for a brief moment yesterday and today, I just indulged and allowed myself to enjoy it. I did not let it carry over into the next day, and I let myself have that space where I truly went all out.

Now, in my next installment of this series I am going to lay out what I believe will be some pretty reasonable health goals for the new year. Everyone does it, but I hope that mine are a bit more tangible. And even though I have more free time this week and Christmas is on Wednesday, I will be doing my best not to let myself go, while also allowing myself to enjoy the treats the holiday has to offer. I’m going grocery shopping later today and that will be for some healthy food after all. The sugary things I buy will be fruit!

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So, that’s a little window into my relationship with food, my body, and how it has affected my life. I’ll probably speak on it more often moving forward, as it was freeing to do so here. But I am glad I am in a healthier place now mentally that when I went absolutely all out on unhealthy food yesterday to give myself a treat, I didn’t let it get to me like it would have in the past.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and for those who celebrate have a wonderful Christmas Day!

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