David Vanadia

Starting 9 to 5

December 11, 2005

Tonight I was invited out to eat and went. It was nice to see friends. The bad thing was that I ate (salad) despite the fact that I just wasn’t hungry. It seems I can’t turn down food lately. I’m not obese, but it certainly doesn’t feel good to eat so much. My stomach is sticking out! Not really, but a little bit.

I’m going to be working on a 9-5 daily schedule for the next two weeks before Christmas week. It will be interesting to see how that affects my sugar situation.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 12/11/05

Compulsion

December 10, 2005

My life tends to appear as to me one compulsive, and often impulsive, action after another. I am active on a listserv (an email list with many members who all use email to discuss a topic) and in the past few days I started posting to it. I found myself getting more and more caught up in the discussion to the point where I began to look forward to reading replies. That’s not a bad thing.

What’s bad is that tonight I suddenly felt out of control with it. I worried that I had said something over-the-top and kept thinking that I should shut up. I wanted to write my opinion to every post. Part of it was that the list is about storytelling and I’m really interested to discuss it. But not everything or everything needs my two cents.

Tonight I realized that I am obsessive and since I’m not eating sugar my obsessive behavior is transferring to other things. I heard Steve Barnes (author) say that he dealt with being obsessive by becoming obsessed with balance. For me right now, I’m going to try to transfer my obsession to health and fitness by way of Tai Chi.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 12/10/05

When Do You Binge?

December 08, 2005

When do you binge?

What do you eat?

How often?

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 12/08/05

Cutting The Cycle

December 07, 2005

We must have something that causes us the desire to eat sweets—especially to binge.

When we cut out the binging and sweet eating, we’re sort of cutting off the top of the tree. It may not solve the underlying problems, but it certainly draws attention to them. Cutting out sweets is like laying off the cashiers at a fast food chain. It stops everything. It removes the connection between us and the degenerative cycle.

You can’t deal with the roots of your addiction if you can’t see the roots. Since I’ve been off sweets for a while, my current behavior is to simply eat more. Lately I’ve been working on eating less, although it’s hard since I’m often quite hungry.

The last time I wanted to binge was Sunday night. I noticed a repetitive thought pattern of telling myself it would be the last time. I promised myself that, if I binged, I’d start fresh on Monday by eating right and getting fit.

I ended up eating toast, apples, and a stir fry, but no sugar! The next time I feel the need to binge I’m going to pay close attention to the events that brought me to that state of wanting to stuff myself. Perhaps I’ll write it all down.

To surmise:
There is something else happening in our lives to cause us to want to binge. It’s not that we just like sweet snacks. Just about everybody likes something sweet. It seems to me that binging usually follows (or is part of) some kind of perceived failure or self deprecation.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 12/07/05

Last Time Binging?

December 06, 2005

I find that when I’m about to binge I’ll tell myself that it will be the last time I eat an entire box of what ever and that, starting tomorrow, I’ll eat right and keep control. It never works. What causes the binge?

Sunday night I binged on unsweetened foods. I ate toast, two apples, and a stir fry that I had made the day before. Oh yeah! I almost forgot to tell you…

On Saturday I got the shakes and the sweats. It happened all of the sudden, about midday, and I ran to the kitchen for something to eat. Despite the fact that my housemate had just baked brownies, which were sitting warm on the stovetop, the first thing I ate was carrots!

I didn’t want brownies (yeah!) and I felt a strong urge to cook! Yes, cook!

I boiled rice, cut up vegetables, and made a Chinese style stir-fry. It included broccoli, potatoes, onions, carrots, an egg, and tofu. I seasoned it with soy sauce (unsweetened) and it was great!

What I’m noticing most these days is how compulsive behavior seems to be required in my life. Since I’m not eating sugar regularly, I’m surfing the web more uncontrollably, or spending too much time thinking about things that probably don’t matter too much right now. But hey, I’m working on all of this one step at a time.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 12/06/05

About David

I realized I had a sugar problem back in 2003 after a weekend-long binge on raw chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate covered pretzels. As a result, I began trying to quit sugar but kept failing. Finally, I figured out a way to stay off sweet junk food for good. Read more.