Yesterday I binged.

I fell off the wagon. The people who love me want to say, “Oh, you are allowed a slip.” or, “One day wont hurt.” or, “But, you did it in a healthy way!” True, true and true. Only not.
I have a food addiction. I am addicted to food.
I am allowed a slip up on my new food plan (I don’t like the word diet because that really is not what it is – more on that later.) I am not allowed a slip up on my recovery. Here, in my mind, is the difference: a slip up on my food plan would be me saying to myself that I really wanted chocolate cake, then finding a way to either reward good behavior with that cake or work it into my daily points. A slip up in recovery is when I am emotionally reaching for any food (cake in this example) and eating way too much of it, without feeling satisfied by the food, but instead finding momentary satisfaction in the act of the binge. The repeating the behavior again and again in one sitting, or several sittings.
One day can and WILL hurt me, if I let it. One day is like a alcoholic going to the bar just for one evening. It might not be the undoing that time, but it leads to false security. One day turns into two or three and that is dangerous.
There is no healthy way to indulge an addiction. The addiction itself is unhealthy! Sure I ate pretzels and Olean chips and other low point foods, in fact when speaking in point terms I didn’t go overboard. I used my daily points and ten of my reserve points. That isn’t what defines yesterday as a problem, it’s how I reached those points. Swallowing was the high, stuffing myself to the point of self-hatred and shame. Binge eating to the point that I came home and lied on the couch listing the reasons I suck in my mind. Beating myself for being fat and lazy and ugly and stupid. I am not ugly. I am NOT stupid. I can be lazy, but I can also work very hard. I am fat, I am also changing that.
Yesterday I pressed reset on my recovery. Thank God I am not letting myself do the full slide. Today I start over. I am renewed and ready. Today I am breathing and taking it for what it was.

See more progress on: Purge my soul.