I started out the year at about 155 pounds (I'm about 5,8). Since I was drinking about a bottle of wine a day plus binging regularly my weight rapidly went up, peaking at 174 pounds in April when I quit drinking.
When I stopped drinking, it left a void in my life and I made a conscious decision that I was going to fill this void by focusing on losing weight at any cost. This was a dangerous thing to do, as I have a long history of anorexia and bulimia but at the time drinking seemed like the biggest threat.
So I started dieting in a very unhealthy manner. I became obsessed with those 100 calorie snack packs and would eat one of those and an apple as a standard meal. I also consumed a lot of artificially sweetened stuff, including diet soda and these toxic calorie free marshmallow and chocolate dips.
After a couple months of this I lost my drinking weight but I ultimately I couldn't keep it up. I found I couldn't stop at one 100 calorie snack pack and would go through a half-dozen at once. I started binging and then purging to get rid of the calories, first daily then several times a day. I found I was trapped in a new addiction cycle.
So what did I do? Exactly the same thing I'd done 4 months before, I once again replaced one addiction with another. I started drinking again. Almost over night I lost the urge to purge, my obsessive need to count calories and my anxiety about eating a range of foods, eating out, etc. It felt great for a while, then I started to get scared. I was drinking more than ever before, as much as 2 or 3 bottles of wine a day. Because of all the calories in the wine and because my inhibitions about food were relaxed and I frequently over-ate I started gaining weight again.
3 months of this and I was back up to 175.
A month ago, I stopped drinking once again. I hope to learn from my mistakes, but I'm frantic about all the weight I've gained and I want to get it off ASAP and I am dieting again (healthier this time, I'm eating vegetables instead of processed crap and no artificial sweeteners). I don't want to replace one addiction with another again but during the past couple weeks I've become more and more focused on food, calorie counts, and getting to the gym (not easy when you live in Upstate NY in the middle of winter). I ate a grand total of 943 calories on Christmas Day. I'm afraid I'm restricting and obsessing to an unhealthy degree.
I need to break this pattern somehow.
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