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Okay, so after the misery of realising I am incapable of using a set of scales last week, I gathered myself up, dusted myself off and had a binge on apples.
I KNOW! Self flagellating behaviour, but old habits die hard. In the past this would have included a whole tub of ice cream and a block of pretzel chocolate (Lidl make my favourite; it’s pleasingly thick) probably washed down with cherry coke and maybe a couple of glasses of red. Classy huh? But this time, no. I consoled myself by saying f*ck you to the scales by mainlining Braeburns. And so we grow.
At the height of my apple madness I was eating 4 a day, which is 3 more than Petronella (author of the Human Being Diet) advises. I didn’t dare tell her. I’ll admit I am slightly scared of her. She chastised me for my over zealous avocado portion a week or so ago. Look:
Joking aside, I love the fact P (as her friends call her, or so I’d like to kid myself) offers social media support for £0. What a gem. She’s the kind of woman I imagine would be a very good breast feeding coach too. You don’t want pandering to when faced with the limits of your corporeal self, do you? You need no-nonsense instructions. I imagine her grabbing my breast, squashing it and attaching a crying infant to it, barking ‘Baby to you, not you to the baby, we don’t want back ache Hols’. Anyway, enough of my fantasies.
So onto the cheat/treat meal. We all know that for a binge eater these are problematic. I only have to hear the word ‘treat’ and I’m eyebrow deep in a nose bag of blue cheese, never to return to regular eating again. I’ll admit, I was scared of the cheat/treat meal. I thought it would be like a gateway drug, except crisps and toast are my heroin. But P says you MUST have a cheat/treat meal (not a whole day, that’s key) and as you know, you must must must do as P says.
So I planned my meal for when my boyfriend was at work. This might sound strange but I wanted to binge without an attentive audience. My sons are fine as company, for they’re more interested in Gladiators than the contents of their mother’s plate. I ordered in sourdough pizza for us all from a brilliant local independent. I have never liked Dominoes much so this wasn’t a compromise. I ate one kids size margherita. Then another. A few artichokes. Then a very large slice of M & S chocolate birthday cake. Then 1/3 bar of salted pretzel chocolate. Then a small bowl of Neopolitan ice cream. I didn’t really want any of the puddings but I felt I needed to get what I could into me, given the next opportunity for eating crap was in 7 days time. Oh and when my boyfriend got home from work he made me a delicious no-Amaretto sour with sugar syrup and lemon juice. I drank it in about 45 seconds and then felt sad as I wanted more. I went to bed that night feeling a bit grim to be honest. Turns out if you exclusively eat whole foods for a few weeks and then binge on chocolate, ice-cream and shop bought cake, well it doesn’t feel so good.
The next morning I awoke and didn’t feel hungry at all. I still ate breakfast, because P says you MUST. Then, wait for it… I forgot about food until 8pm. This has never ever happened. I lie. It happened when I fell in love with my boyfriend and once forgot to eat for 2 days. I also kept forgetting to put my headlights on when I drove, such was the level of chemical imbalance. Ain’t love grand? And demented. Anyway, I ate a double portion of Thai inspired turkey mince lettuce cups and an apple at 8.30pm despite finding it a bit much. This morning I am not hungry, though again, I did have breakfast. I have no idea if this is related to the cheat/treat meal but do you know what? I’m sold. I like not thinking about food. It’s restful.
My learnings: cheat/treat meals are absolutely a good thing on the HBD, but in future I will not be eating a load of processed crap. No siree. Instead I will enjoy something like the sourdough pizza (which was amazing, so so good, no regrets) and then have a home made pudding. I will obviously need to plan for this, but it’ll be worth it. Like most things in life, failing to plan means planning to fail. Or something like that.
Okay, the bit you’ve all been waiting for (drum roll), the weigh in:
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