Eating right instead of eating wrong

Eating right is a struggle for me.

Mary tweeted about grocery shopping everyday. She reminded me how far I've come. Not that many years ago I walked through a grocery store to get home everyday. My habit was to pick up supper and my 'snack' for the night. Usually large chips & dip, cookies, Smartfood, chocolate, or my favorite - cheesies. I often ate a large bag of cheesies in one night. Or two. But never three.

When Mary tweeted? My first thought was - wouldn't that be great - fresh fish every night. Quick access to fruit when you run out. Salads just waiting to be picked up. That was a great reminder of how far I've come.

But within a few minutes I knew that today I'd still much rather open a giant bag of cheesies then make a salad. It's hard to understand. The cheesies taste yucky. I feel yucky when I eat them. There's even an eating hangover where my body is dragging for eating them.

So I do the easiest thing possible. I don't buy cheesies. If they get left at my house after a party? They've been known to be opened and DUMPED IN THE GARBAGE. (Or dropped in a food bank box).

But removing the nasty food from the house is just creating a new bad behaviour. Lynn at Life Health Fitness called it Disordered Eating. Mine is less severe. I don't purge. But I do binge. There's a need to keep eating when I'm:

• tired
  
• bored
  
• angry
  
• alone or
  
• with others
  

Sometimes I eat til I feel ill. I eat past the food tasting good. I eat when it makes me uncomfortable.

This behaviour? With the food hangovers, the yuck-factor? Gets in the way of my return to running. Slows me down. Makes me feel bad.

I'm going to beat it.

Eight years later, I can say that even if I lived IN a grocery store there will be no return to the daily intake of chips, chocolate or pop. That's a lifestyle change I've made.

And I'm keeping it.