I Do Not Like the Cone of Shame

Failure.  Complete failure

In an attempt to reset my eating habits (stop the constant binging) I planned a small fast.  I know it seems counter-intuitive to starve myself when I’m in binge mode -- usually sets of more binging, no? -- but somehow it works for me.  Well, it sometimes works for me and I’m getting desperate enough to try anything.  I think my body occasionally needs to be reminded that it can survive without being constantly stuffed with food.

My fast lasted about 12 hours.  Geez.

What I ate wasn’t horrible; mostly consisting of ultra-nutritious salmon salad (homemade canned salmon, no-calorie mayo (Walton’s how I love thee), tons of mustard, dill pickles, celery, egg whites, black beans, chili paste and lime juice).  On a normal day, I would count my intake as a win.  However, since I am supposed to be fasting, I feel like crap. 

I guess I should keep things in perspective.  I ate really well today.  Not one piece of crap passed through my lips, and wasn’t that the whole point of the fast?  We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

My binging and restricting are two sides of the same coin.  It’s akin to being bi-polar, or so I assume – did I mention I was a psych major for three years?  When I’m binging, my whole life is sucked into the BED vortex.  Everything from my budget to my chores and homework become unimportant.  I am sloth.  I am gluttony.  I am envy.  My careful planning falls away and I am left wallowing. 

When I am restricting, everything is so easy.  I come in under-budget (little to no food bills).  Chores disappear under my manic hands.  Homework is completed with brilliance, turned in early – a phantom A+ already scrawled across the top right corner.  I am lighter than air, perfect. 

I wish I knew how to stop this cycle.  I wish I could find a happy medium and stop swinging from pole to pole.  I wish.  I wish.  I wish.  But as Billy Bob Thornton so eloquently put it, “wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which one fills up first.”  And maybe that’s all I deserve, fetid hands and a head full of nothing.

On a happier note, the masses that were removed from my pup are fatty lipomas.  Completely benign.  Harmless.  She’s recovering nicely from surgery.  Her stomach and armpit are shaved, creating huge circles of fuzz around two teeny-tiny incisions, neatly stitched.  From experience I know she won’t scratch or bite at the wounds, so a cone of shame isn’t necessary, just a t-shirt to keep the sites clean and dry.  I had a freak-out moment this evening when she started jerking her head around erratically.  I thought she was having a seizure.  Turns out she was trying to eat a mosquito that had made its way indoors.  Watching her chase the thing around the living room, jaws snapping, made me laugh.  The sound was startling.  Unexpected. 

This. This is why I love my dog, my wonderful little bug.