Evening Eating

[Guest guest]

After observing my behaviors around food for a long time,

I've concluded that much of my overeating is a response to

fatigue, and that's why my best intentions can collapse without

warning in the evening. I am one of those hard-driving people

who probably

doesn't (won't?) recognize fatigue until it's too late, and I'm

halfway through the half gallon of ice cream. Also, when I've

been pushing extra hard, such as during the holidays, I'm way

more prone to this kind of eating, especially because I refuse

to admit or anticipate that the extra demands could tell on me

at all. Then, too, being fatigued means that my resistance to

food is down, way down. That's when the primitive, adaptive

response takes over: "me need energy......me eat food!".

Now, what I try to do as a proactive approach to nighttime

or neurotic eating, is to eat

dinner by 6:30pm, get out of the kitchen area (!), and go to bed

early instead of eating. Also, if at any time I notice that I'm wanting

to binge, I try to be aware enough to stop and ask myself if it would be

better to just skip whatever activities I had planned, and get some

rest. Of course, this is not always possible, and in the emergency

situations

when I am really exhausted yet have to carry on, I must say that

a massive infusion of carbs will keep me going until I can drop.

Sweets seem to act as an anesthetic for the pain

of such fatigue, or at least I have used them for that.

Many times, though, when I have already

overeaten, I realize that,

instead of eating, I really could have just taken it easy for the rest

of the day until I could go to bed, and I wish I had done that instead

of mindlessly driving on with the idea that I could not stop to rest.

Happy New Year to all!Ria Brownlow

Email: riabrownlow@... STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 3 months FREE*.