Yo-yo

I feel stuck in an awful yo-yo swinging between feeling all liberated/empowered/I-don’t-care-what-you-think-about-my-body… and then realizing I really do care, and feeling sadness, frustration, anger, and guilt over the small amount of weight I put on in the other phase.

I know that this stems from my black-and-white thinking, the idea that I’m swinging between the “bad” and the “good”—the acceptable and unacceptable (for me).

I’m incapable of doing anything in moderation. For example: I’m the world’s worst at marathon training. I get out there and see a 3-mile recovery run, and I think, “Only 3??! I ran 7 yesterday; I’m sure I can get 8 today!” And then every day is that… I exhaust myself trying to outdo myself. I can’t do a quick 15-minute workout if that’s all the time I have. It’s all or nothing.

Obviously, this is my lifelong battle with food, too. Either it has been a good eating day, or a bad one. I’ve eaten too little (good) or too much (bad). It’s hard for me to accept that there is space for everything—that there is a safe way to enjoy ice cream or S’mores with my kids without ruining the whole day of “good eating”.

And so, I go through phases where I say, “Screw it,” and I really indulge, with abandon—sabotaging myself. This lasts like 4 or 5 days until I feel disgusting and puffy, and probably a few pounds heavier (I don’t own a scale). And then, I go to the opposite extreme, restricting and exercising intensely.

Working on it. Day 101.