Running Myself In, Again and... The Difference Between Overeating and Binging

Ah, that lovely feeling of soreness, the achy feet and stiff, sore hips. Thus are aspects of the running in. Breaking in and getting over the initial owies of getting back into an exercise program. I went through this in June, when I first started walking and I am rather pissed at myself that I am having to do it, again because I was Slacker Supreme for nineteen days.

Nineteen days. That is all it took to get almost back to the beginning with my physical conditioning. I am not all the way at the beginning, obviously... But I am amazed how just three weeks ruined me. Any fitness fades fast. You have to keep up with it and you have to work hard at it all the time. Because it is fleeting.

Record breaking heat again today. Blech! I am so over this! I am puffy. cranky, sweaty and all that shit and I just want the air to cool, already. Oh, and the nasty humidity that has decided to roll in? Maybe it can roll the hell back out, again? Thankyouverymuch!

I am riding the Puff Monster hard, right now. I am not even going to bother getting on my scale until that is over. I should depuff, pretty soon. Puff seems to cycle for me. And weighing myself when I am in full puff just doesn't make any sense, since I will only record a bounce. Bleargh!

I don't have "real" cycles, anymore thanks to my hysterectomy and oophrectomy almost twelve years ago. But my bod seems to have held on to it's memory of how to retain water. lol

 Kristin at Kreating Kristin asked for guest posters on the subject of overeating versus binging. I kind of wanted to offer a guest post but the very thought of even going there scared the shit out of me and made me ask myself who the hell I think I am, presuming to contemplate such a thing. So, I will give my answer here.

There is a huge difference between overeating and binging. Overeating would be something along the lines of one too many slices of pizza, a second helping of mashed potatoes, half a bag of potato chips. A big, greasy cheeseburger, a large fry and a big chocolate milkshake. Eating patterns that will, in time pack a shit load of weight on your frame and turn your arteries to concrete, clog your heart with fat and stroke you out. Overeating is bad habits set in over the course of years. But it is reversible with some work and determination. I still overeat, now and then. But it doesn't scare me. I can and do make overeating my bitch.

Binging is an entirely different animal. Binging is frenzied. Binging is unthinking. Binging is fevered, desperate and wild. Binging is eating to forget. To dull pain. To numb ones self out. Binging is a drug. It is therapy. It is love. Binging is a headlong rush through the kitchen, store or drive through, gathering all the food one can carry, then consuming it in vast quantities until the pain is dulled and the screaming in your mind is quieted. Binging is stuffing yourself until you are high, soothed and calm. Artificially high, calm and soothed. Numb. Exquisitely, sweetly numb. Unable to feel. To think.

It is fleeting. And soon, the numb wears off. The high dissipates and the pain and the screaming in your mind returns. Your stomach begins to empty a little and you find yourself with an overwhelming urge to do it all again. Like a drug, binging is addictive, seductive and compelling. And it can be just as tough to kick out of your life. Binging scares the shit out of me. It shadows me. Binging haunts me, calls to me. When I experience an upset, when my husband lies to me or I get some bad news or my past demons try to rise and hassle me, I feel the need to feed. I want to run to the kitchen and stuff food. I want to eat and eat and eat until I feel sufficiently numb, punished, quieted. I want to eat until I am shaking, sick, disgusted with myself. I crave it. I crave the pain, both physical and emotional. I crave the mental chaos and the self recriminations. Most of all, I crave the numb. That fleeting moment of absolute peace I know that I can't allow myself to fall into that morass. No matter how much I might both dread and cry out for it. It is dangerous and it will kill me.

That is, in my experience the difference between overeating and binging.