Structure And Food Logs

It’s funny, going back to tracking and logging my food and exercise has actually made me kinda happy and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

The whole reason I gave up this practice was because it felt like it was contradictory to my goal: Letting go of my obsession with food. But maybe some people like me – previously told by professionals that I need to think in “addiction” language with my relationship with food – can’t just “not think about food.” Maybe, instead, it’s trying to take control of the dialog I have with food.

I don’t know, I just know that the sudden food logging, which I haven’t done in over a year, is really helping my mindset about my health. It’s like I can look at the page and say: Look, Kim! No binge-eating! Good job!

I also found it motivated me to run yesterday just so I could write it down on my log. I’m bad when I’m running to just say, “I ran today! I can have this beer with dinner! And this cookie! And this second serving!” When, in reality, I’m only running a few miles at a time so I’ll keep gaining weight if I don’t actually log how the exercise adjusts my caloric needs. And while I don’t have a “goal weight” I do have a goal to quit GAINING weight.

Maybe I just am managing my anxiety better this week so – in general – my eating is moderate and sans binges. And I’m assigning causation to the food log when it’s really just correlation.

It’s just weird. Something I avoided for a year – thinking it was hurting me more than helping – may actually be helping me now. I don’t know. My mind and how it relates to food and emotional eating is never an easy thing to map out. I’ll just celebrate the victories and the fact that, even when logging food, I’m obsessing about it a lot less this week than I normally do. I’ll dig deeper into it if I need to later, but today we’ll just celebrate the small victory.