Overeating

Last weekend, I got high and ate a lot of Cheetos.

Like.

A lot of Cheetos.

Which is not exactly how I planned to start this story, but here we are.

I haven’t eaten like that in a long time.

And then the next day, I finished the rest of the bag.

So that was fun.

A few days later, my husband took me out to lunch.

Normally, I probably would have looked through the menu for something a little healthier. Not necessarily because I was forcing myself to eat healthy, but because that’s genuinely how I eat most of the time now.

But I wanted a burger.

And sweet potato fries.

So I ordered a burger and sweet potato fries.

I ate them.

They were delicious.

I stopped before I got really full.

And then I ate normally for the rest of the day.

Nothing particularly interesting happened.

Which, I’m realizing, is actually kind of the point.

Then my friend came over.

We played games. We watched three movies. We got tacos from a restaurant.

Later, I ate some frozen berries.

And at some point during all of this, I went upstairs to put my kids’ candy away.

I asked my friend if she wanted some before I put it away.

She said yes.

So apparently my brain interpreted that as:

Great. Candy for everyone.

And I grabbed a bunch for myself too.

Not a couple pieces.

A bunch.

I brought it downstairs, sat on the couch, and ate all of it while we watched the movie.

And afterward?

I felt like shit.

Not emotionally.

Physically.

My stomach didn’t feel good. My body didn’t feel good. And I remember having this very anticlimactic realization:

Oh yeah.

This is why I don’t really eat candy anymore.

It wasn’t some virtuous health realization.

It just didn’t feel good.

And then it messed with my sleep.

Which gave me plenty of time to lie awake and turn the whole thing into something much bigger.

Because apparently 2 a.m. is an excellent time for a personal investigation.

Why did you do that?

Are you going back to your old patterns?

What if this is the beginning of slipping backward?

And my brain had receipts.

There had been the Cheetos.

Then more Cheetos.

The burger and fries.

Tacos.

Candy.

It had been several days of eating more restaurant food, snack food, and “junk food” than is normal for me.

And suddenly it wasn’t just candy anymore.

It was evidence.

Maybe I was slipping.

Maybe those old patterns weren’t as far behind me as I’d thought.

Maybe this was how it started.

And for a little while, I was genuinely scared.

Because I remember the old version of me.

She could turn one night of overeating into an entire event.

There would be guilt.

There would be calculations.

There would probably be some kind of plan for the next day.

Eat less.

Skip something.

Make up for it.

Get back under control.

Or—and this was always a fun alternative—I could go completely the other direction.

Well, I already screwed up.

Might as well keep going.

I’ll start again tomorrow.

Or Monday.

Obviously Monday.

One night could spill into the next day because I’d already blown it anyway.

Eating “badly” became evidence that I was failing.

And once I’d failed, there was this weird permission to keep failing.

Until eventually I felt shitty enough that I needed to regain control again.

And then we’d start the whole thing over.

So lying there that night, worrying that maybe I was becoming that version of myself again, I started thinking about what I was going to do the next day.

And that’s when something didn’t quite fit.

Because I already knew what I was going to do.

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

I wasn’t going to skip breakfast.

I wasn’t going to have some sad tiny lunch to compensate for the candy.

I wasn’t going to calculate how many calories I needed to undo.

I wasn’t going to swear off sugar.

And I also wasn’t thinking:

Well, I’ve been eating like shit lately anyway, so screw it.

I was just going to…

eat normally.

Breakfast when I was hungry.

Lunch.

Dinner.

Whatever I normally would have eaten.

And that realization kind of stopped me.

Because here I was lying in bed worried that I was slipping back into my old relationship with food…

while responding to overeating in a way the old me probably couldn’t have imagined.

I still trusted myself.

That surprised me.

Because somewhere in my head, I think I’d created this idea that having a better relationship with food would eventually mean I wouldn’t do things like this anymore.

I wouldn’t overeat.

I wouldn’t eat past the point that felt good.

I wouldn’t worry about gaining weight afterward.

But apparently that’s not where I am.

I ate more than felt good.

I regretted it.

I had anxiety afterward.

None of that magically disappeared.

But something underneath it had changed.

I could regret how I’d eaten without turning that regret into punishment.

I could worry about gaining weight without obeying that fear the next morning.

I could have several days where I ate differently than I normally do without deciding that this was my life now.

And maybe that’s actually a much bigger deal than never overeating at all.

Because if my peace with food depends on me always eating exactly the “right” amount…

that’s not much peace.

That’s pretty fucking fragile.

If one bag of Cheetos and a pile of candy can destroy it, then I haven’t really built anything new.

I’ve just created another set of conditions I have to follow.

Maybe the fact that things got a little messy and the trust was still there tells me more than several perfect weeks ever could.

Because maybe becoming someone new doesn’t mean the old behavior becomes impossible.

Maybe it means the old behavior doesn’t have the same power anymore.

I can do something the old me would have done without becoming the old me again.

Which is especially interesting timing because we’re going to Disneyland later this month.

And after this happened, I’ll admit, that made me nervous.

Disneyland is not exactly known for its abundance of sensible little salads.

There will be restaurant meals.

Snacks.

Desserts.

Things shaped like Mickey Mouse that I will undoubtedly believe taste better because they are shaped like Mickey Mouse.

And for a minute, I wondered:

What if I can’t trust myself there?

But then I realized this whole experience might actually be evidence that I can.

Not because I’m going to Disneyland planning to eat perfectly.

I’m not.

I want to eat things that sound good.

I want to enjoy the things that are actually worth enjoying.

And mostly, I just want to eat like I normally do—except I’ll be at Disneyland.

I might eat too much one night.

I might have a dessert that wasn’t remotely worth it.

I might eat something just because everyone else is eating it.

Apparently that’s allowed too.

Because now I know what happens the next morning.

I eat breakfast.

That’s it.

And somehow, that feels enormous.

Because maybe I’ve been looking for evidence of change in the wrong place.

Maybe the evidence isn’t that I never do something the old me would have done.

Maybe it’s what happens afterward.

The old version of me would either punish herself for yesterday or use yesterday as an excuse to keep going.

I don’t have to do either anymore.

I can do something the old me would have done without following her all the way down the road.

One night can just be one night.

And maybe I trust myself enough to know that tomorrow…

I’ll just eat breakfast.