The Dinkel-Puff Binge
I binged yesterday. I just scraped by, keeping my daily tally to 2000 calories, but it was a close one. I was tired, worn out. I was at the laundromat with Matt and a friend of ours and I started stirring myself into a rage. There was a large family with noisy children, a lot of shouting, a lot of banging around and taking over the whole laundromat, smoking cigarettes at the edge of the door so it filled the place with smoke, and finally, men taking their shirts off in public. While Matt and our friend were working, I was trying to listen to a book that required some concentration, and while I hung in there for some time, I finally cracked. I started doing this thing where I complain about people loudly (and of course, in English) in hopes that they will overhear and get their shit together. This never works, so I finally decided to walk home.
On my way home, I was furious. I was furious at everyone on the street, especially the people in my way, and I’m sure I wasn’t hiding my anger very well. I was on a tear, and I wanted to eat. I became fixated on some puffed spelt cereal I had seen at the DM (the “pharmacy” without a pharmacy where you buy your shampoo and stuff). It was in this little health food section in the back and I made a beeline for it. I was disappointed to see that the “dinkel gepufft” had more calories than I expected. I knew I wanted to eat the whole bag. I was looking for volume. I was looking for transgression. I bought the dinkel puffs and stormed my way out of there, back to our hotel and up the 5 flights of stairs to the safety and privacy of our apartment.
When I checked the calories again, 373 per 100 grams, I decided to just have muesli instead for 351 calories per 100 grams. I weighed out the muesli on my little food scale I had ordered on Amazon and ate it with some almond milk. Unsatisfied, I opened up the spelt puffs and weighed out 50g of those. It filled a cereal bowl, so not bad, I figured. I wolfed them down while watching a Youtube video about makeup. And then I weighed out serving after serving until I’d eaten the rest of the bag, the momentum of the binge a force all its own. I had set this trajectory, and it would not be stopped until I had done something “wrong.” I ran out of almond milk on the last bowl so I added a splash of whole milk that I use in my coffee. Once the bag was empty, I stopped eating. I nervously took out my phone and opened the calculator app to survey the damage.
Breakfast 350 calories
Coffee creamer 80 calories
Dinkel puffs 746 calories
Almond milk 50 calories
Whole milk 64 calories
Muesli 351 calories
Total: 1,641 calories
This left me 159 calories for my 350 calorie nighttime snack that I need to take with my Latuda in order for it to work. Extending my daily allowance to 2,000 calories instead of 1,800 brought me to just 9 calories under my limit. I had squeaked by, provided I didn’t eat anything else until bedtime.
Matt came home and I confessed. He suggested I focus on just getting back on track tomorrow and trying to take care of myself for the rest of the day. He gave me a foot rub and I fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I didn’t know what to do, so I watched some Youtube and got ready for bed. I ate my 350 calories of oat cookies and took my pills.
I felt defeated and scared. Is there something about Germany that makes me binge? This little episode was dangerously similar to what happened on our last stay in this little apartment, the time when I started gaining weight and couldn’t stop. The time Matt had to rub my feet every day to distract me from the mental and emotional agony I was in. The time I had to go home early and get my medication changed by my doctor.
I don’t want to go home this time. I don’t want to be alone in Rhode Island. But I also can’t start bingeing again. And today, the morning after, I feel scared. I feel like I’m starting over. I feel like I “blew it” and I’m no longer going to have any control over my eating.
This morning, I somehow managed to put my gym clothes on, to pack my bag, and since Matt had some rare time off, he came with me to the gym. We came home and I had my usual breakfast- fruit and plain yogurt. I got dressed to go to the cafe, and Matt came with me again.
But this feeling of failure still lingers. This feeling like I don’t know how it happened. If I trace it back, the trigger was feeling like people were being assholes, I was in the right, and there was nothing I could do to rectify the situation. This is exactly what happened many months ago when I had a screaming match with my Trump-supporting neighbors and I binged on candied nuts. It’s the same feeling I have when I think about current U.S. politics, when I think about how there’s no point in getting upset about it when the bad guys always win.
Maybe I can learn from this. Maybe I can recognize the danger of these types of situations for me and find some way to disengage the momentum of the binge. But I’m scared. I felt out of control. I felt full of rage and indignance. I felt like the binge was happening and I had no say in it whatsoever. So how do I keep this from happening again?