Saturday 17 February 2007

Toxic (Part II)

Today I'm still paying the price for overdindulgence this week.

Cake and chocolate hold no allure for me. I can easily resist desserts and sweet snacks; I can resist fries and chips. I don't even want them. But when it comes to wine with friends, I can never stop at just the one glass. So Thursday evening saw P and I with 2 friends (an ex of mine, and his current partner) knocking back the vino - 3 bottles between the 4 of us. Yesterday I felt like hell, and today I am exhausted and lethargic; I know I am retaining water, because the skin under my eyes and across my cheekbones feels taut and puffy. I feel incredibly ugly and out of sorts and horrible in my own body like I don't know where to put myself; I have the sniffles; I am shivery cold, and I've gained back weight. Pah!

I'm also ashamed of my lack of self-restraint. Drinking too much is far worse than eating too much. I wouldn't even entertain the idea of eating a 1000 cals worth of cake, so why my mind refuses to grasp that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie even if it's in 3 large glasses of Burgundy is beyond me.

I suppose on the positive side, I have really cut down on drinking alone this year. I'm even measuring when I do.

Still, it's done now, so I will just have to work at undoing the damage, and once more try to learn the lesson. I can't indulge so much any more at 34, and there's no way round that!

I should also be particularly mindful of my health at the moment, since P's father is currently in hospital after a suspected mild heart attack, and my own grandmother has had a mild stroke this week. I want a healthy old age, and if I want that, I need to invest in it now. I'm not a great planner - in fact when I think how little I have invested in my own future at the moment I become quite terrified - but I have to be more sensible now. Nothing comes without a price; the price to pay for restraint now is surely a better deal than the price I will pay for over-indulgence in several years.

And in the short-term, I have A Dress to fit into.

2 comments:

Deborah said...

Sara,
Unfortunately..the more wine we have..the less we think!
I'm sorry you are paying the price of over indulgence.
I too LOVE wine..The only thing that keeps me from having it daily these days..is that it truly does affect my sleep, and I've had to make the hard but necessary choice. Sleep has won out! I can not go without it. Perhaps you will find a compelling reason as well. I read that the longer CR one is..the less able one is to indulge too much... Perhaps this will naturally happen.

D

Amy said...

Amen to the wine thing. I'm ALWAYS more likely to overindulge with wine than with any kind of food. I've been way off CR the past few weeks and its been wine for me, too. My problem is that I "use" wine for relaxation, particularly when I'm stressed. "Self-Medicating" was how a doctor once described it. So right now when I have a lot of stuff going on in my life, I tend to overdo it with the merlot, pinot noir and shiraz.

I have no insight for you, only a chime in of "me too", which certainly can't hurt :-).