Dammit

What does a person with a normal, healthy weight do when they know they've had a bad diet week? When they know they've eaten way too much, exercised way too little, and have basically given up on the idea of healthy diet and lifestyle. Do they feel guilty, disappointed, terrible about themselves? Or do they just not care and know that life goes on, not caring about the calories or the consequences that eating those calories might have on the scale on Monday night?

This past week was a series of Israeli holidays ending with Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. It's been an emotional week, with a lot of tears and mourning and finally, celebration.

And I celebrated. Oh how I celebrated. Bags upon bags of potato chips at a BBQ, bites of quiches and cookies at a professor's party, an entire plate full of Mexican food after a day of doing nothing at the beach. I don't know what I was thinking, but I know that the phrase "Fuck this Weight Watchers thing" entered my mind more than once while I was overindulging.

And now I'm regretting it. Regretting the lack of self-control I demonstrated and the fact that I basically destroyed over a week of eating really, really healthfully.

I don't know if there will ever be a time where I can enjoy eating without feeling guilty over every bite. I think my grandpa basically ruined that for me when I was growing up. I'm sitting here, taking a break from my paper on Naomi Shemer, eating a plate of vegetable salad with balsamic vinegar and a drizzle (and I mean a drizzle) of olive oil, and I feel guilty about it because I ate a huge Shabbat lunch and will order something later for dinner. This guilt is sick and I am sick of it. I just want a normal relationship with food, though I have no idea what a "normal" relationship with food really is or how to achieve it. It's so depressing.

And I have to face the scale on Monday night--for the first time, I will probably hear the words, "You went up." And I will cry as if it were the most terrible thing in the world, which is ridiculous for so many reasons, especially because it really ISN'T the most terrible thing in the world--I know that better than anyone. There are certainly worse things than gaining a kilo, worse things than being fat, worse things than disappointing yourself in this small way.

Thank Gd I am going back to therapy when I get back to the States in 2 weeks.

Seriously though, tell me what normal people do when they eat badly--maybe if I start considering myself as normal, I can start thinking like a normal person.