"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." ~ Anonymous

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Worst Evening in my Journey Ever

Note:  This post is kind of hard for me to share because I know some of my readers personally, but just like I track all my victories on my blog I want to track the failures.  This situation has never happened before and it will not happen again.  I appreciate in advance your kind understanding. 

***

I've never been a binge eater.  Well, I never have been in the sense that I have never sat down and purposely just let myself eat and eat out of some emotion.  I have eaten at a meal or function until I was stuffed and then been like, "Oh why did I do that?"  But I've never eaten until I was so full I hurt physically ... until last night. 

I'm still not quite sure what happened and I'm very embarrassed to be sharing this, but I wanted it noted in the books that I had this moment.  

Yesterday, after writing about my 13.1 training wall, I had an 'ah-ha' moment and told myself I had to eat that day for training and not for weight loss.  I had a long run of 10 miles scheduled for today and I knew I needed to carb load a bit.   In the past I've been more concerned with the scale/weigh-in on Friday than I have in preparing my body for the endurance runs.  

I did fine most of the day, having some pizza for lunch and eating til full, but not stuffed.  However, besides my three-mile run I was pretty sedentary most of the day; driving a lot and then sitting at my computer working on a project.  So when dinnertime rolled around I really wasn't hungry.  

The family was hungry and needed to eat, so I ate too.  I was going to make spaghetti, but no one wanted that so we ordered Chinese.  I figured rice was fine too, but ended up spooning a little more of this and that on my plate until all I can say is I was very full when dinner was over.  

Now I know I didn't eat more than I would at a normal, slightly heavy dinner, but I think all the water I'd been drinking made me full, plus I wasn't too hungry to begin with.  (I know...red flags!!)

Well, then as I served the kids up some ice cream for dessert I served myself a little.  I knew I was too full for ice cream and had told myself I'd just have a spoonful and that was it.  It's like I was out of it though...very weird...and I just ate it.  

That ice cream was the breaking point.  I'll suffice it to say my stomach felt so bloated and I just wanted to throw up.  I'm not going into more detail than that, but it was the worst pain I've ever felt in my stomach with regards to being overly full.  

As I said before I've never been a binge eater, but if people binge and feel that sick when they are done then my heart goes out to them, because I NEVER want to feel like that again.  It was horrible.

I tried using the bathroom a couple times, but to no avail and all I could do was go to bed and pray I'd feel well enough to run in the morning.  I did not sleep well for the first couple hours, but I finally did fall asleep after 11:00pm.  Thankfully I felt a better when I woke up, but my tummy was still unsettled as I was running.  

As I said I still am not quite sure what happened.  I was simply distracted while I ate and for some odd reason I chose to ignore my body when it was telling me I'd had enough.  It was like I was not all here either, like I forgot I can't eat that much any more.  Again...weird and then very upsetting when I was in pain.

I will tell you I learned some good lessons through the couple hours of stomach pain hell:

I will never eat until I'm that full again.  Ever.  I may need to carb load before long runs, but I don't need to eat that much.  My body will tell me when I've had enough and I will honor that.

Thank you for allowing me to share this and now I'm going to go write about something much more happy ... 

4 comments:

  1. (((hugs))) Leah, I know and understand the situation you found yourself in...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Christine!!! Your blog friendship is such a blessing to me. :)

      Delete
  2. I remember some years ago I felt a very similar feeling - I went out to dinner with my then boyfriend and then we went out for ice cream. I hurt SO badly, I had to stay upright and walking around his apartment complex until my body digested some of it. If I bent my body at all, I thought I would throw up from the pressure on my stomach. Never wanted to feel like that again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would've stayed up walking around, but I was trying to get sleep for my run...argh. Maybe it was good to experience it just once, but yes I never want to experience it again.

      Thanks for sharing.

      Delete