Week 4: Kate faces her diet demons in Italy

Week 4 has begun, and honestly, I am beginning to feel the dieting lull. I am chugging along and adhering to the F-Factor rules… mostly. But it’s been about a month since I’ve seen Tanya, and since my proverbial tank has been filled with her motivational fuel.

To make matters worse, my mom came to visit and we traveled to the one place where you don’t want to be on a diet when you visit: Florence, Italy.

What’s a girl to do? One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far about not giving into temptation (read: gooey plates of pasta and lasagna) is to be prepared. So from the safety of my flat in London, I formed a plan: I could moderately treat myself in Florence, as long as I was making conscious decisions and not mindlessly eating. But more importantly, I promised myself that I wouldn’t be discouraged if I felt I gained a few pounds. This was vacation, after all. And I didn’t want to ruin it by obsessing over my weight or food. So I grabbed my survival pack of GG crackers and I hopped on the plane feeling as optimistic as I was excited.

Well, that whole “moderation” plan I had? Er…yeah. It lasted about three minutes after we landed. Before you could say buon giorno, I was eating a loaf of bread followed by an olive oil chaser. Way to go.

And though I had promised not to get down on myself, I was devastated. I completely lost sight of my strategy and did exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do. The rest of my evening was spent reflecting on the bad choices I made and where I went wrong. It wasn’t the first time I’ve gotten this upset about food. Since I starting dieting 10 years ago, every time I would let myself go a little bit or slip up, I would berate myself for not being able to resist temptation. The guilt I would experience was exhausting and painful. And to cope with that guilt, I would wallow in it — fork in hand — and eat until I could no longer distinguish between feelings. Afterwards, I would crawl into bed, and try to forget it ever happened.

I felt an episode of this coping method coming on, and I emailed Tanya.

She responded within minutes. “Think about it, Kate — you get mad at yourself, and you eat; you’re sad about something, and you eat. This emotional eating is a recurring pattern for you, and you can’t break the habit until you acknowledge and confront it.” It was an epiphany. Emotional eating is cyclical, both the process and the vice. Tanya unveiled to me an aspect of my own behavior that I never before saw. I was upset about how I ate that night, but becoming cognizant of my recurring habit was empowering and enlightening. Tanya made it clear to me that night that my relationship with food should be neither of love nor hate; it shouldn’t console me or cheer me up, and it can’t give me a hug or talk me through a tough situation. It’s there to enjoy. We don’t live to eat — we eat to live.

For the rest of the trip I followed Tanya’s suggestions of always starting with a salad sprinkled with Parmesan cheese to fill me up and cutting my entree in half to help me maintain control of my portions. After that first day when I went off the deep end of the breadbasket, I was never again tempted to indulge the way I had. But even though she showed me that I am in control of my relationship with food, I know emotional eating is something I'll always struggle with. Whenever I'm faced with it, I'll always fight back.