“Next day he found me in a pinafore with my cherry pies cooking in the window. One taste of my pie — WELL — !!! So in the kitchen in broad daylight — I said, “Yes!” See how powerful pie is? When’s the last time you saw anyone become a war bride because of a cake, huh??
The price of cake has gone up this year. Not in the monetary sense, mind, but rather in the emotional sense. We should start here: I don’t like cake. Growing up I was always on Team Pie (key lime please!). My whole family was, actually. So as a child when confronted with the standard birthday/graduation/wedding sheet cake covered with what my mother derogatorily referred to as “slick fifty frosting”, it was easy for me to refuse. I didn’t like it so why eat it?
It was all so simple then! Other than being confused by the term “slick fifty” – what does that even mean? – food made sense to me. I knew what I wanted and I ate it. But somewhere between my pie-filled childhood and my eating-disordered young adulthood I lost that ability. Years of restricting everything from fat to carbs to GMO soy products left me with an insatiable appetite. The problem was that after starving myself, I was hungry for everything. Anything!
I remember the first time I overspent on cake. It was half of a Funfetti box cake with the nasty frosting of the same name that had been sitting on the kitchen counter for two days since my son’s birthday party. It was not good, even in the low-standard realm of kids’ birthday cakes. Plus I’m pretty sure he snotted all over it when he blew out the candles. (Nothing says “make a wish” like “I wish that none of the party guests will get hepatitis!”) But I’d been subsisting on a self-imposed diet of very minimal calories for long enough that I was starting to dream of food. Something cracked in me that day and I ate a bite of cake. Then another. And another. Pretty soon I’d dropped the fork altogether and was shoveling it in by the handful. End of day came and the cake was gone. I felt sick.
Unfortunately I did not then recognize the restrict/binge cycle that is familiar to so many eating disordered girls. The next decade or so found me careening in and out of various disordered eating behaviors and over the years I’d find myself stuffing myself full of foods that I don’t even like. Little Debbie Honey Buns, circus peanuts, Tootsie rolls, an entire bag of sugar-free jelly beans that I chewed-and-spit in the parking lot of the drugstore where I bought them and of course cake. Because I wouldn’t allow myself to have what I really wanted – do you know how many calories are in a slice of French Silk pie? – I ended up eating twice the calories of something I didn’t want. And I still felt deprived.
Fast forward several more years (for those of you counting I spent more than half my life being eating disordered) and after several stints of therapy and some brutal bouts of involuntary self-awareness, I finally discovered Intuitive Eating. The basic premise, as explained by Geneen Roth, is simple: Eat when you’re hungry. Stop when you’re full. And eat what you really want. It was just like I’d done as a child before I learned to put more stock in what other people thought of my food and my body than what I did.
I spent an intense six months re-teaching myself how to eat like a toddler. There were even a few bouts of food throwing, I’ll admit it. Thankfully being the mom of four kids means I had plenty of good examples. But it worked! It was nothing short of a miracle in my life. I honestly never thought I’d be able to eat without anxiety and yet here I was eating pretty much whatever I wanted and still maintaining a stable, healthy weight. Unbelievable!
It’s been sorta smooth sailing ever since. That is, until my most recent Cake Incident. Having thought that cake binges were a thing of the past for me I was ultra horrified to find myself eating handfuls (what is it with the no-utensils thing? Cake makes me forget I have opposable thumbs?) of a store-bought birthday cake leftover from my son’s birthday party last weekend. I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t really want it, I knew as I was eating it that I was going to be terribly sorry about it later. Plus, I also knew that that thanks to all the dairy in it I’d also likely get a wicked tummy ache and possibly a panic attack. And yet I didn’t stop. I broke all the Intuitive Eating rules and then some.
Crawling into bed with my bloated belly I lay there with tears streaming down my face. I was a fraud and a failure! I was supposed to be past all this! My brain raced to my usual punishments: I will run 6 miles on top of my usual workout tomorrow! I’ll only eat 500 calories tomorrow to make up for it! I’ll force myself to look at my body in the mirror and see how fat my stomach has gotten! But then, there was a stillness. All of that was craziness. It was the first stop of the self-hatred train on a one-way trip to crazytown.
Placing one hand on my stomach, I asked it quietly how it felt. Not good, it answered. I waited and listened. My body answered me Too much sugar makes me feel sick, tired, and headache-y. I cried with regret but then my body added I still love you anyhow. I realized listening to my body that I had been ignoring it all day; it was exhausted, stressed out, overworked, underappreciated. I’d been feeling badly about some personal drama and was just coming off the hormone hell that is my monthly cycle. So I ate the cake. And I realized that I learned something hugely important: I’m not going to be perfect, even in recovery. Intuitive Eating means listening to my body in all aspects, not just when it comes to what I put into my mouth, so that I can take gentle care of myself.
Oh, and I learned I still don’t like cake.
Have you ever eaten too much of something you don’t even like? What do you do after you binge to help yourself recover physically and emotionally? And which are you: Team Pie or Team Cake??
Team cake! But, in a perfect world, I get *both* cake and pie…
I’m really appreciating the honesty of your journey. If you and I were circles on a Venn diagram, we’d have loads of overlap.
Because I’m lucky, there’s not food in the house that I don’t like. But I have certainly gotten to a point where I acknowledge that I’m getting *nothing* from what I’m shoving into my mouth…and I keep shoving anyway. I recently justified eating a whole container of peanut butter (with a spoon…in one sitting) because it appeared I might have a slightly not-ideal response to peanuts. Didn’t want to waste money, and I have been known to truly enjoy peanut butter (eating loads at once by the spoonful was not new), so the logical answer was to inhale it all at once. Mmmmm…
And then I felt crummy. And my poor flat tummy was definitely not flat….
In the future, should I make poor food choices (let’s pretend that I’m now going to be a good girl forever…ha!), I am going to add in having a conversation with my body like you did. But the rest of what I try to do for myself is to spend a few extra-mindful days getting good sleep, drinking plenty of water, focusing on the healthy foods I enjoy, and reminding myself of the better dessert or comfort food options I have in my repertoire already.
I think my next step is to finally follow through on what I decided a couple years ago…That I should learn and implement intuitive eating. Because the last few years of way too many hours online researching all the contradictory studies and all the attempts at “healthy” restrictions have left me at my heaviest yet (to be fair, I’m lucky and my heaviest still looks quite skinny to anyone not in my head, even though I have over 20 pounds I could lose before I was unhealthy) and not feeling any healthier.
Anyway, enough of my verbal vomit. Glad you listened to your body, and thanks for sharing the experience with us <3
Team cake! I despise cooked fruit. Pie, cobbler, whatever. You can have it.
I love cake. I love pie. But I love cake more. And hold the frosting! Whenever I overdo it on something, I always find myself drinking a lot of water to see if I can help flush it out of my system. Not that I have any science to back it up, but it seems to help me feel better, even if it’s going to go to my hips, anyway. I’ve been tempted to go throw up at times, but that’s a place I’m not willing to go. I’ve never had an eating disorder, but I’ve recently realized that just because I’ve escaped adolescence without one, it doesn’t mean I’m immune as an adult. Unfortunately for me, my antidepressant adds to my sweet tooth. That’s my biggest struggle. I eat fairly healthy, but I eat too much sugar on a regular basis. I’m glad I’m not the only fighting the good fight!
Great article, love your style!
This “intuitive eating” really sounds interesting, but I wonder how you could monetize such a thing? I’m sure this won’t ever be mentioned as the next best thing the celebs do, or so… 😉
Love your body!
Pie over cake, every time, but I’m actually Team Cookie. Possibly also cinnamon bun. But I’ll finish the cake, so that “it won’t tempt me any more.” Brilliant logic, that.
I wish I had a binge recovery mechanism, but it’s pretty hit and miss. I’m not sure it’ll ever be safe for me to buy a box of cookies, thinking I’ll have just the one when I really want it. At least, it’s so far never worked out that way. :/ Probably my Geneen is due for a re-read, but I keep putting it off because I don’t want to deal with the emotions. Oh the irony.
“But I’ll finish the cake, so that “it won’t tempt me any more.””
What the heck is up with that? For me it’s “I’ll finish the bag of chocolates.” There’s no cautionary thoughts when I put the chocolate in my cart of course. I totally hear you T.
Team cake, preferably carrot with tons of cream cheese frosting. I’ll eat pie, too: Pecan is the best. I will make a total pig of myself on either, but it has to be good.
Just yesterday I had a bite of some indeterminate flavor of cake in the Y break-room (banana?oatmeal?) and spit it into the trash because it was awful and not worth eating. (Don’t worry, nobody was there to get offended.)
As opposed to last week when I helped somebody move, and wound up making 4 trips to the kitchen for another piece of toffee-licious homemade pecan pie.
Pecan Pie all the way!
PS- you will write about the way to heal your gut, right?? I have been anxiously waiting since your last post about gut health a few weeks ago!!! I have had a gluten allergy for years, but recently corn has become a problem and I hate eating around things! Help!!!
I think your body needs some pie 😉
…cake is definitely not the answer…
I’m unfortunately very familiar with the binge/restrict cycle. It’s taken me days before to recover from a binge since bingeing leads to me being upset —> desire to restrict —> feeling deprived —> bingeing again. There is only one way I have found that works for me to emotionally/physically recover.
First, I had to accept the idea that my desire to restrict is the biggest cause of my bingeing. (I was thinking of it as a lack of will power for years. I thought if I could only eat cleaner or eat less, the bingeing would stop. It didn’t. It got worse.)
Second, I had to learn to forgive myself rather than freak out about how I was going to compensate for what I had just ate (Your internal dialogue about only eating 500 calories and running 6 extra miles is pretty much exactly what goes through my mind, too.)
And lastly, I have to force myself to resume eating healthy balanced meals at normal meal times and moderate exercise (meaning I’m not going to run an extra 6 miles for the calorie burn, but I’m also not going to skip a yoga class I want to go to because I feel fat). This is where my approach differs from yours because intuitive eating does not work for me. I usually binge at night, and then in the morning I will not be hungry, but if I skip breakfast, then I will start to feel deprived, and before I know it I’m in the pantry mindlessly eating food I don’t even enjoy (similar to what you said about the cheap candy instead of the pie, I’m eating probably twice the calories of what my normal breakfast would be, but I’m still feeling deprived because I didn’t eat what I wanted to be eating.) So I have to sit down and eat breakfast slowly and intentionally…even if all I can stomach is a cup of yogurt. Repeat at lunch and dinner. Getting back into a normal eating pattern as soon as possible helps me feel better emotionally until my body starts to physically feel better and my normal appetite returns.
Sorry for writing a novel! Hope this makes sense. It literally took me years to figure out what worked for me (with the help of a counselor), and wanted to share in case it helped anyone else. Love your blog!
P.S. I’m Team Cheesecake 🙂
Shoot, I tried to be anonymous and my gravatar showed up…Charlotte, can you fix this somehow?
This is my experience all over. I have to eat three times a day at regular intervals or I’ll end up bingeing. It was the hardest, most awful part of recovery for me; eating after a binge. It works though, so I carry on doing it. Turned out, I was more scared of binge eating than I was of regular carbohydrates.
I like cake, pie and cheesecake. Not all at once though!
Team Cupcake. All of the flavor of Team Cake in a portion-controlled, cute package.
I like the frosting – and will eat heaps of it (and then feel sick!!). I usually don’t eat the cake because I’m too busy eating everyone’s frosting (and I’m talking the butter cream stuff not that whipped kind!!). It’s sort-of gross but people know I like it and they usually give me the flowers, edges…Crazy – and then I have to tell myself, It was just one bad day – and running 500 miles won’t change it so move on!
Frosting all the way! The buttercream is the best!
Just wanted you to know you’re not alone. 🙂
And yes I have eaten a whole vanilla cake with frosting in one weekend once. That was my worst. I did it because my significant other and I had been doing the “no treats” rule for many months. I could only have sweets if I snuck them – so he went away for a weekend and I thought – this is my last chance! I better eat it all!
It makes me laugh thinking back. But I still struggle with the restrict/binge cycle to this day. I just recently found a counselor to help me and am looking forward to some positive progress (hopefully!)
Team cake! Pie was always too sweet for me. With cake you can at least scrape the frosting off . And I love funfetti cake.
Team ice cream.
For a time, I tried eating unrestricted amounts of plain fats when I felt that I “needed” them — homemade coconut butter, unsweetened whipped cream, and sweet butter. It seemed like the best of all possible worlds: to get to eat something healthy when I would otherwise want a sweet. Healthier than sweets, and lower binge potential, but I still felt that dangerous pull from them (finished off the jar of coconut butter way too quickly!), and I still gained maybe 5-10 pounds from that experiment, which I still haven’t lost. Oops.
We’re like twins – I’m team pie and key lime at that too!
I’m totally having pie at my (imaginary) wedding. At my birthdays I always have ice cream cake, which doesn’t really count as cake.
Btw, my policy with leftover baked goods is to tell guests that it’s getting thrown out if no one takes it, and then to throw it out if no one takes it. Sometimes I will set aside just a small amount for us, but after that it goes in the garbage, and if I’m afraid of really being tempted, I put the garbage bag in the trash chute. Better to waste than to waist. We don’t have kids yet, but I hope that we maintain that resolve.
I’ve totally been there and no words can describe the amount of self loathing that follows those incidents. I’m still working on breaking the cycle but it’s getting better.
Oh Charlotte, this was me this weekend. It’s been a loooong time and I honestly thought I was past it but it seems that while most times my relationship with food is normal…sometimes, we all slip up. I’m not one for sweet stuff, so when I find myself eating large amounts of candy and cake and chocolate all the alarm bells ring. How I feel after reminds me of why this food is bad for me…and I hug myself like a child and pick myself up, have some tums and start again.
Usually there’s something else that is the issue and not food…and when I face up to it food becomes my friend again. It’s just one day…and tomorrow is another. 🙂
So glad you can take a step back and keep going.
Team dessert! I don’t discriminate…
I love a good cookie/graham crust pie like key lime or chocolate silk, but you can keep the regular crust and baked fruit variety.
I’m also on team frosting. I might eat a bite of cake incidentally, but I’m all about buttery, sugary frosting.
And cookies. And brownies. So I guess I’m just Team Sugar.
I don’t think I’ve ever binged on something I don’t like. But when I’ve eaten entirely too many cookies, I tend to force myself to exercise more and then to eat green stuff, and not too much. I try to “forgive” myself and just eat healthfully because restricting too much does just lead to intense cravings and another binge.
Team Frosting. Especially that nasty “slick-fifty” stuff. (If you ever find out what that means, please share – I’m so curious!) I also love pie filling (lemon meringue, without the meringue – just the filling!). And pie crust. But not together (it’s weird, I know). So I don’t think I can OFFICIALLY be Team Pie.
ANYWAY. I’ve been really working on this for a long time. Over the last year or so, I’ve had to work not just with “what does my body want,” but with “what is going on emotionally right now?” At first I gave myself permission to binge or whatever as long as I named the problem first. The next stage was to look for substitute actions, so I wasn’t eating. Then I gave up drinking and had to REALLY get serious. I’ve been doing a lot of journaling, a lot of micro-emotional work, all that. And I’ve gotten further, faster in the last 6 months or so than in the 2 1/2 years before that, when I was just (“just” – ha!) doing the “what does my body want?” part. For me, asking myself, “What is REALLY going on right now?” has been the gold-plated key in the lock. FWIW. 🙂
Team Pie! you can’t beat a good pie!
I’m with Amber- Team Sugar!
I have always been a slow eater, and I think it has really helped me, as I really savor the taste of food. While I love sugar, and crave it after every meal, I am satisfied with a small piece of chocolate, or a serving of whatever I may have made that day (the perils of being a baking blogger!).
I only know of 1 instance that I ignored my stomach. When I was younger, my brother had a bottomless pit of a stomach (I think most boys go through this stage?). There was some chocolate cake left and I was determined that he wasn’t going to eat it- so I did. Soon after, my mother was looking for me and finally found me. I was laying on the bathroom floor with my shirt pulled up so that my stomach was pressed against the cool tiles. My stomach hurt so badly!
Gotta go with the cake here. Unless you want to give me a slice of warm apple pie, then I’m ALL over that!
Last night I ate Chinese food. I didn’t particularly WANT it, but I ate it, and I ate a lot of it. I, too, was feeling overly stressed, angry, and exhausted. And I’m PMS-ing, which never helps.
This morning I awoke to that too-familiar bloated queasy feeling. I drank some warm lemon water to settle my stomach, then made myself & Hubby a smoothie. I’m sipping iced coffee as I write this, but I need to take it slowly. I’m also going to do some yoga later to help get things moving again.
For the past week and a half, I’ve been taking care of my daughter, who’s had the flu, my son, and my mom, who was in town. Hubby went away with his buddies for the weekend, and came home sick, so I’m taking care of him, too, I need to remember, in the midst of it all, to take care of ME.
Thank you for the reminder!
Yum! I’ll take either. Cake and Pie both sound good right now.
Team chocolate!!!
…chocolate cake…chocolate pie…chocolate cheesecake…chocolate cupcakes…it’s all about the chocolate, baby! 🙂
I do love cake, not too experienced with pies cause my family was never a formal dessert kind of family, although apple pie is one of my favourite desserts ever and my mother usually gets one if I travel home for a visit. But personally I never make or buy cakes or pies or cupcakes or cookies or squares or anything like that. I just usually have some chocolate on hand and enjoy a piece after supper most nights.
On a related note, your post totally reminded me of one of my favourite blog posts ever; the author writes of an experience she had as a little girl where she filched a taste of a cake her mother made and how it made her crazily obsessed to consume the rest of it. I laughed harder than I had in years when I found this, the pictures are hilarious! I read it regularly when I need a pick-me-up.
I will share the link for anyone who has not already read it, please keep in mind that it is Safe For Work, but there is lots of cussing so be warned anyone who is offended by strong language.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/2010/10/god-of-cake.html
ps: the last post she published might interest you too, it’s called “Adventures in Depression”; I think a lot of us can relate to her writing!
OOPS!!!
So sorry, I just re-read “The God of Cake” after making that post and realised that while the rest of the website may have strong language, there is very, very little of it in this particular post. Sorry for the un-necessary caveat, I would hate it people avoided it because my memory tricked me into thinking there was a lot of cussing when there isn’t 🙁
In general, team cake. Or, actually, let me put it this way, team FROSTING (the cake is just a vehicle for it). But key lime is also my favorite too! Now I want cake and pie!
And OMG, I know this so well. I’ll eat so great all week, and then I’ll be at a party. That rudely has a table with a bowl of chips on it as parties often do. Maybe they aren’t my favorite chips, but hey, chips. I’ll have a few. Then more. Then MORE. Then I’m like 3 servings in the hole of crappy store brand chips that aren’t even a flavor I like, and I can’t justify having the ones I want, like, ever now since I ruined that chance by being dumb.
Team chovolate. Straight chocolate. I can eat an entire bag, white or milk or dark, as long as it’s good quality. I’m not a fan if baked goods. I did find myself in a sugar craving mood last weekend and ate half a box of honey but Chex because there was nothing sweet in the house…I don’t even like cereal.
I recently read a journal entry from about a year ago that had almost the same experience you wrote about here. Why is it always cake? And why no utensils? That was my last really bad binge. I’ve eaten more and worse since but there was something about sitting in my car in the Fred Meyer’s parking lot shoveling cake into my mouth with my fingers, because apparently waiting until I got home and had a fork was just not an option, that represented a pretty low point for me. But we get up and we move forward.
I love how your honesty, it helps so many of us! Thank you!!! I have had many experience like you described. It ebbs and flows with me, most of the time I do great and then bam – a binge. Thankfully, the binges are small as I get older – I am realizing it isn’t worth it and I apologize to myself and move on. I also do Intuitive Eating and I think it is great!
I also love all the comments – I know I’m not the only “crazy” out there!
I have done this way too often in my younger days.. less so with age… but I am Team COOKIE & have done it with them! 🙂 I just have learned to move on. Yes, I am pissed at myself but I don’t go on for days. I stop it there & move onward. It may happen again but I never let it go on for days & weeks.!
I am actually writing about intuitive eating tomorrow on my blog.. more kinda writing but asking people w=to weigh in on a question I pose at the end of my post. 🙂
I used to binge on ice cream. After college I lived with my sister, her boyfriend and his best friend. All three of them worked for Ben & Jerry’s where they get 3 free pints a day. We had so much of it we used it for currency with the local pizza places for pizza.
I would often eat 1-2 pints in a single sitting. To get myself back right I would go for long bike rides, make myself hungry and then begin the whole cycle again.
Finally broke out of the cycle when I moved out. That was how I learned the importance of keeping certain foods out of the home. Now when I want ice cream I go out for it. It’s automatic portion control!
I am not a discerning consumer of sweets, I like them all. Choco chippers, ice cream, blueberry pies, cupcakes, etc. However, I am really picky about the items being made from scratch, which is basically the only reason I don’t binge on them constantly. I have been getting better recently at listening to my body after eating too much though and realizing that I just feel awful in every single way possible, and remembering that I really hate the after-effects.
I think a general rule of life that I’ve been implementing is to be gentle to myself, because honestly, if I can’t cut myself a break, then why should anyone else?
Slick 50 is a brand of grease for cars (lube, oil, etc.) Google it, you will see the products. I know because my husband used to be a mechanic and still works on our cars. I think your mom was alluding to the fact that Crisco, which was (maybe still is?) a frequent frosting ingredient in store bought cake, tasted like car grease. I personally hate store bought cake (or any store bought item) because usually it tastes so “tasteless.”
LOVELOVELOVE this post. Ugh I feel like some parts I could have written myself (especially about how ED has made you eat foods you dont even like ha). I’m actually doing a series on emotional eating and this so relates!
Don’t think you’re going backwards- the fact that you can acknowledge it and not fall into bad habits after it proves your not. We all have moments of weakness and tests- this was one of them.
I think it’s fantastic that you listened to your body immediately after. Maybe next time give yourself an indulgent treat you actually like, so it satisfies you- instead of the nasty cake 🙂 I think it’s so great that you’ve accomplished intuitive eating- such a good role model and an inspiration 🙂 xx
Slick fifty is a motor grease( lubricant) . Would your Mom have known that and been comparing that to icing? It sort of looks like a jar of nasty icing or probably closer to a jar of Crisco shortening.
Team Pie!
You’re post really resonated with me! Something about restricting yourself makes you want to eat the most ridiculous things! I’ve never thought about it really, but you’re so right!!! I am going to start looking at my eating differently. Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday, and I splurged and ate waaaayyy too much sugar. And you know what? I felt sick all day! Not because of guilt, but just because my body was telling me “Yuck!” It really is so important to tune into your body.
When I do binge, I simply remind myself that tomorrow is a new day. I go back to my workouts and (mostly) clean eating, and by the end of the day I usually feel a lot better!
I’m team cookie myself.
What a lovely, gentle response you had to your binge. Go you. And thanks for sharing. I aspire to this kind of reaction to myself. Thanks for reminding us all we’re not perfect, nor can we ever be.
CAKE
There is nothing I love more than a massively fudgy chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chips on it. Like the huge kind they sell at Cheesecake Factory.
Nothing in this world is like it. O.O
I am actually not a big cake, pie, ice cream or cookie person. I am a binge eater! I do eat things that I am really not enjoying. It has been a way for me to quiet the chattering in my brain caused by stress and anxiety. I am pretty good at forgiving myself for the binge and dealing with it but it does often result in an out of control spiral of binges. I work pretty hard now at stopping a binge in the early stages by asking myself if after a couple bites I am really tasting the food and do I really want it. Then I throw whatever it is out, and either brush my teeth or eat an apple or take a shower or go find a distraction.
Crazy brain! It works pretty good 90% of the time so I’ll keep it!
I’m totally on team pie. I’ve never had a cake taste as sweet as even your most average pie. The only time I’ll make an exception is angel food cake, slathered with whipped cream and sliced fruits.
That said, thought I wouldn’t normally look to a diet book for good pie recipes, this one, The Thyroid Solution Diet actually has some really interesting pie recipes.
Oh! And also, could she have been referring to Slick 50 Automotive Oil? I know most icings are oil based…
This is complicated. Most of the time I prefer cake; however, there are a few pies I really like, such as a really good key lime pie! I could pig out on those all day!
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You forgot to mention ice cream! Now that is something I can binge on for eternity even in the winter. You see if I eat something cold then my body will warm itself up. Well that’s my justification anyway.