As an emotional eater, I recognize now that stress makes me crave sugar or carb based food. If I don't give into the cravings, I get cranky (actually bitchy is probably a better description of my mood). I also find that the more sugar or carbs that I eat on treat day, the more my body wants it when it isn't treat day. Typically, Sunday to Friday I eat healthy (fish, chicken, veggies, fiber, and at least 3 litres of water etc.). Saturday, is my treat day and usually by the time it gets here I can't wait to wake up at 6am to have some white toast with peanut butter (Kraft - the creamy high fat and high sugar stuff) and then my food consumption goes out of wack from there! I justify it because I know it does spike my metobolism (which helps the next couple of days of burning fat when I'm back on track), but honestly some treat days I go a bit out of control.

Last weekend, I had an exceptionally ridiculous weekend in terms of food. I was proud of myself on Friday night when I went to a basketball game with my brother and ordered a salad instead of wings at the pub and drank water during the game instead of beer! But once Saturday hit, the cheesecake, pasta, chocolate, cheesies (my worst vice), and diet pop were being consumed in ridiculous proportions (almost to the state of binging – it probably was one of the most unhealthy days in a very long time). Sunday, I had two girlfriends over and one treat day turned into two treat days! It wasn't until after they left that I realized I ate almost 1/2 a bag of party mix by myself!!!

Late Sunday night, I had symptoms of the flu (but it may also have been a result of the abuse my body endured during the weekend in terms of food). Monday morning came and I had a very difficult workout (bad fuel will do this to you). Tuesday was a bit easier of a workout, but I still felt ill. Wednesday I stayed in bed until 3pm sleeping and I'm pretty certain I had some sort of bug because I felt like I was ready to hurl (I even missed Devin's bootcamp)! When I woke up Wednesday afternoon, my cravings for sugars and carbs were extreme. Not sure if I was PMSing, or it was withdrawal from the weekend, or a way to self-medicate myself from some stress I'm dealing with, but we did something we NEVER do midweek... WE ORDERED PIZZA (fore shame)! I felt extremely guilty while I ate the pizza, especially knowing that I hadn't worked out that day, but the 2 pieces of pizza actually made the cravings subside. Then even though I wasn't hungry, I then had a piece of greek pita with homemade tzatziki our friend Dimitra made us for my treat day because it's my favorite treat on Saturdays (but wait... this was Wednesday)! At 6pm at night, this is a lot of carbs and fat to be consuming... but it sure tasted good (though the guilt was there the entire time)! Thursday and today I had fabulous workouts and have eaten healthy again with no desire to go “off track".

This weekend, I'm actually not going to have a treat day. I need to meet with my doctor next week for a progress check. I'm 10lbs above where I wanted to be so I don't want any post treat day bloating to make it any worse then it already will be. Yes I know I lost 90lbs, but I really wanted to be at 100lbs at this point. I've plateaued the last month so I know I need to change some things up in order to kick start my metabolism again.

Going forward, I've decided that if I crave sugar or carbs mid-week, that I'm actually going to go on the treadmill for 20 minutes for a quick interval workout, to see if that will actually curb my desire to eat something unhealthy. Maybe I can satisfy my sugar and carb addiction with adrenaline. After I do my regular work-outs, I only want to feed my body protein, so I'm pretty certain a “mini-workout" might be a good solution to any cravings I have when it isn't treat day. It's worth a shot anyway!

Damn you sucrose... you are my kryptonite!