What a week food-wise! One of those really really revealing weeks on lots of fronts.

Firstly, I took in cake to work on Monday for my birthday. Over the phone she had said the cake served 6 people, so I ordered two of them. I know those cakes – they’re way bigger than for 6 people! HALF of one got eaten at work and not everyone took a piece, so I took the other one to Scottish dancing. There the same thing – someone didn’t have some because they were worried it might contain gelatine, another didn’t have any because she’s not eating gluten, another because they were worried about a nut allergy (there are so many perfectly legitimate reasons to not partake in food!). We did however eat most of it. Like with my drinking, at dancing i ate one reasonable piece and then ate two more once i got home and no one was looking…

I thought I had to start detoxing from Tuesday for my colonoscopy. I ordered boiled rice and grilled chicken for lunch and my colleague said she didn’t recall doing so many days of clean eating before hers. I checked the sheet when I got back to the office, and she was right. I had another day. So I threw myself into the half of the cake left from the day before

Wednesday, i ate clean all day and felt fine. My husband asked me to bake a cake for his birthday on Thursday and said that if I wasn’t okay with that, no problem, he would make it. I said it was fine. Now this is interesting because, right back when I started OA, I was told no licking of spoons when cooking. I don’t do much of the cooking, so I assumed that bit didn’t really apply to my eating habits/behaviours. But i DO lick spoons when I’m cooking and it was REALLY hard not to when baking this cake, when I absolutely COULDN’T put any of that stuff in my system. And I realised that my slips probably start there.

On Thursday I had to start my purge and couldn’t eat anything after 4pm. I felt pretty ghastly – it was like a gastro for 12 hours. A lot of people say they feel better after these purges, but i didn’t. I couldn’t wait to eat again and was obsessed with the idea! After the colonoscopy on Friday morning, in hospital they gave me a baguette and jam (a combination of alcoholic foods for me but I was like ‘it’s hospital food, it must be good for me”…) and a compote and fruit juice. I came home and was determined not to get sidetracked from my plan to get back to OA. I was half-heartedly chanting the serenity prayer. I made lunch for myself and got the timings badly wrong so the pasta was ready way before the salmon was. And then I found myself stood up, eating the pasta out of the pan whilst the salmon was finishing in the oven. More addictive food behaviours i didn’t think i did (again because i rarely cook), but there i was clearly doing them. All afternoon i was itching for something and kept just about doing the next right thing foodwise (without thinking to find a meeting, read some OA literature, or touch base with an OA member which in fact is the right next move – it’s all about behaviours/feelings/thought not food) and had a banana and then some melon. By the evening, it was quite clear i was heading for a binge and raided my youngest son’s chocolate stash.

On Saturday, I wanted my favourite chocolate – the ones I hadn’t had since June. We had friends coming for lunch on Sunday and we had lots to do in the house as the cleaner couldn’t come but I found some lame excuse for going out to drop off some parcels and drove 15km out of my way to get chocolate… The woman in the shop remembered me too (dear me – I must have been her best client for the last few years…). I bought some chocolate for the youngest kid too. i got home and everyone was like ‘this is ridiculous. You said you shouldn’t eat chocolate” and i said i would stop after the lunch tomorrow… everyone rolled their eyes at me. They’ve heard this before. So have i…

Saturday evening I made the dessert for the lunch – my husband’s favourite chocolate cake. It looked too small for 10 people. My husband was like “it’ll be fine, we don’t need big pieces”. I got up early on Sunday and made another one. If this was to be my last day of chocolate, i was NOT having a small piece of chocolate cake…

It was raining heavily so he phoned his friends to tell them to come later as he was cooking the meat on a barbecue. I decided I couldn’t wait to eat and went to get some chocolate. My youngest was like “but you shouldn’t be eating chocolate’ and took it off me saying “I”m saving you”!!!

Then something weird happened. My husband always seems tense before we have guests over. Yet he turns this round on me EVERY SINGLE TIME. I own my faults but this one is never on me. i had cleaned on Saturday evening, i had done my contribution to the food that could be pre-prepared, i had set the table; my part was all done and I was not stressed at all. i went downstairs to ask if he wanted any help and he had almost finished peeling the potatoes. I thought I was doing the potatoes and i do them with the skins on. I expressed surprise. He gave me a fake smile and told me if the skins are on then you don’t see the black things in the potatoes… He said he had said he would do the potatoes (I could have sworn we’d said me but often stuff gets lost in translation and more and more often, he seems to remember the opposite to me…). I let it go. I asked what was for the apéritif and where the stuff was. Again, he gave me that fake smile and asked if I was stressed and i said “no, i just don’t know what you have bought for the apéritif and where it is.’ I told him to stop turning this round on me when I wasn’t stressed. He asked if it was because i wasn’t in control of the situation. I felt like I was being gaslighted. I’d merely asked what there was and where it was. To help out. I wasn’t at all stressed. But right there and then, I wanted to leave and get the fuck away. I went into my room with my phone rather than driving off. Two minutes before everyone was due to arrive, he came in to say sorry. This was not to say sorry because he meant it in any way, it was because he didn’t want a scene in front of his friends which i wasn’t going to do anyway (although it had crossed my mind just to leave him in it and get the hell out of there). But it’s so fucking annoying. I find myself second guessing myself – was i stressed? was i trying to control and not in control? I don’t think so, but I’m in the food so something’s probably off kilter. But it seemed from where I was that he was the one who was stressed and trying to control everything… I don’t know. I really don’t.

Anyway, the lunch was great and the atmosphere was great and my husband was being nice and affectionate and natural. It was late by the time we ate (almost 2pm) and i was absolutely starving. I noticed how much quicker i ate than everyone else. More addictive food behaviour. I had another helping – more addictive food behaviour. Then the dessert and, yes, we ate one and a half chocolate cakes so I was vindicated in doing another. However, I do feel a bit panicky around food when hosting in the way i used to be around alcohol – is there enough? We can’t run out. I hide it behind being a good host, but actually it’s about my fears as an addict running out of my fix.

Everyone left late afternoon and my husband went to bed for a lie down. The kids were hungry around 6.30pm and my husband said he wasn’t hungry so I cooked – fish fingers, chips, beans. Good English fare 😉 I cooked way too much though and asked my husband afterwards if he was hungry and he said “do you mean that there are leftovers to eat?” i said yes so he came and ate the leftovers, but he was still a bit odd with me. Fake smiles, pretend interest. I know you shouldn’t second guess what’s going on with someone, but after 9 years with someone, you start to recognise the difference between genuine and fake. He started fiddling with a little puzzle (“casse tete”) that his friend had done that afternoon. He hadn’t managed to do it and i said “take it on Thursday evening if not” and with that fake smile and patronising voice he said “why?” and i said that his mate had worked it out. Fake smile and patronising voice again “and you think that i can’t?” There’s a lot of competition between those two and I wondered if that had been the reason for the strange mood all day. I don’t know whether it’s because of experiences with past girlfriends with his friends. I don’t know. But something is always off before we meet his friends and I’m 100 percent sure that it’s not on my side because I know my own anxieties and fears and I wasn’t feeling any today.