Learning through Doing

It's a little absurd to me, the amount of chaos we allow into the Christmas holiday and how fast it's over. I always feel so exhausted after, even when all I have to do is show up and deal with the noise for a few hours. This year was so different. It's our first year living one hour away from my husband's dad and 3 hours from my family. It's the first Christmas for us in our own house. It's the first Christmas without my mother-in-law, who was such an amazing host. And in a place that's usually very cold and snowy, this year we had green grass and 40 degree temperatures with beautiful sunshine! We were invited to my husband's step-dad's for Christmas but after traveling to see my father-in-law on Christmas Eve I really thought it would be nice to spend out first Christmas in our home together at home. I wanted it to be so perfect for our sons. We bought them presents and I made a Christmas morning breakfast complete with pastries from our local bakery, egg bites and sausage. Then I also made a dinner which looked more like a Thanksgiving table with a full turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn and a big salad. It was my first time cooking a turkey, and while the turkey came out perfectly, it cooked way faster than the directions indicated and I had to hurry and get all the sides made. The potatoes were lumpy, the corn was not moist, and somehow the vegetables in the stuffing did not rehydrate and they were tough. Ugh. The dinner rolls were little heavenly pillows of carby goodness so it made up for it. I decided while I was grocery shopping on Christmas Eve that I was off restrictions for the weekend. I ate everything. This felt dangerous because I had been really struggling with feeling restricted before I made the decision so I knew it was going to go one of two ways. one, it could open up the floodgates of addiction and I would have trouble going back to eating low carb again or two, it would help my brain stop feeling deprived. Everything tasted good. I had donuts, coffee caked, wine, potatoes, stuffing...everything. I will tell you, after indulging Saturday morning I felt so bloated. Then dinner was done early and I still wasn't particularly hungry but I ate anyway. I was so uncomfortably full afterword that I didn't eat anything after that 5pm meal. My stomach felt so full that I didn't even drink much water because it felt like there was no room for it! It really felt like my digestion slowed way down and I felt awful! still, I got up this morning and had leftovers, in much smaller proportions of just turkey, potatoes dinner rolls. It still made me feel bloated and heavy, tired, joint pain and headachy. The worst part of eating this way was how I felt extremely depressed. I can't totally blame the food, but seeing how much it affected me in other ways I am thinking it was a huge aspect of why I felt so emotionally lousy. It was fun for a bit but I honestly don't think getting back on track tomorrow will be any problem. I don't want to feel that way anymore! I am glad I took the chance to see how it would feel. I know I can have any of those things if I want at some point, but it won't be a whole weekend like this. Had I not tried it I would have continued to fight the war against my kind that was telling me I was deprived. After eating carbs for the weekend I now see that living like that was robbing me of feeling good and having stable emotions. Going forward, when my brain starts nagging me about feeling deprived I will draw on this experience and it will help me not go off the rails.