I eat, therefore I am...(weak)

There is a stray cat who lives in our neighborhood. Each night, when we've gone to bed, he comes to our house and sits under the kitchen window in the darkness, meowing in a deep, lonely voice, calling to our two cats who lie curled up on our quilt-covered legs. Our cats have no interest in befriending the rogue. They either ignore him or climb into the windowsill and hiss at him with an air of superiority. Yet every night he returns. He will not relent. His sad, guttural meow unnerves me, reminds me of the suffering in the world, and it makes me tuck deeper into the covers.

With 8 weeks to go until this competition, that stray cat has come to symbolize my hunger.

 

Until very recently, my ability to place my mind and my body in sync has been difficult yet exhilarating, but when my weeks' countdown reached single digits, some cog in my confidence came loose, shattering the whole mechanism. Lately, every single day, as soon as I am alone, hunger comes crying, moaning to me, begging me. And for some mystifying reason, I open the window allowing it to wander in. 

Peanut butter sandwiches, graham crackers dipped in milk, the first bite of a slice of cheese pizza--the comfort foods associated with childhood become my targets, and I consume in an altered mental state until the wave passes. 

If I am cleaning the gym, talking with people, or training, I feel strong-willed and confident, but the moment I am alone, the hunger comes back to my window, crying, needing, starving for companionship, and demanding attention. It is hounding me, and it is eroding my power. I give in and eat. Then I wallow in guilt--a food slut--that easy girl who can be talked into anything. 

Five weeks ago I would not let a bite of pasta pass my lips, but tonight I stabbed at the last bits on my daughter's plate. Girl Scout cookies that I resisted for weeks on end now have more power than heroin. I have not had one truly clean day of eating in...well, I've stopped counting. I sneak in a chip here, a morsel of cake there...until the day's digressions turn into an avalanche. I am slowly committing suicide to my bodybuilding goal and to the person I'd hoped to become. 

There is no cramming for this deadline, no making up for lost time, and if I don't get a handle on it soon, if I don't squash this monster, I will run out of time. 

I confide in close friends, feeling a bit stupid that with all the world's problems, I am bemoaning by lack of will power to diet. But they take me seriously, and like the wonders they are, offer solutions:

"Create a timeline so you can see your journey and how little you have left to go."

"Give those Girl Scout cookies the finger!"

This helps, and I end these conversations with the ability to shrink this problem back down to a manageable size. Yet even with corrected perspective generated from an outside voice, the hunger returns and perches under the window. It calls out so desperately that my heart grows heavy. I know I will respond to it again. 

If in the end, my destination is wiped out by the power of food, my identity, my definition of myself will be altered just enough. I will become that stray cat--that zombie--that wishful moan of despair and longing.

Tonight, as I retire for the night, I've asked my husband to leave the garage door open just a crack. I hope that cat finds its way into a cozy box, tucked safely up high on a shelf among the Christmas ornaments and camping equipment. 

It needs to take an 8 week-long nap.

.