Over the last two days, I've had what I consider to be intense tussles with "PME" - premenstrual eating. I didn't even realize that my constant hunger was likely fueled by my period coming in a few days, but I have noticed this pattern after the fact several times only to forget about it when it rolls back around the next month.
I must say that I feel it's a battle I lost, though not with many casualties. Mainly, I succumbed to the urge to eat tiny snacks too frequently throughout the day. I'm not fooling myself. The road to losing the war is littered with fat cells bloated by too many small indulgences. It doesn't take more than a handful of pretzels and 25-calorie candies to do in any progress I might make. At worst, I probably broke even on those days. At best, I may have come in marginally under the wire.
I'm not too troubled by the calories involved, though I'd like to do better. Mainly, I'm bothered by the lack of a sense of control that I felt as I gave in to my urges. I'm also irritated at myself for not realizing the pattern when it sets in. It doesn't help that my period is irregular so the timing is frequently different each month, but that's really no excuse. The ravenous feelings I have and the urges I'm fighting are much stronger at those points in time than at others and they make me feel like a failure, even when I haven't failed by any objective measure.
I think I'm going to have to come up with a strategy for dealing with these times. The first step must be awareness of the timing of these days. The second step should probably be that any day I find myself drawn too often to snacking or nibbling or simply being even hungrier than usual, I need to start writing down everything I eat. I've mentioned before that I hate calorie counting and that's why I'm slowing folding in more of it rather than doing it every day, but until I get a handle on this, I can't think of any other way to take control of my premenstrual eating.
