Finding a Balance
 

One of my favorite hobbies is baking from scratch. Baking is a huge release for me. I have anxiety and PMDD, and my husband knows when I'm struggling because I'll turn to whipping up sweets and miscellaneous goodies. To my credit, I rarely eat them... unless its brownies. I can eat an entire pan of my brownies. But anyway, the problem isn't so much eating what I bake. (Nine times out of ten I send it to work with my husband for all the guys.) It is that I get so hungry from it! Even if I have just eaten, the smell of something in the oven automatically makes my stomach growl. I feel like one of Pavlov's dogs, the jerk. So then I end up scarfing down ridiculous amounts of food just because the house smells like breakfast cake or some such.

How do I find a balance? How can I still bake and eat better?

Exercise then bake.

Bake disgusting things that you don't want to eat.

Chew minty gum while you bake.

It seems you've identified your feelings are not genuine hunger, but a psychological reflex brought on by smelling baked goods. Can you do some talk therapy with yourself next time? Articulate out loud that you are actually not hungry, that you don't need food right now. Breathe and focus on your breath. Pour yourself a cup of hot tea, coffee, glass of water, or chew gum to satisfy the oral fixation, then walk out of the kitchen. Go for a brief walk, call a friend, heck, watch thirty minutes of TV- anything to remove yourself from the psychological mindtrap of smelling baked goods.

Talking to myself logically helps me cut through the illogical crazy blur of ME WANT FOOD that goes through my head when I want to binge.

I don't know, but this is the exact reason why I haven't baked anything in weeks...LOL!

I feel bad because my oldest son loves to bake with me, but I am just way too fragile right now and will ruin my 20 day abstinence of binging.

I think will power is the only thing that can 'cure' this. Maybe if you are one of those people who can eat a few bites of something and then stop, you could try that (wouldn't work for me personally--right now, anyway). Or just not bake until you feel like you can control yourself.

Hope that helps some!!!!

I'd find something else to ease your anexiety. Seriously, how many recovering alcoholics do you think tend bar for relaxation? Reformed drug addicts as pharmacist? Sometimes you just have to change your play grounds. There is something else out there that will give you pleasure without tempting you to OD.

I only bake when absolutely necessary, I can't handle it and probably never will.

Thanks everyone. :) I'm picking up some gum first thing and giving that a try.

Lori - That's a really great way of putting it. I do avoid baking things that I know I have a serious weakness to (cookies and brownies). It's not so much that I eat what I'm baking, it's that it makes me want to eat in general. But then again, I recognize that I'm making excuses for not wanting to give it up.

I got a weird craving for cookies out of the middle of nowhere and baked a batch of "healthier" peanut butter cookies with whole wheat flour, natural sugar, and lower saturated fat. I allowed myself 6 and my hubby took the rest to work.

I also have to avoid baking. Baked treats got me to 235+ pounds. I mean this seriously, they almost single-handedly got me to my high weight. I had to choose. If I bake, I will eat it. So, no baking.

I had to decide which I wanted more and I chose thin.

I used to love baking, but in addition to harming myself, I realized that there weren't all that many people I could give the items to who wouldn't find it as harmful. I'm not saying all my friends are fat too (but frankly a lot of them are - or diabetic - or vegan - or eat only organic - or are diet conscious for other reasons).

Food pantries don't generally take home-baked goods (liability issues) and even if they did, most food pantries are flooded with junk and "treat" foods and short on wholesome foods.


You're not odd in finding food aromas hunger-producing, even thin people without food issues do. We all respond to Pavlovian conditioning. It's in our genetic makeup for food smells to make us hungry (it's true for most other critters too).

We used to have a dachshund who would sit under the kitchen table and whine while my homemade jerky was in the dehydrator (which sat on the table he was lying under). It took 8 to 12 hours for the jerky to dry, and he'd spend all 8 hours under that table whining softlly the whole time. He even learned the spelling of jerky, because if I told my husband I was going to make j-e-r-k-y, he'd start dancing around the kitchen like a little maniac.

Baking, especially with PMDD (when emotions are high and resistance is low) is just self-induced torture. And if you're so hungry that you overeat (even if not a single bite of that overeating is of your baked goods) it's not that much different than eating the baked goods.

Have you thought of a hobby similarly creative like soap/candle/perfume/bath product/cosmetic making?

I love that chewing gum idea! Mint kind of makes everything else taste yucky so I won't want to eat anything for a while after I chew it.

Thankyou for the tip :)

I so agree with kaplods. (I've got one of those dachshunds, too!) It makes no sense to carry on with a hobby that creates such conflict for you.

Like you, I bake from scratch -- virtually everything. Breads, bagels, muffins, cookies, pies, cakes, pastries. I had to eliminate almost all of it. I have a few recipes that fit in with my plan and I do bake those: Whole grain bread, a low fat cheesecake recipe, a couple of muffin recipes. Once in a great while I will still flex my baking muscles if friends are coming to dinner who can eat/take the bad stuff away with them. Apart from that, I left my baking hobby behind.

I took up sewing as a new hobby. It accomplishes 3 things for me: It gives me something new to do, keeping my hands busy; I'm learning a new skill; and I make clothing one size smaller than I am right now, which provides additional incentive to keep going with my plan.

This approach has worked very well for me. I find it very gratifying to eventually fit into clothes I made a month ago that didn't used to fit! Maybe something like this could help you, too?

Best of luck with it. I understand the love of baking -- it's a tough one to leave behind!