I didn’t count a single calorie this week. Not even the ice cream. Or the grapefruits. Or the …you get the idea.
I feel like this is progress, considering a week ago the idea of not counting a calorie paralyzed me. On Monday I made the decision to just not track anything. Not how many calories I burned or didn’t, steps I took…none of it. It was freeing. I talked a lot more about politics with the time I got back. Though most of that talk was trying to understand the Tea Party movement and I’m not getting that back either. Still, much more constructive use of my brain power, I think.
But it’s all still not sunshine, roses and uncovering hypocrisy over here. Last night I had a bit of a meltdown because, well, not really sure why. I said it was because nothing fit and, as we were getting ready to go to dinner to celebrate my upcoming birthday, I wanted to look cute. Yes, there, I said it – cute. But the truth is that it wasn’t that anything I put on didn’t fit, as it did. I just didn’t like any of my options and that part pissed me off. I had an idea of what I wanted to look like and that wasn’t going to happen last night. I worked all day, so I didn’t plan ahead, and I could have whipped up something more presentable, but there wasn’t time and OH MY GOD NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING IF I HADN’T GAINED 15 POUNDS!
Sigh. This is where the obsessive person’s brain goes when she’s used to blaming everything on her poor, defenseless body.
I got over myself, had a couple of martinis and some red meat and slept in this morning.
This week’s progress included:
Eating when I was hungry. This was a tough one since my schedule gets really wonky and jam-packed with meetings. It’s not like I can just go ahead and eat lunch at 2 p.m. because I am finally hungry. I think I am figuring out that I’m just going to have to let go of lunch and just eat when I can, and at my desk, because my job is what it is. I’m OK with that. Other than the lunch issue, the other “issue,” if it’s fair to call him that, is my husband.
He’s spent years now with me and my food issues, and one of them is me needing to eat when I’m hungry or I’ll go ballistic. The problem, of course, was not that I was as much hungry for food, but rather hungry for something else and food sated whatever it was that was making me angry. So of course now I’ve conditioned him to tell me when to eat so that he doesn’t have to watch me spazz out like a child. So yesterday I worked all day, but around 2 p.m. I was hungry, but not terribly so, and grabbed some mixed nuts from Starbucks to eat with my skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte. I felt fine. Scott, however, told me I needed to eat more since we were still a few hours away from all of that red meat.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“But you should eat,” he said.
“I will eat only when I am hungry and I am not hungry right now,” I said, firmly.”I trust that I know when I need to eat and so should you.”
He sighed and backed off.
We’ve been having daily discussions, he and I, about all of this stuff I’ve been exploring. I don’t pretend that it’s easy for him to understand any of this, but I’m lucky in that he’s so supportive of whatever it is I need to do. Just the same, he worries about me, and does his best, like any partner, to take care of me and provide for me. Scott views things through a filter of experience, and that experience has taught him to tell me to eat when I’m not eating because without it I go nuts.
Never mind that in those past instances I was probably not really hungry, so I just didn’t eat, which is no big deal. Instead of owning that, I’ve used how little I eat on any given day as an excuse to later devour everything in my path because of whatever happened that day that I didn’t deal with constructively, and if I don’t cram my gullet with something soon I might actually have to deal with whatever it was that was upsetting me, and probably get angry, and I hate hate hate being angry.
This isn’t exactly his fault, you know?
So yesterday, after Scott backed off, I went into the bedroom and tried to fall asleep. That wasn’t happening, sadly, and so I watched some TV. Screwed around on the computer. After about two hours, I was hungry. I had some granola. I fought the urge to feel guilty about it – an hour away from a special dinner, etc. – but it was hard not to think I was rationalizing being tired and unable to sleep, and therefore eating as a result, as opposed to actually being hungry. Could I have just waited? Probably. Did I suck down a pile of granola? No. Still…
I did the same thing earlier in the week, when we were still a ways from eating dinner and I was hungry. Had some crackers and cheese. Scott commented on me spoiling my dinner, and I said that I would eat when I was hungry and trusted myself not to spoil my dinner, whatever that means. Responding in that manner feels awkward and new age-y and a bit infantile, but it’s important to say it and to eat. Otherwise, I’ll just get upset and resort to kicking myself for being so weak as to want something to eat, what with dinner being so close. Again, the practice is about exorcising those voices and not make eating such a gawd-awful ordeal. All that said, I probably could have waited. I didn’t spoil my dinner, but then again, I didn’t finish it all.
Which brings me to the next learning…
Leaving something on the plate. This wasn’t a huge deal for me, but I still think I’m struggling with the concept of not eating till I’m uncomfortably full and not feeling as though I have to have portions the size of which would feed me for eternity. I don’t like feeling full, and yet I tend to eat to that point. Walking away before I get stuffed is a tough one, for a few reasons, all of which center on psychological reasons for obsessive eating:
1) Obsessive eaters tend to eat to fill some void. Full stomach = no void. Leaving before that sensation kicks in is a bit scary.
2) I have no idea how to eat. Some people put their forks down and pause and talk and enjoy other things. Usually my fork looks like a blur as it’s moving so fast between my plate and my pie hole.
3) I might never have BLANK for the rest of my life. This is part of diet talk, and all dieters know it. You think that because you shouldn’t eat something, say, ice cream, because of what impact it will have on your diet, the times you do have it, which tend to actually be more often than not, you eat it in copious amounts because tomorrow your diet will start, and you won’t be able to know ever again what real ice cream tastes like, and unless you deny yourself the ice cream you will die alone with a pack of wolves feasting on your fat corpse.
A lifetime of dieting has programmed me into believing that whenever I eat something particularly decadent, I don’t deserve it and need to punish myself with calorie restriction. Starting tomorrow. After I’ve polished off the rest of it. In one sitting. Stomach pain be damned.
I can have certain foods in the house, as I’m not that sort of eater. But sometimes I’ll get a taste for something – ice cream, tortilla chips – and instead of just having that taste, my brain goes berserk and before you know it I’ll have bitten the head off of the solid chocolate rabbit that’s been in our downstairs refrigerator since Easter. And I don’t even like those things. I stopped trusting myself a long, long time ago.
So this week will be more about practicing how to eat as though my emotional state was not dependent upon it. To be actively engage with the process – seriously, all of that seemingly stupid shit with putting my fork down and chewing, etc. I’m eating at tables now, and not counting calories, and having what I want when I’m hungry, so this should be a pretty decent compliment to what I’ve already been working on. Maybe not look at my husband and give him the “I am not hungry” mantra so much, and maybe just say no thank you.
In her book, Geneen Roth talks about how after you learn to eat those foods you’ve always forbidden yourself from having, you tend to stop viewing them as some holy grail. I think this process happens in tandem with learning to quit being so hard on yourself and doing only those things that make you happy because you deserve it. I’m finding that to be true. This is probably why there is a box of Kashi cookies in our house and I haven’t eaten one. I’ve had ice cream, and I’ve enjoyed it, and I really don’t want a cookie on top of that, even now that we have no ice cream in our house. This is all perfectly OK with me. My sister dropped off a mess of cupcakes on Friday. I had one after dinner that night, and I didn’t like it, and I haven’t touched the rest.
The fact that there are a pile of cupcakes in my house and I’m not eating them is amazing. I adore cupcakes. Turns out? What I really adore are cupcakes that taste good to me, when I’m in the mood for them.
I am starting to easily see how, as you start to clear all of this bullshit self-hate and doubt out of the way, you start to crave eating healthier things because it’s a way of taking care of yourself, as opposed to a way to keep a muffin top from forming. I like eating healthy, and do for the most part, but I’ve never viewed doing so through the prism of being nice to myself. Usually it’s just because I am concerned about the size of my behind.
This also is why I’m going to get back out there and start running again this week. I am officially beginning to miss it, now the weather is warmer and the sun rises earlier. It’s time to answer the call and just go run, and not worry whether it’s far enough to burn X calories or to condition me for further miles. I like running about four miles, and that’s it. So, that’s all I’m going to do.
I turn 34 on Tuesday. I feel pretty good about what this next year is going to bring.
