I’ve been both pondering and putting off the challenge of eliminating emotional eating as the next Becks task. Like many of us I have had a rich and complicated relationship with food throughout my life and it is tied into many aspects of my life, emotional responses included. So how do I do this?
Warning - this is longer than a research article - Waffle Warnings apply
A couple of days ago I became aware that one of my favourite public figures had released a book of autobiographical essays. This person is one of those who inspire many who follow his work and who is articulate, straightforward and honest in a way that is hard to find amongst those at the pinnacle of high stake careers. And so a quest to find this book began and was eventually fulfilled, though it lead me to a rather good but distant book store located on Lygon St, in Carlton. For those of you who know it you know that it is one of those streets that have a reputation, in this case for its proliferation of mainly Italian restaurants, one after the other with chairs, tables and patrons spilling out of the doors of the popular eateries and scattering over the footpath crowded with those enjoying the cooling of the summer day. The smell of food wafts around you, at points the noise and crowds are overwhelming and the sight of people eating their food and what is on their plate is captivating.
There I was walking down this street holding onto my eagerly sought books (who ever buys just one book from a great store) wandering along looking for a coffee shop as a reward for braving the peak hour traffic after work to get there. Good coffee remains a PP day treat and there are some great coffee spots in this area. It’s famous for it, a combination of uni students and Italian heritage seems to ensure it. As I wandered through knots of people in front of the buildings I thought I would be battling cravings with all of these food related sensations, the sights, sounds and the smells, and oh the smells. Fresh pasta’s, beautiful meats, perfect pizza and glasses of wine and champagne glinting with the last rays of the sun. But I was satisfied with my books and my coffee, and the feeling of my body. I was noticing that as I walked that the hard, choppy stride that I seemed to have adopted with the extra weight had moved back to being my long stride again, it was physically possible to be able to truly step out. My swing in my hips had returned when I was walking (it comes from one foot being placed in front of the other like you are walking along a line rather than the each foot just going forward along its own line. It means my thighs have shrunk enough to allow it to happen again). As I moved I could feel my clothes, especially my work pants moving against my skin instead of cutting in and pulling and stretching as they did when I started this. My thinking wasn’t about what I was being deprived of, or even concentrating on what I might have as a celebration meal. I wasn’t working the Becks responses to deal with sabotaging thoughts. I was content, not over the top exuberant or unrealistically happy but content, I had what I needed and there wasn’t anything else I was looking for. No feeling I was trying to push away, no blank spots I was trying to feel and I was open to enjoying an experience that only months ago I would have found a physical trial and embarassing. My senses were open to the experience, my mind was enjoying what it was encountering and my body was feeling like my body again. So what was the difference, why wasn’t I ordering takeaway food pretending that I was picking up for myself and others, when I knew it would just be for me. What had happened in the past that had turned me from someone who didn’t have to impose limits to someone who had none but needed them?
I was the last of my family, it wasn’t a large family or chaotic, but us kids were kind of spread out and my parents were older to begin with. I guess by the time I came along my parents were older, tireder and pretty much over whatever it was that had brought them together in the first place. We were the sort of family where things were done, but without much thought to it. Food was prepared for dinner each night, simple, plain, bland and generally overcooked. We didn’t sit at the kitchen table, some might but the rest of us ate in front of the TV, our rooms or outside on the hot summer days. Cutlery was generally optional. If it was easier to push the peas in the mashed potato and make mountains with rivers and forests and gravy streams, then that’s what you got to do. As long as you didn’t leave a mess for others to clear it was up to you to clear your plate, no matter what you cleared your plate.
Going to town you were given some money to go buy something for a treat, from an early age having money meant having access to foods that just weren’t kept in the house. Not from any idea of healthy eating or good limits but because there wasn’t the money to have them all the time. Extra money meant sweets, biscuits, icecreams ad lollies, lots of lollies. There were no limits other than what you could afford. School lunches started out with some care and thought, but as my brothers got older and I was the only one that had to have them made they faded a bit, took a back seat to other things that needed the time and attention to be done. Once it became an option, money to buy lunch was easier than making it. Money meant foods not kept at home, not sandwiches or similar.
I wasn’t fat, but I was always big. I was taller than most and always strong looking in comparison to my classmates. It wasn’t until I left home and started working that I actually got to ‘fat’ for the first time. I had money but no sense of healthy eating habits. I just went with what I had learned, if you had the money for it you brought your food. If you had no money you prepared what was actually the healthier options. I had money! I got fat! Then I got sick, not badly but for a couple of months I kept getting a stomach bug everytime I returned to my normal eating habits and I lost weight, I stopped eating and I lost weight – and gained compliments, lots of them. I also discovered something amazing, I didn’t get hungry like other people, I would get calm like I had taken something, and people seemed to like me more. I got thin, I stayed thin and I didn’t eat and I got sick again. It took a while to find a balance between how thin I was and how well I was. It took time, and it took a lot of other things going well in my life to change my focus on food. I now had two paradigms to live with regarding food. Desired foods were what money brought and no food was even better. I was able to balance the two for a very long time in my life. You only spent money on healthy food when you were watching your weight – real food was brought treat food, everything else was fill in. I discovered exercise and enjoyed it, it took away anxiety and felt great. It allowed me to eat what I wanted when I wanted. I became one of those people who was always out, drinking, eating and having a great time, without any negative consequences. I was at the gym most days and worked it off, again and again. But food still wasn’t the focus, it was either of the two paradigms at any point in time.
Then I started uni, suddenly things started to happen differently. I was working full time and studying full time. I was doing a double degree and I was committed to it, it was time to change my life and this was one of the steps that I had decided to take. I have a habit of being determined (stubborn) and I was going to achieve this. My time to do things started to drastically reduce as I concentrated on my studies. I still had the energy to do this and other things as well and then I got sick – again. This time it was a simple thing, but it took ages for it to be detected, in the meantime my sleep was affected, I had to battle constant minor infections and my immune system took a nose dive. My energy levels were shot and I was drained. I started to eat more in order to try to have the energy to meet my commitments, I was earning more money and had much less time available to me, so I ate what I could buy and buy quickly. Fast foods, pantry packages of treat foods, every time I was stressed (which is a lot when you start uni as a mature aged student, every essay, every exam is stressful). I didn’t monitor my weight, it wasn’t my nature to. I ate when and what I wanted and didn’t eat if I didn’t want to. I worked off any excesses so that I didn’t notice that I had any. Now I sat down for eight hours at work, came home and sat down for almost as long studying, attending lectures. I gained a lot, I didn’t notice but within 12 months I had gained a lot. I also was scheduled for the first of what turned out to be multiple surgeries to get rid of growths that were causing infections, affecting my sleep and as a result producing chronic tiredness.
I was more aware now of my weight but I was still balancing eating as a source of energy but without focussing on healthy foods against all of the factors pushing my energy levels down while staying committed to my objectives. I started eating in private, hiding evidence of my extreme need to eat from those around me. I would grab food, chocolate, chips even drive thru on my way out to be with people, even for dinner, just so that I could have the ‘strength’ to physically get through the event. I was fat and getting fatter. I was also reliant on food to regulate my mood, make it possible to get through the day and to do what I had to do. I found myself buying large amounts of junk food to get me through the idea of sitting for two or three days straight while doing an essay. Except I would eat most of it before I even began, I needed the food in order to be able to start. At times I would work on it, usually between semesters, but it was a losing battle, as soon as I sat down to study again I ate again. I gained and lost, gained and lost over that eight years. I lost people in my life during that time, people I loved. I was drained by the grief and the shock, I ate to ‘refill’ so that I could continue. I hid the amounts I was eating from those who loved me, because I did not want to disappoint them. They were proud of what I was attempting, but worried about the effect on me. They knew me well enough to know that I would not stop until I had achieved so they supported me getting through it as quickly as possible.
Finally, I finished and I started my new career and thought ‘well now I can start concentrating on getting it back together’. Instead I kept getting more and more tired, less energy and more and more drained. You may have guessed it, I was sick again. Again, nothing serious but again it took time for it to be worked out and rectified. But again it was food that gave me the energy to get through and again, it was the wrong foods that I turned to. Like the start of uni – my weight skyrocketed as I tried to cope with the strains of a new job in a new industry, the travelling that came with it, the strain it had on my relationships as I worked so far away from where I lived and my commitments again made my social life and relationships take second place.
I eat when I am stressed or overwhelmed, I eat when I am tired or lack motivation, I eat when I am drained physically or emotionally. I eat to gain the strength to carry on only to find out that what I eat actually weakens me more, so I eat to regain the strength I have lost due to my weakness. My history leads me to eat the wrong foods, high sugar, and refined, processed foods. I associate them now with rewarding myself, with filling myself and pushing forward.
So what was happening last night as I walked past so many places filled with the sorts of food that I would seek to fuel myself normally. Why was I content to keep walking and not feel that I needed to give in, to take on the energy that I normally seek.
It’s hard to say, I know that physically I am finding that I do have energy from the foods I get on this program, so that has helps enormously, I have changed focus though it is taking time for the changes to come through. I don’t push enough into the day to keep two or three people busy, I am taking time out for the fun side of me (hence getting the book) and I am learning that I need to balance my life between enjoyment and achievement. I am taking time out to have fun, to say yes to my friends. It’s been so long since I’ve been in the habit of saying yes to social activities that I struggle to initiate it and my friends are out of the habit – it’s changing but slowly. Food may be part of this social scene, I am not letting the diet interfere with that but am carefully judging how to balance the two.
I am going to change my job later this year, I love it but I am going to spend time on myself and use my money to do things that build my life rather than buy food that damages it. I am going to use my Dukan experience to reframe my thinking of food, it is energy and will keep me fuelled, but as I am learning the right foods do that much more efficiently than the wrong foods.
Will I get this right! Frequently no, but I just need to get it right more often than I don’t. It’s the balance that matters here, and that is something I have tended to lack throughout this journey. My attachment to food was formed when I was young, my habits are ingrained even though they work against me. Next time I am stressed and strained will I turn to my old ways, possibly, new habits require energy to maintain and it is when my energy is low that I turn to the wrong foods. But if I come back and read this, it may be enough to prompt me to doing things the right way, it’s not as immediate as a sugar high, but as I am finding, it is longer lasting, more sustainable and better for me. Chocolate should be savoured and enjoyed, not scoffed in great quantities while being too tired to notice its finer points.
Not a standard Becks post I am afraid. I haven’t described the task or the responses in the book. I may come back and do that at some point. But this is the crux of the issue for me, how I define food as a source of emotional energy is a pairing that I need to break and I needed to explore this for myself and put some structure on it. I have a long way to go to accept that the foods that I grew up paying attention to are not the foods that deserve my attention. That I need to put myself ahead of things that I am trying to achieve, its not how others measure me, my achievements mean less to them than to me and are not what they use to judge my value to them. I have more value than is measured by the job/degrees that I have. That the stress of always pushing myself cannot be offset by food. That food as fuel is correct, but I need the right fuel not what I was taught was the better food by my childhood.
I am going to come back and respond to everyone’s posts a bit later. Everyone has been so amazing, supportive, funny, cynical (which I count as a virtue) that I find myself feeling both blessed and proud. Thank you!
Statistics: Posted by Jennjams — Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:01 pm