Donna wrote this the other day and I’ve been saving it for a post:
We have such a strange relationship with food. We know that we can eat quite large amounts of ‘good food’ (veggies, fruits etc) and we can also eat small amounts of ‘bad food’ (chocolate, fast food, wine). Instead of being content with that, we throw a temper tantrum because we want to do the reverse, i.e. eat small amounts of the good food while consuming large amounts of the bad food, and then we’re surprised when we gain weight. Please note that when I say ‘we’ I really mean ‘I’. When am I going to make peace with reality and stop testing to see if the laws of nature have changed just because I want them to?
Can I ask that one again in two parts?
- When am I going to make peace with reality?
- When am I going to stop testing to see if the laws of nature have changed?
Making peace with reality:
Over the past couple of years I’ve made peace with a couple of food/body realities:
- My shape is my shape and nothing is going to change that. And it’s not a bad one. As the husband says, “No matter how much you weigh, you HAVE a shape and that’s good.”
- Clothes are not going to automatically look good despite a smaller body. I no longer dream of wearing things that aren’t naturally going to suit my body shape. And that’s ok.
- The “when I’m thin” fantasies of old are just that. I’ve got a thinner 48 year old body – not the thinner 21 year old body that I somehow used to see when I thought about the future me. I’m making peace with my belly because, though smaller, it’s here to stay.
- My personality is such that I don’t always take the straightest, shortest route on any journey and that includes the one to food/body sanity. I’m ok with lots of detours and a longer than necessary journey – though I am getting a bit fed up now that I’m down to the last few pounds and I seem to be rolling backwards.
- I simply can’t sustain enthusiasm for any length of time but that doesn’t mean I have to be fat and out of shape. I’m tend to live a feast or famine life – with spurts of energy for things like cooking and exercise. I just need to make sure that boring daily life involves getting off the sofa and filling my body with healthy food – even if it’s all done a bit lazily sometimes. There will always come a time when I want to run again.
Well – more peace in this life than I thought!
And what about wanting to change the laws of nature? Donna really pin-pointed an issue for me. It’s not an everyday thing but it certainly affects me when I’m feeling stressed about the unknown. No matter how many other things I seem to have got to grips with, when I want to relieve stress, I think about feeling full. And I don’t stop to think about all the possible foods that could have that effect. I instantly think of carbs and fat – rice and butter, bread and peanut butter, cheese and crackers, oats/ sugar/butter in any combination.
I don’t think of a large salad with a tin of tuna and some balsamic dressing. That would be filling and good and healthy but my dysfunctional brain can’t imagine it having the same comforting effect as oatmeal cookies or flapjack.
And when I’m feeling that no other food will do, I am completely oblivious to the laws of nature that state that, if I want to lose weight, I need to compensate for those calories somehow. Maybe even thinking about that would somehow take away the soothing effect of the food. It would break into that (very) temporary state of peace and ruin the whole point of the exercise.
To be honest, my inner stress eater scoffs at those people who suggest that a bath or a walk is as effective as food for stress relief even though I know it to be absolutely true. A bubble bath with a magazine is a major de-stresser. A run on a spring day has a huge mood improving effect. But I still want cheese and crackers. And I still want to lose weight.
And so I keep thinking and writing and making daily/hourly/minutely decisions about how this process is going to go.
All advice welcome- though most of it will probably be ignored because I seem to need to learn the hard way.
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