My Rocky Relationship with Food

For about as long as I can remember, I have had a love/hate relationship with food. Eating has long been something I did to feel good, or because I felt bad. It often made me feel better, if only temporarily. Since I've been overweight for most of my life, and felt bad about it for almost all of that time, I've often thought of food as an enemy. Food is something that I struggled against, tried to defeat and ultimately lost battles to time and again. The problem was that my heart, or at least my stomach and brain were never really committed to the fight. Eating food, especially food that isn't particularly healthy has always made me feel good. Or not good exactly, because often, when I knew I was eating something that I shouldn't or eating when I was already full, and recognized I was doing that at the time, I would be chastising myself even as I opened the package or sat down with a big bowl of ice cream, cereal or a handful of cookies. The best word I can use to describe the feeling is 'comfort'. But the feeling was always temporary. Inevitably, the next morning (I did most of my binge eating at night), or the next time I weighed myself, or right after or even during the binge, I felt disgust and defeat. I would ask myself, why I had just made myself feel that way? Why was I so weak? Why did I eat those cookies when I said to myself BEFORE I got them, I'm really full. I know sometimes I did this out of boredom. Part of it was just out of habit. But what I haven't been able to figure out was, when I was cognizant enough to think, "I'm full, I don't need to eat, I don't even WANT to eat"; why I would then pour a big bowl of cereal and do it anyway. Why would I do that? That's not boredom or habit. That is some sort of sickness or addiction. But again, what was I addicted to? How was I deriving comfort from doing something that made my so uncomfortable?

I'm aware that I'm talking about this in the past tense, but it is still something I have to struggle with.

Current thought in the psychology community is that this behavior is a kind of addiction called binge eating. It is differentiated from other eating disorders such as bulimia by the fact that there is no 'purge' cycle. (I can't think of many things I enjoy less than puking so that was never in the cards for me.) So my fun benefit was to be overweight. Binge eating is also characterized by cycles of dieting and then gaining the lost weight back, plus some bonus pounds on top. Been there, done that.

What's been nice since I started training is that along with feeling a little more relaxed about my weight, I am starting to feel a little better about food and eating. What has helped is reading that I should eat when I'm hungry. As simple and obvious as that sounds, it's great to have 'permission' to eat when I feel hungry. Even better is the fact that eating more frequent, smaller meals promotes a higher metabolism which will help me to lose and keep off excess weight. But it is the psychological/emotional impact of knowing that I don't have to be hungry to lose weight that really helps. It really is self-defeating to try and stay on any kind of eating plan when you know you are going to be hungry a couple times a day. Now when I get hungry, usually in the late morning and mid-afternoon, I just go and get something. A rice cake with peanut butter, an english muffin with smart balance, a granola bar. Just a hundred or two calories of some real food and I don't feel hungry any more. And that helps me to not gorge myself when I have the next 'regular' meal. Or worse, to finally give in an hour BEFORE the next regular meal and have a huge unhealthy snack. Sometimes I'll even need to have a couple snacks between lunch and dinner, but the key is that I don't feel deprived. I've been following this simple plan for the last couple weeks and am feeling good and have lost about 5 pounds. The other fun thing that has been happening the last couple weeks is that I'm really enjoying the more healthy food that I'm eating. In the past, I've had a pretty bad attitude about healthy good, vegetables in particular, though that has gotten better in the years I've been with my wife. Before her, I wouldn't even cook a vegetable or order one when I was eating out, and if there was one on the table, I usually gave it a pass. My wife stopped short of insisting I eat some, but not too far short and I have grudgingly eaten them without pleasure for several years now. With my new food 'tude, I have opened my mind to the possibility of lunch without meat and for the last couple weeks, have probably only had meat a couple times as the main ingredient of my lunches.

What has been really helpful is that I work out of an office in my home and holiday season tends to be a little bit slower than usual, so I've had the time to go to the kitchen around lunch time and take 30 minutes to make a good lunch for myself or she and I/the kids. The first one that really surprised me was when I prepared english muffins with slices of tomato and then mozzerella cheese. A couple spices and then under the broiler for a few minutes. YUM. And this from someone who didn't really like tomatoes outside of salsa less than 6 months ago. Now as an entree'? Another good one was refried beans and cheese on a tortilla heated up and then salsa at the end. A great hot lunch and no meat. I even bought tofu to replace chicken in a recent stir fry and enjoyed it just fine.

Part of the reason this amazes me so is that I grew up in a meat and potatoes household and kept that thinking about food as I got out on my own. But I'm 43 and making some significant adjustments in how I enjoy food and the types of foods that I can enjoy. I can even foresee a time in the not so distant future where a big greasy burger or French fries would not especially appeal to me (though it will be quite a while before I wouldn't try to choke them down). The point is, you can teach an old dog new tricks and you can change your food thinking and attitude, which makes changing your food choices and habits SO much easier and likely to succeed. Sometimes you have to 'fake it until you make it', but for those lovers of fatty and sweet foods like me, where healthy food choices are concerned, I'd also encourage you to "try it, you might like it!" But enough cliches.

Relationships take a long time to build and they are not changed overnight. But they can be changed. Gradually and with continual effort, you can make many small changes that add up to a significant change over time. That's what I'm trying to do with my relationship with food. Change it from one of bad decisions, unhealthy choices guilt, regret and feeling 'bad' to one of better decisions, balance and enjoyment.