the Everest approach to food is not a good idea
I made myself sick tonight by eating far too much. I thought I was doing better with food issues, but apparently not. Maybe it's an improvement that I wasn't being self-destructive; I was just eating things because they were there. I ate leftover pie at home before going out to dinner. Then I ate too much dinner, because not clearing my plate would be wasteful. Then a housemate bought some Indian desserts, so I ate some of those. Then there was a reception with yummy food, so I ate more.
I think my eating habits were set in childhood when I was allergic to dairy products and we rarely got anything sweet to eat. I used to make my Easter eggs last 4-6 months, because that was the only time we ever got lollies. If I did get the opportunity to eat yummy, forbidden food at other times I'd make the most of it and eat far too much, but it happened rarely enough that it wasn't really a problem. Now, though, sugar is always available but it's still hard to resist the urge to stock up every single time.
How do I convince myself that sugar is not a scarcity and I don't have to eat it if I'm not hungry? I thought the no sugar thing was helping with learning to pass up opportunities to eat sweet stuff, but it does seem to have had fairly disastrous consequences...
posted by Lucy @ 12:03 AM
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comments
7 Comments:
I'm sorry the no sugar thing didn't work for you.
I get what you mean about scarcity. I think being really poor for about five years when doing undergrad and my MA gave me some freaky food issues. Because there was almost never anything tasty or interesting to eat (i.e. anything other than toast, lentils or spaghetti) and sometimes I couldn't afford food at all, I would always stuff myself to bursting if I did get a chance to eat yummy food. And now that I can afford to eat like that all the time, it's really hard to remind myself that there will be another meal coming later, that I can have this particular food item whenever I want it, and that I don't need to make a pig of myself.
I don't have any solution for that mindset, though, I'm afraid.
Having one day of eating like there's no tomorrow is not indicative of much. Don't give yourself a hard time about it unless it keeps repeating frequently. Isn't feeling sick from overeating punishment enough? Do you have to make yourself sick mentally too?
Sheepish, it's not a one-off thing, unfortunately. And I wasn't actually giving myself a hard time about it, for a change. I'm just frustrated that knowing it's a repeating pattern doesn't seem to help stop doing it.
This is why I often theorize that deprivation - or a sense of deprivation - is at the root of a lot of difficult behaviors (overeating, smoking, some forms of child abuse, etc.). When we are deprived or feel deprived, we then try to make up foor how crappy that feels by doing things to fill that hole - or we lash out at others who we *think* have it better than us (you clearly don't fit that category).
So, dieting or restricting food - or feeling deprived emotionally - sets one up to binge or "binge."
Shrinky, any ideas on how not to feel deprived? Clearly, I'm not, so why is it so hard to convince myself?
I guess the first step is to figure out why you feel deprived. Is there an emotional component to it? Next time you find yourself wanting something, or eating without really wanting - check in to see how you are feeling.
Sometimes it's emotional, but I'm more frustrated with the times when it's just "that looks yummy and if I don't eat lots of it now it'll be gone and I'll miss out".
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