A change……
Jan. 21st, 2010 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osodecanelaI have been floundering, but I may have turned a corner.
I've had food issues as long as I can remember. I was a fat kid who yo-yo'ed several times. Then in college, I had a life changing epiphany and went down to a normal weight, where I stayed for most of a decade. I was normal weight and very active until I finished medical school. Then in one year I blew up like a balloon.
It's been a struggle ever since.
Interestingly enough, the majority of my normal weight time, I was also a vegetarian. I stopped eating meat because of ecologic reasons. It's always troubled me, the ecologic cost of raising livestock for food. The amount of grain & water used, not to mention the resultant devestation our planet suffers between habitat loss, and resultant pollution.
I get angry with myself when food goes bad in the fridge. It's a waste, and not an excusable one given world hunger & the world protien debt.
For me, mindless eating is an issue. The "I'm-not-hungry-but-damn-that-looks-good" eating that is over before I realize it. It really bothers me as it's both unhealthy and unethical. It troubles me, when I know what I need to do, & have been able to do in the past, yet at other times (like the majority of my life) it has been beyond me. It makes me feel useless, powerless & not the person I feel I am (or at least want to be). Wasting food or eating more than I should, when so many are going hungry, frustrates me. It's not how I want to live.
Moreover, it's costing me my health.
So why this post? Earlier this week, something happened upstairs (my head, not the attic). I was at a conference late last week on diabetes, something that usually leaves me feeling uneasy, and I think it finally flipped a switch for me. Tuesday morning I woke up, and have been eating normally since. Specifically, not eating when not hungry, and stopping to evaluate what I want in my mouth and in my body. It feels much cleaner, much more aware and more thoughtful.
My calorie intake has dropped easily 1000 calories a day, if not more. I'm not starving myself. I'm not doing anything reckless. When I'm hungry, I eat. It is however largely vegetarian, & at the same time removing a large amount of the refined carbohydrates I frankly don't need.
We'll see where this goes, but on a base level it feels like I've turned a corner.
And that feels good.
I've had food issues as long as I can remember. I was a fat kid who yo-yo'ed several times. Then in college, I had a life changing epiphany and went down to a normal weight, where I stayed for most of a decade. I was normal weight and very active until I finished medical school. Then in one year I blew up like a balloon.
It's been a struggle ever since.
Interestingly enough, the majority of my normal weight time, I was also a vegetarian. I stopped eating meat because of ecologic reasons. It's always troubled me, the ecologic cost of raising livestock for food. The amount of grain & water used, not to mention the resultant devestation our planet suffers between habitat loss, and resultant pollution.
I get angry with myself when food goes bad in the fridge. It's a waste, and not an excusable one given world hunger & the world protien debt.
For me, mindless eating is an issue. The "I'm-not-hungry-but-damn-that-looks-good" eating that is over before I realize it. It really bothers me as it's both unhealthy and unethical. It troubles me, when I know what I need to do, & have been able to do in the past, yet at other times (like the majority of my life) it has been beyond me. It makes me feel useless, powerless & not the person I feel I am (or at least want to be). Wasting food or eating more than I should, when so many are going hungry, frustrates me. It's not how I want to live.
Moreover, it's costing me my health.
So why this post? Earlier this week, something happened upstairs (my head, not the attic). I was at a conference late last week on diabetes, something that usually leaves me feeling uneasy, and I think it finally flipped a switch for me. Tuesday morning I woke up, and have been eating normally since. Specifically, not eating when not hungry, and stopping to evaluate what I want in my mouth and in my body. It feels much cleaner, much more aware and more thoughtful.
My calorie intake has dropped easily 1000 calories a day, if not more. I'm not starving myself. I'm not doing anything reckless. When I'm hungry, I eat. It is however largely vegetarian, & at the same time removing a large amount of the refined carbohydrates I frankly don't need.
We'll see where this goes, but on a base level it feels like I've turned a corner.
And that feels good.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 06:31 pm (UTC)(Needless to say, I have never really been happy with the tension between my crazy lust for men weighing 300+ and my utter dread of its health effects. I feel that by appreciating them, I'm killing them.)
I hope the new eating habits stick. Personally I'm leery of "jinxing" such things by taking them for granted.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:56 pm (UTC)I've always wondered, if one could quit eating the way one quits smoking, would I stop craving choc cake?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 11:29 pm (UTC)Interestingly, I'm using one of the techniques I used back then. Driving was a major prevocation to smoke for me, and so my smokes went in to the trunk while I was tapering off the tobacco. Now, whenever I'm driving home, any food that I have picked up while shopping goes into the trunk. Clearly lessens the temptation.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:37 am (UTC)Fake Control and Real Control
Date: 2010-01-22 12:45 am (UTC)For me, the biggest issue has been just that I eat out of habit more than hunger. There are certain times of the day that go by and I feel like I should be eating.
I've been working to change it, I found a kind of kung-fu that has worked well for me. It's changing behaviors around food. The biggest is the antithesis to your moral issues around wasting food: don't finish my plate. I consciously leave food on my plate, even if it's only a couple bites. Only when I'm eating a very small plate or am at a salad bar and putting one thing on my plate at a time do I finish everything.
I've read that unexpanded, our stomach is supposed to be the size of a light bulb. When I look at the amount of food I eat, I often compare it to a old incandescent light bulb. Honestly? I've found I'm far more energetic and satisfied if I eat a light bulb worth of food than if I stuff myself and waddle away from the table.
Without effort, I've lost 40 lbs in 2009, I started at 210, and ended at 170. After some New Years partying and drinking lots of beer I'm hovering around 172, but that's what I weighed when I first moved to the Bay. Yay me! If I can keep this sort of thing up, exercising, eating NORMALLY, not dieting or trying to control my weight, I feel like I'm not controlling with diets and 'fake' things like pills and weight control drugs... I'm controlling with Real control - Self Control, Habit Changes, and "Little Choices".
My Kung Fu teacher said that every time we choose to put food in our mouth, we have to understand that there are consequences: Spicy food causes dampness(mucous) in your large intestine, makes for extra TP usage when you're in the bathroom wiping up. Cheese and Dairy can cause skin blemishes. Fried food can affect our gas production and stomach negatively. I used to fart all the time, be covered in pimples, and have greasy skin.
Now I've been making "little choices" around certain things to clean up my act and I'm finding it makes a difference. I love spicy food, but I use it as a treat instead of eating it fully time... and now I use far less toilet paper and spend less time on the toilet.
Sorry, I have to recite this obtuse humor:
Date: 2010-01-22 07:35 am (UTC)Wow! I never knew you were a Pieces...
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 05:39 pm (UTC)