A change……

[osodecanela]

I 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.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's always always always been an issue for me. Eating from boredom, eating for fun, eating to soothe, eating to feel sociable. I suppose at this point I'm reconciled to the fact that this is just always going to be an issue for me.

I've always wondered, if one could quit eating the way one quits smoking, would I stop craving choc cake?

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

I quit smoking 29 years ago. It was years before the impulse to smoke left.

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.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I've become pretty loud about not allowing "bad" food into the house at all ... cause I know if it's here, I WILL get into it. D & D have been saintly in putting up with it, since they can both eat almost anything without (apparent / immediate) ill effect.