changing my mind

part of my problem with food and eating has been scarcity mentality, which leads very obviously to binging. it's the feeling that "i might not always have access to this food so i better eat it now while i do." and that meant whether or not i was hungry, whether or not i wanted to be eating, whether or not i even liked what i was eating. i think in many ways it started as a kid because my mother was always concerned about my weight, so i felt watched...when she'd leave the house, it was time to eat! anything, everything, in large, sickening quantities, and fast because i never knew when she'd be back. sometimes, she'd be back much sooner than i expected to get something she forgot, and then the jig was up. i don't blame her...she was concerned, and with good reason. i know she often looks back and wonders what she did wrong, and although it's easy for everyone to play monday morning quarterback, she did what she thought was right, she did it out of love, and i don't blame her. (you hear that momma?)

but long after my mother was watching what i ate, it was the way i behaved. when i got my license, my main source of joy was not that i could cruise around with friends and be free (which i did, and i was), but that i'd have the shameless ability to get myself food - a lot of it. i could drive to a fast food restaurant and up to the drive-thru, not even having to get out of the car to order. i'd order so much that i'd pretend i was ordering it for a crew of people - pretending to the muffled voice on the other end of the speaker, pretending to myself. and then i'd go to another drive-thru and do the same. you don't get to be almost 400 lbs without habits like that...it's not just a sweet tooth that gets you there.

so even now, even when i can no longer physically binge because i've taken away that option, i have to be mindful of the behaviors that drove my binging, and the thought processes that were behind those behaviors - i had a gastric bypass, not a lobotomy. i have to watch the tendency to graze, which i've come to see as a long, slow binge. i have to watch my tendency to want to eat just for eating's sake, which i thought would fade away but hasn't yet...that moment when i know it's enough, but it's still hard to let go of that one ounce that i know could be mine...and i have to be mindful of my mind's ability to play tricks on me...that a whole bag of popcorn could be only 3 or 4 ounces, which i'm allowed to eat, volume-wise, but that that doesn't mean that i should eat the whole bag of popcorn, behavior-wise.

a lot of times, the old behavior comes from a good place, from wanting to do the right thing. it has always come from a good place - it was to make myself happy, comfortable and soothed. if we had a way to give that to ourselves or anyone else we loved, wouldn't we want to? it's the kind of love that hurts on the back-end.

here's an example of today's good intentions leading to yesterday's behavior... i want desperately to be off of artificial sweeteners, but i can't have sugar and i want to be able to eat sweet things once in a while. last week on my lovely farmers market outing, i discovered a fresh apple muffin that had no sugar ... it was sweetened only with apples and had oats and whole wheat flour, and was utterly delicious. upon realizing how much i liked it, and how it could totally replace junky snacks like this and this, my immediate thought was "so i should stock up on these every wednesday at the farmers market." 

as i thought through the plan, i realized quickly that part of what was so good about the muffin was that it was really soft and fresh, and that by the next day when i went to have the other half, it had already lost that, so two days or three days after buying it would be even less fresh...of course i explored that i could freeze them, refrigerate them, etc. but then it hit me - i should buy one on wednesday and have half of it and then save the other half in the fridge or freezer or give it to someone else to enjoy. and that's it. i don't have to eat it EVERY day. i don't have to STOCK UP. it can be something i have once in a while. and i can get to a place where my mind can change, and where that type of scarcity will be okay with me.