Life with Pie - Forget Dieting!

This past weekend I heard some advice given about dieting by an older woman that has spent most of her life as a slender person.  She suggested the way to eat - “If you like fried chicken, eat it a couple of times a month, not every day.  Eat fruit pie or lemon meringue instead of cheesecake, and take smaller servings.”

It made me smile.  But, also made me start thinking about how naturally slender people think.  It is not about depravation, it’s about making conscious choices. It would seem that she has no issues with binge eating or trigger foods.  She has food in a proper perspective.  And her recommendation makes perfect sense to other people like her, but not to a compulsive or binge eater or chronic, life long dieter.

To the compulsive/binge eater and dieter it’s not really about the food, it’s about the power the food holds.  Somewhere, somehow food has taken on a bigger meaning. Good food, bad food. Also attached to the food are lots of emotions - eating to numb out pain, eating over loneliness, eating to bury old hurtful memories, eating for boredom, sadness, reward, frustration, you name it!  And, the big one -- eating as a replacement for love.

Oh, how wonderful it would be to just see food as nutrition, something to enjoy.  It is a big undertaking for lots of people to move into that space.  But there is something I have learned over the past few years and that is about change.  Sometimes the power that we have attached to food has shifted and we are unable to see the shift so we continue to repeat the old behaviors with food.  That’s because the behavior has become as familiar as driving a car.  We do it without any conscious thought - automatic pilot.  That happened to me.  I realized that my patterns of living were built around my food addiction.  It didn’t start out that way, but after years of the cycle it just became a habit.  With lots of therapy, self help books, retreats and workshops, not to mention thousands of pages of journaling, I have worked through most of the painful stuff in my life.  However, the patterns I have around eating have been habitually engrained in my life. I see myself continuing the eating behaviors without the trigger.  I have become conditioned to be an over eater.

In order to find my way to a healthy relationship with food, I don’t have to change the food.  I have to change my habits in relationship to food and eating.  This is big stuff!  And that’s a topic for another post!   More on this topic to come!

My Petulant Inner Kid is Wise

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.  - Aristotle

Yesterday I wrote about the petulant kid inside me that wants what she wants and won’t be told what to do.  I have thought about that some more and today I have a different perspective.  

What if that inner kid is not petulant, but just tired of being forced to follow a path that isn’t natural to her.  That kid could be my inner knowing and I have been ignoring her completely for a really long time!  I have been ignoring her to the point that she is really acting out trying to get my attention.  Does that sound crazy?  Maybe so. But I think I am on to something here.

When we are born we come equipped with an inner knowing about what our bodies need.  We cry when we are hungry.  We stop eating when we have had enough.  Even if someone tries to fed us more - we turn our head away, or spit the food out.  I can clearly remember by daughter and granddaughters doing this.  There were many other things that we did instinctually, too.  Kids will automatically be drawn to foods they need, some kids have been known to eat dirt - their bodies missing some type of mineral.  We are born with all the instincts of an animal, but as humans we are gifted with the human mind which includes the freedom of choice.  Something animals don’t have.  Otherwise, how could a dog eat the same food week after week and always be thrilled to see that bowl set down in front of him.  Or cows, endlessly eating grass, birds eating worms, etc.

Once we are born we are immediately influenced by those around us and start learning about choice, power and a deep seated need to be loved.  That’s when we start to change.  We learn about food from our parents and family, what is good, what is bad, and how it’s eaten.  We learn quickly how to make them happy.  Our inward focus rapidly changes and we become outwardly focused on these people who are caring for us and providing us with all our needs.  Food and love get interrelated and if the family has issues with food, then the child will have them shorty as well.  These early years are the beginning stages of the disconnect.  A part of this system is called Memetics.

“The meme, analogous to a gene, was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behavior, etc.) which is "hosted" in one or more individual minds, and which can reproduce itself, thereby jumping from mind to mind.”

What ever we want to call it - it is an effective pattern of systematic disconnect from our inner knowing, our body awareness.  So maybe it’s time I listen to my inner kid, who is trying to bring my attention back inside.  She knows that as long as I keep looking outside myself for indicators of what my body needs, I will always be searching.  But, when I look inside and pay attention to my body wisdom and inner knowing, then the real changes can begin.

I think my petulant kid is pretty darn smart!