No Thanks, I'm Full

June 23, 2012

85 Pounds to Go

When I was considering becoming a lawyer I spend a good 3 months studying furiously for the LSAT.  One of the question sets was called "Logical Reasoning" where they would give a brief statement and then multiple choice questions where the correct answer would "logically follow" the statement.  Easy, right? Wrong.  One of my first lessons was: "when someone says something is false, it is not the same thing as saying something is not true."  There is a grey area between true and false where lawyers make all their money.  You can apply this to just about anything, for example, the weather: not raining does not mean that it's sunny outside.  You get my drift.  It also, inevitably applies to food and eating.  I've been discovering that not hungry is not the same thing as full.  Essentially, there is a timeline as to how I feel with food:

Friends don't let friends stab bunnies. 

I've been so used to living in the Full - Stuffed realm for the past few years that stuffed has become the new full.  I wouldn't feel satisfied until I was bursting.  Now that I have been in the process of creating the habit of eating sensibly I have to re-train myself on what feels right.  If I let my self get to the stage of starving & bunny stabbing, inevitably my blood sugar is in the toilet and I would like to plow through a burger and fries like nobody's business.  However, in the past I would eat so frequently that I forgot what it felt like just to be hungry - it's like a morning alarm clock telling me to get up.  It's not the end of the world, it's not the point of passing out, it's simply a tummy rumble and a feeling of small / emptiness.  

I think I come from a family that thinks in extremes (It's Horrid!  I love it! Rabble rabble rabble) and in my own way I've spent a lot of my time classifying feelings and actions into column "A" or column "B."  Whenever I would write papers for school growing up I would pick a side of the argument and give no concessions.  Baby, I am going to WIN this thing.  I had quite a few teachers point out that "maybe I was writing a little too heavy handed" and it was hard for me to come to the middle.  I thought If I didn't have a strong opinion my opinion must be weak.  It's the same thing with food - I would only go to extremes - starving or stuffed and never got to know the middle ground where normal people spend most of their lives.  It's an interesting place to get to know.

This is not reality.
(I also suck at drawing)

The other thing about being full is the emotional connection of being "filled up" or food replacing a friend or support.  This is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to write about because I would hazard a guess that everyone with a weight problem struggles with this but no one wants to admit to it.  How does one take the importance off food? To decriminalize it so to speak?

I've been spending a lot of time this week trying to think back when food switched from being fuel to a comfort in my life.  And the answer is not pretty, nor something to be particularly proud of.  I do remember the moment, I was 18 years old and truly heartbroken for the first time.  Sure, I had had a series of crushes and disappointments with love prior to this but this was serious.  It was the first time someone told me they loved me back and then left.  Plus, it was the summer before college and I was terrified to leave home and start the next step of my life.  I remember taking a book and a container of chocolate cake frosting and eating the whole thing in my parents study.  (I didn't even like it which baffles me now.)  For some reason I didn't trash the evidence, I hid it.  What a weird thing to do.   At the time I wasn't even determined to take the frosting and eat the whole thing, I was just looking for something to make my first real experience with grieving bearable. 

Fast forward to now, and I think it was a slow conditioning from that moment of replacing emotional support with food.  This past week has been a bitch and there have been a few times where I was not hungry but I could feel my body screaming at me to go get a big meal.  And I thought to myself, "do I really want a hamburger or do I need to talk to a friend right now?"  It sounds like a silly and shameful thing to admit, but at least I am starting to recognize it.