There is no spoon

October 7, 2012

63.3 pounds to go

From the Matrix: 

Neo:  Are you saying that I can dodge bullets?

Morpheus:  I'm saying that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Trying to relate this concept to food is very difficult to explain.  I've been spending the last 24 hours almost grasping how to put this into words, and every time I think too hard and then lose it in the pit of over-explanation.  Charts always work best:

Over these past few months I have been trying to uncover why food is so important to me.  Why does it have to matter so much?  I was planning all of my events around what food I would eat, thinking about what I would eat next while I was eating, etc.  By putting the emphasis solely on taste and comfort I was inserting myself into a circle of misery.  (I still go for a run around that loop sometimes)  Then I realized that food will never be able to give me what I want it to give me: family connection, love, comfort, a party or a listening ear.  Throughout my whole life, food has always been present during all those things - family connection, love, etc - so it's as if I was tricked that food should facilitate them.  Or that food was only way I could participate  

However, in the literal sense, food is power.  When we track what we eat we measure in calories which is also, quite literally, a unit of energy.  So I need 1400 calories of energy daily to live.  If I take in too much energy it goes into the backup stores.  If I expend more energy than I take in, I will use up the stores.  It is that simple.  

So when I get sucked into the black hole of expecting an emotional connection with food, I have to say to myself that it doesn't exist.  I have to adjust my perception on why food is important to me and what kind of role it should play in my life.  Do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible.  Instead, only try to realize the truth … there is no spoon.  Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends.  Only yourself. 

I can't control what people do around me and their expectations with food.  I can realize there is no emotional connection with food, it is only a unit of energy.  I can do whatever I want and everyone else can continue to do what they want.  What this whole weight problem stems from is my emotional problems.  Once I realize food and my emotional issues go in two totally separate buckets, then I can tackle them individually, not together like I always have.

Let me explain one example how I created an emotional connection to food where it doesn't exist.  When I was little my Dad always kept Werthers hard candies stashed in the glove box of his car.  If I was good (I realize there are so many things now that my parents did when my brother and I were little simply to get us to be quiet for a few minutes) for the car ride, I would get a Werthers during or after the trip was done.  Can I have one now Dad?  Please please please? Now, in adulthood I've been in fight or flight mode at work for the last 4 weeks with the merger and one of the first things I did was get a huge package of Werthers to stick in our collective candy jar.  When the uncertainty of my future started weighing on me to heavily I was running for the candy jar.  It's not an accident that I created that safety net for myself, but ultimately that butterscotchy goodness is not going to save my job.  It's not going to make me smarter, more clever, more savvy in a meeting or calm me down before I have to impress someone.  I fabricated that connection.  In the end, proving myself is all going to fall on my own brain not the food I stick in my mouth.

Now let me explain how others dump an emotional connection onto food and want me to participate.  It was really the first time I realized I don't care about the food, I care about my family.  I was at our fourth of July family gathering this year and I had prepped for it by taking a monster walk around a lake with Mike because I knew I would be around a lot of temptation.  We got there and I ate and drank and was merry along with being uncomfortably full.  We sat around the living room table, beached and gossipy when one member of my family burst out "where are the shrimp?  Are they done yet?"  And he kept asking "where are the shrimp?  Shrimp!"  And I thought to myself, "who cares?  Why is the shrimp so important?"  It's not the shrimp I care about, it's taking the time to be around my family.   We've always joked around that "food is love" but on some level we're making it literal because every time we get together there is enough chow to feed an army and everyone is expected to eat to the point of discomfort.  I haven't quite figured out why we do that, all I know is that it exists and I don't have to participate to keep earning my family's love.

In the end, just because I had this epiphany doesn't mean that I live on a heightened plane of existence 24/7.  I still get sucked into "big food" events and start fantasizing about lunch when I get stressed out at work.  But I do know "there is no spoon" is the goal, and I'm spending more days treating food as the power to my battery rather than using it as an unhealthy crutch.