It is legal to still love food

April 6, 2013

39.4 pounds to go

I think when people think ‘healthy choices’ it translates to ‘boring and tasteless food.’  If we’re changing our ways for good we’ll be stuck with salad without dressing, salt-less dry chicken and steamed vegetables.  We can’t ever eat a slice of cake, piece of chocolate or anything delicious ever again (sob).  We’re innately trained that if we care about the taste we must be wanting too much or placing too much dependence on the food.  The guilt kicks in for really loving the hollandaise sauce on my eggs benedict. 

So what if I eat my food with gusto?  I’m allowed to enjoy a 600 calorie meal just as much as a 1500 one.  The real difference lies in the level of indulgence.  I’m creeping up on the year mark of changing my ways (anniversary coming on May 18^th!) and I remember vividly that I would get ‘treat’ food every day.  And I would eat a lot of it.   I drank beer almost every day because I was fixated on IPAs and the craft beer market that has exploded in San Diego.  Every meal was planned for how special and how large it was going to be.  When I got near to the tipping point of wanting to change, I realized that by making every meal a special meal it took all the sparkle away.  In fact, picking out what I wanted started to become more and more boring and the ‘taste joy’ started to slip away.

The first food item I learned how to ration was beer.   On day 1 when I downloaded MyFitnessPal I went through searching for craft beers that were reasonable (around a 100 calories a glass) which didn’t exist.  Unless it’s light (tasteless) beer, it’s 150 and up.  The 1-2 bottles I was drinking almost everyday was the equivalent of my breakfast calories or 700-1400 calories a week which means ½ pound of weight gain per week if I kept it up.  I simply couldn’t have it anymore at that level of indulgence.  So my first commitment was to have a single beer just once a week.  And when Mike and I would go out for that one drink, man, did it taste amazing.  The level of joy and appreciation skyrocketed from ‘this is getting boring’ to ‘drinking the beer with gusto.’

I know I’ve gone into detail with food choices in previous blogs so I won’t hammer it to death again here.  But as a side note the next food items that went to rationing were French Fries, any kind of pastry / cookie, and hamburgers (hello “Islands” turkey burger, 620 calories of yum).  Those went down to the once-a-month frequency and often when I’m having my ‘treat’ day I don’t even talk during my meal that much because I really want to enjoy my food.  I also can’t emphasize enough that I often pick something that is more calorie dense and just eat half rather than pick something light that I have to force-feed myself.  In the past I would go on a diet and choke down that tasteless salad and dry chicken and it would make me grumpy and unsatisfied.  If I don’t like it, I’m not going to eat it.  Especially when I go out to a restaurant and everyone else has something scrumptious and I’m stuck with crap.    I end up scavenging off other people’s plates and eating more than I budgeted for.  Are you going to eat the rest of your fries?  Yes?  Well, me too.  You better order more. 

In short, food has shifted from a major focus to a minor one.  But I still enjoy my minor encounters everyday.  And sometimes I don’t even care about what’s going in my mouth, I just need to re-up my power levels.  If someone told me a year ago I wouldn’t care what I was having for lunch I wouldn’t have recognized myself. 

Another thing that happened with the ‘just enjoying what I can have’ shift is the ability to hear the alarm bells of over-indulgence.  It’s really a two-part warning system in place.  The first flare goes up when I’m full.  Then if I keep eating past that point the food becomes tasteless.  Or if it’s sugar it starts to hurt the back of my throat.  This is the full blast submarine screaming alarm.  “STOP! YOU WERE DONE 10 MINUTES AGO! WARNING! WARNING!”  In the past I didn’t care, I’d just keep going until my plate was cleared and often go hunting for more food when I was done.  Even now, occasionally I’ll feel wired, grumped-out and determined to eat a whole tin of espresso pillows from Trader Joes.  Then when I get about halfway, the alarms kick in and I ask myself “why the hell am I doing this?”  It’s as if I still have to test the weaknesses in the fence to see if they’re still there.  In the past I chose to ignore them, but now I pay attention and I feel guilty if I don’t stop.  It’s iron-clad.  If I’m not supposed to eat my body freaks out and tells me to stop.  Even about a month ago I was having a shit time trying to sleep so I got up and started wandering around my house.  My old self appeared and went to the fridge to rustle up something that would make me sleepy.  I ate a cheese wedge and felt instantly anxious because I knew it was not designated eating time. 

Another protection-measure my body put in place now is the aversion to shitty food.  It’s more than an aversion, it literally makes me sick.  My definition of shitty food is fast food.  Jack N the Box, Carls Jr, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and even In N Out is on a very fine line of crossing into shit-town.  I never eat this stuff.  The other day I was coming home from a business trip in LA and I was starving so I pulled of into a strip mall which I thought would have plenty of choices.  The only place there was Jack N the Box, (it was that or Krispy Kreme) so I thought “well, what the hell, I’ll try the teriyaki bowl.  That fucker is 690 calories and tiny.  I ate half of it and became instantly constipated which stayed with me for an entire day.  I came home and was dying for broccoli.  And strawberries.  My body wants all the good stuff now, not the crap.  All the things I’m allowed to have are now the things that I want to have.

The signals my body gives me with food is like muscle memory.  It bounces back with practice.  As long as I listen for them, I can still eat the things I enjoy and I don’t feel guilty for still liking food because I’ve gotten better at stopping when I need to.   It goes back to ‘ye ol’ body awareness.’  I won't beat another dead horse but the signals can be so subtle that they’re easy to miss if I don’t listen.  I'll bring in an off-the-subject example of body awareness to demonstrate my point.   A few months ago I was experiencing some extreme light sensitivity because I started frequently getting migraines with aura.  Or at least, I thought I was experiencing extreme light sensitivity.  Every morning when I was going to work I was seeing what can best be described as brown spider-webs across my vision.  They would start at the top of my eye and float down.  It didn’t stop after 2 weeks so I freaked out one day after they had been particularly frequent.  I called up the doctor and went in for an emergency appointment.  They dilated my eyes and took a look for the health of my eye and everything was normal.  What I was seeing was the network of blood vessels in my eyes.  My doctor told me “it is very rare, but we have found in studies when people are extremely aware of their bodies, they can see the blood vessels in their eyes.  There are even some cases of people being able to see the pulse of their heartbeat in their eye.  So what you’re experiencing is actually really cool.”  And I thought, people can see their own heartbeat?  I wanna see!   A few weeks later I was relaxed and in the tub and there it was.  A pulsing light in the corner of my eye that matched my heartbeat.  And then I went into a deep relaxation and saw the entire network of blood vessels in my eye just like a picture from a medical manual.  I still see those shadows every day but now they don’t freak me out, they’re a signal that I’m paying attention.

Getting back to the food, I realize that it’s not the one joy in my life, but it is a joy.  And that’s ok.  It’s the balance I’ve been able to find after months of practice and paying attention.