Affirmation: Eat consciously

I have been using SparkPeople for two weeks now. Tracking calories/fat/carbs/protein I thought it would really send me spiraling into that diet mentality that has only meant failure for me. But it hasn’t. It has opened my eyes to some realities. While my portion sizes have become very normal in size, my food choices have still been amazing high caloric/high fat/high carb. I knew that I tended to be on the high carb side. I love my pasta and bread and eat more grains than animal proteins. It is ok with me – I choose whole grains and moderate both the portion and frequency during the course of a week. But I was blown away by the amount of calories I was consuming and fat was out of the ballpark, not to mention the silent things like sodium. I also have become aware at how much I don’t know about food nutritional values. Dedicated label reader that I am aside, I didn’t realize how much some foods had of some things and how low other counts were. I am amazed that I am way low on protein intake.

I think that I had suspended belief that if portion sizes were in a reasonable range so would the calories and everything else. Now I am not unaware that certain foods are really high in calories/fat/carbs…but I chose to believe that anything in moderation is ok. AND IT IS. But not everything is good as a steady diet. Breakfasts at McDonalds for instance…just a large English toffee cappuccino and an egg and cheese English muffin…ya right! It was easy, but I was horrified at the food counts in this breakfast…and they didn’t even list the cappuccino in their nutrition facts (wonder why?) No wonder I haven’t lost anything. Now I knew that these were high food count choices and low on the health-o-meter choice, but knowing HOW bad makes it easier to say no now. Ahhh ignorance is bliss isn’t it!

My eating habits, my emotional connection to food, and all the underlying emotional triggers, reasons, uses for food have really been looked at, acknowledged, and I think, healed, and are being brought into a more normal range. I am more aware of when, why, and how much I am eating. I am aware of physical hunger vs. emotional hunger and the difference between the two. I am learning ways to feed/deal/soothe the emotional hunger other than using food. And I am becoming consistent in recognizing and using these options rather than food…although I still slip into old habits more than I would like. I am doing better every day at eating only when hungry/stopping just before full. And yet I haven’t lost any weight. After almost two years of working through all this. No, I don’t think that the past two years were in vain. On the contrary, I think that it was essential to work on all this to come to the point of being able to look at counting food counts without spiraling into the black hole of “diet mentality”. I think that what has changed for me is that I am seeing this counting as just another tool to use to help along the way; to bring truth and accountability to the process. Just like mindful eating, eating when hungry/stopping just before full, food journaling (tracking when/where/why/portion size/what I eat), journaling, group, portion sizing, all the self talk/affirmations, facing the underlying issues, becoming aware have been tools too.

But I am realizing that there is still that aspect of physics: Energy in must be less than energy out if one wants to loose actually pounds. In the past, all the diets I have been on focused only on that equation. And they didn’t work…they actually made me fatter.

My group facilitator recently went to a conference on eating disorders and for the first time there were workshops on overeating/binge/compulsive eating. It is a new arena and as with all things new a vast differences of opinion on how to deal with this (because in reality, I think, no one really knows how to deal with it!). This comes as no surprise to me…I have known for most of my adult overweight life that the medical community, the counseling/psychiatric community/the religious community/society in general had no idea what to do with us, how to help us, or even what to say to us. For some loosing weight is truly just an issue of engaging your will and deciding to loose weight merely through self-control and self-discipline. But for those of us who are morbidly obese, compulsive, or binge eaters it is not just about making up your mind to loose weight and counting on discipline or self-control to work.

She indicated that there were two polar schools of thought: All acceptance all the time at any weight and the energy in/energy out equation control methods. It seemed that it was either or. I have been thinking about this a lot since hearing her talk about this. To try to decide which is right or which comes first is a lot like asking: “which comes first, the chicken or the egg”. I think both are true but not at the same time in recovery. I think that after years of warring with your body and mind, years of hearing those you love telling you, in what ever ways, that you would be “better” if you lost weight, years of you telling yourself that, years of hating how you look and finally coming to believe that how you looked reflected in some negative way on who you are at the most basic level you FIRST have to stop the war inside your brain and soul. You have to forgive yourself for getting to this place, learn to love yourself as you are at this point, to accept that you may always be this weight. You have to do all the hard work of understanding what is behind it all. And yes at the same time you begin to become conscious again about eating: portion sizes, tracking food – the what, when, where, why and how much- and learn to do it without judgment.

But the hard core of food counts, calories burned through exercise, planning and creating exercise programs, even changing and molding your life around workouts…those cannot come in the early phases of recovery, I believe. Why? Well I think you have to deal with root causes and issues first or it becomes about how I look, sticking to a diet, etc. Recover is about a lifestyle change…on all levels - emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational. And most important I think you need to come to the point of forgiveness and surrender. Forgiving yourself for getting to where you are, those forces/people in your life that conspired to help, even your genetic makeup that pre-disposed the possibility of becoming obese. You must also learn how to use forgiveness in a day-to-day way. Forgiving those who undermine you, including yourself. Forgiving yourself for each day’s failings. Forgiving the past, present, and future. Forgiving anything that gives you reason to remain in the state you are in. Surrender…your past, your present, and your future. Surrendering the idea that perfection is within reach. Surrendering that you will do this perfectly, or that you even have the right to judge whether you have done it perfectly. Surrendering those things that give you reason to remain in the state you are in. Oh and one more thing…acceptance. I think that before you can really go forward you have to come to terms with the limitations you have in your life…acknowledge them, accept them…even accept the possibility that recovery may not be that 125 or even the 150 weight goal. I don’t think you can really change until you acknowledge and accept the fact that these things are in and a part of your life.

Recovery is about health… the same emotional, physical, social, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and self-relational health that goes into lifestyle changes. I think that before you can move into using the traditional tools of tracking food counts, calories burned, etc you have to be more on the side of healthy on this continuum than not. That may be a different point for everyone…probably is. I also believe that knowing that point will be a very personal and individual decision fraught with trial and error / success and failure. Experimentation may be the key word…trying to use these tools while keeping close watch on the emotional reactions you will have for it. Having the courage, knowledge and probably also the accountability of a trusted group who will call you on it when you slip into that diet mentality that is so destructive to recovery. Leaning to know when to step away from focusing on these tools and going back to working with other tools because imbalance has been achieved.

This is hard for most people who prefer a nicely wrapped package to present to those seeking answers. But my experiences over the past 2 years in this journey…heck my whole lifetime really…has taught me that there are no easy answers wrapped up in pretty packages. If there were morbid obesity would not be a problem in our society today. Recovery is messy, fraught with successes and failures, wrong turns and going back over already learned lessons to relearn them. Covering new ground and capturing it only to find that you have somehow lost that ground and need to go back to the basics and cover that ground again and regain it. It is a bloody lonely battle that can only be won one bite at a time with the ammunition of forgiveness for failures, grace for the day, surrendering unhealthy thoughts, choices, and ideas. It is a life of trial and error. But I also think that it is a life of hope and health. Eventually you come to the point that making healthy choices are easier than making unhealthy choices. You want health more than anything else…ultimately you begin to choose life, but it doesn’t come in a nice pretty easily explained or obtained package.

Now…what have I learned in the past two weeks of tracking food counts at SparkPeople?

I have noticed that I am hungrier in the mornings than after lunch. I mean really hungry. In the past eating breakfast, even the thought of it, made my tummy queasy. Now that I am in the habit of eating in the mornings it seems that I am hungry all morning long. When I didn’t eat in the mornings it seemed I could go all day without eating.

Well anyway, what I am realizing is that I need to adjust my meal loads to accommodate this. I need to eat more substantial breakfasts heavier morning snack and smaller lunches and lighter dinners and a smaller more higher protein afternoon snack.

Normally I just eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich or some oatmeal or some yogurt and fruit for breakfast. I am very hungry an hour later, sometimes two hours. My morning snacks have just been a piece of fruit or some cheese and whole grain crackers.

I could eat a larger breakfast…but what? I can’t eat for 2 hours after I get up because of my thyroid medication. So I have to take my breakfast with me and eat while I work. It has to be easy and portable. I am not tied into breakfast food per se, so I can think outside the box. While the idea of bulk cooking on Sunday appeals to me on a practical level, in actuality I don’t want or like to spend that much time in the kitchen around food. I think that I may try to make a crock pot full of 7 grain cereal and pre-portion it out for the whole week…adding soy milk and fruit to it each morning and nuking it in the micro. I can also make my low fat healthy quiches in the large muffin tins too. Looking at the Yogurt breakfast I think I could increase it from ½ cup yogurt to a full cup and add more fruit (I usually only use about ¼ cup of berries)

Morning snacks: Need to look at low fat (cheese and crackers add too much fat to use on a daily basis) options. Need to add more protein in my diet all round. I like dips and spreads. Maybe add tofu to some of my favorite dips that adds quite a bit of protein. Also I could add some beans to some of the non-bean dips. Veggies add crunch and fiber. I am on a search for whole grain, low fat, low salt tasty crackers that aren’t extremely expensive. I could make them…they last for ever…the whole reason crackers were invented. I guess that I need to spend some time with my vast collection of cookbooks and see what I can adapt.

Lunches are pretty straightforward. I cook on Sunday and eat the same lunch all week. Usually I don’t mind it…I only have 4 days of lunches. In the winter when I do soups I can vary the soup and freeze some. But for summer I love to do cold salads/pasta salads kind of things for lunch…easy breezy to make and no fuss to pack.

Suppers for summer are usually cold – green salads with some protein. We will also do grilled fish, chicken, vegetables, etc. I have gotten into the habit of putting the animal protein in the salad rather than think about it as a main dish. This helps keep the portion size down and the crunch factor up.

So…this tracking food counts has been a map for me…a tool to look at how to make better choices…how to make food work for me not against me. I do know that a year ago this wouldn’t have worked for me (I tried at another similar site). It threw me into obsessive eating. I have a feeling that this is not something I will or can do for a prolonged period of time. I can see using it periodically as an accountability check…to see if I am actually eating what I think I am. Just like periodically I go back to measuring everything for a couple of days to check that my eyeballing portions are accurate. I don’t have the answer to the question of is this beneficial or not for everyone…not do I have the answer when to bring it into the mix of recovery tools. I think that is an individual question. But I think the question is not should I use this, but what will using this cause in my life? If it causes the mania that goes with “diet mentality” then it is not time. If you can use it as just another tool and leave it at that…then maybe it is a good tool to use. But it is not a tool to measure recovery: THAT I KNOW.

Neither is using the scale. But using the scale again has shown me the direct correlation between what I eat and my body’s reaction to it. Again I probably will not weigh myself as often as they suggest on SparkPeople…once or twice a month at most. But I could see directly that eating more conscious of food counts had a direct effect on weight loss. The secret is to hold that knowledge loosely and concentrate on healthy choices, not just the loss of poundage.