Anyone up for Adultery: It's Not just Sex
I have been thinking about adultery. Not the kind of adultery that happens when we are sexually unfaithful. I am talking about food adultery.
One of the psychology professors at my university and I have become good friends. Our friendship is one that is a mutual needs kind of friendship. She came to me to help her write a grant proposal for research and to help her with a book proposal. Both were difficult for her but simple tasks for me. And, once I began looking at her writing, she and I began talking about other things and found out that we like the same types of movies, so she became my movie buddy. While I do editing for her and help her write her proposals, she has been instrumental in directing me toward psychological studies that have helped me determine how our public education has failed to provide quality in literacy acquisition in non-white children and children whose families speak a dialect or language that is not Standard American English. And, this has given me proof to help loop the claims that I make about literacy with credible sources that speak directly to cognition development and social influences, including those influences that occur in the classroom.
So, the other day, she and I were talking about breaking bad habits and she said that it only takes like three repetitions of an action for it to become a deep rooted habit, and to break that habit, you have to refuse the impulse like 18 times. And, she said that you might have a spontaneous recovery of that habit with just one slip. Meaning: Every day for the last six months, I have eaten a snack at 9 AM. The snack is usually a piece of fruit or cheese or even peanut butter, and if I want to break that habit, I would have to not eat that snack for eighteen days. The snack is not the problem, but thinking about the snack is a problem.
I realized that I start thinking about my snack as soon as I eat my breakfast, which is about 5:30. So, I eat my breakfast, and I think okay, my next food will be at 9. Usually, I think about my snack a few times between my breakfast and 9. Then, at 9, after I eat my snack, I start thinking about my next meal, which is around 1. (I don’t have to tell any of you that after WLS, I don’t get hungry. If I didn’t have food issues, I could go for days and only get a little headache that would be my only reminder to eat). And, truthfully, the morning snack is not really something that I want or need to break, but it’s the thinking about the next meal that I want to break. And, I want to break it for a number of reasons, but the main reason is I am tired of food being such an integral part of my thoughts.
My friend said that food patterns are the most difficult to break because they are more than a motor skills repetition—they cover comfort for some of us, gratification for others, and for some it is akin to acceptance and affiliation. I, like many of you, know that my love for food is not so much that I really care how cheese tastes or any of the food, but it’s an emotional connection. Sometimes, when I eat food, I can identify a release of endorphins because I feel the release and other times, when I eat, I don’t even taste the food but the chewing and swallowing is so gratifying that I am upset that I can only eat two or three bites. And the social aspect of eating, even when I do it alone, is overwhelming that I really put a lot of thought into the preparation and even presentation.
For me to be thinking about food as soon as I eat is for my weight loss surgery journey adultery. So, I am working on not thinking about food and thought you guys may be having some of these same issues. Here are the strategies that she suggested that have helped me:
· 1) Plan all of my meals a few days in advance. (This will cut down on my actual need to think about food)
· 2) Schedule the meals and snacks for set times and try to adhere to the schedule. (This, she said, will provide my unconscious self with security, so that I won’t have to remind myself that I need a snack)
3)Practice avoidance therapy to stop thinking about food. (Easier said than done but I am trying. I usually just mentally asked myself why am I thinking about food)
aaaa4)Eat without interruption from TV, Books, Internet, etc (I multitask, so eating without interruption has proven difficult, but I am trying)
5)Don’t use food as a reward or social condition. (My husband I use food as our date night, or we use food to celebrate. This has proven most difficult to break)
I know that this time of year has me already planning for the holiday cooking and those food cues are everywhere. And, with the cool weather, I am tempted to bake and think about what baking does for me. My husband surely doesn’t need the baked goods and even when I take the baked food and give it away, I still think about the actions that cooking the food does for and to me and are those effects good for me. Should a heroine addict have his or her hands in heroine all day?
I love to cook and I love the reinforcement that I get for my culinary endeavors. But, sadly, I am going to have to determine what are my motives for cooking? Am I vicariously over eating through the people who eat my food and if so is this one of those unhealthy activities that is reinforcing my own food issues? This is certainly a topic that will affect each of us differently, and some of us will become a little agitated at the thought that there are activities other than eating that can cause us harm.
Susan,
You know I still eat a sweet tater now and again and think about us meeting in Russellville. When I eat the tater today, I usually cut it up into chunks, boil it with an onion, and throw in a chopped up cooked chicken breast.
You will get back on track. The thing to do is identify that you have a problem, which you have; Then, you define your actions, which you will; then you implement the plan, which you will do too.
Isolation is the worst thing for any of us. Our wls success is only successful if we are able to change our thinking along with our bodies. I am working on the thinking thing.
Tomorrow, pick an activity that you can do that will increase you heart rate and do it for thirty or forty minutes. When you finish, drink a gallon of water. Do not think about food. Yeah, here I am the person who thinks so much about food that I am doing aversion techniques to stop. Anyway, you will get back on track. I think I want to drop down a five or so pound thing so we should make a pact that we are going to drop five pounds by the end of November.
We can make this a group thing if others want to participate. I don't really want this to be a competition because I suck when pressure is on me; however, if we make this a thing where we are just both working for the same goal, then I think it will work better. Do you want to make an offer for the rest of the board--maybe make it especially to the old timers like us.
Your post resonates BIG TIME with me. Food is a huge part of my internal thoughts. It started in my childhood after I fainted for the third time when I was 16. My doctor said that I fainted because I didn't eat. The fainting was so scary to me that from then on I ate to be "well"... seems very strange to me now, but it did a real number on my head then. So for 40 years I have been focused on preventing fainting. Of course it is not nearly that simple because many other associations with food are intertwined with that story, but I think that the only time that I didn't obsess about food was when I took Phen-fen.
For today I am going to the dog park with my two dogs and I am going to walk-run with them around the perimeter at least 5 times.
I want to be part of your support group. Thank you!
Julia
Yeah Julia.
I grew up in poverty, so food was always an issue. We ate a diet of beans and potatoes with meat being a rareity. Consequently, food has not only connotations that are associated with feelings of security, but there were times at our table if I wasn't careful, I might not get enough to eat.
Issues of food are so complicated. On the one hand we all need to eat to live but on the other hand that same thing that keeps us alive can kill us. It is defintely a double edged sword.
I can only imagine how hard it was on you as a teenager knowing that if you didn't eat, you would suffer the consequences. Food started controlling you really young.
One day, I was eating a piece of cheese and I thought about it for a minute and realized that I wasn't hungry. So, I tossed the cheese into the trash. My surgeon and my PCP have both told me that the further out we are, the more effiecient our intestine gets at absorbing the food we eat. My labs are always really good, so I am not struggling to eat enough protein. In fact, I don't and never have been able to do the protein drink thing. They have a lot of calories in them and glide right through our pouches, so I eat meat and hope for the best.
I'm glad you are joining up with us. I hope that enough of us will get involved that we can impact each other's weight in positive ways.
So, here we go.
