What Condition My Condition Is In

I've been trying to focus on the conditioned responses that reinforce destructive eating behaviors. Today I tried again to eat without reading, but didn't get very far. I'll keep working on it, though. It is amazing what food tastes like when you pay attention! For instance, I didn't realize how gritty raisins are!

Measuring is also a challenge. Today I measured at breakfast and lunch, and even snacks. But supper was a challenge again as I only managed to measure the meat and not the rest of the meal.

Taken from https://momland.wordpress.com/tag/clean-plate-club/

One of the techniques that has been hard for me in the past is stopping eating when I'm full. Can't seem to manage that yet. It's the old "clean plate" reward that is getting in the way, I think. I've countered it in the past with a promise to myself that I can always eat it later, then put it into the refrigerator. I need to go back to that tactic, I think.

Toward Intrinsic Rewards

Okay, analysis is the name of this game.  I have to figure out how I'm being rewarded for eating behaviors--good and bad.

So, that means knowing what rewards I get now for undesirable behaviors, and finding new rewards for desirable behaviors.

For instance, this morning I ate my oatmeal with raisins as I usually do, but instead of reading while eating (and consequently ignoring the eating experience), I decided to focus on the food.  I still ate pretty fast but did enjoy the taste more.  That can be a reward, one that I wouldn't get if I ignored the taste and just shoveled in the food.

But what is the current reward?  The reading, I suppose, is the reward.  I get to read when I eat, but not usually at other times.  The reading is what I like; the food just makes it legitimate.  I have to eat something in order to read, but I can't focus on both simultaneously, so I focus on the reading.  If I don't have something to read when I eat, I feel empty somehow, like something is lacking.  I miss the reading.

Some people say eating is intrinsically boring, that one needs something to focus on to make the chore of eating go by.  That's an odd claim from people who say they love eating. I think they don't love the eating as much as the before and after--mostly the before--anticipating the eating, preparing the food.  The eating (tasting) is only pleasurable for the first 5 minutes or so, until the palate gets jaded.  It happened to me this morning.  After the first few bites, my oatmeal wasn't as stimulating as before. I had to really concentrate to stay focused on the taste, and still it wasn't as good. Isn't that interesting? The palate gets jaded fast. Yet the overeater keeps eating. I wonder why? Bite follows bite, I guess.  Like the alcoholics' saying: the man takes the drink, the drink takes the drink, then the drink takes the man. Habit takes over and the pleasure comes from continuing the habit, maybe.  

Habit is comforting. It allows you turn off your brain, to feel calmer. Maybe it hearkens back to the days when our eating was done in a hostile environment. We were vulnerable when eating, so we had to get it done as quickly as possible before a predator came to attack us or to take the food away. Whatever habits caused that efficiency were useful, maybe even crucial.  In a safe environment, there's no longer the need for efficiency. We can enjoy the eating for its own sake. A different reward--one we're not used to allowing ourselves. 

I wonder if there could be an intrinsic reward for measuring and weighing?  Shirley says it works to slow down the process, but I'm looking for more than that.  I'll have to think about it, see what I can come up with.

Dr. Simon and Me - The Journey Continues

Taken from Banyan Treatment Center website

Preface.  My Story.

Starting over again, I haven't lost faith in Shirley's approach to changing eating behavior, that is, to focus on the behavior and not the food. There may be all sorts of reasons why certain people are prone to self-destructive eating habits, and there certainly are many theories out there that purport to explain and remedy those habits, freeing the food-addicted person from the life-long pattern of indulgence followed by remorse. But this theory makes the most sense to me, so I return to it, trying once again to make it work.

From her research, Dr. Simon learned that "overweight people were indeed different from thin people in the way they behave toward food. They found that we respond differently to hunger and to taste sensations and that we react differently to a large number of things in our environment; that much of the time we eat in response to emotional states, to the time of day, to what we see, to where we are, while thin people eat mainly in response to feelings of hunger" (page 3). This seems like a rational conclusion, but while it's gratifying to be confirmed in our suspicions that we're different, it doesn't do us any good to stop there. As Shirley puts it, "We must also know what we can do to change our behavior" (4). So that's what Dr. Simon provides us with in her book: a way to change.

So once again, I'm starting over with Chapter 1, which is where the food addict analyzes her behavior. She has to know where she is in order to determine where she must go and how she will assess her progress. In Chapter 1, Shirley explains behavior modification as the changing of learned responses that have become automatic through repeated reinforcement. As Shirley puts it, "we learn to do those things that have good consequences and learn not to do those things that have bad consequences" (14). Simple, no? We learn to overeat in the same way a dog learns to perform a trick and for the same reason: we get rewarded for it. Understanding that makes it possible to see the project of changing eating behavior as figuring out how to stop the reinforcement of self-destructive behavior. Simple, yes. But easy? Definitely no.

In this blog I'm continuing the project I started five years ago. I'll be recording my progress, once again, with hope that I can find a way to make it last a little longer this time. Join me!