Down, but not out!

Today I am going for it once again (rather a long hiatus this time). I must admit to being a stress eater, and the past two years have been quite stressful (deaths and injuries to family members top the list), so I resorted to my comforting old friend, food. (Not really my friend, you'd say?)

I did a lot of damage, but I'm not beaten yet!

So, this morning I measured breakfast intake. Now lunch becomes the challenge. Here we go! Report later . . . 

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!

Those Days of Yore

I'm not having much luck returning to those days of yore when I was losing weight. I talked to my coworker about my late triumph, and he was shocked to hear that I lost 40 pounds. "You have to stick to it," I said, in response to the question he didn't ask: "What happened?" I thought I could go back to eating "normally," occasionally eating cake or ice cream or potato chips, but I couldn't without re-triggering the old addiction.

When I thought of that word "normal," though, I realized I had never actually eaten normally, or as a person without an eating addiction eats. When I was young, I was restricted by my family and by the lack of access to fattening foods. We didn't have the money to indulge in junk food, and my mother made sure we ate as healthfully as we could, despite our limited means. Then in college I was restricted by a very tight food budget that didn't allow indulgences.

After college, though, when I had money enough to buy bad food, the struggles began. Normal for me was never an option; there was only restricted and unrestricted--the yin and yang of dieting. Most people with eating addictions see-saw between those two states. Neither is normal in the way a non-food-addicted person eats.

So what to do? Admit that I will never be able to eat normally, or in the way people like my friend Linda eats. Realize I'm stuck with these genes and find a way to deal with it and still remain slim. Shirley Simon was wrong--it really isn't possible to cure addiction. One can only hope to be constantly "recovering," as they say.

Be the Tiger

King Henry:Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger. . . .
Henry The Fifth Act 3, scene 1, 1–6

Okay, so, the junk food is almost gone now, but there will be more opportunities to eat high-calorie foods, rest assured. So, what to do when that happens? As King Henry would say, "Once more into the breach!" It's time for war, and "when the blast of war blows in our ears," we cannot afford to be modest or humble. We must "imitate the action of the tiger."  Grrrrrr . . .

But how to be a tiger with food addiction? My enemies are two, it seems: Hunger and Habit. Oftentimes I'm confronted with intense hunger that I feel a crushing need to satisfy immediately. That's when I'm subject to eating high-calorie foods (HCF). But I really don't need to do that; I just think I do. What should I do instead? No, let's change that word, that bad should word that carries with it all those guilt feelings. Let's make it more positive: What could I do instead? What are my options?

Well, sometimes I try to eat fruit or other lower-calorie, higher nutrition foods (LCF). That works, but only for about an hour; then I need another infusion of calories to go another hour. It's inconvenient, since I have to bring to work more and more foods to get me through the afternoon. Afternoon seems my hardest time, and the hard time continues into supper, since by the time I eat I'm so hungry I wolf down my food, eating more than I need to.

What other options do I have besides eating fruit or other LCF? Well, I could ignore the hunger, but that has proven to be unwise in the past, because eventually I start to feel weak, faint, or irritable--sometimes all three.

But eating every hour means more calories. I guess I could eat less at meals, or save some for later. That might work. And it will get me habituated to eating less at a meal so that I don't fill up beyond satiation. But it will be hard, no matter what.

Evening is also hard because I must face my other enemy: Habit. I've become accustomed to eating after supper, not because I'm hungry, but because it feels good to stuff my face while watching TV. Eating is okay if it's necessary, but it should be within the limits of the food intake for the day. I like to eat HCF in the evening, but I don't always need to. And I don't need to eat in front of the TV either because, as Shirley says, I'm creating a new chain of habits that I will at some time have to break.

Another problem I have is with measuring and weighing--it's very time consuming and when I'm doing it, I'm hungry and my food is getting cold. I tend to overestimate when I'm hungry, and I want to skip doing it because I don't want my food to get cold. It's the anxiety that comes with the hunger, I think. What to do about that? Stop worrying and just tell myself I'll be okay, that nutrients are coming and everything will be fine. That's what Shirley says: take a breath. Maybe saying Grace was a way people had of slowing things down, keeping themselves from attacking their food like a hungry animal. There's something to be said for that, even if the pause you take is not religious.

Let's face it--I've analyzed this situation 10 ways to Sunday, as they say, especially in this blog. I know everything I need to know about why and when and what I eat. So the next step--the hardest step--is action. Back to the battle! Be the tiger! But remember, the tiger is not only fierce, but watchful, cunning, smart.

I'm not ready yet to "close the wall up" on my hope for slimness. So it's into the breach, dear friends. Once more.

Cold Turkey?

Okay, it's a new year and we still have lots of junk food to "get rid of," that is, eat. And then we can stop, right? Well, it won't be easy. Cold turkey stopping is the hardest, but probably the most effective way of getting it done. And what do I want to get done? Deal with my eating/food addiction. And it's not eating, really, that's the problem, it's eating certain foods, foods that have become like addictive substances in the way that alcohol is an addictive substance. Drinking alcohol is the fastest way to get the alcohol into the brain where it alters one's perceptions and satisfies the physical need that the brain has created by adding receptors. Chewing and swallowing is the fastest way to get the addictive substances from food into the brain, too, I guess.

It's interesting, really, that the person who drinks to excess craves the feeling that alcohol gives her or him. Why would anyone crave that feeling? One of my former coworkers, who was an alcoholic, said that the feeling was one of "riding," as if he were on top of a wave, above it all. It must be that not riding meant crashing, and that there was no in between for him. But in between is where he would want to be, one would think. In between is normal. Maybe normal was too boring? No, it must be that normal for him meant depressed. And that is because he needed what alcohol was giving him in order to not feel depressed. For him, there was no place where he was not depressed and also not drunk. Or at least he feared there was no such place. His preference was drunk over depressed because he thought that was his only choice.

So, is that how it is for me? Do I fear the state of not eating because it means being depressed? What is the state of eating? What can I call that? Drunk, inebriated, sloshed, blitzed, etc. are all terms one could use for being under the influence of alcohol. But what does one call being under the influence of out-of-control eating or some other compulsive behavior like gambling or shopping or hoarding? Blissed? That doesn't seem to cover it, really, because often times it doesn't feel like bliss--it feels like fear. At first it feels like bliss, but that doesn't last long. Same way with alcohol, I think. It feels good at first, then it feels like nothing. Then, the next day, when the cravings start, it feels bad to be without. The crash happens when the wave collapses.

So, going a day or two without sweets is uncomfortable, but about the third or fourth day, it starts to feel bad. The wave collapses and the addict crashes, going under the water for a while before struggling back to the surface. It's uncomfortable, then frightening. Then the drug-seeking behavior starts and the mind homes in on finding supplies, getting back on top of the wave.

So, how to get past it? Well, the body says that you need to go longer without, to resist the mind's solution, get past the bad days until the cravings diminish to a reasonable level. Will they ever disappear? Maybe, but probably not. The problem is they can be fully restored with just a small amount of the addictive substance. A single cookie, a half a doughnut, a piece of birthday cake. Because those brain-created receptors don't go away completely, they can be reawakened, and quite easily, apparently.

What do I tell myself, then, when the cravings start? It's painful, after all. Do I lock myself in a room and not eat for a day or three or five? Not very practical, and not possible, really. So what, then? Good question. Twelve-step programs tell you to get with your sponsor, talk it through, rely on each other for support. Are there any other possibilities? Smoking cessation programs give you a drug to take until you feel ready to quit altogether. But that's not cold turkey, as they say.

So, I'll have to think more about how these things can work. Shirley Simon has several methods for dealing with an inability to control eating certain foods. Her method for the most difficult ones is to just keep them out of the house or out of reach. Another is to get someone to help you clear the table after you've served foods you can't eat. There are other methods.

But how to face the painful effects of withdrawal? Good question. I'll have to think on that more.