Eating Just Because

This cartoon illustrates what has been my thoughts in the past, (or could be my thoughts, if I let them), that I wrote about here.

It hit me just last night: eating for fun is simply that = fun. Not eating for comfort or stress or distraction, I am talking about eating just for fun, for the pure sensation, for enjoyment.

I don’t eat for fun anymore.

Although I love the meals I plan, I love the food I eat, (I make sure I exclusively eat foods I really like, that are particular to my own tastes), I no longer eat just because it would be fun to eat something. And that is something I used to do. Really, that is normal in our society, it is something that many people do. Normal, as in not necessarily something society would say I should not do, (versus society would say, for example, you should not smoke cigarettes, they are bad for you). And that is why it just hit me last night. I guess I will never eat for fun ever again.

Wow. I will never again just start eating because food is simply there, and it would be fun to eat it.

A big part of this is because I know that planning my meals really works for me. And I know that planning a special occasion indulgence (Thanksgiving, Christmas) is also fine and works for me. But just that realization that I will never just start eating something (snack food=chips, nuts, candy) for fun, for the sensation of chewing, for pure enjoyment, ever again, wow, that really hit me last night.

Of course, it does not end up fun or enjoyable in the end. I may start itching all over, (many nuts are contaminated with gluten during the bagging process, a light dusting of flour prevents nuts from sticking to conveyor belts and each other). I may start feeling intestinal pressure and bloating because chips made with corn flour state gluten free but also contain…I just went and looked at my husband’s bag of mini pizza rounds that he occasionally likes to eat with salsa…calcium hydroxide, which is used to soak corn to make it more digestible, (which will give me gas and bloating for 24 hours). I may end up waking up drenched in sweat from the sugar in candy, (as if occasional menopause hot flashes were not bad enough, nothing brings on the worst nights sweats like sugar will).

So, all in all in the end, no fun, no enjoyment.

Admittedly, I am sensitive (really sensitive) probably because as a Celiac I went undiagnosed for the first 40 years of my life. And even though going gluten free stopped my body’s immune response to gluten, the gluten free substitutes (and many other grains) eventually made me feel just as sick as if I had eaten gluten, because most of them are processed and ultra processed. The suspicion is I have some intestinal permeability that lets through more of these chemicals than average, (and as an eczema sufferer, I also have skin permeability that makes my skin “sensitive” also), which are in most ultra processed foods.

But I could still eat snacks, if I wanted to, and just put up with the discomfort. People do it all the time.

In addition to not eating excess foods for comfort, stress, or distraction, I have to choose every day not to eat foods that will eventually hurt, no matter how good they taste, or how much simply enjoyment or fun I would feel in the moment.

Shrinkles and 5 (Old) Reasons I Used to Overeat

I have shrinkles. Really, it’s mostly my thighs, and interestingly, one thigh is worse than the other, (which happens to be the side on which I went down the day of my accident).

But I have never had “smooth” thighs, because I have always dealt with the good old cellulite, even as a teenager. When I was 28 years old, I travelled to the sunny south part of my province on a holiday, which was a break from living in the rainforest of the northwest and spending five days a week at an office job (and therefore I had zero tan on my legs). It wasn’t just the lack of a tan that led me to walk around (in the heat) wearing a pair of control top panty hose under my shorts, it was my bumpy thighs that I was worried about.

28 years old, healthy on the body mass index, and I did not want to show my bare legs in a pair of shorts.

In the past, I have used poor self-esteem and being self critical of things, (like pale skin and cellulite, which I cannot control no matter how much exercise I do), as an excuse to give up healthy eating and instead overeat to soothe the bad feelings those thoughts created in me.

Recently, the temptation is to follow the same pattern with my thigh shrinkles. I just cannot do that anymore.

My health, the health I have right this minute for which I am working to maintain, is just too important.

I have been working at defining what constitutes and can then satisfy my specific biological chemistry of:

Pleasure

Reward

Contentment

Soothing, and

Gratitude

I want to have a list of healthy behaviors to use instead of my past habit of overeating.

At Christmastime, 2023, I realized there was a big difference indulging in food and overindulging in food. A really big difference between planning an indulgence and just giving in and overindulging. A huge difference!

Planning an indulgence is no problem at all. You make a decision, you make a plan, you indulge in some specialty items because it’s a special occasion. You pick a few favorites and eat them. That is, if you want to. Then you totally own your decision, you own the choices you made, and afterward you feel satisfied. All is well.

On the flip side is some dialogue (that I have had in the past) that may sound like this: I shouldn’t eat that, but maybe I will? Will I or won’t I, can I resist? Maybe just a little. Maybe not. Okay, I had a little, and maybe just a little more. Why can I not control myself? This is dumb to try and resist, everyone else is eating this like it is no big deal. I can just eat a little. Okay, that was not enough. Then: All bets are off, what the heck am I resisting for? I am eating everything until I hurt.

Wow, I do not want to ever be that person again. I will continue to work on my list of healthy activities that will speak to these emotional desires for:

Pleasure

Reward

Contentment

Soothing, and

Gratitude

It’s Not the Food I Have Been Craving, It’s the Behaviors

It’s number 5 on this list I wrote about here, in the past I used to eat to soothe my emotions.

The problem was resulting weight gain from eating to soothe emotions caused even more internal emotional stress and distress than I was already experiencing, and thus a vicious circle of soothing the stress and distress would start, one literally feeding on the other.

I no longer overeat to soothe my emotions and it is really making me notice what other behaviour I will do instead as a substitute. Because the truth is I still want to soothe my emotions. At different points in my day, after different stressors, I want to soothe myself. Taking away the one bad habit (overeating) does not eliminate the desire to soothe my emotions.

There are certain schools of thought on resisting certain soothing in the first place. After all, we’re grown ups now, it’s not like we need a pacifier. Or do we?

I know some people say they can just modulate their emotions, whether that be mind over matter or sheer will. I should just use the correct self talk that will result in positivity and productivity. Go inward, not outward. You do not need anything but what you can find within yourself to fix your own problems. No food, drink, drug, or pill, is going to fix it. You have to fix it. If you decided to fix it, it will be fixed.

There is truth in that, yes. But…what if you are someone for whom that does not always work? Some days, some moments, are just harder than others. And old habits beckon from the wings saying this (comfort food) will make you feel better right now, in this moment.

The people on the other side, the “you simply don’t need that” side of the argument may feel that saying that you need something outside of yourself to feel better is just a convenient excuse to indulge in whatever it is (comfort food) you are desiring in the moment. Of course, the alternative is to just own the choices you make without arguing either side. You are in charge of you. If you want it, have it. (But then you have to own the consequences, which might be eventual weight gain).

I have to ask myself:

Do I want to feed the behaviour (soothing) and thus have to own the consequences (weight gain)?

Or will this feeling pass?

Can it be soothed in a healthy way?

The answers are:

No, I do not want the weight gain.

Yes, this feeling will pass.

And yes, it can be soothed by reminding myself I am maintaining my current health, even improving it, and like the old adage I have been finally able to realize in my own life: nothing tastes as good as thin (healthy) feels. Or like I said in this blog post, “Nothing tastes as good as accepting yourself feels. Nothing tastes as good as not hating yourself feels.”

100 Walks 100 Rocks

One of the keys to my recent success (in being free from cycles of overeating and thus maintaining my healthy weight) is to truly find what continually motivates me on a daily basis.

Motivations can change, evolve, and sometimes reach an end, especially when you are at a “goal weight.” So, now what?

What keeps me going is to reinvent what motivates me anew. Set a new goal? Sure. But a goal, once achieved, comes to an end. I have had (and still do have) exercise goals like how many kilometers I can walk each week or each month. Or a goal of walking more this year than last year. Or recently, I have had a goal of hitting 10,000 all-time kilometers walked since signing onto the RunKeeper app for the first time, (which I will reach in about 4 days, then what?)

Finding (and re-finding) my daily motivations is an ongoing process from which I do not want to ever reach an end. I have found that what really motivates me at a deep level may be individual to me, but that finding that motivation is what allows me to stay on my current path.

In the past, going externally or outward to find my motivation by mimicking someone else’s motivation, or following someone else’s plan, never lasted very long. Instead, I have needed to go inward and find what really works for me. Adopting someone else’s plan only works temporarily. Someone else’s plan has been a starting point maybe, or a guide, but the whole reason why I called this blog the “Bio Joy Diet” is because I find that going internally to look for my motivation usually connects with something that motivates me on a biological level.

We have biological imperatives: survival, territorialism, competition, reproduction, quality of life-seeking, and group forming. It’s the “quality of life-seeking” that I have found provides me the most sustained motivation. When I am constantly trying to improve my own life, which has that biological imperative connection, that is what sustains my motivation the longest. In the past, I have wanted to lose weight for a special event, or lose weight for a holiday, but those events come and go. The biological imperative for quality of life-seeking is a constant. I make maintaining the quality of my current health a daily constant goal, and I feel motivated. I am 53 years old and not getting any younger. Now is the time to hold on to my current healthy weight for as long as I possibly can. There is no time for me to “chuck it in the f#*! it bucket it” and have to start over again. Now is the time!

Maybe my current health is even something on which I can improve.

I do not want to lose my current level of health, only improve it. I just finished reading a really interesting book by Dr. Peter Attia called Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. His “medicine 3.0” theory is about not waiting until you are declining in health, because that’s when medicine today, “medicine 2.0,” steps in and simply treats your ailments as you acquire them. Medicine 3.0 is about prevention. It’s about maintaining your health now, even improving it, and holding onto it for as long as possible. Not just focusing on your lifespan, but on your health span.

That’s where I am at. I am at a healthy weight, and the quality of life I am seeking to hold on to is the health I have now that I worked for the last 12 months to achieve.

As well, with respect to the biological imperative for competition, I enjoy competing with myself. For example, I’ve already walked more kilometers this year than last year and it’s only August. In previous years I have walked 1000 kilometers or more in a calendar year, so I would also like to exceed those total kilometers walked again by the end of this year.

As much as I like to compete with myself against my previous years, I still find myself feeling like I’ve already done what I wanted to do this year, simply by doing significantly more outdoor walking this year than in the last 2 years. Instead, my new motivation is “100 walks, 100 rocks.” I have a rock garden that this year I’ve worked on creating. We are finally settled into our new home and property so no active construction is going on, and I could look at what I wanted to do outside with the confidence that whatever I did would not get plowed over for some construction project. My rock garden has given me new motivation in the category of quality of life-seeking. I have the luxury of having my own property where I can choose to tend to it in any way I want, and make it look beautiful. Everyday I walk so I can pick up a white rock, preferably quartz, if I can spot a piece. Then I replace a rock in my rock garden with the new white rock, thus brightening a certain area of the garden to be all white. Replacing one rock at a time is slow paced, but 100 walks and 100 rocks from now, wow, it will look amazing,

My 100 walks 100 rocks motivation is really working for me. Whenever you are doing something in life, whether it’s home improvement projects, or a body improvement project like diet and exercise, you need to find your continuous daily motivation. What works best for you to keep you moving forward, to keep improving. What works best for me is going inward, not outward, and tapping into motivation that is hardwired in my biology anyway. Finding motivation that is actually already there and only needs to be cultivated, because artificial motivation from external sources may not stand the test of time. I have discovered that going inward and tapping into the biological imperative that is already hardwired in me, is proving to be more sustainable, just as long as I am tapping into it.

Variable Reward

I have to say that one thing that has really helped me in this last endeavor, (which is at least my 7th time working at staying at a maintenance weight following a significant loss), is to eliminate variable rewards. You can google the heck out of all the scientific studies done on the “Chronic exposure to a gambling-like schedule of reward,” but the cliff notes version is that when you go to the fridge and cupboards randomly, looking for a food reward (snack), imagine yourself standing in front of the fridge as though it is a slot machine, and you just pulled the lever, and the dials are turning. The science backs me up here. That behavior, (as though a random food choice is a slot machine that may or may not pay out), is addictive for the brain.

The key word here is random. If, instead, each day I plan what I am going to eat, (and sure, I plan for snacks, and even have a few back-up plans for alternatives if something in my day changes, if this happens I can eat that instead, so that my brain will still interpret this as a fixed plan, versus a variable), then I am eliminating variable reward.

I have planned what I am going to eat (each morning) long enough now that my brain has stopped offering me the thoughts of a myriad of possibilities of other things I may want to eat (overeat) because that is no longer the normal behavior from me it has come to expect. However, if I embark on just a few random choices, I will reactive the possibility to my brain that a variable reward is an option. I prefer my life when I am not constantly resisting the possibility of that option, that of a variable reward.

Not an option.

Sensitive

Week 7: Creating

I missed posting last week. I am still finding it hard to be in the process of looking for a new job (going on 8 months now, I wrote about it here). I keep trying to reframe it positively: I am open to finding my next great thing! It will happen when it is meant to be! I will be okay!

But I am exhausted with the constant application process—waiting—getting an interview here and there—waiting—tweaking my resume and changing my cover letter over and over—waiting—169 applications now and still counting.

I have set a goal of getting rid of some clutter. The inverse of getting rid of something is what it might create. Getting rid of clutter will create space. What helps me purge clutter, however, is limiting the space I allow myself to store clutter in the first place. Then the space I will create is not because I want to fill it back up again, it is so I will have something new: just space.

I need to create an artificial limit of sorts. The problem with my clutter is that I am fairly organized, so my clutter is all neatly put away. Therefore, if I want to reduce useless items in my home that are not being used, I need to create a limit on the space I am willing to use, so that I will be forced to purge to fit within the new limit I create. Instead of a spending budget that limits spending, I need a “space” budget to limit what I keep. Because everything fits in the space I have right now, I need to focus on space I can create, (and not let my husband fill back up again. He is all about filling. Fill the pantry, fill the freezer, etc. I don’t want to fill, I want to un-fill).