Two weeks ago I signed up for a free trial of Weight Watchers, and had, for the most part, been going fairly well with points-tracking since. Things started to slip on Saturday afternoon though. We had family over for a roast chicken dinner. I started cooking the meal already mentally portioning myself out my food - and by the time the meal was ready for the table, all resolve was gone. Easter Sunday was a complete write-off and now today, Easter Monday, I'm surrounded by chocolate as far as the eye can see and have eaten enough of it to know that this week in its entirety is pretty much a bust.
But I don't feel as upset about the slip ups as I could have been, which is a strange thing for me. Yes, there was (still is) an awful lot of over-indulging and that's not healthy for anyone, but I don't feel guilty. I enjoyed myself, I was with family, and I was relaxed. This wasn't emotional eating. This was drawing loved ones near and celebrating the season with them. And it felt good.
In the past, food hasn't always just been food to me. Sometimes it was comfort. Sometimes love. Sometimes even anger or frustration. Which is completely screwed up. Food's just food, right? Just a means to get energy into your body so you don't keel over and die? Well sure, on a practical level. But then you add processing and sugar and fat and convenience and deliciousness into the mix and before you know it you're eating out of habit, or because you like the way a flavour sits in your mouth, or because it's 6:00pm and that's when dinner is served, hunger be damned.
It really is backwards when you think about it. I've never been able to 'let my body tell me it's time to eat'. If I was fully trusting of my body's natural ability to regulate it's own hunger then I probably wouldn't be sitting here 25 kgs overweight! I know that when I'm eating more on the healthy side I'm going to be hungrier during the day than I am when I allow the horse to bolt on my bad food habits. When I'm controlling my portions, when I'm choosing foods for vitamins and 'bang for my nutritional buck', I just feel the hunger more often and keenly. I know down the track this diminishes, but in the meantime, I can't trust that my body will give me signals based on what's the best thing for me. So I try to suck up the annoyance and distraction of never being completely full and try not to dive headlong into the nearest carb source.
But it's still hard. In fact, it's probably the hardest thing about trying to lose weight - controlling this urge to eat, retraining my brain to view food as fuel rather than the cause of a pleasantly full stomach.
Food isn't out to get me. I just have to learn its language.
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