Tomorrow is my birthday. In anticipation of celebration I bought some grapes last week. My husband is allergic to grapes, so those were my birthday 'treat'. I considered celebrating my birthday by having a special breakfast, maybe pancakes. However, my husband and I made a great fruity/nutty bread last week. So I decided to have a thick slice of that bread topped with almond butter and chopped pears for birthday breakfast. Then I realized I also planned to have a peanut butter and banana sandwich for my birthday lunch. Since I don't want bread and nut butter for 2 consecutive meals (as much as I love that combo), I decided to have my birthday breakfast this morning. However that was AFTER I decided to have a snack before breakfast, rather than my usual sit down (and eat mindfully) breakfast. That snack was LOTS of green grapes with a cup of tea consumed standing up by my kitchen counter, my previous 'binge' set up. However, I really just wanted a snack, not a full breakfast or even a 'binge', to satisfy hunger while I took my shower, got dressed, etc.
Unfortunately grapes (or any low fiber carb food for that matter) can drop my blood sugar lower than before I ate those, maybe because they don't give me much 'staying power'. So by the time I finished my shower and returned to the kitchen 2 hours later, I was famished, shaky, headachey and desperate. I had a few more grapes while I prepared my homemade bread with almond butter and chopped pears, which I ate sitting down while I focussed on the food and my hunger levels. Alhtough I enjoyed the meal (felt satisfied?), I still felt shakey and light headed afterwards, maybe because my blood sugar had not yet risen back to normal. So I followed the meal with a few more fingerfuls of peanut butter directly from the jar until I finally felt satisfied, comfortably full and stable (blood sugar wise).
Today's first 2 eating experiences departed from my usual approach to mindful eating, i.e., prepare the meal without tasting, sit down and eat the meal, stop when I feel satisfied and/or comfortably full. Was that a great way to celebrate or what? LOL Does 'celebration' mean rebellion against what I know works for my body? I've blogged previously about my rebellious tendency to keep eating past satisfied, because I fear feeling 'deprived', despite being forced as a child to finish leftovers on my plate, after I felt full. I know I merely rebel against myself or my self-imposed rules. So rebellion seems to be a recurrent theme in my eating habits.
Ironically Karen Koenig posted on her blog the following suggestion about coping with rebellion (just in the nick of time LOL): "You will need to change your beliefs about your rights as an adult, alter your reaction of anger toward “shoulds” by separating the concept of control from caring, and do whatever you can in the moment to make mature and rational decisions about food."
Then Karen specifically asked (and suggested): "Do you eat (or refuse to eat) from anger, habitually challenge healthy guidelines about food in order to prove something or to hurt or defy someone? Do you feel entitled to food or can’t stand for anyone (even yourself) to tell you what to eat? Understand why your upbringing makes you so defiant, then identify the specific beliefs you have such as, No one can tell me what to eat, I hate living by food rules, I can eat whatever I want and everyone else be damned, It’s my body and I’ll feed it what I want, even if it’s not good for me. Now take these irrational beliefs and make them rational."
I don't think I rebel against being forced as a child to finish leftovers on my dinner plate. I often wish I did. I suspect that as a child I disliked the food (or intuitively knew certain foods like greasy hamburger would make me sick), even more than I felt 'full'. Instead I "feel entitled to food (AND) can’t stand for anyone (even myself) to tell (me) what to eat." So maybe I rebel against being told as a child that I should not eat certain foods which (I was told) would make me 'fat' and persuaded to eat 'healthier' foods (like canned fruit rather than cake or cookies for dessert). I still hate canned fruit! Maybe I rebel against years of restricting myself to low calorie foods most of the time, although I regularly binged on all the foods I missed. When I feel satisfied at a meal, I often hear myself rationalizing, "I'm thin. I can eat as much as I want." I don't often limit WHAT I eat (except for food allergens, which I easily avoid). However, I regularly rebel against HOW MUCH I eat. So I try to serve myself 'comfortable' portions (what my stomach can comfortably hold) most of the time. Then I can rationalize 'cleaning my plate' because I preselected the amount I 'should' eat. I continually refuse to let my stomach tell me how much I can eat. So I often feel more than satisfied, but less than uncomfortably full, which I also dislike.
However, recently I often ignored my 'comfortable' or 'satisfied' stomach cues. To follow up my treatment for fungus, I've been taking high dose probiotics before dinners. Those make me feel very bloated during or soon after the dinner. So I can rationalize that I'm not 'full' of food, but rather that I'm bloated. Unfortunately, I stopped taking those high dose probiotics 3 days ago, but I'm still overeating at dinner (and then at breakfast this morning). So I needed to read more of Karen's recommendations for resolving 'rebellious' eating, which said:
"Next, notice when you have that defiant feeling around food. Does it occur mostly when you’re with family, at work, around your partner, with your children, alone, when you try to eat healthily? Be aware of times and places and what triggers your desire to challenge what you know is best for you. Acknowledge the feeling even as you get your higher brain in gear to evaluate whether or not you want to act on your rebelliousness. Engage in serious debate between your impulsive feelings and the adult in you that wants to eat “normally.” Understand that your defiance was once adaptive, but is now destructive. Remind yourself that the only person you’re hurting is you."
I DEFINITELY overeat when I'm with my husband, who pays for the groceries. Despite his encouragement to stop eating when I feel comfortable, after he heard me complain about feeling painfully full too many times, I worry about 'wasting' food when I'm with him. I can stop when I wrap up the food for another meal, but I feel embarrassed when I have to throw away food, because I misjudged how much I could comfortably eat. (I RARELY see him leave any food on his plate.) Nevertheless, I may also rebel against my own voice of reason which says 'you can stop eating now'. My rebellious voice says "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME." That reminds me of all the times I ate 'forbidden' cookies after school when nobody was home to prevent or scold me. I'm not 'getting fat' by eating everything on my plate, but I sure cause myself unnecessary discomfort. Fortunately I no longer binge (or purge). So I no longer use all out rebellious eating sessions to 'make up for' restriction during the rest of the month. I usually eat comfortable portions twice a day (breakfast and one other meal. (If I overeat at lunch, I eat just enough at dinner.)
So maybe this morning's overeating session was really comfort eating, not celebratory eating. I really don't know how I want to celebrate my birthday. It's too late to get decent tickets for the ballet. I'd have to buy new skates to go ice skating. Flying to Maui for the week doesn't seem reasonable. We just saw a great movie yesterday. So seeing another movie isn't so appealing. I just found some great bargain clothes over the weekend. So shopping isn't so appealing. Arranging to eat a restaurant meal is a hassle with 7 food allergies and invisiline braces. Most of all, I don't want to share how old I will be on this birthday. I don't look or act like most women my age. Part of me just wants to ignore this birthday.
I'm tempted to cope with my confusing, sad feelings, by 'comfort' eating (or overeating), and rationalize that I'm celebrating. Fortunately, Karen ends her post about challenging rebellious eating with specific techniques:
"Last, when you’re in this challenging mood, don’t allow yourself to eat. Get up from the table, leave the room, put food away. Remind yourself that you are taking care of yourself by not falling into the rebellion trap. Reframe the issue from feeling controlled by “shoulds” to feeling taken care of by wise advice. Effective self-care includes not allowing the angry child in you to dictate your eating behaviors. When you are no longer feeling rebellious, return to food and observe how you feel about it. If you’re still angry, don’t eat. If you feel neutral, then decide if you want this food or not. If the anger returns, put the food aside. You can retrain yourself not to be a rebellious eater and eventually this motivation will disappear and stop plaguing you."
That reminds me of Geneen Roth's question (in 'Breaking Free from Emotional Eating"): "At what point are you willing to stop eating and say, 'I want to feel good. I want to take care of myself. I do not want to get up from this table feeling stuffed and miserable and unable to concentrate.'???
I'm only hurting my own body when I overeat. I'm not wasting food when I throw away what I can't comfortably eat. I'm only 'wasting' what could have been a pleasant eating experience, before I chose to make myself uncomfortable by overeating. Causing physical discomfort by overeating may distract me from emotional discomfort, but then I have 2 sources of discomfort, rather than one. Whatever else I choose to do to celebrate my birthday, I will choose to treat my body well and take care of myself.
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4 comments:
Happy birthday, Sue!!
Oh, boy. If I had eaten all those grapes, the same thing would have happened to me. Diving for the protein in a couple extra spoonfuls of nutbutter was a good idea, methinks. Better stable blood sugar than dipping all day. But yea, once I make a choice like that during the day, it stays with me for that day and then shows up again three days later. I either have a good BF within an hour of waking, or my body gets very grumpy with me. Yeesh! LOL.
Sounds like you handled the grape eating incident (comfort or celebratory, whatever the case may be) well after the fact. I know a lot of SS folks would have said oh no. I ate all those grapes and had a pear and bread and nutbutter already; I won't eat another bite even if my body needs it to feel stable. I'll just deal with my weird blood sugar issues and not eat anything else. I think that is how I and many others compensated (ie, cut out calories). We ate less good protein/complex carbs that our bodies needed and more junk (OR just straight sugar in the form of fruit as one of my SS friends did).
Anyhow, good for you for listening to your body and figuring out "why" you felt compelled to eat the snack before BF in the first place. :) You are very skilled...
Thanks, Lisa. I learned how certain foods cause blood sugar crashes years ago as well as how to restabilize my blood sugar, more from experience, than any specific book. However The Zone Diet and the Glycemic Index Diet gave me some information about the effects of various foods on blood sugar. Nevertheless, that effect seems to be very individual. Some sources consider grapes low glycemic, but they affect me like a high glycemic food.
The real challenge was to understand WHY I forgot my past experience with grapes. The real question was why I would 'celebrate' by ignoring what I know about food and my body or even 'rebelling' against what I know works for me. Fortunately KK's post helped me better understand my history with rebellion and eating.
Although I've described some of my childhood experiences with food, I've never really acknowledged to myself how angry I feel about unfair, unnecessary restriction, teasing and criticism about what I ate and how I looked, misinterpretation of my physcial appearance as 'fat' rather than bloated, and so many other painful memories. Worst of all was my experience with attempting to talk to my brother about how that dinner time teasing affecting my eating habits. He just said he doesn't remember any of that. He said he had a happy childhood and that we seemed to have experienced 2 different childhoods. His denial reminds me of my mother's denial when I tried to tell her how I felt about past situations. She told me I was 'crazy', that my experience 'never happened'. My brother must have learned 'denial' from my mother. Nevertheless, their attitudes didn't help me process my feeling, OK, my RAGE, about how I was treated as a child and taught that I was 'fat' and that certain foods 'made me fat', when I was really bloated from CD symptoms. I'm most angry about their denial.
However, my unexpressed sadness and rage influenced my desire to rebel against any kind of restrictioin or what I perceived as deprivation of foods (beyond foods that caused painful allergy reactions). Now I need to listen to my hurt, raging inner child and reassure her that responsible eating does not deprive her of anything but discomfort after eating, which is beneficial, not deprivation.
I hope your birthday is good.
Yeah, having your knowing/experience invalidated by folks who were there is VERY frustrating. Sounds like your brother was a big part of the dysfunction. I am glad you are able to give your inner child what she needs now.
I still have difficulty related to my older brother, who is sooooo self-centered. My mom treated him like the 'golden child'. He acted very self-centered (and clueless about other people's feelings) ever since. He used to call me on holidays and talk nonstop about himself, his accomplishments, his family's accomplishments, kinda like a Christmas letter 'brag' but as a phone monologue. Whenever I tried to interrupt him to share what was new in my life, he would interrupt and return to his self-centered tirade. His emails are equally self-centered. So I reply briefly about his comments.
I've tried to talk to him (and his wife) about his seeming disinterest in my life, to no avail. He just doesn't get it, despite my specific description of how his phone calls and emails make me feel. He says 'all his friends' have no problem with his approach. However his friends didn't grow up being compared to him and chronically told they weren't good enough by comparison.
I have lots of unresolved painful feelings about my relationship (past and present) with my brother. I used to believe that he was just an unwitting victim of my mother's comparison scheme. However, he continued to keep his 'golden child', which continually reminded me that I was the 'black sheep' in our family, never good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, accomplished enough, never enough to my parents.
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